Lives of Celebrated Women

“ – Am I in Raby castle?Impossible! That was the seat of smiles;There cheerfulness and joy were household gods.But now suspicion and distrust preside,And discontent maintains a sullen sway.Where is the smile unfeigned, the jovial welcome,Which cheered the sad, beguiled the pilgrim’s pain,And made dependency forget its bonds?Where is the ancient, hospitable hall,Whose vaulted roof once rung with harmless mirth;Where every passing stranger was a guest,And every guest a friend? I fear me much,If once our nobles scorn their rural seats,Their rural greatness, and their vassals’ love,Freedom and English grandeur are no more.”

The following passage, in which Bertha seeks to exculpate herself for the breach of faith with which Percy, whom she meets by accident after his return, charges her, is full of pathos: —

“I could withstand his fury; but his tears —Ah, they undid me! Percy, dost thou knowThe cruel tyranny of tenderness?Hast thou e’er felt a father’s warm embrace?Hast thou e’er seen a father’s flowing tears,And known that thou couldst wipe those tears away?If thou hast felt, and hast resisted these,Then thou may’st curse my weakness; but if not,Thou canst not pity, for thou canst not judge.”

Encouraged by the success of “Percy,” and urged by Garrick, Miss More composed a second tragedy, called the “Fatal Falsehood.” The whole was completed, and four acts had been revised by Garrick, when death deprived her of that warm and disinterested friend. Miss More pays the following tribute to his memory: “I never can cease to remember with affection and gratitude so warm, steady, and disinterested a friend; I can most truly bear this testimony to his memory, that I never witnessed, in any family, more decorum, propriety, and regularity, than in his; where I never saw a card, or ever met – except in one instance – a person of his own profession at his table. All his pursuits and tastes were so decidedly intellectual, that it made the society and the conversation which was always to be found in his circle, interesting and delightful.”

The success of the “Fatal Falsehood” was great, but not equal to that of “Percy.” We must content ourselves with making one extract, in which she characterizes “Honor,” as it is technically called: —

“Honor! O yes, I know him. ’Tis a phantom,A shadowy figure, wanting bulk and life,Who, having nothing solid in himself,Wraps his thin form in Virtue’s plundered robe,And steals her title. Honor! ’tis the fiendWho feeds on orphans’ tears and widows’ groans,And slakes his impious thirst in brothers’ blood.Honor! why, ’tis the primal law of hell!The grand device to people the dark realmsWith noble spirits, who, but for this cursed honor,Had been at peace on earth, or blessed in heaven.With this false honor Christians have no commerce;Religion disavows, and truth disowns it.”

One more tragedy, the “Inflexible Captive,” completes Miss More’s labors in this department of literature. She arrived at the conclusion that, by contributing plays, however pure, to the existing stage, she should be using her powers to heighten its general attraction as a place of amusement; and, considering the English theatre as, on the whole, the most profligate in the world, she resolved to abjure it and all its concerns forever – an instance of self-love sacrificed to principle hardly to be paralleled. When her works were collected, the tragedies were allowed to take their place, in order, as the author tells us in a preface written in her happiest manner, that she might ground on such publication her sentiments upon the general tendency of the drama, and, by including in her view her own compositions, might involve herself in the general object of her own animadversions.

She makes no apology for the republication of her “Sacred Dramas,” though they may, perhaps, be regarded as falling within the range of some of her criticisms on the old Mysteries and Moralities – pieces “in which events too solemn for exhibition, and subjects too awful for detail, are brought before the audience with a formal gravity more offensive than levity itself.”

As a general poet, Miss More was, at this period, the very height of the fashion. Horace Walpole thought himself honored in being permitted to print some of her pieces in the most lavish style of expense, at the press of Strawberry Hill. But fashions in literature are scarcely more lasting than those in dress. Her poems are now immersed in Lethe, except a few terse couplets, which have floated down to the present generation on the stream of oral citation, and are now often in the mouths of people who fancy that they belong to Swift or Gay. Many of her poems are, however, worthy of a better fate. They are distinguished by purity and elevation of sentiment, ease and strength of diction, and harmony of versification. In the last particular she received great praise from Johnson, who pronounced her to be “the best versificatrix in the English language.”

