"One hand Dame Nature's mimic does expressHer larger figures, to the life in less;In the rich border of her work do standAfresh, created by her curious hand,The various signs and planets of the sky,Which seem to move and twinkle in our eye;Much we the work, much more the hand admire,Her fancy guiding this does raise our wonder higher."
"One hand Dame Nature's mimic does express
Her larger figures, to the life in less;
In the rich border of her work do stand
Afresh, created by her curious hand,
The various signs and planets of the sky,
Which seem to move and twinkle in our eye;
Much we the work, much more the hand admire,
Her fancy guiding this does raise our wonder higher."
It appears that she lived unmarried till she was about forty; and then, I find by a memorandum made by my late friend Mr Hearne, in a spare leaf at the beginning of her manuscript of the Proverbs of Solomon, that she was married to Mr Bartholomew Kello [Kelly?], a Scotchman, by whom she had a son, named Samuel Kello, who was educated in Christ Church College, Oxon.
[1620.]BALLARD.
THE youngest daughter of Sir Charles Lucas, and the wife of the Marquis of Newcastle, had, from her infancy, a natural inclination to learning, and spent so much of her time in study and writing, that it is much to be lamented she had not the advantage of an acquaintance with the learned languages, which would have extended her knowledge, refined her genius, and have been of infinite service to her in the many compositions and productions of her pen.
In 1643, she obtained leave of her mother to go to Oxford, where the court then resided, and was made one of the maids of honour to Henrietta Maria, the royal consort of King Charles I.; and when the queen, by her rebellious subjects, was unhappily forced to leave England and go to her native country, she attended her thither. At Paris she met with the Marquis of Newcastle, then a widower, who, admiring her person, disposition, and ingenuity, was married to her in that place in the year 1645. She was said to be the most voluminous dramatic writer of our female poets, that she had a great deal of wit, and a more than ordinary propensity to dramatic poetry. Mr Langbaine tells us that all the language and plots of her plays were her own, which is a commendationpreferable to fame built on other people's foundation, and will very well atone for some faults in her numerous productions. [A catalogue of this lady's works, "tragicomical, poetical, romancical, philosophical, and historical," both in prose and verse, would occupy pages.]
Her person was very graceful, her temper naturally reserved, and she seldom said much in company, especially among strangers. She was most indefatigable in her studies and contemplations; truly pious, charitable, and generous; an excellent economist; very kind to her servants, and a perfect pattern of conjugal love and duty.
[1679.]BALLARD.
DAUGHTER of Thomas, Lord Coventry, Keeper of the Great Seal, and wife of Sir John Pakington, was well known to, and celebrated by, the best and most learned divines of her time. Yet hardly my pen will be thought capable of adding to the reputation her own has procured to her, if it shall appear that she was the author of a work which is not more an honour to the writer than a universal benefit to mankind.
The work I mean is, "The Whole Duty of Man;" her title to which has been so well ascertained, that the general concealment it has lain under will only reflect a lustre upon all her other excellences by showing that she had no honour in view but that of her Creator, which, I suppose, she might think best promoted by this concealment. [The claims of other authors are not difficult to be disposed of.] If I were a Roman Catholic, I would summon tradition as an evidence for me upon this occasion, which has constantly attributed this performance to a lady. And a late celebrated writer observes, that "there are many probable arguments in 'The Whole Duty of Man' to back a current report that it was written by a lady." And any one who reads "The Lady's Calling," may observe a great number of passages which clearly indicate a female hand.
That vulgar prejudice of the supposed incapacity of the female sex, is what these memoirs in general may possibly remove. And as I have had frequent occasion to take notice of it, I should not now enter again upon that subject, had not this been made use of as an argument to invalidate Lady Pakington's title to those performances. It may not be amiss, therefore, to transcribe two or three passages from the treatise I have just now mentioned. "But waiving these reflections, I shall fix only on the personal accomplishments of the sex, and peculiarly that which is the most principal endowment of the rational nature—I mean the understanding—where it will be a little hard to pronounce that they are naturally inferior to men, when it is considered how much of intrinsic weight is put in the balance to turn it to the men's side. Men have their parts cultivated and improved by education, refined and subtilised by learning and arts; are like a piece of a common, which, by industry and husbandry, becomes a different thing from the rest, though the natural turf owned no such inequality. We may therefore conclude, that whatever vicious impotence women are under, it is acquired, not natural; nor derived from any illiberality of God's, but from the ill managery of His bounty. Let them not charge God foolishly, or think that by making them women He necessitated them to be proud or wanton, vain or peevish; since it is manifest He made them to better purpose, was not partial to the other sex; but that having, as the prophet speaks, 'abundance of spirit,' He equally dispensed it, and gave the feeblest woman as large and capacious a soul as that of the greatest hero. Nay, give me leave to say farther, that, as to an eternal well-being, He seems to have placed them in more advantageous circumstances than He has done men. He has implanted in them some native propensions which do much facilitate theoperations of grace upon them."
