“The Same to the Same, at Welbeck.
“Mr. Payne willed me to go to Mr. Warner who lives but eight miles off, to get his answer to certayne letters of his, but one while the frost, and at other times the flouds, made the wayes impassable for any but very ranke riders, of which I was never any. I have a cold that makes me keepe my chamber, and a chamber—in this thronge of company that stay Christmas here—that makes me keepe my cold.”
The greater part of the letters of Hobbes consists of disquisitions upon certain matters connected with optics, and especially upon some experiments made by Warner. They go far to show that Newcastle was interested in science, as well as in literature, pictures, and music. Hobbes also frequently expresses pleasant anticipations of discussions on philosophy with Newcastle when he shall visit him at Welbeck.
Another, and an even better-known philosopher, Des Cartes, is said to have been a friend of Newcastle. Surely Walpole was too severe when he accused a companion of Des Cartes and Hobbes of “accommodating his mind to the utmost idleness of literature”.
Newcastle seems to have made scientific experiments on his own account. In a Preface which he wrote to his wife’s Philosophical and Physical Opinions, he says: “Dr. Payne, a divine and my chaplain, who hath a very witty, searching brain of his own, being at my house at Bolsover, locked up with me in a chamber to make Lapis Prunellae, which is saltpetre and brimstone[168] inflamed, looking at it a while, I said, Mark it, Mr. Payne, the flame is pale like the sun and hath a violent motion in it, like the sun; saith he, It is so, and the more to confirm you, says he, look what abundance of little suns, round the globe, appear to us everywhere, just the same motion as the sun makes in every one’s eyes. So we concluded the sun could be nothing else but a very solid body of salt and sulphur, inflamed by his own violent motion upon his own axis.”
[168] The ingredients of gunpowder, minus the charcoal.
So much for scientific inference. But observe what presently follows:—
“This,” he concludes, “is my opinion, which I think can as hardly be disproved as proved; since any opinion may be right or wrong, for anything that anybody knows, for certainly there is none can make a mathematical demonstration of natural philosophy”.
Well! The exact sciences have advanced a little since such a statement as that could be made.
MARGARET, DUCHESS OF NEWCASTLE
From the frontispiece of one of her books by Diepenbeck
CHAPTER XX.
In the last two chapters we have been considering the literary works of Newcastle. We must now face those of his Duchess—a very much more serious matter. The quantity of her written stuff was prodigious. The following list of her books, drawn up by Langbaine, is enough to cause the stoutest heart to quail. He says:—[169]
“She has published six and twenty plays, besides several loose scenes”—loose they are indeed—“nineteen of which are bound, and printed in one volume in Fol. 1662, the others in Folio, Lond., 1668, under the title of Plays never before printed. I know there are some that have but a mean opinion of her plays; but, if it be considered that both the language and plots of them are all her own, I think she ought to be preferred to others of her sex, which have built their fame on other people’s foundations.”
[169] P. 392.
Then he enumerates:—
“Plays.
“1. Apocryphal Ladies.—Comedy.
“2. Bell in Campo.—Tragedy.
“3. Blasing World. Unfinished.—Comedy.
“4. Bridals.—Comedy.
“5. Comical Hash.—Comedy.
“6. Convent of Pleasure.—Comedy.
“7. Female Academy.—Comedy.
“8. Lady Contemplation.—Comedy.
“9. Love’s Adventures.—Comedy.
“10. Matrimonial Trouble.—Tragi-comedy.
“11. Nature’s Three Daughters.—Comedy.
“12. Presence.—Comedy.
“13. Public Wooing.—Comedy.
“14. Religious.—Tragi-comedy.
“15. Several Wits.—Comedy.
“16. Sociable Companions, or The Female Wits.—Comedy.
“17. Unnatural.—Tragedy.
“18. Wits Cabal.—Comedy.
“19. Youth’s Glory, and Death’s Banquet.—Tragedy.”
The other seven he does not name; but he says that to her play “Presence” are added twenty-nine single scenes which the Duchess designed to have inserted into this play, but finding it would too much lengthen it, she printed them separately. Of her other works he mentions:—
“The life of the Duke of Newcastle in English. Folio. London 1667.
“The same in Latin. Folio. London 1668.
“Nature’s Picture drawn by Fancy’s Pencil to the life. Folio. London 1656, at the end of which she has writ her own life.
“Philosophical Fancies. Folio. London 1653.
“Philosophical & Physical Opinions. Folio. London 1655.
“Philosophical Letters. Folio. London 1664.
“Two Hundred and Eleven Sociable Letters. Folio. London 1664.
“Orations. Folio. 1662.
“Poems. Folio. 1653.”
