WOMAN'S RIGHTS AND DUTIES.
BY A WOMAN.
"Chose étrange d'aimer, et que pour ces maitresses,
Les hommes soient sujets à de telles foiblesses—
Tout le monde connoit leur imperfection,
Ce n'est qu'extravagance et qu'indiscrétion.
Leur esprit est méchant, et leur âme fragile,
Il n'est rien de plus foible et de plus imbécille,
Rien de plus infidèle—et malgrè tout cela,
Dans le monde on fait tout pour ces animaux-là."
Ecole des Femmes.
Such is the language of disappointment—but although a careful examination of ancient and modern manners might lead to a different conclusion, (for as the corruption of excessive refinement ends by placing her in the first condition, so does the brutal assertion of physical superiority begin by degrading her to the last,) woman is, we firmly believe, neither intended for a tyrant nor a slave—Not a slave, for till she is raised above the condition of a beast of burden, man, her companion, must continue barbarous—Not a tyrant, for terrible as are the evils of irresponsible authority, with whomsoever it may be vested, in her hands it becomes the most tremendous instrument that Providence in its indignation can employ to crush, degrade, and utterly to paralyze the nations within its reach. The former position will readily be conceded; and the history of Rome under the Emperors, or of France during the last century, affords but too striking an exemplification of the second. It is, then, of the last importance to society, that clear and accurate notions should prevail among us concerning the education of a being on whom all its refinement, and much of its prosperity, must depend. It is of the last importance, not only that the absurd notions which half-a-century ago deprived English ladies of education altogether, should be consigned to everlasting oblivion and contempt—not only that the system to which France is indebted for its Du Deffauds, Pompadours, and Du Barrys should be extinguished, but that principles well adapted to the habits and intelligence of man, in the most civilized state in which he has ever yet existed, should prevail among us, should float upon the very atmosphere we breathe, and be circulated in every vein that traverses the mighty fabric of society. Therefore it is, because we are deeply impressed with this conviction, that we hail with delight the appearance of a work so profound, eloquent, and judicious; combining in so rare an union so many kinds of excellence, as that which we now propose to the consideration of our readers. Since the days of Smith and Montesquieu, no more valuable addition has been made to moral science; and though the good taste and modesty of its author, has induced her to put, in the least obtrusive form, the wisdom and erudition—the least fragment of which would have furnished forth a host of modern Sciolists with the most ostentatious paragraphs—the deep thought and nervous eloquence by which almost every page of the volume before us is illustrated, sufficiently establish her title to rank among the most distinguished writers of this age and country. If, indeed, we were ungrateful enough to quarrel with any part of a work, the perusal of which has afforded us so much gratification, we should be disposed (in deference, however, rather to the opinions of others than our own) to alter the title that is prefixed to it. Many a grave and pompous gentleman, who is "free to confess," and "does not hesitate to utter" the dullest and most obvious commonplaces, would sit down to the perusal of a work entitled, "On the Government of Dependencies," or "Sermons on the Functions of Archdeacons and Rural Deans," though never so deficient in learning, vigour, and originality, who will reject with the supercilious ignorance of incurable stupidity, these volumes, in which the habits, the interests, the inalienable rights, the sacred duties of one half of the species, (and of that half to which, at the most pliant and critical period of life, the health, the disposition, the qualities, moral and intellectual, of the other half must of necessity be confided,) are discussed with exemplary fairness, and placed in the most luminous point of view. But we have detained our readers too long from the admirable work which it is our object to make known to them. It opens in the following manner:—
"It was once suggested by an eminent physiologist, that the greatest enjoyments of our animal nature might be those which, from their constancy, escape our notice altogether.
"His investigations had led him to think, that even the involuntary motions carried on in our system, were productive of pleasure; and that the act of respiration was probably attended by a sensation as delightful as the gratifications of the palate. It is certain that every sense is a source of unnoticed pleasures. Sound and light are agreeable in themselves, before their varied combinations have produced music to our ear, or conveyed the perceptions of form to our mind. Innumerable are the emotions of pleasure conveyed to the imagination and the senses, by the endless diversities of form, colour, and sound; and the unbought riches poured upon us from these sources, are more prolific of enjoyment, than any of the far-sought distinctions which stir the hopes and rivalries of men. Yet, on these and other spontaneous blessings, no one reflects, or even enumerates them among the sources of happiness, till some casual suspension of them revives sensibility to the delight they afford.
"Such are the lamentations, though rarely so eloquently uttered, which we daily hear on the loss of some possession, which, while held, was scarcely noticed; and could preserve its owner, neither from the gloom of apathy, nor the irritation of discontent.
"Were it not for this, the necessary effect of habit both in the physical and moral world, women might be expected to live in daily and hourly exultation, who have been born in a Christian and civilized country. Whatever theorists may have thought occasionally of the happiness of men in barbarous or savage conditions, no doubt at all can be entertained as to that of women. It is civilization which has taken the yoke from their neck, the scourge from their back, and the burden from their shoulders. It is Christianity chiefly which has raised them from the state of slaves or menials to that of citizens, and compelled their rough and unresisted tyrants to call up law in their defence; that potent spirit which they, who have evoked it, must ever after themselves submit to. Religion, which extends the sanctity of the marriage vow to the husband as well as to the wife, has rescued her from a condition in which her best and most tender affections were the source of her bitterest misery; a condition in which her only escape from a sense of suffering too unremitting for nature to endure, was in that mental degradation which produces insensibility to wrong. The instances of primitive communities, in which such injustice has not prevailed, are too few and far between, to form any solid objection to the truth of this general picture. The mere increase of numbers infallibly obliterates the fair but feeble virtues that originate in nothing but ignorance of ill; and the first inroads of want or discord, usually settle the doom of the weak and defenceless. In restoring to women their domestic dignity, religion has done more than every other cause towards shielding them from the consequences of weakness and dependence. From the dignified affections of the other sex, they have gradually acquired some social rights, and some share of that freedom, without which virtue itself can scarcely exist. Opinion, the offspring, not of resplendent genius, whose earliest fires burned indignantly against the tyrant and oppressor, but of a religion which preached the equality of all before God, has given them a share of those blessings, without which life is not worth possession. At length it has opened to them the portals of knowledge and wisdom, the gradual, but effective supports against degradation; and has sanctified its gifts by withholding from them every license that leads to vice, every knowledge that detracts from their purity, and every profession that would expose them to insult."
Then follows a masterly sketch of the condition of woman in uncivilized life, in which the subject is illustrated by the most apposite quotations from the works of different travellers and historians. It is the writer's opinion that in uncivilized life, the degradation of woman, though common, is not universal. The celebrated passage in Tacitus is quoted in support of this position; and among other less interesting extracts, is the following account of Galway by Hardiman, a country which, so great is the blessing of a paternal and judicious government, may furnish, in the nineteenth century, illustrations of uncivilized life, equally picturesque and striking with those which Tacitus has recorded in his day as familiar among the inhabitants of Pagan Germany.
"This colony, from time immemorial, has been ruled by one of their own body, periodically elected, who somewhat resembled the Brughaid or head village of ancient times, when every clan resided in its hereditary canton. This individual, who is decorated with the title of mayor, in imitation of the city, regulates the community according to their own peculiar customs and laws, and settles all fishery disputes. His decisions are so decisive, and so much respected, that the parties are seldom known to carry their differences before a legal tribunal, or to trouble the civil magistrate. They neither understand nor trouble themselves about politics, consequently, in the most turbulent times, their loyalty has never been questioned. Their mayor is no way distinguished from other villagers, except that his boat is decorated with a white sail, and may be seen when at sea, at which time he acts as admiral, with colours flying at the masthead, gliding through their fleet with some appearance of authority…. When on shore, they employ themselves in repairing their boats, sails, rigging, and cordage, in making, drying, and repairing their nets and spillets, in which latter part they are assisted by the women, who spin the hemp and yarn for their nets. In consequence of their strict attention to these particulars, very few accidents happen at sea, and lives are seldom lost. Whatever time remains after these avocations, they spend in regaling with whisky, and assembling in groups to discuss their maritime affairs, on which occasions they arrange their fishing excursions. When preparing for sea, hundreds of their women and children for days before crowd the strand, seeking for worms to bait the hooks. The men carry in their boats, potatoes, oaten cakes, fuel, and water, but never admit any spirituous liquors. Thus equipped, they depart for their fishing ground, and sometimes remain away several days. Their return is joyfully hailed by their wives and children, who meet them on the shore. The fish instantly becomes the property of the women, (the men, after landing, never troubling themselves further about it,) and they dispose of it to a poorer class of fishwomen, who retail it at market.