And having made good this assertion, she interrogates thus: "How many women do we read of in the gospel, who in all the duties of assiduous attendance on Christ, liberalities of love and respect, nay, even in zeal and courage, surpassed even the apostles themselves? We find His cross surrounded, His passion celebrated by the avowed tears and lamentations of devout women, when the most sanguine of His disciples had denied, yea, forswore, and all had forsaken Him. Nay, even death itself could not extinguish their love. We find the devout Maries designing a laborious, chargeable, and perhaps hazardous respect to His corpse, and, accordingly, it is a memorable attestation Christ gives to their piety by making them the first witnesses of His resurrection, the prime evangelists to proclaim those glad tidings, and, as a learned man speaks, apostles to the apostles."
There are many works of this lady, besides "The Whole Duty of Man," enumerated in her biographies.
[1512.]JAMES MILL.
ONE of the circumstances which had the greatest influence on the events and character of the reign of Jehangire, was his marriage with the wife of one of the omrahs of his empire, whose assassination, like that of Uriah, cleared the way for the gratification of the monarch. The history of this female is dressed in romantic colours by the writers of the East. Khaja Aiass, her father, was a Tartar, who left poverty and his native country to seek the gifts of fortune in Hindustan. The inadequate provision he could make for so great a journey failed him before its conclusion. To add to his trials, his wife, advanced in pregnancy, was seized with the pains of labour in the desert, and delivered of a daughter. All hope of conducting the child alive to any place of relief forsook the exhausted parents, and they agreed to leave her. So long as the tree, at the foot of which the infant had been deposited, remained in view, the mother supported her resolution; but when the tree vanished from sight, she sank upon the ground, and refused to proceed without her. The father returned, but what he beheld was a huge black snake convolved about the body of the infant, and extending his dreadful jaws to devour her. A shriek of anguish burst from the father's breast; andthe snake, being alarmed, hastily unwound himself from the body of the infant, and glided away to his retreat. The miracle animated the parents to maintain the struggle; and before their strength entirely failed, they were joined by other travellers, who relieved their necessities.
Aiass, having arrived in Hindustan, was taken into the service of an omrah of the court; attracted after a time the notice of Akbar himself; and, by his abilities and prudence, rose to be treasurer of the empire. The infant who had been so nearly lost in the desert was now grown a woman of exquisite beauty; and, by the attention of Aiass to her education, was accomplished beyond the measure of female attainments in the East. She was seen by Sultan Selim, and kindled in his bosom the fire of love. But she was betrothed to a Turkman omrah, and Akbar forbade the contract to be infringed. When Selim mounted the throne, justice and shame were a slight protection to the man whose life was a bar to the enjoyments of the king. By some caprice, however, not unnatural to minds pampered and trained up like his, he abstained from seeing her for some years after she was placed in his seraglio, and even refused an adequate appointment for her maintenance. She turned her faculties to account; employed herself in the exquisite works of the needle and painting, in which she excelled; and her productions were disposed of in the shops and markets, and thence procured the means of adorning her apartments with all the elegancies which suited her condition and taste. The fame of her productions reached the ear and excited the curiosity of the emperor. A visit was all that was wanting to rekindle the flame in his heart; and Noor Mahal (such was the name she assumed) exercised from that moment an unbounded sway over the prince and his empire. Through the influence of the favourite sultana,the vizirit was bestowed on her father; her two brothers were raised to the first rank of omrahs, by the titles of Aetibad Khan and Asopha Jah; but their modesty and virtues reconciled all men to their sudden elevation. And though the emperor, naturally voluptuous, was now withdrawn from business by the charms of his wife, the affairs of the empire were conducted with vigilance, prudence, and success; and the administration of Khaja Aiass was long remembered in India as a period of justice and prosperity.
[BORN 1594. DIED 1617.]DR HUGH MURRAY.