The reader need not be afraid that much of all this is to be inflicted upon him; we have already seen a good deal of her writings; but a few fresh examples must needs be given. One reason for the prodigious number of her works was that she always kept secretaries at hand to write at dictation whatever happened to come into her head, a second seems to have been that she considered whatever came into her head to have been worthy of publication. Cibber says of her:—[170]
“Being now restored to the sunshine of prosperity, she dedicated her time to writing poems, philosophical discourses, orations and plays. She was of a generous turn of mind, and kept a great many young ladies about her person, who occasionally wrote what she dictated. Some of them slept in a room contiguous to that in which her Grace lay, and were ready, at the call of her bell, to rise any hour of the night, to write down her conceptions, lest they should escape her memory. The young ladies, no doubt, often dreaded her Grace’s conceptions, which were frequent, but all of the poetical or philosophical kind.”
[170] Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland, ed. 1755, vol. II, p. 164.
She herself gives the following long-winded description of the speed at which her mighty brain kept turning out matter for “copy,” and what is given here is a mere fragment of a sentence of miraculous length.
“... the brain being quicker in creating than the hand in writing, or the memory in retaining, many fancies are lost, by reason they ofttimes outrun the pen; where I, to keep speed in the Race, write so fast as I stay not so long as to write my letters plain, insomuch as some have taken my hand-writing for some strange character, and being accustomed so to do, I cannot now write very plain, when I strive to write my best; indeed, my ordinary hand-writing is so bad as few can read it, so as to write it fair for the Press, but however, that little wit I have, it delights me to scribble it out, and disperse it about, for I being addicted from my childhood to contemplation rather than conversation, to solitariness rather than society, to melancholy rather than mirth, to write with the pen than to work with a needle, passing my time with harmeless fancies, their company being pleasing, their conversation innocent, in which I take such pleasure, as I neglect my health, for it is as great a grief to leave their society, as a joy to be in their company, my only trouble is, lest my brain should grow barren, or that the root of my fancies should become insipid, withering into a dull stupidity for want of maturing subjects to write on,” and so on, and so on!
The account given above by Cibber of the young ladies who “slept in a room contiguous to that in which her Grace lay, ready, at the call of her bell, to rise any hour of the night, to write down her conceptions, lest they should escape her memory,” arouses our deepest sympathy. Imagine what it would be to be awakened by her Grace’s bell from a deep slumber to write down one or other of the following platitudinous “conceptions” taken at hazard from one of her books:—
“I have observed, That many instead of great Actions, make onely a great Noise, and like shallow Fords, or empty Bladders, sound most when there is least in them.”
“I observe, That as it would be a grief to covetous and miserable persons, to be rewarded with Honour, rather than with Wealth, because they love Wealth, before Honour and Fame; so on the other side, Noble, Heroick and Meritorious Persons, prefer Honour and Fame before Wealth.”
“It is not every ambitious and aspiring spirit that can do brave and noble actions.”
The world would not have been very seriously poorer if the Duchess had omitted to ring her bell, and if these sage “conceptions” had “escaped her memory” in the morning.
Her best work, at any rate her most valuable contribution to the history of her times, is the story of her husband’s life, into which we have already dipped, perhaps too often and too deeply. In spite of her pardonably exaggerated praise of Newcastle and all his works, the narrative, if not always accurate, is pretty fairly rendered; and if Nature ever intended that she should scribble at all, it may have been as a war-correspondent to a daily newspaper, in which case she was born a little before her time.
It would be easy to sneer at her poetry; but, at its best, it is not so very bad, although it always contains some weak lines. Let us look at one or two of her most successful efforts.
In her description of the Queen of the Fairies, she writes:—
She on a dewy leaf doth bathe,
And as she sits, the leaf doth wave;
There like a new-fallen flake of snow,
Doth her white limbs in beauty show.
Her garments fair her maids put on,
Made of the pure light from the sun.
In her poem, “Mirth and Melancholy,” both Mirth and Melancholy try to attract the poetess. Mirth promises her amusement and sneers at her rival, Melancholy, in these lines:—
Her voice is low and gives a hollow sound;
She hates the light and is in darkness found
Or sits with blinking lamps, or tapers small,
Which various shadows make against the wall.
She loves nought else but noise which discord makes;
As croaking frogs whose dwelling is in lakes;
The raven’s hoarse, the mandrake’s hollow groan
And shrieking owls which fly i’ the night alone;
The tolling bell, which for the dead rings out;
A mill, where rushing waters run about;
The roaring winds, which shake the cedars tall,
Plough up the seas, and beat the rocks withal.
She loves to walk in the still moonshine night,
And in a thick dark grove she takes delight;
In hollow caves, thatched houses, and low cells
She loves to live, and there alone she dwells.
Melancholy, on the other hand, states that her life and surroundings, if subdued and retired, are tranquil and beautiful. It may be remembered that a few pages back the Duchess said that she herself was always addicted to “melancholy rather than mirth”.
I dwell in groves that gilt are with the sun;
Sit on the banks by which clear waters run;
In summers hot down in a shade I lie,
My music is the buzzing of a fly;
I walk in meadows where grows fresh green grass;
In fields where corn is high I often pass;
Walk up the hills, where round I prospects see,
Some brushy woods, and some all champaigns be;
Returning back, I in fresh pastures go,
To hear how sheep do bleat, and cows do low;
In winter cold, when nipping frosts come on,
Then I do live in a small house alone.
