Lives of Celebrated Women

Some sources of influence still remained to her; one of these was in that power which the strong-minded and educated always exercise over the weak and ignorant. Astrology – a science long banished from Europe – still holds its sway in the East. The opinion went abroad that Lady Hester could read the stars, and procured for her that respect among the common people, and, to a certain extent, that personal security, which had formerly been purchased with the shawls of Cashmere, and the rich silver-mounted pistols of England.

But whilst practising these arts upon others, she became herself the victim of strange delusions. She came by degrees to believe that the history of all was written in the stars, and that she had there read the history of the world. The Messiah was soon to appear upon the earth, and by his side, mounted upon a milk-white mare of matchless beauty, which was then in her stable, she was to witness the conquest of Jerusalem, and the establishment of his kingdom. She had, too, in her stable the mare upon which her companion was to ride. This animal, in all other respects of beautiful proportions, had behind the shoulders a cavity so large and deep, and imitating so completely a Turkish saddle, that one might say with truth she was foaled saddled. The appearance of an animal with this peculiarity, in itself a deformity, served as an incitement to credulity, and to keep up the delusion. The animal was watched with the greatest care by two grooms, one of whom was never to lose sight of her. No one had ever mounted her, and from her bearing one might have fancied that the creature was conscious of the admiration and respect which were entertained for her by all around, and felt the dignity of her future mission.

The talent which Lady Hester was supposed to possess was put in constant requisition by her credulous neighbors; nor was her power ever exercised for bad purposes. She used it to calm the passions of the violent; to induce the unjust and the oppressor to make reparation for their wrong-doings; and put it to other good uses, of which the following anecdote, related by herself, will furnish an example: “An Arab suspected his wife of talking too much with strangers in his absence, and one of his neighbors confirmed his suspicions. He went home, proceeded to strangle the unfortunate woman, and, when she became insensible, he dragged her to some distance, and commenced interring her: the first heap of sand which he threw upon her recalled sensation; she manifested symptoms of life, and he repented of his vengeance; he brought her to me half dead; told the story of her supposed guilt, but owned he was premature in strangling her, as he should have first got me to consult her star, to ascertain if she really deserved to die or not. I sent the woman to the harem, had her bled, and taken care of till she recovered, and then I summoned the man before me. ‘My good friend,’ said I, ‘your wife’s star has been consulted; take her back in peace, and thank God you have her; for it is written in the stars, “On vain surmises thou shalt not strangle thy wife, neither shalt thou hearken to the slanderers of her honor.”’ The man immediately held out his hand to his gentle rib; she kissed it, and forth he walked, desiring her to follow him, with the most perfect indifference. I asked the woman if she were afraid of another act of violence. She calmly replied, ‘Is he not my husband? Has he not a right to kill me, if he suspects me of doing wrong?’”

Lady Hester believed in the science of astrology to the fullest extent. She believed that we are all children of some one of the celestial fires which presided at our birth, and of which the happy or malignant influence is written in our eyes, on our foreheads, in our fortunes, in the lines of our hands, in the form of our feet, in our gesture, in our walk. She believed that, from these various elements, she could read the character and destiny of any individual who was but for a few moments in her presence. In accordance with her belief, she thought that skilful astrologers should be appointed to every district, to consult the heavenly bodies at the birth of every child; the nature of each natal star to be registered by them, and kept secret till the period of education, which is to be adapted to that particular calling which the star of every human being indicates.

The following somewhat poetical description of the personal appearance of Lady Hester is given by a traveller, who, in 1832, was suffered to visit her – a favor rarely granted to Europeans: “I was introduced into her cabinet by a little negro child. It was so extremely dark, that it was with difficulty I could distinguish her noble, grave, yet mild and majestic features, clad in an Oriental costume. She rose from the divan, advanced, and offered me her hand. She appeared to be about fifty years of age; but she possessed those personal traits which years cannot alter. Freshness, color, and grace, depart with youth; but when beauty resides in the form itself, in purity of expression, in dignity, in majesty, and a thoughtful countenance, whether in man or woman, this beauty may change with the different periods of life, but it does not pass away – it eminently characterized the person of Lady Hester Stanhope.