"The inhabitants of the Cloddagh are an unlettered race. They rarely speak English, and even their Irish they pronounce in a harsh, discordant tone, sometimes not intelligible to the townspeople. They are a contented, happy race, satisfied with their own society, and seldom ambitious of that of others. Strangers (for whom they have an utter aversion) are never suffered to reside among them. The women possess an unlimited control over their husbands, the produce of whose labour they exclusively manage, allowing the men little more money than suffices to keep the boat and tackle in repair; but they keep them plentifully supplied with whisky, brandy, and tobacco. The women seldom speak English, but appear more shrewd and intelligent in their dealings than the men; in their domestic concerns the general appearance of cleanliness is deserving of particular praise. The wooden ware, with which every dwelling is well stored, rivals in colour the whitest delft.
"At an early age they generally marry amongst their own clan. A marriage is commonly preceded by an elopement, but no disappointment or disadvantage from that circumstance has ever been known among them. The reconciliation with the friends usually takes place the next morning, the clergyman is sent for, and the marriage celebrated. The parents generally contrive to supply the price of a boat, or a share in one, as a beginning."
The writer then proceeds, in a strain of generous yet chastened energy, to comment on the false measure which people apply to the sufferings of others. Insensibility to wretchedness, or, as in the vocabulary of oppression it is called, content, is often a proof of nothing but that stupefaction of the faculties which is the natural result of long and blighting misery. A contented slave is a degraded man. His sorrow may be gone, but so is his understanding.
In the course of her enquiries into the condition of women under the Mahometan law, the author is led to make some reflections upon one by whom Mahometan manners were first presented in an attractive shape to the English public—a person celebrated for her friends, but still more celebrated for her enemies—known for her love, but famous for her hate—a girl without feeling, a woman without tenderness—a banished wife, a careless mother—on whom extraordinary wit, masculine sense, a clear judgment, and an ardent love of letters seem to have been lavished for no other purpose than to show that, without a good heart, they serve only to make their possessor the most contemptible of mankind. Lady Mary Wortley's heart was the receptacle of all meanness and sensuality—the prey of a selfishness as intense as rank, riches, a bad education, natural malignity, and the extremes of good and bad fortune, ever engendered in the breast of woman. The remarks on her character, in the volume before us, are, as might be expected, excellent.
The condition of women among the more polished nations of antiquity, is a subject which, if fully examined, would more than exhaust our narrow limits. It does not appear from Homer, says our author, that the condition of women was depressed. Achilles, in a very striking passage, declares that every wise and good man loves and is careful for his wife, and Hector, in the passage which Cicero is so fond of quoting, urges the opinion of
"Troy's proud dames, whose garments sweep the ground,"
as a motive for his conduct. However this may be, certain it is, that the feelings and affections of domestic life are portrayed by Homer with a degree of purity, truth, and pathos, that casts every other writer, Virgil not excepted, into the shade; and which, to carry the panegyric of human composition as far as it will go, he himself, in his most glorious passages, has never been able to surpass. It has been so long the fashion to represent Virgil as the sole master of the pathetic, that this assertion may appear to many paradoxical; and it is undoubtedly true, that the fourth book of the Aeneid cannot he read by any one of common sensibility without strong emotion; but how different is the lamentation of Andromache over her living husband, uttered in all the glow and consciousness of returned and "twice blest" love, from the raving of the slighted woman, abandoned by the lover whom she has too rashly trusted, and to whom she has too plainly become indifferent! How different is the character of the patriot warrior, the prop and bulwark of his country, sacrificing his life to delay that ruin which he knew it was beyond his power to avert—snatching, amid the bloody scenes around him, a moment for the indulgence of a father's pride and a husband's tenderness, from the perfidious paramour flying from the vengeance of the woman he had wronged!
And how noble is the simplicity of Andromache, how affecting the appeal in which, after reminding her husband that all else to which she was bound had been swept away, she tells him that, while he remains, her other losses are unfelt! Let us trace the episode. "She had not gone," the poet tells us, "to the mansions of her brothers or of her sisters, with their floating veils; neither had she gone to the shrine of Minerva, where the Trojan women strove to appease the terrible wrath of the fair-haired goddess. No. She had gone to the lofty tower of Ilium, for she had heard that the Trojans were sore harassed, and that the force of the Greeks was mighty; thither, like one bereft of reason, had she precipitated her steps, and the nurse followed with her child." Then follows that interview, which no one can read without passion, or think of without delight—that exquisite scene, in which the wife and mother pours out all her tenderness, her joy, her sadness, her pride, her terror, the memory of the past, and the presage of future sorrow, in an irresistible torrent of confiding love. Not less affecting is her husband's answer. Conscious of his impending doom, he replies, that "not the future misery of his countrymen, not that of Hecuba herself, and the royal Priam—not that of all his valiant brethren slain by their enemies, and trampled in the dust, give him such a pang as the thought of her distress." Then, as if to relieve his thoughts, he stretches out his hand towards his child, but the child shrinks backwards, scared at the brazen helm and waving crest—the father and the mother exchange a smile—Hector lays aside the blazing helmet, and, clasping his child in his arms, utters the noble prayer which Dryden has rendered with uncommon spirit and fidelity:—
"Parent of gods and men, propitious Jove,
And you, bright synod of the powers above,
On this my son your precious gifts bestow;
Grant him to love, and great in arms to grow,
To reign in Troy, to govern with renown,
To shield the people, and assert the crown:
That when hereafter he from war shall come,
And bring his Trojans peace and triumph home,
Some aged man, who lives this act to see,
And who in former times remember'd me,
May say, 'The son in fortitude and fame,
Outgoes the mark, and drowns his father's name;'
That at these words his mother may rejoice,
And add her suffrage to the public voice."
"Thus having said, he placed the boy in the arms of his beloved wife, and she received him on her fragrant breast, sailing amid her tears;" her husband uttered a few words of melancholy consolation, "and Andromache went homewards, weeping, and often turning as she went." There is but one passage in any work, ancient or modern, which can bear comparison with this, and that is one in the Odyssey, in which is described the meeting of Ulysses and Penelope; and yet some unfortunate people, who write commentaries on the classics, only to show how completely nature has denied them the faculty of taste, affirm that these passages were written by different people. It is curious to what a pitch pedantry and dulness may be brought by diligent cultivation.
As the fanatics of the East, to prove their continence, frequented the society of women under the most trying circumstances, so these gentlemen seem to study the writers of antiquity with the view of showing that their understandings are equally inaccessible. In one respect the analogy does not hold good. History tells us that the fanatics sometimes sunk under the temptations to which they exposed themselves; but these gentlemen have never, in any one instance, yielded to the influence of taste or genius. Zenophon, in a beautiful treatise, has given an account of the manner in which an Athenian endeavoured to mould the character of his wife, and to this we would refer such of our readers as wish for more ample knowledge on the subject. There is one circumstance, however, which we the rather mention, as it has not found its way into the work before us, and as it furnishes the most conclusive and irresistible evidence of the value set upon matrimonial happiness at Athens, and of the servile vassalage to which women, in that most polished of all cities, were reduced. By the law of Athens, a father without sons might bequeath his property away from his daughter, but the person to whom the property was bequeathed was obliged to marry her. This was reasonable enough; but the same principle, that of keeping the inheritance in the stock to which it belonged, occasioned another law—if the father left his estate to his daughter, and if the daughter inherited his property after the father's death, her nearest male relation in the descending line, the [Greek: agchioteus], might, though she was married to a living husband, lay claim to her, institute a suit for her recovery, force her from her husband's arms, and make her his wife.
Such a law must, alone, have been fatal to that domestic purity which we justly consider the basis of social happiness—the very word, [Greek: hetairai], which the Athenians enjoyed to denote the most degraded of all women, if it proves the exquisite refinement of that wonderful people, serves also to show how different were the associations with which, among them, that class was connected. Can we wonder at this? Under that glorious heaven, such women might, when they chose, behold the statues of Phidias and the pictures of Zeuxis; they could listen to the wisdom of Socrates, or they might form part of the crowd, hushed in raptured silence, round the rhapsodist, as he recited the immortal lines of Homer—or round Demosthenes, as he poured upon a rival, worthy of himself, the burning torrent of his more than human eloquence.
In their hearing the mightiest interests were discussed—the subtle questions of the Academy propounded—the snares of the sophist exposed—the sublime thoughts and actions of heroes and demigods, embodied in the most glorious poetry, were daily exhibited to their view; while the wife, occupied solely with petty cares and trifling objects, without charms to win the love, or dignity to command the esteem, of her husband, was condemned, within the narrow walls of the Gynaeceum, (of which the drawings of Herculaneum and Pompeii may enable us to form some notion,) to drag out the insipid round of her monotonous existence.
True the Hetairai were stigmatized by law—but, as opinion was on their side, they might well submit to legal condemnation and formal censure, when they saw every day the youth, the intellect, the eloquence, the philosophy, and the dignity of Athens crowding round their feet. At Rome, the wife was not subject to the same rigorous seclusion, she was not cut off from all possibility of improvement; her influence was gradually felt, her rights were tacitly extended, and long after the letter of the law reduced her to the condition of a slave, she held and exercised the privileges of a citizen. At Rome, domestic virtues were more considered, domestic ties were held in great esteem. The family was the basis of the state. The existence of the Roman was not altogether public, it was not merely intellectual; in what Grecian poet after Homer shall we find lines that convey such an idea of domestic happiness as these?—
"Præterea neque jam domus accipiet te læta, neque uxor
Optima, nec dulces occurrent oscula nati
Præripere—et tacitâ pectus dulcedinet tangent."