One of the greatest admirers of the Duchess of Newcastle’s literary labours was Charles Lamb, who calls her, in The Essays of Elia,[171] “that princely woman, the thrice noble Margaret Newcastle,” whose writings contain:—
Such a sweetness,
A virtue in which all ennobling thoughts dwelt,
Pure thoughts, kind thoughts, high thoughts, her sex’s wonder.
[171] “The Two Races of Men.”
In another of the Essays[172] he writes about “the intellectuals of a dear favourite of mine, of the last century but one—the thrice noble, chaste, and virtuous, but again somewhat fantastical and original brained, generous Margaret Newcastle”.
[172] “Mackery End.”
And of her Life of her husband he says: “No casket is rich enough, no casing sufficiently durable, to honour and keep such a jewel”. Lamb had a special admiration also for the Duchess’s “Two Hundred and Eleven Sociable Letters,” platitudinous epistles, any extracts from which the reader shall be spared.
A favourable, but more moderate criticism of her abilities is that of D’Israeli, who, in his Curiosities of Literature, says: “Her labours have been ridiculed by some wits; but had her studies been regulated, she would have displayed no ordinary genius. Her verses have been imitated by Milton.”
The latter is an amazing assertion; but D’Israeli is a literary authority of high standing, and, as a rule, he was careful in his statements.
The same idea is implied in The Connoisseur:[173] “As I fell asleep my fancy presented to me the following dream. I was transported, I know not how, to the regions of Parnassus.... Pegasus was brought out of the stable and the Muses furnished him with a side-saddle.... A lady advanced, who, though she had something rather extravagant in her air and deportment, yet she had a noble presence that commanded at once awe and admiration. She was dressed in an old-fashioned habit, very fantastic, and trimmed with bugles and points, such as was worn in the time of King Charles the First. This lady, I was informed, was the Duchess of Newcastle. When she came to mount, she sprang into the saddle with amazing agility; and giving an entire loose to the reins, Pegasus directly set out at a gallop, and ran with her out of sight.”
[173] The Connoisseur, by Mr. Towne, vol. I, p. 350, a new edition, 1822.
On her return she repeated, at request, her lines on Melancholy: “Her voice is low and gives a hollow sound, etc.” quoted above: whereupon Milton, who, with Shakespeare, had helped her to dismount, “seemed very much chagrined, and it was whispered by some that he was obliged for many of the thoughts in his ‘L’Allegro’ and ‘Il Penseroso’ to this lady’s dialogue between Mirth and Melancholy”.
Well! Who knows? But what a contrast to the blinking lamps, tapers small, and shadows against the wall, of the Duchess, is Milton’s—
Hence, loathed Melancholy
Of Cerberus and blackest midnight born,
In Stygian cave forlorn,
Mongst horrid shapes, and shrieks, and sights unholy,
Find out some uncouth cell, etc.
The beginning of L’Allegro.
Or, again, the Duchess’s summers hot, fresh green grass, and music the buzzing of a fly, to Milton’s—
And may at last my weary age
Find out the peaceful hermitage,
The hairy gown and mossy cell,
Where I may sit and rightly spell
Of every star that Heaven doth show
And every herb that sips the dew;
Till old experience do attain
To something like prophetic strain.
These pleasures, Melancholy give,
And I with thee will choose to live.
The end of Il Penseroso.
An apology is due for this very facile criticism, but D’Israeli and The Connoisseur rendered it irresistible.
Grainger says:[174] “We are greatly surprised that a lady of her quality should have written so much, and are little less surprised that one who loved writing so well, has writ no better”. He considers, as well he may, that certain critics were far too lavish in their praises of the Duchess’s literary efforts. He says:—
“There is a very scarce folio volume of ‘Letters and Poems’ printed in 1678. It consists of 182 pages, filled with the grossest and most fulsome panegyric on the Duke and Dutchess of Newcastle, especially her Grace. I know no flattery, ancient or modern, that is, in any degree, comparable to it, except the deification of Augustus and the erection of altars to him in his lifetime. Incense and adoration seem to have been equally acceptable to the Roman god and English goddess.”
[174] Vol. IV, p. 60.
MARGARET, DUCHESS OF NEWCASTLE
From an engraving by G. P. Harding, after a painting by Diepenbeck
Before proceeding to the lighter works of the Duchess, it may be well to give a specimen of her philosophy. The reader shall be left to judge for himself whether the following extract contains great truths; if it contains great truths, whether it presents them in clear language, and whether it explains them in the fewest possible words.
The extract is taken from the first chapter of a work entitled:—
Observations upon Experimental Philosophy.
“Written by The Thrice Noble, Illustrious and Excellent Princesse The Duchess of Newcastle. Printed by A. Maxwell, London 1666.”