We will give a few extracts. The first is from “Sensibility,” a poem in which she claims for that quality the place which Mrs. Grenville, in a then well-known ode, arrogated for “Indifference.”

“Sweet sensibility! thou keen delight!Unprompted moral! sudden sense of right!Perception exquisite! fair virtue’s seed!Thou quick precursor of the liberal deed!Thou hasty conscience! reason’s blushing morn!Instinctive kindness e’er reflection’s born!Prompt sense of equity! to thee belongsThe swift redress of unexamined wrongs;Eager to serve, the cause perhaps untried,But always apt to choose the suffering side;To those who know thee not no words can paint,And those who know thee know all words are faint.She does not feel thy power who boasts thy flame,And rounds her every period with thy name.As words are but th’ external marks to tellThe fair ideas in the mind that dwell,And only are of things the outward sign,And not the things themselves they but define,So exclamations, tender tones, fond tears,And all the graceful drapery feeling wears, —These are her garb, not her; they but expressHer form, her semblance, her appropriate dress;And these fair marks, – reluctant I relate, —These lovely symbols, may be counterfeit.There are who fill with brilliant plaints the page,If a poor linnet meet the gunner’s rage;There are who for a dying fawn deplore,As if friend, parent, country, were no more;Who boast, quick rapture trembling in their eye,If from a spider’s snare they snatch a fly;There are whose well-sung plaints each breast inflame,And break all hearts – but his from whence they came.”

The “Bas Bleu” is a sprightly portraiture of what she considered to be the right constitution and character of social conversation. It is a vivacious image of that circle of gay and graceful conversers from whose appellation it takes its name. It was first circulated in manuscript, and we find Miss More apologizing to her sister for the shortness of a letter, on the ground that she had not a moment to spare, as she was copying the “Bas Bleu,” for the king, at his request. Dr. Johnson pronounced it to be “a very great performance.” To the author herself he expressed himself in yet stronger terms. She writes to her sister, “As to the ‘Bas Bleu,’ all the flattery I ever received from every body together would not make up his sum. He said – but I seriously insist you do not tell any body, for I am ashamed of writing it even to you – he said, ‘there was no name in poetry that might not be glad to own it.’ You cannot imagine how I stared; all this from Johnson, that parsimonious praiser! I told him I was delighted at his approbation; he answered quite characteristically, ‘And so you may, for I give you the opinion of a man who does not rate his judgment in these things very low, I can tell you.’” The following extract will give some idea of its merits: —

“What lively pleasure to divineThe thought implied, the printed line!To feel allusion’s artful force,And trace the image to its source!Quick Memory blends her scattered rays,Till Fancy kindles at the blaze;The works of ages start to view,And ancient wit elicits new.But wit and parts if thus we praise,What nobler altars shall we raise?Those sacrifices could we seeWhich wit, O virtue! makes to thee,At once the rising thought to dash,To quench at once the bursting flash!The shining mischief to subdue,And lose the praise and pleasure too!Though Venus’ self could you detect herImbuing with her richest nectarThe thought unchaste, to check that thought,To spurn a fame so dearly bought, —This is high principle’s control,This is true continence of soul.Blush, heroes, at your cheap renown,A vanquished realm, a plundered townYour conquests were to gain a name —This conquest triumphs over fame.”

“Florio” is a metrical tale of a young man of good principles and right feelings, who, from deference to fashion, has indulged in vanities and follies bordering on depravity, which he lays aside in disgust when virtue and good sense, in alliance with female loveliness, have made apparent to him the absurdity and danger of his aberrations. In the following extract the reader will recognize some of the oft-quoted couplets of which we have spoken: —

“Exhausted Florio, at the ageWhen youth should rush on glory’s stage,When life should open fresh and new,And ardent Hope her schemes pursue,Of youthful gayety bereft,Had scarce an unbroached pleasure left;He found already, to his cost,The shining gloss of life was lost,And Pleasure was so coy a prude,She fled the more, the more pursued;Or, if o’ertaken and caressed,He loathed and left her when possessed.But Florio knew the world; that scienceSets sense and learning at defiance;He thought the world to him was known,Whereas he only knew the town.In men this blunder still you find:All think their little set – mankind.Though high renown the youth had gained,No flagrant crimes his life had stained;Though known among a certain set,He did not like to be in debt;He shuddered at the dicer’s box,Nor thought it very heterodoxThat tradesmen should be sometimes paid,And bargains kept as well as made.His growing credit, as a sinner,Was, that he liked to spoil a dinner,Made pleasure and made business wait,And still by system came too late;Yet ’twas a hopeful indicationOn which to found a reputation:Small habits, well pursued, betimesMay reach the dignity of crimes;And who a juster claim preferredThan one who always broke his word?”