There is no event to which women are more indebted for the improved situation they hold among us than the propagation of Christianity. It was reserved for religion to urge the weakness of woman as a reason for treating her, not with tenderness only, but with respect; it was reserved for religion to bring the charities that are lovely in private life into public service; to break down the barriers which had so long separated the husband from the citizen, and to pour around the private hearth the light which, up to the time of its revelation, had been reflected almost exclusively from the school of the philosopher or the forum of the republic, unless in a few rare and favoured instances when it had shed its radiance over the cell of the captive and the deathbed of the patriot. It was for religion to inculcate that purity of heart, without which mere forbearance from sensuality is a virtue which may be prized in the precincts of the seraglio, but to which true honour is almost indifferent. Nothing less powerful than such an influence prescribing a new life, and commanding its votaries to be new creatures, could have wrenched from their holdings prejudices as old as the society in which they flourished. Our limits will not allow us to descant at any length on the condition of women during the early ages of Christianity; but we transcribe on this subject, from a recent work, a passage which we are sure our readers will peruse with pleasure.
"Ce qui rendit les moeurs des familles Chrétiennes si graves, ce qui les conserva si chastes, c'est ce qui a toujours exercé sur les moeurs en général l'influence la plus profonde, l'exemple des femmes. Douées d'une delicatesse d'organes, qui rend, pour ainsi dire, leur intelligence plus accessible à la voix d'un monde supérieur, leur coeur plus sensible à toutes ces émotions qui enfantent les vertus, et qui élèvent l'homme terrestre au-dessus de la sphère étroite de la vie présente, les femmes, étrangères à l'histoire des travaux speculatifs du genre humain, sont toujours, dans les révolutions morales et religieuses, les premières à saisir, et à propager ce qui est grand, beau, et céleste. Avec une chaleur entrainante elles embrassèrent la cause Chrétienne, et s'y dévouèrent en héroines, depuis l'annonciation du Sauveur jusqu'à sa mort; en effet, elles furent les premières aux pieds de sa croix, les premières à son sépulcre. Présentant avec leur tact si prompt et si fin, tout ce que cette cause leur déferait d'élévation morale et d'avantages sociaux, elles s'y attachèrent avec un intérêt toujours croissant. Depuis les saintes femmes de l'évangile et la marchande de pourpre de Thyatire jusqu'à l'impératrice Hélène, elles furent les protectrices les plus zélées des idées Chrétiennes. Leur zèle ne fut point sans sacrifices, mais avec empressement elles renoncèrent à leurs goûts les plus chers, à la parure et aux élégances du luxe, pour rivaliser avec les hommes les plus sages de la société Chrétienne. Quelques rares exceptions ne se font remarquer que pour relever tant de mérite."—Matter, Hist. du Christianime, Vol. I.
"The tendency of this creed," to use the words of our author, "is to direct the aim and purposes of mankind to whatever can exalt human nature and improve human happiness. It represents us as gardeners in a vineyard, or servants entrusted with a variety of means, who are not 'to keep their talent in a napkin,' but to exert their skill and ingenuity to employ it to the best advantage. The moral principles themselves are fixed and unchangeable; but their application to the circumstances by which we are surrounded, must depend very much on the degree in which reason has been exercised. By no imaginable instruction could the mind be so tutored, as to see through all the errors and prejudices of its times at once, but the principles possess in themselves a power of progression. The generosity of one time will be but justice in another; the temperance that brings respect and distinction in one age, will be but decorum in one more civilized, yet the principles are at all times the same."
It is difficult to read without a smile some of the passages in which the dress and manners of the first ages are described by the Fathers of the Church; the fair hair, (our classical readers will recollect the
"Nigrum flavo crinem abscondente galero"
of the Roman satirist,) which the daughters of the South borrowed from their Celtic and German neighbours, seems especially to have excited their indignation. Tertullian, in his treatise "De Cultu Foeminarum," declaims with his usual fiery rhetoric against this habit. "I see some women," says the African, "who dye their hair with yellow; they are ashamed of their very nation, that they are not the natives of Gaul or Germany. Evil and most disastrous to them is the omen which their fiery head portends, while they consider such abomination graceful." This charitable hint of future reprobation, savage as it appears, seems to have been much admired by the Fathers; it is repeated by St Jerome and St Cyprian with equal triumph. Well, indeed, might Theophilus of Antioch, in his letter to Autolycus, place the Christian opinions concerning women in startling contrast with the revolting scheme proposed in relation to them by the most refined philosopher of antiquity. Well might the matrons of Antioch refuse to gratify Julian by a sacrifice to gods whose votaries had steeped their sex in impurity and degradation. The death of Hypatia is indeed a blot in Christian annals, but she fell the victim of an infuriated multitude; and how often had the Proconsul and the Emperor beheld, unmoved, the arena wet with the blood of Christian virgins, and the earth blackened with their ashes! Indeed, the deference paid to weakness is the grand maxim, the practical application of which, in spite of some fantastic notions, and some most pernicious errors that accompanied it, entitles chivalry to our veneration, and prevented the dark ages from being one scene of unmixed violence and oppression. The flashes of generosity that gild with a momentary splendour the dreadful scenes of feudal tyranny, were struck out by the force of this principle acting upon the most rugged nature in the most superstitious ages. While the fire that had consumed the surprised city was slaked in the blood of its miserable inhabitants, the distress of high-born beauty, or the remonstrances of the defenceless priest, often arrested the career of the warrior, who viewed the slaughter of unoffending peasants and of simple burghers with as much indifference as that of the wild-boar or the red-deer which it was his pastime and his privilege to destroy. Who does not remember the beautiful passage in Tasso, where the crusaders burst into tears at the sight of the holy sepulchre?—
"Nudo ciascuno il pie calca il sentiero,
Ch'l'esempio de duci ogn' altromuove
Serico fregio d'or, piuma e criniero
Superbo dal suo capo ognon rimuove,
E d'insieme del cor l'abito altero
Depone, e calde e pie lagrime piove."
We now enter into the main object of the work, the condition of women in modern times; and the passage which introduces the subject is so luminous and eloquent, that we cannot resist the pleasure of laying it before our readers without mutilation.
"To pursue the history of woman through the ages of misrule and violence that corrupted the spirit of chivalry, would be useless. It is sufficiently evident, that in proportion as the vices of barbarism renewed their dominion, the condition of women would be more or less affected by their evils. But, on the whole, society was improving: two great events were preparing to engage the attention of Europe—the struggles for religious freedom and the revival of learning. These produced effects on the human mind very different from those of any revolutions that had taken place during the age of barbarism.
"While the opinion reigned absolute, that war was the most important affair of life and the most honourable pursuit, the tendency of society was towards destruction. All the virtue consistent with so false a principle was, perhaps, brought forth by chivalry; but in the long run, the false principle overruled the force of the generous spirit, and chivalry sank like a meteor that owed its splendour to surrounding darkness. Its spirit gave an impulse to opinion and sentiment, but its errors and ignorance disabled it from supplying any corrective to the bad institutions and mistaken policy which fostered barbarism. It was not every mind that was capable of imbibing the generous sentiments of chivalry, but ferocious passions could rarely fail to be stimulated by the idolatry of war, and the contempt for civil employments it produced. Among men, poor, restless, and to a great degree irresponsible, the craving for distinction excited by chivalry was a dangerous passion. No very general change over the face of society could be reasonably expected, from the attempts to engraft a spirit of gentleness and beneficence upon a principle of war and destruction. The spirit was right, but the principle was wrong. It was just the reverse in the next enthusiasm which seized the minds of mankind. In the struggles for religious freedom which followed, the principle was right, but it was pursued in the horrible spirit of persecution. Men, ready to die for the right of professing the truth, could not divest themselves of that persecuting spirit towards others, which was leading themselves to the stake. But there is a vigour in a right principle which gradually clears men's eyes of their prejudices. The dire and mistaken means by which successive reformers defended each his own opinion, were abandoned, and men began to perceive that civil and religious liberty were of more use to society than martial feats or extended conquests; and that it is still more important to learn how to reason than how to fight.
"The tendency of this principle was towards social improvement, and civilization began to make progress.
"Before the extinction of chivalry, the airy throne on which women had been raised was broken down; but the effects of her elevation were never obliterated. There remained on the surface of society a tone of gallantry which tended to preserve some recollection of the station she had once held. As civilization advanced, the idea that women might be disposed of like property, seemed to be nearly abandoned all over Europe; but their subsequent condition partook (as might be expected in the case of dependent beings) of the character prevailing in each country. The grave temper and morbid jealousy of the Spaniards, reduced them almost to Eastern seclusion."