“Reason reforms and instructs sense, in all its actions; But both the rational and sensitive knowledge and perception, being divideable as well as composeable, it causes ignorance, as well as knowledge amongst Nature’s Creatures; for though Nature is but one body and has no share or copartner, but is intire and whole in itself, as not composed of several parts or substances, and consequently has but one Infinite natural knowledge and wisdom, yet by reason she is also divideable and composeable, according to the nature of a body, we can justly and with all reason say, that as Nature is divided into infinite several parts, so each several part has a several and particular knowledge and perception both sensitive and rational, and again that each part is ignorant of the others knowledge and perception; when as otherwise, considered altogether and in general, as they make up but one infinite body of Nature, so they make also but one infinite general knowledge. And thus Nature may be called both Individual, as not having single parts subsisting without her, but all united in one body; and Divideable, by reason she is partable in her own several corporeal figurative motions, and not otherwise; for there is no Vacuum in Nature, neither can her parts start or remove from the Infinite body of Nature, so as to separate themselves from it, for there is no place to flee to but body and place are all one thing, so that the parts of Nature can only joyn and disjoyn to and from parts, but not to and from the body of Nature.”
After a careful study of the above lucid passage, it may not greatly astonish the reader to learn that Grainger says:—
“James Bristow, of Corpus Christi college in Oxford, undertook to translate a volume of her philosophical works into the same language,” i.e. into Latin; “but he was forced to desist from the undertaking. Such was the obscurity and perplexity of the subject, that he could not find words where he had no ideas.”
In writing about this book, the Duchess gives vent to the following smoothly flowing lines:—
When I did write this book I took great pains,
For I did walk and think and break my brains.
And certainly there are unmistakably symptoms of broken brains in that work.
As we have already observed, D’Israeli has informed us that Milton imitated the verse of the Duchess; and, after reading the above extract from one of her books on philosophy, people devoid of legal knowledge may possibly be inclined to think that certain other scribes have imitated her prose, namely lawyers in drawing up deeds and wills.
At the end of one of her books, entitled Philosophical Opinions, the Duchess wrote:—
Of all my works this work which I have writ,
My best beloved and greatest favourite,
I look upon it with a pleasing eye,
I take pleasure in its sweet company.
Probably few authors, after re-reading the manuscripts, correcting the proofs, and again correcting the revised proofs of their books, ever find “sweet company” in them again. In most cases the only printed things they read in connexion with them, in the future, are reviews. Nor do these invariably prove “sweet company”.
The Duchess wrote books on all sorts of subjects. Not the least curious are her Orations of Divers Sorts Accommodated to Divers Places, a work which, strange to say, went through two editions. It contains orations suited, or professing to be suited, for weddings, funerals, and battlefields, loyal speeches and seditious speeches, speeches in favour of taxation and speeches against taxation, and after-dinner speeches both for “a quarter-drunk gentleman” and for “a half-drunken gentleman”. The Duchess writes the heaviest stuff of all when she tries to be funny. She is even heavier as a Wit than as a Philosopher.
CHAPTER XXI.
In facing the formidable array of the Duchess of Newcastle’s plays, it may be well to begin with their Prologue, or rather with part of that Prologue. It is not the happiest of her poetical efforts, but as we have already mentioned even Dryden failing in a Prologue, we may well make excuses for the Duchess.
But noble readers, do not think my plays
Are such as have been writ in former days:
As Johnson,[175] Shakespeare, Beaumount, Fletcher writ,
Mine want their learning, reading, language, wit.
The Latin phrases, I could never tell,
But Johnson could, which made him write so well.
Greek, Latin poets, I could never read,
Nor their historians, but our English Speed:[176]
I could not steal their wit, nor plots outrake:
All my plays’ plots, my own poor brain did make.[177]
From Plutarch’s story, I ne’er took a plot,
Nor from romances, nor from Don Quixote.
[175] The Duchess seems usually to have spelt Ben Jonson’s name Johnson.
[176] Author of The History of Great Britain, etc. The second edition was published in 1627. Speed was a tailor and a man of very little education; but his history of England was for a long time the best in existence.
[177] Is this a slap at Shakespeare?
Only three short quotations shall be given from her plays; and first we have a fair specimen of her heavy, wearisome style in a few sentences from her play, “The Presence”.
Act II. Scene I.
Enter Spend-All in a fine suit of clothes, meeting Conversant.
Conversant. Jupiter bless us! how fine and brave you are in a rich suit of clothes: is this your wedding-day?
Spend. No, this day is not my wedding-day: but the suit is my wooing-suit, for I am going to woo an old lady, who is very rich.
Conv. Is she wise?
Spend. I hope not, for if she were, she would never grant my suit, but if she be a fool, as I hope she is, then youth and bravery will win her.
Conv. And the more sprightly, lively and fantastical you appear, the better the old lady will like you.
Spend. I believe you, but I doubt that the sight of the old lady will put me into so dull and melancholy a humour, as I shall not please her.
Conv. Imagine her a young beauty.
