Chapter 19

You must improve your mind by closely pursuing such a method of study as I shall direct or approve of. You must get a collection of history and travels, which I will recommend to you, and spend some hours every day in reading them, and making extracts from them if your memory be weak. You must invite persons of knowledge and understanding to an acquaintance with you, by whose conversation you will learn to correct your taste and judgment.[448]

More convincing still is Swift's estimate of Stella. From her childhood he had trained her mind and selected her reading, and we must assume that he had formed her character and determined her acquirements according to the feminine model he most admired. When he praised her it was her intelligence on which he put emphasis. He said of her:

Never was any of her sex born with better gifts of mind, or who more improved them by reading and conversation.... She was well versed in the Greek and Roman story, and was not unskilled in that of France and England. She spoke French perfectly, but forgot much of it by neglect and sickness. She had read carefully all the best books of travel, which served to open and enlarge the mind. She understood the Platonic and Epicurean philosophy, and judged very well of the defects of the latter. She made very judicious abstracts of the best books she had read. She understood the nature of government, and could point out all the errors of Hobbes, both in that and in religion. She had a good insight into physic, and knew somewhat of anatomy; in both which she was instructed in her younger days by an eminent physician, who had her long under his care, and bore the highest esteem for her person and understanding. She had a true taste of wit and good sense, both in poetry and prose, and was a perfect good critic of style. Although her knowledge, from books and company, was much more extensive than usually falls to the share of her sex, yet she was so far from making a parade of it, that her female visitants, on their first acquaintance, who expected to discover it by what they call hard words and deep discourse, would be sometimes disappointed, and say, "They found she was like other women." But wise men, through all her modesty, whatever they discoursed on, could easily observe that she understood them very well, by the judgment shown in her observations, as well as in her questions.[449]

Swift did not consider a woman as a slave or a toy. An alert mind, a fund of varied information, an intelligent interest in books and general affairs, seemed to him necessary qualifications in a woman who would be a suitable companion for a man of sense.

Alexander Pope

Pope was interested in questions of education and general learning. His own training had not come through the regular channels of public schools and university, so perhaps as an observerab extrathe defectsof the system were more apparent to him than to those brought up in it. At any rate he protested against corporal punishment, against the monotony of a narrow and fixed curriculum, against vague metaphysics and dry-as-dust textual criticism. But in this general discussion he did not touch upon the question of woman's education. His attitude towards learned ladies was a personal one. When he was in love with Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, the luster of her "heavenly mind," her learning, and her wisdom, were celebrated along with the grace and beauty depicted by Kneller.[450]But when she was no longer in favor she became "that dang'rous thing, a female wit."[451]InThe Rape of the Lockhe addressed the wayward goddess of the Cave of Spleen as:

Parent of vapors and of female wit,Who give th' hysteric, or poetic fit,On various tempers act by various ways,Make some take physic, others scribble plays.[452]

Parent of vapors and of female wit,

Who give th' hysteric, or poetic fit,

On various tempers act by various ways,

Make some take physic, others scribble plays.[452]

The "women-wits" apparently protested against these lines, or at least Lady Winchilsea did, and he responded with a conciliatoryImpromptu to Lady Winchilsea, six lines of which are as follows:

In vain you boast Poetic Names of yore,And cite those Sapphos we admire no more:Fate doomed the Fall of every Female Wit;But doomed it then, when first Ardelia writ.Of all examples by the world confess'd,I knew Ardelia could not quote the best.

In vain you boast Poetic Names of yore,

And cite those Sapphos we admire no more:

Fate doomed the Fall of every Female Wit;

But doomed it then, when first Ardelia writ.

Of all examples by the world confess'd,

I knew Ardelia could not quote the best.

But Pope is never as undisguisedly himself in eulogy as he is in satire, and his real opinions probably came out when he and Gay and Arbuthnot sat down to write a play which should adequately represent their separate and combined hostilities. The assignment to Pope of the character of Phœbe Clinket, the authoress, shows not only his attitude towards Lady Winchilsea,but probably towards the tribe of women wits as well.[453]"Most women have no characters at all"[454]is Pope's general summary; and the highest compliment he could pay to Martha Blount, the woman for whom he cared most, was that she had "Sense and Good Humour."[455]In any comparison with Stella, Martha Blount seems a very commonplace personage to rank as a poet's friend.

Bishop Burnet

Bishop Burnet opposed Mary Astell's plan for a college, and he disliked any pushing into public affairs by women. "I thought," he said, "there were two sorts of persons that ought not to meddle in affairs, though upon very different accounts. These were churchmen and women. We ought to be above it, and women were below it." And when he first heard of Lady Margaret Kennedy, he was unwilling to meet her because of her unfeminine interest in politics.