We entreat the attention of our readers to the following remark, which explains, in some degree, the mediocrity that characterizes the present day:—
"In the first ages after the rise of literature, the very want of that multitude of second-rate books we now possess, had the effect of compelling those who learned any thing to betake themselves to studies of a solid nature; and there was consequently less difference then, between the education of the two sexes, than now. The reader will immediately recollect the instances of Lady Jane Grey, Mrs Hutchinson, and others of the same class, and will feel that it is quite fair to assume, that many such existed when a few came to be known."
It was during the reign of the last princes of the House of Valois, that the women of the French court began to exercise that malignant and almost universal influence, which, for a while, poisoned the well-springs of refinement and civility. Eclipsed for a while by the mighty luminaries which, during the life of Louis XIII., and the early part of Louis XIV.th's reign, were lords of the ascendant when they had sunk beneath the horizon, their constellation again blazed forth with greater force and more disastrous splendour. Hence the Dragonnades, the destruction of Port-Royal, the persecution of the Jansenists, the death of Racine, the disgrace of Fénélon. Hence, in the reign of Louis XV., orgies that Messalina would have blushed to share; while cruelties[A] of which Suwarrow would hardly have been the instrument, were employed to lash into a momentary paroxysm nerves withered by debauchery. Here let us pause for a moment, to remark upon the effect which false opinions may produce upon the happiness and well-being of distant generations. Nothing is so common as for trivial superficial men—the class to which the management of empires is for the most part entrusted—to ridicule theories, and, by a mode reasoning which would place any cabin boy far above Sir Isaac Newton, to insist upon the mechanical parts of government, and the routine of ordinary business, as the sole objects entitled to notice and consideration—
"O curvæ in terris animæ, et coelestium inanes!"
[Footnote A: This does not apply to Louis XV. personally.]
We would fain ask these practical people—for such is the eminently inappropriate metaphor by which they rejoice to be distinguished—we would fain ask them (if it be consistent with their profound respect for practice to pay some attention to experience) to cast their eyes upon the proceedings and manners of the French court (wild and chimerical as such an appeal will no doubt appear to them) during the dominion of Catharine of Medicis and her offspring, those execrable deceivers, corrupters, and executioners of their people. To what are the almost incredible abominations, familiar as household words to the French court of that day, to be ascribed? To what are the persecutions, perjuries, the massacres that pollute the annals of France during that period, to be attributed? To a false theory. Catharine of Medicis brought into France the practical atheism of Machiavelli's prince—the Bible, as she blasphemously called it, of her class. The maxims which, when confined to the petty courts of Italy, did not undermine the prosperity of any considerable portion of the human race, when disseminated among a valiant, politic, and powerful nation, brought Iliads of desolation in their train. We subjoin Jeanne d'Allrep's account of the private manners of the court of Charles IX:—
"J'ai trouvé votre lettre fort à mon gré—je la montrerai à madame, si je puis; quant à la peinture, je l'enverrai querir à Paris; elle est belle et bien avisée, et de bonne grâce, mais nourrie en la plus maudite et corrompue compagnie qui fut jamais, car je n'en vois point qui ne s'en sente. Votre cousine la marquise (l'épouse du jeune Prince de Condé) en est tellement changée qu'il n'y a apparence de religion en elle; si non d'autant qu'elle ne va point à la messe; car au reste de sa façon de vivre, hormis l'idolâtrie, elle fait comme les Papistes; et ma soeur la Princesse (de Condé) encore pis. Je vous l'écris privément, le porteur vous dira comme le roi s'émancipe—c'est pitié; je ne voudrois pour chose du monde que vous y fussiez pour y demeurer. Voilà pourquoi je désire vous marier, et que vous et votre femme vous vous retiriez de cette corruption; car encore que je la croyois bien grande, je la trouve encore davantage. Ce ne sont pas les hommes ici qui prient les femmes—ce sont les femmes qui prient les hommes; si vous y étiez, vous n'en échapperiez jamais sans une grande grâce de Dieu."
Thus women were alternately tools and plotters, idols and slaves. The ornaments of a court became the scourges of a nation; their influence was an influence made up of falsehood, made up of cruelty, made up of intrigue, of passions the most unbridled, and of vices the most detestable, and it seems to the student of history, in this wild and dreadful era as if all that was generous, upright, noble, and benevolent—as if faith and honour, and humanity and justice, were foreign and unnatural to the heart of man. But let us turn to our author.
"But the times were about to change. The great and stirring contests in religion and politics, which had given such scope to the deep fervour of the British character, subsided, as if the actors were breathless from their past exertions. The struggle for freedom sank into acquiescence in the dominion of the most worthless of mankind; and zeal for religion fled before the spirit of banter and sneer. The enthusiasm of 'fierce wars and faithful loves,' of piety and of freedom, were succeeded by the reign of profligacy and levity.
"During that disastrous period, the sordid and servile vices seem to have kept pace with the wildest licentiousness; and the dark and stern persecutions in Scotland form a fearful contrast with the bacchanalian revels of the court. The effects on the character and estimation of the female sex, sustain all that has been said upon the connexion of their interests with the elevation of morals. It became the habit to satirize and despise them, and on this they have never entirely recovered. The demoralization which led to it was, indeed, too much opposed to the temper of the English to be permanent; but women, for a long time after, ceased to keep pace with their age. Notwithstanding the numerous exceptions which must always have existed in a free and populous country like England, where literature had made progress, it is certain, that in the days of Pope and Addison, the women, in general, were grossly ignorant.
"The tone of gallantry and deference which had arisen from chivalry, still remained on the surface, but its language was that of cold, unmeaning flattery; and, from being the arbiters of honour, they became the mere ministers of amusement. They were again consigned to that frivolity, into which they relapse as easily as men do into ferocity. The respect they inspired, was felt individually or occasionally, but not for their sex. Any thing serious addressed to them, was introduced with an apology, or in the manner we now address children whom we desire to flatter. They were treated and considered as grown children. In the writings addressed to them expressly for their instruction in morals, or the conduct of life, though with the sincerest desire for their welfare, nothing is proposed to them that can either exalt their sentiments, invigorate their judgment, or give them any desire to leave the world better than they found it. They inculcated little beyond the views and the duties of a decent servant. Views and duties, indeed, very commendable as far as they go, but lamentable when offered as the standard of morals and thought for half the human species; that half too, on whom chiefly depends the first, the often unalterable, bent given to the character of the whole."
The dignity of character which rivets our attention on the "high dames and gartered knights" of the days of Elizabeth, the simplicity and earnestness and lofty feeling, which lent grace to prejudice and chastened error into virtue, were exchanged, in the days of Charles II., for undisguised corruption and insatiable venality, for license without generosity, persecution without faith, and luxury without refinement. Grammont's animated Mémoires are a complete, and, from the happy unconsciousness of the writer to the vices he portrays, a faithful picture of the court, to which the description Polydore Virgil gives of a particular family, "nec vir fortis nec foemina casta," was almost literally applicable.
Various as are the beauties of style with which this work abounds—beauties which, to borrow the phrase of Cicero, rise as naturally from the subject as a flower from its stem—we doubt whether it contains a more felicitous illustration than that which we are about to quote. The reader must bear in mind that the object of the writer is to establish the proposition, that there is an average inferiority of women to men in certain qualities, which, slight as it may appear, or altogether as it may vanish, in particular instances, is, on the whole, incontestable, and according to which the transactions of daily life are distributed.
"All inconvenience is avoided by a slight inferiority of strength and abilities in one of the sexes. This gradually develops a particular turn of character, a new class of affections and sentiments that humanize and embellish the species more than any others. These lead at once, without art or hesitation, to a division of duties, needed alike in all situations, and produce that order without which there can be no social progression. In the treatise of The Hand, by Sir Charles Bell, we learn that the left hand and foot are naturally a little weaker than the right; the effect of this is, to make us more prompt and dexterous than we should otherwise be. If there were no difference at all between the right and left limbs, the slight degree of hesitation which hand to use or which foot to put forward, would create an awkwardness that would operate more or less every moment of our lives, and the provision to prevent it seems analogous to the difference nature has made between the strength of the sexes."
The domain of woman is the horizon where heaven and earth meet—a sort of land debatable between the confines where positive institutions end and intellectual supremacy begins. It includes the whole region over which politeness should extend, as well as a large portion of the territories over which the fine arts hold their sway.