Spend. I cannot imagine her a young beauty, when I see her: for imagination works only upon absent objects.
In the next extract, taken from her play, “The Bridals,” we have an example of her attempts to be comic.
Act III. Scene II.
Enter Sir William Sage and his lady.
Sir William Sage. I wonder that Mimick is not here! for his company is very delightful, to pass away idle time; for idle time is only free for fool’s company.
Lady. He is rather a knave than a fool, but here he comes.
Enter Mimick.
Sir W. Sage. Mimick, have you chosen a profession yet?
Mimick. Yes, marry have I, for I intend to be an orator.
Sir W. Sage. If you be a professed orator, I suppose you have studied a speech.
Mimick. Yes, I have studied, as orators use to do, in making an oration: for I have rackt my brain, stretched my wit, strapadoed my memory, tortured my thoughts, and kept my sences awake.
Sir W. Sage. Certainly, it is a very eloquent and wise oration, since you have taken so much pains.
Mimick. Labour and study is not a certain rule for wise, witty or eloquent orations or speeches, for many studied speeches are very foolish, but you will hear my speech?
Sir W. Sage. I will.
Mimick. But then Master, you must stand for, signifie, or represent a multitude or an assembly.
Sir W. Sage. That is impossible, being but a single person.
Mimick. Why doth not a single figure stand for a number, as the figure of five, eight or nine, and joining ciphers to them, they stand for so many hundreds or thousands: and here be two joint-stools, one of which stools and you lady shall serve for two ciphers and my master for the figure nine and so you and the joint-stool make nine hundred.
In our third and last quotation, we have a specimen of what she considered wit. It is from “The Wit’s Cabal”.
Act II. Scene V.
Enter Captain, Harry, Will, Dick, Lieutenant and Cornet, as in the Tavern.
Will. Well, this wine is so fresh and full of spirit, as it would make a fool a poet.
Harry. Or a poet a fool.
Dick. Then here’s a health to the most fools in the world.
Capt. Then you must drink a health to the whole world, that is one great fool.
Lieut. Prithee Dick, do not drink that health, for it will choak thee, for the world of fools is too big for one draught.
Dick. Then here’s a health to the wisest man.
Cornet. You may as well drink a health to a drop of water in the ocean.
Possibly the reader may think that a little of this sort of wit goes a long way. Unfortunately, in the Duchess’s plays, there is a vast amount of it.
It is a remarkable sign of the times in which she lived, especially of the moral tone and the taste of those times, that, although the Duchess of Newcastle was a most virtuous woman, and one of high principles—Ballard[178] says that she was “truly pious, charitable and generous: was an excellent economist, very kind to her servants, and a perfect pattern of conjugal love and duty”—yet her plays were of such a character that, as they stand, the most lenient official censor of our generation would certainly refuse to allow them to be acted: nor is it too much to say of them that they combine indecency and obscenity with the stagnate dullness so usually the accompaniment of literary ditch-water. Yet in the Preface to one of her books she says: “I hope this work of mine will rather quench amorous passions than inflame them, and beget chaste thoughts,” etc.
[178] Memoirs of British Ladies who have been celebrated for their Writings, etc., by George Ballard, ed. 1785, p. 213.
The critics of the plays and other works of the Duchess were very far from being of one and the same mind. Some half century after her death, Horace Walpole, in his Royal and Noble Authors, says that “though she had written philosophy it seems she had read none,” and that she had an “unbounded passion for scribbling”.
During her life, in fact in the year 1667, the Master and Fellows of St. John’s College, Cambridge, addressed her in the language of fulsome flattery quoted at the opening of the first chapter of the present volume. But all the critics of her own day were not of their opinion and M. Emile Montégut, in his excellent essay on the Newcastles, writes:[179] “this very high and mighty lady” was “very maliciously ridiculed by her contemporaries and scornfully neglected by the succeeding generations”.
On the other hand, the Vice-Chancellor and the Senate of the University of Cambridge, fairly excelled the Master and Fellows of St. John’s College in flattery, and Ananias in mendacity, when they exclaimed:—[180]
“Most excellent Princess, you have unspeakably obliged us all; but not in one respect alone, for whensoever we find ourselves nonplus’d in our studies, we repair to you as to our oracle: if we be to speak, you dictate to us: if we knock at Apollo’s door, you alone open to us: if we compose an History, you are the remembrancer: if we be confounded and puzzled among the philosophers, you disentangle us and assoil our difficulties”.
[179] P. 189.
[180] Biog. Brit., ed. Kippis.
Grainger says that “these monstrous strains of panegyrics relate chiefly to that wild philosophy which would have puzzled the whole Royal Society”.
Pearson, Master of St. John’s College, Cambridge (“Pearson On The Creed”), afterwards Bishop of Chester, could lie so grossly as to exclaim to the Duchess:[181] “What shall we think of your Excellency, who are both a Minerva and an Athens in yourself, the Muses as well as an Helicon, Aristotle as well as his Lycaeum?”
[181] Biog. Brit., ed. Kippis.