Yet Bishop Burnet was not absolutely opposed to the education of women. When he gave instructions as to the choice of a wife, "a good understanding" and "a liberal education" were among the characteristics to be sought. His objection to Mary Astell's plan was due to his fear that a lay monastery such as she described might be hostile to the interests of the Church. He even advocated academies devoted to "women's education and religious retreat," and he thought that "monasteries without vows" might be set on foot in such a fashion as to be "the honor of a Queen on her throne."[456]

He also found especial pleasure in the society of educated women. When he finally met Lady Margaret Kennedy, he fell in love with her in spite of her politics. They were married in 1671, and when, after her death, he summed up her character, he put particular stress on her intellectual attainments. "She was a woman," he wrote, "of much knowledge, had readvastly; she understood both French, Italian and Spanish; she knew the old Roman and Greek authors well in the translations; she was an excellent historian and knew all our late affairs exactly well, and had many things in her to furnish out much conversation."[457]

Bishop Burnet's second wife was Mrs. Mary Scott, whom he married in Holland about 1687. In theLife of Burnetit is said of her: "With these advantages of birth, she had those of a fine person; was well skilled in drawing, music, and painting; and spoke Dutch, English, and French equally well. Her knowledge in matters of divinity was such as might rather be expected from a student than from a lady. She had a fine understanding and sweetness of temper, and excelled in all the qualifications of a dutiful wife, a prudent mistress of a family, and a tender mother of children."[458]

Bishop Burnet's third wife has already been noted as a religious writer. Her work was brought to completion and publication through his encouragement and coöperation.

He also chose intellectual women as friends. He corresponded with Mrs. Wharton, and wrote frequent poems to her, and said he "rejoiced in her life and friendship beyond all things of this world." Nor did the fact that she was an authoress disturb him. He even wrote verses in imitation of her verses.[459]

It is evident that Dr. Burnet enjoyed the individual woman of alert intelligence and trained mind, but that he deprecated any but the most carefully guarded schemes for a general extension of educational advantages to women.

John Wesley

John Wesley was always susceptible to the charms of women, but his lack of discrimination and insight in regard to them led to several disastrous affairs of the heart, and finally, at forty-eight, to a more disastrousmarriage. These circumstances must be taken into consideration in reading his various utterances on married life. In a tract onMarriagehe wrote that the duties of a wife may all be reduced to two: 1. She must recognize herself as the inferior of her husband. 2. She must behave as such. No such order of precedence had prevailed in the Epworth rectory, and the mother he almost worshiped would have scorned such rules. They grew rather from his unhappy union with the domineering, suspicious, obstinate Mrs. Vazeille. When he wrote to her, "Be content to be a private, insignificant person, known and loved by God and me. Leave me to be governed by God and my own conscience. Then shall I govern you with gentle sway, and show that I do indeed love you, even as Christ the Church"; he was not so much expressing his idea of inevitable masculine authority, as he was trying to calm one woman whose jealous frenzies destroyed his private happiness and threatened to injure his work.[460]

John Duncomb: The Feminead (1751)

John Duncomb'sFeminead: or, Female Genius, was written in 1751 when he was but twenty-two. It is a tame and feeble production, but since it antedates Mr. Ballard'sMemoirsand theEminent Ladies, Mr. Duncomb's glorification of female genius should have at least the credit of being an original idea. And however halting the expression, his poem embodied a genuine enthusiasm that puts it in line with the newer ideas of the mid-eighteenth century. The list of learned ladies presented is not a long one. Comedy writers and writers of personal memoirs are sorrowfully and briefly dismissed as followers of a wanton muse. The virtuous ladies celebrated are led, of course, by the chaste Orinda. Those who succeed her are Lady Winchilsea, Mrs. Cockburn, Mrs. Rowe, the Countess of Hertford, Viscountess Irwin, Mrs. Wright, Mrs. Madan, Mrs. Leapor, Miss Carter, Mrs. Brooks, Miss Ferrar, Miss Pennington, Miss Mulso, and Miss Highmore. Several of these ladies find their only commemorationhere. The Viscountess Irwin is deserving of "a grateful tribute from all female hands" because she rescued her sex's cause from the aspersions cast upon it by Mr. Pope in hisOn the Characters of Women. The poetical epistle of the Viscountess in rebuttal of his charges proved to be a true Ithuriel's spear, and disarmed the witlings. Miss Pennington (afterwards Mrs. Peckard) wrote two odes on "Cynthia" and the "Spring" that appeared in Dodsley'sCollection, volume V. Miss Pennington'sThe Copper Farthing, a burlesque imitation of Philips'sSplendid Shilling, was printed in Dilly'sRepository, volume I. She died in 1759, aged twenty-five. The others in the list are spoken of elsewhere in these pages, so need no further comment here.

The poems open with an invocation to Richardson as "The sex's friend and constant patron." And there is a passage of national congratulation over the freedom with which British nymphs wander in the groves of Wisdom:

Ev'n now fond Fancy in our polish'd landAssembled shews a blooming, studious band:With various arts our reverence they engage,Some turn the tuneful, some the moral page;These led by Contemplation, soar on high,And range the Heavens with philosophic eye;While those surrounded by a vocal choir,The canvas tinge, or touch the warbling lyre.

Ev'n now fond Fancy in our polish'd land

Assembled shews a blooming, studious band:

With various arts our reverence they engage,

Some turn the tuneful, some the moral page;

These led by Contemplation, soar on high,

And range the Heavens with philosophic eye;

While those surrounded by a vocal choir,

The canvas tinge, or touch the warbling lyre.