Those lighter and more shifting features which elude the grasp of the moralist, and escape the pencil of the historian, though they impress upon every age a countenance and expression of its own, it is her undoubted province to survey. Consequently, if not for the
"Troublous storms that toss
The private state, and render life unsweet,"
yet for whatever of elegance or simplicity is wanting in the intercourse of society, for all that is cumbrous in its proceedings, for any bad taste, and much for any coarseness that it tolerates, woman, as European manners are constituted, is exclusively responsible. The habits of daily intercourse represent her faults and virtues as naturally as a shadow is cast by the sun, or the image of the tree that overhangs the lake is reflected from its undisturbed and silent waters. Where the desire of wealth and respect for rank engross an excessive share of her thoughts, conversation will be insipid; and instead of that, "nature ondoyante," that disposition to please and be pleased, which is the essence of good nature and the foundation of good taste—instead of frankness and urbanity, youth will engraft on its real ignorance the dulness of affected stupidity—will assume an air of selfish calculation—of arrogance at one time and servility at another—debased itself, and debasing all around it. When, on the contrary, whatever may be their real sentiments, the external demeanour of men to each other is such as benevolence, gratitude, and equity would dictate—and we do mean this phrase to include Russian manners—where, whatever may be the principles that ferment within, the surface of society is brilliant and harmonious—where, if the better politeness which dwells in the heart be wanting, the imitation of it which springs from the head is habitual—women are entitled to the praise of exact taste and skilful discrimination. There are women whom the world elevates, only afterwards the more effectually to humble. For a time the best and wisest submit to their caprices, study their humour, are governed by their wishes—every one avoids as a crime the slightest appearance of collision with any motive that, for the moment, it may suit their purpose to entertain—a smile upon their face is hailed with rapture, any faint proof that humanity is not dead within their breasts draws down the most enthusiastic applause. During their hour of empire, people are grateful to them for not being absolutely intolerable—when they deviate into the least appearance of courtesy or good nature, they are angels. Their sun sets, and they soon learn what it is to be a fallen tyrant. The woman who pleases at first, and as your acquaintance advances gains the more in your esteem, is the most charming of all companions; the countenance of such a person is the most agreeable of all sights, and her voice the most musical of all sounds. "Une belle femme qui a les qualités d'un honnête homme est-ce qu'il y a au monde d'un commerce plus delicieux; l'on trouve en elle tout le mérite des deux sexes."
"In the heart of the best woman," says a German writer, "there glows a shovelful, at least, of infernal embers; in that of the worst, there is a little corner of Paradise."
The real benefits which depend on the influence of the softer sex are thus described:—
"One of the peculiar offices of women is to refine society. They are very much shielded by their sex from the stern duties of men, and from that intercourse with the basest part of mankind which is opposed to the humanizing influence of mental cultivation. On them, the improvement of society in these respects chiefly depends; and they who consider the subject with the views here offered, will become more and more convinced of the service they might render. Manners are, in truth, of great importance. If real refinement be a merit, it is surely desirable that it should show itself in the general deportment. Real vulgarity is the expression of something mean or coarse in sentiments or habits. It betrays the want of fine moral perceptions. The peculiarities in manner and deportment, which proceed from the selfishness of the great world, when stripped of the illusory influence of their apparent refinement, become grossly offensive. A cold repulsive manner, such as is commonly assumed by persons in high life, is sometimes a necessary shield against the pushing familiarity of underbred persons. Their tasteless imitations of habits and manners which do not belong to their station or character, deserve the ridicule they meet with. The most offensive form vulgarity can take, is an affectation of the follies and vices of high life. It is true that the notion of vulgarity is affixed, in the fine world, to many trifling modes of dress and deportment, which in themselves have no demerit whatever, except that something opposed to them has acquired an ephemeral propriety from the fancy of the great. But in real good breeding there is always a reason. It is far too little attended to in England in any class, though, from acting as a continual corrective to selfish and unsocial affections, it is peculiarly requisite in all. Good manners consist in a constant maintenance of self-respect, accompanied by attention and deference to others; in correct language, gentle tones of voice, ease, and quietness in movements and action. They repress no gaiety or animation which keeps free of offence; they divest seriousness of an air of severity or pride. In conversation, good manners restrain the vehemence of personal or party feelings, and promote that versatility which enables people to converse readily with strangers, and take a passing interest in any subject that may be addressed to them."
The writer takes occasion to regret the narrow spirit which prevents our nobility, or, to speak more properly, our fashionable coteries, from acquiring a healthier tone, by mixing with societies in which habits of more vigorous thought predominate. In France, to whatever degree frivolity may be carried, a French lady would be ashamed not to affect an interest in the great writers by whom her country has been ennobled; and to betray an ignorance of their works, or an indifference to their renown, would be considered a proof not only of the greatest stupidity, but of bad taste and unrefined habits. Here we are distinguished unfavourably from our neighbours—exceptions, of course, there must always be—but in general to betray an acquaintance with any literature beyond the last novel, or the current trash and gossip of the day, might provoke the charge of pedantry, but at any rate would fail in exciting the slightest sympathy. Hence men of letters, and women of letters, form a caste by themselves much to their own disadvantage, and still more to the injury of those to the improvement of whom they might imperceptibly contribute; hence the statesman, or the lawyer, or the writer, generally keeps aloof from the great world, which he leaves to idle young men and aged coxcombs; or, if he enters it, takes care to abstain from those topics on which his conversation would be most natural, instructing, and entertaining. Instances, indeed, may be found, where men, eminent for science and literature, or of high professional reputation, inflamed with a distempered appetite for fashionable society, "drag their slow lengths along" among the guardsmen and dowagers who frequent such scenes; but they are rather tolerated than encouraged, and the sacrifices by which they purchase their admission into the dullest society of Europe are so numerous, their appearance is so mortifying, and the effect produced upon themselves so pernicious, that hitherto such instances have served not as models to imitate, but as bywords to deter. Instead of improving others, they degrade themselves; instead of inspiring the frivolous with nobler aims and better principles, they condescend to be the echoes of imbecility; instead of raising the standard of conversation, they yield implicitly to any signal, however corrupt, worthless, or utterly unreasonable may be the quarter from which it proceeds, that the most submissive votaries of fashion watch for and obey. The system is denounced by our author in the following vigorous and eloquent passage:—
"The assembly-room or dinner-table is the very focus of care and anxiety, so that a funereal dulness often overhangs it; and there, where there is the greatest amount of money, time, and contrivance expended on pleasure—there is least animation of spirits. For one who is pleased, a dozen are chewing the cud of some petty annoyance, and the flow of spirits excited and animated by rapid interchange of ideas is scarcely known. When it occurs, it is seldom owing to those who live for dissipation, but to men whom the duties of office compel to work very hard. Notwithstanding their wealth, the pursuits of ambition compel them to become men of business, and the elasticity of their minds is preserved. That languid and depressed condition which cankers the very heart of social enjoyment, loses its solemn character on occasions of disappointment and vexation. Its pleasures are not cheerful, but its distresses are ludicrous, and are felt to be so. Each laughs at his neighbour's mortifications, and the consciousness he is supplying the same malicious amusement in his turn, does not take the sting from his own griefs when they arise.
"Nor is it merely as destructive of social enjoyment, that the habits of the great world are unfriendly to happiness. It is not the place for those who have warm imaginations and tender hearts. There is scarcely any circumstance in which that sphere differs more from others, than in the deficiency of strong affections. The chances are many against their existence; and if a woman be born to move in the haunts of the worldly, it were almost cruel to snatch her from that immersion in their follies which may serve to stifle the pangs of disappointed affection. For after all that can be said of the misery of its empty pursuits and corrupted tastes, the disappointments that end its petty passions, and the mortifications that cling to its apparent splendours, sorrows like those bear no comparison with tears of anguish shed by the grave of love. Surrounding pleasures, even the tranquil and elevating beauty of external nature, seem but a mockery when offered in place of the one thing needful—perfect and overflowing affection. The exterior decorum and attention on the part of an altered husband, which betrays to the world no dereliction of morals but what its easy code passes over as a right, is no substitute for love. Not unfrequently there is something almost appalling in the sense of solitude, which on occasions of sickness or retirement oppresses a young woman, who to all appearance is overwhelmed with attendance. The hand is not there that would render every other superfluous. A voice is wanting, whose absence leaves the silence and horror of death. The eyes are missed, whose glances first called forth the fervour of her affections from their peaceful sleep; or, if looking on her for a moment, they express nothing but indifference. These are the occasions that dispel the laboured illusion, wherewith, under the garb of business, or cares, or natural manner, she had sought to disguise from herself the marks of an estranged heart. In these sad and desolate hours her memory retraces her early years, her mother's tender watchfulness, and the soft voices of sisters contending for their place by her bedside. The contrast with her present stately solitude bursts resistless through every effort to repel it; and life and youth, with their long futurity, present her with nothing but a frightful chasm."
"Alas! alas my song is sad;
How should it not be so,
When he, who used to make me glad,
Now leaves me in my woe?
With him my love, my graciousness,
My beauty, all are vain;
I feel as if some guiltiness
Had mark'd me with its stain.
"One sweet thought still has power o'er me,
In this my heart's great need;
'Tis, that I ne'er was false to thee,
Dear friend, in word or deed:
I own that nobler virtues fill
Thy heart, love only mine;
Yet why are all thy looks so chill
Till they on others shine?
