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diff --git a/35416.txt b/35416.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..8d267a4 --- /dev/null +++ b/35416.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7753 @@ +Project Gutenberg's The Romance of Biography (Vol 2 of 2), by Anna Jameson + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Romance of Biography (Vol 2 of 2) + or Memoirs of Women Loved and Celebrated by Poets, from + the Days of the Troubadours to the Present Age. 3rd ed. + 2 Vols. + +Author: Anna Jameson + +Release Date: February 27, 2011 [EBook #35416] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ROMANCE OF BIOGRAPHY (VOL 2 OF 2) *** + + + + +Produced by Julia Miller, Josephine Paolucci and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net. (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) + + + + + + + + +THE LOVES OF THE POETS. + +VOL. II. + + +LONDON: +PRINTED BY S. AND R. BENTLEY, +Dorset Street, Fleet Street. + + +THE ROMANCE OF BIOGRAPHY; + +OR + +MEMOIRS OF WOMEN + +LOVED AND CELEBRATED BY POETS, + +FROM + +THE DAYS OF THE TROUBADOURS TO THE PRESENT AGE; + +A SERIES OF ANECDOTES INTENDED TO ILLUSTRATE THE INFLUENCE WHICH FEMALE +BEAUTY AND VIRTUE HAVE EXERCISED OVER THE CHARACTERS AND WRITINGS OF MEN +OF GENIUS. + + +BY MRS. JAMESON, + +_Authoress of the Diary of an Ennuyee; Lives of Celebrated +Female Sovereigns; Female Characters of Shakespeare's Plays; Beauties of +the Court of Charles the Second._ + + +THIRD EDITION, +IN TWO VOLUMES. +VOL. II. + + +LONDON: +SAUNDERS AND OTLEY. +MDCCCXXXVII. + + + + +CONTENTS + +OF THE SECOND VOLUME. + + + Page + +CHAPTER I. +CAREW'S CELIA.--LUCY SACHEVEREL 1 + +CHAPTER II. +WALLER'S SACHARISSA 15 + +CHAPTER III. +BEAUTIES AND POETS IN THE REIGN OF CHARLES I. 33 + +CHAPTER IV. +CONJUGAL POETRY. +OVID AND PERILLA--SENECA'S PAULINA--SULPICIA--CLOTILDE DE SURVILLE 43 + +CHAPTER V. +CONJUGAL POETRY (continued.) +VITTORIA COLONNA 60 + +CHAPTER VI. +CONJUGAL POETRY (continued.) +VERONICA GAMBARA--CAMILLA VALENTINI--PORTIA ROTA--CASTIGLIONE 81 + +CHAPTER VII. +CONJUGAL POETRY (continued.) +DOCTOR DONNE AND HIS WIFE--HABINGTON'S CASTARA 94 + +CHAPTER VIII. +CONJUGAL POETRY (continued.) +THE TWO ZAPPI 131 + +CHAPTER IX. +CONJUGAL POETRY (continued.) +LORD LYTTELTON--PRINCE FREDERICK--DOCTOR PARNELL 139 + +CHAPTER X. +CONJUGAL POETRY (continued.) +KLOPSTOCK AND META 154 + +CHAPTER XI. +CONJUGAL POETRY (continued.) +BONNIE JEAN--HIGHLAND MARY--LOVES OF BURNS 182 + +CHAPTER XII. + +CONJUGAL POETRY (continued.) +MONTI AND HIS WIFE 209 + +CHAPTER XIII. +POETS AND BEAUTIES FROM CHARLES II. TO QUEEN ANNE. + +COWLEY'S ELEONORA--MARIA D'ESTE--ANNE +KILLEGREW--LADY HYDE--GRANVILLE'S MIRA--PRIOR'S +CHLOE--DUCHESS OF QUEENSBURY 218 + +CHAPTER XIV. +SWIFT, STELLA AND VANESSA 240 + +CHAPTER XV. +POPE AND MARTHA BLOUNT 274 + +CHAPTER XVI. +POPE AND LADY M. W. MONTAGU 287 + +CHAPTER XVII. +POETICAL OLD BACHELORS. +GRAY--COLLINS--GOLDSMITH--SHENSTONE--THOMSON--HAMMOND 308 + +CHAPTER XVIII. +FRENCH POETS. +VOLTAIRE AND MADAME DU CHATELET--MADAME DE GOUVERNE 317 + +CHAPTER XIX. +FRENCH POETS (continued.) +MADAME D'HOUDETOT 333 + +CONCLUSION. +HEROINES OF MODERN POETRY 342 + + + + +THE LOVES OF THE POETS. + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +CAREW'S CELIA.--LUCY SACHEVEREL. + + +From the reign of Charles the First may be dated that revolution in the +spirit and form of our lyric poetry, which led to its subsequent +degradation. The first Italian school of poetry, to which we owed our +Surreys, our Spensers, and our Miltons, had now declined. The high +contemplative tone of passion, the magnanimous and chivalrous homage +paid to women, gradually gave way before the French taste and French +gallantry, introduced, or at least encouraged and rendered fashionable, +by Henrietta Maria and her gay household. The muse of amatory poetry (I +presume there _is_ such a Muse, though I know not to which of the Nine +the title properly applies,) no longer walked the earth star-crowned and +vestal-robed, "col dir pien d'intelletti, dolci ed alti,"--"with love +upon her lips, and looks commercing with the skies;"--she suited her +garb to the fashion of the times, and tripped along in guise of an +Arcadian princess, half regal, half pastoral, trailing a sheep-hook +crowned with flowers, and sparkling with foreign ornaments, + + Pale glistering pearls and rainbow-coloured gems. + +Then in the "brisk and giddy paced times" of Charles the Second, she +flaunted an airy coquette, or an unblushing courtezan, ("unveiled her +eyes--unclasped her zone;") and when these sinful doings were banished, +she took the hue of the new morals--new fashions--new manners,--and we +find her a court prude, swimming in a hoop and red-heeled shoes, +"conscious of the rich brocade," and ogling behind her fan; or else in +the opposite extreme, like a _bergere_ in a French ballet, stuck over +with sentimental common-places and artificial flowers. + +This, in general terms, was the progress of the lyric muse, from the +poets of Queen Elizabeth's days down to the wits of Queen Anne's. Of +course, there are modifications and exceptions, which will suggest +themselves to the poetical reader; but it does not enter into the plan +of this sketch to treat matters thus critically and profoundly. To +return then to the days of Charles the First. + +It must be confessed that the union of Italian sentiment and imagination +with French vivacity and gallantry, was, in the commencement, +exceedingly graceful, before all poetry was lost in wit, and gallantry +sunk into licentiousness. + +Carew, one of the first who distinguished himself in this style, has +been most unaccountably eclipsed by the reputation of Waller, and +deserved better than to have had his name hitched into line between +Sprat and Sedley; + + Sprat, Carew, Sedley, and a hundred more.[1] + +As an amatory poet, he is far superior to Waller: he had equal +smoothness and fancy, and much more variety, tenderness, and +earnestness; if his love was less ambitiously, and even less honourably +placed, it was, at least, more deep seated, and far more fervent. The +real name of the lady he has celebrated under the poetical appellation +of Celia, is not known--it is only certain that she was no "fabled +fair,"--and that his love was repaid with falsehood. + + Hard fate! to have been once possessed + As victor of a heart, + Achieved with labour and unrest, + And then forced to depart! + +From the irregular habits of Carew, it is possible he might have set the +example of inconstancy; and yet this is but a poor excuse for _her_. + +Carew spent his life in the Court of Charles the First, who admired and +loved him for his wit and amiable manners, though he reproved his +_libertinage_. In the midst of that dissipation, which has polluted some +of his poems, he was full of high poetic feeling, and a truly generous +lover: for even while he wooes his fair one in the most soul-moving +terms of flowery adulation and tender entreaty, he puts her on her guard +against his own arts, and thus sweetly pleads against himself; + + Rather let the lover pine, + Than his pale cheek should assign + A perpetual blush to thine! + +And his admiration of female chastity is elsewhere frequently, as well +as forcibly, expressed.--With all his elegance and tenderness, Carew is +never feeble; and in his laments there is nothing whining or unmanly. +After lavishing at the feet of his mistress the most passionate +devotion, and the most exquisite flattery, hear him rebuke her pride +with all the spirit of an offended poet! + + Know, Celia! since thou art so proud, + 'Twas I that gave thee thy renown; + Thou hadst in the forgotten crowd + Of common beauties, lived unknown, + Had not my verse exhaled thy name, + And with it impt the wings of fame. + + That killing power is none of thine, + I gave it to thy voice and eyes, + Thy sweets, thy graces, all are mine. + Thou art my star--shin'st in my skies; + Then dart not from thy borrowed sphere + Light'ning on him, who fixed thee there. + +The identity of his Celia is now lost in a name,--and she deserves it: +perhaps had she appreciated the love she inspired, and been true to that +she professed, she might have won her elegant lover back to virtue, and +wreathed her fame with his for ever. Disappointed in the object of his +idolatry, Carew plunged madly into pleasure, and thus hastened his end. +He died, as Clarendon tells us, with "deep remorse for his past +excesses, and every manifestation of Christianity his best friends could +desire." + +Besides his Celia, Carew has celebrated several other ladies of the +Court, and particularly Lady Mary Villars; the Countess of Anglesea; +Lady Carlisle, the theme of all the poets of her age, and her lovely +daughter, Lady Anne Hay, on whom he wrote an elegy, which begins with +some lines never surpassed in harmony and tenderness. + + I heard the virgin's sigh! I saw the sleek + And polish'd courtier channel his fresh cheek + With real tears; the new betrothed maid + Smil'd not that day; the graver senate laid + Their business by; of all the courtly throng + Grief seal'd the heart, and silence bound the tongue! + + ....*....*....*....* + + We will not bathe thy corpse with a forc'd tear, + Nor shall thy train borrow the blacks they wear; + Such vulgar spice and gums embalm not thee, + That art the theme of Truth, not Poetry. + +Here Carew has fallen into the vulgar error, that _poetry_ and _fiction_ +are synonymous. + +Lady Anne Wentworth,[2] daughter of the first Earl of Cleveland, who, +after making terrible havoc in the heart of the Lord Chief Justice +Finch, married Lord Lovelace, is another of Carew's fair heroines. For +her marriage he wrote the epithalamium, + + Break not the slumbers of the bride, &c. + +As Carew is not a _popular_ poet, nor often found in a lady's library, I +add a few extracts of peculiar beauty. + + +TO CELIA. + + Ask me no more where Jove bestows, + When June is past, the fading rose; + For in your beauties orient dee + Those flowers as in their causes sleep. + + Ask me no more, whither do stray + The golden atoms of the day; + For in pure love, Heaven did prepare + Those powders to enrich your hair. + + Ask me no more, whither doth haste + The nightingale, when May is past; + For in your sweet dividing throat + She winters, and keeps warm her note. + + Ask me no more, where those stars light + That downwards fall in dead of night; + For in your eyes they sit--and there + Fix'd become, as in their sphere. + + Ask me no more, if east or west, + The phoenix builds her spicy nest; + For unto you at last she flies, + And in your fragrant bosom dies. + + ....*....*....*....* + + Ladies, fly from Love's smooth tale, + Oaths steep'd in tears do oft prevail; + Grief is infectious, and the air, + Inflam'd with sighs, will blast the fair: + Then stop your ears when lovers cry, + Lest yourself weep, when no soft eye + Shall with a sorrowing tear repay + That pity which you cast away. + + ....*....*....*....* + + And when thou breath'st, the winds are ready straight + To filch it from thee; and do therefore wait + Close at thy lips, and snatching it from thence, + Bear it to heaven, where 'tis Jove's frankincense. + Fair goddess, since thy feature makes thee one, + Yet be not such for these respects alone; + But as you are divine in outward view, + So be within as fair, as good, as true. + + ....*....*....*....* + + Hark! how the bashful morn in vain + Courts the amorous marigold + With sighing blasts and weeping vain; + Yet she refuses to unfold. + But when the planet of the day + Approacheth with his powerful ray, + Then she spreads, then she receives, + His warmer beams into her virgin leaves. + + So shalt thou thrive in love, fond boy; + If thy tears and sighs discover + Thy grief, thou never shalt enjoy + The just reward of a bold lover: + But when with moving accents thou + Shall constant faith and service vow, + Thy Celia shall receive those charms + With open ears, and with unfolded arms. + +The gallant and accomplished Colonel Lovelace was, I believe, a relation +of the Lord Lovelace who married Lady Anne Wentworth, and the friend and +contemporary of Carew. His fate and history would form the groundwork of +a romance; and in his person and character he was formed to be the hero +of one. He was as fearlessly brave as a knight-errant; so handsome in +person, that he could not appear without inspiring admiration; a +polished courtier; an elegant scholar; and to crown all, a lover and a +poet. He wrote a volume of poems, dedicated to the praises of Lucy +Sacheverel, with whom he had exchanged vows of everlasting love. Her +poetical appellation, according to the affected taste of the day, was +_Lucasta_. When the civil wars broke out, Lovelace devoted his life and +fortunes to the service of the King; and on joining the army, he wrote +that beautiful song to his mistress, which has been so often quoted,-- + + Tell me not, sweet, I am unkind, + That from the nunnery + Of thy chaste breast and quiet mind + To war and arms I fly. + + True, a new mistress now I chase, + The first foe in the field; + And with a stronger faith embrace + A sword, a horse, a shield. + + Yet this inconstancy is such + As you too shall adore; + I could not love thee, dear! so much, + Lov'd I not honour more. + +The rest of his life was a series of the most cruel misfortunes. He was +imprisoned on account of his enthusiastic and chivalrous loyalty; but no +dungeon could subdue his buoyant spirit. His song "to Althea from +Prison," is full of grace and animation, and breathes the very soul of +love and honour. + + When Love, with unconfined wings, + Hovers within my gates, + And my divine Althea brings + To whisper at the grates; + + When I lie tangled in her hair, + And fettered to her eye, + The birds that wanton in the air, + Know no such liberty. + + Stone walls do not a prison make, + Nor iron bars a cage; + Minds innocent and quiet take + That for a hermitage. + + If I have freedom in my love, + And in my soul am free,-- + Angels alone that soar above + Enjoy such liberty. + +Lovelace afterwards commanded a regiment at the siege of Dunkirk, where +he was severely, and, as it was supposed, mortally wounded. False +tidings of his death were brought to England; and when he returned, he +found his Lucy ("O most wicked haste!") married to another; it was a +blow he never recovered. He had spent nearly his whole patrimony in the +King's service, and now became utterly reckless. After wandering about +London in obscurity and penury, dissipating his scanty resources in riot +with his brother cavaliers, and in drinking the health of the exiled +King and confusion to Cromwell, this idol of women and envy of men,--the +beautiful, brave, high-born, and accomplished Lovelace, died miserably +in a little lodging in Shoe Lane. He was only in his thirty-ninth year. + +The mother of Lucy Sacheverel was Lucy, daughter of Sir Henry Hastings, +ancestor to the present Marquis of Hastings. How could she so belie her +noble blood? I would excuse her were it possible, for she must have been +a fine creature to have inspired and appreciated such a sentiment as +that contained in the first song; but facts cry aloud against her. Her +plighted hand was not transferred to another, when time had sanctified +and mellowed regret; but with a cruel and unfeminine precipitancy. Since +then her lover has bequeathed her name to immortality, he is +sufficiently avenged. Let her stand forth condemned and scorned for +ever, as faithless, heartless,--light as air, false as water, and rash +as fire.--I abjure her. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] Pope. + +[2] The only daughter of this Lady Anne Wentworth, married Sir W. Noel, +and was the ancestress of Lady Byron, the widow of the poet. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +WALLER'S SACHARISSA. + + +The courtly Waller, like the lady in the Maids' Tragedy, loved with his +ambition,--not with his eyes; still less with his heart. A critic, in +designating the poets of that time, says truly that "Waller still lives +in Sacharissa:" he lives in her name more than she does in his poetry; +he gave that name a charm and a celebrity which has survived the +admiration his verses inspired, and which has assisted to preserve them +and himself from oblivion. If Sacharissa had not been a real and an +interesting object, Waller's poetical praises had died with her, and she +with them. He wants earnestness; his lines were not inspired by love, +and they give "no echo to the seat where love is throned." Instead of +passion and poetry, we have gallantry and flattery; gallantry, which was +beneath the dignity of its object; and flattery, which was yet more +superfluous,--it was painting the lily and throwing perfume on the +violet. + +Waller's Sacharissa was the Lady Dorothea Sydney, the eldest daughter of +the Earl of Leicester, and born in 1620. At the time he thought fit to +make her the object of his homage, she was about eighteen, beautiful, +accomplished, and admired. Waller was handsome, rich, a wit, and +five-and-twenty. He had ever an excellent opinion of himself, and a +prudent care of his worldly interests. He was a great poet, in days when +Spenser was forgotten, Milton neglected, and Pope unborn. He began by +addressing to her the lines on her picture, + + Such was Philoclea and such Dorus' flame.[3] + +Then we have the poems written at Penshurst,--in this strain,-- + + Ye lofty beeches! tell this matchless dame, + That if together ye fed all one flame, + It could not equalise the hundredth part + Of what her eyes have kindled in my heart, &c. + +The lady was content to be the theme of a fashionable poet: but when he +presumed farther, she crushed all hopes with the most undisguised +aversion and disdain: thereupon he rails,--thus-- + + To thee a wild and cruel soul is given, + More deaf than trees, and prouder than the heaven; + Love's foe profest! why dost thou falsely feign + Thyself a Sydney? From which noble strain + He sprung that could so far exalt the name + Of love, and warm a nation with his flame.[4] + +His mortified vanity turned for consolation to Amoret, (Lady Sophia +Murray,) the intimate companion of Sacharissa. He describes the +friendship between these two beautiful girls very gracefully. + + Tell me, lovely, loving pair! + Why so kind, and so severe? + Why so careless of our care + Only to yourselves so dear? + + ....*....*....*....* + + Not the silver doves that fly + Yoked to Cytherea's car; + Not the wings that lift so high, + And convey her son so far, + Are so lovely, sweet and fair, + Or do more ennoble love, + Are so choicely matched a pair, + Or with more consent do move. + +And they are very beautifully contrasted in the lines to Amoret-- + + If sweet Amoret complains, + I have sense of all her pains; + But for Sacharissa, I + Do not only grieve, but die! + + ....*....*....*....* + + 'Tis amazement more than love, + Which her radiant eyes do move; + If less splendour wait on thine, + Yet they so benignly shine, + I would turn my dazzled sight + To behold their milder light. + + ....*....*....*....* + + Amoret! as sweet and good + As the most delicious food, + Which but tasted does impart + Life and gladness to the heart. + Sacharissa's beauty's wine, + Which to madness doth incline, + Such a liquor as no brain + That is mortal, can sustain. + +But Lady Sophia, though of a softer disposition, and not carrying in her +mild eyes the scornful and destructive light which sparkled in those of +Sacharissa, was not to be "berhymed" into love any more than her fair +friend. She applauded, but she repelled; she smiled, but she was cold. +Waller consoled himself by marrying a city widow, worth thirty thousand +pounds. + +The truth is, that with all his wit and his elegance of fancy, of which +there are some inimitable examples,--as the application of the story of +Daphne, and of the fable of the wounded eagle; the lines on +Sacharissa's girdle; the graceful little song, "Go, lovely Rose," to +which I need only allude, and many others,--Waller has failed in +convincing us of his sincerity. As Rosalind says, "Cupid might have +clapped him on the shoulder, but we could warrant him heart-whole." All +along our sympathy is rather with the proud beauty, than with the +irritable self-complacent poet. Sacharissa might have been proud, but +she was not arrogant; her manners were gentle and retiring; and her +disposition rather led her to shun than to seek publicity and +admiration. + + Such cheerful modesty, such humble state, + Moves certain love, but with as doubtful fate; + As when beyond our greedy reach, we see + Inviting fruit on too sublime a tree.[5] + +The address to Sacharissa's _femme-de-chambre_, beginning, "Fair +fellow-servant," is not to be compared with Tasso's ode to the Countess +of Scandiano's maid, but contains some most elegant lines. + + You the soft season know, when best her mind + May be to pity, or to love inclined: + In some well-chosen hour supply his fear, + Whose hopeless love durst never tempt the ear + Of that stern goddess; you, her priest, declare + What offerings may propitiate the fair: + Rich orient pearl, bright stones that ne'er decay, + Or polished lines, that longer last than they. + + ....*....*....*....* + + But since her eyes, her teeth, her lip excels + All that is found in mines or fishes' shells, + Her nobler part as far exceeding these, + None but immortal gifts her mind should please. + +These lines impress us with the image of a very imperious and disdainful +beauty; yet such was not the character of Sacharissa's person or +mind.[6] Nor is it necessary to imagine her such, to account for her +rejection of Waller, and her indifference to his flattery. There was a +meanness about the man: he wanted not birth alone, but all the high and +generous qualities which must have been required to recommend him to a +woman, who, with the blood and the pride of the Sydneys, inherited their +large heart and noble spirit. We are not surprised when she turned from +the poet to give her hand to Henry Spencer, Earl of Sunderland, one of +the most interesting and heroic characters of that time. He was then +only nineteen, and she was about the same age. This marriage was +celebrated with great splendour at Penshurst, July 30, 1639. + +Waller, who had professed that his hope + + Should ne'er rise higher + Than for a pardon that he dared admire, + +pressed forward with his congratulations in verse and prose, and wrote +the following letter, full of pleasant imprecations, to Lady Lucy +Sydney, the younger sister of Sacharissa. It will be allowed that it +argues more wit and good nature than love or sorrow; and that he was +resolved that the willow should sit as gracefully and lightly on his +brow, as the myrtle or the bays. + + "To my Lady Lucy Sydney, on the marriage of my Lady + Dorothea, her Sister. + + "MADAM.--In this common joy, at Penshurst, I know none to + whom complaints may come less unseasonable than to your + Ladyship,--the loss of a bedfellow being almost equal to + that of a mistress; and therefore you ought, at least, to + pardon, if you consent not to the imprecations of the + deserted, which just Heaven, no doubt, will hear. + + "May my Lady Dorothea, if we may yet call her so, suffer as + much, and have the like passion, for this young Lord, whom + she has preferred to the rest of mankind, as others have had + for her; and may this love, before the year come about, make + her taste of the first curse imposed on womankind--the pains + of becoming a mother. May her first-born be none of her own + sex, nor so like her, but that he may resemble her Lord as + much as herself. + + "May she, that always affected silence and retiredness, have + the house filled with the noise and number of her children, + and hereafter of her grand-children, and then may she arrive + at that great curse, so much declined by fair ladies,--_old + age_. May she live to be very old, and yet seem young--be + told so by her glass--and have no aches to inform her of the + truth: and when she shall appear to be mortal, may her Lord + not mourn for her, but go hand-in-hand with her to that + place, where, we are told, there is neither marrying nor + giving in marriage, that being there divorced, we may all + have an equal interest in her again. My revenge being + immortal, I wish that all this may also befall their + posterity to the world's end and afterwards. + + "To you, Madam, I wish all good things, and that this loss + may, in good time, be happily supplied with a more constant + bedfellow of the other sex. + + "Madam, I humbly kiss your hands, and beg pardon for this + trouble from your Ladyship's most humble Servant, + + E. WALLER." + + Lady Sunderland had been married about three years; she and + her youthful husband lived in the tenderest union, and she + was already the happy mother of two fair infants, a son and a + daughter,--when the civil wars broke out, and Lord Sunderland + followed the King to the field. In the Sydney papers are some + beautiful letters to his wife, written from the camp before + Oxford. The last of these, which is in a strain of playful + and affectionate gaiety, thus concludes,--"Pray bless Poppet + for me![7] and tell her I would have wrote to her, but that, + upon mature deliberation, I found it uncivil to return an + answer to a lady in another character than her own, which I + am not yet learned enough to do.--I beseech you to present + his service to my Lady,[8] who is most passionately and + perfectly yours, &c. + + "SUNDERLAND." + +Three days afterwards this tender and gallant heart had ceased to beat: +he was killed in the battle of Newbury, at the age of three-and-twenty. +His unhappy wife, on hearing the news of his death, was prematurely +taken ill, and delivered of an infant, which died almost immediately +after its birth. She recovered, however, from a dangerous and protracted +illness, through the affectionate and unceasing attentions of her +mother, Lady Leicester, who never quitted her for several months. Her +father wrote her a letter of condolence, which would serve as a model +for all letters on similar occasions. "I know," he says, "that it is to +no purpose to advise you not to grieve; that is not my intention: for +such a loss as yours, cannot be received indifferently by a nature so +tender and sensible as yours," &c. After touching lightly and delicately +on the obvious sources of consolation, he reminds her, that her duty to +the dead requires her to be careful of herself, and not hazard her very +existence by the indulgence of grief. "You offend him whom you loved, if +you hurt that person whom he loved; remember how apprehensive he was of +your danger, how grieved for any thing that troubled you! I know you +lived happily together, so as nobody but yourself could measure the +contentment of it. I rejoiced at it, and did thank God for making me one +of the means to procure it for you," &c.[9] + +Those who have known deep sorrow, and felt what it is to shrink with +shattered nerves and a wounded spirit from the busy hand of consolation, +fretting where it cannot heal, will appreciate such a letter as this. + +Lady Sunderland, on her recovery, retired from the world, and centering +all her affections in her children, seemed to live only for them. She +resided, after her widowhood, at Althorpe, where she occupied herself +with improving the house and gardens. The fine hall and staircase of +that noble seat, which are deservedly admired for their architectural +beauty, were planned and erected by her. After the lapse of about +thirteen years, her father, Lord Leicester, prevailed on her to choose +one from among the numerous suitors who sought her hand: he dreaded, +lest on his death, she should be left unprotected, with her infant +children, in those evil times; and she married, in obedience to his +wish, Sir Robert Smythe, of Sutton, who was her second cousin, and had +long been attached to her. She lived to see her eldest son, the second +Earl of Sunderland, a man of transcendant talents, but versatile +principles, at the head of the government, and had the happiness to +close her eyes before he had abused his admirable abilities, to the +vilest purposes of party and court intrigue. The Earl was appointed +principal Secretary of State in 1682: his mother died in 1683. + +There is a fine portrait of Sacharissa at Blenheim, of which there are +many engravings. It must have been painted by Vandyke, shortly after her +marriage, and before the death of her husband. If the withered branch, +to which she is pointing, be supposed to allude to her widowhood, it +must have been added afterwards, as Vandyke died in 1641, and Lord +Sunderland in 1643. In the gallery at Althorpe, there are three pictures +of this celebrated woman. One represents her in a hat, and at the age of +fifteen or sixteen, gay, girlish, and blooming: the second, far more +interesting, was painted about the time of her first marriage: it is +exceedingly sweet and lady-like. The features are delicate, with +redundant light brown air, and eyes and eyebrows of a darker hue; the +bust and hands very exquisite: on the whole, however, the high breeding +of the face and air is more conspicuous than the beauty of the person. +These two portraits are by Vandyke; nor ought I to forget to mention +that the painter himself was supposed to have indulged a respectful but +ardent passion for Lady Sunderland, and to have painted her portrait +literally _con amore_.[10] + +A third picture represents her about the time of her second marriage: +the expression wholly changed,--cold, faded, sad, but still +sweet-looking and delicate. One might fancy her contemplating with a +sick heart, the portrait of Lord Sunderland, the lover and husband of +her early youth, and that of her unfortunate but celebrated brother, +Algernon Sydney; both which hang on the opposite side of the gallery. + +The present Duke of Marlborough, and the present Earl Spencer, are the +lineal descendants of Waller's Sacharissa. + +One little incident, somewhat prosaic indeed, proves how little heart +there was in Waller's poetical attachment to this beautiful and +admirable woman. When Lady Sunderland, after a retirement of thirty +years, re-appeared in the court she had once adorned, she met Waller at +Lady Wharton's, and addressing him with a smiling courtesy, she reminded +him of their youthful days:--"When," said she, "will you write such fine +verses on me again?"--"Madam," replied Waller, "when your Ladyship is +young and handsome again." This was contemptible and coarse,--the +sentiment was not that of a well-bred or a feeling man, far less that +of a lover or a poet,--no! + + Love is not love, + That alters where it alteration finds. + +One would think that the sight of a woman, whom he had last seen in the +full bloom of youth and glow of happiness,--who had endured, since they +parted, such extremity of affliction, as far more than avenged his +wounded vanity, might have awakened some tender thoughts, and called +forth a gentler reply. When some one expressed surprise to Petrarch, +that Laura, no longer young, had still power to charm and inspire him, +he answered, "Piaga per allentar d'arco non sana,"--"The wound is not +healed though the bow be unbent." This was in a finer spirit. + +Something in the same character, as his reply to Lady Sunderland, was +Waller's famous repartee, when Charles the Second told him that his +lines on Oliver Cromwell were better than those written on his royal +self. "Please your Majesty, we poets succeed better in fiction than in +truth." Nothing could be more admirably _apropos_, more witty, more +courtier-like: it was only _false_, and in a poor, time-serving spirit. +It showed as much meanness of soul as presence of mind. What true poet, +who felt as a poet, would have said this? + +FOOTNOTES: + +[3] Alluding to the two heroines of Sir Philip Sydney's Arcadia; +Sacharissa was the grandniece of that _preux chevalier_, and hence the +frequent allusions to his name and fame. + +[4] Alluding to Sir Philip Sydney. + +[5] Lines on her picture. + +[6] Sacharissa, the poetical name Waller himself gave her, signifies +_sweetness_. + +[7] His infant daughter, then about two years old, afterwards +Marchioness of Halifax. + +[8] The Countess's mother, Lady Leicester, who was then with her at +Althorpe. + +[9] Sydney's Memorials, vol. ii. p. 271. + +[10] See State Poems, vol. iii. p. 396. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +BEAUTIES AND POETS. + + +Nearly contemporary with Waller's Sacharissa lived several women of high +rank, distinguished as munificent patronesses of poetry, and favourite +themes of poets, for the time being. There was the Countess of Pembroke, +celebrated by Ben Jonson, + + The subject of all verse, + Sydney's sister, Pembroke's mother. + +There was the famous Lucy Percy, Countess of Carlisle, very clever, and +very fantastic, who aspired to be the Aspasia, the De Rambouillet of her +day, and did not quite succeed. She was celebrated by almost all the +contemporary poets, and even in French, by Voiture. There was Lucy +Harrington, Countess of Bedford, who, notwithstanding the accusation of +vanity and extravagance which has been brought against her, was an +amiable woman, and munificently rewarded, in presents and pensions, the +incense of the poets around her. I know not what her Ladyship may have +paid for the following exquisite lines by Ben Jonson; but the reader +will agree with me, that it could not have been _too_ much. + + +ON LUCY COUNTESS OF BEDFORD. + + This morning, timely rapt with holy fire, + I thought to form unto my zealous muse + What kind of creature I could most desire + To honour, serve, and love; as poets use: + I meant to make her fair, and free, and wise, + Of greatest blood, and yet more good than great. + I meant the day-star should not brighter rise, + Nor lend like influence from his ancient seat. + I meant she should be courteous, facile, sweet, + Hating that solemn vice of greatness, _pride_; + I meant each softest virtue there should meet, + Fit in that softer bosom to reside. + Only a learned, and a manly soul + I purpos'd her; that should, with even powers, + The rock, the spindle, and the sheers controul + Of destiny, and spin her own free hours. + Such when I meant to feign, and wished to see, + My muse bade Bedford write,--and that was she. + +There was also the "beautiful and every way excellent" Lady Anne +Rich,[11] the daughter-in-law of her who was so loved by Sir Philip +Sydney; and the memorable and magnificent--but somewhat masculine--Anne +Clifford, Countess of Cumberland, Pembroke, and Dorset, who erected +monuments to Spenser, Drayton, and Daniel; and above them all, though +living a little later, the Queen herself, Henrietta Maria, whose +feminine caprices, French graces, and brilliant eyes, rendered her a +very splendid and fruitful theme for the poets of the time.[12] + +There was at this time a kind of traffic between rich beauties and poor +poets. The ladies who, in earlier ages, were proud in proportion to the +quantity of blood spilt in honour of their charms, were now seized with +a passion for being berhymed. Surrey, and his Geraldine, began this +taste in England by introducing the school of Petrarch: and Sir Philip +Sydney had entreated women to listen to those poets who promised them +immortality,--"For thus doing, ye shall be most fair, most wise, most +rich, most every thing!--ye shall dwell upon superlatives:"[13] and +women believed accordingly. In spite of the satirist, I do maintain, +that the love of praise and the love of pleasing are paramount in our +sex, both to the love of pleasure and the love of sway. + +This connection between the high-born beauties and the poets was at +first delightful, and honourable to both: but, in time, it became +degraded and abused. The fees paid for dedications, odes, and sonnets, +were any thing but sentimental:--can we wonder if, under such +circumstances, the profession of a poet "was connected with personal +abasement, which made it disreputable?"[14] or, that women, while they +required the tribute, despised those who paid it,--and were paid for +it?--not in sweet looks, soft smiles, and kind wishes, but with silver +and gold, a cover at her ladyship's table "below the salt," or a bottle +of sack from my lord's cellar. It followed, as a thing of course, that +our amatory and lyric poetry declined, and instead of the genuine +rapture of tenderness, the glow of imagination, and all "the purple +light of love," we have too often only a heap of glittering and empty +compliment and metaphysical conceits.--It was a miserable state of +things. + +It must be confessed that the aspiring loves of some of our poets have +not proved auspicious even when successful. Dryden married Lady +Elizabeth Howard, the daughter of the Earl of Berkshire: but not "all +the blood of all the Howards" could make her either wise or amiable: he +had better have married a milkmaid. She was weak in intellect, and +violent in temper. Sir Walter Scott observes, very feelingly, that "The +wife of one who is to gain his livelihood by poetry, or by any labour +(if any there be,) equally exhausting, must either have taste enough to +relish her husband's performances, or good nature sufficient to pardon +his infirmities." It was Dryden's misfortune, that Lady Elizabeth had +neither one nor the other. + +Of all our really great poets, Dryden is the one least indebted to +woman, and to whom, in return, women are least indebted: he is almost +devoid of _sentiment_ in the true meaning of the word.--"His idea of +the female character was low;" his homage to beauty was not of that kind +which beauty should be proud to receive.[15] When he attempted the +praise of women, it was in a strain of fulsome, far-fetched, laboured +adulation, which betrayed his insincerity; but his genius was at home +when we were the subject of licentious tales and coarse satire. + +It was through this inherent want of refinement and true respect for our +sex, that he deformed Boccaccio's lovely tale of Gismunda; and as the +Italian novelist has sins enough of his own to answer for, Dryden might +have left him the beauties of this tender story, unsullied by the +profane coarseness of his own taste. In his tragedies, his heroines on +stilts, and his drawcansir heroes, whine, rant, strut and rage, and tear +passion to tatters--to very rags; but love, such as it exists in gentle, +pure, unselfish bosoms--love, such as it glows in the pages of +Shakspeare and Spenser, Petrarch and Tasso,--such love + + As doth become mortality + Glancing at heaven, + +he could not imagine or appreciate, far less express or describe. He +could pourtray a Cleopatra; but he could not conceive a Juliet. His +ideas of our sex seem to have been formed from a profligate actress,[16] +and a silly, wayward, provoking wife; and we have avenged +ourselves,--for Dryden is not the poet of women; and, of all our English +classics, is the least honoured in a lady's library. + +Dryden was the original of the famous repartee to be found, I believe, +in every jest book: shortly after his marriage, Lady Elizabeth, being +rather annoyed at her husband's very studious habits, wished herself _a +book_, that she might have a little more of his attention.--"Yes, my +dear," replied Dryden, "an almanack."--"Why an almanack?" asked the wife +innocently.--"Because then, my dear, I should change you once a year." +The laugh, of course, is on the side of the wit; but Lady Elizabeth was +a young spoiled beauty of rank, married to a man she loved; and her +wish, methinks, was very feminine and natural: if it was spoken with +petulance and bitterness, it deserved the repartee; if with tenderness +and playfulness, the wit of the reply can scarcely excuse its +ill-nature. + +Addison married the Countess of Warwick. Poor man! I believe his +patrician bride did every thing but beat him. His courtship had been +long, timid, and anxious; and at length, the lady was persuaded to marry +him, on terms much like those on which a Turkish Princess is espoused, +to whom the Sultan is reported to pronounce, "Daughter, I give thee this +man to be thy slave."[17] They were only three years married, and those +were years of bitterness. + +Young, the author of the Night Thoughts, married Lady Elizabeth Lee, the +daughter of the Earl of Litchfield, and grand-daughter of the too +famous, or more properly, infamous Duchess of Cleveland:--the marriage +was not a happy one. I think, however, in the two last instances, the +ladies were not entirely to blame. + +But these, it will be said, are the wives of poets, not the loves of the +poets; and the phrases are not synonymus,--_au contraire_. This is a +question to be asked and examined; and I proceed to examine it +accordingly. But as I am about to take the field on new ground, it will +require a new chapter. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[11] Daughter of the first Earl of Devonshire, of the Cavendish family. +She was celebrated by Sidney Godolphin in some very sweet lines, which +contain a lovely female portrait. Waller's verses on her sudden death +are remarkable for a signal instance of the Bathos, + + That horrid word, at once like lightning spread, + Struck all our ears,--_the Lady Rich is dead_! + +[12] See Waller, Carew, D'Avenant: the latter has paid her some +exquisite compliments. + +[13] Sir Philip Sydney's Works, "Defence of Poesie." + +[14] Scott's Life of Dryden, p. 89. + +[15] With the exception of the dedication of his Palamon and Arcite to +the young and beautiful Duchess of Ormonde (Lady Anne Somerset, daughter +of the Duke of Beaufort.) + +[16] Mrs. Reeves, his mistress: she afterwards became a nun. + +[17] Johnson's Life of Addison. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +CONJUGAL POETRY. + + +If it be generally true, that Love, to be poetical, must be wreathed +with the willow and the cypress, as well as the laurel and the +myrtle,--still it is not _always_ true. It is not, happily, a necessary +condition, that a passion, to be constant, must be unfortunate; that +faithful lovers must needs be wretched; that conjugal tenderness and +"domestic doings" are ever dull and invariably prosaic. The witty +invectives of some of our poets, whose domestic misery stung them into +satirists, and blasphemers of a happiness denied to them, are familiar +in the memory--ready on the lips of common-place scoffers. But of +matrimonial poetics, in a far different style, we have instances +sufficient to put to shame such heartless raillery; that there are not +more, is owing to the reason which Klopstock has given, when writing of +his angelic Meta. "A man," said he, "should speak of his wife as seldom +and with as much modesty as of himself." + +A woman is not under the same restraint in speaking of her husband; and +this distinction arises from the relative position of the two sexes. It +is a species of vain-glory to boast of a possession; but we may exult, +unreproved, in the virtues of him who disposes of our fate. Our +inferiority has here given to us, as women, so high and dear a +privilege, that it is a pity we have been so seldom called on to exert +it. + +The first instance of conjugal poetry which occurs to me, will perhaps +startle the female reader, for it is no other than the gallant Ovid +himself. One of the epistles, written during his banishment to Pontus, +is addressed to his wife Perilla, and very tenderly alludes to their +mutual affection, and to the grief she must have suffered during his +absence. + + And thou, whom young I left when leaving Rome, + Thou, by my woes art haply old become: + Grant, heaven! that such I may behold thy face, + And thy changed cheek, with dear loved kisses trace; + Fold thy diminished person, and exclaim, + Regret for me has thinned this beauteous frame. + +Here then we have the most abandoned libertine of his profligate times +reduced at last in his old age, in disgrace and exile, to throw himself, +for sympathy and consolation, into the arms of a tender and amiable +wife; and this, after spending his life and talents in deluding the +tenderness, corrupting the virtue, and reviling the characters of women. +In truth, half a dozen volumes in praise of our sex could scarce say +more than this. + +Every one, I believe, recollects the striking story of Paulina, the wife +of Seneca. When the order was brought from Nero that he should die, she +insisted upon dying with him, and by the same operation. She accordingly +prepared to be bled to death; but fainting away in the midst of her +sufferings, Seneca commanded her wounds to be bound up, and conjured her +to live. She lived therefore; but excessive weakness and loss of blood +gave her, during the short remainder of her life, that spectral +appearance which has caused her conjugal fidelity and her pallid hue to +pass into a proverb,--"As pale as Seneca's Paulina;" and be it +remembered, that Paulina was at this time young in comparison of her +husband, who was old, and singularly ugly. + +This picturesque story of Paulina affects us in our younger years; but +at a later period we are more likely to sympathise with the wife of +Lucan, Polla Argentaria, who beheld her husband perish by the same death +as his uncle Seneca, and, through love for his fame, consented to +survive him. She appears to have been the original after whom he drew +his beautiful portrait of Cornelia, the wife of Pompey. Lucan had left +the manuscript of the Pharsalia in an imperfect state; and his wife, who +had been in its progress his amanuensis, his counsellor and confidant, +and therefore best knew his wishes and intentions, undertook to revise +and copy it with her own hand. During the rest of her life, which was +devoted to this dear and pious task, she had the bust of Lucan always +placed beside her couch, and his works lying before her: and in the form +in which Polla Argentaria left it, his great poem has descended to our +times. + +I have read also, though I confess my acquaintance with the classics is +but limited, of a certain Latin poetess Sulpicia, who celebrated her +husband Calenas: and the poet Ausonius composed many fine verses in +praise of a beautiful and virtuous wife, whose name I forget.