Young Mr. Duncomb of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, was looking up his illustrations of female genius at the same time that Mr. Ballard of Magdalen, Oxford, was getting his elaborateMemoirsready for the press. And each writer was apparently influenced in his views by some specific woman scholar or writer whom he knew and admired, and through whom he was led into a championship of the general cause. As the learned Miss Elstob, and the pretty coin-loving sister, stimulated Mr. Ballard, so Susanna Highmore apparently gave direction to Mr. Duncomb's enthusiasm. He loved Miss Highmore (1730?-1812) through a protracted courtship ofmore than twelve years. She is the "Eugenia" of his poem and is described as "The Muse's pupil from her tenderest years." She was the daughter of Joseph Highmore, the artist. She belonged to the Richardson coterie and was one of the group to whom he readSir Charles Grandison. Her sketch of the scene forms the frontispiece to the second volume of Mrs. Barbauld'sCorrespondence of Samuel Richardson. HerFidelio and Honoriais the best known of her writings.

George Ballard: Memoirs of Several Ladies of Great Britain

In 1752 there was published at Oxford a significant book entitledMemoirs of Several Ladies of Great Britain, who have been Celebrated for their Writings or Skill in the Learned Languages Arts and Sciences. The author of this book was George Ballard of whose obscure life but a few chance details have reached our day. This is the more to be regretted since he was evidently a person of marked individuality. He was born in Campden, Gloucestershire, in 1706. His father was a poor man, and it was necessary for the children to be put early to work. Since George was sickly an easy trade was found for him and he was apprenticed to a stay-maker, or woman's habit-maker. His literary tastes were early apparent. At fourteen he read Fox'sActs and Monuments of the Church, various books of polemical divinity, and a number of books against dissenters. He had antiquarian tastes, and while still young began a collection of coins. Our most definite picture of him is as a young man of twenty, still a stay-maker, but already well known as an indefatigable collector. In the summer of 1726 Mr. R. Graves wrote to Mr. Hearne as follows:

At Campden in Gloucestershire lives one Mr. Ballard, a Taylor, who hath a Daughter, a very pretty Girl, of about fourteen Years of Age, that hath an extraordinary Genius for Coins, & hath made an odd Collection of them. Mr. Granger (who came from thence last Night in his Return from London) saw her, and speaks much of her, wchI took the more notice of because he is himself a good Judge of Coins, & hath an admirable Collection of them, especially of Englishones. But, it seems, this young Girl is chiefly delighted with those that are Roman.[461]

In February of the next year he wrote again:

The bearer is the young tailor of Campden who has collected so many odd coins.... The young Man, whose name is George Ballard has been all about the Country to pick up old money, and has got a great Number.... When he has gott any new that I have not seen, he brings 'em to me to tell him whose they are.... I suppose he will bring some of them with him to shew you.[462]

In March Mr. Hearne recorded the visit of Mr. Ballard:

Yesterday, in the afternoon, called upon me Mr. George Ballard, a young man (a Tayllour) of Campden in Gloucestershire, of whom I have heard Mr. Graves speak more than once. This Ballard is an ingenious, curious young man, & hath pickt up abundance of old Coins, some of wchhe shewed me. He hath been at many places about the country for that End. He hath also pickt up many of our Historians, & other English Books, & takes great delight in them, but he is no scholar. He is a mighty admirer of John Fox & talks mightily against the Roman Catholicks, tho' I told him, that there are fifteen thousand Lyes in Fox, & brought him to some sense of the Abuses frequently put upon the poor Catholicks.He shewd me an old Ed. wchis the first ofHistoria Britannica. Mr. Ballard told me, about a week ago he met with a curious old Paint upon Board (an original, as he takes it) done excellently well, of Queen Catharine, the divorced wife of Henry VIII.Mr. Ballard hath a sister (which Mr. Graves used to talk also of) equally curious in Coins and Books with himself. He told me, she is twenty-three years of Age.[463]There came with Mr. Ballard, one Mr. Ellys, who deals in Laces etc. and is Brother in law to Mr. Ballard, having married another (one elder) Sister of Mr. Ballard's, by whom he hath 2 children.[464]

He shewd me an old Ed. wchis the first ofHistoria Britannica. Mr. Ballard told me, about a week ago he met with a curious old Paint upon Board (an original, as he takes it) done excellently well, of Queen Catharine, the divorced wife of Henry VIII.

Mr. Ballard hath a sister (which Mr. Graves used to talk also of) equally curious in Coins and Books with himself. He told me, she is twenty-three years of Age.[463]

There came with Mr. Ballard, one Mr. Ellys, who deals in Laces etc. and is Brother in law to Mr. Ballard, having married another (one elder) Sister of Mr. Ballard's, by whom he hath 2 children.[464]

In May of the same year Mr. Hearne wrote:

Yesterday Mr. Graves of Mickleton called upon us. He told me, that young Ballard the Taylor of Campden is out of his time, & hath very good business at his trade, but that he is now learning Latin,going twice a day for that end to the School-master there, and that he hath a great mind to come and enter of [sic] some College or Hall in Oxford, but Mr. Graves gives him no encouragement, judging it better (& so I think too) to keep to his Trade. This young Ballard's Great Uncle was a Doctor of Physick. Mr. Graves hath promised to send me some account of him.[465]

In spite of the contradictory statements as to the age of the attractive, coin-loving sister, there emerges from these letters a sufficiently definite picture of a household in which at least two talented young people were carrying on researches in line with the best antiquarian work of the day.