“She wore a white turban, and on her forehead was a purple-colored woollen fillet, which fell on each side of her head as low as her shoulders. A long, yellow Cashmere shawl, and an immense Turkish robe of white silk, with flowing sleeves, enveloped all her person in simple and majestic folds, while an opening of these folds upon the bosom displayed a tunic of rich Persian stuff, covered with flowers, which was attached round the neck by a clasp of pearls. Turkish yellow morocco boots, embroidered with silk, completed this beautiful Oriental costume, which she wore with that freedom and grace, as if she had never used any other from her youth.”

Though Lady Hester retained her power over the lower classes by means of their superstitious fears, the neighboring chiefs were not to be thus restrained, and some of them sought by robbery to indemnify themselves for the loss of the accustomed presents. Hoping to coerce her into a renewal of them, they harassed her by petty vexations; her camels were seized; her servants were beaten; and at length, when she retaliated, a firman was procured, forbidding any Mussulman, on pain of death, to remain in her service, or to carry water to her house. The severity of the last prohibition may be judged from the fact that the water for the use of her house and garden had to be brought from a river three or four miles distant. Her appeal, however, to the Porte procured the withdrawal of the firman, and saved her gardens from the destruction which a want of irrigation would soon have produced.

In 1837, a new source of vexation to Lady Hester arose. The British government, having received information that some of her English creditors were in a state of destitution, appropriated the pension which Lady Hester had so long received to their relief. This met with a spirited remonstrance on the part of her ladyship, who called to her aid the Duke of Wellington and other opponents of the whig administration. Failing in these efforts, she appealed to the queen herself, but with no better success. She did not long survive this new source of mortification. On hearing of her illness, the British consul at Beyroot, accompanied by Mr. Thomson, an American missionary, hastened to her assistance; but, on their arrival, nothing was left for them to do but to pay the last sad offices to her remains. She died on the 23d of June, 1839.

Various and opposing motives have been assigned for the unusual conduct of Lady Hester: we think, however, its explanation is to be found in an eccentric imagination, a turn for adventure, and that love of power which is inherent in the human breast. We can hardly consider it more extraordinary that one English lady should be found willing to accept a government under the sunny skies of Syria, than that so many English officers should seek for sway on the burning shores of Africa and the East Indies.

HANNAH MORE

Hannah More was the youngest but one of the five daughters of Jacob More, who, after receiving an education for the church, bounded his wishes by the possession of a school at Stapleton, England, upon obtaining which, he married the daughter of a respectable farmer; and to the soundness of her judgment in the culture and regulation of her children, the credit and success which attended them are, in a great degree, to be attributed.

Like other intelligent children, Hannah More displayed at an early age a desire for knowledge and a love of books. To supply the want of the latter, her father was accustomed to relate to his children, from memory, the most striking events of Grecian and Roman history, dwelling much on the parallels and wise sayings of Plutarch. He would also recite to them the speeches of his favorite heroes in the original languages, and then translate them into English. Hannah thus acquired a taste for the Latin classics, an acquaintance with which she carefully cultivated, in defiance of her father’s horror of blue stockingism, which was extreme, and which probably prevented his instructing her in Greek.

The bent of her mind displayed itself at an early age. Every scrap of paper, of which she could possess herself, was scribbled over with essays and poems, having some well-directed moral. Her little sister, with whom she slept, was the depositary of her nightly effusions; and, in her zeal lest they should be lost, she would sometimes steal down to procure a light, and commit them to paper. The greatest wish her imagination could frame, was that she might some day be rich enough to have a whole quire of paper; and, when this wish was gratified, she soon filled it with letters to depraved characters, of her own invention, urging them to abandon their errors, and letters in return, expressive of contrition and resolutions of amendment.