[18] + +But I feel I am treading unsafe ground, rendered so both by my +ignorance, and by my prejudices as a woman. Generally speaking, the +heroines of classical poetry and history are not much to my taste; in +their best virtues they were a little masculine, and in their vices, so +completely unsexed, that one would rather not think of them--speak of +them--far less write of them. + + * * * * * + +The earliest instance I can recollect of modern conjugal poetry, is +taken from a country, and a class, and a time where one would scarce +look for high poetic excellence inspired by conjugal tenderness. It is +that of a Frenchwoman of high rank, in the fifteenth century, when +France was barbarised by the prevalence of misery, profligacy, and +bloodshed, in every revolting form. + +Marguerite-Eleonore-Clotilde de Surville, of the noble family of Vallon +Chalys, was the wife of Berenger de Surville, and lived in those +disastrous times which immediately succeeded the battle of Agincourt. +She was born in 1405, and educated in the court of the Count de Foix, +where she gave an early proof of literary and poetical talent, by +translating, when eleven years old, one of Petrarch's Canzoni, with a +harmony of style wonderful, not only for her age, but for the times in +which she lived. At the age of sixteen she married the Chevalier de +Surville, then, like herself, in the bloom of youth, and to whom she +was passionately attached. In those days, no man of noble blood, who had +a feeling for the misery of his country, or a hearth and home to defend, +could avoid taking an active part in the scenes of barbarous strife +around him; and De Surville, shortly after his marriage, followed his +heroic sovereign, Charles the Seventh, to the field. During his absence, +his wife addressed to him the most beautiful effusions of conjugal +tenderness to be found, I think, in the compass of poetry. In the time +of Clotilde, French verse was not bound down by those severe laws and +artificial restraints by which it has since been shackled: we have none +of the prettinesses, the epigrammatic turns, the sparkling points, and +elaborate graces, which were the fashion in the days of Louis Quatorze. +Boileau would have shrugged up his shoulders, and elevated his eyebrows, +at the rudeness of the style; but Moliere, who preferred + + J'aime mieux ma mie, oh gai! + +to all the _fades galanteries_ of his contemporary _bels esprits_, +would have been enchanted with the naive tenderness, the freshness and +flow of youthful feeling which breathe through the poetry of Clotilde. +The antique simplicity of the old French lends it such an additional +charm, that though in making a few extracts, I have ventured to +modernize the spelling, I have not attempted to alter a word of the +original. + +Clotilde has entitled her first epistle "Heroide a mon epoux Berenger;" +and as it is dated in 1422, she could not have been more than seventeen +when it was written. The commencement recalls the superscription of the +first letter of Heloise to Abelard. + + Clotilde, au sien ami, douce mande accolade! + A son epoux, salut, respect, amour! + Ah, tandis qu'eploree et de coeur si malade, + Te quier[19] la nuit, te redemande au jour-- + Que deviens? ou cours tu? Loin de ta bien-aimee, + Ou les destins, entrainent donc tes pas? + 'Faut que le dise, helas! s'en crois la renommee + De bien long temps ne te reverrai pas? + +She then describes her lonely state, her grief for his absence, her +pining for his return. She laments the horrors of war which have torn +him from her; but in a strain of eloquent poetry, and in the spirit of a +high-souled woman, to whom her husband's honour was dear as his life, +she calls on him to perform all that his duty as a brave knight, and his +loyalty to his sovereign require. She reminds him, with enthusiasm, of +the motto of French chivalry, "mourir plutot que trahir son devoir;" +then suddenly breaking off, with a graceful and wife-like modesty, she +wonders at her own presumption thus to address her lord, her husband, +the son of a race of heroes,-- + + Mais que dis! ah d'ou vient qu'orgueilleuse t'advise! + Toi, escolier! toi, l'enfant des heros + Pardonne maintes soucis a celle qui t'adore-- + A tant d'amour, est permis quelque effroi. + +She describes herself looking out from the tower of her castle to watch +the return of his banner; she tells him how she again and again visits +the scenes endeared by the remembrance of their mutual happiness. The +most beautiful touches of description are here mingled with the fond +expressions of feminine tenderness. + + La, me dis-je, ai recu sa derniere caresse, + Et jusqu'aux os, soudain, me sens bruler. + Ici les ung ormeil, cercle par aubespine + Que doux printemps ja[20] courronnait de fleurs, + Me dit adieu--Sanglots suffoquent ma poctrine, + Et dans mes yeux roulent torrents de pleurs. + + ....*....*....*....* + + D'autresfois, ecartant ces cruelles images, + Crois m'enfoncant au plus dense des bois, + Meler des rossignols aux amoureuse ramages, + Entre tes bras, mon amoureux voix: + Me semble ouir, echappant de ta bouche rosee, + Ces mots gentils, qui me font tressaillir, + Ainz[21] vois au meme instant que me suis abusee + Et soupirant, suis prete a defailler! + +After indulging in other regrets, expressed with rather more naivete +than suits the present taste, she bursts into an eloquent invective +against the English invaders[22] and the factious nobles of France, +whose crimes and violence detained her husband from her arms. + + Quand reverrai, dis-moi, ton si duisant[23] visage? + Quand te pourrai face a face mirer? + T'enlacer tellement a mon frement[24] corsage, + Que toi, ni moi, n'en puissions respirer? + +and she concludes with this tender _envoi_: + + Ou que suives ton roi, ne mets ta douce amie + En tel oubli, qu'ignore ou git ce lieu: + Jusqu'alors en souci, de calme n'aura mie,-- + Plus ne t'en dis--que t'en souvienne! adieu! + +Clotilde became a mother before the return of her husband; and the +delicious moment in which she first placed her infant in his father's +arms, suggested the verses she has entitled "Ballade a mon epoux, lors, +quand tournait apres un an d'absence, mis en ses bras notre fils +enfancon." + +The pretty burthen of this little ballad has often been quoted. + + Faut etre deux pour avoir du plaisir, + Plaisir ne l'est qu'autant qu'on le partage! + +But, says the mother, + + _Un tiers_ si doux ne fait tort a plaisir? + +and should her husband be again torn from her, she will console herself +in his absence, by teaching her boy to lisp his father's name. + + Gentil epoux! si Mars et ton courage + Plus contraignaient ta Clotilde a gemir, + De lui montrer en son petit langage, + A t'appeller ferai tout mon plaisir-- + Plaisir ne l'est qu'autant qu'on le partage! + +Among some other little poems, which place the conjugal and maternal +character of Clotilde in a most charming light, I must notice one more +for its tender and heartfelt beauty. It is entitled "Ballade a mon +premier ne," and is addressed to her child, apparently in the absence of +its father. + + O cher enfantelet, vrai portrait de ton pere! + Dors sur le sein que ta bouche a presse! + Dors petit!--clos, ami, sur le sein de ta mere, + Tien doux oeillet, par le somme oppresse. + + Bel ami--cher petit! que ta pupille tendre, + Goute un sommeil que plus n'est fait pour moi: + Je veille pour te voir, te nourir, te defendre, + Ainz qu'il est doux ne veiller que pour toi! + +Contemplating him asleep, she says, + + N'etait ce teint fleuri des couleurs de la pomme, + Ne le diriez vous dans les bras de la mort? + +Then, shuddering at the idea she had conjured up, she breaks forth into +a passionate apostrophe to her sleeping child, + + Arrete, cher enfant! j'en fremis toute entiere-- + Reveille toi! chasse un fatal propos! + Mon fils .... pour un moment--ah revois la lumiere! + Au prix du tien, rends-moi tout mon repos! + Douce erreur! il dormait .... c'est assez, je respire. + Songes legers, flattez son doux sommeil; + Ah! quand verrai celui pour qui mon coeur soupire, + Au miens cotes jouir de son reveil? + + ....*....*....*....* + + Quand reverrai celui dont as recu la vie? + Mon jeune epoux, le plus beau des humains + Oui--deja crois voir ta mere, aux cieux ravie, + Que tends vers lui tes innocentes mains. + Comme ira se duisant a ta premiere caresse! + Au miens baisers com' t'ira disputant! + Ainz ne compte, a toi seul, d'epuiser sa tendresse,-- + A sa Clotilde en garde bien autant! + +Along the margin of the original MS. of this poem, was written an +additional stanza, in the same hand, and quite worthy of the rest. + + Voila ses traits ... son air ... voila tout ce que j'aime! + Feu de son oeil, et roses de son teint.... + D'ou vient m'en ebahir? _autre qu'en tout lui meme, + Put-il jamais eclore de mon sein?_ + +This is beautiful and true; beautiful, because it is true. There is +nothing of fancy nor of art, the intense feeling gushes, warm and +strong, from the heart of the writer, and it comes home to the heart of +the reader, filling it with sweetness.--Am I wrong in supposing that the +occasional obscurity of the old French will not disguise the beauty of +the sentiment from the young wife or mother, whose eye may glance over +this page? + +It is painful, it is pitiful, to draw the veil of death and sorrow over +this sweet picture. + + What is this world? what asken men to have? + Now with his love--now in his cold grave, + Alone, withouten any companie![25] + +De Surville closed his brief career of happiness and glory (and what +more than these could he have asked of heaven?) at the seige of Orleans, +where he fought under the banner of Joan of Arc.[26] He was a gallant +and a loyal knight; so were hundreds of others who then strewed the +desolated fields of France: and De Surville had fallen undistinguished +amid the general havoc of all that was noble and brave, if the love and +genius of his wife had not immortalised him. + +Clotilde, after her loss, resided in the chateau of her husband, in the +Lyonnois, devoting herself to literature and the education of her son: +and it is very remarkable, considering the times in which she lived, +that she neither married again, nor entered a religious house. The fame +of her poetical talents, which she continued to cultivate in her +retirement, rendered her, at length, an object of celebrity and +interest. The Duke of Orleans happened one day to repeat some of her +verses to Margaret of Scotland, the first wife of Louis the Eleventh; +and that accomplished patroness of poetry and poets wrote her an +invitation to attend her at court, which Clotilde modestly declined. The +Queen then sent her, as a token of her admiration and friendship, a +wreath of laurel, surmounted with a bouquet of daisies, (Marguerites, in +allusion to the name of both,) the leaves of which were wrought in +silver and the flowers in gold, with this inscription: "Marguerite +d'Ecosse a Marguerite d'Helicon." We are told that Alain Chartier, +envious perhaps of these distinctions, wrote a satirical _quatrain_, in +which he accused Clotilde of being deficient in _l'air de cour_, and +that she replied to him, and defended herself in a very spirited +_rondeau_. Nothing more is known of the life of this interesting woman, +but that she had the misfortune to survive her son as well as her +husband; and dying at the advanced age of ninety, in 1495, she was +buried with them in the same tomb.[27] + +FOOTNOTES: + +[18] Elton's Specimens. + +[19] Querir. + +[20] Ja--jadis (the old French _ja_ is the Italian _gia_). + +[21] Ainz:--cependant (the Italian _anzi_). + +[22] She calls them "the Vultures of Albion." + +[23] Duisant, _seduisant_. + +[24] Fremissant. + +[25] Chaucer. + +[26] He perished in 1429, leaving his widow in her twenty-fourth year. + +[27] Les Poetes Francais jusqu'a Malherbes, par Augin. A good edition of +the works of Clotilde de Surville was published at Paris in 1802, and +another in 1804. I believe both have become scarce. Her _Poesies_ +consist of pastorals, ballads, songs, epistles, and the fragment of an +epic poem, of which the MS. is lost. Of her merit there is but one +opinion. She is confessedly the greatest poetical genius which France +could boast in a period of two hundred years; that is, from the decline +of the Provencal poetry, till about 1500. + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +CONJUGAL POETRY CONTINUED. + +VITTORIA COLONNA. + + +Half a century later, we find the name of an Italian poetess, as +interesting as our Clotilde de Surville, and far more illustrious. +Vittoria Colonna was not thrown, with all her eminent gifts and +captivating graces, among a rude people in a rude age; but all +favourable influences, of time and circumstances, and fortune, +conspired, with native talent, to make her as celebrated as she was +truly admirable. She was the wife of that Marquis of Pescara, who has +earned himself a name in the busiest and bloodiest page of history:--of +that Pescara who commanded the armies of Charles the Fifth in Italy, +and won the battle of Pavia, where Francis the First was taken prisoner. +But great as was Pescara as a statesman and a military commander, he is +far more interesting as the husband of Vittoria Colonna, and the laurels +he reaped in the battle-field, are perishable and worthless, compared to +those which his admirable wife wreathed around his brow. So thought +Ariosto; who tell us, that if Alexander envied Achilles the fame he had +acquired in the songs of Homer, how much more had he envied Pescara +those strains in which his gifted consort had exalted his fame above +that of all contemporary heroes? and not only rendered herself immortal; + + Col dolce stil, di che il miglior non odo, + Ma puo qualunque, di cui parli o scriva + Trar dal sepolcro, e fa ch'eterno viva. + +He prefers her to Artemisia, for a reason rather quaintly expressed,-- + + ----Anzi + Tanto maggior, quanto e piu assai beli' opra, + Che por sotterra un uom, trarlo di sopra. + +"So much more praise it is, to raise a man above the earth, than to bury +him under it." He compares her successively to all the famed heroines of +Greece and Rome,--to Laodamia, to Portia, to Arria, to Argia, to +Evadne,--who died with or for their husbands; and concludes, + + Quanto onore a Vittoria e piu dovuto + Che di Lete, e del Rio che nove volte + L'ombre circonda, ha tratto il suo consorte, + Malgrado delle parche, e della morte.[28] + +In fact, at a period when Italy could boast of a constellation of female +talent, such as never before or since adorned any one country at the +same time, and besides a number of women accomplished in languages, +philosophy, and the abstruser branches of learning, reckoned sixty +poetesses, nearly contemporary, there was not one to be compared with +Vittoria Colonna,--herself the theme of song; and upon whom her +enthusiastic countrymen have lavished all the high-sounding superlatives +of a language, so rich in expressive and sonorous epithets, that it +seems to multiply fame and magnify praise. We find Vittoria designated +in Italian biography, as _Diva_, divina, maravigliosa, elettissima, +illustrissima, virtuosissima, dottissima, castissima, gloriosissima, &c. + +But immortality on earth, as in heaven, must be purchased at a certain +price; and Vittoria, rich in all the gifts which heaven, and nature, and +fortune combined, ever lavished on one of her sex, paid for her +celebrity with her happiness: for thus it has ever been, and must ever +be, in this world of ours, "ou les plus belles choses ont le pire +destin." + +Her descent was illustrious on both sides. She was the daughter of the +Grand Constable Fabrizio Colonna, and of Anna di Montefeltro, daughter +of the Duke of Urbino, and was born about 1490. At four years old she +was destined to seal the friendship which existed between her own family +and that of d'Avalo, by a union with the young Count d'Avalo, afterwards +Marquis of Pescara, who was exactly her own age. Such infant marriages +are contracted at a fearful risk; yet, if auspicious, the habit of +loving from an early age, and the feeling of settled appropriation, +prevents the affections from wandering, and plant a mutual happiness +upon a foundation much surer than that of fancy or impulse. It was so in +this instance, + + Conforme era l'etate + Ma 'l pensier piu conforme. + +Vittoria, from her childish years, displayed the most extraordinary +talents, combined with all the personal charms and sweet proprieties +more characteristic of her sex. When not more than fifteen or sixteen, +she was already distinguished among her countrywomen, and sought even by +sovereign princes. The Duke of Savoy and the Duke of Braganza made +overtures to obtain her hand; the Pope himself interfered in behalf of +one of these princes; but both were rejected. Vittoria, accustomed to +consider herself as the destined bride of young d'Avalo, cultivated for +him alone those talents and graces which others admired and coveted, and +resolved to wait till her youthful lover was old enough to demand the +ratification of their infant vows. She says of herself, + + Appena avean gli spirti intera vita, + Quando il mio cor proscrisse ogn' altro oggetto. + +Pescara had not the studious habits or literary talents of his betrothed +bride; but his beauty of person, his martial accomplishments, and his +brave and noble nature, were precisely calculated to impress her +poetical imagination, as contrasted with her own gentler and more +contemplative character. He loved her too with the most enthusiastic +adoration; he even prevailed on their mutual parents to anticipate the +period fixed for their nuptials; and at the age of seventeen they were +solemnly united. + +The first four years after their marriage were chiefly spent in a +delightful retreat in the island of Ischia, where Pescara had a palace +and domain. Here, far from the world, and devoted to each other, and to +the most elegant pursuits, they seem to have revelled in such bliss as +poets fancy and romancers feign. Hence the frequent allusions to the +island of Ischia, in Vittoria's later poems, as a spot beloved by her +husband, and the scene of their youthful happiness. One thing alone was +wanting to complete this happiness: Heaven denied them children. She +laments this disappointment in the 22d Sonnet, where she says, that +"since she may not be the mother of sons, who shall inherit their +father's glory, yet she will at least, by uniting her name with his in +verse, become the mother of his illustrious deeds and lofty fame." + +Pescara, whose active and martial genius led him to take a conspicuous +part in the wars which then agitated Italy, at length quitted his wife +to join the army of the Emperor. Vittoria, with tears, resigned him to +his duties. On his departure she presented him with many tokens of love, +and among the rest, with a banner, and a dressing-gown richly +embroidered; on the latter she had worked with her own hand, in silken +characters, the motto, "Nunquam minus otiosus quam cum otiosus +erat."[29] She also presented him with some branches of palm, "In segno +di felice augurio;" but her bright anticipations were at first cruelly +disappointed. Pescara, then in his twenty-second year, commanded as +general of cavalry at the battle of Ravenna, where he was taken +prisoner, and detained at Milan. While in confinement, he amused his +solitude by showing his Vittoria that he had not forgotten their mutual +studies and early happiness at Ischia. He composed an essay or dialogue +on Love, which he addressed to her; and which, we are told, was +remarkable for its eloquence and spirit as a composition, as well as for +the most high-toned delicacy of sentiment. He was not liberated till the +following year. + +Vittoria had taken for her _devise_, such was the fashion of the day, a +little Cupid within a circle formed by a serpent, with the motto, "Quem +peperit virtus prudentia servet amorem,"--"The love which virtue +inspired, discretion shall guard;" and during her husband's absence, +she lived in retirement, principally in her loved retreat in the island +of Ischia, devoting her time to literature, and to the composition of +those beautiful Sonnets in which she celebrated the exploits and virtues +of her husband. He, whenever his military or political duties allowed of +a short absence from the theatre of war, flew to rejoin her; and these +short and delicious meetings, and the continual dangers to which he was +exposed, seem to have kept alive, through many long years, all the +romance and fervour of their early love. In the 79th Sonnet, Vittoria so +beautifully alludes to one of these meetings, that I am tempted to +extract it, in preference to others better known, and by many esteemed +superior as compositions. + + Qui fece il mio bel sol a noi ritorno, + Di Regie spoglie carco, e ricche prede: + Ahi! con quanto dolor, l'occhio rivede + Quei lochi, ov' ei mi fea gia il giorno! + + Di mille glorie allor cinto d' intorno, + E d'onor vero, alla piu altiera sede + Facean delle opre udite intera fede + L'ardito volto, il parlar saggio adorno. + + Vinto da prieghi miei, poi mi mostrava + Le belle cicatrici, e 'l tempo, e 'l modo + Delle vittorie sue tante, e si chiare. + + Quanta pena or mi da, gioja mi dava; + E in questo, e in quel pensier, piangendo gode + Tra poche dolci, e assai lagrime amare. + +This description of her husband returning, loaded with spoils and +honours;--of her fond admiration, mingled with a feminine awe, of his +warlike demeanor;--of his yielding, half reluctant, to her tender +entreaties, and showing her the wounds he had received in battle;--then +the bitter thoughts of his danger and absence, mingling with, and +interrupting these delicious recollections of happiness,--are all as +true to feeling as they are beautiful in poetry. + +After a short career of glory, Pescara was at length appointed +commander-in-chief of the Imperial armies, and gained the memorable +battle of Pavia. Feared by his enemies, and adored by his soldiers, his +power was at this time so great, that many attempts were made to shake +his fidelity to the Emperor. Even the kingdom of Naples was offered to +him if he would detach himself from the party of Charles the Fifth. +Pescara was not without ambition, though without "the ill that should +attend it." He wavered--he consulted his wife;--he expressed his wish to +place her on a throne she was so fitted to adorn. That admirable and +high-minded woman wrote to confirm him in the path of honour, and +besought him not to sell his faith and truth, and his loyalty to the +cause in which he had embarked, for a kingdom. "For me," she said, +"believe that I do not desire to be the wife of a King; I am more proud +to be the wife of that great captain, who in war, by his valour, and in +peace, by his magnanimity, has vanquished the greatest monarchs."[30] + +On receiving this letter, Pescara hastened to shake off the subtle +tempters round him; but he had previously become so far entangled, that +he did not escape without some impeachment of his before stainless +honour. The bitter consciousness of this, and the effects of some +desperate wounds he had received at the battle of Pavia, which broke out +afresh, put a period to his life at Milan, in his thirty-fifth year.[31] + +The Marchesana was at Naples when the news of his danger arrived. She +immediately set out to join him; but was met at Viterbo by a courier, +bearing the tidings of his death. On hearing this intelligence, she +fainted away; and being brought a little to herself, sank into a stupor +of grief, which alarmed her attendants for her reason or her life. +Seasonable tears at length came to her relief; but her sorrow, for a +long, long time, admitted no alleviation. She retired, after her first +overwhelming anguish had subsided, to her favourite residence in the +isle of Ischia, where she spent, almost uninterruptedly, the first seven +years of her widowhood. + +Being only in her thirty-fifth year, in the prime of her life and +beauty, and splendidly dowered, it was supposed that she would marry +again, and many of the Princes of Italy sought her hand; her brothers +urged it; but she replied to their entreaties and remonstrances, with a +mixture of dignity and tenderness, that "Though her noble husband might +be by others reputed dead, he still lived to her, and to her heart."[32] +And in one of her poems, she alludes to these attempts to shake her +constancy. "I will preserve," she says, "the title of a faithful wife to +my beloved,--a title dear to me beyond every other: and on this +island-rock,[33] once so dear to _him_, will I wait patiently, till time +brings the end of all my griefs, as once of all my joys." + + D'arder sempre piangendo non mi doglio! + Forse avro di fedele il titol vero, + Caro a me sopra ogn' altro eterno onore. + + Non cambiero la fe,--ne questo scoglio + Ch' al _mio_ sol piacque, ove finire spero + Come le dolci gia, quest' amare ore![34] + +This Sonnet was written in the seventh year of her widowhood. She says +elsewhere, that her heart having once been so nobly bestowed, disdains a +meaner chain; and that her love had not ceased with the death of its +object.-- + + Di cosi nobil fiamma amore mi cinse, + Ch' essendo spenta, in me viva l' ardore. + +There is another, addressed to the poet Molza, in which she alludes to +the fate of his parents, who, by a singular providence, both expired in +the same day and hour: such a fate appeared to her worthy of envy; and +she laments very tenderly that Heaven had doomed her to survive him with +whom her heart lay buried. There are others addressed to Cardinal Bembo, +in which she thus excuses herself for making Pescara the subject of her +verse. + + Scrivo sol per sfogar l' interna doglia; + La pura fe, l' ardor, l' intensa pena + Mi scusa appo ciascun; che 'l grave pianto + E tal, che tempo, ne raggion l' affrena. + +There is also a Canzone by Vittoria, full of poetry and feeling, in +which she alludes to the loss of that beauty which once she was proud to +possess, because it was dear in her husband's sight. "Look down upon +me," she exclaims, "from thy seat of glory! look down upon me with those +eyes that ever turned with tenderness on mine! Behold, how misery has +changed me; how all that once was beauty is fled!--and yet I am--I am +the same!"--(Io son--io son ben dessa!)--But no translation--none at +least that I could execute--would do justice to the deep pathos, the +feminine feeling, and the eloquent simplicity of this beautiful and +celebrated poem. The reader will find it in Mathias's collection.[35] + +After the lapse of several years, her mind, elevated by the very nature +of her grief, took a strong devotional turn: and from this time, we +find her poetry entirely consecrated to sacred subjects. + +The first of these _Rime spirituali_ is exquisitely beautiful. She +allows that the anguish she had felt on the death of her noble husband, +was not alleviated, but rather nourished and kept alive in all its first +poignancy, by constantly dwelling on the theme of his virtues and her +own regrets; that the thirst of fame, and the possession of glory, could +not cure the pining sickness of her heart; and that she now turned to +Heaven as a last and best resource against sorrow.[36] + + Poiche 'l mio casto amor, gran tempo tenne + L' alma di fama accesa, ed ella un angue + In sen nudrio, per cui dolente or langue,-- + Volta al Signor, onde il remedio venne. + + ....*....*....*....* + + Chiamar qui non convien Parnasso o Delo; + Ch' ad altra acqua s' aspira, ad altro monte + Si poggia, u' piede uman per se non sale. + +Not the least of Vittoria's titles to fame, was the intense adoration +with which she inspired Michel Angelo. Condivi says he was enamoured of +her divine talents. "In particolare egli amo grandemente la Marchesana +di Pescara, del cui divino spirito era inamorato:" and he makes use of a +strong expression to describe the admiration and friendship she felt for +him in return. She was fifteen years younger than Michel Angelo, who not +only employed his pencil and his chisel for her pleasure, or at her +suggestion, but has left among his poems several which are addressed to +her, and which breathe that deep and fervent, yet pure and reverential +love she was as worthy to inspire as he was to feel. + +I cannot refuse myself the pleasure of adding here one of the Sonnets, +addressed by Michel Angelo to the Marchesana of Pescara, as translated +by Wordsworth, in a peal of grand harmony, almost as _literally_ +faithful to the expression as to the spirit of the original. + + +SONNET. + + Yes! hope may with my strong desire keep pace, + And I be undeluded, unbetrayed; + For if of our affections none find grace + In sight of Heaven, then, wherefore had God made + The world which we inhabit? Better plea + Love cannot have, than that in loving thee + Glory to that eternal peace is paid, + Who such divinity to thee imparts + As hallows and makes pure all gentle hearts. + His hope is treacherous only whose love dies + With beauty, which is varying every hour: + But, in chaste hearts, uninfluenced by the power + Of outward change, there blooms a deathless flower, + That breathes on earth the air of Paradise. + +He stood by her in her last moments; and when her lofty and gentle +spirit had forsaken its fair tenement, he raised her hand and kissed it +with a sacred respect. He afterwards expressed to an intimate friend his +regret, that being oppressed by the awful feelings of that moment, he +had not, for the first and last time, pressed his lips to hers. + +Vittoria had another passionate admirer in Galeazzo di Tarsia, Count of +Belmonte in Calabria, and an excellent poet of that time.[37] His +attachment was as poetical, but apparently not quite so Platonic, as +that of Michel Angelo. His beautiful Canzone beginning, + + A qual pietra sommiglia + La mia bella Colonna, + +contains lines rather more impassioned than the modest and grave +Vittoria could have approved: for example-- + + Con lei foss' io da che si parte il sole, + E non ci vedesse altri che le stelle, + --Solo una notte--e mai non fosse l' Alba! + +Marini and Bernardo Tasso were also numbered among her poets and +admirers. + +Vittoria Colonna died at Rome, in 1547. She was suspected of favouring +in secret the reformed doctrines; but I do not know on what authority +Roscoe mentions this. Her noble birth, her admirable beauty, her +illustrious marriage, her splendid genius, (which made her the worship +of genius--and the theme of poets,) have rendered her one of the most +remarkable of women;--as her sorrows, her conjugal virtues, her +innocence of heart, and elegance of mind, have rendered her one of the +most interesting. + + Where could she fix on mortal ground + Those tender thoughts and high? + Now peace, the woman's heart hath found, + And joy, the poet's eye![38] + +Antiquity may boast its heroines; but it required virtues of a higher +order to be a Vittoria Colonna, or a Lady Russel, than to be a Portia +or an Arria. How much more graceful, and even more sublime, is the moral +strength, the silent enduring heroism of the Christian, than the stern, +impatient defiance of destiny, which showed so imposing in the heathen! +How much more difficult is it sometimes to live than to die! + + Piu val d' ogni vittoria un bel soffirire. + +Or as Campbell has expressed nearly the same sentiment, + + To bear, is to conquer our fate! + +FOOTNOTES: + +[28] Orlando Furioso, canto 37. + +[29] "Never less idle than when idle." + +[30] "Non desidero d'esser moglie d'un re; bensi di quel gran capitano, +il quale non solamente in guerra con valor, ma ancora in pace con la +magnanimita ha saputo vincere i re piu grande." (Vita di Vittoria +Colonna, da Giambattista Rota.) + +[31] See in Robertson's Charles V. an account of the generous conduct of +Pescara to the Chevalier Bayard. + +[32] Che il suo sole, quantunque dagli altri fosse riputato morte, +appresso di lei sempre vivea. (Vita.) + +[33] Ischia. + +[34] Sonnet 74. + +[35] Componimenti Lirici, vol. i. 144. + +[36] L'honneur d'avoir ete, entre toutes les poetes, la premiere a +composer un recueil de poesies sacrees, appartient, toute entiere, a +Vittoria Colonna. (See Ginguene.) Her masterpieces, in this style, are +said to be the sonnet on the death of our Saviour.-- + + "Gli Angeli eletti al gran bene infinito;" + +and the hymn + + "Padre Eterno del cielo!" + +which is sublime: it may be found in Mathias's Collection, vol. iii. + +[37] Died 1535. + +[38] Mrs. Hemans. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +CONJUGAL POETRY CONTINUED. + +VERONICA GAMBARA. + + +Vittoria Colonna, and her famed friend and contemporary, Veronica, +Countess of Correggio, are inseparable names in the history of Italian +literature, as living at the same time, and equally ornaments of their +sex. They resembled each other in poetical talent, in their domestic +sorrows and conjugal virtues: in every other respect the contrast is +striking. Vittoria, with all her genius, seems to have been as lovely, +gentle, and feminine a creature as ever wore the form of woman. + + No lily--no--nor fragrant hyacinth, + Had half such softness, sweetness, blessedness. + +Veronica, on the contrary, was one, + + ----to whose masculine spirit + To touch the stars had seemed an easy flight. + +She added to her talents and virtues, strong passions,--and happily also +sufficient energy of mind to govern and direct them. She had not +Vittoria's personal charms: it is said, that if her face had equalled +her form, she would have been one of the most beautiful women of her +time; but her features were irregular, and her grand commanding figure, +which in her youth was admired for its perfect proportions, grew large +and heavy as she advanced in life. She retained, however, to the last, +the animation of her countenance, the dignity of her deportment, and +powers of conversation so fascinating, that none ever approached her +without admiration, or quitted her society without regret. + +Her verses have not the polished harmony and the graceful suavity of +Vittoria's; but more vigour of expression, and more vivacity of +colouring. Their defects were equally opposed: the simplicity of +Veronica sometimes borders upon harshness and carelessness; the uniform +sweetness of Vittoria is sometimes too elaborate and artificial. + +Veronica Gambara was born in 1485. Her _fortunate_ parents, as her +biographer expresses it,[39] were Count Gian Francisco Gambara, and Alda +Pia. In her twenty-fifth year, when already distinguished as a poetess, +and a woman of great and various learning, she married Ghiberto Count of +Correggio, to whom she appears to have been attached with all the +enthusiasm of her character, and by whom she was tenderly loved in +return. After the birth of her second son, she was seized with a +dangerous disorder, of what nature we are not told. The physicians +informed her husband that they did not despair of her recovery, but that +the remedies they should be forced to employ would probably preclude all +hope of her becoming again a mother. The Count, who had always wished +for a numerous offspring, ordered them to employ these remedies +instantly, and save her to him at every other risk. She recovered; but +the effects upon her constitution were such as had been predicted. + +Like Vittoria Colonna, she made the personal qualities and renown of her +husband the principal subjects of her verse. She dwells particularly on +his fine dark eyes, expressing very gracefully the various feelings they +excited in her heart, whether clouded with thought, or serene with +happiness, or sparkling with affection.[40] She devotes six Sonnets and +a Madrigal to this subject; and if we may believe his poetical and +admiring wife, these "occhi stellante" could combine more variety of +expression in a single glance than ever did eyes before or since. + + Lieti, mesti, superbi, umili, altieri, + Vi mostrate in un punto; onde di speme + E di timor m' empiete.-- + +There is great power and pathos in one of her poems, written on his +absence. + + O Stella! O Fato! del mio mal si avaro! + Ch' l mio ben m'allontani, anzi m'involi-- + Fia mai quel di ch' io lo riveggia o mora?[41] + +Veronica lost her husband, after nine years of the happiest union.[42] +He gave her an incontrovertible proof of his attachment and boundless +confidence, by leaving her his sole executrix, with the government of +Correggio, and the guardianship of his children during their minority. +Her grief on this occasion threw her into a dangerous and protracted +fever, which during the rest of her life attacked her periodically. She +says in one of her poems, that nothing but the fear of not meeting her +beloved husband in Paradise prevented her from dying with him. She not +only vowed herself to a perpetual widowhood, but to a perpetual +mourning; and the extreme vivacity of her imagination was displayed in +the strange trappings of woe with which she was henceforth surrounded. +She lived in apartments hung and furnished with black, and from which +every object of luxury was banished: her liveries, her coach, her +horses, were of the same funereal hue. There is extant a curious letter +addressed by her to Ludovico Rossi, in which she entreats her dear +Messer Ludovico, by all their mutual friendship, to procure, at any +price, a certain black horse, to complete her set of carriage +horses--"piu che notte oscuri, conformi, proprio a miei travagli." Over +the door of her sleeping-room she inscribed the distich which Virgil has +put into the mouth of Dido. + + Ille meos, primus qui me sibi junxit, amores + Abstulit: ille habeat secum servetque sepulchro! + + He who once had my vows, shall ever have, + Beloved on earth and worshipped in the grave! + +But, unlike Dido, she did not "profess too much." She kept her word. +Neither did she neglect her duties; but more fortunate in one respect +than her fair and elegant friend the Marchesana, she had two sons, to +whose education she paid the utmost attention, while she administered +the government of Correggio with equal firmness and gentleness. Her +husband had left a daughter,[43] whom she educated and married with a +noble dower. Her eldest son, Hypolito, became a celebrated military +commander; her youngest and favourite son, Girolamo, was created a +cardinal. Wherever Veronica loved, it seems to have been with the same +passionate _abandon_ which distinguished her character in every thing. +Writing to a friend to recommend her son to his kind offices, she +assures him that "he (her son) is not only a part of herself--but rather +_herself_. Remember," she says, "Ch'egli e la Veronica medesima,"--a +strong and tender expression. + +We find her in correspondence with all the most illustrious characters, +political and literary, of that time; and chiefly with Ariosto, Bembo, +Molza, Sanazzaro, and Vittoria Colonna. Ariosto has paid her an elegant +compliment in the last canto of the Orlando Furioso. She is one among +the company of beautiful and accomplished women and noble knights, who +hail the poet, at the conclusion of his work, as a long-travelled +mariner is welcomed to the shore: + + Veronica da Gambara e con loro + Si grata a Febo, e al santo aonio coro. + +This was distinction enough to immortalize her, if she had not already +immortalized herself. + +Veronica was not a prolific poetess; but the few Sonnets she has left, +have a vigour, a truth and simplicity, not often met with among the +_rimatori_ of that rhyming age. She has written fewer good poems than +Vittoria Colonna, but among them, two which are reckoned superior to +Vittoria's best,--one addressed to the rival monarchs, Charles the Fifth +and Francis the First, exhorting them to give peace to Italy, and unite +their forces to protect civilized Europe from the incursions of the +infidels; the other, which is exquisitely tender and picturesque, was +composed on revisiting her native place Brescia, after the death of her +husband. + + Poi che per mia ventura a veder torno, &c. + +It may be found in the collection of Mathias. + +Veronica da Gambara died in 1550, and was buried by her husband. + +It should seem that poetical talents and conjugal truth and tenderness +were inherent in the family of Veronica. Her niece, Camilla Valentini, +the authoress of some very sweet poems, which are to be found in various +_Scelte_, married the Count del Verme, who died after a union of several +years. She had flung herself, in a transport of grief, on the body of +her husband; and when her attendants attempted to remove her, they found +her--dead! Even in that moment of anguish her heart had broken. + + O judge her gently, who so deeply loved! + _Her_, who in reason's spite, without a crime, + Was in a trance of passion thus removed! + +I have been detained too long in "the sweet South;" yet, before we quit +it for the present, I must allude to one or two names which cannot be +entirely passed over, as belonging to the period of which we have been +speaking--the golden age of Italy and of literature. + +Bernardino Rota, who died in 1575, a poet of considerable power and +pathos, has left a volume of poems, "In vita e in morte di Porzia +Capece;" she was a beautiful woman of Naples, whom he loved and +afterwards married, and who was snatched from him in the pride of her +youth and beauty. Among his Sonnets, I find one peculiarly striking, +though far from being the best. The picture it presents, with all its +affecting accompaniments, and the feelings commemorated, are obviously +taken from nature and reality. The poet--the husband--approaches to +contemplate the lifeless form of his Portia, and weeping, he draws from +her pale cold hand the nuptial ring, which he had himself placed on her +finger with all the fond anticipations of love and hope--the pledge of a +union which death alone could dissolve: and now, with a breaking heart, +he transfers it to his own. Such is the subject of this striking poem, +which, with some few faults against taste, is still singularly +picturesque and eloquent, particularly the last six lines.-- + + +SONETTO. + + Questa scolpita in oro, amica fede, + Che santo amor nel tuo bel dito pose, + O prima a me delle terrene cose! + Donna! caro mio pregio,--alta mercede-- + Ben fu da te serbata; e ben si vede + Che al commun' voler' sempre rispose, + Del di ch' il ciel nel mio pensier' t' ascose, + E quanto puote dar, tutto mi diede! + + Ecco ch' io la t' invola--ecco ne spoglio + Il freddo avorio che l' ornava; e vesto + La mia, piu assai che la tua, mano esangue. + Dolce mio furto! finche vivo io voglio + Che tu stia meco--ne le sia molesto + Ch' or di pianto ti bagni,--e poi di sangue! + + +LITERAL TRANSLATION. + + "This circlet of sculptured gold--this pledge which sacred + affection placed on that fair hand--O Lady! dearest to me of + all earthly things,--my sweet possession and my lovely + prize,--well and faithfully didst thou preserve it! the bond + of a mutual love and mutual faith, even from that hour when + Heaven bestowed on me all it could bestow of bliss. Now + then--O now do I take it from thee! and thus do I withdraw + it from the cold ivory of that hand which so adorned and + honoured it. I place it on mine own, now chill, and damp, + and pale as thine.--O beloved theft!