ON a signal from their leader, they, the natives of Virginia, laid down their bows and arrows, and led Captain Smith [of the Expedition, 1607] under strict guard to their capital. He was there exhibited to the women and children, and a wild war-dance was performed round him in fantastic measures, and with frightful yells and contortions. He was then shut up in a long house, and supplied at every meal with as much bread and venison as would have dined twenty men; but receiving no other sign of kindness, he began to dread that they were fattening in order to eat him. At last he was led to Pamunkey, the residence of Powhatan, the king. It was here his doom was sealed. The chief received him in pomp, wrapped in a spacious robe of racoon skins, with all the tails hanging down. Behind appeared two long lines of men and women, with faces painted red, heads decked with white down, and necks quite encircled with chains of beads. A lady of rank presented water to wash his hands, another a bunch of feathers to dry them. A long deliberation was then held, and the result proved fatal. Two large stones were placed before Powhatan, and, by the united efforts of the attendants, Smith was dragged to the spot, his head laid on one of them, and the mighty clubwas raised, a few blows of which were to terminate his life. In this last extremity, when every hope seemed past, a very unexpected interposition took place. Pocahontas, the youthful and favourite daughter of this savage chief, was seized with those tender emotions which form the ornament of her sex. Advancing to her father, she in the most earnest terms supplicated mercy for the stranger; and though all her entreaties were lost on that savage heart, her zeal only redoubled. She ran to Smith, took his head in her arms, laid her own upon it, and declared that the first death-blow must fall upon her. The barbarian's breast was at length softened, and the life of the Englishman was spared.
Smith was afterwards liberated and sent to Jamestown, where he was installed as president. As Powhatan's favour was to be courted, there had been sent handsome presents, with materials to crown him with splendour, in the European style. With only four companions he courageously repaired to the residence of the monarch, inviting him to come and be crowned at Jamestown. The party were extremely well received, though once they heard in the adjoining wood outcries so hideous as made them flee to their arms; but Pocahontas assured them they had nothing to fear. Subsequently, Smith was repeatedly in danger; and again, on one occasion, was saved by a second interposition of Pocahontas, who, at the risk of her father's displeasure, ran through the woods on a dark night to give him warning. But the kindness of this princess was ill repaid by the English, to whom she was so much attached; for Argall, an enterprising naval commander, afterwards contrived, through an Indian who had become his sworn friend, to inveigle on board his vessel the fair Pocahontas. Regardless of hertears and entreaties he conveyed her to Jamestown, where she was well treated; but in a negotiation for her ransom, exorbitant terms were demanded, which her father indignantly rejected, and the breach seemed only widened. Happily, the chains of the princess's captivity were lightened by others of a more pleasing nature. Mr John Rolfe, a respectable young man, was smitten with her dignified demeanour, and found no difficulty in gaining her affections. They were afterwards married, and she was converted and baptised under the name of Rebecca, to which the English prefixed the title of Lady, and her subsequent conduct is said to have adorned her profession.
Soon after, in company with her husband, she visited England; and Captain Smith wrote a letter to his majesty, recounting her good deeds, declaring that she had a great spirit though a low stature, and beseeching for her a reception corresponding to her rank and merits. She was accordingly introduced at court, and into the circles of fashion, where, as a novelty, she was for some time the leading object, and is said to have deported herself with suitable grace and dignity. Purchas mentions his meeting with her at the table of his patron, Dr King, Bishop of London, where she was entertained with "festival and pomp." The king took an absurd apprehension that Rolfe, on the ground of his wife's birth, might advance a claim to the crown of Virginia. This idea being at length driven out of his mind, he appointed him secretary and recorder-general of the colony. The princess, early in 1617, went to embark at Gravesend, but Providence had not destined that she would revisit her native shore. She was there seized with an illness which carried her off in a few days, and her last hours are said to have extremely edified the spectators, being full of Christian resignationand hope. She had left a son in the colony, whose offspring, carefully traced, is now numerous; and this descent is the boast of many Virginian families.
[BORN 1620. DIED 1659.]JEFFREY.
THE daughter of Sir Allan Apsley, Lieutenant of the Tower of London, and wife of Colonel Hutchinson, so well known in the Civil War, was in all respects a remarkable woman. If it were allowable to take the portrait she has given of herself as a just representation of her fair contemporaries, we should form a most exalted notion of the Republican matrons of England. Making a slight deduction for a few traits of austerity borrowed from the bigotry of the age, we do not know where to look for a more noble and engaging character than that under which this lady presents herself to her readers; nor do we believe that any age of the world has produced so worthy a counterpart to the Valerias and Portias of antiquity. With a highminded feeling of patriotism and public honour, she seems to have been possessed by the most beautiful and devoted attachment to her husband, and to have combined a taste for learning and the arts with the most active kindness and munificent hospitality to all who came within the sphere of her bounty.
To a quick perception of character, she appears to have united a masculine force of understanding and a singular capacity for affairs, and to have possessed and exercised all those talents without affectingany superiority over the rest of her sex, or abandoning for a single instant the delicacy and reserve which were then its most indispensable ornaments. Education is certainly far more diffused in our days, and accomplishments infinitely more common; but the perusal of this lady's Memoirs has taught us to doubt whether the better sort of women were not fashioned of old by a better and more exalted standard, and whether the most eminent female of the present day would not appear to disadvantage by the side of Mrs Hutchinson. There is for the most part something intriguing, and profligate, and theatrical in the clever women of this generation; and if men are dazzled by their brilliancy and delighted with their talent, we can scarcely even guard against some distrust of their judgment, or some suspicion of their purity. There is something, in short, in the domestic virtue, and the calm and commanding mind of our English matron, that makes the Corinnas and Heloises appear small and insignificant.