Her elder sisters, having been educated with that view, opened a boarding-school for young ladies at Bristol; and under their care the school education of Hannah was completed. While yet a pupil, she attracted the notice and enjoyed the friendship of many eminent men. She delighted to study the sciences with Ferguson, the astronomer; and such was his opinion of her taste and genius, that he submitted his compositions to her for the correction of errors in style. Of her conversational powers at this period an anecdote is related. A dangerous illness brought her under the care of Dr. Woodward, an eminent physician. On one of his visits, being led into conversation with his patient on literary subjects, he forgot the purpose of his coming; till, recollecting himself when half way down stairs, he cried out, “Bless me! I forgot to ask the girl how she was;” and returned to the room, exclaiming, “How are you to-day, my poor child?”

In her seventeenth year, she appeared before the public as an author. The class of books, now so common, called “Readers,” and “Speakers,” was then unknown. Young persons were in the habit of committing to memory the popular plays of the day, which were not always pure in their sentiments, or moral in their tendency. “To furnish a substitute,” as the youthful moralist tells us in her preface, “for the very improper custom of allowing plays, and those not of the purest kind, to be acted by young ladies in boarding-schools, and to afford them an innocent, and perhaps not altogether unuseful amusement, in the exercise of recitation,” she composed a drama, called the “Search after Happiness.” Her object was to convey instruction in a pleasing form, and the intention was well executed. The plot is of the simplest kind, and one not calculated to kindle the fervors of poetry. Four young ladies betake themselves to the retreat of a virtuous lady, who, with her two daughters, has renounced the world and fixed herself in a secluded spot – to receive from her, as from an oracle, instructions which shall guide them in the way which leads to peace and contentment.

Among the pupils of the Misses More were two Misses Turner, who were in the habit of passing the vacations at the house of a bachelor cousin of the same name. They were permitted to bring some of their young friends with them, and took the two youngest of their governesses, Hannah and Patty More. “The consequence was natural. Hannah was clever and fascinating; Mr. T. was generous and sensible: he became attached, and made his offer, which was accepted. She gave up her interest in the school, and was at much expense in fitting herself out to be the wife of a man of fortune.” The day was fixed more than once for the wedding, and Mr. Turner each time postponed it. Her sisters and friends interfered, and broke off the engagement, and would not suffer her to listen to any of his subsequent proposals. To compensate her, as he said, for the robbery he had committed on her time, and to enable her to devote herself to literary pursuits, Mr. Turner settled upon her an annuity; and at his death, to show that he still retained his esteem, he left her a legacy. The distress and disturbance which this event occasioned her, led to a resolution, on her part, never again to incur a similar hazard – a resolution the strength of which was tested by actual trial.

Among the favorite sports of Hannah’s childhood was the making a carriage of a chair, and playing at riding to London to visit bishops and booksellers – a day-dream which became a reality in 1784. Of the circumstances which led to the journey we have no record. A few days after her arrival in London, she was, by a fortunate accident, brought to the notice of Garrick. A letter written by her to a mutual friend, describing the effect produced upon her mind by his representation of Lear, was shown to him, and excited in him a curiosity to see and converse with her. The desire was gratified; they were reciprocally pleased, and Miss More was soon domesticated with Mr. Garrick and his affectionate wife; and, for the next twenty years, she spent six months of each year under their hospitable roof. Through them she was at once received on terms of cordial kindness into their wide and splendid circle. She was welcomed as a sister spirit by the coterie which she has so elaborately eulogized in the “Bas Bleu.” She has often been heard to describe, very humorously, her raptures on her first introduction to a “live author,” and her sisters long remembered her strong desire to get a sight, from some hiding-place, of Dr. Johnson. She was now to meet him face to face. The first interview was at Sir Joshua Reynolds’s. She had been prepared by Sir Joshua for finding him in one of his sombre moods, but was surprised and delighted at his coming to meet her, as she entered the room, with good-humor on his countenance, and a macaw of Sir Joshua’s on his hand; and still more at his accosting her with a verse from a morning hymn, which she had written at the desire of her early and firm friend, Dr. Stonehouse.