--While I live thou + shall never part from me. Ah! be not offended if thus I + stain thee with these tears,--and soon perhaps with life + drops from my heart." + +Castiglione, besides being celebrated as the finest gentleman of his +day, and the author of that code of all noble and knightly +accomplishments, of perfect courtesy and gentle bearing--"Il +Cortigiano," must have a place among our conjugal poets. He had married +in 1516, Hypolita di Torrello, whose accomplishments, beauty, and +illustrious birth, rendered her worthy of him. It appears, however, that +her family, who were of Mantua, could not bear to part with her,[44] and +that after her marriage, she remained in that city, while Castiglione +was ambassador at Rome. This separation gave rise to a very impassioned +correspondence; and the tender regrets and remonstrances scattered +through her letters, he transposed into a very beautiful poem, in the +form of an epistle from his wife. It may be found in the appendix to +Roscoe's Leo X. (No. 196.) Hypolita died in giving birth to a daughter, +after a union of little more than three years, and left Castiglione for +some time inconsolable. We are particularly told of the sympathy of the +Pope and the Cardinals on this occasion, and that Leo condoled with him +in a manner equally unusual and substantial, by bestowing on him +immediately a pension of two hundred gold crowns. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[39] Zamboni. + +[40] "Molto vagamente spiegando i varj e differenti effetti che andavano +cagionando nel di lei core, a misura che essi eran torbidi, o lieti, o +sereni"--_See her Life by Zamboni._ + +[41] Sonnet 16. + +[42] Ghiberto da Correggio died 1518. + +[43] Constance; by his first wife, Violante di Mirandola. + +[44] Serassi.--Vita di Baldassare Castiglione. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +CONJUGAL POETRY CONTINUED. + +STORY OF DR. DONNE AND HIS WIFE. + + +My next instance of conjugal poetry is taken from the literary history +of our own country, and founded on as true and touching a piece of +romance as ever was taken from the page of real life. + +Dr. Donne, once so celebrated as a writer, now so neglected, is more +interesting for his matrimonial history, and for one little poem +addressed to his wife, than for all his learned, metaphysical, and +theological productions. As a poet, it is probable that even readers of +poetry know little of him, except from the lines at the bottom of the +pages in Pope's version, or rather translation, of his Satires, the +very recollection of which is enough to "set one's ears on edge," and +verify Coleridge's witty and imitative couplet.-- + + Donne--whose muse on dromedary trots,-- + Twists iron pokers into true love knots. + +It is this inconceivable harshness of versification, which has caused +Donne to be so little read, except by those who make our old poetry +their study. One of these critics has truly observed, that "there is +scarce a writer in our language who has so thoroughly mixed up the good +and the bad together." What is good, is the result of truth, of passion, +of a strong mind, and a brilliant wit: what is bad, is the effect of a +most perverse taste, and total want of harmony. No sooner has he kindled +the fancy with a splendid thought, than it is as instantly quenched in a +cloud of cold and obscure conceits: no sooner has he touched the heart +with a feeling or sentiment, true to nature and powerfully expressed, +than we are chilled or disgusted by pedantry or coarseness. + +The events of Donne's various life, and the romantic love he inspired +and felt, make us recur to his works, with an interest and a curiosity, +which while they give a value to every beauty we can discover, render +his faults more glaring,--more provoking,--more intolerable. + +In his youth he lavished a considerable fortune in dissipation, in +travelling, and, it may be added, in the acquisition of great and +various learning. He then entered the service of Lord Chancellor +Ellesmere, as secretary. Under the same roof resided Lady Ellesmere's +niece, Anne Moore, a lovely and amiable woman. She was about nineteen, +and Donne was about thirty, handsome, lively, and polished by travel and +study. They met constantly, and the result was a mutual attachment of +the most ardent and romantic character. As they were continually +together, and always in presence of watchful relations ("ambushed round +with household spies," as he expresses it,) it could not long be +concealed. "The friends of both parties," says Walton, "used much +diligence and many arguments to kill or cool their affections for each +other, but in vain:" and the lady's father, Sir George Moore, "knowing +prevention to be the best part of wisdom," came up to town in all haste, +and carried off his daughter into the country. But his preventive wisdom +came too late: the lovers had been secretly married three weeks before. + +This precipitate step was perhaps excusable, from the known violence and +sternness of Sir George's character. His daughter was well aware that +his consent would never be voluntary: she preferred marrying without it, +to marrying against it; and trusted to obtain his forgiveness when there +was no remedy:--a common mode of reasoning, I believe, in such cases. +Never perhaps was a youthful error of this description more bitterly +punished--more deeply expiated--and so little repented of! + +The Earl of Northumberland undertook to break the matter to Sir George, +to reason with him on the subject; and to represent the excellent +qualities of his son-in-law, and the duty of forgiveness, as a wise man, +a father, and Christian. His intention was benevolent, and we have +reason to regret that his speech or letter has not been preserved; for +(such is human inconsistency!) this very Earl of Northumberland never +could forgive his own daughter a similar disobedience,[45] but followed +it with his curse, which he was with difficulty prevailed on to retract. +His mediation failed: Sir George, on learning that his precautions came +too late, burst into a transport of rage, the effect of which resembled +insanity. He had sufficient interest in the arbitrary court of James, to +procure the imprisonment of Donne and the witnesses of his daughter's +marriage; and he insisted that his brother-in-law should dismiss the +young man from his office,--his only support. Lord Ellesmere yielded +with extreme reluctance, saying, "he parted with such a friend and such +a secretary, as were a fitter servant for a King." Donne, in sending +this news to his wife, signs his name with the quaint oddity, which was +so characteristic of his mind,--_John Donne, Anne Donne,--undone_: and +_undone_ they truly were. As soon as he was released he claimed his +wife; but it was many months before they were allowed to meet. + + Have we for this kept guard, like spy o'er spy? + Had correspondence whilst the foe stood by? + Stolen (more to sweeten them) our many blisses + Of meetings, conference, embracements, kisses? + Shadow'd with negligence our best respects? + Varied our language through all dialects + Of becks, winks, looks; and often under boards, + Spoke dialogues, with our feet far from our words? + And after all this passed purgatory, + Must sad divorce make us the vulgar story?[46] + +At length this unkind father in some degree relented; he suffered his +daughter and her husband to live together, but he refused to contribute +to their support; and they were reduced to the greatest distress. Donne +had nothing. "His wife had been curiously and plentifully educated; both +their natures generous, accustomed to confer, not to receive +courtesies;" and when he looked on her who was to be the partner of his +lot, he was filled with such sadness and apprehension as he could never +have felt for himself alone.[47] + +In this situation they were invited into the house of a generous kinsman +(Sir Francis Woolley), who maintained them and their increasing family +for several years, "to their mutual content" and undiminished +friendship.[48] Volumes could not say more in praise of both than this +singular connection:--to bestow favours, so long continued and of such +magnitude, with a grace which made them sit lightly on those who +received them, and to preserve, under the weight of such obligation, +dignity, independence, and happiness, bespeaks uncommon greatness of +spirit and goodness of heart and temper on all sides. + +This close and domestic intimacy was dissolved only by the death of Sir +Francis, who had previously procured a kind of reconcilement with the +father of Mrs. Donne, and an allowance of about eighty pounds a year. +They fell again into debt, and into misery; and "doubtless," says old +Walton, with a quaint, yet eloquent simplicity, "their marriage had been +attended with a heavy repentance, if God had not blessed them with so +mutual and cordial affections, as, in the midst of their sufferings, +made their bread of sorrow taste more pleasantly than the banquets of +dull and low-spirited[49] people." We find in some of Donne's letters, +the most heart-rending pictures of family distress, mingled with the +tenderest touches of devoted affection for his amiable wife. "I write," +he says, "from the fire-side in my parlour, and in the noise of three +gamesome children, and by the side of her, whom, because I have +transplanted into a wretched fortune, I must labour to disguise that +from her by all such honest devices, as giving her my company and +discourse," &c. &c. + +And in another letter he describes himself, with all his family sick, +his wife stupified by her own and her children's sufferings, without +money to purchase medicine,--"and if God should ease us with burials, I +know not how to perform even that; but I flatter myself that I am dying +too, for I cannot waste faster than by such griefs. + + --From my hospital. "JOHN DONNE." + +This is the language of despair; but love was stronger than despair, and +supported this affectionate couple through all their trials. Add to +mutual love the spirit of high honour and conscious desert; for in the +midst of this sad, and almost sordid misery and penury, Donne, whose +talents his contemporaries acknowledged with admiration, refused to take +orders and accept a benefice, from a scruple of conscience, on account +of the irregular life he had led in his youthful years. + +But in their extremity, Providence raised them up another munificent +friend. Sir Robert Drury received the whole family into his house, +treated Donne with the most cordial respect and affection, and some time +afterwards invited him to accompany him abroad. + +Donne had been married to his wife seven years, during which they had +suffered every variety of wretchedness, except the greatest of +all,--that of being separated. The idea of this first parting was beyond +her fortitude; she said, her "divining soul boded her some ill in his +absence," and with tears she entreated him not to leave her. Her +affectionate husband yielded; but Sir Robert Drury was urgent, and would +not be refused. Donne represented to his wife all that honour and +gratitude required of him; and she, too really tender, and too devoted +to be selfish and unreasonable, yielded with "an unwilling willingness;" +yet, womanlike, she thought she could not bear a pain she had never +tried, and was seized with the romantic idea of following him in the +disguise of a page.[50] In a delicate and amiable woman, and a mother, +it could have been but a momentary thought, suggested in the frenzy of +anguish. It inspired, however, the following beautiful dissuasion, which +her husband addressed to her. + + By our first strange and fatal interview; + By all desires which thereof did ensue; + By our long-striving hopes; by that remorse + Which my words' masculine persuasive force + Begot in thee, and by the memory + Of hurts which spies and rivals threaten'd me,-- + I calmly beg: but by thy father's wrath, + By all pains which want and divorcement hath, + I conjure thee;--and all the oaths which I + And thou have sworn to seal joint constancy, + I here unswear, and overswear them thus: + Thou shall not love by means so dangerous. + Temper, O fair Love! Love's impetuous rage; + Be my true mistress, not my feigned page. + I'll go, and by thy kind leave, leave behind + Thee, only worthy to nurse in my mind + Thirst to come back. O! if thou die before, + My soul from other lands to thee shall soar: + Thy (else almighty) beauty cannot move + Rage from the seas, not thy love teach them love, + Nor tame wild Boreas' harshness: thou hast read + How roughly he in pieces shivered + Fair Orithea, whom he swore he loved. + Fall ill or good, 'tis madness to have proved + Dangers unurg'd: feed on this flattery, + That absent lovers one in th' other be. + Dissemble nothing,--not a boy,--nor change + Thy body's habit nor mind: be not strange + To thyself only: all will spy in thy face + A blushing, womanly, discovering grace. + When I am gone dream me some happiness, + Nor let thy looks our long hid love confess: + Nor praise nor dispraise me; nor bless nor curse + Openly love's force; nor in bed fright thy nurse + With midnight starlings, crying out, Oh! oh! + Nurse, oh! my love is slain! I saw him go + O'er the white Alps alone; I saw him, I, + Assailed, ta'en, fight, stabb'd, bleed, fall, and die! + Augur me better chance, except dread Jove + Think it enough for me to have had thy love. + +I would not have the heart of one who could read these lines, and think +only of their rugged style, and faults of taste and expression. The +superior power of truth and sentiment have immortalised this little +poem, and the occasion which gave it birth. The wife and husband parted, +and he left with her another little poem, which he calls a "Valediction, +forbidding to mourn." + +When Donne was at Paris, and still suffering under the grief of this +separation, he saw, or fancied he saw, the apparition of his wife pass +through the room in which he sat, her hair dishevelled and hanging down +upon her shoulders, her face pale and mournful, and carrying in her arms +a dead infant. Sir Robert Drury found him a few minutes afterwards in +such a state of horror, and his mind so impressed with the reality of +this vision, that an express was immediately sent off to England, to +inquire after the health of Mrs. Donne. She had been seized, after the +departure of her husband, with a premature confinement; had been at the +point of death; but was then out of danger, and recovering. + +This incident has been related by all Donne's biographers, by some with +infinite solemnity, by others with sneering incredulity. I can speak +from experience, of the power of the imagination to impress us with a +palpable sense of what is _not_, and cannot be; and it seems to me that, +in a man of Donne's ardent, melancholy temperament, brooding day and +night on the one sad idea, a high state of nervous excitement is +sufficient to account for this impression, without having recourse to +supernatural agency, or absolute disbelief. + +Donne, after several years of study, was prevailed on to enter holy +orders; and about four years afterwards, his amiable wife died in her +twelfth confinement.[51] His grief was so overwhelming, that his old +friend Walton thinks it necessary thus to apologise for him:--"Nor is it +hard to think (being that passions may be both changed and heightened by +accidents,) but that the abundant affection which was once betwixt him +and her, who had so long been the delight of his eyes and the companion +of his youth; her, with whom he had divided so many pleasant sorrows and +contented fears, as common people are not capable of, should be changed +into a commensurable grief." He roused himself at length to his duties; +and preaching his first sermon at St. Clement's Church, in the Strand, +where his beloved wife lay buried, he took for his text, Jer. iii. v. +1,--"Lo! I am the man that hath seen affliction;" and sent all his +congregation home in tears. + + * * * * * + +Among Donne's earlier poetry may be distinguished the following little +song, which has so much more harmony and elegance than his other pieces, +that it is scarcely a fair specimen of his style. It was long popular, +and I can remember when a child, hearing it sung to very beautiful +music. + + Send home my long stray'd eyes to me, + Which, oh! too long have dwelt on thee! + But if from thee they've learnt such ill, + Such forced fashions + And false passions, + That they be + Made by thee + Fit for no good sight--keep them still! + + Send home my harmless heart again, + Which no unworthy thought could stain! + But if it hath been taught by thine + To make jestings + Of protestings, + To forget both + Its word and troth, + Keep it still--'tis none of mine! + +Perhaps it may interest some readers to add, that Donne's famous lines, +which have been quoted _ad infinitum_,-- + + The pure and eloquent blood + Spoke in her cheeks, and so distinctly wrought, + Ye might have almost said her body thought! + +were not written on his wife, but on Elizabeth Drury, the only daughter +of his patron and friend, Sir Robert Drury. She was the richest heiress +in England, the wealth of her father being considered almost +incalculable; and this, added to her singular beauty, and extraordinary +talents and acquirements, rendered her so popularly interesting, that +she was considered a fit match for Henry, Prince of Wales. She died in +her sixteenth year. + +Dr. Donne and his wife were maternal ancestors of the Poet Cowper. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[45] Lady Lucy Percy, afterwards the famous Countess of Carlisle, +mentioned in page 33. + +[46] Donne's poems. + +[47] Walton's Lives. + +[48] Walton's Life of Donne.--Chalmers's Biography. + +[49] i. e. low-minded. + +[50] Chalmers's Biography. + +[51] In 1617. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +CONJUGAL POETRY CONTINUED. + +HABINGTON'S CASTARA. + + +One of the most elegant monuments ever raised by genius to conjugal +affection, was Habington's Castara. + +William Habington, who ranks among the most graceful of our old minor +poets, was a gentleman of an ancient Roman Catholic family in +Worcestershire, and born in 1605.[52] On his return from his travels, he +saw and loved Lucy Herbert, the daughter of Lord Powis, and +grand-daughter of the Earl of Northumberland. She was far his superior +in birth, being descended, on both sides, from the noblest blood in +England; and her haughty relations at first opposed their union. It was, +however, merely that degree of opposition, without which the "course of +true love would have run _too_ smooth." It was just sufficient to pique +the ardour of the lover, and prove the worth and constancy of her he +loved. The history of their attachment has none of the painful interest +which hangs round that of Donne and his wife: it is a picture of pure +and peaceful happiness, and of mutual tenderness, on which the +imagination dwells with a soft complacency and unalloyed pleasure; with +nothing of romance but what was borrowed from the elegant mind and +playful fancy, which heightened and embellished the delightful reality. + +If Habington had not been born a poet, a tombstone in an obscure country +church would have been the only memorial of himself and his Castara. +"She it was who animated his imagination with tenderness and elegance, +and filled it with images of beauty, purified by her feminine delicacy +from all grosser alloy." In return, he may be allowed to exult in the +immortality he has given her. + + Thy vows are heard! and thy Castara's name + Is writ as fair i' the register of fame, + As the ancient beauties which translated are + By poets up to Heaven--each there a star. + + ....*....*....*....* + + Fix'd in Love's firmament no star shall shine + So nobly fair, so purely chaste as thine! + +The collection of poems which Habington dedicated to his Castara, is +divided into two parts: those written before his marriage he has +entitled "The Mistress," those written subsequently, "The Wife." + +He has prefixed to the whole an introduction in prose, written with some +quaintness, but more feeling and elegance, in which he claims for +himself the honour of being the first _conjugal_ poet in our language. +To use his own words: "Though I appear to strive against the stream of +the best wits in erecting the same altar to chastity and love, I will, +for one, adventure to do well without a precedent." + +Habington had, however, been anticipated, as we have seen, by some of +the Italian poets whom he has imitated: he has a little of the +_recherche_ and affectation of their school, and is not untinctured by +the false taste of his day. He has not great power, nor much pathos; but +these defects are redeemed by a delicacy of expression uncommon at that +time; by the interest he has thrown round a love as pure as its object, +and by the most exquisite touches of fancy, sentiment, and tenderness. + +Without expressly naming his wife in his prefatory remarks, he alludes +to her very beautifully, and exults, with a modest triumph, in the value +of his rich possession. + +"How unhappy soever I may be in the elocution, I am sure the theme is +worthy enough. * * * Nor was my invention ever sinister from the +straight way of chastity; and when love builds upon _that_ rock, it may +safely contemn the battery of the waves, and the threatenings of the +wind. Since time, that makes a mockery of the finest structures, shall +itself be ruined before _that_ be demolished. Thus was the foundation +laid; and though my eye, in its survey, was satisfied even to curiosity, +yet did not my search rest there. The alabaster, ivory, porphyry, jet, +that lent an admirable beauty to the outward building, entertained me +with but half pleasure, since they stood there only to make sport for +ruin. But when my soul grew acquainted with the owner of that mansion, I +found that oratory was dumb when it began to speake her." + +He then describes her wisdom; her wit; her innocence,--"so unvitiated by +conversation with the world, that the subtle-witted of her sex would +have termed it ignorance;" her modesty "so timorous, it represented a +besieged city standing watchfully on her guard: in a word, all those +virtues which should restore woman to her primitive state of virtue, +fully adorned her." He then prettily apologises for this indiscreet +rhetoric on such a subject. "Such," he says, "I fancied her; for to say +she is, or was such, were to play the merchant, and boast too much of +the value of the jewel I possess, but have no mind to part with." + +He concludes with this just, yet modest appreciation of himself:--"If +not too indulgent to what is mine own, I think even these verses will +have that proportion in the world's opinion, that heaven hath allotted +me in fortune,--not so high as to be wondered at, nor so low as to be +contemned." + +In the description of "the MISTRESS," are some little touches inimitably +graceful and complimentary. Though couched in general terms, it is of +course a portrait of Lucy Herbert, such as she appeared to him in the +days of their courtship, and fondly recalled and dwelt upon, when she +had been many years a wife and a mother. He represents her "as fair as +Nature intended her, helpt, perhaps, to a more pleasing grace by the +sweetness of education, not by the sleight of art." This discrimination +is delicately drawn.--He continues, "she is young; for a woman, past the +delicacy of her spring, may well move to virtue by respect, never by +beauty to affection. In her carriage, sober, thinking her youth +expresseth life enough, without the giddy motion fashion of late hath +taken up."--(This was early in the reign of the grave and correct +Charles the First. What would Habington have said of the flaunting, +fluttering, voluble beauties of Charles the Second's time?) + +He extols the melody of her voice, her knowledge of music, and her grace +in the dance: above all, he dwells on her retiring modesty, the +favourite theme of his praise in prose and verse, which seems to have +been the most striking part of her character, and her greatest charm in +the eyes of her lover. He concludes, with the beautiful sentiment I have +chosen as a motto to this little book.--"Only she, who hath as great a +share in virtue as in beauty, deserves a noble love to serve her, and a +free poesie to speak her!" + +The poems are all short, generally in the form of _sonnets_, if that +name can be properly applied to all poems of fourteen lines, whatever +the rhythmical arrangement. The subjects of these, and their quaint +expressive titles, form a kind of chronicle of their loves, in which +every little incident is commemorated. Thus we have, "to Castara, +inquiring why I loved her."--"To Castara, softly singing to herself." +"To Castara, leaving him on the approach of night."-- + + What should we fear, Castara? the cool air + That's fallen in love, and wantons in thy hair, + Will not betray our whispers:--should I steal + A nectar'd kiss, the wind dares not reveal + The treasure I possess! + +"To Castara, on being debarred her presence," (probably by her father, +Lord Powis.)-- + + Banish'd from you, I charged the nimble wind, + My unseen messenger, to speak my mind + In amorous whispers to you! + +"Upon her intended journey into the country."--"Upon Seymors," (a house +near Marlow, where Castara resided with her parents, and where, it +appears, he was not allowed to visit her.)--"On a trembling kiss she +had granted him on her departure." The commencement of this is +beautiful: + + The Arabian wind, whose breathing gently blows + Purple to the violet, blushes to the rose, + Did never yield an odour such as this! + Why are you then so thrifty of a kiss, + Authorized even by custom? Why doth fear + So tremble on your lip, my lip being near? + +Then we have, "to Castara, on visiting her in the night."--This alludes +to a meeting of the lovers, at a time they were debarred from each +other's society. + +The following are more exquisitely graceful than any thing in Waller, +yet much in his style. + + +TO ROSES IN THE BOSOM OF CASTARA. + + Ye blushing virgins happy are + In the chaste nunnery of her breast; + For he'd profane so chaste a fair + Who e'er should call it Cupid's nest. + + Transplanted thus, how bright ye grow! + How rich a perfume do ye yield! + In some close garden, cowslips so + Are sweeter than i' the open field. + + In those white cloisters live secure, + From the rude blasts of wanton breath; + Each hour more innocent and pure, + Till ye shall wither into death. + + Then that which living gave ye room, + Your glorious sepulchre shall be; + There needs no marble for a tomb,-- + That breast hath marble been to me! + +The epistle to Castara's mother, Lady Eleanor Powis, who appears to have +looked kindly on their love, contains some very beautiful lines, in +which he asserts the disinterestedness of his affection for Castara, +rich as she is in fortune, and derived from the blood of Charlemagne. + + My love is envious! would Castara were + The daughter of some mountain cottager, + Who, with his toil worn out, could dying leave + Her no more dower than what she did receive + From bounteous Nature; her would I then lead + To the temple, rich in her own wealth; her head + Crowned with her hair's fair treasure; diamonds in + Her brighter eyes; soft ermines in her skin, + Each India in her cheek, &c. + +This first part closes with "the description of Castara," which is +extended to several stanzas, of unequal merit. The following compose in +themselves a sweet picture: + + Like the violet, which alone + Prospers in some happy shade, + My Castara lives unknown, + To no looser eye betray'd. + For she's to herself untrue + Who delights i' the public view. + + ....*....*....*....* + + Such her beauty, as no arts + Have enrich'd with borrow'd grace + Her high birth no pride imparts, + For she blushes in her place. + Folly boasts a glorious blood-- + She is noblest, being good! + + ....*....*....*....* + + She her throne makes reason climb, + While wild passions captive lie; + And each article of time + Her pure thoughts to heaven fly. + All her vows religious be-- + And her love she vows to me! + +The second part of these poems, dedicated to Castara as "the WIFE," have +not less variety and beauty, though there were, of course, fewer +incidents to record. The first Sonnet, "to Castara, now possest of her +in marriage," beginning "This day is ours," &c. has more fancy and +poetry than tenderness. The lines to Lord Powis, the father of Castara, +on the same occasion, are more beautiful and earnest, yet rich in +fanciful imagery. Lord Powis, it must be remembered, had opposed their +union, and had been, with difficulty, induced to give his consent. The +following lines refer to this; and Habington asserts the purity and +unselfishness of his attachment. + + Nor grieve, my Lord, 'tis perfected. Before + Afflicted seas sought refuge on the shore, + From the angry north wind; ere the astonish'd spring + Heard in the air the feathered people sing; + Ere time had motion, or the sun obtained + His province o'er the day--this was ordained. + Nor think in her I courted wealth or blood, + Or more uncertain hopes; for had I stood + On the highest ground of fortune,--the world known, + No greatness but what waited on my throne-- + And she had only had that face and mind, + I with myself, had th' earth to her resigned. + In virtue there's an empire! + + Here I rest, + As all things to my power subdued; to me + There's nought beyond this, the whole world is SHE! + +On the anniversary of their wedding-day, he thus addresses her:-- + + +LOVE'S ANNIVERSARY. + + Thou art returned (great light) to that blest hour + In which I first by marriage, (sacred power!) + Joined with Castara hearts; and as the same + Thy lustre is, as then,--so is our flame; + Which had increased, but that by Love's decree, + 'Twas such at first, it ne'er could greater be. + But tell me, (glorious lamp,) in thy survey + Of things below thee, what did not decay + By age to weakness? I since that have seen + The rose bud forth and fade, the tree grow green, + And wither wrinkled. Even thyself dost yield + Something to time, and to thy grave fall nigher; + But virtuous love is one sweet endless fire. + +"To Castara, on the knowledge of love," is peculiarly elegant; it was, +probably, suggested by some speculative topics of conversation, +discussed in the literary circle he had drawn round him at Hindlip.[53] + + Where sleeps the north wind when the south inspires + Life in the Spring, and gathers into quires + The scatter'd nightingales; whose subtle ears + Heard first the harmonious language of the spheres; + Whence hath the stone magnetic force t'allure + Th'enamour'd iron; from a seed impure. + Or natural, did first the mandrake grow; + What power in the ocean makes it flow; + What strange materials is the azure sky + Compacted of; of what its brightest eye + The ever flaming sun; what people are + In th' unknown world; what worlds in every star:-- + Let curious fancies at these secrets rove; + Castara, what we know we'll practise--love. + +The "Lines on her fainting;" those on "The fear of death,"-- + + Why should we fear to melt away in death? + May we but die together! &c. + +On her sigh,-- + + Were but that sigh a penitential breath + That thou art mine, it would blow with it death, + T' inclose me in my marble, where I 'd be + Slave to the tyrant worms to set thee free! + +His self-congratulation on his own happiness, in his epistle to his +uncle, Lord Morley; are all in the same strain of gentle and elegant +feeling. The following are among the last addressed to his wife. + + Give me a heart, where no impure + Disorder'd passions rage; + Which jealousie doth not obscure, + Nor vanity t' expense engage; + Not wooed to madness by quaint oathes, + Or the fine rhetorick of cloathes; + Which not the softness of the age + To vice or folly doth decline; + Give me that heart, Castara, for 'tis thine. + + Take thou a heart, where no new look + Provokes new appetite; + With no fresh charm of beauty took, + Or wanton stratagem of wit; + Not idly wandering here and there, + Led by an am'rous eye or ear; + Aiming each beauteous mark to hit; + Which virtue doth to one confine: + Take thou that heart, Castara, for 'tis mine. + +It was owing to his affection for his wife, as well as his own retired +and studious habits, that Habington lived through the civil wars without +taking any active part on either side. It should seem that, at such a +period, no man of a lofty and generous spirit could have avoided joining +the party or principles, either of Falkland and Grandison, or of Hampden +and Hutchinson. But Habington's family had already suffered, in fortune +and in fame, by their interference with State matters; and without, in +any degree, implicating himself with either party, he passed through +those stormy and eventful times, + + As one who dreams + Of idleness, in groves Elysian; + +and died in the first year of the Protectorate, 1654. I cannot discover +the date of Castara's death; but she died some years before her husband, +leaving only one son. + +There is one among the poems of the second part of Castara, which I +cannot pass without remark; it is the Elegy which Habington addressed to +his wife, on the death of her friend, Venetia Digby, the consort of the +famous Sir Kenelm Digby. She was the most beautiful woman of her time: +even Lord Clarendon steps aside from the gravity of history, to mention +"her extraordinary beauty, and as extraordinary fame." Her picture at +Windsor is, indeed, more like a vision of ideal loveliness, than any +form that ever trod the earth.[54] She was descended from the Percies +and the Stanleys, and was first cousin to Habington's Castara, their +mothers being sisters. The magnificent spirit of her enamoured husband, +surrounded her with the most gorgeous adornments that ever were invented +by vanity or luxury: and thus she was, one day, found dead on her couch, +her hand supporting her head, in the attitude of one asleep. Habington's +description exactly agrees with the picture at Althorpe, painted after +her death by Vandyke. + + What's honour but a hatchment? what is here + Of Percy left, or Stanley, names most dear + To virtue? + Or what avails her that she once was led + A glorious bride to valiant Digby's bed? + She, when whatever rare + The either Indies boast, lay richly spread + For her to wear, lay on her pillow _dead_! + +There is no piercing the mystery which hangs round the story of this +beautiful creature: that a stigma rested on her character, and that she +was exculpated from it, whatever it might be, seems proved, by the doves +and serpents introduced into several portraits of her; the first, +emblematical of her innocence, and the latter, of her triumph over +slander: and not less, by these lines of Habington. If Venetia Digby had +been, as Aubrey and others insinuate, abandoned to profligacy, and a +victim to her husband's jealousy, Habington would scarce have considered +her noble descent and relationship to his Castara as a matter of pride; +or her death as a subject of tender condolence; or the awful manner of +it a peculiar blessing of heaven, and the reward of her virtues. + + Come likewise, my Castara, and behold + What blessings ancient prophecy foretold, + Bestow'd on her in death; she past away + So sweetly from the world as if her clay + Lay only down to slumber. Then forbear + To let on her blest ashes fall a tear; + Or if thou'rt too much woman, softly weep, + Lest grief disturb the silence of her sleep! + +The author of the introduction to the curious Memoirs of Sir Kenelm +Digby, has proved the absolute falsehood of some of Aubrey's assertions, +and infers the improbability of others. But these beautiful lines by +Habington, seem to have escaped his notice; and they are not slight +evidence in Venetia's favour. On the whole, the mystery remains +unexplained; a cloud has settled for ever on the true story of this +extraordinary creature. Neither the pen nor the sword of her husband +could entirely clear her fame in her own age: he could only terrify +slander into silence, and it died away into an indistinct murmur, of +which the echo alone has reached our time.--But this is enough:--the +echo of an _echo_ could whisper into naught a woman's fair name. The +idea of a creature so formed in the prodigality of nature; so completely +and faultlessly beautiful; so nobly born and allied; so capable (as she +showed herself on various occasions,) of high generous feeling,[55] of +delicacy,[56] of fortitude,[57] of tenderness;[58] depraved by her own +vices, or "done to death by slanderous tongues," is equally painful and +heart-sickening. The image of the asp trailing its slime and its venom +over the bosom of Cleopatra, is not more abhorrent. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[52] It was the mother of William Habington who addressed to her +brother, Lord Mounteagle, that extraordinary letter which led to the +discovery of the Gunpowder Plot. + + _Nash's History of Worcestershire._ + +[53] The family seat of the Habingtons, in Worcestershire. + +[54] There are also four pictures of her at Strawberry Hill, and one of +her mother, Lady Lucy Percy, exquisitely beautiful. At Gothurst, there +is a picture of her, and a bust, which, after her death, her husband +placed in his chamber, with this tender and beautiful inscription + +Uxorem amare vivam, voluptas: defunctam, religio. + +[55] Memoirs of Sir Kenelm Digby, pp. 211, 224. Introduction, p. 27. + +[56] Memoirs, pp. 205, 213. Introduction, p. 28. + +[57] Memoirs, p. 254. + +[58] Memoirs, p. 305. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +CONJUGAL POETRY CONTINUED. + +THE TWO ZAPPI. + + +We find among the minor poets of Italy, a charming, and I believe a +singular instance of a husband and a wife, both highly gifted, devoting +their talents to celebrate each other. These were Giambattista +Zappi,[59] the famous Roman advocate, and his wife Faustina, the +daughter of Carlo Maratti, the painter. + +Zappi, after completing his legal studies at Bologna, came to reside at +Rome, where he distinguished himself in his profession, and was one of +the founders of the academy of the Arcadii. Faustina Maratti was many +years younger than her husband, and extremely beautiful: she was her +father's favourite model for his Madonnas, Muses, and Vestal Virgins. +From a description of her, in an Epithalamium[60] on her marriage, it +appears that her eyes and hair were jet black, her features regular, and +her complexion pale and delicate; a style of beauty which, in its +perfection, is almost peculiar to Italy. To the mutual tenderness of +these married lovers, we owe some of the most elegant among the lighter +Italian lyrics. Zappi, in a Sonnet addressed to his wife some time after +their union, reminds her, with a tender exultation, of the moment they +first met; when she swept by him in all the pride of beauty, careless or +unconscious of his admiration,--and he bowed low before her, scarcely +daring to lift his eyes on the charms that were destined to bless him; +"Who," he says, "would then have whispered me, the day will come when +you will smile to remember her disdain, for all this blaze of beauty was +created for you alone!" or would have said to her, "Know you who is +destined to touch that virgin heart? Even he, whom you now pass by +without even a look! Such are the miracles of love!" + + La prima volta ch'io m'avenni in quella + Ninfa, che il cor m'accese, e ancor l'accende, + Io dissi, e donna o dea, ninfa si bella? + Giunse dal prato, o pur dal ciel discende? + + La fronte inchino in umil atto, ed ella + La merce pur d'un sguardo a me non rende; + Qual vagheggiata in cielo, o luna, o stella, + Che segue altera il suo viaggio, e splende. + + Chi detto avesse a me, "costei ti sprezza, + Ma un di ti riderai del suo rigore! + Che nacque sol per te tanta bellezza." + + Chi detto avesse ad ella: "Il tuo bel core + Sai chi l'avra? Costui ch'or non t'apprezza" + Or negate i miracoli d'Amore! + +The first Sonnet in Faustina's Canzoniere, + + Dolce sollievo delle umane cure, + +is an eulogium on her husband, and describes her own confiding +tenderness. It is full of grace and sweetness, and feminine feeling: + + Soave cortesia, vezzosi accenti, + Virtu, senno, valor d'alma gentile, + Spogliato hanno 'l mio cor d'ogni timore; + + Or tu gli affetti miei puri innocenti + Pasci cortese, e non cangiar tuo stile + Dolce sollievo de' miei mali, amore! + +Others are of a melancholy character; and one or two allude to the death +of an infant son, whom she tenderly laments. But the most finished of +all her poems is a Sonnet addressed to a lady whom her husband had +formerly loved;[61] the sentiment of which is truly beautiful and +feminine: never was jealousy so amiably, or so delicately expressed. +There is something very dramatic and picturesque in the apostrophe which +Faustina addresses to her rival, and in the image of the lady "casting +down her large bright eyes:" as well as affecting in the abrupt recoil +of feeling in the last lines. + + +SONETTO. + + Donna! che tanto al mio bel sol piacesti! + Che ancor de' pregi tuoi parla sovente, + Lodando, ora il bel crine, ora il ridente + Tuo labbro, ed ora i saggi detti onesti. + + Dimmi, quando le voci a lui volgesti + Tacque egli mai, qual uom che nulla sente? + O le turbate luci alteramente, + (Come a me volge) a te volger vedesti? + + De tuoi bei lumi, a le due chiare faci + Io so ch'egli arse un tempo, e so che allora-- + Ma tu declini al suol gli occhi vivaci! + + Veggo il rossor che le tue guance infiora; + Parla, rispondi! Ah non rispondi! taci + Taci! se mi vuoi dir ch'ei t'ama ancora! + + +TRANSLATION. + + Lady, that once so charm'd my life's fair Sun,[62] + That of thy beauties still he talketh oft,-- + Thy mouth, fair hair, and words discreet and soft. + Speak! when thou look'dst, was he from silence won? + Or, did he turn those sweet and troubled eyes + On thee, and gaze as now on me he gazeth? + (For ah! I know _thy_ love was then the prize, + And then he _felt_ the grace that still he praiseth.) + But why dost thou those beaming glances turn + Thus downwards? Ha! I see (against thy will) + All o'er thy cheek the crimsoning blushes burn. + Speak out! oh answer me!--yet, no, no,--stay! + Be dumb, be silent, if thou need'st must say + That he who once adored thee, loves thee still.[63] + +Neither Zappi nor his wife were authors by profession: her poems are +few; and all seem to flow from some incident or feeling, which awakened +her genius, and caused that "craving of the heart and the fancy to break +out into voluntary song, which men call inspiration." She became a +member of the Arcadia, under the pastoral name of Aglaura Cidonia; and +it is remarkable, that though she survived her husband many years, I +cannot find any poem referring to her loss, nor of a subsequent date: +neither did she marry again, though in the prime of her life and beauty. + +Zappi was a great and celebrated lawyer, and his legal skill raised him +to an office of trust, under the Pontificate of Clement XI. In one of +his Sonnets, which has great sweetness and picturesque effect, he +compares himself to the Venetian Gondolier, who in the calm or the storm +pours forth his songs on the Lagune, careless of blame or praise, asking +no auditors but the silent seas and the quiet moon, and seeking only to +"unburthen his full soul" in lays of love and joy-- + + Il Gondolier, sebben la notte imbruna, + Remo non posa, e fende il mar spumante; + Lieto cantando a un bel raggio di Luna-- + "Intanto Erminia infra l'ombrose piante." + +That Zappi could be sublime, is proved by his well-known Sonnet on the +Moses of Michel Angelo; but his forte is the graceful and the gay. His +Anacreontics, and particularly his little drinking song, + + Come faro? Faro cosi! + +are very elegant, and almost equal to Chiabrera. It is difficult to +sympathize with English drinking songs, and all the vulgar associations +of flowing bowls, taverns, three times three, and the table in a roar. +An Italian _Brindisi_ transports us at once among flasks and vineyards, +guitars and dances, a dinner _al fresco_, a group _a la Stothard_. It is +all the difference between the ivy-crowned Bacchus, and the bloated +Silenus. "Bumper, Squire Jones," or, "Waiter, bring clean glasses," do +not _sound_ so well as + + Damigella + Tutta bella + Versa, versa, il bel vino! &c. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[59] Born at Imola, 1668; died at Rome, 1719. + +[60] See the Epithalamium on her marriage with Zappi, prefixed to their +works. + +[61] Probably the same he had celebrated under the name of Filli, and +who married another. Zappi's Sonnet to this lady, "Ardo per Filli," is +elaborately elegant; sparkling and pointed as a pyramid of gems. + +[62] "Il mio bel sol" is a poetical term of endearment, which it is not +easy to reduce gracefully into English. + +[63] Translated by a friend. + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + +CONJUGAL POETRY CONTINUED. + +LORD LYTTELTON. + + +Lord Lyttelton has told us in a very sweet line, + + How much the _wife_ is dearer than the _bride_. + +But his Lucy Fortescue deserves more than a mere allusion, _en passant_. +That Lord Lyttelton is still remembered and read as a poet, is solely +for her sake: it is she who has made the shades of Hagley classic +ground, and hallowed its precincts by the remembrance of the fair and +gentle being, the tender woman, wife, and mother, who in the prime of +youth and loveliness, melted like a creature of air and light from her +husband's arms, + + "And left him on this earth disconsolate!" + +That the verses she inspired are still popular, is owing to the power of +_truth_, which has here given lasting interest to what were otherwise +_mediocre_. Lord Lyttelton was not much of a poet; but his love was +real; its object was real, beautiful, and good: thus buoyed up, in spite +of his own faults and the change of taste, he has survived the rest of +the rhyming gentry of his time, who wrote epigrams on fans and +shoe-buckles,--songs to the Duchess of _this_ and the Countess of +_that_--and elegies to Miras, Delias, and Chloes. + +Lucy Fortescue, daughter of Hugh Fortescue, Esq. of Devonshire, and +grand-daughter of Lord Aylmer, was born in 1718. She was about +two-and-twenty when Lord Lyttelton first became attached to her, and he +was in his thirty-first year: in person and character she realized all +he had imagined in his "Advice to Belinda."[64] + + Without, all beauty--and all peace within. + + ....*....*....*....* + + Blest is the maid, and worthy to be blest, + Whose soul, entire by him she loves possest, + Feels every vanity in fondness lost, + And asks no power, but that of pleasing most: + Her's is the bliss, in just return to prove + The honest warmth of undissembled love; + For her, inconstant man might cease to range, + And gratitude forbid desire to change. + +To the more peculiar attributes of her sex--beauty and tenderness,--she +united all the advantages of manner,-- + + Polite as she in courts had ever been; + +and wit--the only wit that becomes a woman,-- + + That temperately bright + With inoffensive light + All pleasing shone, nor ever past + The decent bounds that wisdom's sober hand + And sweet benevolence's mild command, + And bashful modesty before it cast. + +Her education was uncommon for the time; for _then_, a woman, who to +youth and elegance and beauty united a familiar acquaintance with the +literature of her own country, French, Italian, and the classics, was +distinguished among her sex. She had many suitors, and her choice was +equally to her own honour and that of her lover. Lord Lyttelton was not +rich; his father, Sir Thomas Lyttelton, being still alive. He had +perhaps never dreamed of the coronet which late in life descended on his +brow: and far from possessing a captivating exterior, he was extremely +plain in person, "of a feeble, ill-compacted figure, and a meagre sallow +countenance."[65] But talents, elegance of mind, and devoted affection, +had the influence they ought to have, and generally do possess, in the +mind of a woman. We are told that our sex's "earliest, latest care,--our +heart's supreme ambition," is "to be fair." Even Madame de Stael would +have given half her talents for half Madame Recamier's beauty! and why? +because the passion of our sex is to please and to be loved; and men +have taught us, that in nine cases out of ten we are valued merely for +our personal advantages: they can scarce believe that women, generally +speaking, are so indifferent to the mere exterior of a man,--that it has +so little power to interest their vanity or affections. Let there be +something for their hearts to honour, and their weakness to repose on, +and feeling and imagination supply the rest. In this respect, the +"gentle lady married to the Moor," who saw her lover's visage in his +mind, is the type of our sex;--the instances are without number. The +Frenchman triumphs a little too much _en petit maitre_, who sings, + + Grands Dieux, combien elle est jolie! + Et moi, je suis, je suis si laid! + +He might have spared his exultation: if he had sense, and spirit, and +tenderness, he had all that is necessary to please a woman, who is +worthy to be pleased. + +Personal vanity in a woman, however misdirected, arises from the idea, +that our power with those we wish to charm, is founded on beauty as a +female attribute; it is never indulged but with a reference to +another--it is a _means_, not an _end_. Personal vanity in a man is +sheer unmingled egotism, and an unfailing subject of ridicule and +contempt with all women--be they wise or foolish. + +To return from this long _tirade_ to Lucy Fortescue.--After the usual +fears and hopes, the impatience and anxious suspense of a long +courtship,[66] Lord Lyttelton won his Lucy, and thought himself +blest--and was so. Five revolving years of happiness seemed pledges of +its continuance, and "the wheels of pleasure moved without the aid of +hope:"--it was at the conclusion of the fifth year, he wrote the lines +on the anniversary of his marriage, in which he exults in his felicity, +and in the possession of a treasure, which even then, though he knew it +not, was fading in his arms. + + Whence then this strange increase of joy? + He, only he can tell, who matched like me, + (If such another happy man there be,) + Has by his own experience tried + How much the _wife_ is dearer than the _bride_! + +Six months afterwards, his Lucy was seized with the illness of which she +died in her twenty-ninth year, leaving three infants, the eldest not +four years old.[67] As there are people who strangely unite, as +inseparable, the ideas of fiction and rhyme, and doubt the sincerity of +her husband's grief, because he wrote a monody on her memory, he shall +speak for himself in prose. The following is an extract from his letter +to his father, written two days before her death. + +"I believe God supports me above my own strength, for the sake of my +friends who are concerned for me, and in return for the resignation with +which I endeavour to submit to his will. If it please Him, in his +infinite mercy, to restore my dear wife to me, I shall most thankfully +acknowledge his goodness; if not, I shall most humbly endure his +chastisement, which I have too much deserved. These are the sentiments +with which my mind is replete; but as it is still a most bitter cup, how +my body will bear it, if it must not pass from me, it is impossible for +me to foretell; but I hope the best.--Jan. 17th, 1747." + + * * * * * + +I imagine Dr. Johnson meant a sneer at Lord Lyttelton, when he says +laconically,--"his wife died, and he _solaced_ himself by writing a long +monody on her memory."--In these days we might naturally exclaim against +a widowed husband who should _solace_ himself by apostrophes to the +Muses and Graces, and bring in the whole Aonian choir,--Pindus and +Castalia, Aganippe's fount, and Thespian vales; the Clitumnus and the +Illissus, and such Pagan and classical embroidery.--What should we have +thought of Lord Byron's famous "Fare thee well," if conceived in this +style?--but such was the poetical vocabulary of Lord Lyttelton's day: +and that he had not sufficient genius and originality to rise above it, +is no argument against the sincerity of his grief. Petrarch and his +Laura (_apropos_ to all that has ever been sung or said of love for five +hundred years) are called, in a very common-place strain, from their +"Elysian bowers;" and then follow some lines of real and touching +beauty, because they owe nothing to art or effort, but are the immediate +result of truth and feeling. He is still apostrophising Petrarch. + + What were, alas! thy woes compar'd to mine? + To thee thy mistress in the blissful band + Of Hymen never gave her hand; + The joys of wedded love were never thine! + In thy domestic care + She never bore a share; + Nor with endearing art + Would heal thy wounded heart + Of every secret grief that fester'd there: + Nor did her fond affection on the bed + Of sickness watch thee, and thy languid head + Whole nights on her unwearied arm sustain, + And charm away the sense of pain: + Nor did she crown your mutual flame + With pledges dear, and with a father's tender name. + + ....*....*....*....* + + How in the world, to me a desert grown, + Abandon'd and alone, + Without my sweet companion can I live? + Without her lovely smile, + The dear reward of every virtuous toil, + What pleasures now can pall'd Ambition give? + +One would wish to think that Lord Lyttelton was faithful to the memory +of his Lucy: but he was neither more nor less than man; and in the +impatience of grief, or unable to live without that domestic happiness +to which his charming wife had accustomed him, he married again, about +two years after her death, and too precipitately. His second choice was +Elizabeth Rich, eldest daughter of Sir Robert Rich. Perhaps he expected +too much; and how few women could have replaced Lucy Fortescue! The +experiment proved a most unfortunate one, and added bitterness to his +regrets. He devoted the rest of his life to politics and literature. + +About ten years after his second marriage, Lord Lyttelton made a tour +into Wales with a gay party. On some occasion, while they stood +contemplating a scene of uncommon picturesque beauty, he turned to a +friend, and asked him, with enthusiasm, whether it was possible to +behold a more pleasing sight? Yes, answered the other--the countenance +of the woman one loves! Lord Lyttelton shrunk, as if probed to the +quick; and after a moment's silence, replied pensively--"_once_, I +thought so!"[68] + +Lord Lyttelton brings to mind his friend and patron, Frederick Prince of +Wales (grandfather of the present King). From the impression which +_history_ has given of his character, no one, I believe, would suspect +him of being a poet, though he was known as the patron of poets. He +sometimes amused himself with writing French and English songs, &c. in +imitation of the Regent Duc d'Orleans. But, assuredly, it was not in +imitation of the Regent he chose his own wife for the principal subject +of his ditties. In the same manner, and in the same worthy spirit of +imitation of the same worthy person, he tried hard to be a libertine, +and laid siege to the virtue of sundry maids of honour; preferring all +the time, in his inmost soul, his own wife to the handsomest among her +attendants. His flirtations with Lady Archibald Hamilton and Miss Vane +had not half the grace or sincerity of some of his effusions to the +Princess, whom he tenderly loved, and used to call, with a sort of +pastoral gallantry, "ma Sylvie." One of his songs has been preserved by +that delicious retailer of court-gossip, Horace Walpole; and I copy it +from the Appendix to his Memoirs, without agreeing in his flippant +censure. + + +SONG. + + 'Tis not the languid brightness of thine eyes, + That swim with pleasure and delight, + Nor those fair heavenly arches which arise + O'er each of them, to shade their light:-- + 'Tis not that hair which plays with every wind, + And loves to wanton o'er thy face, + Now straying o'er thy forehead, now behind + Retiring with insidious grace:-- + + ....*....*....*....* + + 'Tis not the living colours over each, + By Nature's finest pencil wrought, + To shame the fresh-blown rose and blooming peach, + And mock the happiest painter's thought; + But 'tis that gentle mind, that ardent love + So kindly answering my desire,-- + That grace with which you look, and speak, and move! + That thus have set my soul on fire. + +To Dr. Parnell's[69] love for his wife (Anne Minchin), we owe two of the +most charming songs in our language; "My life hath been so wondrous +free," and that most beautiful lyric, "When your beauty appears," which, +as it is less known, I give entire, + + When your beauty appears + In its graces and airs, + All bright as an angel new dropt from the skies, + At distance I gaze, and am aw'd by my fears, + So strangely you dazzle my eyes. + But when without art, + Your kind thoughts you impart, + When your love runs in blushes through every vein; + When it darts from your eyes, when it pants at your heart, + Then I know that you're woman again. + + "There's a passion and pride, + In our sex," she replied; + "And thus, might I gratify both, I would do,-- + Still an angel appear to each lover beside, + But still be a woman for you!" + +This amiable and beloved wife died after a union of five or six years, +and left her husband broken-hearted. Her sweetness and loveliness, and +the general sympathy caused by her death, drew a touch of deep feeling +from the pen of Swift, who mentions the event in his journal to Stella: +every one, he says, grieved for her husband, "they were so happy +together." Poor Parnell did not, in his bereavement, try Lord +Lyttelton's specifics: he did not write an elegy, nor a monody, nor did +he marry again;--and, unfortunately for himself, he could not subdue his +mind to religious resignation. His grief and his nervous irritability +proved too much for his reason: he felt what all have felt under the +influence of piercing anguish,--a dread, a horror of being left alone: +he flew to society; when that was not at hand, he sought relief from +excesses which his constitution would not bear, and died, unhappy man! +in the prime of life; "a martyr," as Goldsmith tells us, "to conjugal +fidelity." + +FOOTNOTES: + +[64] See his Poems. + +[65] Johnson's Life of Lord Lyttelton. + +[66] See in his Poems,--the lines beginning + + On Thames's banks a gentle youth + For Lucy sighed with matchless truth, + +And + + Your shape, your lips, your eyes are still the same. + +[67] Her son was that eccentric and profligate Lord Lyttelton, whose +supernatural death-bed horrors have been the subject of so much +speculation. He left no children. + +The present Earl of Mountnorris, (so distinguished for his Oriental +travels when Lord Valentia,) is the grandson of Lucy Fortescue. + +[68] Lord Lyttelton's Works, 4to. + +[69] Born in Dublin, 1679; died 1717. + + + + +CHAPTER X. + +CONJUGAL POETRY CONTINUED. + +KLOPSTOCK AND META. + + +Then is there not the German Klopstock and his Meta,--his lovely, +devoted, angelic Meta? As the subject of some of her husband's most +delightful and popular poems, both before and after her marriage,--when +living, she formed his happiness on earth; and when, as he tenderly +imagined, she watched over his happiness from heaven--how pass her +lightly over in a work like this? Yet how do her justice, but by +borrowing her own sweet words? or referring the reader at once to the +memoirs and fragments of her letters, which never saw the light till +sixty years after her death?--for in her there was no vain-glory, no +effort, no display. A feeling so hallowed lingers round the memory of +this angelic creature, that it is rather a subject to blend with our +most sacred and most serious thoughts,--to muse over in hours when the +heart communes with itself and is still, than to dress out in words, and +mingle with the ideas of earthly fame and happiness. Other loves might +be poetical, but the love of Klopstock and his Meta was in itself +_poetry_. They were mutually possessed with the idea, that they had been +predestined to each other from the beginning of time, and that their +meeting on earth was merely a kind of incidental prelude to an eternal +and indivisible union in heaven: and shall we blame their fond faith? + + It is a gentle and affectionate thought, + That in immeasurable heights above us, + Even at our birth, the wreath of love was woven + With sparkling stars for flowers![70] + +All the sweetest images that ever were grouped together by fancy, +dreaming over the golden age; beauty, innocence, and happiness; the +fervour of youthful love, the rapture of corresponding affection; +undoubting faith and undissembled truth;--these were so bound together, +so exalted by the highest and holiest associations, so confirmed in the +serenity of conscious virtue, so sanctified by religious enthusiasm; and +in the midst of all human blessedness, so wrapt up in futurity,--that +the grave was not the close, but the completion and the consummation of +their happiness. The garland which poesy has suspended on the grave of +Meta, was wreathed by no fabled muse; it is not of laurel, "meed of +conqueror and sage;" nor of roses blooming and withering among their +thorns; nor of myrtle shrinking and dying away before the blast: but of +flowers gathered in Paradise, pure and bright, and breathing of their +native Eden; which never caught one blighting stain of earth, and though +dewed with tears,--"tears such as angels shed!" + + * * * * * + +The name of Klopstock forms an epoch in the history of poetry. Goethe, +Schiller, Wieland, have since adorned German literature; but Klopstock +was the first to impress on the poetry of his country the stamp of +nationality. He was a man of great and original genius,--gifted with an +extraordinary degree of sensibility and imagination; but these being +united to the most enthusiastic religious feeling, elevated and never +misled him. His life was devoted to the three noblest sentiments that +can fill and animate the human soul,--religion, patriotism and love. To +these, from early youth, he devoted his faculties and consecrated his +talents. He had, even in his boyhood, resolved to write a poem, "which +should do honour to God, his country, and himself;" and he produced the +Messiah. It would be difficult to describe the enthusiasm this work +excited when the first three cantos appeared in 1746. "If poetry had its +saints," says Madame de Stael, "then Klopstock would be at the head of +the calendar;" and she adds, with a burst of her own eloquence, "Ah, +qu'il est beau le talent, quand on ne l'a jamais profane! quand il n'a +servi qu'a reveler aux hommes, sous la forme attrayante des beaux arts, +les sentiments genereux, et les esperances religieuses obscurcies au +fond de leur coeur!" + +Such was Klopstock as a poet. As a man, he is described as one of the +most amiable and affectionate of human beings;--"good in all the +foldings of his heart," as his sweet wife expressed it; free from all +petty vanity, egotism, and worldly ambition. He was pleasing, though not +handsome in person, with fine blue animated eyes.[71] The tone of his +voice was at first low and hesitating, but soft and persuasive; and he +always ended by captivating the entire attention of those he addressed. +He was, to his latest moments, fond of the society of women, and an +object of their peculiar tenderness and veneration. + +Klopstock's first serious attachment was to his cousin, the beautiful +Fanny Schmidt, the sister of his intimate friend and brother poet, +Schmidt. He loved her constantly for several years. His correspondence +with Bodmer gives us an interesting picture of a fine mind struggling +with native timidity, and of the absolute terror with which this gentle +and beautiful girl could inspire him, till his heart seemed to wither +and sicken within him from her supposed indifference. The uncertainty of +his future prospects, and his sublime idea of the merits and beauties of +her he loved, kept him silent; nor did he ever venture to declare his +passion, except in the beautiful odes and songs which she inspired. +Speaking of one of those to his friend Bodmer, he says, "She who could +best reward it, has not seen it; so timid does her apparent +insensibility make me." + +Whether this insensibility was more than apparent is not perfectly +clear: the memoirs of Klopstock are not quite accurate or satisfactory +in this part of his history. It should seem from the published +correspondence, that his love was distinctly avowed, though he never +had courage to make a direct offer of himself. Fanny Schmidt appears to +have been a superior woman in point of mind, and full of admiration for +his genius. She writes to him in terms of friendship and kindness, but +she leaves him, after three years' attachment on his part, still in +doubt whether her heart remain untouched,--and even whether she _had_ a +heart to be touched. He intimates, but with a tender and guarded +delicacy, that he had reason to complain of her coquetry;[72] and, with +the sensibility of a proud but wounded heart, he was anxious to prove to +himself that his romantic tenderness had not been unworthily bestowed. +"All the peace and consolation of my after life depends on knowing +whether Fanny _really_ has a heart?--a heart that _could_ have +sympathised with mine?"[73] He had commissioned his friend Gleim to +plead his cause, to sound her heart in its inmost depths; and in return, +received the intelligence of her approaching union with another. "When +(as he expresses it) not a hope was left to be destroyed," he became +calm; but he suffered at first acutely; and this ill-fated attachment +tinged with a deep gloom nearly four years of his life. While in +suspense, he continually repeats his conviction that he can never love +again. "Had I never seen her, I might have attached myself to another +object, and perhaps have known the felicity of mutual love! But now it +is impossible; my heart is steeled to every tender impression." The +sentiment was natural; but, fortunately for himself, he was deceived. + +In passing through Hamburgh, in April 1751, and while he was still under +the influence of this heart-wearing attachment to Fanny, he was +introduced to Meta Moeller. The impression she made on him is thus +described, in a letter to his friend and confidant, Gleim. + +"You may perhaps have heard Gisecke mention Margaret Moeller of Hamburgh. +I was lately introduced to this girl, and passed in her society most of +the time I lately spent at Hamburgh. I found her, in every sense of the +word, so lovely, so amiable, so full of attractions, that I could at +times scarcely forbear to give her the name which is to me the dearest +in existence. I was often with her alone; and in those moments of +unreserved intercourse, was insensibly led to communicate my melancholy +story. Could you have seen her in those moments, my Gleim! how she +looked and listened,--and how often she interrupted me, and how tenderly +she wept! and if you knew how much she is my friend; and yet it was not +for _her_ that I had so long suffered. What a heart must she possess to +be thus touched for a stranger! At this thought I am almost tempted to +make a comparison; but then does a mist gather before mine eyes, and if +I probe my heart, I feel that I am more unhappy than ever." Again he +writes from Copenhagen, "I have reread the little Moeller's letters; +sweet artless creature she is! She has already written to me four times, +and writes in a style so exquisitely natural! Were you to see this +lovely girl, and read her letters, you would scarce conceive it possible +that she should be mistress of the French, English, and Italian +languages, and even conversant with Greek and Italian literature." But +it were wronging both, to give the history and result of this attachment +to Meta in any language but her own. Since the publication of +Richardson's correspondence, the letters addressed to him, in English, +by Meta Klopstock, have become generally known; but this account would +be incomplete were they wholly omitted; and those who have read them +before, will not be displeased at the opportunity of re-perusing them: +her sweet lisping English is worth volumes of eloquence. + +"You will know all what concerns me. Love, dear Sir, is all what me +concerns, and love shall be all what I will tell you in this letter. In +one happy night I read my husband's poem--the Messiah. I was extremely +touched with it. The next day I asked one of his friends who was the +author of this poem? and this was the first time I heard Klopstock's +name. I believe I fell immediately in love with him; at the least, my +thoughts were ever with him filled, especially because his friend told +me very much of his character. But I had no hopes ever to see him, when +quite unexpectedly I heard that he should pass through Hamburgh. I wrote +immediately to the same friend, for procuring by his means that I might +see the author of the Messiah, when in Hamburg. He told him that a +certain girl in Hamburg wished to see him, and, for all recommendation, +showed him some letters in which I made bold to criticize Klopstock's +verses. Klopstock came, and came to me. I must confess, that, though +greatly prepossessed of his qualities, I never thought him the amiable +youth that I found him. This made its effect. After having seen him two +hours, I was obliged to pass the evening in company, which never had +been so wearisome to me. I could not speak; I could not play; I thought +I saw nothing but Klopstock. I saw him the next day, and the following, +and we were very seriously friends; on the fourth day he departed. It +was a strong hour, the hour of his departure. He wrote soon after, and +from that time our correspondence began to be a very diligent one. I +sincerely believed my love to be friendship. I spoke with my friends of +nothing but Klopstock, and showed his letters. They rallied me, and said +I was in love. I rallied them again, and said they must have a very +friendship-less heart, if they had no idea of friendship to a man as +well as a woman. Thus it continued eight months, in which time my +friends found as much love in Klopstock's letters as in me. I perceived +it likewise, but I would not believe it. At the last, Klopstock said +plainly that he loved; and I startled as for a wrong thing. I answered +that it was no love, but friendship, as it was what I felt for him; we +had not seen one another enough to love; as if love must have more time +than friendship! This was sincerely my meaning; and I had this meaning +till Klopstock came again to Hamburg. This he did a year after we had +seen one another the first time. We saw, we were friends; we loved, and +we believed that we loved; and a short time after I could even tell +Klopstock that I loved. But we were obliged to part again, and wait two +years for our wedding. My mother would not let me marry a stranger. I +could marry without her consentment, as by the death of my father my +fortune depended not on her; but this was an horrible idea for me; and +thank Heaven that I have prevailed by prayers! At this time, knowing +Klopstock, she loves him as her son, and thanks God that she has not +persisted. We married, and I am the happiest wife in the world. In some +few months it will be four years that I am so happy; and still I dote +upon Klopstock as if he was my bridegroom. If you knew my husband, you +would not wonder. If you knew his poem, I could describe him very +briefly, in saying he is in all respects what he is as a poet. This I +can say with all wifely modesty; I am all raptures when I do it. And as +happy as I am in love, so happy am I in friendship;--in my mother, two +elder sisters, and five other women. How rich I am! Sir, you have willed +that I should speak of myself, but I fear that I have done it too much. +Yet you see how it interests me." + +I have somewhere seen or heard it observed, that there is nothing in the +Romeo and Juliet more finely imagined or more true to nature than +Romeo's previous love for another. It is while writhing under the +coldness and scorn of his proud, inaccessible Rosaline, she who had +"forsworn to love," that he meets the soft glances of Juliet, whose eyes +"do comfort, and not burn;" and he takes refuge in her bosom, for she + + Doth grace for grace, and love for love allow; + The other did not so. + +With such a grateful and gratified feeling must Klopstock have gathered +to his arms the devoted Meta, who came, with healing on her lips, to +suck forth the venom of a recent wound. He has himself beautifully +expressed this in one of the poems addressed to her, and which he has +entitled the Recantation. He describes the anguish he had suffered from +an unrequited affection, and the day-spring of renovated hope and +rapture which now dawned in his heart. + + At length, beyond my hope the night retires, + 'Tis past, and all my long lost joys awake, + Smiling they wake, my long forgotten joys, + O, how I wonder at my altered fate! &c. + +and exults in the charms and tenderness of her who had wiped away his +tears, and whom he had first "taught to love." + + I taught thee first to love, and seeking thee, + I learned what true love was; it raised my heart + From earth to heaven, and now, through Eden's groves, + With thee it leads me on in endless joy. + +This little poem has been translated by Elizabeth Smith, with one or two +of the graceful little songs addressed to Meta, under the name of +_Cidli_. This is the appellation given to Jairus' daughter in the +"Messiah;" and Meta, who was fond of the character, probably chose it +for herself. The first cantos of this poem had been published long +before his marriage, and it was continued after his union with Meta, and +at her side. Nothing can be more charming than the picture of domestic +affection and happiness contained in the following passage of one of her +letters to Richardson:--apparently, she had improved in English, since +the last was written.--"It will be a delightful occupation for me to +make you more acquainted with my husband's poem. Nobody can do it better +than I, being the person who knows the most of that which is not +published; being always present at the birth of the young verses, which +begin by fragments here and there, of a subject of which his soul is +just then filled. He has many great fragments of the whole work ready. +You may think that persons who love as we do, have no need of two +chambers; we are always in the same: I, with my little +work,--still--still--only regarding sometimes my husband's sweet face, +which is so venerable at that time, with tears of devotion, and all the +sublimity of the subject. My husband reading me his young verses, and +suffering my criticisms." + +And for the task of criticism, Meta was peculiarly fitted, not less by +her fine cultivated mind and feminine delicacy of taste, than by her +affectionate enthusiasm for her husband's glory. "How much," says +Klopstock, writing after her death, "how much do I lose in her even in +this respect! How perfect was her taste, how exquisitely fine her +feelings! she observed every thing, even to the slightest turn of the +thought. I had only to look at her, and could see in her face when a +syllable pleased or displeased her: and when I led her to explain the +reason of her remarks, no demonstration could be more true, more +accurate, or more appropriate to the subject. But in general this gave +us very little trouble, for we understood each other when we had +scarcely begun to explain our ideas." + +And that not a stain of the selfish or earthly should rest on the bright +purity of her mind and heart, it must be remarked that we cannot trace +in all her letters, whether before or after marriage, the slightest +feeling of jealousy or doubt, though the woman lived whom Klopstock had +once exalted into a divinity, and though she loved her husband with the +most impassioned enthusiasm. She expresses frankly her admiration of the +odes and songs addressed to Fanny: and her only sentiment seems to be a +mixture of grief and astonishment, that any woman could be so insensible +as not to love Klopstock, or so cruel as to give him pain. + +Though in her letters to Richardson she speaks with rapture of her hopes +of becoming a mother, as all that was wanting to complete her +happiness,[74] she had long prepared herself for a fatal termination to +those hopes. Her constant presentiment of approaching death, she +concealed, in tenderness to her husband. When we consider the fond and +entire confidence which existed between them, this must have cost no +small effort of fortitude: "she was formed," said Klopstock, "to say, +like Arria, 'My Paetus,' 'tis not painful:" but her husband pressed her +not to allow any secret feeling to prey on her mind; and then, with +gratitude for his "permission to speak," she avowed her apprehensions, +and at the same time her strong and animated trust in religion. This +whole letter, to which I must refer the reader, (for any attempt I +should make to copy it entire, would certainly be illegible,) is one of +the most beautiful pieces of tender eloquence that ever fell from a +woman's pen: and that is saying much. She is writing to her husband +during a short absence. "I well know," she says, "that all hours are not +alike, and particularly the last, since death, in my situation, must be +far from an easy death; but let the last hour make no impression on you. +You know too well how much the body then presses down the soul. Let God +give what he will, I shall still be happy. A longer life with you, or +eternal life with Him! But can you as easily part from me as I from you? +You are to remain in this world, in a world without _me_! You know I +have always wished to be the survivor, because I well know it is the +hardest to endure; but perhaps it is the will of God that you should be +left; and perhaps you have most strength." + +This last letter is dated September 10th, 1754. Her confinement took +place in November following; and after the most cruel and protracted +sufferings, it became too certain that both must perish,--mother and +child. + +Klopstock stood beside her, and endeavoured, as well as the agony of his +feelings would permit, to pray with her and to support her. He praised +her fortitude:--"You have endured like an angel! God has been with you! +he _will_ be with you! were I so wretched as not to be a Christian, I +should now become one." He added with strong emotion, "Be my guardian +angel, if God permit!" She replied tenderly, "You have ever been mine!" +He repeated his request more fervently: she answered with a look of +undying love, "Who would not be so!" He hastened from the room, unable +to endure more. After he was gone, her sister,[75] who attended her +through her sufferings, said to her, "God will help you!"--"Yes, to +heaven!" replied the saint. After a faint struggle, she added, "It is +over!" her head sunk on the pillow, and while her eyes, until glazed by +death, were fixed tenderly on her sister,--thus with the faith of a +Christian, and the courage of a martyr, she resigned into the hands of +her Creator, a life which had been so blameless and so blessed, so +intimate with love and joy, that only such a death could crown it, by +proving what an angel a woman _can_ be, in doing, feeling, and +suffering.[76] + + * * * * * + +It was by many expected that Klopstock would have made the loss of his +Meta the subject of a poem; but he early declared his resolution not to +do this, nor to add to the collection of odes and songs formerly +addressed to her. He gives his reasons for this silence. "I think that +before the public a man should speak of his wife with the same modesty +as of himself; and this principle would destroy the enthusiasm required +in poetry. The reader too, not without reason, would feel himself +justified in refusing implicit credit to the fond eulogium written on +one beloved; and my love for her who made me the happiest among men, is +too sincere to let me allow my readers to call it in question." Yet in a +little poem[77] addressed afterwards to his friend Schmidt, and probably +not intended for publication, he alludes to his loss, in a tone of deep +feeling, and complains of the recollections which distract his sleepless +nights. + + Again the form of my lost wife I see, + She lies before me, and she dies again; + Again she smiles on me, again she dies, + Her eyes now close, and comfort me no more. + +He indulged the fond thought that she hovered, a guardian spirit, near +him still,-- + + O if thou love me yet, by heavenly laws + Condemn me not! I am a man and mourn,-- + Support me though unseen! + +And he foretells that, even in distant ages,--"in times perhaps more +virtuous than ours," his grief would be remembered, and the name of his +Meta revered. And shall it not be so?--it must--it will:--as long as +truth, virtue, tenderness, dwell in woman's breast--so long shall Meta +be dear to her sex; for she has honoured us among men on earth, and +among saints in Heaven! + +And now, how shall I fill up this sketch? Let us pause for a moment, and +suppose the fate of Meta and Klopstock reversed, and that _she_ had been +called, according to her own tender and unselfish wish, to be the +survivor. Under such a terrible dispensation, her angelic meekness and +sublime faith would at first have supported her; she would have rejoiced +in the _certainty_ of her husband's blessedness, and in the yearning of +her heart she would have tried to fancy him ever present with her in +spirit; she would have collected together his works, and have occupied +herself in transmitting his glory as a poet, without a blemish, to the +admiration of posterity; she would have gone about all her feminine +duties with a quiet patience--for it would have been _his_ will; and +would have smiled--and her smile would have been like the moonlight on a +winter lake: and with all her thoughts loosened from the earth, to her +there would never more have been good or evil, or grief, or fear, or +joy: space and time would only have existed to her, as they separated +her from _him_. Thus she would have lived on dyingly from day to day, +and then have perished, less through regret, than through the intense +longing to realize the vision of her heart, and rejoin him, without whom +all concerns of life were vain, and less than nothing. And this, I am +well convinced,--as far as one human being may dare to reason on the +probable result of certain feelings and impulses in another,--would +have been the lot of Meta, if left on the earth alone, and desolate. + +If Klopstock acted differently, let him not be too severely arraigned; +he was but a man, and differently constituted. With great sensibility, +he possessed, by nature, an elasticity of spirit which could rebound, as +it were, from the very depths of grief: his sorrow, intense at first, +found many outward resources:--he could speak, he could write; his +vivacity of imagination pictured to him Meta happy; and his habitual +religious feeling made him acquiesce in his own privation; he could +please himself with visiting her grave, and every year he planted it +with white lilies, "because the lily was the most exalted among flowers, +and she was the most exalted among women."[78] He had many friends, to +whom the confiding simplicity of his character had endeared him: all his +life he seems to have clung to friendship as a child clings to the +breast of the mother; he was accustomed to seek and find relief in +sympathy; and sympathy, deeply felt and strongly expressed, was all +around him. With his high intellect and profound feeling, there was ever +a child-like buoyancy in the mind of Klopstock, which gained him the +title of _der ewigen jungling_--"The ever young, or the youth for +ever."[79] His mind never fell into "the sear and yellow leaf," it was a +perpetual spring: the flowers grew and withered, and blossomed again,--a +never-failing succession of fragrance and beauty; when the rose wounded +him, he gathered the lily; when the lily died on his bosom, he cherished +the myrtle. And he was most happy in such a character, for in him it was +allied to the highest virtue and genius, and equally remote from +weakness and selfishness. + +About four years after the death of Meta, he became extremely attached +to a young girl of Blackenburg, whose name was Dona; she loved and +admired him in return, but naturally felt some distrust in the warmth +of his attachment; and he addressed to her a little poem, in which, +tenderly alluding to Meta, he assures Dona that _she_ is not less dear +to him or _less_ necessary to his happiness[80]-- + + And such is _man's_ fidelity! + +This intended marriage never took place. + +Twenty-five years afterwards, when Klopstock was in his sixtieth year, +he married Johanna von Wentham, a near relation of his Meta; an +excellent and amiable woman, whose affectionate attention cheered the +remaining years of his life. + +Klopstock died at Hamburg in 1813, at the age of eighty: his remains +were attended to the grave by all the magistrates, the diplomatic corps, +the clergy, foreign generals, and a concourse of about fifty thousand +persons. His sacred poems were placed on his coffin, and in the +intervals of the chanting, the ministering clergyman took up the book, +and read aloud the fine passage in the Messiah, describing the death of +the righteous.--Happy are they who have so consecrated their genius to +the honour of Him who bestowed it, that the productions of their early +youth may be placed without profanation on their tomb! + +He was buried under a lime-tree in the churchyard of Ottensen, by the +side of his Meta and her infant,-- + + Seed sown by God, to ripen for the harvest. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[70] Coleridge's Wallenstein. + +[71] Bodmer, after the publication of the Messiah, invited the author to +his house in Switzerland. He had imaged to himself a most sublime idea +of the man who could write such a poem, and had fancied him like one of +the sages and prophets of the Old Testament. His astonishment, when he +saw a slight-made, elegant-looking young man leap gaily from his +carriage, with sparkling eyes and a smiling countenance, has been +pleasantly described. + +[72] Klopstock's Letters, p. 145. + +[73] Klopstock's Letters. + +[74] "I not being able to travel yet, my husband has been obliged to +make a voyage to Copenhagen. He is yet absent; a cloud over my +happiness! He will soon return; but what does that help? he is yet +equally absent. We write to each other every post; but what are letters +to presence? But I will speak no more of this little cloud, I will only +tell my happiness. But I cannot tell you how I rejoice!--A son of my +dear Klopstock's! O, when shall I have him?"--_Memoirs_, p. 99. + +[75] Elizabeth Schmidt, married to the brother of Fanny Schmidt. + +[76] Meta was buried with her infant in her arms, at Ottenson, near +Altona. She had expressed a wish to have two passages from the Messiah, +descriptive of the resurrection, inscribed on her coffin, but one only +was engraved:-- + + "Seed sown by God to ripen for the harvest." + + _See Memoirs_, p. 197. + +[77] Translated by Elizabeth Smith, of whom it has been truly said, that +she resembled Meta, and to whom we are indebted for her first +introduction to English readers. + +[78] Memoirs. + +[79] Klopstock says of himself, "it is not my nature to be happy or +miserable by halves: having once discarded melancholy, I am ready to +welcome happiness."--_Klopstock and his Friends_, p. 164. + +[80] + Du zweifelst dass ich dich wie Meta liebe? + Wie Meta lieb' Ich Done dich! + Dies, saget dir mein hertz liebe vol + Mein ganzes hertz! &c. + + + + +CHAPTER XI. + +CONJUGAL POETRY CONTINUED. + +BONNIE JEAN. + + +It was as Burns's _wife_ as well as his early love, that Bonnie Jean +lives immortalized in her poet's songs, and that her name is destined to +float in music from pole to pole. When they first met, Burns was about +six-and-twenty, and Jean Armour "but a young thing," + + Wi' tempting lips and roguish e'en, + +the pride, the beauty, and the favourite toast of the village of +Mauchline, where her father lived. To an early period of their +attachment, or to the fond recollection of it in after times, we owe +some of Burns's most beautiful and impassioned songs,--as + + Come, let me take thee to this breast, + And pledge we ne'er shall sunder! + And I'll spurn as vilest dust, + The world's wealth and grandeur, &c. + +"O poortith cold and restless love;" "the kind love that's in her e'e;" +"Lewis, what reck I by thee;" and many others. I conjecture, from a +passage in one of Burns's letters, that Bonnie Jean also furnished the +heroine and the subject of that admirable song, "O whistle, and I'll +come to thee, my lad," so full of buoyant spirits and artless affection: +it appears that she wished to have her name introduced into it, and that +he afterwards altered the fourth line of the first verse to please +her:--thus, + + Thy Jeanie will venture wi' ye, my lad; + +but this amendment has been rejected by singers and editors, as injuring +the musical accentuation: the anecdote, however, and the introduction of +the name, give an additional interest and a truth to the sentiment, for +which I could be content to sacrifice the beauty of a single line; and +methinks Jeanie had a right to dictate in this instance.