The admirers of modern talent will not accuse us of choosing an ignoble competitor if we desire them to weigh the merits of Mrs Hutchinson against those of Madame Roland. The English revolutionist did not, indeed, compose weekly pamphlets and addresses to the municipalities, because it was not the fashion of her day to print every thing that entered into the heads of politicians. But she shut herself up with her husband in the garrison with which he was entrusted, and shared his counsels as well as his hazards. She encouraged the troops by her cheerfulness and heroism, ministered to the sick, and dressed with her own hands the wounds of the captives as well as of the victors. When her husband was imprisoned on groundless suspicions, she laboured without ceasing for his deliverance, confounded his oppressors by her eloquenceand arguments, tended him with unshaken fortitude in sickness and in solitude, and after his decease dedicated herself to form his children to the example of his virtues, and drew up the memorial, which is now before us, of his worth and her own genius and affection. All this, too, she did without stepping beyond the province of a private woman, without hunting after compliments to her own genius or beauty, without sneering at the dulness or murmuring at the coldness of her husband, without hazarding the fate of her country on the dictates of her own enthusiasm, or fancying for a moment that she was born with talents to enchant and regenerate the world. With equal power of discriminating character, with equal candour, and eloquence, and zeal for the general good, she is elevated beyond her French competitor by superior prudence and modesty, and by a certain simplicity and purity of character, of which it appears to us that the other was unable to form a conception.
England, we should think, should be proud of having given birth to Mrs Hutchinson and her husband; and chiefly because their characters are truly and peculiarly English, according to the standard of their times, in which national characters were most distinguishable. Not exempt, certainly, from errors and defects, they yet seem to us to hold out a lofty example of substantial dignity and virtue, and to possess most of those talents and principles by which public life is made honourable, and privacy delightful. Bigotry must at all times debase, and civil dissension embitter our existence; but, in the ordinary course of events, we may safely venture to assert, that a nation which produces many such wives and mothers as Mrs Lucy Hutchinson, must be both great and happy.
[BORN 1625. DIED 1680.]JEFFREY.
LADY Fanshawe was, as is generally known, the wife of a distinguished cavalier, in the heroic age of the Civil Wars and the Protectorate, and survived till long after the Restoration. Her husband was a person of no mean figure in those great transactions; and she, who adhered to him with the most devoted attachment, and participated not unworthily in all his fortunes and designs, was consequently in continual contact with the movements that then agitated society. Since it may be said with some show of reason that Lady Hutchinson and her husband had too many elegant tastes and accomplishments to be taken as fair specimens of the austere and godly republicans, it certainly may be retorted, with at least equal justice, that the chaste and decorous Lady Fanshawe, and her sober, diplomatic lord, shadow out rather too favourably the general manners and morals of the cavaliers.
Lady Fanshawe seems to have followed, like a good wife and daughter, where her parents or her husband led her, and to have adopted their opinions with a dutiful and implicit confidence, but without being very deeply moved by the principles or passions which actuated those from whom they were derived; while Lady Hutchinson not only threw her wholeheart and soul into the cause of her party, but, like Lady Macbeth or Madame Roland, imparted her own fire to her own phlegmatic helpmate; "chastened him," when necessary, "with the valour of her tongue," and cheered him on, by the encouragement of her high example, to all the ventures and sacrifices, the triumphs or the martyrdoms, that lay visibly across their daring and lofty course. The Lady Fanshawe, we take it, was of a less passionate temperament. She begins in her Memoirs, no doubt, with a good deal of love and domestic devotion, and even echoes from that sanctuary certain notes of loyalty; but, in very truth, is chiefly occupied, for the best part of her life, with the sage and serious business of some nineteen or twentyaccouchements, which are happily accomplished in different parts of Europe, and seems at last to be wholly engrossed in the ceremonial of diplomatic presentations, the description of court dresses, state coaches, liveries, and jewellery, the solemnity of processions and receptions by sovereign princes, and the due interchange of presents and compliments with persons of worship and dignity. But in her Memoirs there is enough, both of heart and sense and observation, at once to repay gentle and intelligent readers for the trouble of perusing them, and to stamp a character of amiableness and respectability on the memory of their author.
[1620.]MACAULAY.