We are not told when Mr. Ballard took up Anglo-Saxon. The letters to and by Mr. Hearne when Ballard was twenty-one and twenty-two do not mention Anglo-Saxon as one of his interests. Six years later we find him on intimate terms with Elizabeth Elstob whose Evesham School was but a few miles from Campden. It does not seem improbable that Miss Elstob introduced this promising young scholar to her own chosen field of work. He was, at any rate, so impressed by the disproportion between her learning and her toil-bound life that he became her knight-errant and finally set in motion influences that resulted in her freedom. Whether Miss Elstob introduced him to Anglo-Saxon, or merely joined her ripe scholarship to his young enthusiasm, their common interest results in a warm friendship that found in Anglo-Saxon its firmest bond.

We have one interesting bit of testimony to the ardor with which Mr. Ballard pursued the new language. He needed an Anglo-Saxon dictionary, but not being able to buy one he borrowed, from Mr. Browne Willis,Somner's Dictionary, and made a very beautiful transcript of it, with Thwaites's additions. This transcript was one of the manuscripts bequeathed by Mr. Ballard to the Bodleian. It was a tremendous piece of work, and it is small wonder that Mr. Ballard celebrated its completion by a "festival."[466]

The advice given by Mr. Graves, that the ambitious young stay-maker should "keep to his trade," was perforce followed. Most of his life was spent as a tailor at Campden, but in spite of this his fame for scholarship grew apace. In 1750 Lord Chedworth and the gentlemen of his hunt, who annually in the hunting season spent about a month at Campden, heard of his attainments, and they offered him an annuity of £100 for life in order that he might prosecute his studies. He gratefully accepted £60 and set out at once for Oxford. He was made one of the eight clerks of Magdalen College, receiving his rooms and commons free. His life at Oxford was but a continuation of his activities at Campden. He had begun vast collections on various subjects and these he pushed nearer to completion. At his death, however, which occurred in 1755 and was occasioned, it was thought, by too strenuous application to study, the only work he had published was theMemoirs. He left to the Bodleian forty-four volumes of manuscripts and original letters, including copies of some of his own writing, and all carefully indexed.[467]

The preparation of theMemoirswas well under way before he went to Oxford, for Mr. G. Russell wrote to him, May 15, 1759: "The work you are now engaged in, will I hope rescue us in a great measure from the too just accusation our neglect in Biography has occasioned, and you have this additional satisfaction in prospect, that as the Fair Sex are the subject, so they will be the Protectresses and Guardians of your performance. Their smiles, like a benign planet, will gradually ripen it to perfection, and their breath embalm it to posterity."[468]The original manuscript of theMemoirswas in the possession of Mr. Gough and was sold with the rest of his books in 1811.[469]A copy of the first edition, in the Bodleian, contains manuscript notes in the handwriting of the author.[470]A second but inferior edition came out in 1775.

When theMemoirsappeared in 1752, it attracted littleattention. TheMonthly Reviewfor February, 1753, is not laudatory. The editor regrets that Mr. Ballard did not go farther back than the fourteenth century, that he has vainly spent his industry in rescuing from oblivion some ladies who might better have been left there, and finally that "so extraordinary a genius and so excellent a woman as Mrs. Cockburn, is wholly unnoticed in this work." Other criticisms reached Mr. Ballard from private sources. They were based almost entirely on religious and party lines. Mr. Ballard's answer to a letter from Dr. Lyttleton, Dean of Exeter, will sufficiently indicate the tone of these criticisms. It was written May 22, 1753:

The day before I received your first epistle a Gent. of my acquaintance brought me theMonthly Reviewfor February, that I might see what the candid and genteel authors of that work had said of mine. They observe to the publick, thatI have saidC. Tishem was so skilled in the Greek tongue, that she could read Galen in its original, which very few Physicians are able to do. Whether this was done maliciously, in order to bring the wrath of the Æsculapians upon me, or inadvertently, I cannot say: but I may justly affirm, that they have used me very ill in that affair; since if they had read with attention, which they ought to have done before they attempted to give a character of the Book, they must have known that the whole account of that Lady (which is but one page) is not mine, but borrowed with due acknowledgement from theGeneral Dictionary. They are likewise pleased to inform the world that I have been rather too industrious in the undertaking, having introduced several women who hardly deserved a place in the work. I did not do this for want of materials; neither did I do it rashly, without advising with others of superior judgment in those affairs, of which number Mr. Professor Ward was one. But those pragmatical Censors seem to have but little acquaintance with those studies, or otherwise they might have observed that all our general Biographers, as Leland, Bale, Pits, Wood, and Tanner, have trod the very same steps; and have given an account of all the authors they could meet with, good and bad, just as they found them: and yet, I have never heard of any one that had courage or ill-nature enough, to endeavour to expose them for it. While I was ruminating on these affairs, three or four letters came to my hands, and perceiving one of them come from my worthy friend the Dean of Exeter, I eagerly broke it open, and was perfectly astonished to find myself accused ofparty zealin my book; and that from thence the most candid reader might conclude the author to be both a Church and StateTory. But after having thoroughly considered all the passages objected to, and not finding the least tincture of either Whig or Tory principles contained in them, I began to chear up my drooping spirits, in hopes that I might possibly outlive my supposed crime; but, alas! to my still greater confusion! when I opened my next letter from a Tory acquaintance, I was like one thunderstruck at the contents of it. He discharges his passionate but ill-grounded resentment upon me most furiously. He tells me, he did not imagine Magdalen College could have produced such a rank Whig. He reproaches me with want of due esteem for the Stuart Family, to whom he says I have shown a deadly hatred, and he gives me, as he imagines, three flagrant instances of it. 1. That I have unseasonably and maliciously printed a letter of Queen Elizabeth's, in order to blacken the memory of Mary Queen of Scots, and that, too, at a time when her character began to shine as bright as the Sun. 2dly. That I have endeavoured to make her memory odious, by representing her as wanting natural affection to her only son, in my note at p. 162, where he says I have printed part of a Will, etc. And 3dly, tho' she was cut off in such a barbarous and unprecedented manner, yet she has fallen unlamented by me. I am likewise charged with having an affection to Puritanism; the reasons for which are, my giving the Life of a Puritan Bishop's Lady, which it seems need not have been done by me, had I not had a particular regard for her, since it had been done before by Goodwin who reprinted her Devotions. And not content with this, I have blemished my book with the memoirs of a Dissenting teacher's wife, and have been kind enough to heighten even the character given her by her indulgent husband; and that I am very fond of quoting Fox and Burnet upon all occasions. These are thought strong indications of the above-mentioned charge. It may be thought entirely unnecessary to answer any of the objections from Exeter, after having given you this Summary of my kind Friend's Candid Epistle; but to you, Sir, to whom I could disclose the very secrets of my soul, I will endeavour to say a word or two upon this subject, and make you my Confessor upon this Occasion; and I will do it with as much sincerity as if I lay on my death-bed. Before I was fourteen years old, I read over Fox's Acts and Monuments of the Church, and several of the best books of Polemical Divinity, which strongly fortified me in the Protestant Religion; and gave me the greatest abhorrence to Popery. And soon after I perused Mercurius Rusticus, The Eleventh Persecution, Lloyd, Walker's Sufferings of the Clergy, and many others, which gave me almost as bad an opinion of the Dissenters. But then I learned in my childhoodto live in Charity with all Men, and I have used my best endeavours to put this doctrine in practice all my life long. I never thought ill, orquarrelled with any man merely because he had been educated in principles different to mine; and yet I have been acquainted with many papists, dissenters, etc. and if I found any of them learned, ingenuous, and modest, I always found my heart well-disposed for contracting a firm friendship with them: and notwithstanding that, I dare believe that all those people will, with joint consent, vouch for me, that I have ever been steady in my own principles.I can truly affirm that never any one engaged in such a work, with an honester heart, or executed it with more unbiassed integrity, than I have done. And indeed, I take the unkind censures passed upon me by the furious uncharitable zealots of both parties, to be the strongest proof of it. And after all, I dare challenge any man, whether Protestant, Papist, or Dissenter, Whig or Tory, (and I have drawn up and published memoirs of women who professed all those principles) to prove me guilty of partiality, or to shew that I have made any uncharitable reflections on any person, and whenever that is done, I will faithfully promise to make a public recantation. I wish, Sir, you would point out to me any one unbecoming word or expression which has fell from me on Bishop Burnet. Had I had the least inclination to have lessened his character, I did not want proper materials to have done it. I have in my possession two original letters from Bishop Gibson and Mr. Norris of Bemerton, to Dr. Charlett, which, if published, would lessen your too great esteem for him. And what, I beseech you, Sir, have I said in praise of Mrs. Hopton and her pious and useful labours, which they do not well deserve, and which can possibly give any just offence to any good man? I dare not censure or condemn a good thing merely because it borders upon the Church of Rome. I rather rejoice that she retains anything I can fairly approve. Should I attempt to do this, might I not condemn the greater part of our Liturgy, etc.? and should I not stand self-condemned for so doing? I cannot for my life perceive that I have said anything of that excellent woman, which she does not merit; and I must beg leave to say that I think her letter to F. Turbeville deserves to be wrote in letters of gold, and ought to be carefully read and preserved by all Protestants. Mary Queen of Scots fell under my notice, no otherwise than as a learned woman. The affairs you mention would by no means suit my peaceable temper. I was too well acquainted with the warm disputes, and fierce engagement both of domestic and foreign writers on that head, once to touch upon the subject. And indeed, unless I had been the happy discoverer of some secret springs of action which would have given new information to the public, it would have been excessive folly in me to intermeddle in an affair of so tender a nature, and of so great importance.I have often blamed my dear friend Mr. Brome for destroying his valuable collections, but I now cease to wonder at it. He spent his leisure hours pleasantly and inoffensively, and when old age came on, which not only abates the thirst, but oftentimes gives a disrelish to these and almost all other things, which do not help to make our passage into eternity more easy, he then destroyed them (I dare believe) in order to prevent the malicious reflections of an ill-natured world.I have always been a passionate lover of History and Antiquity, Biography, and Northern Literature: and as I have ever hated idleness, so I have in my time filled many hundred sheets with my useless scribble, the greater part of which I will commit to the flames shortly to prevent their giving me any uneasiness in my last moments.[471]