[81] With +regard to her personal attractions, Jean was at this time a blooming +girl, animated with health, affection, and gaiety: the perfect symmetry +of her slender figure; her light step in the dance; the "waist sae +jimp," "the foot sae sma'," were no fancied beauties:--she had a +delightful voice, and sung with much taste and enthusiasm the ballads of +her native country; among which we may imagine that the songs of her +lover were not forgotten. The consequences, however, of all this +dancing, singing, and loving, were not quite so poetical as they were +embarrassing. + + O wha could prudence think upon, + And sic a lassie by him? + O wha could prudence think upon, + And sae in love as I am? + +Burns had long been distinguished in his rustic neighbourhood for his +talents, for his social qualities and his conquests among the maidens of +his own rank. His personal appearance is thus described from memory by +Sir Walter Scott:--"His form was strong and robust, his manner rustic, +not clownish; with a sort of dignified simplicity, which received part +of its effect, perhaps, from one's knowledge of his extraordinary +talents; * * * his eye alone, I think, indicated the poetical character +and temperament; it was large, and of a dark cast, which glowed, (I say, +literally, _glowed_) when he spoke with feeling and interest;"--"his +address to females was extremely deferential, and always with a turn +either to the pathetic or humorous, which engaged their attention +particularly. I have heard the late Duchess of Gordon remark +this;"[82]--and Allan Cunningham, speaking also from recollection, says, +"he had a very manly countenance, and a very dark complexion; his +habitual expression was intensely melancholy, but at the presence of +those he loved or esteemed, his whole face beamed with affection and +genius;"[83]--"his voice was very musical; and he excelled in dancing, +and all athletic sports which required strength and agility." + +Is it surprising that powers of fascination, which carried a Duchess +"off her feet," should conquer the heart of a country lass of low +degree? Bonnie Jean was too soft-hearted, or her lover too irresistible; +and though Burns stepped forward to repair their transgression by a +written acknowledgment of marriage, which, in Scotland, is sufficient to +constitute a legal union, still his circumstances, and his character as +a "wild lad," were such, that nothing could appease her father's +indignation; and poor Jean, when humbled and weakened by the +consequences of her fault and her sense of shame, was prevailed on to +destroy the document of her lover's fidelity to his vows, and to reject +him. + +Burns was nearly heart-broken by this dereliction, and between grief and +rage was driven to the verge of insanity. His first thought was to fly +the country; the only alternative which presented itself, "was America +or a jail;" and such were the circumstances under which he wrote his +"Lament," which, though not composed in his native dialect, is poured +forth with all that energy and pathos which only truth could impart. + + No idly feigned poetic pains, + My sad, love-lorn lamentings claim; + No shepherd's pipe--Arcadian strains, + No fabled tortures, quaint and tame: + The plighted faith--the mutual flame-- + The oft-attested powers above-- + The promised father's tender name-- + These were the pledges of my love! &c. + +This was about 1786: two years afterwards, when the publication of his +poems had given him name and fame, Burns revisited the scenes which his +Jeanie had endeared to him: thus he sings exultingly,-- + + I'll aye ca' in by yon town, + And by yon garden-green, again; + I'll aye ca' in by yon town, + And see my bonnie Jean again! + +They met in secret; a reconciliation took place; and the consequences +were, that bonnie Jean, being again exposed to the indignation of her +family, was literally turned out of her father's house. When the news +reached Burns he was lying ill; he was lame from the consequences of an +accident,--the moment he could stir, he flew to her, went through the +ceremony of marriage with her in presence of competent witnesses, and a +few months afterwards he brought her to his new farm at Elliesland, and +established her under his roof as his wife, and the honoured mother of +his children. + +It was during this _second-hand_ honeymoon, happier and more endeared +than many have proved in their first gloss, that Burns wrote several of +the sweetest effusions ever inspired by his Jean; even in the days of +their early wooing, and when their intercourse had all the difficulty, +all the romance, all the mystery, a poetical lover could desire. Thus +practically controverting his own opinion, "that conjugal love does not +make such a figure in poesy as that other love," &c.--for instance, we +have that most beautiful song, composed when he left his Jean at Ayr (in +the _west_ of Scotland,) and had gone to prepare for her at Elliesland, +near Dumfries.[84] + + Of a' the airts the win' can blaw, I dearly love the west, + For there the bonnie lassie lives, the lass that I love best! + There wild woods grow and rivers row, and mony a hill between; + But day and night, my fancy's flight is ever wi' my Jean! + + I see her in the dewy flowers, I see her sweet and fair-- + I hear her in the tuneful birds, wi' music charm the air. + There's not a bonnie flower that springs by fountain, shaw, or green-- + There's not a bonnie bird that sings, but minds me o' my Jean. + + O blaw ye westlin winds, blaw soft among the leafy trees! + Wi' gentle gale, fra' muir and dale, bring hame the laden bees! + And bring the lassie back to me, that's aye sae sweet and clean, + Ae blink o' her wad banish care, sae lovely is my Jean! + + What sighs and vows, amang the knowes, hae past between us twa! + How fain to meet! how wae to part!--that day she gaed awa! + The powers above can only ken, to whom the heart is seen, + That none can be sae dear to me, as my sweet lovely Jean! + +Nothing can be more lovely than the luxuriant, though rural imagery, the +tone of placid but deep tenderness, which pervades this sweet song; and +to feel all its harmony, it is not necessary to sing it--it is music in +itself. + +In November 1788, Mrs. Burns took up her residence at Elliesland, and +entered on her duties as a wife and mistress of a family, and her +husband welcomed her to her home ("her ain roof-tree,") with the lively, +energetic, but rather unquotable song, "I hae a wife o' my ain;" and +subsequently he wrote for her, "O were I on Parnassus Hill," and that +delightful little bit of simple feeling-- + + She is a winsome wee thing, + She is a handsome wee thing, + She is a bonnie wee thing, + This sweet wee wife of mine. + + I never saw a fairer, + I never lo'ed a dearer,-- + And next my heart I'll wear her, + For fear my jewel tine! + +and one of the finest of all his ballads, "Their groves o' green +myrtle," which not only presents a most exquisite rural picture to the +fancy, but breathes the very soul of chastened and conjugal tenderness. + +I remember, as a particular instance--I suppose there are thousands--of +the tenacity with which Burns seizes on the memory, and twines round the +very fibres of one's heart, that when I was travelling in Italy, along +that beautiful declivity above the river Clitumnus, languidly enjoying +the balmy air, and gazing with no careless eye on those scenes of rich +and classical beauty, over which memory and fancy had shed + + A light, a glory, a fair luminous cloud + Enveloping the earth; + +even then, by some strange association, a feeling of my childish years +came over me, and all the livelong day I was singing, _sotto voce_-- + + Their groves o' sweet myrtle let foreign lands reckon, + Where bright-beaming summers exalt the perfume; + Far dearer to me yon lone glen o' green bracken, + Wi' the burn stealing under the long yellow broom! + + Far dearer to me are yon humble broom bowers, + Where the blue-bell and gowan lurk lowly unseen, + For there, lightly tripping among the wild flowers, + A' listening the linnet, oft wanders my Jean. + +Thus the heath, and the blue-bell, and the gowan, had superseded the +orange and the myrtle on those Elysian plains, + + Where the crush'd weed sends forth a rich perfume. + +And Burns and Bonnie Jean were in my heart and on my lips, on the spot +where Virgil had sung, and Fabius and Hannibal met. + +Besides celebrating her in verse, Burns has left us a description of his +Bonnie Jean in prose. He writes (some months after his marriage) to his +friend Miss Chalmers,--"If I have not got polite tattle, modish manners, +and fashionable dress, I am not sickened and disgusted with the +multiform curse of boarding-school affectation; and I have got the +handsomest figure, the sweetest temper, the soundest constitution, and +the kindest heart in the country. Mrs. Burns believes, as firmly as her +creed, that I am _le plus bel esprit, et le plus honnete homme_ in the +universe; although she scarcely ever, in her life, (except reading the +Scriptures and the Psalms of David in metre) spent five minutes +together on either prose or verse. I must except also a certain late +publication of Scots Poems, which she has perused very devoutly, and all +the ballads in the country, as she has (O, the partial lover! you will +say) the finest woodnote-wild I ever heard." + +After this, what becomes of the insinuation that Burns made an unhappy +marriage,--that he was "compelled to invest her with the control of his +life, whom he seems at first to have selected only for the gratification +of a temporary inclination;" and, "that to this circumstance much of his +misconduct is to be attributed?" Yet this, I believe, is a prevalent +impression. Those whose hearts have glowed, and whose eyes have filled +with delicious tears over the songs of Burns, have reason to be grateful +to Mr. Lockhart, and to a kindred spirit, Allan Cunningham, for the +generous feeling with which they have vindicated Burns and his Jean. +Such aspersions are not only injurious to the dead and cruel to the +living, but they do incalculable mischief:--they are food for the +flippant scoffer at all that makes the 'poetry of life.' They unsettle +in gentler bosoms all faith in love, in truth, in goodness--(alas, such +disbelief comes soon enough!) they chill and revolt the heart, and "take +the rose from the fair forehead of an innocent love to set a blister +there." + +"That Burns," says Lockhart, "ever sank into a toper, that his social +propensities ever interfered with the discharge of the duties of his +office, or that, in spite of some transitory follies, he ever ceased to +be a most affectionate husband--all these charges have been insinuated, +and they are all _false_. His aberrations of all kinds were occasional, +not systematic; they were the aberrations of a man whose moral sense was +never deadened--of one who encountered more temptations from without and +from within, than the immense majority of mankind, far from having to +contend against, are even able to imagine," and who died in his +thirty-sixth year, "ere he had reached that term of life up to which the +passions of many have proved too strong for the control of reason, +though their mortal career being regarded as a whole, they are honoured +as among the most virtuous of mankind." + +We are told also of "the conjugal and maternal tenderness, the prudence, +and the unwearied forbearance of his Jean,"--and that she had much need +of forbearance is not denied; but he ever found in her affectionate +arms, pardon and peace, and a sweetness that only made the sense of his +occasional delinquencies sting the deeper. + +She still survives to hear her name, her early love, and her youthful +charms, warbled in the songs of her native land. He, on whom she +bestowed her beauty and her maiden truth, dying, has left to her the +mantle of his fame. What though she be now a grandmother? to the fancy, +she can never grow old, or die. We can never bring her before our +thoughts but as the lovely, graceful country girl, "lightly tripping +among the wild flowers," and warbling, "Of a' the airs the win' can +blaw,"--and this, O women, is what genius can do for you! Wherever the +adventurous spirit of her countrymen transport them, from the spicy +groves of India to the wild banks of the Mississippi, the name of +Bonnie Jean is heard, bringing back to the wanderer sweet visions of +home, and of days of "Auld lang Syne." The peasant-girl sings it "at the +ewe milking," and the high-born fair breathes it to her harp and her +piano. As long as love and song shall survive, even those who have +learned to appreciate the splendid dramatic music of Germany and Italy, +who can thrill with rapture when Pasta + + Queen and enchantress of the world of sound, + Pours forth her soul in song; + +or when Sontag + + Carves out her dainty voice as readily + Into a thousand sweet distinguished tones, + +even _they_ shall still have a soul for the "Banks and braes o' bonnie +Doon," still keep a corner of their hearts for truth and nature--and +Burns's Bonnie Jean. + + * * * * * + +While my thoughts are yet with Burns,--his name before me,--my heart and +my memory still under that spell of power which his genius flings +around him, I will add a few words on the subject of his supernumerary +loves; for he has celebrated few imaginary heroines. Of these rustic +divinities, one of the earliest, and by far the most interesting, was +Mary Campbell, (his "Highland Mary,") the object of the deepest passion +Burns ever felt; the subject of some of his loveliest songs, and of the +elegy "to Mary in Heaven." + +Whatever this young girl may have been in person or condition, she must +have possessed some striking qualities and charms to have inspired a +passion so ardent, and regrets so lasting, in a man of Burns's +character. She was not his first love, nor his second, nor his third; +for from the age of sixteen there seems to have been no interregnum in +his fancy. His heart, he says, was "completely tinder, and eternally +lighted up by some goddess or other." His acquaintance with Mary +Campbell began when he was about two or three and twenty: he was then +residing at Mossgiel, with his brother, and she was a servant on a +neighbouring farm. Their affection was reciprocal, and they were +solemnly plighted to each other. "We met," says Burns, "by appointment, +on the second Sunday in May, in a sequestered spot by the banks of the +Ayr, where we spent a day in taking a farewell, before she should embark +for the West Highlands, to arrange matters among her friends for our +projected change of life." "This adieu," say Mr. Cromek, "was performed +with all those simple and striking ceremonials which rustic sentiment +has devised to prolong tender emotions and to impose awe. The lovers +stood on each side of a small purling brook; they laved their hands in +the stream, and holding a Bible between them, pronounced their vows to +be faithful to each other." This very Bible has recently been discovered +in the possession of Mary Campbell's sister. On the boards of the Old +Testament is inscribed, in Burns's handwriting, "And ye shall not swear +by my name falsely, I am the Lord."--_Levit._ chap. xix. v. 12. On the +boards of the New Testament, "Thou shalt not forswear thyself, but shalt +perform unto the Lord thine oaths."--_St. Matth._ chap. v. v. 33., and +his own name in both. Soon afterwards, disasters came upon him, and he +thought of going to try his fortune in Jamaica. Then it was, that he +wrote the simple, wild, but powerful lyric, "Will ye go to the Indies, +my Mary?" + + Will ye go to the Indies, my Mary, + And leave old Scotia's shore? + Will ye go to the Indies, my Mary, + Across the Atlantic's roar? + + O sweet grows the lime and the orange, + And the apple on the pine; + But all the charms o' the Indies + Can never equal thine. + + I hae sworn by the heavens to my Mary, + I hae sworn by the heavens to be true; + And sae may the heavens forget me + When I forget my vow! + + O plight me your faith, my Mary! + And plight me your lily-white hand; + O plight me your faith, my Mary, + Before I leave Scotia's strand. + + We hae plighted our faith, my Mary, + In mutual affection to join; + And curst be the cause that shall part us-- + The hour, and the moment of time! + +As I have seen among the Alps the living stream rise, swelling and +bubbling, from some cleft in the mountain's breast, then, with a broken +and troubled impetuosity, rushing amain over all impediments,--then +leaping, at a bound, into the abyss below; so this song seems poured +forth out of the full heart, as if a gush of passion had broken forth, +that could not be restrained; and so the feeling seems to swell and +hurry through the lines, till it ends in one wild burst of energy and +pathos-- + + And curst be the cause that shall part us-- + The hour, and the moment of time! + +A few months after this "day of parting love," on the banks of the Ayr, +Mary Campbell set off from Inverary to meet her lover, as I suppose, to +take leave of him; for it should seem that no thoughts of a union could +then be indulged. Having reached Greenock, she was seized with a +malignant fever, which hurried her to the grave in a few days; so that +the tidings of her death reached her lover, before he could even hear of +her illness. How deep and terrible was the shock to his strong and +ardent mind,--how lasting the memory of this early love, is well known. +Years after her death, he wrote the song of "Highland Mary."[85] + + O pale, pale now those rosy lips + I oft hae kiss'd so fondly! + And clos'd for aye the sparkling glance + That dwelt on me sae kindly! + + And mouldering now in silent dust, + The heart that lo'ed me dearly; + But aye within my bosom's core + Shall live my Highland Mary. + +The elegy to Mary in Heaven, was written about a year after his +marriage, on the anniversary of the day on which he heard of the death +of Mary Campbell. The account of the feelings and the circumstances +under which it was composed, was taken from the recital of Bonnie Jean +herself, and cannot be read without a thrill of emotion. "According to +her, Burns had spent that day, though labouring under a cold, in the +usual work of his harvest, and apparently in excellent spirits. But as +the twilight deepened, he appeared to grow 'very sad about something,' +and at length wandered out into the barn-yard, to which his wife, in her +anxiety for his health, followed him, entreating him, in vain, to +observe that frost had set in, and to return to his fire-side. On being +again and again requested to do so, he always promised compliance, but +still remained where he was, striding up and down slowly, and +contemplating the sky, which was singularly clear and starry. At last, +Mrs. Burns found him stretched on a heap of straw, with his eyes fixed +on a beautiful planet, 'that shone like another moon,' and prevailed on +him to come in."[86] He complied; and immediately on entering the house +wrote down, as they now stand, the stanzas "To Mary in Heaven." + +Mary Campbell was a poor peasant-girl, whose life had been spent in +servile offices, who could just spell a verse in her Bible, and could +not write at all,--who walked barefoot to that meeting on the banks of +the Ayr, which her lover has recorded. But Mary Campbell will live to +memory while the music and the language of her country endure. Helen of +Greece and the Carthage Queen are not more surely immortalised than this +plebeian girl.--The scene of parting love, on the banks of the Ayr, that +spot where "the golden hours, on angel-wings," hovered over Burns and +his Mary, is classic ground; Vaucluse and Penshurst are not more +lastingly consecrated: and like the copy of Virgil, in which Petrarch +noted down the death of Laura, which many have made a pilgrimage but to +look on, even such a relic shall be the Bible of Highland Mary. Some +far-famed collection shall be proud to possess it; and many hereafter +shall gaze, with glistening eyes, on the handwriting of _him_,--who by +the mere power of truth and passion, shall live in all hearts to the end +of time. + + * * * * * + +Some other loves commemorated by Burns are not very interesting or +reputable. "The lassie wi' the lint white locks," the heroine of many +beautiful songs, was an erring sister, who, as she was the object of a +poet's admiration, shall be suffered to fade into a shadow. The subject +of the song, + + Had we never lov'd sae kindly-- + Had we never lov'd sae blindly-- + Never met--or never parted-- + We had ne'er been broken-hearted, + +was also real, and I am afraid, a person of the same description. Of +these four lines, Sir Walter Scott has said, "that they were worth a +thousand romances;" and not only so, but they are in themselves a +complete romance. They are the _alpha_ and _omega_ of feeling; and +contain the essence of an existence of pain and pleasure, distilled +into one burning drop. Of almost all his songs, the heroines are real, +though we must not suppose he was in love with them all,--that were too +unconscionable; but he sometimes sought inspiration, and found it, where +he could not have hoped any farther boon. In one of his letters to Mr. +Thompson, for whose collection of Scottish airs he was then adapting +words, he says, "Whenever I want to be more than ordinary _in song_, to +be in some degree equal to your divine airs, do you imagine I fast and +pray for the celestial emanation?--_tout au contraire_. I have a +glorious recipe, the very one that, for his own use, was invented by the +divinity of healing and poetry, when erst he piped to the flocks of +Admetus,--I put myself on a regimen of admiring a fine woman." + +Thus, the original blue eyes which inspired that sweet song, "Her ee'n +sae bonnie blue," belonged to a Miss Jeffreys, now married, and living +at New York. We owe "She's fair and she's false," to the fickleness of a +Miss Jane Stuart, who, it is said, jilted the poet's friend, Alexander +Cunningham.--"The bonnie wee thing," was a very little, very lovely +creature, a Miss Davies; and the song, it has been well said, is as +brief and as beautiful as the lady herself. The heroine of "O saw ye +bonnie Leslie," is now Mrs. Cumming of Logie: Mrs. Dugald Stewart, +herself a delightful poetess, inspired the pastoral song of Afton Water; +and every woman has an interest in "Green grow the Rushes." All the +compliments that were ever paid us by the other sex, in prose and verse, +may be summed up in Burns's line, + + What signifies the life o' man, an' 't were na for the lasses O? + +It were, however, an endless task to give a list of his heroines; and +those who are curious about the personal history of the poet, of which +his songs are "part and parcel," must be referred to higher and more +general sources of information.[87] + +Burns used to say, after he had been introduced into society above his +own rank in life, that he saw nothing in the _gentlemen_ much superior +to what he had been accustomed to; but that a refined and elegant woman +was a being of whom he could have formed no previous idea. This, I +think, will explain, if it does not excuse, the characteristic freedom +of some of his songs. His love is ardent and sincere, and it is +expressed with great poetic power, and often with the most exquisite +pathos; but still it is the love of a peasant for a peasant, and he +wooes his rustic beauties in a style of the most entire equality and +familiarity. It is not the homage of one who waited, a suppliant, on the +throne of triumphant beauty. "He drew no magic circle of lofty and +romantic thought around those he loved, which could not be passed +without lowering them from stations little lower than the angels."[88] +Still, his faults against taste and propriety are far fewer and lighter +than might have been expected from his habits; and as he acknowledged +that he could have formed no idea of a woman refined by high breeding +and education, we cannot be surprised if he sometimes committed +solecisms of which he was scarcely aware. For instance, he met a young +lady (Miss Alexander, of Ballochmyle,) walking in her father's grounds, +and struck by her charms and elegance, he wrote in her honour his well +known song, "The lovely lass of Ballochmyle," and sent it to her. He was +astonished and offended that no notice was taken of it; but really, a +young lady, educated in a due regard for the _convenances_ and the +_bienseances_ of society, may be excused, if she was more embarrassed +than flattered by the homage of a poet, who talked, at the first glance, +of "clasping her to his bosom." It was rather precipitating things. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[81] "A Dame whom the graces have attired in witchcraft, and whom the +loves have armed with lightning--a fair one--herself the heroine of the +song, insists on the amendment--and dispute her commands if you +dare!"--_Burns's Letters._ + +[82] Lockhart's Life of Burns, p. 153. + +[83] Life of Burns, p. 268. + +[84] Life of Burns, p. 247. + +[85] Beginning,-- + + "Ye banks and braes and streams around + The castle o' Montgomerie." + +As the works of Burns are probably in the hands of all who will read +this little book, those who have not his finest passages by heart, can +easily refer to them. I felt it therefore superfluous to give at length +the songs alluded to. + +[86] Lockhart's Life of Burns. + +[87] To the "Reliques of Burns, by Cromek;" to the Edition of the +Scottish Songs, with notes, by Allan Cunningham; and to Lockhart's Life +of Burns. + +[88] Allan Cunningham. + + + + +CHAPTER XII. + +CONJUGAL POETRY CONTINUED. + +MONTI AND HIS WIFE. + + +Monti, who is lately dead, will at length be allowed to take the place +which belongs to him among the great names of his country. A poet is ill +calculated to play the part of a politician; and the praise and blame +which have been so profusely and indiscriminately heaped on Monti while +living, must be removed by time and dispassionate criticism, before +justice can be done to him, either as a man or a poet. The mingled grace +and energy of his style obtained him the name of _il Dante grazioso_, +and he has left behind him something striking in every possible form of +composition,--lyric, dramatic, epic, and satirical. + +Amid all the changes of his various life, and all the trying +vicissitudes of spirits--the wear and tear of mind which attend a poet +by profession, tasked to almost constant exertion, Monti possessed two +enviable treasures;--a lovely and devoted wife, with a soul which could +appreciate his powers and talents, and exult in his fame; and a daughter +equally amiable, and yet more beautiful and highly gifted. He has +immortalised both; and has left us delightful proofs of the charm and +the glory which poetry can throw round the purest and most hallowed +relations of domestic life. + +When Monti was a young man at Rome, caressed by popes and nephews of +popes, and with the most brilliant ecclesiastical preferment opening +before him, all his views in life were at once _bouleverse_ by a +passion, which does sometimes in real life play the part assigned to it +in romance--trampling on interest and ambition, and mocking at +Cardinals' hats and tiaras. Monti fell into love, and fell out of the +good graces of his patrons: he threw off the habit of an _abbate_,[89] +married his Teresa, in spite of the world and fortune; and instead of an +aspiring priest, became a great poet. + +Teresa Pichler was the daughter of Pichler, the celebrated gem engraver. +I have heard her described, by those who knew her in her younger years, +as one of the most beautiful creatures in the world. Brought up in the +studio of her father, in whom the spirit of ancient art seemed to have +revived for modern times, Teresa's mind as well as person had caught a +certain impress of antique grace, from the constant presence of +beautiful and majestic forms: but her favourite study was music, in +which she was a proficient; her voice and her harp made as many +conquests as her faultless figure and her bright eyes. After her +marriage she did not neglect her favourite art; and she, whose talent +had charmed Zingarelli and Guglielmi, was accustomed, in their hours of +domestic privacy, to soothe, to enchant, to inspire, her husband. Monti, +in one of his poems, has tenderly commemorated her musical powers. He +calls on his wife during a period of persecution, poverty and +despondency, to touch her harp, and, as she was wont, rouse his sinking +spirit, and unlock the source of nobler thoughts. + + Stendi, dolce amor mio! sposa diletta! + A quell' arpa la man; che la soave, + Dolce fatica di tue dite aspetta. + Svegliami l'armonia, ch' entro le cave + Latebre alberga del sonoro legno, + E de' forti pensier volgi la chiave! + +There is a resemblance in the _sentiment_ of these verses, to some +stanzas addressed by a living English poet to his wife;--she who, like +Monti's Teresa, can strike her harp, till, as a spirit caught in some +spell of his own teaching, music itself seems to flutter, imprisoned +among the chords,--to come at her will and breathe her thought, rather +than obey her touch!-- + + Once more, among those rich and golden strings, + Wander with thy white arm, dear Lady pale! + And when at last from thy sweet discord springs + The aerial music,--like the dreams that veil + Earth's shadows with diviner thoughts and things, + O let the passion and the time prevail!-- + O bid thy spirit through the mazes run! + For music is like love, and must be won! &c.[90] + +The Italian verses have great power and beauty; but the English lines +have the superiority, not in poetry only, but in rhythmical melody. They +fall on the ear like a strain from the harp which inspired them--full, +and rich, and thrilling sweet,--and not to be forgotten! + +To return to Monti:--no man had more completely that temperament which +is supposed to accompany genius. He was fond, and devoted in his +domestic relations; but he was variable in spirits, ardent, restless, +and subject to fits of gloom. And how often must the literary disputes +and political _tracasseries_ in which he was engaged, have embittered +and irritated so susceptible a mind and temper! If his wife were at his +side to soothe him with her music, and her smiles, and her +tenderness,--it was well,--the cloud passed away. If she were absent, +every suffering seemed aggravated, and we find him--like one spoiled and +pampered, with attention and love,--yielding to an irritable +despondency, which even the presence of his children could not +alleviate. + + Che piu ti resta a far per mio dispetto, + Sorte crudel? mia donna e lungi, e io privo, + De' suoi conforti in miserando aspetto + Egro qui giaccio, al' sofferir sol vivo![91] + +But the most remarkable of all Monti's conjugal effusions, is a canzone +written a short time before his death, and when he was more than seventy +years of age. Nothing can be more affecting than the subdued tone of +melancholy tenderness, with which the grey-haired poet apostrophises her +who had been the love, the pride, the joy of his life for forty years. +In power and in poetry, this canzone will bear a comparison with many of +the more rapturous effusions of his youth. The occasion on which it was +composed is thus related in a note prefixed to it by the editor.[92] +When Monti was recovering from a long and dangerous illness, through +which he had been tenderly nursed by his wife and daughter, he +accompanied them "in villeggiatura," to a villa near Brianza, the +residence of a friend, where they were accustomed to celebrate the +birth-day of Madame Monti; and it was here that her husband, now +declining in years, weak from recent illness and accumulated +infirmities, addressed to her the poem which may be found in the recent +edition of his works; it begins thus tenderly and sweetly-- + + Donna! dell' alma mia parte piu cara! + Perche muta in pensosa atto mi guati? + E di segrete stille, + Rugiadose si fan le tue pupille? &c. + +"Why, O thou dearer half of my soul, dost thou watch over me thus mute +and pensive? Why are thine eyes heavy with suppressed tears?" &c. + +And when he reminds her touchingly, that his long and troubled life is +drawing to its natural close, and that she cannot hope to retain him +much longer, even by all her love and care,--he adds with a noble +spirit,--"Remember, that Monti cannot wholly die! think, O think! I +leave thee dowered with no obscure, no vulgar name! for the day shall +come, when, among the matrons of Italy, it shall be thy boast to +say,--"I was the love of Monti.""[93] + +The tender transition to his daughter-- + + E tu del pari sventurata e cara mia figlia! + +as alike unhappy and beloved, alludes to her recent widowhood. Costanza +Monti, who inherited no small portion of her fathers genius, and all her +mother's grace and beauty, married the Count Giulio Perticari of Pesaro, +a man of uncommon taste and talents, and an admired poet. He died in the +same year with Canova, to whom he had been a favourite friend and +companion: while his lovely wife furnished the sculptor with a model for +his ideal heads of vestals and poetesses. Those who saw the Countess +Perticari at Rome, such as she appeared seven or eight years ago, will +not easily forget her brilliant eyes, and yet more brilliant talents. +She, too, is a poetess. In her father's works may be found a little +canzone written by her about a year after the death of her husband, and +with equal tenderness and simplicity, alluding to her lonely state, +deprived of him who once encouraged and cultivated her talents, and +deserved her love.[94] + +Vincenzo Monti died in October 1828:--his widow and his daughter reside, +I believe, at Milan. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[89] Worn by the young men who are intended for the Church. + +[90] Barry Cornwall. + +[91] Opere Varie v. iii. This sonnet to his wife was written when Monti +was ill at the house of his son-in-law, Count Perticari. + +[92] Edit. 1826, vol. vi. + +[93] In the original, Monti designates himself by an allusion to his +chef-d'oeuvre--"Del Cantor di Basville." + +[94] Monti, Opere, vol. iii. p. 75. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + +POETS AND BEAUTIES, + +FROM CHARLES II. TO QUEEN ANNE. + + +Thus, then, it appears, that love, even the most ethereal and poetical, +does not always take flight "at sight of human ties;" and Pope wronged +the real delicacy of Heloise when he put this borrowed sentiment into +her epistle, making that conduct the result of perverted principle, +which, in _her_, was a sacrifice to extreme love and pride in its +object. It is not the mere idea of bondage which frightens away the +light-winged god; + + The gentle bird feels no captivity + Within his cage, but sings and feeds his fill.[95] + +It is when those bonds, which were first decreed in heaven + + To keep two hearts together, which began + Their spring-time with one love, + +are abused to vilest purposes:--to link together indissolubly, +unworthiness with desert, truth with falsehood, brutality with +gentleness; then indeed love is scared; his cage becomes a dungeon;--and +either he breaks away, with plumage all impaired,--or folds up his +many-coloured wings, and droops and dies. + +But then it will be said, perhaps, that the splendour and the charm +which poetry has thrown over some of these pictures of conjugal +affection and wedded truth, are exterior and adventitious, or, at best, +short-lived:--the bands were at first graceful and flowery;--but sorrow +dewed them with tears, or selfish passions sullied them, or death tore +them asunder, or trampled them down. It may be so; but still I will aver +that what has been, _is_:--that there is a power in the human heart +which survives sorrow, passion, age, death itself. + + Love I esteem more strong than age, + And truth more permanent than time. + +For happiness, _c'est different!_ and for that bright and pure and +intoxicating happiness which we weave into our youthful visions, which +is of such stuff as dreams are made of,--to complain that this does not +last and wait upon us through life, is to complain that earth is +_earth_, not heaven. It is to repine that the violet does not outlive +the spring; that the rose dies upon the breast of June; that the grey +evening shuts up the eye of day, and that old age quenches the glow of +youth: for is not such the condition under which we exist? All I wished +to prove was, that the sacred tie which binds the sexes together, which +gives to man his natural refuge in the tenderness of woman, and to woman +her natural protecting stay in the right reason and stronger powers of +man, so far from being a chill to the imagination, as wicked wits would +tell us, has its poetical side. Let us look back for a moment on the +array of bright names and beautiful verse, quoted or alluded to in the +preceding chapters: what is there among the mercurial poets of Charles's +days, those notorious scoffers at decency and constancy, to compare with +them?--Dorset and Denham, and Sedley and Suckling, and Rochester,--"the +mob of gentlemen who wrote with ease,"--with their smooth emptiness, and +sparkling common-places of artificial courtship, and total want of moral +sentiment, have degraded, not elevated the loves they sang. Could these +gallant fops rise up from their graves, and see themselves exiled with +contempt from every woman's toilet, every woman's library, every woman's +memory, they would choak themselves with their own periwigs, eat their +laced cravats, hang themselves in their own sword-knots!--"to be +discarded thence!" + + Turn thy complexion there, + Thou simpering, smooth-lipp'd cherub, Coxcombry, + Ay, there, look grim as hell! + +And such be the fate of all who dare profane the altar of beauty with +adulterate incense! + + For wit is like the frail luxuriant vine, + Unless to virtue's prop it join; + Though it with beauteous leaves and pleasant fruit be crown'd, + It lies deform'd and rotting on the ground! + +These lines are from Cowley,--a great name among the poets of those +days; but he has sunk into a _name_. We may repeat with Pope, "Who now +reads Cowley?" and this, not because he was licentious, but because, +with all his elaborate wit, and brilliant and uncommon thoughts, he is +as frigid as ice itself. "A little ingenuity and artifice," as Mrs. +Malaprop would say, is well enough; but Cowley, in his amatory poetry, +is all artifice. He coolly sat down to write a volume of love verses, +that he might, to use his own expression, "be free of his craft, as a +poet;" and in his preface, he protests "that his testimony should not be +taken against himself." Here was a poet, and a lover! who sets out by +begging his readers, in the first place, not to believe him. This was +like the weaver, in the Midsummer Night's Dream, who was so anxious to +assure his audience "that Pyramus was not killed indeed, and that he, +Pyramus, was not Pyramus, but Bottom the weaver." But Cowley's amatory +verse disproves itself, without the help of a prologue. It is, in his +own phrase, "all sophisticate." Even his sparkling chronicle of +beauties, + + Margaretta first possest, + If I remember well, my breast, &c. + +is mere fancy, and in truth it is a pity. Cowley was once in love, after +his querulous melancholy fashion; but he never had the courage to avow +it. The lady alluded to in the last verse of the Chronicle, as + + Eleonora, first of the name, + Whom God grant long to reign, + +was the object of this luckless attachment. She afterwards married a +brother of Dr. Spratt, Bishop of Rochester,[96] who had not probably +half the poet's wit or fame, but who could love as well, and speak +better; and the gentle, amiable Cowley died an old batchelor. + +These writers may have merit of a different kind; they may be read by +wits for the sake of their wit; but they have failed in the great object +of lyric poetry: they neither create sympathy for themselves; nor +interest, nor respect for their mistresses: they were not in +earnest;--and what woman of sense and feeling was ever touched by a +compliment which no woman ever inspired? or pleased, by being addressed +with the swaggering licence of a libertine? Who cares to inquire after +the originals of their Belindas and Clorindas--their Chloes, Delias, and +Phillises, with their pastoral names, and loves--that were any thing but +pastoral? There is not one among the flaunting coquettes, or profligate +women of fashion, sung by these gay coxcomb poets-- + + Those goddesses, so blithe, so smooth, so gay, + Yet empty of all good wherein consists + Woman's domestic honour and chief praise, + +who has obtained an interest in our memory, or a permanent place in the +history of our literature; not one, who would not be eclipsed by Bonnie +Jean, or Highland Mary! It is true, that the age produced several +remarkable women; a Lady Russell, that heroine of heroines! a Lady +Fanshawe;[97] a Mrs. Hutchinson; who needed no poet to trumpet forth +their praise: and others,--some celebrated for the possession of beauty +and talents, and too many notorious for the abuse of both. But there +were no poetical heroines, properly so called,--no Laura, no Geraldine, +no Saccharissa. Among the temporary idols of the day, (by which name we +shall distinguish those women whose beauty, rank, and patronage, +procured them a sort of poetical celebrity, very different from the halo +of splendour which love and genius cast round a chosen divinity,) there +are one or two who deserve to be particularised. + +The first of these was Maria Beatrice d'Este, the daughter of the Duke +of Modena, second wife of James Duke of York, and afterwards his queen. +She was married, at the age of fifteen, to a profligate prince, as ugly +as his brother Charles, (without any of his captivating graces of figure +and manner,) and old enough to be her grandfather. She made the best of +wives to one of the most unamiable of men. All writers of all parties +are agreed, that slander itself, was disarmed by the unoffending +gentleness of her character; all are agreed too, on the subject of her +uncommon loveliness: she was quite an Italian beauty, with a tall, +dignified, graceful figure, regular features, and dark eyes, a +complexion rather pale and fair, and hair and eyebrows black as the +raven's wing: so that in personal graces, as in virtues, she fairly +justified the rapturous eulogies of all the poets of her time. Thus +Dryden:-- + + What awful charms on her fair forehead sit, + Dispensing what she never will admit; + Pleasing yet cold--like Cynthia's silver beam, + The people's wonder, and the poet's theme! + +She captivated hearts almost as fast as James the Second lost them; + + And Envy did but look on her and died![98] + +Her fall from the throne she so adorned; her escape with her infant son, +under the care of the Duc de Lauzun;[99] her conduct during her +retirement at St. Germains, with a dull court, and a stupid bigoted +husband; are all matters of history, and might have inspired, one would +think, better verses than were ever written upon her. Lord Lansdown +exclaims, with an enthusiasm which was at least disinterested-- + + O happy James! content thy mighty mind! + Grudge not the world, for still thy Queen is kind,-- + To lie but at whose feet, more glory brings, + Than 'tis to tread on sceptres and on kings![100] + +Anne Killegrew, who has been immortalised by Dryden, in the ode,[101] + + Thou youngest virgin-daughter of the skies! + +does not seem to have possessed any talents or acquirements which would +render her _very_ remarkable in these days; though in her own time she +was styled "a grace for beauty and a muse for wit." Her youth, her +accomplishments, her captivating person, her station at court, (as maid +of honour to Maria d'Este, then Duchess of York,) and her premature +death at the age of twenty-four, all conspired to render her interesting +to her contemporaries; and Dryden has given her a fame which cannot die. +The stanza in this ode, in which the poet, for himself and others, +pleads guilty of having "made prostitute and profligate the muse," + + Whose harmony was first ordain'd above + For tongues of angels and for hymns of love! + +--the sudden turn in praise of the young poetess, whose verse flowed +pure as her own mind and heart; and the burst of enthusiasm-- + + Let this thy vestal, heaven! atone for all! + +are exceedingly beautiful. His description of her skill in painting both +landscape and portraits, would answer for a Claude, or a Titian. We are +a little disappointed to find, after all this pomp and prodigality of +praise, that Anne Killegrew's paintings were mediocre; and that her +poetry has sunk, not undeservedly, into oblivion. She died of the +small-pox in 1685. + +The famous Tom Killegrew, jester (by courtesy) to Charles the Second, +was her uncle. + +There was also the young Duchess of Ormond, (Lady Mary Somerset, +daughter of the Duke of Beaufort.) She married into a family which had +been, for three generations, the patrons and benefactors of Dryden; and +never was patronage so richly repaid. To this Duchess of Ormond, Dryden +has dedicated the Tale of Palemon and Arcite, in an opening address full +of poetry and compliment;--happily, both justified and merited by the +object. + +Lady Hyde, afterwards Countess of Clarendon and Rochester, was in her +time a favourite theme of gay and gallant verse; but she maintained with +her extreme beauty and gentleness of deportment, a dignity of conduct +which disarmed scandal, and kept presumptuous wits as well as +presumptuous fops at a distance. Lord Lansdown has crowned her with +praise, very pointed and elegant, and seems to have contrasted her at +the moment, with his coquettish Mira, Lady Newburgh. + + Others, by guilty artifice and arts, + And promised kindness, practise on our hearts; + With expectation blow the passion up; + _She_ fans the fire without one gale of hope.