The death of Garrick may be considered an era in the life of Miss More. His wit, his gayety, his intelligence, added to his admiration of her genius, and the warmth of his friendship for her, formed the strongest spell that held her in subjection to the fascinations of brilliant society and town life. The early feeling which prompted the infant wish for “a cottage too low for a clock” was still fresh in her bosom. The country, with its green pastures and still waters, still retained its charms for her. “I have naturally,” she writes, “but a small appetite for grandeur, which is always satisfied, even to indigestion, before I leave town; and I require a long abstinence to get any relish for it again.” After the death of her friend, she carried into execution the resolution she had long cherished, of passing a portion of her time in retirement in the country. With this view, she possessed herself of a little secluded spot, which had acquired the name of “Cowslip Green,” near Bristol.

Still, however, her sensibility to kindness would not let her withhold herself entirely from her London friends; her annual visits to Mrs. Garrick brought her back into contact with the world and its crowded resorts.

From her earliest acquaintance with society, she had seen with sorrow the levity of manners, the indifference to religion, and the total disregard of the Sabbath, which prevailed in its higher circles. Not content with holding herself uncontaminated, she felt it to be her duty to make an effort for a reformation, and with this end she published “Thoughts on the Importance of the Manners of the Great to General Society.” To appreciate the value of the effort, we must remember that these “Thoughts” were not the animadversions of a recluse, but of one who was flattered, admired, and courted, by the very people whom she was about to reprove; that the step might probably exclude her from those circles in which she had hitherto been so caressed. But the happiness of her friends was dearer to her than their favor. That the probable consequences did not ensue, does not diminish her merit. This work and the one which speedily followed it, “An Essay on the Religion of the Fashionable World,” were popular beyond hope, and the wish of Bishop Porteus, “that it might be placed in the hands of every person of condition,” was almost realized. It is unnecessary to dwell on these works; they are too well known; they established her reputation as a great moral writer, possessing a masterly command of language, and devoting a keen wit and a lively fancy to the best and noblest of purposes. – After giving one extract from the most vigorous of her poems, “Slavery,” written to aid the efforts which Clarkson and Wilberforce were making in behalf of the African slave, and in which she heartily sympathized, we will pass on to new scenes, in which Miss More’s benevolent spirit exhibits itself in a yet more active manner.

“O thou sad spirit, whose preposterous yokeThe great deliverer, death, at length has broke!Released from misery, and escaped from care,Go, meet that mercy man denies thee here.And if some notions, vague and undefined,Of future terrors, have assailed thy mind;If such thy masters have presumed to teach —As terrors only they are prone to preach;For, should they paint eternal mercy’s reign,Where were the oppressor’s rod, the captive’s chain? —If, then, thy troubled soul has learned to dreadThe dark unknown thy trembling footsteps tread,On Him who made thee what thou art depend;He who withholds the means accepts the end.Thy mental night thy Savior will not blame;He died for those who never heard his name.Nor thine the reckoning dire of light abused,Knowledge disgraced, and liberty misused:On thee no awful judge incensed shall sit,For parts perverted or dishonored wit.When ignorance will be found the safest plea,How many learned and wise shall envy thee!”

In withdrawing herself from general society, Miss More had cherished the hope of devoting herself to meditation and literary leisure. But there was no rest for her but in the consciousness of being useful. In the course of her rambles in the neighborhood of her residence, she was shocked to find the same vices, against which she had lifted up her voice in high places, existing in the peasant’s cottage, in a different form, but heightened by ignorance, both mental and spiritual. Though in a feeble state of health, she could not withhold herself from the attempt to effect a reformation.

In this she had no coadjutors but her sisters, who, having acquired a competency, had retired from school-keeping, and had, with her, a common home. Provision was made by law for the support of clergymen; but the vicar of Cheddar received his fifty pounds a year, and resided at Oxford; and the rector of Axbridge “was intoxicated about six times a week, and was very frequently prevented from preaching by two black eyes, honestly acquired by fighting.”