I can truly affirm that never any one engaged in such a work, with an honester heart, or executed it with more unbiassed integrity, than I have done. And indeed, I take the unkind censures passed upon me by the furious uncharitable zealots of both parties, to be the strongest proof of it. And after all, I dare challenge any man, whether Protestant, Papist, or Dissenter, Whig or Tory, (and I have drawn up and published memoirs of women who professed all those principles) to prove me guilty of partiality, or to shew that I have made any uncharitable reflections on any person, and whenever that is done, I will faithfully promise to make a public recantation. I wish, Sir, you would point out to me any one unbecoming word or expression which has fell from me on Bishop Burnet. Had I had the least inclination to have lessened his character, I did not want proper materials to have done it. I have in my possession two original letters from Bishop Gibson and Mr. Norris of Bemerton, to Dr. Charlett, which, if published, would lessen your too great esteem for him. And what, I beseech you, Sir, have I said in praise of Mrs. Hopton and her pious and useful labours, which they do not well deserve, and which can possibly give any just offence to any good man? I dare not censure or condemn a good thing merely because it borders upon the Church of Rome. I rather rejoice that she retains anything I can fairly approve. Should I attempt to do this, might I not condemn the greater part of our Liturgy, etc.? and should I not stand self-condemned for so doing? I cannot for my life perceive that I have said anything of that excellent woman, which she does not merit; and I must beg leave to say that I think her letter to F. Turbeville deserves to be wrote in letters of gold, and ought to be carefully read and preserved by all Protestants. Mary Queen of Scots fell under my notice, no otherwise than as a learned woman. The affairs you mention would by no means suit my peaceable temper. I was too well acquainted with the warm disputes, and fierce engagement both of domestic and foreign writers on that head, once to touch upon the subject. And indeed, unless I had been the happy discoverer of some secret springs of action which would have given new information to the public, it would have been excessive folly in me to intermeddle in an affair of so tender a nature, and of so great importance.

I have often blamed my dear friend Mr. Brome for destroying his valuable collections, but I now cease to wonder at it. He spent his leisure hours pleasantly and inoffensively, and when old age came on, which not only abates the thirst, but oftentimes gives a disrelish to these and almost all other things, which do not help to make our passage into eternity more easy, he then destroyed them (I dare believe) in order to prevent the malicious reflections of an ill-natured world.

I have always been a passionate lover of History and Antiquity, Biography, and Northern Literature: and as I have ever hated idleness, so I have in my time filled many hundred sheets with my useless scribble, the greater part of which I will commit to the flames shortly to prevent their giving me any uneasiness in my last moments.[471]

The bitter feeling indicated by this letter, and the sense of disappointment resulting from criticisms so unsympathetic, must have been considerably mitigated by the noble list of subscribers with which the book was ushered into the world.[472]That would indicate at least a financial success, and doubtless appreciation came from many unrecorded sources.

Mr. Ballard's book is of interest if it were only as atour de forcein the way of collecting materials from scattered sources. He sought far and wide for the facts he chronicles. All available biographical dictionaries, general histories, county histories, genealogical records, wills, funeral sermons, epitaphs, published works, private manuscripts,—all became the subjects of his indefatigable inquiries. He sought interviews, he wrote letters, he cajoled information from the most unlikely recesses. And he had an eye for picturesque and personal detail, so that out of his rapid and often disordered assemblage of facts it ispossible to reconstruct, in many instances, a vivid impression of real women in their form and habit as they lived. That closer scholarship should now and then find inaccuracies in his statements is no more than should be expected, and should in no degree invalidate his claim to recognition as having done an invaluable piece of research in a biographical realm entirely new.

TheMemoirsis a handsome volume of 474 pages and contains sixty more or less extended biographies. Except for Queen Elizabeth the longest notice is in the twenty-four pages devoted to Margaret Roper, and the accounts range from that down to eight or ten lines. The order is approximately chronological. The lives are divided into two portions with separate dedications. The first one reads, "To Mrs. Talbot of Kineton in Warwickshire the Following Memoirs of Learned Ladies in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries are most humbly inscribed as an acknowledgement of my sincere and high regard for her and Mr. Talbot and as a small Testimony of Gratitude for Extraordinary Favours conferred by Both of Them upon their most obliged and most devoted humble servant George Ballard." The second dedication was, "To Mrs. Delany the Truest Judge and Brightest Pattern of all the Accomplishments which adorn her Sex these Memoirs of Learned Ladies in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries are most humbly inscribed by her obedient servant George Ballard."

In the Preface Mr. Ballard comments on the value of biographical records and then proceeds to a justification of his own work:

The present age is so far from being defective in this respect, that it hath produced a greater number of excellent biographers than any preceding times: and yet, I know not how it hath happened, that very many ingenious women of this nation, who were really possessed of a great share of learning, and have, no doubt, in their time been famous for it, are not only unknown to the public in general, but have been passed by in silence by our greatest biographers.When it is considered how much has been done on this subject by many learned foreigners, we may justly be surprized at this neglect among the writers of this nation; more especially, as it is pretty certain,that England hath produced more women famous for literary accomplishments, than any other nation in Europe.Those, whose memoirs are here offered to the publick, I have placed in the order of time in which they lived; omitting none, of whom I could collect sufficient materials. For as there may yet be some learned women of those times, whose characters I am an entire stranger to; so there are others, whom I well know to have been persons of distinguished parts and learning, but have been able to collect very little else relating to them. Such as, Lady Mary Nevil, Lady Anne Southwell, Lady Honor Hay, Lady Mary Wroath, Lady Armyne, Lady Ranelagh, Lady Anne Boynton (famous for her skill in ancient coins, and noble collection of them) Lady Levet, Lady Warner, Gentlewomen; Mrs. Mabilla Vaughan, Mrs. Elizabeth Grimstone, Mrs. Jane Owen, Mrs. M. Croft, Mrs. Aemillia Sawyer, Mrs. Makins (who corresponded in the learned languages, with Mrs. Anna Maria à Schurman), Mrs. Gertrude More, Mrs. Dorothy Leigh, together with many other learned and ingenious women, since the year 1700; of those latter I have had the good fortune to make very considerable collections: and among the former, I had drawn up an account of Mrs. Carew, in the same manner with the other memoirs, but omitted printing it by mere accident.