A few extracts from the sprightly letters of a sister who accompanied her, will furnish the best picture of the scenes in which Miss More now bore a part. “Hannah has been introduced to Burke – the Sublime and Beautiful Burke! From a large party of literary persons assembled at Sir Joshua’s she received the most encouraging compliments; and the spirit with which she returned them was acknowledged by all present.” “The most amiable and obliging of women – Miss Reynolds – has taken us to Dr. Johnson’s very own house! Can you picture to yourselves the palpitation of our hearts as we approached his mansion? Miss Reynolds told the doctor of all our rapturous exclamations on the road. He shook his scientific head at Hannah, and said, ‘she was a silly thing.’ When our visit was ended, he called for his hat to attend us down a very long entry to our coach, and not Rasselas could have acquitted himself more en cavalier. I forgot to mention, that, not finding Johnson in his parlor when we came in, Hannah seated herself in a great chair, hoping to catch a little ray of his genius: when he heard of it, he laughed heartily, and told her it was a chair on which he never sat. He said it reminded him of Boswell and himself, when they stopped a night at the spot – as they imagined – where the weird sisters appeared to Macbeth; the idea so worked upon their enthusiasm that it deprived them of rest; however, they learned, the next morning, to their mortification, that they had been deceived, and were quite in another part of the country.”

Johnson was not always, however, in the humor to swallow the flattery which she lavished upon him; Mrs. Thrale records a surly enough rebuke which the doctor administered to her: “Consider, madam, what your flattery is worth before you choke me with it.” As he was complaining, upon another occasion, that he had been obliged to ask Miss Reynolds to give her a hint on the subject, somebody observed that she flattered Garrick also; “Ay,” said the doctor, “and she is right there; first, she has the world with her; and, secondly, Garrick rewards her. I can do nothing for her. Let her carry her praise to a better market.” But in this flattery there was no want of sincerity and no disingenuousness. At the age of thirty-one she had brought to London the fresh, ecstatic enthusiasm of a country girl of seventeen; when, instead of having Johnson pointed out to her as he rolled along the pavement of Fleet Street, and gazing at Garrick from the side boxes, she found herself at once admitted to the inmost circle of the literary magnets – it is not wonderful that her feelings should overflow in language and gesture rather too warm for the acclimated inhabitants of the temperate zone.

The same hyperbolical style is to be found in the letters intended only for the eyes of her sisters. “Mrs. Montagu is not only the finest genius, but the finest lady, I ever saw; she lives in the highest style of magnificence; her apartments and tables are in the most splendid taste; but what baubles are these when speaking of a Montagu! Her form – for she has no body – is delicate to fragility; her countenance the most animated in the world; she has the sprightly vivacity of sixteen, with the judgment and experience of a Nestor. Mrs. Carter has in her person a great deal of what the gentlemen mean when they speak of a ‘poetical lady:’ independently of her great talents and learning, I like her much: she has affability, kindness, and goodness; and I honor her heart more than her talents; but I do not like one of them better than Mrs. Boscawen; she is at once learned, polite, judicious, and humble.” At a party at which all these and other luminaries were collected, Dr. Johnson asked Miss More her opinion of the new tragedy of “Braganza.” “I was afraid,” says she, “to speak before them all, as I knew there was a diversity of opinion: however, as I thought it a less evil to dissent from a fellow-creature than to tell a falsity, I ventured to give my sentiments, and was satisfied with Johnson’s answering, ‘You are right, madam.’”

Stimulated by the approbation of such judges, Miss More turned to literature with redoubled energy; and from this period, the important part of her personal history may be read in that of a succession of works, all in their season popular; all commendable for moral tone; considerably above mediocrity in literary execution; and some of them worthy to survive their age.