ONE who, for constancy in love against temptations to change, deserves commemoration. Dorothy Osborne was twenty-one. She is said to have been handsome, and there remains abundant proof that she possessed an ample share of the dexterity, the vivacity, and the tenderness of her sex. Sir William Temple soon became, in the phrase of that time, her servant, and she returned his regard. But difficulties as great as ever expanded a novel to the fifth volume opposed their wishes. When the courtship commenced, the father of the hero was sitting in the Long Parliament; the father of the heroine was commanding in Guernsey for King Charles. Even when the war ended, and Sir Peter Osborne returned to his seat at Chicksands, the prospects of the lovers were scarcely less gloomy. Sir John Temple had a more advantageous alliance in view for his son. Dorothy Osborne was in the meantime besieged by as many suitors as were drawn to Belmont by the fame of Portia. The most distinguished on the list was Henry Cromwell. Destitute of the capacity, the energy, the magnanimity of his illustrious father, destitute also of the meek and placid virtues of his elder brother, this young man was perhaps a more formidable rival than either of them would have been. Mrs Hutchinson,speaking the sentiments of the grave and aged, calls him an "insolent foole," and "a debauched ungodly cavalier." These expressions probably mean that he was one who, among young and dissipated people, would pass for a fine gentleman. Dorothy was fond of dogs of larger and more formidable breed than those which lie on modern hearthrugs, and Henry Cromwell promised that the highest functionaries in Dublin should be set to work to procure for her a fine Irish greyhound. She seems to have felt his attentions as very flattering, though his father was then only Lord General, and not yet Protector. Love, however, triumphed over ambition, and the young lady appears never to have regretted her decision; though in a letter written just at the time when all England was ringing with the news of the violent dissolution of the Long Parliament, she could not refrain from reminding Temple, with pardonable vanity, "how great she might have been if she had been so wise as to have taken hold of the offer of Henry Cromwell."
Near seven years did this arduous wooing continue. Temple appears to have kept up a very active correspondence with his mistress. We would willingly learn more of the loves of these two. In the seventeenth century, to be sure, Louis XIV. was a much more important person than Temple's sweetheart. But death and time equalise all things. Neither the great king nor the beauty of Bedfordshire, neither the gorgeous paradise of Marli nor Mrs Osborne's favourite walk "in the common that lay hard by the house, where a great many young wenches used to keep sheep and cows, and sit in the shade singing of ballads," is anything to us. Louis and Dorothy are alike dust. A cotton-mill stands on the ruins of Marli, and the Osbornes have ceased to dwell under the ancient roof ofChicksands.
When at last the constancy of the lovers triumphed over all the obstacles which kinsmen and rivals could oppose to their union, a yet more serious calamity befell them. Poor Mrs Osborne fell ill of the small-pox, and though she escaped with life, lost all her beauty. To this most severe trial, the affection and honour of the lovers of that age was not unfrequently subjected. Our readers will probably remember what Mrs Hutchinson tells us of herself. The lofty Cornelia-like spirit of the aged matron seems to melt into a long forgotten softness when she relates how her beloved Colonel "married her as soon as she was able to quit the chamber, when the priest and all that saw her were affrighted to look on her. But God," she adds, with a not ungraceful vanity, "recompensed his justice and constancy by restoring her as well as before." Temple showed on this occasion the same justice and constancy which did so much honour to Colonel Hutchinson. The date of the marriage is not exactly known. But Mr Courtenay supposes it to have taken place about the year 1654. From this time we lose Dorothy, and are reduced to form our opinion of the terms on which she and her husband were, from very slight indications, which may easily mislead us.
Catherine PhillipsDrawn by J. Thurston. Engraved by W. Finden.CATHERINE PHILLIPS.From an original Picture in the Collection of her Grace the Dutchess of Dorset.
Drawn by J. Thurston. Engraved by W. Finden.CATHERINE PHILLIPS.From an original Picture in the Collection of her Grace the Dutchess of Dorset.
[BORN 1631. DIED 1664.]BALLARD.
THE celebrated Orinda was the daughter of John Fowler of Bucklersbury. Her improvement was so early, that whoever reads the account given of her by M. Aubrey, will look upon all her succeeding progress in learning to be no more than what might justly be expected. He tells us that she was very apt to learn, and made verses when she was at school; that she devoted herself to religious duties when she was very young; that she would then pray by herself an hour together; that she had read the Bible through before she was full four years old; that she could say by heart many chapters and passages of Scripture, was a frequent hearer of sermons, which she would bring away entire in her memory, and would take sermons verbatim when she was but ten years old.