Another Bishop, Bishop Wilkins, was more honest. He had been talking to the Duchess about his book on the possibility of a journey to the moon. “Doctor,” she said, “where am I to find a place for waiting in the way up to that Planet?” “Madam,” he replied, “of all people in the world, I never expected that question from you, who have built so many castles in the air, that you may be every night at one of your own.” [182]
[182] Stanley’s Memorials of Westminster Abbey, p. 247.
M. Montégut says that, during her later years she was often spoken of as “That fool, Mad Madge of Newcastle”. Yet Kippis states that the Rev. Knightly Chatwood, afterwards Dean of Gloucester, “wrote a preposterously over-laudatory elegy” on her death, “in whose guilt the author of this note would be involved, were he to produce any quotation from so impious a performance”.
Of course the Duchess has much to say about her own literary powers. Here is a specimen of it:—
“But it pleased God to command his Servant Nature to indue me with a Poetical and Philosophical Genius, even from my Birth: for I did write some Books in that kind, before I was twelve years of Age”.
One very precious and very touching criticism of our Duchess has happily been preserved. It was made by her devoted husband, the Duke himself. A friend had congratulated him on having such a very wise woman as his wife; whereupon, he exclaimed with genuine emotion: “Sir, a very wise woman is a very foolish thing”.[183]
[183] Richardsonia, by Jonathan Richardson, pp. 249, 250.
It is consoling to learn that the Duchess could sometimes condescend to lower matters than literature. We have Her Grace’s own authority for stating that she was fond of dress. She says:—
“I took great delight in attiring, fine dressing, and fashions, especially such fashions as I did invent myself, not taking that pleasure in such fashions as was invented by others: also I did dislike any should follow my Fashions, for I always took delight in a singularity, even in accoutrements of habits, but whatsoever I was addicted to, either in fashion of Cloths, contemplation of Thoughts, actions of Life, they were Lawful, Honest, Honourable, and Modest, of which I can avouch to the world with a great confidence, because it is a pure Truth”.
Next, let us hear what Pepys has to say about her dress and other matters, in an entry in his Diary containing another notice of “The Humorous Lovers”.
“1667, April 11th. To White Hall, thinking there to have seen the Duchesse of Newcastle’s coming this night to Court to make a visit to the Queene, the King having been with her yesterday to make her a visit since her coming to town. The whole story of this lady is a romance, and all she does is romantic. Her footmen in velvet coats, and herself in an antique dress, as they say, and was the other day at her own play ‘The Humourous Lovers’; the most ridiculous thing that ever was wrote, but yet she and her Lord mightily pleased with it; and she, at the end, made her respects to the players from her box, and did give them thanks. There is as much expectation of her coming to Court, that so people may come to see her, as if it were the Queene of Sweden, but I lost my labour, for she did not come this night.”
On the 26th of the same month, Pepys was more fortunate.
“Met my Lady Newcastle going with her coaches and footmen all in velvet: herself (whom I never saw before) as I have heard her often described (for all the town-talk is now-a-days of her extravagancies), with her velvet cap, her hair about her ears; many black patches, because of pimples about her mouth; naked-necked, without any thing about it, and a black just-au-corps. She seemed to me a very comely woman: but I hope to see more of her on May-day.”
The Duchess seems to have “got upon his brain,” to make use of a phrase which came into use long after his own days; for on 1 May he wrote:—
“That which we and almost all went for, was to see my Lady Newcastle: which we could not, she being followed and crowded upon by coaches all the way she went, that nobody could come near her: only I could see she was in a large black coach adorned with silver instead of gold, and so white curtains, and everything black and white, and herself in her cap”.
Pepys fairly hunted the poor Duchess through the streets of London. A week later he made the following entry:—
“Drove hard towards Clerkenwell, thinking to have overtaken my Lady Newcastle, whom I saw before us in her coach, with 100 boys and girls running looking upon her; but I could not: and so she got home before I could come up to her. But I will get a time to see her.”
And he did “get a time to see her”.
“30th. After dinner I walked to Arundell House, the way very dusty, (the day of meeting of the Society)[184] ... where I find very much company, in expectation of the Duchesse of Newcastle, who had desired to be invited to the Society; and was; after much debate pro and con, it seems many being against it; and we do believe the town will be full of ballads of it. Anon comes the Duchesse with her women attending her; among others the Ferabosco, of whom so much talk is that her lady would bid her show her face and kill the gallants. She is indeed black, and hath good black little eyes, but otherwise a very ordinary woman I do think, but they say sings well. The Duchesse hath been a good, comely woman; but her dress is so antick, and her deportment so ordinary, that I do not like her at all, nor did I hear her say anything that was worth hearing, but that she was full of admiration, all admiration. Several fine experiments were shewn her of colours, loadstones, microscopes, and of liquors: among others, of one that did while she was there turn a piece of roasted mutton into pure blood, which was very rare. After they had shown her any experiments, and she cried still she was full of admiration, she departed, being led out and in by several Lords that were there; among others, Lord George Barkeley and Earl of Carlisle, and a very pretty young man, the Duke of Somerset.”