[102] + +Lady Hyde was the daughter of Sir William Leveson Gower, (ancestor to +the Marquis of Stafford,) and mother of that Lord Cornbury, who has been +celebrated by Pope and Thomson. + +The second daughter of this lovely and amiable woman, lady Catherine +Hyde, was Prior's famous Kitty, + + Beautiful and young, + And wild as colt untam'd, + +the "female Phaeton," who obtained mamma's chariot for a day, to set the +world on fire. + + Shall I thumb holy books, confin'd + With Abigails forsaken? + Kitty's for other things design'd, + Or I am much mistaken. + + Must Lady Jenny frisk about, + And visit with her cousins? + At balls must she make all this rout, + And bring home hearts by dozens? + + What has she better, pray, than I? + What hidden charms to boast, + That all mankind for her must die, + Whilst I am scarce a toast? + + Dearest Mamma! for once, let me + Unchain'd my fortune try: + I'll have my Earl as well as she, + Or know the reason why. + + Fondness prevail'd, Mamma gave way: + Kitty, at heart's desire, + Obtain'd the chariot for a day, + And set the world on fire! + +Kitty not only set the world on fire, but more than accomplished her +magnanimous resolution to have an Earl as well as her sister, Lady +Jenny.[103] She married the Duke of Queensbury; and as _that_ Duchess of +Queensbury, who was the friend and patroness of Gay, is still farther +connected with the history of our poetical literature. Pope paid a +compliment to her beauty, in a well-known couplet, which is more refined +in the application than in the expression:-- + + If Queensbury to strip there's no compelling, + 'Tis from a handmaid we must take a Helen. + +She was an amiable, exemplary woman, and possessed that best and only +preservative of youth and beauty,--a kind, cheerful disposition and +buoyant spirits. When she walked at the coronation of George the Third, +she was still so strikingly attractive, that Horace Walpole handed to +her the following impromptu, written on a leaf of his pocket-book, + + To many a Kitty, Love, his car, + Would for a day engage; + But Prior's Kitty, ever fair, + Obtained it for an age! + +She is also alluded to in Thomson's Seasons. + + And stooping thence to Ham's embowering walks, + Beneath whose shades, in spotless peace retir'd, + With her the pleasing partner of his heart, + The worthy Queensb'ry yet laments his Gay.--_Summer._ + +The Duchess of Queensbury died in 1777.[104] + +Two other women, who lived about the same time, possess a degree of +celebrity which, though but a sound--a name--rather than a feeling or an +interest, must not pass unnoticed; more particularly as they will +farther illustrate the theory we have hitherto kept in view. I allude to +"Granville's Mira," and "Prior's Chloe." + +For the fame of the first, a single line of Pope has done more than all +the verses of Lord Lansdown: it is in the Epistle to Jervas the +painter-- + + With Zeuxis' Helen, thy Bridgewater vie, + And these be sung, till Granville's Mira die! + +Now, "Granville's Mira" would have been _dead_ long ago, had she not +been preserved in some material more precious and lasting than the +poetry of her noble admirer: she shines, however, "embalmed in the lucid +amber" of Pope's lines; and we not only wonder how she got there, but +are tempted to inquire who she was, or, if ever she was at all. + +Granville's Mira was Lady Frances Brudenel, third daughter of the Earl +of Cardigan. She was married very young to Livingstone, Earl of +Newburgh; and Granville's first introduction to her must have taken +place soon after her marriage, in 1690: he was then about twenty, +already distinguished for that elegance of mind and manner, which has +handed him down to us as "Granville the polite." He joined the crowd of +Lady Newburgh's adorers; and as some praise, and some lucky lines had +persuaded him that he was a poet, he chose to consecrate his verse to +this fashionable beauty. + +In all the mass of poetry, or rather rhyme, addressed to Lady Newburgh, +there is not a passage,--not a single line which can throw an interest +round her character; all we can make out is, that she was extremely +beautiful; that she sang well; and that she was a most finished, +heartless coquette. Thus her lover has pictured her: + + Lost in a labyrinth of doubts and joys, + Whom now her smiles revived, her scorn destroys; + She will, and she will not, she grants, denies, + Consents, retracts; advances, and then flies. + Approving and rejecting in a breath, + Now proffering mercy, now presenting death! + +She led Granville on from year to year, till the death of her first +husband, Lord Newburgh. He then presented himself among the suitors for +her hand, confiding, it seems, in former encouragement or promises; but +Lady Newburgh had played the same despicable game with others: she had +no objection to the poetical admiration of an accomplished young man of +fashion, who had rendered her an object of universal attention, by his +determined pursuit and tuneful homage, and who was then the admired of +all women. She thought, like the coquette, in one of Congreve's +comedies, + + If there's delight in love, 'tis when I see + The heart that others bleed for--bleed for me! + +But when free to choose, she rejected him and married Lord Bellew. Her +coquetry with Granville had been so notorious, that this marriage caused +a great sensation at the time and no little scandal. + + Rumour is loud, and every voice proclaims + Her violated faith and conscious flames. + +The only catastrophe, however, which her falsehood occasioned, was the +production of a long elegy, in imitation of Theocritus, which concludes +Lord Lansdown's amatory effusions. He afterwards married Lady Anne +Villiers, with whom he lived happily: after a union of more than twenty +years, they died within a few days of each other, and they were buried +together. + +Lady Newburgh left a daughter by her first husband,[105] and a son and +daughter by Lord Bellew: she lived to survive her beauty, to lose her +admirers, and to be the object in her old age of the most gross and +unmeasured satire; the flattery of a lover elevated her to a divinity, +and the malice of a wit, whom she had ill-treated, degraded her into a +fury and a hag--with about as much reason. + +Prior's Chloe, the "nut-brown maid," was taken from the opposite +extremity of society, but could scarce have been more worthless. She was +a common woman of the lowest description, whose real name was, I +believe, Nancy Derham,--but it is not a matter of much importance. + +Prior's attachment to this woman, however unmerited, was very sincere. +For her sake he quitted the high society into which his talents and his +political connexions had introduced him; and for her, he neglected, as +he tells us-- + + Whate'er the world thinks wise and grave, + Ambition, business, friendship, news, + My useful books and serious muse, + +to bury himself with her in some low tavern for weeks together. Once +when they quarrelled, she ran away and carried off his plate; but even +this could not shake his constancy: at his death he left her all he +possessed, and she--his Chloe--at whose command and in whose honour he +wrote his "Henry and Emma,"--married a cobler![106] Such was Prior's +Chloe. + +Is it surprising that the works of a poet once so popular, should now be +banished from a Lady's library?--a banishment from which all his +sprightly wit cannot redeem him.--But because Prior's love for this +woman was real, and that he was really a man of feeling and genius, +though debased by low and irregular habits, there are some sweet +touches scattered through his poetry, which show how strong was the +illusion in his fancy:--as in "Chloe Jealous." + + Reading thy verse, "who cares," said I, + "If here or there his glances flew? + O free for ever be his eye, + Whose heart to me is always true!" + +And in his "Answer to Chloe Jealous." + + O when I am wearied with wandering all day, + To thee, my delight, in the evening I come. + No matter what beauties I saw in my way, + They were but my visits, but thou art my home! + +The address to Chloe, with which the "Nut-brown Maid" commences, + + Thou, to whose eyes I bend, &c. + +will ever be admired, and the poem will always find readers among the +young and gentle-hearted, who have not yet learned to be critics or to +tremble at the fiat of Dr. Johnson. It is perhaps one of the most +popular poems in the language. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[95] Spenser. + +[96] Spence's Anecdotes, Sing. edit. + +[97] See her beautiful Memoirs, recently published. + +[98] Dryden's Works, by Scott, vol. xi, p. 32. + +[99] The Duc de Lauzun of Mademoiselle de Montpensier. + +[100] Granville's Works,--"Progress of Beauty". + +[101] "To the pious memory of the accomplished young lady, Mrs. Anne +Killigrew, excellent in the two sister arts of poesy and painting." + +[102] See the lines on Lady Hyde's picture in Granville's poems. + +[103] Lady Jane Hyde married the Earl of Essex. + +[104] On the death of Gay, Swift had addressed to the Duchess a letter +of condolence in his usual cynical style. The Duchess replied with +feeling--"I differ from you, that it is possible to comfort one's self +for the loss of friends, as one does for the loss of money. I think I +could live on very little, nor think myself poor, nor be thought so; but +a _little_ friendship could never satisfy one. In almost every thing but +friends, another of the same name may do as well; but _friend_ is more +than a name, _if_ it be any thing."--This is true; but, as Touchstone +says--"much virtue in _if_!" + +[105] Charlotte, Countess of Newburgh in her own right, from whom the +present Earl of Newburgh is descended. + +[106] Spence's Anecdotes. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV. + +STELLA AND VANESSA. + + +It is difficult to consider Swift as a poet. So many unamiable, +disagreeable, unpoetical ideas are connected with his name, that, great +as he was in fame and intellectual vigour, he seems as misplaced in the +temple of the muses as one of his own yahoos. But who has not heard of +"Swift's Stella?" and of Cadenus and Vanessa? Though all will confess +that the two devoted women, who fell victims to his barbarous +selfishness, and whose names are eternally linked with the history of +our literature, are far more interesting, from their ill-bestowed, +ill-requited and passionate attachment to _him_, than by any thing he +ever sung or said of _them_.[107] Nay, his longest, his most elaborate, +and his most admired poem--the avowed history of one of his +attachments--with its insipid tawdry fable, its conclusion, in which +nothing is concluded, and the inferences we are left to draw from it, +would have given but an ignominious celebrity to poor Vanessa, if truth +and time, and her own sweet nature, had not redeemed her. + +I pass over Swift's early attachment to Jane Waryng, whom he deserted +after a seven years' engagement: she is not in any way connected with +his literary history,--and what became of her afterwards is not known. +He excused himself by some pitiful subterfuges about fortune; but it +appears, from a comparison of dates, that the occasion of his breaking +off with her, was his rising partiality for another. + +When Swift was an inmate of Sir William Temple's family at Moor Park, he +met with Esther Johnson, who appears to have been a kind of humble +companion to Sir William's niece, Miss Gifford. She is said by some to +have been the daughter of Sir William's steward; by others we are told +that her father was a London merchant, who had failed in business. This +was the interesting and ill-fated woman, since renowned as "Swift's +Stella." + +She was then a blooming girl of fifteen, with silky black hair, +brilliant eyes, and delicate features. Her disposition was gentle and +affectionate; and she had a mind of no common order. Swift sometimes +employed his leisure in instructing Sir William's niece, and Stella was +the companion of her studies. Her beauty, talents, and docility, +interested her preceptor, who, though considerably older than herself, +was in the vigour of his life and intellectual powers; and she repaid +this interest with all the idolatry of a young unpractised heart, +mingled with a gratitude and reverence almost filial. When he took +possession of his living in Ireland, he might have married her; for she +loved him, and he knew it. She was perfectly independent of any family +ties, and had a small property of her own: but what were really his +views or his intentions, it is impossible to guess; nor at the reasons +of that most extraordinary arrangement, by which he contrived to bind +this devoted creature to him for life, and to enslave her heart and soul +to him for ever, without assuming the character either of a husband or a +lover. He persuaded her to leave England; and, under the sanction and +protection of a respectable elderly woman named Dingley, often alluded +to in his humorous poems, to take up her residence near him at Laracor. +Subsequently, when he became Dean of St. Patrick's, she had a lodging in +Dublin. He was accustomed to spend part of every day in her society, but +never without the presence of a third person; and when he was absent, +the two ladies took possession of his residence, and occupied it till +his return. + +Two years after her removal to Ireland, and when she was in her +twentieth year, Stella was addressed by a young clergyman, whose name +was Tisdal; and sensible of the humiliating and equivocal situation in +which she was placed, and unable to bring Swift to any explanation of +his views or sentiments, she appears to have been inclined to favour the +addresses of her new admirer. He proposed in form; but Swift, without in +any way committing himself, contrived to prevent the marriage. Stella +found herself precisely in the same situation as before, and every year +increased his influence over her young and gentle spirit, as habit +confirmed and strengthened the bonds of a first affection. She lived on +in the hope that he would at length marry her; bearing his sullen +outbreakings of temper, soothing his morbid misanthropy, cheering and +adorning his life; and giving herself every day fresh claims to his +love, compassion, and gratitude, by her sufferings, her virtues, her +patient gentleness, and her exclusive devotion;--and all availed not! +During this extraordinary connection, Swift was accustomed to address +her in verse. Some of these poems, though worthless as poetry, derive +interest from the beauty of her character, and from that concentrated +vigour of expression which was the characteristic of all he wrote; as in +this descriptive passage:-- + + Her hearers are amazed from whence + Proceeds that fund of wit and sense, + Which, though her modesty would shroud, + Breaks like the sun behind a cloud; + While gracefulness its art conceals, + And yet through every motion steals. + Say, Stella, was Prometheus blind, + And forming you, mistook your kind? + No; 'twas for you alone he stole + The fire that forms a manly soul; + Then, to complete it every way, + He moulded it with female clay: + To _that_ you owe the nobler flame, + To _this_ the beauty of your frame. + +He compliments her sincerity and firmness of principle in four nervous +lines: + + Ten thousand oaths upon record + Are not so sacred as her word! + The world shall in its atoms end, + Ere Stella can deceive a friend! + +Her tender attention to him in sickness and suffering, is thus +described, with a tolerable insight into his own character. + + To her I owe + That I these pains can undergo; + She tends me like an humble slave, + And, when indecently I rave, + When out my brutish passions break, + With gall in every word I speak, + She, with soft speech, my anguish cheers, + Or melts my passions down with tears: + Although 'tis easy to descry + She wants assistance more than I, + She seems to feel my pains alone, + And is a Stoic to her own. + Where, among scholars, can you find + So soft, and yet so firm a mind? + +These lines, dated March, 1724, are the more remarkable, because they +refer to a period when Stella had much to forgive;--when she had just +been injured, in the tenderest point, by the man who owed to her +tenderness and forbearance all the happiness that his savage temper +allowed him to taste on earth. + +As Stella passed much of her time in solitude, she read a great deal. +She received Swift's friends, many of whom were clever and distinguished +men, particularly Sheridan and Delany; and on his public days she dined +as a guest at his table, where, says his biographer,[108] "the modesty +of her manners, the sweetness of her disposition, and the brilliance of +her wit, rendered her the general object of admiration to all who were +so happy as to have a place in that enviable society." + +Johnson says that, "if Swift's ideas of women were such as he generally +exhibits, a very little sense in a lady would enrapture, and a very +little virtue astonish him;" and thinks, therefore, that Stella's +supremacy might be "only local and comparative;" but it is not the less +true, that she was beheld with tenderness and admiration by all who +approached her; and whether she could spell or not,[109] she could +certainly write very pretty verses, considering whom she had chosen for +her model:--for instance, the following little effusion, in reply to a +compliment addressed to her: + + If it be true, celestial powers, + That you have formed me fair, + And yet, in all my vainest hours, + My mind has been my care; + Then, in return, I beg this grace, + As you were ever kind, + What envious time takes from my face, + Bestow upon my mind! + +She had continued to live on in this strange undefinable state of +dependance for fourteen years, "in pale contented sort of discontent," +though her spirit was so borne down by the habitual awe in which he +held her, that she never complained--when the suspicion that a younger +and fairer rival had usurped the heart she possessed, if not the rights +she coveted, added the tortures of jealousy to those of lingering +suspense and mortified affection. + +A new attachment had, in fact, almost entirely estranged Swift from her, +and from his home. While in London, from 1710 to 1712, he was accustomed +to visit at the house of Mrs. Vanhomrigh, and became so intimate, that +during his attendance on the ministry at that time, he was accustomed to +change his wig and gown, and drink his coffee there almost daily. Mrs. +Vanhomrigh had two daughters: the eldest, Esther, was destined to be the +second victim of Swift's detestable selfishness, and become celebrated +under the name of Vanessa. + +She was of a character altogether different from that of Stella. Not +quite so beautiful in person, but with all the freshness and vivacity of +youth--(she was not twenty,) and adding to the advantages of polished +manners and lively talents, a frank confiding temper, and a capacity +for strong affections. She was rich, admired, happy, and diffusing +happiness. Swift, as I have said, visited at the house of her mother. +His age, his celebrity, his character as a clergyman, gave him +privileges of which he availed himself. He was pleased with Miss +Vanhomrigh's talents, and undertook to direct her studies. She was +ignorant of the ties which bound him to the unhappy Stella; and charmed +by his powers of conversation, dazzled by his fame, won and flattered by +his attentions, surrendered her heart and soul to him before she was +aware; and her love partaking of the vivacity of her character, not only +absorbed every other feeling, but, as she expressed it herself, "became +blended with every atom of her frame."[110] + +Swift, among his other lessons, took pains to impress her with his own +favourite maxims (it had been well for both had he acted up to them +himself)--"to speak the truth on all occasions, and at every hazard: +and to do what seemed right in itself, without regard to the opinions or +customs of the world." He appears also to have insinuated the idea, that +the disparity of their age and fortune rendered him distrustful of his +own powers of pleasing.[111] She was thus led on, by his open +admiration, and her own frank temper, to betray the state of her +affections, and proffered to him her hand and fortune. He had not +sufficient humanity, honour, or courage, to disclose the truth of his +situation, but replied to the avowal of this innocent and warm-hearted +girl, first in a tone of raillery, and then by an equivocal offer of +everlasting friendship. + +The scene is thus given in Cadenus and Vanessa. + + Vanessa, though by Pallas taught, + By Love invulnerable thought, + Searching in books for wisdom's aid, + Was in the very search betrayed. + + ....*....*....*....* + + Cadenus many things had writ; + Vanessa much esteemed his wit, + And call'd for his poetic works. + Mean time the boy in secret lurks; + And, while the book was in her hand + The urchin from his private stand + Took aim, and shot with all his strength + A dart of such prodigious length, + It pierced the feeble volume through, + And deep transfix'd her bosom too. + Some lines, more moving than the rest, + Stuck to the point that pierced her breast, + And borne directly to the heart, + With pains unknown, increas'd her smart. + Vanessa, not in years a score, + Dreams of a gown of forty-four; + Imaginary charms can find, + In eyes with reading almost blind. + Cadenus now no more appears + Declin'd in health, advanc'd in years; + She fancies music in his tongue, + Nor farther looks, but thinks him young. + +Vanessa is then made to disclose her tenderness. The expressions and the +sentiments are probably as true to the facts as was consistent with the +rhyme: but how cold, how flat, how prosaic! no emotion falters in the +lines--not a feeling blushes through them!--as if an ardent but delicate +and gentle girl would ever have made a first avowal of passion in this +_chop-logic_ style-- + + "Now," said the Nymph, "to let you see + My actions with your rules agree; + That I can vulgar forms despise, + And have no secrets to disguise; + I knew, by what you said and writ, + How dangerous things were men of wit; + You caution'd me against their charms, + But never gave me equal arms; + Your lessons found the weakest part, + Aimed at the head, but reach'd the heart!" + Cadenus felt within him rise + Shame, disappointment, guilt, surprise, &c. + + * * * * * + +It is possible he might have felt thus; and yet the excess of his +_surprise_ and _disappointment_ on the occasion, may be doubted. He +makes, however, a very candid confession of his own vanity. + + Cadenus, to his grief and shame, + Could scarce oppose Vanessa's flame; + And, though her arguments were strong, + At least could hardly wish them wrong: + Howe'er it came, he could not tell, + But sure she never talked so well. + His pride began to interpose; + Preferred before a crowd of beaux! + So bright a nymph to come unsought! + Such wonder by his merit wrought! + 'Tis merit must with her prevail! + He never knew her judgment fail. + She noted all she ever read, + And had a most discerning head! + +The scene continues--he rallies her, and affects to think it all + + Just what coxcombs call a bite. + +(such is his elegant phrase.) He then offers her friendship instead of +love: the lady replies with very pertinent arguments; and finally, the +tale is concluded in this ambiguous passage, in which we must allow that +great room is left for scandal, for doubt, and for curiosity. + + But what success Vanessa met + Is to the world a secret yet;-- + Whether the nymph, to please her swain, + Talks in a high romantic strain, + Or whether he at last descends + To act with less seraphic ends; + Or to compound the business, whether + They temper love and books together; + Must never to mankind be told, + Nor shall the conscious Muse unfold. + +Such is the story of this celebrated poem. The passion, the +circumstances, the feelings are real, and it contains lines of great +power; and yet, assuredly, the perusal of it never conveyed one emotion +to the reader's heart, except of indignation against the writer; not a +spark of poetry, fancy, or pathos, breathes throughout. We have a dull +mythological fable in which Venus and the Graces descend to clothe +Vanessa in all the attractions of her sex:-- + + The Graces next would act their part, + And showed but little of their art; + Their work was half already done, + The child with native beauty shone; + The outward form no help required;-- + Each, breathing on her thrice, inspired + That gentle, soft, engaging air, + Which in old times advanced the fair. + +And Pallas is tricked by the wiles of Venus into doing _her_ part.--The +Queen of Learning + + Mistakes Vanessa for a boy; + Then sows within her tender mind + Seeds long unknown to womankind, + For manly bosoms chiefly fit,-- + The seeds of knowledge, judgment, wit. + Her soul was suddenly endued + With justice, truth, and fortitude,-- + With honour, which no breath can stain, + Which malice must attack in vain; + With open heart and bounteous hand, &c. + +The nymph thus accomplished is feared by the men and hated by the women; +and Swift has shown his utter want of heart and good taste, by making +his homage to the woman he loved, a vehicle for the bitterest satire on +the rest of her sex. What right had he to accuse us of a universal +preference for mere coxcombs,--he who, through the sole power of his +wit and intellect, had inspired with the most passionate attachment two +lovely women not half his own age? Be it remembered, that while Swift +was playing the Abelard with such effect, he was in his forty-fifth +year, and though + + He moved and bowed, and talked with so much grace, + Nor showed the parson in his gait or face,[112] + +he was one of the ugliest men in existence,--of a bilious, saturnine +complexion, and a most forbidding countenance. + +The poem of Cadenus and Vanessa was written immediately on his return to +Ireland and to Stella, (where he describes himself devoured by +melancholy and regret,) and sent to Vanessa. Her passion and her +inexperience seem to have blinded her to what was humiliating to herself +in this poem, and left her sensible only to the admiration it expressed, +and the hopes it conveyed. She wrote him the most impassioned letters; +and he replied in a style which, without committing himself, kept alive +all her tenderness, and rivetted his influence over her. + +Meanwhile, what became of Stella? Too quick-sighted not to perceive the +difference in Swift's manner, pining under his neglect, and struck to +the heart by jealousy, grief, and resentment, her health gave way. His +pitiful resolve never to see her alone, precluded all complaint or +explanation. The Mrs. Dingley who had been chosen for her companion, was +merely calculated to save appearances;--respectable, indeed, in point of +reputation, but selfish, narrow-minded and weak. Thus abandoned to +sullen, silent sorrow, the unhappy Stella fell into an alarming state; +and her destroyer was at length roused to some remorse, by the daily +spectacle of the miserable wreck he had caused. He commissioned his +friend Dr. Ashe, "to learn the secret cause of that dejection of spirits +which had so visibly preyed on her health; and to know whether it was by +any means in his power to remove it?" She replied, "that the peculiarity +of her circumstances, and her singular connexion with Swift for so many +years, had given great occasion for scandal; that she had learned to +bear this patiently, hoping that all such reports would be effaced by +marriage; but she now saw, with deep grief, that his behaviour was +totally changed, and that a cold indifference had succeeded to the +warmest professions of eternal affection. That the necessary +consequences would be, an indelible stain fixed on her character, and +the loss of her good name, which was dearer to her than life."[113] + +Swift answered, that in order to satisfy Mrs. Johnson's scruples, and +relieve her mind, he was ready to go through the mere ceremony of +marriage with her, on two conditions;--first, that they should live +separately exactly as they did before;--secondly, that it should be kept +a profound secret from all the world.[114] To these conditions, however +hard and humiliating, she was obliged to submit: and the ceremony was +performed privately by Dr. Ashe, in 1716. This nominal marriage spared +her at least some of the torments of jealousy, by rendering a union with +her rival impossible. + +Yet, within a year afterwards, we find this ill-fated rival, the yet +more unhappy Vanessa,--more unhappy because endued by nature with +quicker passions, and far less fortitude and patience,--following Swift +to Ireland. She had a plausible pretext for this journey, being heiress +to a considerable property at Celbridge, about twelve miles from Dublin, +on which she came to reside with her sister;[115] but her real +inducement was her unconquerable love for him. Nothing could be more +_mal apropos_ to Swift than her arrival in Dublin: placed between two +women, thus devoted to him, his perplexity was not greater than his +heartless duplicity deserved: nothing could extricate him but the +simple, but desperate expedient of disclosing the truth, and this he +could not or would not do: regardless of the sacred ties which now bound +him to Stella, he continued to correspond with Vanessa and to visit her; +but "the whole course of this correspondence precludes the idea of a +guilty intimacy."[116] _She_, whose passion was as pure as it was +violent and exclusive, asked but to be his wife. She would have flung +down her fortune and herself at his feet, and bathed them with tears of +gratitude, if he would have deigned to lift her to his arms. In the +midst of all the mortification, anguish, and heart-wearing suspense to +which his stern temper and inexplicable conduct exposed her, still she +clung to the hopes he had awakened, and which, either in cowardice, or +compassion, or selfish egotism, he still kept alive. He concludes one of +his letters with the following sentence in French, "mais soyez assuree, +que jamais personne au monde n'a ete aimee, honoree, estimee, adoree, +par votre amie, que vous:"[117] and there are other passages to the same +effect, little agreeing with his professions to poor Stella:--one or the +other, or both, must have been grossly deceived. + +After declarations so explicit, Vanessa naturally wondered that he +proceeded no farther; it appears that he sometimes endeavoured to +repress her over-flowing tenderness, by treating her with a harshness +which drove her almost to frenzy. There is really nothing in the +effusions of Heloise or Mdlle. de l'Espinasse, that can exceed, in +pathos and burning eloquence, some of her letters to him during this +period of their connection.[118] When he had reduced her to the most +shocking and pitiable state, so that her life or her reason were +threatened, he would endeavour to soothe her in language which again +revived her hopes-- + + Give the reed + From storms a shelter,--give the drooping vine + Something round which its tendrils may entwine,-- + Give the parch'd flower the rain-drop,--and the meed + Of Love's kind words to woman![119] + +It will be said, where was her sex's delicacy, where her woman's pride? +Alas!-- + + La Vergogna ritien debile amore, + Ma debil freno e di potente amore. + +In this agonizing suspense she lived through eight long years; till, +unable to endure it longer, and being aware of the existence of Stella, +she took the decisive step of writing to her rival, and desired to know +whether she was, or was not, married to Swift? Stella answered her +immediately in the affirmative; and then, justly indignant that he +should have given any other woman such a right in him as was implied by +the question, she enclosed Vanessa's letter to Swift; and instantly, +with a spirit she had never before exerted, quitted her lodgings, +withdrew to the house of Mr. Ford, of Wood Park, and threw herself on +the friendship and protection of his family. + +This lamentable tragedy was now brought to a crisis. Swift, on receiving +the letter, was seized with one of those insane paroxysms of rage to +which he was subject. He mounted his horse, rode down to Celbridge, and +suddenly entered the room in which Vanessa was sitting. His countenance, +fitted by nature to express the dark and fierce passions, so terrified +her, that she could scarce ask him whether he would sit down? He replied +savagely, "No!" and throwing down before her, her own letter to Stella, +with a look of inexpressible scorn and anger, flung out of the room, and +returned to Dublin. + +This cruel scene was her death warrant.[120] Hitherto she had venerated +Swift; and in the midst of her sufferings, confided in him, idolized him +as the first of human beings. What must he now have appeared in her +eyes?--They say, "Hell has no fury like a woman scorned;"--it is not +so: the recoil of the heart, when forced to abhor and contemn, where it +has once loved, is far,--far worse; and Vanessa, who had endured her +lover's scorn, could not scorn _him_, and live. She was seized with a +delirious fever, and died "in resentment and in despair."[121] She +desired, in her last will, that the poem of Cadenus and Vanessa, which +she considered as a monument of Swift's love for her, should be +published, with some of his letters, which would have explained what was +left obscure, and have cleared her fame. The poem was published; but the +letters, by the interference of Swift's friends, were, at the time, +suppressed. + +On her death, and Stella's flight, Swift absented himself from home for +two months, nor did any one know whither he was gone. During that time, +what must have been his feelings--_if_ he felt at all? what agonies of +remorse, grief, shame, and horror, must have wrung his bosom! he had, in +effect, murdered the woman who loved him, as absolutely as if he had +plunged a poniard into her heart: and yet it is not clear that Swift +was a prey to any such feelings; at least his subsequent conduct gave no +assurance of it. On his return to Dublin, mutual friends interfered to +reconcile him with Stella. About this time, she happened to meet, at a +dinner-party, a gentleman who was a stranger to the real circumstances +of her situation, and who began to speak of the poem of Cadenus and +Vanessa, then just published. He observed, that Vanessa must have been +an admirable creature to have inspired the Dean to write so finely. +"That does not follow," replied Mrs. Johnson, with bitterness; "it is +well known that the Dean could write finely on a _broomstick_." Ah! how +must jealousy and irritation, and long habits of intimacy with Swift, +have poisoned the mind and temper of this unhappy woman, before she +could have uttered this cruel sarcasm!--And yet she was true to the +softness of her sex; for after the lapse of several months, during which +it required all the attention of Mr. Ford and his family to sustain and +console her, she consented to return to Dublin, and live with the Dean +on the same terms as before. Well does old Chaucer say, + + There can no man in humblesse him acquite + As woman can, he can be half so true + As woman be! + +"Swift welcomed her to town," says Sheridan, "with that beautiful poem +entitled 'Stella at Wood Park;'" that is to say, he welcomed back to the +home from which he had driven her, the woman whose heart he had well +nigh broken, the wife he had every way injured and abused,--with a +tissue of coarse sarcasms, on the taste for magnificence she must have +acquired in her visit to Wood Park, and the difficulty of descending + + From every day a lordly banquet + To half a joint--and God be thanket! + +From partridges and venison with the right _fumette_,--to + + Small beer, a herring, and the Dean. + +And this was all the sentiment, all the poetry with which the occasion +inspired him! + +Stella naturally hoped, that when her rival was no more, and Swift no +longer exposed to her torturing reproaches, that he would do her tardy +justice, and at length acknowledge her as his wife. But no;--it would +have cost him some little mortification and inconvenience; and on such a +paltry pretext he suffered this amiable and admirable woman, of whom he +had said, that "her merits towards him were greater than ever was in any +human being towards another;" and "that she excelled in every good +quality that could possibly accomplish a human creature,"--this woman +did he suffer to languish into the grave, broken in heart and blighted +in name. When Stella was on her death-bed, some conversation passed +between them upon this sad subject. Only Swift's reply was audible: he +said, "Well, my dear, it shall be acknowledged, if you wish it." To +which she answered with a sigh, "It is _now_ too late!"[122] It _was_ +too late!-- + + What now to her was womanhood or fame? + +She died of a lingering decline, in January, 1728, four years after the +death of Miss Vanhomrigh. + +Thus perished these two innocent, warm-hearted and accomplished +women;--so rich in all the graces of their sex--so formed to love and to +be loved, to bless, and to be blessed,--sacrifices to the demoniac pride +of the man they had loved and trusted. But it will be said, "si elles +n'avaient point aime, elles seraient moins connues:" they have become +immortal by their connection with genius; they are celebrated, merely +through their attachment to a celebrated man. But, good God! what an +immortality! won by what martyrdom of the heart!--And what a celebrity! +not that with which the poet's love, and his diviner verse, crown the +deified object of his homage, but a celebrity, purchased with their +life-blood and their tears! I quit the subject with a sense of +relief:--yet one word more. + +It was after the death of these two amiable women, who had deserved so +much from him, and whose enduring tenderness had flung round his odious +life and character their only redeeming charm of sentiment and interest, +that the native grossness and rancour of this incarnate spirit of libel +burst forth with tenfold virulence.[123] He showed how true had been his +love and his respect for _them_, by insulting and reviling, in terms a +scavenger would disavow, the sex they belonged to. Swift's +master-passion was pride,--an unconquerable, all-engrossing, +self-revolving pride: he was proud of his vigorous intellect, proud of +being the "dread and hate of half mankind,"--proud of his contempt for +women,--proud of his tremendous powers of invective. It was his boast, +that he never forgave an injury; it was his boast, that the ferocious +and unsparing personal satire with which he avenged himself on those who +offended him, had never been softened by the repentance, or averted by +the concessions of the offender. Look at him in his last years, when the +cold earth was heaped over those who would have cheered and soothed his +dark and stormy spirit; without a friend--deprived of the mighty powers +he had abused--alternately a drivelling idiot and a furious maniac, and +sinking from both into a helpless, hopeless, prostrate lethargy of body +and mind!--Draw,--draw the curtain, in reverence to the human ruin, lest +our woman's hearts be tempted to unwomanly exultation! + +FOOTNOTES: + +[107] As Swift said truly and wittily of himself: + + As when a lofty pile is raised, + We never hear the workmen praised, + Who bring the lime or place the stones, + But all admire Inigo Jones; + So if this pile of scattered rhymes + Should be approved in after-times, + If it both pleases and endures, + The merit and the praise are yours! + + _Verses to Stella._ + +[108] Sheridan's Life of Swift. + +[109] Dr. Johnson, who allows Stella to have been "virtuous, beautiful, +and elegant," says she could not spell her own language: in those days +few women _could_ spell accurately. + +[110] See her Letters. + +[111] See some very poor verses found in Miss Vanhomrigh's desk, and +inserted in his poems, vol. x, p. 14. + +[112] "The Author on himself," (Swift's poems.) + +[113] Sheridan's Life of Swift, p. 316. + +[114] How pertinaciously Swift adhered to these conditions, is proved by +the fact, that after the ceremony, he never saw her alone; and that +several years after, when she was in a dangerous state of health, and he +was writing to a friend about providing for her comforts, he desires +"that she might not be brought to the Deanery-house on any account, as +it was a very improper place for her to breathe her last +in."--_Sheridan's Life_, p. 356. + +[115] "Marley Abbey, near Celbridge, where Miss Vanhomrigh resided, is +built much in the form of a real cloister, especially in its external +appearance. An aged man (upwards of ninety, by his own account,) showed +the grounds to my correspondent. He was the son of Mrs. Vanhomrigh's +gardener, and used to work with his father in the garden when a boy. He +remembered the unfortunate Vanessa well; and his account of her +corresponded with the usual description of her person, especially as to +her _embonpoint_. He said she went seldom abroad, and saw little +company; her constant amusement was reading, or walking in the garden. +Yet, according to this authority, her society was courted by several +families in the neighbourhood, who visited her, notwithstanding her +seldom returning that attention; and he added, that her manners +interested every one who knew her,--but she avoided company, and was +always melancholy save when Dean Swift was there, and then she seemed +happy. The garden was to an uncommon degree crowded with laurels. The +old man said, that when Miss Vanhomrigh expected the Dean, she always +planted with her own hand a laurel or two against his arrival. He showed +her favourite seat, still called Vanessa's Bower. Three or four trees, +and some laurels, indicate the spot. They had formerly, according to the +old man's information, been trained into a close arbour. There were two +seats and a rude table within the bower, the opening of which commanded +a view of the Liffey, which had a romantic effect; and there was a small +cascade that murmured at some distance. In this sequestered spot, +according to the old gardener's account, the Dean and Vanessa used often +to sit, with books and writing materials on the table before +them."--_Scott's Life of Swift._ + +[116] Scott's Life of Swift. + +[117] Correspondence, (as quoted in Sheridan's Life of Swift.) + +[118] I give one specimen, not as the most eloquent that could be +extracted, but as most illustrative of the story. + +"You bid me be easy, and you would see me as often as you could; you had +better have said as often as you could get the better of your +inclination so much; or, as often as you remembered there was such a +person in the world. If you continue to treat me as you do, you will not +be made uneasy by me long. 'Tis impossible to describe what I have +suffered since I saw you last; I am sure I could have borne the rack +much better than those killing, killing words of yours. Sometimes I have +resolved to die without seeing you more; but those resolves, to your +misfortune, did not last long, for there is something in human nature +that prompts us to seek relief in this world. I must give way to it, and +beg you would see me, and speak kindly to me; for I am sure you would +not condemn any one to suffer what I have done, could you but know it. +The reason I write to you is this, because I cannot tell it you, should +I see you; for when I begin to complain, then you are angry, and there +is something in your look so awful, that it strikes me dumb. Oh! that +you may but have so much regard for me left, that this complaint may +touch your soul with pity! I say as little as ever I can. Did you but +know what I thought, I am sure it would move you. Forgive me, and +believe, I cannot help telling you this, and live."--LETTERS, Vol. xix. +page 421. + +[119] Mrs. Hemans. + +[120] Johnson's Life of Swift. + +[121] Johnson, Sheridan. Scott. + +[122] Scott's Life of Swift.--Sheridan has recorded another interview +between Stella and her destroyer, in which she besought him to +acknowledge her before her death, that she might have the satisfaction +of dying his wife; and he refused. + +Dated Feb. 7, 1728, I find a letter from Swift to Martha Blount, written +in a style of gay badinage, and her answer; and in neither is there the +slightest allusion to his recent loss.