She became afterwards a perfect mistress of the French tongue, and learned the Italian under the tuition of her ingenious and worthy friend Sir Charles Cottrell. Born with a genius for poetry, she began to improve it early in life, and composed many poems, upon various occasions, for her own amusement, in her recess at Cardigan and retirement elsewhere. These being dispersed among her friends and acquaintances, were by an unknown hand collected together and publishedin 1663, without her knowledge and consent,—an ungenteel and ungenerous treatment, which proved so oppressive to her great modesty, that it gave her a severe fit of illness. She poured forth her complaints in a long letter to Sir Charles Cottrell, in which she laments, in a most affecting manner, the misfortune and injury which had been done to her by this surreptitious edition of her poems.
Her remarkable humility, good nature, and agreeable conversation, greatly endeared her to all her acquaintances, and her ingenious and elegant writings procured her the friendship and correspondence of many learned and eminent men, and of persons of the first rank in England. Upon her going to Ireland with the Viscountess of Dungannon, to transact her husband's affairs there, her great merit soon made her known to, and esteemed by, those illustrious persons,—Ormond, Orrery, Roscommon, and many other persons of distinction,—who paid a great deference to her worth and abilities, and showed her singular marks of their esteem.
While in Ireland, she was very happy in carrying on a former intimacy with the famous Dr Jeremy Taylor, the worthy Bishop of Down and Conner, who addressed to her "A Discourse of the Nature, Offices, and Measures of Friendship." It is possible that his acquaintance with Mrs Philips might contribute much towards the good opinion he entertained of the female sex. It is certain that he was a great admirer of them. "But, by the way, madam," he says, "you may see how much I differ from the morosity of those cynics who would not admit your sex into the communities of a noble friendship. I believe some wives have been the best friends in the world, and few stories can outdo the nobleness and piety of that lady that sucked the poisoned purulent matter from thewound of our brave prince in the holy land, when an assassin had pierced him with a venomed arrow. And if it be told that women cannot return counsel, and therefore can be no brave friends, I can best confute them by the story of Portia. I cannot say that women are capable of all those excellences by which men can oblige the world; and therefore a female friend, in some cases, is not so good a counsellor as a wise man, and cannot so well defend my honour, nor dispose of reliefs and assistances, if she be under the power of another; but a woman can love as passionately, and converse as pleasantly, and retain a secret as faithfully, and be useful in her proper ministries, and she can die for her friend as well as the bravest Roman knight. A man is the best friend in trouble, but a woman may be equal to him in the days of joy; a woman can as well increase our comforts, but cannot so well lessen our sorrows, and therefore we do not carry women with us when we go to fight; but, in peaceful cities and times, virtuous women are the beauties of society and the prettinesses of friendship."
Mrs Philips went for a time into a sort of melancholy retirement, occasioned, perhaps, by the bad success of her husband's affairs; and, going to London in order to relieve her oppressed spirits with the conversation of her friends there, she was seized by the small-pox, and died in her thirty-third year. Mr Aubrey observes that her person was of a middle stature, pretty fat, and ruddy complexion.
[BORN 1635. DIED 1719.]ST SIMON.
BORN in a prison of America, whither her father had gone as a needy adventurer, and where he died, Francis d'Aubigné returned to France a poor orphan. At Rochelle, where she landed, she was taken pity upon by Madame de Nuillant, an old miser, who degraded the friendless girl by making her keep the key of the granary, and deal out the corn to the horses. Going afterwards to Paris, her beauty, wit, and propriety of conduct procured her friends, and subsequently she married the famous poet Scarron, then a deformed old man. It was the custom for people who loved letters, among whom were many courtiers, to repair to Scarron's house, where they tasted of that wit and fancy which may be discovered in his works. In all this Madame Scarron participated, making many acquaintances, whose friendship, after Scarron's death, did not save her from being a burden on the parish. She afterwards found her way into the Hotel d'Albret, and that of Richelieu, where she acted as a kind of upper servant, calling the other domestics, and reporting when such a one's carriage had arrived. From one thing to another she changed, till she succeeded in so charming King Louis the Fourteenth's mistress, Madame de Montespan, that she engaged her to take the charge of herchildren. In this office she was in the habit of often meeting the king, who soon saw how much she excelled, in learning and good sense the other women who had been devoted to his pleasure. Finally she was privately married to him.
A woman of strong understanding, Madame Maintenon had learnt, from the various conditions in which she had been, the art of pleasing, insinuation, complaisance, and the use of intrigue; an incomparable grace, an air of perfect ease and self-possession, accompanied by a reservation and show of respect, which was the consequence of her humble birth, and so far natural to her, wrought in unison with a soft speech, the choice of appropriate words, and a species of eloquence kept within bounds. The prior times in which she had lived were those of precision and affectation, qualities which she retained, and in some degree elevated, by an air of dignity and importance, and which, being favourable to devotion, first inspired in her that feeling, and were latterly submerged in it.