[184] The Royal Society.
Here is some evidence from another source.
There was a masquerade at Court and that very smart and amusing courtier, Count Grammont,[185] was talking to the King. “As I was getting out of my chair,” he said, “I was stopped by the devil of a phantom in masquerade.... It is worth while to see her dress; for she must have at least sixty ells of gauze and silver tissue about her, not to mention a sort of a pyramid upon her head, adorned with a hundred thousand baubles.”
[185] Memoirs of Count Grammont, Bohn, p. 134.
“I bet,” said the King, “that it is the Duchess of Newcastle.” [186]
[186] It turned out to be somebody else, but this shows the King’s opinion of the Duchess’s style of dress.
CHAPTER XXII.
Monsieur Emile Montégut, in his essay[187] on the Duke and Duchess of Newcastle, has dealt with the question of the Duchess’s religion, at some length; and the following is a very free translation of a part of what he has written on the subject. A certain author has “belauded the great piety of the Duchess; but, after studying all the available evidence on this point, we are inclined to think that her piety must have been but moderate and we feel doubtful as to the nature of her faith and the extent of her religious fervour. This much is certain, that she was not devout enough for a Catholic or interior enough for a Protestant.... When she writes of religion, she is dignified, but dry, without the least affection in her language or humility in her mind. She shows no liking for any particular ceremony, or pious rite or practice; nor does she seem to attach any importance to things connected with exterior worship; although she belonged to that Anglican Church in which controversies over such matters have always occupied so important a place. She had some disposition towards mysticism; but prayer, the most natural of all religious actions, was almost distasteful to her. She liked prayers to be short and few, and anything like repetitions in devotion she considered irreverent if not impious; but it should be remembered that, in those times, the Puritans made prayers of prodigious length, far longer than any made by Catholics.” Her “cool calculation of the relative values of prayer and good works at any rate exhibits considerable originality and piquancy”.
[187] Le Maréchal Davout—Le Duc et la Duchesse de Newcastle, 1895, p. 335.
Be all this as it may, she attained that Highest Heaven of British ambition, a grave and a monument in Westminster Abbey, and who can doubt that one who was so very much a Duchess has gone where Duchesses go?
Certainly the readers, and as certainly the compiler, of this book must be deeply conscious that it is now high time to let fall the curtain. And we will let it fall without fatal illnesses or deathbed scenes. That people who lived considerably more than two hundred years ago are dead by this time may be taken for granted; and it should be enough to say that the Duchess of Newcastle was buried in Westminster Abbey on 17 January, 1673; and that the Duke was laid beside her on 22 January, 1677.
MONUMENT OF THE DUKE AND DUCHESS OF NEWCASTLE IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY
The scribe who has collected and copied out the evidence concerning this illustrious pair, while deeply conscious of the many faults in his work, is not aware that excessive flattery of his subjects is one of them. The characters of both the Duke and the Duchess were certainly open to criticism, perhaps also to ridicule. Yet much may be said in favour of each.
Newcastle was a dignified, cultivated, and courageous English gentleman. He was a most loyal subject; he cheerfully bore greater financial losses, for the sake of his King, than perhaps any other cavalier; and he fought bravely in the civil war. He excelled in horsemanship and he was a fine swordsman. Although not a scholar, he wrote a standard work; and he was an appreciative and critical patron of art, science, and literature. If only a very minor poet, he could write verses of considerable spirit; if not a great playwright, he could write plays which succeeded.
No sensible reader would take Shadwell’s dedication of “The Libertine” to Newcastle as pure gospel; but there may be a few grains of truth in it. He says: “By the great honour I had to be daily admitted into your Grace’s private and public conversation, I observed that admirable experience and judgment surmounting all the old, and that vigorousness of wit and smartness of expression, exceeding all the young, I ever saw, and not only in sharp and apt replies, but, which is much more difficult, by giving easy and unforced occasions, the most admirable way of beginning one, and all this adapted to men of all circumstances and conditions”.
The great misfortune of Newcastle’s life was to be suddenly forced into the position of a Commander-in-Chief, without any previous training, or personal inclination; and perhaps the great error of his life may have been his flight to Holland after the battle of Marston Moor; but, as was shown on the pages dealing with the incident, a good deal has been urged, and may justly be urged, in defence of his conduct on that occasion.
If he made many mistakes as a General, he never showed want of courage as a soldier. If he asked for appointments and honours from the King, he amply paid for them, both with money and with services. If his wife said that he was too great an admirer of the fair sex, there is nothing to show that he was immoral. If he was somewhat eccentric, he had a good deal of originality. If he was extravagant when young, he was economical when old. If he was ambitious, he never intrigued. If his literary work is open to criticism, he himself is said to have been an excellent critic.