--_Roscoe's Pope_, vol. viii. p. +460. + +[123] It was after the death of Stella, that all Swift's coarsest +satires were written. He was in the act of writing the last and most +terrible of these, when he was seized with insanity; and it remains +unfinished. + + + + +CHAPTER XV. + +POPE AND MARTHA BLOUNT. + + +If the soul of sensibility, which I believe Pope really possessed, had +been enclosed in a healthful frame and an agreeable person, we might +have reckoned him among our _preux chevaliers_, and have had sonnets +instead of satires. But he seems to have been ever divided between two +contending feelings. He was peculiarly sensible to the charms of women, +and his habits as a valetudinarian, rendered their society and attention +not only soothing and delightful, but absolutely necessary to him: +while, unhappily, there mingled with this real love for them, and +dependance on them as a sex, the most irascible self-love; and a +torturing consciousness of that feebleness and deformity of person, +which embittered all his intercourse with them. He felt that, in his +character of poet, he could, by his homage, flatter their vanity, and +excite their admiration and their fear; but, at the same time, he was +shivering under the apprehension that, as a man, they regarded him with +contempt; and that he could never hope to awaken in a female bosom any +feelings corresponding with his own. So far he was unjust to us and to +himself: his friend Lord Lyttelton, and his enemy Lord Hervey,[124] +might have taught him better. + +On reviewing Pope's life, his works, and his correspondence, it seems to +me that these two opposite feelings contending in his bosom from youth +to age, will account for the general character of his poems with a +reference to our sex:--will explain why women bear so prominent a part +in all his works, whether as objects of poetical gallantry, honest +admiration, or poignant satire: why there is not among all his +productions more than one poem decidedly amatory, (and that one partly +suppressed in the ordinary editions of his works,) while women only have +furnished him with the materials of all his _chef-d'oeuvres_: his +Elegy, his 'Rape of the Lock,' the 'Epistle of Heloise,' and the second +of his Moral Essays. He may call us, and prove us, in his antithetical +style, "a contradiction:"[125] but we may retort; for, as far as women +are concerned, Pope was himself one miserable antithesis. + + * * * * * + +The "Elegy to the memory of an unfortunate Lady," refers to a tragedy +which occurred in Pope's early life, and over which he has studiously +drawn an impenetrable veil. When his friend Mr. Caryl wrote to him on +the subject, many years after the Elegy was published, Pope, in his +reply, left this part of the letter unnoticed; and a second application +was equally unsuccessful. His biographers are not better informed. +Johnson remarks upon the Elegy, that it commemorates the "amorous fury +of a raving girl, who liked self-murder better than suspense;" and +having given this deadly stroke with his critical fang, the grim old +lion of literature stalks on, and "stays no farther question." But is +this merciful, or is it just? by what right does he sit in judgment on +the unhappy dead, of whom he knew nothing? or how could he tell by what +course of suffering, disease, or tyranny, a gentle spirit may have been +goaded to frenzy? It was said, on the authority of some French author, +that she was secretly attached to one of the French princes: that, in +consequence, her uncle and guardian ("the mean deserter of a brother's +blood,") forced her into a convent, where, in despair and madness, she +put an end to her existence; and that the lines + + Why bade ye else, ye powers! her soul aspire + Above the vulgar flight of low desire? + Ambition first sprung from your blest abodes; + The glorious fault of angels and of gods,-- + +refer to this ambitious passion. But then, again, this has been +contradicted. Warton's story is improbable and inconsistent with the +poem;[126] and the assertion of another author,[127] that she was in +love with Pope, and as deformed as himself, is most unlikely. "O ever +beauteous, ever friendly!" is rather a strange style of apostrophising +one deformed in person; and exposed to misery, and driven to suicide, by +a passion for himself. In short, it is all mystery, wonder, and +conjecture. + +Other women who have been loved, celebrated, or satirized by Pope, are +at least more notorious, if not so interesting. His most lasting and +real attachment, was that which he entertained for Theresa and Martha +Blount, who alternately, or with divided empire, reigned in his heart or +fancy for five-and-thirty years. They were of an old Roman Catholic +family of Oxfordshire; and his acquaintance with them appears to have +begun as early as 1707, when he was only nineteen. Theresa, the +handsomest and most intelligent of the two sisters, was a brunette, with +black sparkling eyes. Martha was short in stature, fair, with blue eyes, +and a softer expression. They appear to have been tolerably amiable, and +much attached to each other: _au reste_, in no way distinguished, but by +the flattering admiration of a celebrated man, who has immortalised +both. + +The verses addressed to them, convey in general, either counsel or +compliment, or at the most playful gallantry. His letters express +something beyond these. He began by admiring Theresa; then he wavered: +there were misunderstandings, and petulance, and mutual bickerings. His +susceptibility exposed him to be continually wounded; he felt deeply and +acutely; he was conscious that he could inspire no sentiment +corresponding with that which throbbed at his own heart: and some +passages in the correspondence cannot be read without a painful pity. +At length, upon some mutual offence, his partiality for Theresa was +transferred to Martha. In one of his last letters to Theresa, he says, +beautifully and feelingly, "We are too apt to resent things too highly, +till we come to know, by some great misfortune or other, how much we are +born to endure; and as for me, you need not suspect of resentment a soul +which can feel nothing but grief." + +His attachment to Martha increased after his quarrel with Lady Mary W. +Montagu, and ended only with his life. + +"He was never," says Mr. Bowles, "indifferent to female society; and +though his good sense prevented him, conscious of so many personal +infirmities, from marrying, yet he felt the want of that sort of +reciprocal tenderness and confidence in a female, to whom he might +freely communicate his thoughts, and on whom, in sickness and infirmity, +he could rely. All this Martha Blount became to him; by degrees, she +became identified with his existence. She partook of his +disappointments, his vexations, and his comforts. Wherever he went, his +correspondence with her was never remitted; and when the warmth of +gallantry was over, the cherished idea of kindness and regard +remained."[128] + +To Martha Blount is addressed the compliment on her birth-day-- + + O be thou blest with all that heaven can send,-- + Long health, long youth, long pleasure, and a friend! + +And an epistle sent to her, with the works of Voiture, in which he +advises her against marriage, in this elegant and well-known passage,-- + + Too much your sex are by their forms confin'd, + Severe to all, but most to womankind; + Custom, grown blind with age, must be your guide; + Your pleasure is a vice, but not your pride. + By nature yielding, stubborn but for fame, + Made slaves by honour, and made fools by shame. + Marriage may all those petty tyrants chase, + But sets up one, a greater, in their place: + Well might you wish for change, by those accurst, + But the last tyrant ever proves the worst. + Still in constraint your suffering sex remains, + Or bound in formal or in real chains: + Whole years neglected, for some months adored, + The fawning servant turns a haughty lord. + Ah, quit not the free innocence of life + For the dull glory of a virtuous wife! + Nor let false shows, nor empty titles please,-- + Aim not at joy, but rest content with ease. + +Very excellent advice, and very disinterested, considering whence it +came, and to whom it was addressed!! + +The poem generally placed after this in his works, and entitled "Epistle +to the _same_ Lady, on leaving town after the Coronation," was certainly +not addressed to Martha, but to Theresa. It appears from the +correspondence, that Martha was not at the Coronation in 1715, and that +Theresa was. The whole tenour of this poem is agreeable to the sprightly +person and character of Theresa, while "Parthenia's softer blush," +evidently alludes to Martha. From an examination of the letters which +were written at this time, I should imagine, that though Pope had +previously assured the latter that she had gained the conquest over her +fair sister, yet the public appearance of Theresa at the Coronation, and +her superior charms, revived all his tenderness and admiration, and +suggested this gay and pleasing effusion. + + In some fair evening, on your elbow laid, + You dream of triumphs in the rural shade; + In pensive thought recall the fancy'd scene, + See coronations rise on every green. + Before you pass th' imaginary sights + Of lords, and earls, and dukes, and garter'd knights, + While the spread fan o'ershades your closing eyes,-- + Then give one flirt, and all the vision flies. + Thus vanish sceptres, coronets, and balls, + And leave you in lone woods or empty walls! + +To Martha Blount is dedicated the "Epistle on the Characters of Women;" +which concludes with this elegant and flattering address to her. + + O! blest with temper, whose unclouded ray + Can make to-morrow cheerful as to-day; + She who can love a sister's charms, or hear + Sighs for a daughter with unwounded ear; + She who ne'er answers till a husband cools, + Or if she rules him, never shows she rules: + Charms by accepting, by submitting sways, + Yet has her humour most when she obeys; + Let fops or fortune fly which way they will, + Disdains all loss of tickets or codille; + Spleen, vapours, or small-pox, above them all, + And mistress of herself though China fall. + +The allusion to her affection for her sister, is just and beautiful; but +the compliment to her temper is understood not to have been quite +merited--perhaps, was rather administered as a corrective; for Martha +was weak and captious; and Pope, who had suffered what torments a female +wit could inflict, possibly found that peevishness and folly have also +their _desagremens_. He complains frequently, in his letters to Martha, +of the difficulty of pleasing her, or understanding her wishes. +Methinks, had I been a poet, or Pope, I would rather have been led about +in triumph by the spirited, accomplished Lady Mary, than "chained to the +footstool of two paltry girls." + +They used to employ him constantly in the most trifling and troublesome +commissions, in which he had seldom even the satisfaction of contenting +them. He was accustomed to send them little presents almost daily, as +concert-tickets, ribbons, fruit, &c. He once sent them a basket of +peaches, which, with an affectation of careless gallantry, were +separately wrapped in part of the manuscript translation of the Iliad: +and he humbly requests them to return the wrappers, as he had no other +copy. On another occasion he sent them fans, on which were inscribed his +famous lines, + + "Come, gentle air," th' Eolian shepherd said, &c. + +Martha Blount was not so kind or so attentive to Pope in his last +illness as she ought to have been. His love for _her_ seemed blended +with his frail existence; and when he was scarcely sensible to any thing +else in the world, he was still conscious of the charm of her presence. +"When she came into the room," says Spence, "it was enough to give a new +turn to his spirits, and a temporary strength to him." + +She survived him eighteen years, and died unmarried at her house in +Berkeley Square, in 1762. She is described, about that time, as a +little, fair, prim old woman, very lively, and inclined to gossip. Her +undefined connexion with Pope, though it afforded matter for mirth and +wonder, never affected her reputation while living; and has rendered her +name as immortal as our language and our literature. One cannot help +wishing that she had been more interesting, and more worthy of her +fame. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[124] Lord Hervey, with an exterior the most forbidding, and almost +ghastly, contrived to supersede Pope in the good graces of Lady M. W. +Montagu; carried off Mary Lepell, the beautiful maid of honour, from a +host of rivals, and made her Lady Hervey: and won the whole heart of the +poor Princess Caroline, who is said to have died of grief for his +loss.--_See Walpole's Memoirs of George II._ + +[125] "Woman's at best a contradiction still." + +[126] See Roscoe's Life of Pope, p. 87. Warton says her name was +Wainsbury, and that she hung herself. + +[127] Warburton. + +[128] Bowles's edition of Pope, vol. i. page 69. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI. + +POPE AND LADY M. W. MONTAGU. + + +In the same year with Martha Blount, and about the same age, died Lady +Mary W. Montagu. Every body knows that she was one of Pope's early +loves. She had, for several years, suspended his attachment to his first +favourites, the Blounts; and she really deserved the preference. But the +issue of this romantic attachment was the most bitter, the most +irreconcilable enmity. The cause did not proceed so much from any one +particular offence on either side, but rather from a multitude of +trifling causes, arising naturally out of the characters of both. + +When they first met, Pope was about six-and-twenty; and from the recent +publication of the 'Rape of the Lock,' and 'The Temple of Fame,' &c. had +reached the pinnacle of fashion and reputation. Lady Mary was in her +twenty-third year, lately married to a man she loved, and had just burst +upon the world in all the blaze of her wit and beauty. Her masculine +acquirements and powers of mind--her strong good sense--her extensive +views--her frankness, decision, and generosity--her vivacity, and her +bright eyes, must altogether have rendered her one of the most +fascinating, as she really was one of the most extraordinary, women that +ever lived. + +There stands, in a conspicuous part of this great city, a certain +monument, erected, it is said, at the cost of the ladies of Britain; but +in a spirit and taste which, I trust, are not those of my countrywomen +at large. Is this our patriotism? We may applaud the brave, who go forth +to battle to defend us, and preserve inviolate the sanctity of our +hearths and homes; but does it become us to lend our voice to exult in +victory, always bought at the expense of suffering, and aggravate the +din and the clamour of war--we, who ought to be the peace-makers of the +world, and plead for man against his own fierce passions? A huge brazen +image stands up, an impudent (false) witness of our martial enthusiasm; +but who amongst us has thought of raising a public statue to Lady +Wortley Montagu! to her who has almost banished from the world that pest +which once extinguished families and desolated provinces? To her true +patriotic spirit,--to her magnanimity, her generous perseverance, in +surmounting all obstacles raised by the outcry of ignorance, and the +obstinacy of prejudice, we owe the introduction of inoculation;--she +ought to stand in marble beside Howard the good.[129] + +I should imagine that a strong impression must have been made on Lady +Mary's mind, by an incident which occurred just at the time she left +England for Constantinople. Lord Petre,--he who is consecrated to fame +in the Rape of the Lock, as the ravisher of Arabella Fermour's +hair,--died of the small-pox at the age of three-and-twenty, just after +his marriage with a young and beautiful heiress; his death caused a +general sympathy, and added to the dread and horror which was inspired +by this terrible disease: eighteen persons of his family had died of it +within twenty-seven years. In those days it was not even allowable to +mention, or allude to it in company. + +Mr. Wortley was appointed to the Turkish embassy in 1716, and his wife +accompanied him. The letters which passed between her and Pope, during +her absence, are well known. In point of style and liveliness, the +superiority is on the lady's side; but the tone of feeling in Pope is +better, more earnest; his language is not always within the bounds of +that sprightly gallantry with which a man naturally addresses a young, +beautiful, and virtuous woman, who had condescended to allow his +homage.[130] + +In one of his letters, written immediately after her departure, he asks +her how he had looked? how he had behaved at the last moment? whether he +had betrayed any deeper feeling than propriety might warrant? "For if," +he says, "my parting looked like that of a common acquaintance, I am the +greatest of all hypocrites that ever decency made." And in a subsequent +letter he says, very feelingly and significantly, "May that person (her +husband) for whom you have left the world, be so just as to prefer you +to all the world. I believe his good sense leads him to do so now, as +gratitude will hereafter. May you continue to think him worthy of +whatever you have done! may you ever look upon him with the eyes of a +first lover, nay, if possible, with all the unreasonable happy fondness +of an unexperienced one, surrounded with all the enchantments and ideas +of romance and poetry! I wish this from my heart; and while I examine +what passes there in regard to you, I cannot but glory in my own heart, +that it is capable of so much generosity." + +This was sufficiently clear. I need scarcely remark _en passant_, that +Pope's generosity and wishes were all _en pure perte_; his spitefulness +must have been gratified by the sequel of Lady Mary's domestic bliss; +her marriage ended in disgust and aversion; which, on her separation +from Mr. Wortley, subsided into a good-humoured indifference.[131] + +After a union of twenty-seven years, she parted from him and went to +reside abroad. There were errors on both sides; but I am obliged to +admit that Lady Mary, with all her fine qualities, had two +faults,--intolerable and unpardonable faults in the eyes of a husband or +a lover. She wanted softness of mind, and refinement of feeling, in the +first place: and she wanted--how shall I express it?--she wanted +neatness and personal delicacy; and was, in short, that _odious_ thing, +a female sloven, as well as that _dangerous_ thing, a female wit. + +In those days the style of dress was the most hideous imaginable. The +women wore a large quantity of artificial hair, in emulation of the +tremendous periwigs of the men; and Pope, in one of his letters to Lady +Mary, mentions her "full bottomed wig," which, he says, "I did but +assert to be a _bob_" and was answered, "Love is blind!" On her return +from Turkey, she sometimes allowed her own fine dark hair to flow loose, +and was fond of dressing in her Turkish costume. In this she was +imitated by several beautiful women of the day, and particularly by her +lovely contemporary, Lady Fanny Shirley, (Chesterfield's "Fanny, +blooming fair:" he seems to have admired her as much as he could +possibly admire any thing, next to himself and the Graces.) In her +picture at Clarendon Park, she too appears in the habit of Fatima. +_Apropos_, to the loves of the poets, Lady Fanny deserves to be +mentioned as the theme of all the rhymesters, and "the joy, the wish, +the wonder, the despair," of all the beaux of her day.[132] + +But it is time to return to Pope. The epistle of Heloise to Abelard was +published during Lady Mary's absence, and sent to her: and it is clear +from a passage in one of his letters, that he wished her to consider the +last lines,--from + + And sure, if fate some future bard shall join, + +down to + + He best can paint them, who can feel them most, + +as applicable to himself and to his feelings towards her. + +And yet, whatever might have been his devotion to Lady Mary before she +went abroad, it was increased tenfold after her memorable travels. At +present, when ladies of fashion make excursions of pleasure to the +pyramids of Egypt and the ruins of Babylon, a journey to Constantinople +is little more than a trip to Rome or Vienna; but in the last age it was +a prodigious and marvellous undertaking; and Lady Mary, on her return, +was gazed upon as an object of wonder and curiosity, and sought as the +most entertaining person in the world: her sprightliness and her beauty, +her oriental stories and her Turkish costume, were the rage of the day. +With Pope, she was on the most friendly terms:--by his interference and +negociation, a house was procured for her and Mr. Wortley, at +Twickenham, so that their intercourse was almost constant. When he +finished his translation of the Iliad, in 1720, Gay wrote him a +complimentary poem, in which he enumerates the host of friends who +welcomed the poet home from Greece; and among them, Lady Mary stands +conspicuous. + + What lady's that to whom he gently bends? + Who knows not her! Ah, those are Wortley's eyes; + How art thou honoured, numbered with her friends,-- + For she distinguishes the good and wise! + +To this period we may also refer the composition of the Stanzas to Lady +Mary, which begin, "In beauty and wit."[133] The measure is trivial and +disagreeable, but the compliments are very sprightly and pointed. + +She sat to Kneller for him in her Turkish dress; and we have the +following note from him on the subject, which shows how much he felt the +condescension. + +"The picture dwells really at my heart, and I have made a perfect +passion of preferring your present face to your past. I know and +thoroughly esteem yourself of this year. I know no more of Lady Mary +Pierrepoint than to admire at what I have heard of her, or be pleased +with some fragments of hers, as I am with Sappho's. But now--I cannot +say what I would say of you now. Only still give me cause to say you +are good to me, and allow me as much of your person as Sir Godfrey can +help me to. Upon conferring with him yesterday, I find he thinks it +absolutely necessary to draw your face first, which, he says, can never +be set right on your figure, if the drapery and posture be finished +before. To give you as little trouble as possible, he purposes to draw +your face with crayons, and finish it up at your own house of a morning; +from whence he will transfer it to canvass, so that you need not go to +sit at his house. This, I must observe, is a manner they seldom draw any +but crowned heads, and I observe it with a secret pride and pleasure. Be +so kind as to tell me if you care, he should do this to-morrow at +twelve. Though, if I am but assured from you of the thing, let the +manner and time be what you best like; let every decorum you please be +observed. I should be very unworthy of any favour from your hands, if I +desired any at the expense of your quiet or conveniency in any degree." + +He was charmed with the picture, and composed an extemporary compliment, +beginning + + The playful smiles around the dimpled mouth, + That happy air of majesty and truth; &c. + +which, considering that they are Pope's, are strangely defective in +rhyme, in sense, and in grammar. In a far different strain are the +beautiful lines addressed to Gay, during Lady Mary's absence from +Twickenham, and which he afterwards endeavoured to suppress. They are +curious on this account, as well as for being the solitary example of +amatory verse contained in his works. + + Ah friend! 'tis true,--this truth you lovers know, + In vain my structures rise, my gardens grow; + In vain fair Thames reflects the double scenes, + Of hanging mountains, and of sloping greens; + Joy lives not here, to happier seats it flies, + And only dwells where Wortley casts her eyes. + + What are the gay parterre, the chequer'd shade, + The morning bower, the evening colonnade, + But soft recesses of uneasy minds, + To sigh unheard in to the passing winds? + So the struck deer, in some sequester'd part, + Lies down to die, the arrow at his heart; + There, stretch'd unseen in coverts hid from day, + Bleeds drop by drop, and pants his life away. + +These sweet and musical lines, which fall on the ear with such a lulling +harmony, are dashed with discord when we remember that the same woman +who inspired them, was afterwards malignantly and coarsely designated as +the Sappho of his satires. The generous heart never coolly degraded and +insulted what it has once loved; but Pope _could_ not be +magnanimous,--it was not in his spiteful nature to forgive. He says of +himself, + + Whoe'er offends, at some unlucky time + Slides into verse, and hitches in a rhyme.[134] + +One of Pope's biographers[135] seems to insinuate, that he had been led +on, by the lady's coquetry, to presume too far, and in consequence +received a repulse, which he never forgave. This is not probable: Pope +was not likely to be so desperate or dangerous an admirer; nor was Lady +Mary, who had written with her diamond ring on a window, + + Let this great maxim be my virtue's guide: + In part, she is to blame that has been tried,-- + He comes too near, that comes to be denied!-- + +at all likely to expose herself to such ridiculous audacity. The truth +is, I rather imagine, that there was a great deal of vanity on both +sides; that the lady was amused and flattered, and the poet bewitched +and in earnest: that _she_ gave the first offence by some pointed +sarcasm or personal ridicule, in which she was an adept, and that Pope, +gradually awakened from his dream of adoration, was stung to the quick +by her laughing scorn, and mortified and irritated by the consciousness +of his wasted attachment. He makes this confession with extreme +bitterness,-- + + Yet soft by nature, more a dupe than wit, + Sappho can tell you how this man was bit. + + _Prologue to the Satires._ + +The lines as they stand in a first edition are even more pointed and +significant, and have much more asperity. + + Once, and but once, his heedless youth was bit, + And liked that dangerous thing, a female wit. + Safe as he thought, though all the prudent chid, + He wrote no libels, but _my lady_ did; + Great odds in amorous or poetic game, + Where woman's is the _sin_, and man's the _shame_! + +The result was a deadly and interminable feud. Lady Mary might possibly +have inflicted the first private offence, but Pope gave the first public +affront. A man who, under such circumstances, could grossly satirize a +female, would, in a less civilized state of society, have revenged +himself with a blow. The brutality and cowardice were the same. + +The war of words did not, however, proceed at once to such extremity; +the first indication of Pope's revolt from his sworn allegiance, and a +conscious hint of the secret cause, may be found in some lines addressed +to a lady poetess,[136] to whom he pays a compliment at Lady Mary's +expense. + + Though sprightly Sappho force our love and praise, + A softer wonder my pleased soul surveys,-- + The mild Erinna blushing in her bays; + So while the sun's broad beam yet strikes the sight, + All mild appears the moon's more sober light. + Serene in virgin majesty she shines, + And unobserved, the glaring orb declines. + +Soon after appeared that ribald and ruffian-like attack on her in the +satires. She sent Lord Peterborough to remonstrate with Pope, to whom he +denied the intended application; and his disavowal is a proved +falsehood. Lady Mary, exasperated, forgot her good sense and her +feminine dignity, and made common cause with Lord Hervey (the Lord Fanny +and the Sporus of the Satires.) They concocted an attack in verse, +addressed to the imitator of Horace; but nothing could be more unequal +than such a warfare. Pope, in return, grasped the blasting and vollied +lightnings of his wit, and would have annihilated both his adversaries, +if more than half a grain of truth had been on his side. But posterity +has been just: in his anger, he overcharged his weapon, it recoiled, and +the engineer has been "hoisted by his own petard." + +Lady Mary's personal negligence afforded grounds for Pope's coarse and +severe allusions to the "colour of her linen, &c." His asperity, +however, did not reform her in this respect: it was a fault which +increased with age and foreign habits. Horace Walpole, who met her at +Florence twenty years afterwards, draws a hateful and disgusting picture +of her, as "old, dirty, tawdry, painted," and flirting and gambling with +all the young men in the place. But Walpole is terribly satirical; he +had a personal dislike to Lady Mary Wortley, whom he coarsely designates +as _Moll Worthless_,--and his description is certainly overcharged. How +differently the same characters will strike different people! Spence, +who also met Lady Mary abroad, about that time, thus writes to his +mother: "I always desired to be acquainted with Lady Mary, and could +never bring it about, though we were so often together in London. Soon +after we came to this place, her ladyship came here, and in five days I +was well acquainted with her. She is one of the most shining characters +in the world,--but shines like a comet: she is all irregularity, and +always wandering: the most wise, most imprudent, loveliest, most +disagreeable, best-natured, cruellest woman in the world!" Walpole could +see nothing but her dirt and her paint. Those who recollect his coarse +description, and do _not_ remember her letters to her daughter, written +from Italy about the same time, would do well to refer to them as a +corrective: it is always so easy to be satirical and ill-natured, and +sometimes so difficult to be just and merciful! + +The cold scornful levity with which she treated certain topics, is +mingled with touches of tenderness and profound thought, which show her +to have been a disappointed, not a heartless woman. The extreme care +with which she cultivated pleasurable feelings and ideas, and shrunk +from all disagreeable impressions; her determination never to view her +own face in a glass, after the approach of age, or to pronounce the name +of her mad, profligate son, may be referred to a cause very different +from either selfishness or vanity: but I think the principle was +mistaken. While she was amusing herself with her silk-worms and her +orangerie at Como, her husband Wortley, with whom she kept up a constant +correspondence, was hoarding money and drinking tokay to keep himself +alive. He died, however, in 1761; and that he was connected with the +motives, whatever those were, which induced Lady Mary to reside abroad, +is proved by the fact, that the moment she heard of his death she +prepared to return to England, and she reached London in January 1762. +"Lady Mary is arrived," says Walpole, writing to George Montagu. "I have +seen her. I think her avarice, her dirt, and her vivacity, are all +increased. Her dress, like her language, is a galimatias of several +countries. She needs no cap, no handkerchief, no gown, no petticoat, no +shoes; an old black-laced hood represents the first; the fur of a +horseman's coat, which replaces the third, serves for the second; a +dimity petticoat is deputy, and officiates for the fourth; and slippers +act the part of the last." About six months after her arrival she died +in the arms of her daughter, the Countess of Bute, of a cruel and +shocking disease, the agonies of which she had borne with heroism rather +than resignation. The present Marquess of Bute, and the present Lord +Wharncliffe, are the great-grandsons of this distinguished woman: the +latter is the representative of the Wortley family. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[129] In Litchfield Cathedral stands the only memorial ever raised, by +public or private gratitude, to Lady Mary; it is a cenotaph, with Beauty +weeping the loss of her preserver, and an inscription, of which the +following words form the conclusion:--"To perpetuate the memory of such +benevolence, and to express her gratitude for the benefit she herself +received from this alleviating art, this monument is erected by +Henrietta Inge, relict of Theodore William Inge, and daughter of Sir +John Wrottesley, Bart, in 1789." One would like to have known the woman +who raised this monument. + +[130] "You shall see (said Lady Mary referring to these letters) what a +goddess he made of me in some of them, though he makes such a devil of +me in his writings afterwards, without any reason that I know +of."--_Spence._ + +[131] I remember seeing, I think, in one of D'Israeli's works a fragment +of some lines which Lady Mary wrote on her husband, and which expressed +the utmost bitterness of female scorn. + +[132] See, in Pope's Miscellanies, the sprightly stanzas, beginning +"Yes, I beheld th' Athenian Queen." They are addressed to Lady Fanny, +who had presented the poet with a standish, and two pens, one of steel +and one of gold. She was the fourth daughter of Earl Ferrers. After +numbering more adorers in her train than any beauty of her time, she +died unmarried, in 1778.--_Collins' Peerage, by Brydges._ + +[133] + In beauty and wit, + No mortal as yet, + To question your empire has dared; + But men of discerning + Have thought that, in learning, + To yield to a lady was hard. + +[134] "I have often wondered," says the gentle-spirited Cowper, "that +the same poet who wrote the Dunciad should have written these lines,-- + + That mercy I to others show, + That mercy show to me! + +Alas! for Pope, if the mercy he showed to others, was the measure of the +mercy he received!"--_Cowper's Letters_, vol. iii. p. 195. + +[135] Mr. Bowles. + +[136] Erinna: her real name is not known. But she was a friend of Lady +Suffolk, who wrote bad verses, and submitted them to Pope for +correction. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII. + +POETICAL OLD BACHELORS. + + +There is a certain class of poets, not a very numerous one, whom I would +call poetical old bachelors. They are such as enjoy a certain degree of +fame and popularity themselves, without sharing their celebrity with any +fair piece of excellence; but walk each on his solitary path to glory, +wearing their lonely honours with more dignity than grace: for instance, +Corneille, Racine, Boileau, the classical names of French poetry, were +all poetical old bachelors. Racine--_le tendre Racine_--as he is called +_par excellence_, is said never to have been in love in his life; nor +has he left us a single verse in which any of his personal feelings can +be traced. He was, however, the kind and faithful husband of a cold, +bigoted woman, who was persuaded, and at length persuaded _him_, that he +would be _grille_ in the other world, for writing heathen tragedies in +this; and made it her boast that she had never read a single line of her +husband's works! Peace be with her! + + And O, let her by whom the muse was scorn'd, + Alive nor dead, be of the muse adorn'd! + +Our own Gray was in every sense, real and poetical, a cold fastidious +old bachelor, who buried himself in the recesses of his college; at once +shy and proud, sensitive and selfish. I cannot, on looking through his +memoirs, letters, and poems, discover the slightest trace of passion, or +one proof or even indication that he was ever under the influence of +woman. He loved his mother, and was dutiful to two tiresome old aunts, +who thought poetry one of the seven deadly sins--_et voila tout_. He +spent his life in amassing an inconceivable quantity of knowledge, +which lay as buried and useless as a miser's treasure; but with this +difference, that when the miser dies, his wealth flows forth into its +natural channels, and enriches others; Gray's learning was entombed with +him: his genius survives in his elegy and his odes;--what became of his +heart I know not. He is generally supposed to have possessed one, though +none can guess what he did with it:--he might well moralise on his +bachelorship, and call himself "a solitary fly,"-- + + Thy joys no glittering female meets, + No hive hast thou of hoarded sweets, + No painted plumage to display! + +Collins was never a lover, and never married. His odes, with all their +exquisite fancy and splendid imagery, have not much interest in their +subjects, and no pathos derived from feeling or passion. He is reported +to have been once in love; and as the lady was a day older than himself, +he used to say jestingly, that "he came into the world _a day after the +fair_." He was not deeply smitten; and though he led in his early years +a dissipated life, his heart never seems to have been really touched. He +wrote an Ode on the Passions, in which, after dwelling on Hope, Fear, +Anger, Despair, Pity, and describing them with many picturesque +circumstances, he dismisses Love with a couple of lines, as dancing to +the sound of the sprightly viol, and forming with joy the light +fantastic round. Such was Collins's idea of love! + +To these we may add Goldsmith. Of his loves we know nothing; they were +probably the reverse of poetical, and may have had some influence on his +purse and respectability, but none on his literary character and +productions. He also died unmarried. + +Shenstone, if he was not a poetical old bachelor, was little better than +a poetical dangler. He was not formed to captivate: his person was +clumsy, his manners disagreeable, and his temper feeble and vacillating. +The Delia who is introduced into his elegies, and the Phillis of his +pastoral ballad, was Charlotte Graves, sister to the Graves who wrote +the Spiritual Quixotte. There was nothing warm or earnest in his +admiration, and all his gallantry is as vapid as his character. He never +gave the lady who was supposed, and supposed herself, to be the object +of his serious pursuit, an opportunity of accepting or rejecting him; +and his conduct has been blamed as ambiguous and unmanly. His querulous +declamations against women in general, had neither cause nor excuse; and +his complaints of infidelity and coldness are equally without +foundation. He died unmarried. + +When we look at a picture of Thomson, we wonder how a man with that +heavy, pampered countenance, and awkward mien, could ever have written +the "Seasons," or have been in love. I think it is Barry Cornwall, who +says strikingly, that Thomson's figure "was a personification of the +Castle of Indolence, without its romance." Yet Thomson, though he has +not given any popularity or interest to the name of a woman, is said to +have been twice in love, after his own _lack-a-daisical_ fashion. He was +first attached to Miss Stanley, who died young, and upon whom he wrote +the little elegy,-- + + Tell me, thou soul of her I love! &c. + +He alludes to her also in Summer, in the passage beginning,-- + + And art thou, Stanley, of the sacred band, &c. + +His second love was long, quiet, and constant; but whether the lady's +coldness, or want of fortune, prevented a union, is not clear: probably +the latter. The object of this attachment was a Miss Young, who resided +at Richmond; and his attentions to her were continued through a long +series of years, and even till within a short time before his death, in +his forty-eighth year. She was his Amanda; and if she at all answered +the description of her in his Spring, she must have been a lovely and +amiable woman. + + And thou, Amanda, come, pride of my song! + Form'd by the Graces, loveliness itself! + Come with those downcast eyes, sedate and sweet, + Those looks demure, that deeply pierce the soul, + Where, with the light of thoughtful reason mix'd, + Shines lively fancy and the feeling heart: + Oh, come! and while the rosy-footed May + Steals blushing on, together let us tread + The morning dews, and gather in their prime + Fresh-blooming flowers, to grace thy braided hair. + +And if his attachment to her suggested that beautiful description of +domestic happiness with which his Spring concludes,-- + + But happy they, the happiest of their kind, + Whom gentler stars unite, &c. + +who would not grieve at the destiny which denied to Thomson pleasures he +could so eloquently describe, and so feelingly appreciate? + +Truth, however, obliges me to add one little trait. A lady who did not +know Thomson personally, but was enchanted with his "Seasons," said she +could gather from his works three parts of his character,--that he was +an amiable lover, an excellent swimmer, and extremely abstemious. +Savage, who knew the poet, could not help laughing at this picture of a +man who scarcely knew what love was; who shrunk from cold water like a +cat; and whose habits were those of a good-natured bon vivant, who +indulged himself in every possible luxury, which could be attained +without trouble! He also died unmarried. + +Hammond, the favourite of our sentimental great-grandmothers, whose +"Love Elegies" lay on the toilettes of the Harriet Byrons and Sophia +Westerns of the last century, was an amiable youth, "very melancholy and +gentlemanlike," who being appointed equerry to Prince Frederic, cast his +eyes on Miss Dashwood, bed-chamber woman to the Princess, and she became +his Delia. The lady was deaf to his pastoral strains; and though it has +been said that she rejected him on account of the smallness of his +fortune, I do not see the necessity of believing this assertion, or of +sympathising in the dull invectives and monotonous lamentations of the +slighted lover. Miss Dashwood never married, and was, I believe, one of +the maids of honour to the late Queen. + +Thus the six poets, who, in the history of our literature, fill up the +period which intervened between the death of Pope and the first +publications of Burns and Cowper--all died old bachelors! + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII. + +FRENCH POETS. + +VOLTAIRE AND MADAME DU CHATELET. + + +If we take a rapid view of French literature, from the reign of Louis +the Fourteenth, down to the Revolution, we are dazzled by the record of +brilliant and celebrated women, who protected or cultivated letters, and +obtained the homage of men of talent. There was Ninon; and there was +Madame de Rambouillet; the one _galante_, the other _precieuse_. One had +her St. Evremond; the other her Voiture. Madame de Sabliere protected La +Fontaine; Madame de Montespan protected Moliere; Madame de Maintenon +protected Racine. It was all patronage and protection on one side, and +dependance and servility on the other. Then we have the _intrigante_ +Madame de Tencin;[137] the good-natured, but rather _bornee_ Madame de +Geoffrin; the Duchesse de Maine, who held a little court of _bel +esprits_ and small poets at Sceaux, and is best known as the patroness +of Mademoiselle de Launay. Madame d'Epinay, the _amie_ of Grimm, and the +patroness of Rousseau; the clever, selfish, witty, ever _ennuyee_, never +_ennuyeuse_ Madame du Deffand; the ardent, talented Mademoiselle de +l'Espinasse, who would certainly have been a poetess, if she had not +been a philosopheress and a Frenchwoman: Madame Neckar, the patroness of +Marmontel and Thomas:--_e tutte quante_. If we look over the light +French literature of those times, we find an inconceivable heap of _vers +galans_, and _jolis couplets_, licentious songs, pretty, well-turned +compliments, and most graceful badinage; but we can discover the names +of only two distinguished women, who have the slightest pretensions to a +poetical celebrity, derived from the genius, the attachment, and the +fame of their lovers. These were Madame du Chatelet, Voltaire's +"Immortelle Emilie:" and Madame d'Houdetot, the Doris of Saint-Lambert. + +Gabrielle-Emilie le Tonnelier de Breteuil, was the daughter of the Baron +de Breteuil, and born in 1706. At an early age she was taken from her +convent, and married to the Marquis du Chatelet; and her life seems +thenceforward to have been divided between two passions, or rather two +pursuits rarely combined,--love, and geometry. Her tutor in both is said +to have been the famous mathematician Clairaut; and between them they +rendered geometry so much the fashion at one time, that all the women, +who were distinguished either for rank or beauty, thought it +indispensable to have a geometrician in their train. The "Poetes de +Societe" hid for a while their diminished heads, or were obliged to +study geometry _pour se mettre a la mode_.[138] Her friendship with +Voltaire began to take a serious aspect, when she was about +eight-and-twenty, and he was about forty; he is said to have succeeded +that _roue par excellence_, the Duc de Richelieu, in her favour. + +This woman might have dealt in mathematics,--might have inked her +fingers with writing treatises on the Newtonian philosophy; she might +have sat up till five in the morning, solving problems and calculating +eclipses;--and yet have possessed amiable, elevated, generous, and +attractive qualities, which would have thrown a poetical interest round +her character; moreover, considering the horribly corrupt state of +French society at that time, she might have been pardoned "une vertu de +moins," if her power over a great genius had been exercised to some good +purpose;--to restrain his licentiousness, to soften his pungent and +merciless satire, and prevent the frequent prostitution of his +admirable and versatile talents. But a female sceptic, profligate from +temperament and principle; a termagant, "qui voulait furieusement tout +ce qu'elle voulait; "a woman with all the _suffisance_ of a pedant, and +all the _exigeance_, caprices, and frivolity of a fine lady,--_grands +dieux!