Yet, withal, the real character of her mind was that of ambition. She aspired continually after new acquaintances and friends, as well as new modes of amusement, excepting only some old confidantes whom time had rendered necessary to her. This inequality in her temper produced many evils. Easily elevated, she rose to an excess of feeling; as easily depressed, she relapsed into satiety and even disgust, without being able to render a reason for the change even to herself. After overcoming the difficulty of getting into her presence, one had to experience a volubility resulting from something which happened to please her, and presently a relapse into indifference, or something worse, so that it was a task for the visitor to know whether he was in grace or disgrace.She possessed also the weakness to be regulated by confidences and confessions, and to submit to be made the dupe of religious societies. The time absorbed by her visits to convents was incredible. She believed herself to be a kind of universal abbess, and concerned herself with the endless details of numerous convents. She even figured herself to be the mother of the Church, weighing and estimating the merits or demerits of ecclesiastical officials, not less than those of the female heads of convents. She was thus plunged in a sea of occupations, frivolous, deceitful, and painful; of letters and answers to letters, directions to choice friends, and all sorts of puerilities, which resulted ordinarily in nothing. [Yet, for thirty years of her life, she played her part so well that she was the king's most confidential adviser, and shared in the obloquy of some of his worst acts, such as the revocation of the edict of Nantes. She was a virtuous woman, a devout and bigoted Catholic, ambitious and resolute, yet disinterested and charitable. Her published letters demand for her a creditable place in French literature.]
[1641.]COUNT A. HAMILTON.
MISS Hamilton, the eldest daughter of Sir George Hamilton, and born in 1641, was at the happy age when the charms of the fair sex begin to bloom; she had the finest shape, the loveliest neck, and most beautiful arms in the world; she was majestic and graceful in her movements, and she was the original after which all the ladies copied in their taste and air of dress. Her forehead was open, white, and smooth; her hair was well set, and fell with ease into that natural order which it is so difficult to imitate. Her complexion was possessed of a certain freshness not to be equalled by borrowed colours; her eyes were not large, but they were lively, and capable of expressing whatever she pleased; her mouth was full of graces, and her contour uncommonly perfect; nor was her nose, which was small, delicate, andretroussé, the least ornament of so lovely a face.
Her mind was a proper companion for such a form. She did not endeavour to shine in conversation by those sprightly sallies which only puzzle, and, with still greater care, she avoided that affected solemnity in her discourse which produces stupidity; but, without any eagerness to talk, she just said what she ought and no more. She had an admirablediscernment in distinguishing between solid and false wit; and, far from making an ostentatious display of her abilities, she was reserved, though very just, in her decisions. Her sentiments were always noble, and even lofty to the highest extent, when there was occasion; nevertheless, she was less prepossessed with her own merit than is usually the case with those who have so much. Formed as we have described, she could not fail of commanding love; but so far was she from courting it, that she was scrupulously nice with respect to those whose merit might enable them to cherish any pretensions to her.
[Such a portrait (says Mr Davenport Adams) makes one in love with the woman it professes to represent, and envy might be tempted to conclude that it was rather the ideal of some poetic Diana, than a transcript of a veritable flesh and blood beauty. Undoubtedly, the natural partiality of the brother and the pride of the husband (Count de Grammont), whose united skill has been exerted to produce so agreeable anensemble, have filled in the outline with too flattering colours, and heightened the charms of nature by the graces of art. But when, for this fond exaggeration, due allowance shall have been made, there will still remain enough to justify us in regarding Elizabeth Hamilton as one of the most fascinating women of her age or nation.
The highest in rank, and the most important of her lovers, was the Duke of York, who had been captivated by a glance at her portrait in Lely's studio. His proposals, however, being neither flattering nor honourable, were haughtily rejected. The Duke of Richmond, a gamester and a drunkard; the heir of Norfolk, a wealthy simpleton; the brave and handsome Falmouth, who afterwards died a hero's death in one of the great sea-fights with the Dutch; the two Russels, uncle and nephew; andthe invincible Henry Jermyn, in succession acknowledged the power of her charms, and offered her their hands. They were refused. The Count de Grammont next presented himself, and was more successful, though in moral character he was not superior to his predecessors, and in fortune was their inferior.
This celebrated wit, who has become so celebrated to us through the graphic pages of Count Hamilton's Memoirs, was born in 1621. Having been banished from France by Louis XIV., for entering himself against that monarch in the lists of love with Mademoiselle La Motte Howdencourt, he repaired to the court of Charles II., where he immediately became "the observed of all observers." He was handsome, graceful, and accomplished; his manners possessed an indescribable fascination; his address was polished and easy, his conversation light and amusing. But his enemies accused him of being treacherous in his friendships, cruel in his jealousies, and trifling in his loves. He was assuredly a man of unprincipled character, and as false towards a friend as he was fickle to a mistress; but an undefinable brilliancy of manners, which dazzled every eye, imposed on the judgment of all whom he came in contact with; and it was only those whom he had defrauded or betrayed that could distinguish theclinquantfrom the pure metal.