Although a loyal, a stately, a polished and a handsome courtier, he was no hanger-on at Court; and his dignified retirement to Welbeck, when the licentious Court of Charles II had been established, showed at least good taste. He always appears to have had enemies near the King, both in the reign of Charles I and in that of Charles II; but he must have been very popular in the country, or he would not have been able to raise such large forces for the army of the North, during the civil war.
Lastly, he is to be admired for his business-like perseverance in retrieving his ruined fortunes after the Restoration, when they were in a condition which would have broken the heart of a man of meaner spirit.
As to the Duchess of Newcastle, let us at once get rid of the idea, held by M. Montégut, and apparently also by other people, that she was the first of the Blue Stockings. The origin of that term is well known. Quite a hundred years after the death of our Duchess, the leader of a coterie of learned ladies invited a clever but ill-clad scholar to attend their social gatherings. He always wore breeches and the usual bluish-grey stockings of the cheaper kind; and when he pleaded lack of suitable attire, his hostess said: “Oh! Come in your blue-stockings”. The little gatherings of these ladies were afterwards called the meetings of the Blue Stockings.
But, even taking the term in its wider sense, as including the learned ladies of any, or of all ages, we might find women far more learned than Margaret Newcastle in the depths of antiquity. As to her own country, a century before her time Erasmus wrote: “The monks, famed in times past for learning, are become ignorant; and women love books. It is pretty enough that this sex should now at last betake it self to antient examples.” In the sixteenth century, very literary ladies were to be found in the families of Sir Thomas More and Sir Anthony Cooke, and to give Henry VIII his due, it must be acknowledged that he took good care his daughters should be thoroughly educated and cultivated women. Nor was our Duchess by any means the first of her sex to rush into print in the seventeenth century; moreover, much as she wrote for the press, little print did she read except her own, and she seems to have been almost entirely devoid of scholarship.
Again, in the first half of the century in which lived the Duchess of Newcastle, unlike that Duchess Lady Jane Grey knew Latin and Greek and studied Plato. At the same time, in Italy, the notorious courtesan, Tullia of Aragon, was a poetess; and, like several of her contemporary courtesans, knew, as says Aretino, “all Petrarch and Boccaccio by heart, beside innumerable fine Latin verses by Virgil, Horace, Ovid, etc.” Any of these ladies could have taught the Duchess lessons and put her in the corner as a dunce.
In another sense, Margaret, Duchess of Newcastle, was unlike what are generally known as literary ladies; for she was no patroness of literary people; she was not the leader of any literary set, she started no literary school; she led a retired life, was nervous in society, and was so much absorbed in her own writings that she seems to have taken no interest in those of anybody else, either ancient or modern.
Had she but spent a larger proportion of her time in learning instead of in teaching, she might have become a successful author; for undoubtedly she had talent, although not genius. The fatal idea that all her “conceptions,” as she called them, were worthy of paper, and in most cases worthy of print, was the chief cause of her literary ruin.
The finest feature of her character was her devotion to her husband. Although she declares herself to have been devoid of any “passion,” or “amourous love,” a study of her biography of Newcastle inclines one to think that on this point she deceived herself; unless, as is possible, the place of passionate love was supplied by unqualified hero-worship. She had a profound admiration for his talents. Exaggerated as is her praise in the following lines, it at least shows an affectionate devotion. They occur at the end of her book of poems:—
A Poet I am neither born nor bred,
But to a witty poet married,
Whose brain is fresh, and pleasant as the Spring,
Where fancies grow, and where the Muses sing;
There oft I lean my head, and listening hark,
T’observe his words, and all his fancies mark,
And from that garden flowers of fancy take,
Whereof a posy up in verse I make:
Thus I that have no garden of my own
There gather flowers, that are newly blown.
And she did indeed “there gather flowers,” if there is any truth in the pretty general idea that the best lines in her poems were the work of her husband.
Her expedition to England to try to wrest something for Newcastle from his worst enemies was a noble action, and her murmurless endurance of the pawn-shop, where her husband left her when he returned to his own country, was a splendid example of self-sacrifice and patience.
Her lengthy and carefully drawn up statements of her husband’s financial affairs testify to her capacity for business, and suggest the probability that she was of great help in restoring his fortunes. Indeed it may be that her talents were more suited for the high-stool of a clerk than for the arm-chair of a poet.
Walpole’s notice of the later years of the Newcastles’ life is severe. “What a picture of foolish nobility was this stately poetic couple, retired to their own little domain, and intoxicating one another with circumstantial flattery on what was of consequence to no mortal but themselves.” In all this there is a measure of truth; but unless they had retired to their own domain, which, by the way, was not “little,” and unless they had lived there economically, they could never have restored the fortunes of their family. Surely the atmosphere of Welbeck Abbey was more wholesome than that of the vicious and intriguing Court of Charles II; and, if they chose to amuse themselves with pens and paper, it can truly be said of them that how much soever they may have injured their own literary reputations by a rather injudicious use of those dangerous instruments, they did not injure those of other people, which is more than can be said of many other writers, both ancient and modern.