When it is considered how much has been done on this subject by many learned foreigners, we may justly be surprized at this neglect among the writers of this nation; more especially, as it is pretty certain,that England hath produced more women famous for literary accomplishments, than any other nation in Europe.

Those, whose memoirs are here offered to the publick, I have placed in the order of time in which they lived; omitting none, of whom I could collect sufficient materials. For as there may yet be some learned women of those times, whose characters I am an entire stranger to; so there are others, whom I well know to have been persons of distinguished parts and learning, but have been able to collect very little else relating to them. Such as, Lady Mary Nevil, Lady Anne Southwell, Lady Honor Hay, Lady Mary Wroath, Lady Armyne, Lady Ranelagh, Lady Anne Boynton (famous for her skill in ancient coins, and noble collection of them) Lady Levet, Lady Warner, Gentlewomen; Mrs. Mabilla Vaughan, Mrs. Elizabeth Grimstone, Mrs. Jane Owen, Mrs. M. Croft, Mrs. Aemillia Sawyer, Mrs. Makins (who corresponded in the learned languages, with Mrs. Anna Maria à Schurman), Mrs. Gertrude More, Mrs. Dorothy Leigh, together with many other learned and ingenious women, since the year 1700; of those latter I have had the good fortune to make very considerable collections: and among the former, I had drawn up an account of Mrs. Carew, in the same manner with the other memoirs, but omitted printing it by mere accident.

The motto on the title-page, "Et sane qui Sexum alterum ad studia idoneum negant, iam olim rejecti, fuere ab omnibus philosophis," expresses the spirit of the book. Mr. Ballard was perfectly genuine in his admiration of learned women. In his impressionable youth he had found his sister as intelligent in collecting old coins and books as he himself. Later the most learned Anglo-Saxon scholar he knew was Miss Elstob. His fervent recognition of his sister's genius, his high sense of Miss Elstob's learning, are but a forecast of the direction of his mature work. He had known two brilliant women, hence he had a belief in the possible intellectual achievements of women. He had seen one of these women, in spite of her constructive and advanced scholarship, consigned to poverty and oblivion, and a sense of injustice took possession of his mind. The championship of Miss Elstob passed over into championship of all learned women. HisMemoirs, he hopes, will remove "that vulgar prejudice of the supposed incapacity of thefemale sex." To accomplish this end he relies in the main on a cool and unemphasized recital of facts. But now and then he allows himself to protest against some especial injustice. For instance, under the "Memoirs of Mary Countess of Pembroke," he says of her translation of the Psalms:

But then we are informed by Sir John Harington, and afterwards by Mr. Wood, and from him by the late learned Dr. Thomas, that she was assisted by Dr. Babington then chaplain to the family, and afterwards Bishop of Worcester; for, say they, 't was more than a woman's skill to express the sense of the Hebrew so right, as she hath done in her verse; or more than the English or Latin translation could give her. This argument has likewise been made use of by a certain divine to divest another worthy Lady of the honour of an excellent performance, in the composition of which was shown some skill in that primitive language. But why this should be thought a cogent argument to prove it, I am very much at a loss to know; it being not so much as pretended, so far as I can be informed, that there is more skill required, or greater difficulties to be met with in acquiring that language, than there is in attaining an exact knowledge in the Greek and other tongues, which all the world knows numberless women have been perfectly well versed in.And that the female sex are as capable of learning this as any other language, appears so plain from many undeniable instances of it, as to render any farther disproof as to that assertion unnecessary. Let those who doubt of it, read what St. Jerom has recorded of the noble Lady Paula and her daughter Eustochium. The Lady Paula's character he solemnly professes himself, and that upon a most solemn occasion, to have drawn not in the way of a Panegyric, but to have related everything with the strictest veracity; and therefore will not, I hope, be suspected of flattery, when he tells us that she, in her old age, did speedily learn it; and understood the language so well as to speak it.Or if this be referring them too far back to antiquity, let them reflect on the extraordinary learning and abilities of Mrs. Anna Maria à Schurman; who was not only well skilled in Greek and Latin, but in the Hebrew, Syriac, Arabic, Chaldaic, etc. And we are told [in Evelyn'sNumismata] that Ludovisia Sarracennia, a Physician's daughter of Lyons, understood and spoke Hebrew and Greek at the age of eight years. To let pass many other foreign examples, I shall only observe that our own Kingdom produced several women in the last century, who were famous for their skill in Hebrew, etc. Particularly a younglady of the North family, who was well versed in the Oriental languages. Mrs. Bland a Yorkshire gentlewoman was so well skilled in it, that she taught it to her son and daughter. Likewise the late Mrs. Bury of Bristol, and others, of whom I need say no more here, since they will be remembered in this catalogue.