After several years of wooing, the fickle Count de Grammont became the husband of the beautiful Hamilton. But, notwithstanding the apparent warmth and duration of his addresses, it is doubtful whether he really intended them seriously; and his marriage is said to have been forced upon him. Having made his peace with Louis XIV., he had received permission to return to France. In all haste he set out on his journey, and, it is said, without bringing matters to a proper conclusion with Miss Hamilton. Her brothers immediately pursued him, and came up withhim near Dover, resolved to extort from him an explanation, or to obtain satisfaction with their swords. "Chevalier de Grammont," they exclaimed, "have you forgotten nothing in London?" "Excuse me," he rejoined, with his accustomed self-possession, "I forgot to marry your sister." He returned with them to London, and espoused the fair lady, Charles II. honouring the nuptials with his presence.... Grammont died at the age of eighty-six, and his wife survived him but one year.]
[BORN 1644. DIED 1710.]DAVENPORT ADAMS.
IT must be acknowledged that Louis XIV., in his amours more refined than his contemporary Charles II. of England, sought for mental gifts no less than personal charms, and, if caught at first by the eye and the lip, the bloom of the cheek and the lustre of the hair, could only be held by the surer and more exquisite fascination of a clear judgment and a lively wit. He was not content with a dumb Venus. Beauty was required to wear the robe of Pallas, and to borrow some, at least, of the magical spells of the Graces. Criminal as were his attachments, and fatal to the heart and soul of his people by the general levity of manners and morals which they necessarily seemed to justify, they were clothed with a pomp and refinement that concealed their most hideous features.
The most romantic of Louis' attachments was that which he professed for Mademoiselle de la Valliere, born in 1664 of a noble family, which had been long established in Touraine. While yet a child, she lost her father, and was brought up at Blois, in the household of Gaston of Orleans. "Her features," as we learn from Elizabeth of Bavaria, Duchess of Orleans, "had an inexpressible attraction; her figure was beautiful, her appearance modest; she limped a little, but this did not ill becomeher." Her forehead was smooth and white, and on each side of it clustered abundant curls of a glossy auburn. The soft languishing eyes, the straight nose, the exquisite mouth and the dimpled chin, with a certain eloquent air of love and gentleness, made up a most fascinating countenance. All the figure was firm and plump—not one of your angular forms, that bristle with sharp points, but the shape of a Venus, rich in graceful curves, and softly rounded. There was a peculiar charm in her conversation; it so sparkled with that light, effervescing humour, which in the mouth of a pretty woman is accounted wit, while it breathed an air of refinement that indicated a graceful and accomplished mind. A sweet temper and a gentle disposition won the affection of all her companions. She was capable of a passionate love, a deep and unalterable love, devoted to its object, and utterly regardless of itself. She was not ambitious, except of being loved; and that is an ambition which a man willingly forgives to beauty. Envy and jealousy shrunk afar from her generous soul. Finally, La Valliere had all the softness if she lacked the purity of Imogen, the self-abandonment of Juliet, the passionate fidelity of Ophelia; but nature had rendered it impossible for her to play the part of a Cleopatra. She was formed to yield, to obey, to suffer in silence; and the secret of her power lay in the simplicity of her devotion.
The beautiful La Valliere is still the heroine of the people. Her story is a tale of passion, of guilt, sorrow, and penitence; it has had peculiar attractions for the popular mind; and, while it has contributed poem, romance, and history to French literature, it has not been neglected by the English writer. It certainly possesses the most striking features of romance. Consider the quality of the actors—a powerful sovereign in the flush of youthful pride, contrasted with ayoung and simple maid of honour. Consider the startling variety of the passions—ardent and aspiring love, triumphant possession; satiety on the one side, and sorrow on the other, remorse, and a long repentance. Consider the picturesque character of the scenes—the glittering pomp of a palace, the austere simplicity of a convent. And then there is thrown over the whole the bewildering atmosphere of splendour; nobles and pages, statesmen and beauties, priests and councillors,—music and flowers, and the glow of a thousand lights,—the fall of powerful ministers, the intrigues of subtle courtiers,—all blend in the exciting movement of this passionate and fantastic drama. And yet it is an old, old story,—the brief madness of love, the prolonged penitence of remorse. It is a fine commentary on the exultant sin,—this dreary old age of shattered hopes that closes all.