_ what a heroine for poetry! + +To a taste for Newton and the stars, and geometry and algebra, Madame du +Chatelet added some other tastes, not quite so sublime;--a great taste +for bijoux--and pretty gimcracks--and old china--and watches--and +rings--and diamonds--and snuff-boxes--and--puppet-shows![139] and, now +and then, _une petite affaire du coeur_, by way of variety. + + Tout lui plait, tout convient a son vaste genie: + Les livres, les bijoux, les compas, les pompons, + Les vers, les diamants, le biribi,[140] l'optique, + L'algebre, les soupers, le latin, les jupons, + L'opera, les proces, le bal, et la physique! + +This "Minerve de la France, la respectable Emilie," did not resemble +Minerva in _all_ her attributes; nor was she satisfied with a +_succession_ of lovers. The whole history of her _liaison_ with +Voltaire, is enough to put _en deroute_ all poetry, and all sentiment. +With her imperious temper and bitter tongue, and his extreme +irritability, no wonder they should have _des scenes terribles_.[141] +Marmontel says they were often _a couteaux tires_; and this, not +metaphorically but literally. On one occasion, Voltaire happened to +criticise some couplets she had written for Madame de Luxembourg. +"L'Amante de Newton"[142] could calculate eclipses, but she could not +make verses; and, probably, for that reason, she was most particularly +jealous of all censure, while she criticised Voltaire without manners or +mercy; and he endured it, sometimes with marvellous patience. + +A dispute was now the consequence; both became furious; and at length +Voltaire snatched up a knife, and brandishing it exclaimed, "ne me +regarde donc pas avec tes yeux hagards et louches!" After such a scene +as this one would imagine that Love must have spread his light wings and +fled for ever. Could Emilie ever have forgiven those words, or Voltaire +have forgotten the look that provoked them? + +But the _mobilite_ of his mind was one of the most extraordinary parts +of his character, and he was not more irascible than he was easily +appeased. Madame du Chatelet maintained her power over him for twenty +years; during five of which they resided in her chateau at Cirey, under +the countenance of her husband; he was a good sort of man, but seems to +have been considered by these two geniuses and their guests as a +complete nonentity. He was "_Le bon-homme, le vilain petit Trichateau_" +whom it was a task to speak to, and a penance to amuse. Every day, +after coffee, Monsieur rose from the table with all the docility +imaginable, leaving Voltaire and Madame to recite verses, translate +Newton, philosophise, dispute, and do the honours of Cirey to the +brilliant society who had assembled under his roof. + +While the boudoir, the laboratory, and the sleeping-room of the lady, +and the study and gallery appropriated to Voltaire, were furnished with +Oriental luxury and splendour, and shone with gilding, drapery, +pictures, and baubles, the lord of the mansion and the guests were +destined to starve in half-furnished apartments, from which the wind and +the rain were scarcely excluded.[143] + +In 1748, Voltaire and Madame du Chatelet paid a visit to the Court of +Stanislas, the ex-king of Poland, at Luneville, and took M. du Chatelet +in their train. There Madame du Chatelet was seized with a passion for +Saint-Lambert, the author of the "Saisons," who was at least ten or +twelve years younger than herself, and then a _jeune militaire_, only +admired for his fine figure and pretty _vers de societe_. Voltaire, it +is said, was extremely jealous; but his jealousy did not prevent him +from addressing some very elegant verses to his handsome rival, in which +he compliments him gaily on the good graces of the lady. + + Saint-Lambert, ce n'est que pour toi + Que ces belles fleurs sont ecloses, + C'est ta main qui cueille les roses, + Et les epines sont pour moi![144] + +Some months afterwards, Madame du Chatelet died in child-birth, in her +forty-fourth year. + +Voltaire was so overwhelmed by this loss, that he set off for Paris +immediately _pour se dissiper_. Marmontel has given us a most ludicrous +account of a visit of condolence he paid him on this occasion. He found +Voltaire absolutely drowned in tears, and at every fresh burst of +sorrow, he called on Marmontel to sympathise with him. "Helas! j'ai +perdu mon illustre amie! Ah! ah! je suis au desespoir!"--Then exclaiming +against Saint-Lambert, whom he accused as the cause of the +catastrophe--"Ah! mon ami! il me l'a tuee, le brutal!" while Marmontel, +who had often heard him abuse his "_sublime_ Emilie" in no measured +terms, as "une furie, attachee a ses pas," hid his face with his +handkerchief in pretended sympathy, but in reality to conceal his +irrepressible smiles. In the midst of this scene of despair, some +ridiculous idea or story striking Voltaire's vivid fancy, threw him into +fits of laughter, and some time elapsed before he recollected that he +was inconsolable. + +The death of Madame du Chatelet, the circumstances which attended it, +and the celebrity of herself and her lover, combined to cause a great +_sensation_. No elegies indeed appeared on the occasion,--"no tears +eternal that embalm the dead;" but a shower of epigrams and _bon +mots_--some exquisitely witty and malicious. The story of her ring, in +which Voltaire and her husband each expected to find his own portrait, +and which on being opened, was found, to the utter discomfiture of both, +to contain that of Saint-Lambert, is well known. + +If we may judge from her picture, Madame du Chatelet must have been +extremely pretty. Her eyes were fine and piercing; her features +delicate, with a good deal of _finesse_ and intelligence in their +expression. But her countenance, like her character, was devoid of +interest. She had great power of mental abstraction; and on one occasion +she went through a most complicated calculation of figures in her head, +while she played and won a game at piquet. She _could_ be graceful and +fascinating, but her manners were, in general, extremely disagreeable; +and her parade of learning, her affectation, her egotism, her utter +disregard of the comforts, feelings, and opinions of others, are well +pourtrayed in two or three brilliant strokes of sarcasm from the pen of +Madame de Stael.[145] She even turns her philosophy into ridicule. +"Elle fait actuellement la revue de ses Principes;[146] c'est un +exercise qu'elle reitere chaque annee, sans quoi ils pourroient +s'echapper; et peut-etre s'en aller si loin qu'elle n'en retrouverait +pas un seul. Je crois bien que sa tete est pour eux une maison de force, +et non pas le lieu de leur naissance."[147] + +That Madame du Chatelet was a woman of extraordinary talent, and that +her progress in abstract sciences was uncommon, and even _unique_ at +that time, at least among her own sex, is beyond a doubt; but her +learned treatises on Newton, and the nature of fire, are now utterly +forgotten. We have since had a Mrs. Marcet; and we have read of Gaetana +Agnesi, who was professor of mathematics in the University of Padua; two +women who, uniting to the rarest philosophical acquirements, gentleness +and virtue, have needed no poet to immortalize them. + +Of the numerous poems which Voltaire addressed to Madame du Chatelet, +the Epistle beginning + + Tu m'appelles a toi, vaste et puissant genie, + Minerve de la France, immortelle Emilie, + +is a _chef d'oeuvre_, and contains some of the finest lines he ever +wrote. The Epistle to her on calumny, written to console her for the +abuse and ridicule which her abstractions and indiscretions had +provoked, begins with these beautiful lines-- + + Ecoutez-moi, respectable Emilie: + Vous etes belle; ainsi donc la moitie + Du genre humain sera votre ennemie: + Vous possedez un sublime genie; + On vous craindra; votre tendre amitie + Est confiante; et vous serez trahie: + Votre vertu dans sa demarche unie, + Simple et sans fard, n'a point sacrifie + A nos devots; craignez la calomnie. + +With that famous ring, from which he had afterwards the mortification to +discover that his own portrait had been banished to make room for that +of Saint-Lambert, he sent her this elegant _quatrain_. + + Barier grava ces traits destines pour vos yeux; + Avec quelque plaisir daignez les reconnoitre: + Les votres dans mon coeur furent graves bien mieux, + Mais ce fut par un plus grand maitre. + + * * * * * + +The heroine of the famous Epistle, known as "Les TU et les VOUS," +(Madame de Gouverne,) was one of Voltaire's earliest loves; and he was +passionately attached to her. They were separated in the world:--she +went through the usual _routine_ of a French woman's existence,--I mean, +of a French woman _sous l'ancien regime_. + + Quelques plaisirs dans la jeunesse, + Des soins dans la maternite, + Tous les malheurs dans la vieillesse, + Puis la peur de l'eternite. + +She was first dissipated; then an _esprit fort_; then _tres devote_. In +obedience to her confessor, she discarded, one after the other, her +rouge, her ribbons, and the presents and billets-doux of her lovers; but +no remonstrances could induce her to give up Voltaire's picture. When he +returned from exile in 1778, he went to pay a visit to his old love; +they had not met for fifty years, and they now gazed on each other in +silent dismay. _He_ looked, I suppose, like the dried mummy of an ape: +_she_, like a withered _sorciere_. The same evening she sent him back +his portrait, which she had hitherto refused to part with. Nothing +remained to shed illusion over the past; she had beheld, even before the +last terrible proof-- + + What dust we doat on, when 'tis man we love. + +And Voltaire, on his side, was not less dismayed by his visit. On +returning from her, he exclaimed, with a shrug of mingled disgust and +horror, "Ah, mes amis! je viens de passer a l'autre bord du Cocyte!" It +was not thus that Cowper felt for his Mary, when "her auburn locks were +changed to grey:" but it is almost an insult to the memory of true +tenderness to mention them both in the same page. + +To enumerate other women who have been celebrated by Voltaire, would be +to give a list of all the beautiful and distinguished women of France +for half a century; from the Duchess de Richelieu and Madame de +Luxembourg, down to Camargo the dancer, and Clairon and le Couvreur the +actresses: but I can find no name of any _poetical_ fame or interest +among them: nor can I conceive any thing more revolting than the history +of French society and manners during the Regency and the whole of the +reign of Louis the Fifteenth. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[137] Madame de Tencin used to call the men of letters she assembled at +her house "mes betes," and her society went by the name of Madame de +Tencin's menagerie. Her advice to Marmontel, when a young man, was +excellent. See his Memoirs, vol. i. + +[138] Correspondence de Grimm, vol. ii. 421. + +[139] Je ris plus que personne aux marionettes; et j'avoue qu'une boite, +une porcelaine, un meuble nouveau, sont pour moi une vrai +jouissance.--_Oeuvres de Madame du Chatelet_--_Traite de Bonheur._ + +[140] The then fashionable game at cards. + +[141] Voltaire once said of her, "C'est une femme terrible, qui n'a +point de flexibilite dans le coeur, quoiqu'elle l'ait bon." This +hardness of temper, this _volonte tyrannique_, this cold determination +never to yield a point, were worse than all her violence. + +[142] The title which Voltaire gave her. + +[143] "Vie privee de Voltaire et de Madame du Chatelet," in a series of +letters, written by Madame de Graffigny during her stay at Cirey. The +details in these letters are exceedingly amusing, but the style so +diffuse, that it is scarcely possible to make extracts. + +[144] Epitre a Saint-Lambert. + +[145] Madlle. de Launay: it has become necessary to distinguish between +two celebrated women bearing the same name, at least in sound. + +[146] "Les principes de la philosophie de Newton." + +[147] V. Correspondence de Madame de Deffand. In another letter from +Sceaux, Madame de Stael adds the following clever, satirical,--but most +characteristic picture:-- + +"En tout cas on vous garde un bon appartement: c'est celui dont Madame +du Chatelet, apres une revue exacte de toute la maison, s'etait emparee. +Il y aura un peu moins de meubles qu'elle n'y en avait mis; car elle +avait devaste tous ceux par ou elle avait passe pour garnir celui-la. On +y a trouve six ou sept tables; il lui en faut de toutes les grandeurs; +d'immenses pour etaler ses papiers, de solides pour soutenir son +necessaire, de plus legeres pour ses pompons, pour ses bijoux; et cette +belle ordonnance ne l'a pas garantie d'une accident pareil a celui qui +arrive a Philippe II. quand, apres avoir passe la nuit a ecrire, on +repandit une bouteille d'encre sur ses depeches. La dame ne s'est pas +piquee d'imiter la moderation de ce prince; aussi n'avait-il ecrit que +sur des affaires d'etat; et ce qu'on lui a barbouille, c'etait de +l'algebre, bien plus difficile a remettre au net." + + + + +CHAPTER XIX. + +FRENCH POETRY CONTINUED. + +MADAME D'HOUDETOT. + + +Saint-Lambert, who seemed destined to rival greater men than himself, +after carrying off Madame du Chatelet from Voltaire, became the favoured +lover of the Comtesse d'Houdetot, Rousseau's Sophie; she for whom the +philosopher first felt love, "_dans toute son energie, toutes ses +fureurs_,"--but in vain. + +Saint-Lambert is allowed to be an elegant poet: his _Saisons_ were once +as popular in France, as Thomson's Seasons are here; but they have not +retained their popularity. The French poem, though in many parts +imitated from the English, is as unlike it as possible: correct, +polished, elegant, full of beautiful lines,--of what the French call _de +beaux vers_,--and yet excessively dull. It is equally impossible to find +fault with it in parts, or endure it as a whole. _Une petite pointe de +verve_ would have rendered it delightful; but the total want of +enthusiasm in the writer freezes the reader. As Madame du Deffand said, +in humorous mockery of his monotonous harmony, "Sans les oiseaux, les +ruisseaux, les hameaux, les ormeaux, et leur rameaux, il aurait bien pen +de choses a dire!" + +Madame d'Houdetot was the _Doris_ to whom the Seasons are dedicated; and +the opening passage addressed to her, is extremely admired by French +critics. + + Et toi, qui m'as choisi pour embellir ma vie, + Doux repos de mon coeur, aimable et tendre amie! + Toi, qui sais de nos champs admirer les beautes: + Derobe toi, Doris! au luxe des cites, + Aux arts dont tu jouis, au monde ou tu scais plaire; + Le printemps te rappelle au vallon solitaire; + Heureux si pres de toi je chante a son retour, + Ses dons et ses plaisirs, la campagne et l'amour! + +Sophie de la Briche, afterwards Madame d'Houdetot, was the daughter of +a rich _fermier general_; and destined, of course, to a marriage de +convenance, she was united very young to the Comte d'Houdetot, an +officer of rank in the army; a man who was allowed by his friends to be +_tres peu amiable_, and whom Madame d'Epinay, who hated him, called +_vilain_, and _insupportable_. He was too good-natured to make his wife +absolutely miserable, but _un bonheur a faire mourir d'ennui_, was not +exactly adapted to the disposition of Sophie; and there was no principle +within, no restraint without, no support, no counsel, no example, to +guide her conduct or guard her against temptation. + +The power by which Madame d'Houdetot captivated the gay, handsome, +dissipated Saint-Lambert, and kindled into a blaze the passions or the +imagination of Rousseau, was not that of beauty. Her face was plain and +slightly marked with the small-pox; her eyes were not good; she was +extremely short-sighted, which gave to her countenance and address an +appearance of uncertainty and timidity; her figure was _mignonne_, and +in all her movements there was an indescribable mixture of grace and +awkwardness. The charm by which this woman seized and kept the hearts, +not of lovers only, but of friends, was a character the very reverse of +that of Madame du Chatelet, who would have deemed it an insult to be +compared to her either in mind or beauty:--the absence of all +_pretension_, all coquetry; the total surrender of her own feelings, +thoughts, interests, where another was concerned; the frankness which +verged on giddiness and imprudence; the temper which nothing could +ruffle; the warm kindness which nothing could chill; the bounding spirit +of gaiety, which nothing could subdue,--these qualities rendered Madame +d'Houdetot an attaching and interesting creature, to the latest moment +of her long life. "Mon Dieu! que j'ai d'impatience de voir dix ans de +plus sur la tete de cette femme!" exclaimed her sister-in-law, Madame +d'Epinay, when she saw her at the age of twenty. But at the age of +eighty, Madame d'Houdetot was just as much a child as ever,--"aussi +vive, aussi enfant, aussi gaie, aussi distraite, aussi bonne et tres +bonne;"[148] in spite of wrinkles, sorrows, and frailties, she retained, +in extreme old age, the gaiety, the tenderness, the confiding +simplicity, though not the innocence of early youth. + +Her _liaison_ with Saint-Lambert continued fifty years, nor was she ever +suspected of any other indiscretion. During this time he contrived to +make her as wretched as a woman of her disposition could be made; and +the elasticity of her spirits did not prevent her from being acutely +sensible to pain, and alive to unkindness. Saint-Lambert, from being her +lover, became her tyrant. He behaved with a peevish jealousy, a +petulance, a bitterness, which sometimes drove her beyond the bounds of +a woman's patience; and when ever this happened, the accommodating +husband, M. d'Houdetot would interfere to reconcile the lovers, and +plead for the recall of the offender. + +When Saint-Lambert's health became utterly broken, she watched over him +with a patient tenderness, unwearied by all his _exigeance_, and +unprovoked by his detestable temper; he had a house near her's in the +valley of Montmorenci, and lived on perfectly good terms with her +husband. I must add one trait, which, however absurd, and scarcely +credible, it may sound in our sober, English ears, is yet true. M. and +Madame d'Houdetot gave a fete at Eaubonne, to celebrate the fiftieth +anniversary of their marriage. Sophie was then nearly _seventy_, but +played her part, as the heroine of the day, with all the grace and +vivacity of seventeen. On this occasion, the lover and the husband +chose, for the first time in their lives, to be jealous of each other, +and exhibited, to the amusement and astonishment of the guests, a +_scene_, which was for some time the talk of all Paris. + +Saint-Lambert died in 1805. After his death, Madame d'Houdetot was +seized with a sentimental _tendresse_ for M. Somariva,[149] and +continued to send him bouquets and billets-doux to the end of her life. +She died about 1815. + +To her singular power of charming, Madame d'Houdetot added talents of no +common order, which, though never cultivated with any perseverance, now +and then displayed, or rather _disclosed_ themselves unexpectedly, +adding surprise to pleasure. She was a musician, a poetess, a wit;--but +every thing, "par la grace de Dieu,"--and as if unconsciously and +involuntarily. All Saint-Lambert's poetry together is not worth the +little song she composed for him on his departure for the army:-- + + L'Amant que j'adore, + Pret a me quitter, + D'un instant encore + Voudrait profiter: + Felicite vaine! + Qu'on ne peut saisir, + Trop pres de la peine + Pour etre un plaisir![150] + +It is to Madame d'Houdetot that Lord Byron alludes in a striking passage +of the third canto of Childe Harold, beginning + + Here the self-torturing sophist, wild Rousseau,[151] &c. + +And _apropos_ to Rousseau, I shall merely observe, that there is, and +can be but one opinion with regard to his conduct in the affair of +Madame d'Houdetot: it was abominable. She thought, as every one who ever +was connected with that man, found sooner or later, that he was all made +up of genius and imagination, and as destitute of heart as of moral +principle. I can never think of his character, but as of something at +once admirable, portentous and shocking; the most great, most gifted, +most wretched;--worst, meanest, maddest of mankind! + + * * * * * + +Madame du Chatelet and Madame d'Houdetot must for the present be deemed +sufficient specimens of French poetical heroines;--it were easy to +pursue the subject further, but it would lead to a field of discussion +and illustration, which I would rather decline.[152] + +Is it not singular that in a country which was the cradle, if not the +birth-place of modern poetry and romance, the language, the literature, +and the women, should be so essentially and incurably _prosaic_? The +muse of French poetry never swept a lyre; she grinds a barrel-organ in +her serious moods, and she scrapes a fiddle in her lively ones; and as +for the distinguished French women, whose memory and whose characters +are blended with the literature, and connected with the great names of +their country,--they are often admirable, and sometimes interesting; but +with all their fascinations, their charms, their _esprit_, their +_graces_, their _amabilite_, and their _sensibilite_, it was not in the +power of the gods or their lovers to make them _poetical_. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[148] Memoires et Lettres de Madame d'Epinay, tom. 1. p. 95. + +[149] M. Somariva is well known to all who have visited Paris, for his +fine collection of pictures, and particularly as the possessor of +Canova's famous Magdalen. + +[150] See Lady Morgan's France, and the Biographie Universelle. + +[151] Stanza 77, and more particularly stanza 79. + +[152] In one of Madame de Genlis' prettiest Tales--"Les preventions +d'une femme," there is the following observation, as full of truth as of +feminine propriety. I trust that the principle it inculcates has been +kept in view through the whole of this little work. + +"Il y a plus de pudeur et de dignite dans la douce indulgence qui semble +ignorer les anecdotes scandaleuses ou du moins, les revoquer en doute, +que dans le dedain qui en retrace le souvenir, et qui s'erige +publiquement en juge inflexible." + + + + +CONCLUSION. + +HEROINES OF MODERN POETRY. + + Heureuse la Beaute que le poete adore! + Heureux le nom qu'il a chante! + + DE LAMARTINE. + + +It will be allowed, I think, that women have reason to be satisfied with +the rank they hold in modern poetry; and that the homage which has been +addressed to them, either directly and individually, or paid indirectly +and generally, in the beautiful characters and portraits drawn of them, +ought to satisfy equally female sentiment and female vanity. From the +half ethereal forms which float amid moonbeams and gems, and odours and +flowers, along the dazzling pages of Lalla Rookh, down to Phoebe +Dawson, in the Parish Register:[153] from that loveliest gem of polished +life, the young Aurora of Lord Byron, down to Wordsworth's poor Margaret +weeping in her deserted cottage;[154]--all the various aspects between +these wide extremes of character and situation, under which we have been +exhibited, have been, with few exceptions, just and favourable to our +sex. + +In the literature of the classical ages, we were debased into mere +servants of pleasure, alternately the objects of loose incense or coarse +invective. In the poetry of the Gothic ages, we all rank as queens. In +the succeeding period, when the platonic philosophy was oddly mixed up +with the institutions of chivalry, we were exalted into +divinities;--"angels called, and angel-like adored." Then followed the +age of French gallantry, tinged with classical elegance, and tainted +with classical licence, when we were caressed, complimented, wooed and +satirised by coxcomb poets, + + Who ever mix'd their song with light licentious toys. + +There was much expenditure of wit and of talent, but in an ill +cause;--for the feeling was, _au fond_, bad and false;--"et il n'est +guere plaisant d'etre empoisonne, meme par l'esprit de rose." + +In the present time a better spirit prevails. We are not indeed +sublimated into goddesses; but neither is it the fashion to degrade us +into the playthings of fopling poets. We seem to have found, at length, +our proper level in poetry, as in society; and take the place assigned +to us as women-- + + As creatures not too bright or good, + For human nature's daily food; + For transient sorrows, simple wiles, + Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears and smiles![155] + +We are represented as ruling by our feminine attractions, moral or +exterior, the passions and imaginations of men; as claiming, by our +weakness, our delicacy, our devotion,--their protection, their +tenderness, and their gratitude: and, since the minds of women have +been more generally and highly cultivated; since a Madame de Stael, a +Joanna Baillie, a Maria Edgeworth, and a hundred other names, now +shining aloft like stars, have shed a reflected glory on the whole sex +they belong to, we possess through them, a claim to admiration and +respect for our mental capabilities. We assume the right of passing +judgment on the poetical homage addressed to us, and our smiles alone +can consecrate what our smiles first inspired.[156] + +If we look over the mass of poetry produced during the last twenty-five +years, whether Italian, French, German, or English, we shall find that +the predominant feeling is honourable to women, and if not gallantry, is +something better.[157] It is too true, that the incense has not been +always perfectly pure. "Many light lays,--ah, woe is me +there-fore!"[158] have sounded from one gifted lyre, which has since +been strung to songs of patriotism and tenderness. Moore, whom I am +proud, for a thousand reasons, to claim as my countryman, began his +literary and amatory career, fresh from the study of the classics, and +the poets of Charles the Second's time; and too often through the thin +undress of superficial refinement, we trace the grossness of his models. +It is said, I know not how truly, that he has since made the _amende +honorable_. He has possibly discovered, that women of sense and +sentiment, who have a true feeling of what is due to them as women, are +not fitly addressed in the style of Anacreon and Catullus; have no +sympathies with his equivocal Rosas, Fanny, and Julias, and are not +flattered by being associated with tavern orgies and bumpers of wine, +and such "tipsey revelry." Into themes like these he has, it is true, +infused a buoyant spirit of gaiety, a tone of sentiment, and touches of +tender and moral feeling, which would reconcile us to them, if any thing +could; as in the beautiful songs, "When time, who steals our years +away,"--"O think not my spirits are always as light,"--"Farewell! but +whenever you think on the hour,"--"The Legacy," and a hundred others. +But how many _more_ are there, in which the purity and earnestness of +the feeling vie with the grace and delicacy of the expression! and in +the difficult art (only to be appreciated by a singer) of marrying verse +to sound, Moore was never excelled--never equalled--but by Burns. He +seems to be gifted, as poet and musician, with a double instinct of +harmony, peculiar to himself. + +Barry Cornwall is another living poet who has drunk deep from the +classics and from our older writers; but with a finer taste and a better +feeling, he has borrowed only what was decorative, graceful and +accessory: the pure stream of his sentiment flows unmingled and +untainted,-- + + Yet musical as when the waters run, + Lapsing through sylvan haunts deliciously.[159] + +It is not without reason that Barry Cornwall has been styled the "Poet +of woman," _par excellence_. It enhances the value, it adds to the charm +of every tender and beautiful passage addressed to us, that we know them +to be sincere and heartfelt, + + Not fable bred, + But such as truest poets love to write. + +It is for the sake of _one_, beloved "beyond ambition and the light of +song,"--and worthy to be so loved, that he approaches _all_ women with +the most graceful, delicate, and reverential homage ever expressed in +sweet poetry. His fancy is indeed so luxuriant, that he makes whatever +he touches appear fanciful: but the beauty adorned by his verse, and +adorning his home, is not imaginary; and though he has almost hidden his +divinity behind a cloud of incense, she is not therefore less _real_. + +The life Lord Byron led was not calculated to give him a good opinion of +women, or to place before him the best virtues of our sex. Of all modern +poets, he has been the most generally popular among female readers; and +he owes this enthusiasm not certainly to our obligations to _him_; for, +as far as women are concerned, we may designate his works by a line +borrowed from himself,-- + + With much to excite, there's little to exalt. + +But who, like him, could administer to that "_besoin de sentir_" which I +am afraid is an ingredient in the feminine character all over the world? + +Lord Byron is really the Grand Turk of amatory poetry,--ardent in his +love,--mean and merciless in his resentment: he could trace passion in +characters of fire, but his caustic satire burns and blisters where it +falls. Lovely as are some of his female portraits, and inimitably +beautiful as are some of his lyrical effusions, it must be confessed +there is something very Oriental in all his feelings and ideas about +women; he seems to require nothing of us but beauty and submission. +Please him--and he will crown you with the richest flowers of poetry, +and heap the treasures of the universe at your feet, as trophies of his +love; but once offend, and you are lost,-- + + There yawns the sack--and yonder rolls the sea! + +Campbell, ever elegant and tender, has hymned us all into divinities; +and through his sweet and varied page + + Where love pursues an ever devious race, + True to the winding lineaments of grace, + +we figure under every beautiful aspect that truth and feeling could +inspire, or poetry depict. + +Sir Walter Scott ought to have lived in the age of chivalry, (if we +could endure the thoughts of his living in any other age but our own!) +so touched with the true antique spirit of generous devotion to our sex +are all his poetical portraits of women. I do not find that he has, like +most other writers of the present day, mixed up his personal feelings +and history with his poetry; or that any fair and distinguished object +will be so thrice fortunate as to share his laurelled immortality. We +must therefore treat him like Shakspeare, whom alone he resembles--and +claim him for us all. + +Then there is Rogers, whose compliments to us are so polished, so +pointed, and so elegantly turned, and have such a drawing-room air, that +they seem as if intended to be presented to Duchesses, by beaux in white +kid gloves. And there is Coleridge who approaches women with a sort of +feeling half earthly, half heavenly, like that with which an Italian +devotee bends before his Madonna-- + + And comes unto his courtship as his prayer. + +And there is Southey, in whose imagination we are all heroines and +queens; and Wordsworth, lost in the depths of his own tenderness! + + * * * * * + +The time is not yet arrived, when the loves of the living poets, or of +those lately dead, can be discussed individually, or exhibited at full +length. The subject is much too hazardous for a contemporary, and more +particularly for a female to dwell upon. Such details belong properly to +the next age, and there is no fear that these gossiping times will leave +any thing a mystery for posterity. The next generation will be +infinitely wiser on these interesting subjects than their grandmothers. +Yet a few years, and what is scandal and personality _now_, will _then_ +be matter for biography and history. Then many a love, destined to rival +that of Petrarch in purity and celebrity, and that of Tasso in interest, +shall be divulged; the thread of many a poetical romance now coiled up +in mystic verse, shall then be evolved. Then we shall know the true +history of Lord Byron's "Fare thee well." We shall then know more than +the mere name of his Mary,[160] who first kindled his boyish fancy, and +left an ineffaceable impression on his young heart, and whose history is +said to be shadowed forth in "The Dream." We may then know who was the +heroine of "Remember him whom passion's power:" whose moonlight charms +at once so radiant and so shadowy, inspired "She walks in beauty;" we +shall be told, perhaps, who was the Thyrza, so loving and beloved in +life, and whose early death, which appears to have taken place during +his travels, is so deeply, so feelingly lamented: and who was his +Ginevra,[161] and what spot of earth was made happy by her beautiful +presence--if any thing so divinely beautiful ever was! + +Then we shall not ask in vain who was Campbell's Caroline?[162] Whether +she did, indeed, walk this earth in mortal beauty, or was not rather +invoked by the poet's spell, from the soft evening star which shone upon +her bower? + +Then we shall know upon whose white bosom perished that rose,[163] +which, dying, bequeathed with its odorous breath a tale of truest love +to after-times, and glory to her, whose breast was its envied tomb--to +_her_, whose heart has thrilled to the homage of her poet,--yet who +would "_blush to find it fame_!" + +Then we shall know who was the "Lucy," + + Who dwelt among the untrodden ways, + Beside the springs of Dove![164] + +and who was the heroine of that most exquisite picture of feminine +loveliness in all its aspects, "She was a Phantom of delight."[165]--No +phantom, it is said, but a fair reality: + + A being, breathing thoughtful breath, + A traveller betwixt life and death, + +yet fated not to die, while verse can live! + +Then we shall know whose tear has been preserved by Rogers with a power +beyond "the Chymist's magic art;" who was the lovely bride who is +destined to blush and tremble in his Epithalamium, for a thousand years +to come; and to what fair obdurate is addressed his "Farewell." + +We may then learn who was that sweet Mary who adorned the cottage-home +of Wilson; and who was the "Wild Louisa," of whom he has drawn such a +captivating picture; first as the sprightly girl floating down the +dance, + + With footsteps light as falling snow, + +and afterwards as the matron and the mother, hanging over the cradle of +her infant, and blessing him in his sleep. + +Then we may _tell_ who was the "Bonnie Jean," sung by Allan Cunningham, +whose destructive charms are so pleasantly, so naturally touched upon. + + Sair she slights the lads-- + Three are like to die; + Four in sorrow listed,-- + And five flew to sea! + +This rural beauty, who caused such terrible devastation, and who, it is +said, first made a poet of her lover, became afterwards his wife; and in +her matronly character, she inspired that beautiful little effusion of +conjugal tenderness, "The Poet's Bridal Song." When first published, it +was almost universally copied, and committed to memory; and Allan +Cunningham may not only boast that he has woven a wreath "to grace his +Jean," + + While rivers flow and woods are green, + +but that he has given the sweet wife, seated among her children in +sedate and matronly loveliness, an interest even beyond that which +belongs to the young girl he has described with raven locks and cheeks +of cream, driving rustic admirers to despair, or lingering with her +lover at eve, + + --Amid the falling dew, + When looks were fond, and words were few! + +Such is the charm of affection, and truth, and moral feeling, carried +straight into the heart by poetry! + +What a new interest and charm will be given to many of Moore's beautiful +songs, when we are allowed to trace the feeling that inspired them, +whether derived from some immediate and present impression; or from +remembered emotion, that sometimes swells in the breast, like the +heaving of the waves, when the winds are still! Several of the most +charming of his lyrics are said to be inspired by "the heart so warm, +and eyes so bright," which first taught him the value of domestic +happiness;--taught him that the true poet need not rove abroad for +themes of song, but may kindle his genius at the flame which glows on +his own hearth, and make the Muses his household goddesses.[166] + +Gifford, the late editor of the Quarterly Review, and the author of the +Baviad and Maeviad, was in early youth doomed to struggle with poverty, +obscurity, ill health, and every hardship which could check the rise of +genius. He has himself described the effect produced on his mind, under +these circumstances, by his attachment to an amiable and gentle girl. "I +crept on," he says, "in silent discontent, unfriended and unpitied; +indignant at the present, careless of the future,--an object at once of +apprehension and dislike. From this state of abjectness, I was raised by +a young woman of my own class. She was a neighbour; and whenever I took +my solitary walk with my Wolfius in my pocket, she usually came to the +door, and by a smile, or a short question, put in the friendliest +manner, endeavoured to solicit my attention. My heart had been long shut +to kindness; but the sentiment was not dead within me; it revived at the +first encouraging word; and the gratitude I felt for it, was the first +pleasing sensation I had ventured to entertain for many dreary months." + +There are two little effusions inserted in the notes to the Baviad and +Maeviad, which have since been multiplied by copies, and have found their +way into almost all collections of lyric poetry and "Elegant Extracts;" +one of these was composed during the life of Anna; the other, written +after her death, and beginning, + + I wish I were where Anna lies, + For I am sick of lingering here, + +is extremely striking from its unadorned simplicity and profound +pathos.--Such was not the prevailing style of amatory verse at the time +it was written, nearly fifty years ago. Mr. Gifford never married; and +the effect of this early disappointment could be traced in his mind and +constitution to the last moments of his life. + +The same sad bereavement which tended to make Gifford a caustic critic +and satirist, made Mr. Bowles a sentimental poet. The subject of his +Sonnets was real; but he who has pointed out the difference between +natural and fabricated feeling, should not have left a _blank_ for the +name of her he laments. He gives us indeed a formal permission to fill +up the blank with any name we choose. But it is not the same thing; the +name of the woman who inspired a poet, is quite as important to +posterity, as the name of the poet himself. + +Who was the Hannah, whose fickleness occasioned that exquisite little +poem which Montgomery has inscribed "To the memory of her who is dead to +me?" It tells a tale of youthful love, of trusting affection, suddenly +and eternally blighted,--and with such a brevity, such a simplicity, +such a fervent yet heart-broken earnestness, that I fear it must be +true! + +At some future time, we shall, perhaps, be told who was the beautiful +English girl, whose retiring charms won the heart of Hyppolito +Pindemonte, when he was here some years ago. His Canzone on her is, in +Italy, considered as his masterpiece,[167] and even compared to some of +Petrarch's. There are indeed few things in the compass of Italian poetry +more sweet in expression, more true to feeling, than the lines in which +Pindemonte, describing the blooming youth, the serene and quiet grace of +this fair girl, disclaims the idea of even wishing to disturb the +heavenly calm of her pure heart by a passion such as agitates his own. + + Il men di che puo Donna esser cortese + Ver chi l'ha di se stesso assai piu cara, + Da te, vergine pura, io non vorrei. + +This was being very peculiarly disinterested.--We may also learn, at +some future time, who was the sweet Elvire, to whom Alphonse de +Lamartine has promised immortality, and not promised more than he has +the power to bestow. He is one of the few French poets, who have created +a real and a strong interest out of their own country. He has +vanquished, by the mere force of genius and sentiment, all the +difficulties and deficiencies of the language in which he wrote, and has +given to its limited poetical vocabulary a charm unknown before. He thus +addresses Elvire in one of the _Meditations Poetiques_. + + Vois, d'un oeil de pitie, la vulgaire jeunesse + Brillante de beaute, s'enivrant de plaisir; + Quand elle aura tari sa coupe enchanteresse, + Que restera-t-il d'elle? a peine un souvenir: + Le tombeau qui l'attend l'engloutit tout entiere, + Un silence eternel succede a ses amours; + Mais les siecles auront passe sur ta poussiere, + Elvire!--et tu vivras toujours! + + * * * * * + +Over some of the heroines of modern poetry, the tomb has recently +closed; and the flowers scattered there, could not be disturbed without +awakening a pang in the bosoms of those who survive. They sleep, but +only for a while: they shall rise again--the grave shall yield them up, +"even in the loveliest looks they wore," for a poet's love has redeemed +them from death and from oblivion! Methinks I see them even now with the +prophetic eye of fancy, go floating over the ocean of time, in the light +of their beauty and their fame, like Galatea and her nymphs triumphing +upon the waters! + +Others, perhaps, (the widow of Burns, and the widow of Monti, for +instance,) are declining into wintry age: sorrow and thought have +quenched the native beauty on their cheek, and furrowed the once +polished brow; yet crowned by poetry with eternal youth and unfading +charms, they will go down to posterity among the Lauras, the Geraldines, +the Sacharissas of other days;--Nature herself shall feel decrepitude, + + And, palsy-smitten, shake her starry brows, + +ere these grow old and die! + +And some, even now, move gracefully through the shades of domestic life, +and the universe, of whose beauty they will ere long form a part, knows +them not. Undistinguished among the ephemeral divinities around them, +not looking as though they felt the future glory round their brow, nor +swelling with anticipated fame, they yet carry in their mild eyes, that +light of love, which has inspired undying strains, + + And Queens hereafter shall be proud to live + Upon the alms of their superfluous praise! + +FOOTNOTES: + +[153] Crabbe's Poems. + +[154] See the Excursion. + +[155] Wordsworth. + +[156] + + Even so the smile of woman stamps our fates, + And consecrates the love it first creates! + + _Barry Cornwall._ + +[157] See in particular Schiller's ode, "Honour to Women," one of the +most elegant tributes ever paid to us by a poet's enthusiasm. It may be +found translated in Lord F. Gower's beautiful little volume of +Miscellanies. + +[158] + + Many light lays (ah! woe is me the more) + In praise of that mad fit which fools call _love_, + I have i' the heat of youth made heretofore, + That in light wits did loose affections move; + But all these follies do I now reprove, &c. + + _Spenser._ + +[159] Marcian Colonna. + +[160] Miss Chaworth, now Mrs. Musters. + +[161] Lord Byron's Works, vol. iii. p. 183, (small edit.) + +[162] Campbell's Poems, vol. ii. p. 202. + +[163] Barry Cornwall's Poems, "Lines on a Rose." + +[164] Wordsworth's Poems, vol. i. p. 181. + +[165] Wordsworth, vol. ii. p. 132. + +[166] See in Moore's Lyrics the beautiful song. "I'd mourn the hopes +that leave me." The concluding stanza is in point: + + "Far better hopes shall win me, + Along the path I've yet to roam, + The mind that burns within me, + And pure smiles from thee _at home_." + +[167] See in the "Opere di Pindemonte," the Canzone, "O Giovanetta che +la dubbia via." + + +THE END. + +LONDON: +PRINTED BY S. AND R. BENTLEY, +Dorset Street, Fleet Street. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Romance of Biography (Vol 2 of 2), by +Anna Jameson + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ROMANCE OF BIOGRAPHY (VOL 2 OF 2) *** + +***** This file should be named 35416.txt or 35416.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/5/4/1/35416/ + +Produced by Julia Miller, Josephine Paolucci and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net. 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