"Oh! long-loved friend, I marvel much
Thy heart is so severe,
That it will yield not to the touch
Of love and sorrow's tear.
No, no! it cannot be, that thou
Should seek another's love;
Oh! think upon our early vow,
And thou wilt faithful prove.
"Thy virtues—pride, thy lofty fame,
Assures me thou art true,
Though fairer ones than I may claim
Thy hand, and deign to sue.
But think, beloved one, that, to bless
With perfect blessing, thou
Must seek for trusting tenderness:
Remember then our vow!"
"Collectively," says our author, "women might do much to remove the national stigma of leaving men of science and letters neglected. But their education is seldom such as enables them to know the great importance of science and literature to human improvement; and they are rarely brought up to regard it as any part of their duty to promote the interests of society. They would not, indeed, be able directly to reward men of talent by employment or honours, but they might make them acquainted with those who could; at all events, mere social distinction, the attention and approbation of our fellow creatures, is in itself an advantage to men who seldom possess that passport to English respect—wealth. Though learning is tacitly discouraged in women, yet the access to every species of knowledge requisite to direct their efforts wisely and well, is as open to them as to men. With this power of forming the mind of the rising generation, this influence over the opinions, the morals, and the tastes of society, this direct power in promoting objects both of private benevolence and national importance—with so many advantages, how is it that women are still exposed to so many sufferings, from dependence, oppression, mortification, and contempt? why are their opinions yet sneered at? why is their influence rather deprecated than sought? Is it not that they have never learnt even the selfish policy of connecting themselves with the spirit of moral and intellectual advancement? Is it not because their liberty, their privileges, their power, have proceeded in many respects, less from a spirit of justice in the other sex, or a sense of moral fitness, than from the love of pleasure and luxury, of which women are the best promoters?"
In England, these evils are peculiarly great; for in England they are without compensation. It is possible to imagine such brilliant conversation, such varied wit, such graceful manners, such apparent gentleness, that would stifle the complaints of the moralist, and cause the half-uttered expostulation to die away upon his lips. So we can conceive that Arnaud and Nicole may have listened to the enchanting discourse of Madame de Sevigne, and under an influence so irresistible, have forborne to scan with severity the faults, glaring as they were, of the system to which she belonged. But with us the case is different—compare the English lady in her country-house, hospitable to her guests, benevolent to her dependents, as a wife spotless, as a mother most devoted, caring for all around her, dispensing education, relieving distress, encouraging merit, the guard of innocence, the shame of guilt, active, contented, gracious, exemplary: and see the same person in London—her frame worn out with fatigue, her mind ulcerated with petty mortifications, her brow clouded, her look hardened, her eye averted from unprofitable friends, her tone harsh, her demeanour restless, her whole being changed: and were there no higher motive, were it a question of advantage and convenience only, were dignity, and the good opinion of others, and consideration in the world, alone at stake, can any one hesitate as to which situation a wife or daughter should prefer? We should, indeed, be sorry if our demeanour in those vast crowds where English people flock together, rather, as it would seem, to assert a right than to gratify an inclination, were to be taken as an index of our national character—the want of all ease and simplicity, those essential ingredients of agreeable society, which distinguish these dreary meetings, have been long unfortunately notorious. No nation is so careful of the great, or so indifferent to the lesser, moralities of life as the English; and in no country is society, indebted, perhaps, to polished idleness for its greatest charms, more completely misunderstood. Too busy to watch the feelings of others, and too earnest to moderate our own, that true politeness which pays respect to age, which strives to put the most insignificant person in company on a level with the most considerable—virtues which our neighbours possess in an eminent degree,—are, except in a few favoured instances, unknown among us; while affectation, in other countries the badge of ignorance and vulgarity, is in ours, even in its worst shape, when it borrows the mien of rudeness, and impertinence, and effrontery, the appanage of those whose station is most conspicuous, and whose dignity is best ascertained. There is more good breeding in the cottage of a French peasant than in all the boudoirs of Grosvenor Square.
But God forbid that a word should escape from us which should seem to place the amusements of society, or the charms of conversation, in competition with those stern virtues which are the guardians of an English hearth! The austere fanaticism of the Puritans, tainted with hypocrisy as it was, was preferable a thousand times to the orgies of the Regent and the Parc-aux-Cerfs. If purity and refined society be, indeed, incompatible—if the love of freedom and active enterprise necessarily exclude the grace and softness which lessen, or at least teach us to forget, the burden of existence, let us be what we are; and, indeed, it is the opinion of many, that the rant of social pleasure is the price we pay for the excellence of our political institutions. It is because before the law all men are equal, that in the world so much care is taken to show that they are different. If to this we add the mercantile habits of our countrymen, the enormous wealth which their pursuits enable them to accumulate—the great honours which are the reward of successful industry and ambition—the absurd value annexed to technical distinctions—the manner in which, in our as in all free countries, those distinctions are conferred—and a certain disposition to sneer at any chivalrous, or elevated feeling, from which few of our ladies are exempt—we shall find it easy to account for the cold, stiff, ungraceful, harsh, and mercenary habits which disfigure, to the astonishment of all foreigners, the patrician class of English society. Nothing, indeed, can be less graceful than the frivolity of an Englishman. Naturally grave, serious, contemplative, if his angry stars have endowed him with enormous wealth, he carries into the pursuit of trifles the same solemnity and perseverance which, had he been more fortunately situated, would have been employed in a professional career—he carries a certain degree of gravity into his follies and his vices; as Pope, no less keen an observer than finished a poet, observed, he
"Judicious sups, and greatly daring dines"—
devotes himself to an eternal round of puerile follies, with a pompous self-importance that would be ludicrous were it exhibited in the discharge of the noblest and most sacred duties. Plate and wine seem his religion, and a well-furnished room his morality—his dinners engross his thoughts—his field sports are a nation's care. He writes books on arm-chairs, hunts with the most ineffable self-sufficiency, and talks of his dogs and horses as Howard or Clarkson might speak of the jails they had visited, and the mourners they had set free. He commits errors with a stolid air of deliberation, which the reckless passions of boiling youth could hardly palliate, but which, when perpetrated as a title to fashion, and as a passport to society, no epithets that contempt can suggest are vehement enough to stigmatize. The Englishman's vice has a business-like air with it that is intolerable—there is no illusion, no refinement—it is coarse, direct, groveling brutality—it wears its own hideous aspect with no garnish or disguise; and how seldom, even among that sex which these volumes are intended to instruct, does the brow wreathed with roses, amid the haunts of dissipation, wear a gay, a serene, or even a contented aspect! Where all the treasures that inanimate nature can furnish are scattered in profusion—where the air is fragrant with perfume, and vocal with melody, how vainly do we look for the freshness and animation, and the simplicity and single-mindedness of buoyant and delighted youth! We feel inclined, amid this gloomy dissipation and depressing pleasure, to reverse the most beautiful passage in Euripides, and to say, that the banquet and the festival do require all the heightening of art, all the embellishments of luxury, all the illusions of song, to conceal the struggles of corroding interest, and the pangs of constant mortification.
"There" (but we quote one of the most remarkable passages in the book) "is a general aversion from the labour of thought, in all who have not had the faculties exercised while they were pliant, nor been supplied with a certain stock of elementary knowledge, essential alike to any subject of science that may be presented to their maturer years. By means of the press, many broken and ill-sustained rays pierce across the neglect or indifference of parents, to the minds of the young. Gleams of a rational spirit and enlarged feeling may often be found among the daughters of country gentlemen, whose sons are still solely devoted to sporting and party politics.
"When we think of those mighty resources we have just been adverting to, the strength all such tastes acquire by sympathy, and the observation of nature and of human life they tend to excite, we might expect they would furnish society with everlasting sources of excitement and mutual interest, that they would create a universal sympathy with genius and ability wherever it was found, and soften the repulsive austerity with which it is the nature of rank and wealth to look on humble fortunes.
"Little or nothing of all this takes place. Frivolity and insipidity are the prevailing characters of conversation; and nowhere in Europe, perhaps, does difference of fortune or station produce more unsocial and illiberal separation. Very few of those whom fortune has released from the necessity of following some laborious profession, are capable of passing their time agreeably without the assistance of company; not from a spirit of gaiety which calls on society for indulgence—not from any pleasure they take in conversation, where they are frequently languid and taciturn, but to rival each other in the luxury of the table, or, by a great variety of indescribable airs, to make others feel the pain of mortification. They meet as if 'to fight the boundaries' of their rank and fashion, and the less definite and perceptible is the line which divides them, the more punctilious is their pride. It is a great mistake to suppose that this low-minded folly is peculiar to people of rank: it is an English disease. But the higher we go in society, the wider the circle of the excluded becomes, consequently, the greater the range of human beings cast forth from the pale of sympathy; and the more contracted do the judgment, experience, and feelings of its inmates become. The lofty walls, the iron spikes that surround our villas, and the notices every where affixed 'that trespassers will be prosecuted with the utmost rigour of the law,' are meet emblems of the social spirit that connects the different orders of society in England. The effect of this is to produce narrow minds, or, what is worse, narrow hearts on one side, and a host of dissocial, irritable passions on the other. In each step of the scale, those beneath see chiefly the unamiable qualities of their superiors."