She commenced operations by seeking to establish a school at Cheddar. Some of the obstacles she encountered may be best related in her own words. “I was told we should meet with great opposition, if I did not try to propitiate the chief despot of the village, who is very rich and very brutal; so I ventured to the den of this monster, in a country as savage as himself. He begged I would not think of bringing any religion into the country; it made the poor lazy and useless. In vain I represented to him that they would be more industrious, as they were better principled; and that I had no selfish views in what I was doing. He gave me to understand that he knew the world too well to believe either the one or the other. I was almost discouraged from more visits; but I found that friends must be secured at all events; for, if these rich savages set their faces against us, I saw that nothing but hostilities would ensue: so I made eleven more of these agreeable visits; and, as I improved in the art of canvassing, had better success. Miss W. would have been shocked, had she seen the petty tyrants whose insolence I stroked and tamed, the ugly children I praised, the pointers and spaniels I caressed, the cider I commended, and the wine I swallowed. After these irresistible flatteries, I inquired of each if he could recommend me to a house, and said that I had a little plan which I hoped would secure their orchards from being robbed, their rabbits from being shot, their game from being stolen, and which might lower the poor rates. If effect be the best proof of eloquence, then mine was good speech, for I gained in time the hearty concurrence of the whole people, and their promise to discourage or favor the poor as they were attentive or negligent in sending their children. Perhaps the hearts of some of these rich brutes may be touched; they are as ignorant as the beasts that perish, intoxicated every day before dinner, and plunged in such vices as make me begin to think London a virtuous place.” The vicarage house, which had not been occupied for a hundred years, was hired for a school-house; “the vicar,” she says, “who lives a long way off, is repairing the house for me; and, as he is but ninety-four years old, he insists on my taking a lease, and is as rigorous about the rent as if I were taking it for an assembly-room.”

The prejudices of the poor were more difficult to be overcome than those of the rich. Some thought that her design was to make money, by sending of their children for slaves; others, that, if she instructed them for seven years, she would acquire such a control as to be able to send them beyond seas. But she persisted, and her success was great beyond expectation. In a short time, she had at Cheddar near three hundred children, under the charge of a discreet matron, whom she hired for the purpose.

Encouraged by this success, she extended her field of operations, and established schools at several other villages. The nearest of these was six miles from her home; the labor and fatigue of superintending the whole was therefore very great. But she declined an assistant for reasons stated in a letter to Mr. Wilberforce, who had offered to seek for one. “An ordinary person would be of no use; one of a superior cast, who might be able to enter into my views, and further them, would occasion an expense equal to the support of one or two more schools. It will be time enough to think of your scheme when I am quite laid by. This hot weather makes me suffer terribly; yet I have now and then a good day, and on Sunday was enabled to open the school. It was an affecting sight. Several of the grown-up lads had been tried at the last assizes; three were children of a person lately condemned to be hanged; many thieves; all ignorant, profane, and vicious, beyond belief. Of this banditti I have enlisted one hundred and seventy; and when the clergyman, a hard man, who is also a magistrate, saw these creatures kneeling round us, whom he had seldom seen but to commit or to punish in some way, he burst into tears.”

Her plan was not limited to intellectual and spiritual instruction. The children were taught to sew, to spin, and to knit. Nor were her labors confined to the advancement of the well-being of the young; she sought to introduce branches of manufacture, suitable to the strength and sex of the women, and she arranged with master manufacturers to buy the products of their labor. She sought to establish habits of economy by getting up associations, in which each contributed a portion of her earnings, on condition of receiving a support in case she should be disabled from labor. This was a work of difficulty. Though the subscription was only three half-pence per week, yet many could not raise even this: such were privately assisted. Other inducements, besides considerations of providence, must be held out to the improvident. “An anniversary feast of tea was held, at which some of the clergy and better sort of people were present. The patronesses waited on the women, who sat and enjoyed their dignity. The journal and state of affairs was read. A collateral advantage resulted from this. The women, who used to plead that they could not go to church because they had no clothes, now went. The necessity of going to church in procession on the anniversary, raised an honest ambition to get something decent to wear, and the churches on Sunday were filled with very clean-looking women.”