And that the female sex are as capable of learning this as any other language, appears so plain from many undeniable instances of it, as to render any farther disproof as to that assertion unnecessary. Let those who doubt of it, read what St. Jerom has recorded of the noble Lady Paula and her daughter Eustochium. The Lady Paula's character he solemnly professes himself, and that upon a most solemn occasion, to have drawn not in the way of a Panegyric, but to have related everything with the strictest veracity; and therefore will not, I hope, be suspected of flattery, when he tells us that she, in her old age, did speedily learn it; and understood the language so well as to speak it.

Or if this be referring them too far back to antiquity, let them reflect on the extraordinary learning and abilities of Mrs. Anna Maria à Schurman; who was not only well skilled in Greek and Latin, but in the Hebrew, Syriac, Arabic, Chaldaic, etc. And we are told [in Evelyn'sNumismata] that Ludovisia Sarracennia, a Physician's daughter of Lyons, understood and spoke Hebrew and Greek at the age of eight years. To let pass many other foreign examples, I shall only observe that our own Kingdom produced several women in the last century, who were famous for their skill in Hebrew, etc. Particularly a younglady of the North family, who was well versed in the Oriental languages. Mrs. Bland a Yorkshire gentlewoman was so well skilled in it, that she taught it to her son and daughter. Likewise the late Mrs. Bury of Bristol, and others, of whom I need say no more here, since they will be remembered in this catalogue.

Again, under "Lady Pakington," the question of Hebrew comes up. One gentleman has told him thatThe Whole Duty of Manand the other treatises by the same author could not be by a woman because they were too deeply learned, and another gentleman wrote that the "many quotations from Hebrew writers" precluded female authorship. But Mr. Ballard answers:

And since skill in the Hebrew language is made use of as a convincing argument (tho, for my part, I can not find one Hebrew quotation in the whole book) he may please to understand, that besides the justly celebrated Mrs. Anna Maria à Schurman, and many other foreign ladies, we have had several domestic examples ofWomenwho have been famed for their skill in that primitive language, viz., Lady Jane Gray, Lady Killigrew, a Lady of the Nottingham family, another Lady of the North family, Lady Ranelagh, Mrs. Bury, and Mrs. Elizabeth Bland of Beeston in Yorkshire.

Poems by Eminent Ladies (1755)

The success of Mr. Ballard'sMemoirsin 1752 led to the production in 1755 ofPoems by Eminent Ladies, "Printed for R. Baldwin, at the Rose, in Pater-Noster-Row."[473]The brief Preface reads in part as follows:

These volumes are perhaps the most solid compliment that can possibly be paid to the Fair Sex. They are a standing proof that great abilities are not confined to the men, and that genius often glows with equal warmth, and perhaps with more delicacy, in the breast of a female. The Ladies, whose pieces we have here collected, are not only an honour to their sex, but to their native country; and there can beno doubt of their appearing to advantage together, when they have each severally been approved by the greatest writers of their times. It is indeed a remarkable circumstance, that there is scarce one Lady, who has contributed to fill these volumes, who was not celebrated by hercontemporarypoets, and that most of them have been particularly distinguished by the most lavish encomiums either fromCowley,Dryden,Roscommon,Creech,Pope, orSwift.There is indeed no good reason to be assigned why the poetical attempts of females should not be well received, unless it can be demonstrated that fancy and judgment are wholly confined to one half of our species; a notion, to which the readers of these volumes will not readily assent. It will not be thought partiality to say that the reader will here meet with many pieces on a great variety of subjects excellent in their way; and that this collection is not inferior to any miscellany compiled from the works of men.The short accounts of the several writers, prefixed to each of their poems, were compiled from the best materials we could meet with. The life of Mrs.Behnin particular, (which is very entertaining) is extracted fromThe Lives of the Poets, by Mr. Theophilus Cibber and others. For many of the rest we are obliged to Mr.Ballard'sentertaining Memoirs of Learned Ladies.

There is indeed no good reason to be assigned why the poetical attempts of females should not be well received, unless it can be demonstrated that fancy and judgment are wholly confined to one half of our species; a notion, to which the readers of these volumes will not readily assent. It will not be thought partiality to say that the reader will here meet with many pieces on a great variety of subjects excellent in their way; and that this collection is not inferior to any miscellany compiled from the works of men.

The short accounts of the several writers, prefixed to each of their poems, were compiled from the best materials we could meet with. The life of Mrs.Behnin particular, (which is very entertaining) is extracted fromThe Lives of the Poets, by Mr. Theophilus Cibber and others. For many of the rest we are obliged to Mr.Ballard'sentertaining Memoirs of Learned Ladies.

The two unimpressive volumes of this publication make rather more interesting reading than most miscellanies, but there is no hint of latent genius. The ladies are merely clever versifiers. They manage the heroic couplet with the mechanical skill of Pope's lesser imitators. Their verses jingle in the close with sufficient accuracy. Pope's antitheses and balanced structures, his oratorical figures, his use of pungent personal portraiture, are characteristics that find many enfeebled echoes. In subject-matter and general tone the books present an impeccable front. The authors would be sure to prefer Steele'sLadies' Libraryto Mrs. Pilkington'sLove in Excess, yet they are not conspicuously strait-laced. The poems are nearly all occasional and gain thus a note of reality, and, though no lady attains to genuine humor or actual lightness of touch, there are evidences of a brightness of spirit, a vivacity, a quickness of repartee, that remove the poems from the realm of the purely imitative and conventional.

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