The disproportion of the happiness of society with its means, is a subject which calls forth all the eloquence and sagacity of this writer. Nor is this surprising; for it might startle the most sluggish indifference—the most incurious stupidity. How does it come to pass, that with us misery is the fruit of successful labour, that with us experience does not teach caution, that with us the most munificent charity is unable to check the accumulation of evil, moral and physical, with which it vainly endeavours to contend? How is it, that while the wealth of England is a proverb among nations, the distress of her labourers is a byword no less universal; that while her commerce encircles the globe, while her colonies are spread through both hemispheres, while regions hitherto unknown are but the resting-place of her never-ceasing enterprise, the producers of all this wealth, the causes of all this luxury, the instruments of all this civilization, lie down in despair to perish by hundreds, amid the miracles of triumphant industry by which they are surrounded? How happens it, that as our empire extends abroad, security diminishes at home? that as our reputation becomes more splendid, and our attitude more commanding, the fabric of our strength decays, and our social bulwarks rock from their foundations? Who can say that the skill and valour of the general who has added a province to our Indian empire—who, triumphing over obstacles hitherto insurmountable, has caused the tide of victory to flow from East to West, and make the Sepoy invincible—may not erelong be called upon to fulfil the thankless task of suppressing insurrection, and to control the kindling fury of a mistaken, it is true, but of a kindred population? Shall the day indeed come when in our streets there shall be solitude, and in our harbours be heard no sound of oars, neither shall gallant ship pass thereby? Is the vaunted splendour of this country to furnish a melancholy lesson of the instability of earthly power, and its fate to conclude a tale more glorious, to point a moral more affecting, than any which Tyre, or Sidon, or Carthage have furnished, to curb the insolence of prosperity, and to show the insignificance of man?
"Quamvis Pontica pinus,
Sylvae filia nobilis,
Jactes et genus et nomen inutile."
After dwelling on the supply of information which the present age enjoys, and which is quite without parallel in any former period, and pointing out the inconsistencies among us, of which, nevertheless, every day affords perpetual examples, the writer asks—
"Do these evils proceed from some moral perversity in the people? Is there some natural barrier in England against the effects of capital, industry, science, and religion; or is it not that ignorance of the laws that regulate and harmonize social existence, and of those that govern the human mind, has hitherto been extensively prevalent, and is still resisting the remedies of riper experience?
"But the poor and ignorant cannot educate themselves; it must be the upper classes who give them the means of improvement. In the natural laws of society, the use of a class who are independent of labour for subsistence, is, that a certain part of the community should have leisure to acquire that general knowledge which is the parent of wise institutions and pure morals. That they should have such affluence as to give weight to their example and authority, is also desirable. Government, as has already been observed, cannot act effectively against a very great preponderance of error and prejudice, but must legislate in the spirit of truths that are generally known, and in the service of interests that excite general sympathy.
"The object of this work is not to advocate particular measures, nor even to assume that every thing that is wrong is so through culpable neglect; but it is to call attention to the grievous evils, that neither legislation nor zeal and charity can counteract with effect, till the increased education of all classes assists their efforts. Something must be wanting, when such unrivalled knowledge and wealth are accompanied by such various and wide-spread evils. It is not benevolence that is deficient, for nowhere can we turn without meeting it in private, struggling against miseries too great for its power, and in public devoting abilities of the first order to the cause of humanity.
"It is the wider diffusion of knowledge we require: more heads and hands still are wanted, qualified for acting in concert, or at least acting generally on right principles. Too many persons capable of generous feeling are absorbed and corrupted by luxury and frivolity; too many waste their efforts from shallow, mistaken, and contradictory views."
Then follows a splendid description of scientific energy, the gratification which it affords, and the noble objects to which it points the way.
"In examining the prodigious resources at the command of the upper classes of English society, it is finely remarked, that 'the fine arts are the materials by which our physical and animal sensations are converted into moral perceptions.'
"Every thing in the form of matter, however coarse—the refuse and dross of more valuable materials—is resolvable, by science, into elements too subtle for our vision, and yet possessed of such potency that they effect transmutations more surprising than the fables of magic. The points that spangle the still blue vault, and make night lovely to the untaught peasant, interpreted by science, expand into worlds and systems of worlds: some so remote, that even the character of light, in which their existence is declared to us, can scarcely give full assurance of their reality—some, kindred planets which science has measured, and has told their movements, their seasons, and the length of their days. Such resemblances to our own globe are ascertained in their general laws, and such diversity in their peculiar ones, that we are led irresistibly to believe they all teem with beings, sentient and intelligent as we are, yet whose senses, and powers, and modes of existence, must be very dissimilar, and indefinitely varied. The regions of space, within the field of our vision, present us with phenomena the most incomprehensibly mysterious, and with knowledge the most accurate and demonstrable. Light, motion, form, and magnitude—the animal, vegetable, and mineral kingdoms—have their several sciences, and each would exhaust a life to master it completely. No uneasy passion follows him who engages in such speculations, where continual pursuit is made happy by the sense of continual progress. He leaves his cares at the threshold; for when his attention is fixed, so great is the pleasure of contemplation, that it seems good to have been born for this alone.
"If we turn to the moral world, where, strange as it seems, we meet with less clearness and grandeur, yet there our deep interest in its truths supplies a different, perhaps a more powerful attraction. While we wonder and hope, the general laws of sentient existence give us glimpses of their harmony with those of inanimate nature. The latter seems assuredly made for the use of the former. The identity of benevolence with wisdom presents itself to our minds as a necessary truth, and, notwithstanding our perplexities, brings peace to our hearts. Social distinctions sink to insignificance when contemplating our place in existence, and the privilege of reading the book of nature, and sharing the thoughts and the sentiments of the distinguished among men, atones for obscurity and neglect; neither would the troubled power of a throne nor the flushing of victory repay us for the sacrifice of those pleasures."
The second volume opens with a dissertation on luxury, in which the subject is treated with the depth and perspicuity that the extracts we have already made will have prepared our readers to anticipate. Luxury is a word of relative, and therefore of ambiguous signification; it may be the test of prosperity—it may be the harbinger of decay: according to the state of society in which it prevails, its signification will, of course, be different. The effect of civilization is to increase the number of our wants. The same degree of education which, during the last century, was considered, even by the upper classes, a superfluity, is now a necessary for the middling class, and will soon become a necessary for the lowest, or all but the lowest, members of society. Most of our readers are acquainted with the story of the Highland chief who rebuked his son indignantly for making a pillow of a snowball. Sumptuary laws have always been inefficient, or efficient only for the purposes of oppression. Public morality has been their pretext—the private gratification of jealousy their aim. In republics they were intended to allay the envy of the poor—in monarchies to flatter the arrogance of the great. The first of these motives produced, as Say observes, the law Orchia at Rome, which prohibited the invitation of more than a certain number of guests. The second was the cause of an edict passed in the reign of Henry II. of France, by which the use of silken shoes and garments was confined to princes and bishops. States are ruined by the extravagance, not of their subjects, but of their rulers.
Luxury is pernicious when it is purchased at an excessive price, or when it stands in the way of advantages greater and more attainable. The worse a government is, the more effect does it produce upon the manners and habits of its subjects. The influence of a government of favourites and minions over the community, is as prodigious as it is baneful. Every innocent pleasure is a blessing. Luxury is innocent, nay, it is desirable, as far as it can contribute to health and cleanliness—to rational enjoyment; as far as it serves to prevent gross debauchery; and, as one of our poets has expressed it,
"When sensual pleasures cloy,
To fill the languid pause with finer joy,"
it should be encouraged. It does not follow, because the materials for luxury are wanted, that the bad passions and selfishness, which are its usual companions, will be wanted also. A Greenlander may display as much gluttony over his train oil and whale blubber as the most refined epicure can exhibit with the Physiologie du Goût in his hand, and with all Monsieur Ude's science at his disposal. When the gratification of our taste and senses interferes with our duty to our country, or our neighbours, or our friends—when, for the sake of their indulgence, we sacrifice our independence—or when, rather than abandon it, we neglect our duties sacred and imperative as they may be—the most favourable casuists on the side of luxury allow that it is criminal. But even when it stops far short of this scandalous excess, the habit of immoderate self-indulgence can hardly long associate in the same breast with generous, manly, and enlightened sentiments: its inevitable effect is to stifle all vigorous energy, as well as to eradicate every softer virtue. It is the parent of that satiety which is the most unspeakable of all miseries—a short satisfaction is purchased by long suffering, and the result is an addition to our stock, not of pleasure, but of pain.
The next topic to which our attention is directed is the influence of habit. Habit is thus defined:—
"Habit is the aptitude for any actions or impressions produced by frequent repetition of them."