Similar machinery was brought into exercise to advance the cause of her schools. Two years after the first attempt, we find this apology for not sooner writing to a friend: “I have been too busy in preparing for a grand celebration, distinguished by the pompous name of Mendip Feast; the range of hills you remember in this country, on the top of which we yesterday gave a dinner of beef, and plum pudding, and cider, to our schools. There were not six hundred children, for I would not admit the new schools, telling them they must be good for a year or two, to be entitled to so great a thing as a dinner. Curiosity had drawn a great multitude, for a country so thinly peopled; one wondered whence five thousand people – for that was the calculation – could come. We all parted with the most perfect peace, having fed about nine hundred people for less than a fine dinner for twenty, costs.”

It would require a large volume to speak of all Miss More’s labors in behalf of erring and suffering humanity. At one time, we find her engaged, in the most harassing and embarrassing situations, spending days and nights with armed Bow Street officers in searching the vilest haunts for a young heiress, who had been trepanned away from school at the age of fourteen. The details of another of her attempts to alleviate suffering, exhibit so strikingly the genuine liberality of her heart and conduct, as to be worth relating. She was one day informed that a woman, who called every day for stuff to feed a pig, was, with her husband and children, perishing with hunger. She lost no time in endeavoring to rescue this miserable family, and soon discovered that the woman was possessed of more than ordinary talent. She produced several scraps of poetry, which evinced much genius. It occurred to Miss More that this talent might be made the means of exciting a general interest in her behalf, and raising a fund to set her up in some creditable way of earning a subsistence. She accordingly took a great deal of pains in instructing her in writing, spelling, and composition; and, while the object of her charity was preparing, under her inspection, a small collection of poems, she was employed in writing to all her friends of rank and fortune, bespeaking subscriptions. Mrs. Montagu cautioned her not to let her own generous nature deceive her as to the character and temper of her beneficiary. “It has sometimes happened to me,” she writes, “that, by an endeavor to encourage talents and cherish virtue, by driving from them the terrifying spectre of pale poverty, I have introduced a legion of little demons: vanity, luxury, idleness, and pride, have entered the cottage the moment poverty vanished. However, I am sure despair is never a good counsellor.”

For thirteen months, Miss More’s time was largely occupied in the woman’s service, and the result of her efforts was the realization of a sum exceeding three thousand dollars, which was invested for the woman’s benefit under the trusteeship of Mrs. Montagu and Miss More. The result is made known in a letter from the latter to the former. “I am come to the postscript, without having found courage to tell you, what I am sure you will hear with pain; at least it gives me infinite pain to write it. I mean the open and notorious ingratitude of our milk-woman. There is hardly a species of slander the poor, unhappy creature does not propagate against me, because I have called her a milk-woman, and because I have placed the money in the funds, instead of letting her spend it. I confess my weakness; it goes to my heart, not for my own sake, but for the sake of our common nature. So much for my inward feelings; as to my active resentment, I am trying to get a place for her husband, and am endeavoring to increase the sum I have raised for her. Do not let this harden your heart or mine against any future object. ‘Do good for its own sake’ is a beautiful maxim.” The milk-woman presently put her slanders into a printed shape; and Mrs. Montagu, on reading the libel, found one thing Miss More’s letter had not prepared her for. Here is her comment: “Mrs. Yeardsley’s conceit that you can envy her talents gives me comfort, for, as it convinces me she is mad, I build upon it a hope that she is not guilty in the All-seeing Eye.” The last allusion which Miss More herself makes to the behavior of “Lactilla” is on the occasion of a second publication of hers, in which the generous patroness was again, after a lapse of two years, maligned and insulted with a cool bitterness that may well be called diabolical, and is in these words, addressing Horace Walpole: “Do, dear sir, join me in sincere compassion, without one atom of resentment. If I wanted to punish an enemy, it should be by fastening on him the trouble of constantly hating somebody.” Mrs. Montagu and Miss More resisted with exemplary patience the woman’s violent importunities to be put in possession of the principal, as well as interest, of her little fortune, fearing that it would be consumed in those vices to which it was apparent she was addicted. At length, they gave over the trust to a respectable lawyer, who transferred it to a merchant of Bristol; and he was soon harassed into the relinquishment of the whole concern.