After her return home, she one day laughingly said to her sisters, “I have been so fed with praise, that I think I will try what is my real value, by writing a slight poem, and offering it to Cadell.” Accordingly she wrote and sent him “Sir Eldred of the Bower,” a ballad in the style which Dr. Percy had rendered popular. Cadell offered her a price far exceeding her idea of its worth; adding that, if she would ascertain what Goldsmith received for the “Deserted Village,” he would make it up to the same sum. With the public the poem met with a success which its merits by no means justify. At a tea-visit in her own lodgings, where she had Johnson all to herself, – and as she tells us he ought always to be had, for he did not care to speak in mixed companies, – the new poem was discussed. The leviathan of letters, instead of expressing his contempt for compositions of this class, and treating her to a new stanza, – like

“I put my hat upon my head,And walked into the Strand,And there I met another manWith his hat in his hand,” —

indited the following, which she proudly engrafted on the original in the second edition, no doubt receiving the compliment as paid to the author, rather than to the heroine: —

“My scorn has oft the dart repelledWhich guileful beauty threw;But goodness heard, and grace beheld,Must every heart subdue.”

In her early life, Miss More was subject to frequent attacks of illness, which she was wont to say were a great blessing to her, for they induced a habit of industry not natural to her, and taught her to make the most of her well days. She laughingly added, it had taught her to contrive employment for her sick ones; that from habit she had learned to suit her occupations to every gradation of the capacity she possessed. “I never,” said she, “afford a moment of a healthy day to cross a t or dot an i; so that I find the lowest stage of my understanding may be turned to some account, and save better days for better things. I have learned also to avoid procrastination, and that idleness which often attends unbroken health.” These habits of order and industry gave her much time for intellectual pursuits, even amidst the dissipations of the city.

At her first introduction to its brilliant society, Patty More seemed to have some apprehensions that her sister “Hannah’s head might not stand proof against all the adulation and kindness of the great folks.” But these effected no change in her deportment; her simplicity remained unsullied; home and the society of her sisters had lost for her none of its charms. Her good sense and firmness of character were subjected to a yet more severe trial upon the production of the tragedy of “Percy.” Nothing could exceed the zeal which Garrick displayed to insure its success. Miss More thus speaks of it in a letter to her sister: “It is impossible to tell you of all the kindness of the Garricks; he thinks of nothing, talks of nothing, writes of nothing, but ‘Percy.’ When he had finished his prologue and epilogue, he desired I would pay him. Dryden, he said, used to have five guineas apiece, but, as he was a richer man, he would be content if I would treat him with a handsome supper and a bottle of claret. We haggled sadly about the price; I insisting that I could only afford to give him a beef-steak and a pot of porter; and at about twelve, we sat down to some toast and honey, with which the temperate bard contented himself.” She adds in the same letter, “What dreadful news from America! – Burgoyne’s surrender. – We are a disgraced, undone nation. What a sad time to bring out a play in! when, if the country had the least spark of virtue remaining, not a creature would think of going to it.”

The success of “Percy” was prodigious; greater than that of any tragedy for years. She received for it about six hundred pounds, which, she tells us, “her friend Mr. Garrick invested for her on the best security, and at five per cent., and so it made a decent little addition to her small income.” Cadell paid one hundred and fifty pounds for the copy-right, and it proved a very successful speculation. The first edition, of four thousand copies, – a very large one for those days, – was sold off in a fortnight.

Though the patronage of Garrick and the popularity of the author contributed in no small degree to its success, yet the tragedy itself possesses intrinsic merits. The plot is simple. Bertha, the daughter of Lord Raby, is betrothed, in early youth, to Earl Percy. His family incur the displeasure of Lord Raby, and, during the young earl’s absence in the Holy Land, he compels his daughter to marry Earl Douglas, the hereditary enemy of the Percys. The proud spirit of Douglas is chafed to find that his own ardent love is met only with cold and respectful obedience. He suspects the preëngagement of her affections, and his jealousy rouses him to fury, when Percy is found in the neighborhood of his castle. In the catastrophe, all the principal personages are involved in a common destruction. In the development of the plot the author displays considerable imagination, and much dramatic skill. The interest is well sustained; the didactic spirit sometimes breaks forth, as in the conclusion of the following extract, in which Lord Raby laments the sombre and melancholy spirit with which the jealousy of Douglas has infected his whole household: —