The word impressions is used to designate affections of mind and body that are involuntary, in contradistinction to those which we can originate and control. For instance, we may choose whether or not we will enter into any particular enquiry; but when we have entered upon it, we cannot prevent the result that the evidence concerning it will produce upon our minds. A person conversant with mathematical studies can no more help believing that the diagonal of a square is incommensurable with its side, than, if his hand had been thrust in the fire, he could help feeling heat. The remarks which follow are ingenious and profound:—
"The more amusements," continues the writer, "partake of an useful character, the more lasting they are. This is never the case with trifles; when the enjoyment is over, they leave little or nothing in the mind. They are not steps to something else, they have no connexion with other and further results, to be brought out by further endeavours. The attempt to make life a series of quickly succeeding emotions, will ever prove a miserable failure; whereas, when the chief part of our time is spent in labour, active power increases—the exertion of it becomes habit—the mind gathers strength; and emotion being husbanded, retains its freshness, and the spirits preserve their alacrity through life. It follows that the most agreeable labours are those which superadd to an object of important and lasting interest a due mixture of intermediate and somewhat diversified results. To a mechanic, making a set of chairs and tables, for example, is more agreeable than working daily at a sawpit. But nothing can deprive the industrious man (however undiversified his employment) of the advantage of having a constant and important pursuit—viz. earning the necessaries and comforts of life; and when we consider the uneasiness of a life without any steady pursuit, and how slight is the influence that such as one merely voluntary has over most men, it seems certain that, as a general rule, we do not err in representing the necessity of labour as a safeguard of happiness."
Active habits are such as action gives: passive habits are such as our condition qualifies us to receive. In emotion, however violent, we may be passive, the forgiving and the vindictive man are for a time equally passive in their emotions. It is when the vindictive man proceeds to retaliation upon an adversary that he becomes a voluntary agent. It is often difficult to analyse the ingredients of our thought, and to determine how far they are involuntary and how far they are spontaneous. Nor is this an enquiry the solution of which can ever affect the majority of mankind: it is not with such subtleties that the practice of the moralist is concerned. It is a psychological fact, which never can be repeated too often, that habit deadens impression and fortifies activity. It gives energy to that power which depends on the sanction of the will—it renders the sensations which are nearly passive every day more languid and insignificant.
"Mon sachet de fleurs," says Montaigne, "sert d'abord à mon nez; mais, après que je m'en suis servi huit jours, il ne sert plus qu'au nez des assistants." So the taste becomes accustomed to the most irritating stimulants, and is finally palsied by their continued application, yet the necessity of having recourse to these provocatives becomes daily more imperious.
"Crescit indulgens sibi dirus hydrops
Nec sitim pellit."
The tanner who lives among his hides till he is insensible to their exhalations—the surgeon who has conquered the disgust with which the objects around him must fill an ordinary individual—the sensualist, on whose jaded appetite all the resources of art and all the loveliness of nature are employed in vain—may serve as common instances of the first part of the proposition; and the astonishing facility acquired by particular men in the business with which they are conversant, are proofs no less irrefragable of the second. Can any argument be conceived which is more decisive in favour of the moral economy to which even this lower world is subject, than the undeniable fact, that virtue is fortified by exercise, and pain conquered by endurance; while vice, like the bearer of the sibyl's books, extorts every hour a greater sacrifice for less enjoyment? The passage in Mammon's speech is no less philosophically accurate than it is poetically beautiful—
"Out torments also may in length of time
Become our elements, these piercing fires
As soft as now severe, our temper changed
Into their temper, which must needs remove
The sensible of pain."
So does man pass on his way, from youth to manhood, from manhood till the shadow of death falls upon him; and while his moral and physical structure adapts itself to the incessant vicissitudes of his being, he imagines himself the same. The same in sunshine and in tempest—in the temperate and the torrid zone—in sickness and in health—in joy and sorrow—at school and in the camp or senate—still, still he is the same. His passions change, his pleasures alter; what once filled him with rapture, is now indifferent, it may be loathsome. The friends of his youth are his friends no longer—other faces are around him—other voices echo in his ears. Still he is the same—the same, when chilling experience has taught him its bitter lesson, and when life in all its glowing freshness first dawned upon his view. The same, when "vanity of vanities" is graven upon his heart—as when his youthful fancy revelled in scenes of love, of friendship, and of renown. The same, when cold, cautious, interested, suspicious, guilty—as when daring, reckless, frank, confiding, innocent. Still the dream continues, still the vision lasts, until some warning yet unknown—the tortures of disease, or the loss of the very object round which his heartstrings were entwined, anguish within, and desolation without—stir him into consciousness, and remind him of that fast approaching change which no illusion can conceal. Such is the pliability of our nature, so varied are the modes of our being; and thus, through the benevolence of Him who made us, the cause which renders our keenest pleasures transient, makes pain less acute, and death less terrible.
It follows from this, that in youth positive attainment is a matter of little moment, compared with the habits which our instructors encourage us to acquire. The fatal error which is casting a blight over our plans of education, is to look merely to the immediate result, totally disregarding the motive which has led to it, and the qualities of which it is the indication; yet, would those to whom the delicate and most responsible task of education is confided, but consider that habits of mind are formed by inward principle, and not external action, they would adopt a more rational system than that to which mediocrity owes its present triumph over us; and which bids fair to wither up, during another generation, the youth and hopes of England. Such infatuation is equal to that of the husbandman who should wish to deprive the year of its spring, and the plants of their blossoms, in hopes of a more nutritious and abundant harvest.
"The inward principle required to give habits of industry, temperance, good temper, and so forth, is the express intention of being industrious, temperate, and gentle, and regulating one's actions accordingly. But the inward principle exercised by a routine of irksome restraints, submitted to passively on no other grounds but the laws of authority, or the influence of fashion, or imposed merely as the necessary condition of childhood, may be only that of yielding to present impression. He who, in youth, yields passively to fear or force, in after life may be found to yield equally to pleasure or temper; the habit of yielding to present impressions, in the first case, prepares the mind for yielding to them in the second, without any attempt at self-control.
"The necessity of reducing the young, in the first instance, to implicit obedience, and the utility of a strict routine of duties, is not hereby disputed. The impressions arising from every species of restraint and coercion, whether from the command of another or our own reason, being almost invariably unpleasant at first, it is necessary (on the theory of habit) to weaken their force by repetition, before the principle of self-government can be expected to act. But the point insisted on is, that weakening the pain of restraint and of submission to rules, will not necessarily create an intention of adhering to the rules, when coercion ceases. An intention is a mental action, and even when excited, it is neither impossible nor uncommon that the practice of forming intentions may be accompanied by the practice of breaking them; and as the shame and remorse of so doing wear out through frequency, a character of weakness is formed."
Although we regret the omission of some observations on waste and prodigality—remarks in which the most profound knowledge of the best authorities on this subject is tempered with a strict attention to practical interest, and a minute acquaintance with the affairs of ordinary life—we proceed to the chapters on "Frivolity and Ignorance," with which, and an admirable dissertation on the authority of reason, the volume terminates. These chapters yield to none in this admirable work for utility and importance; there are three subjects on which the influence of frivolity, baneful as it always is, is most peculiarly dangerous and destructive—education, politics, and religion. On all these great points, inseparably connected as they are with human happiness and virtue, the frivolity of women may give a bias to the character of the individual, which will be traced in his career to the last moment of his existence. The author well observes that frivolity and ignorance, rather than deliberate guilt, are the causes of political error and tergiversation. If there are few persons ready to devote themselves to the good of their species, and carrying their attention beyond kindred and acquaintance, to comprise the most distant posterity and regions the most remote within the scope of their benevolence; so there are few of those monsters in selfishness, who would pursue their own petty interests when the happiness of millions is an obstacle to its gratification; but as a leaf before the eye will hide a universe, self-love limits the intellectual horizon to a compass inconceivably narrow; and the prosperity of nations, when placed in the balance with a riband or a pension, has too often kicked the beam. Professional business, and the love of detail, which is so deeply rooted in most English natures, tends also to contract the thoughts, to erect a false standard of merit, and to fill the mind with petty objects. As an instance of this, it may be remarked that Lord Somers is the only great man who, in England, has ever filled a judicial situation. So wide is the difference between present success and future reputation—so weak on all sides but one, are those who have limited themselves to one side only—so technical and engrossing are the avocations of an English lawyer. The best, if not the only remedy for this evil, is, in the words of our author, the "study of well-chosen books."
"Life must often consist of acts or concerns which, taken individually, are trivial; but the speculations of great minds relate to important objects. By their eloquence they draw forth the best emotions of which we are capable, they fill our minds with the knowledge of great and general truths, which, if they relate to the works of creation, exalt our nature and almost give us a new existence; or if they unfold the conditions and duties of human life, they kindle our desire for worthy ends, and teach us how to promote them. We learn to consider ourselves not as single and detached beings, with separate interests from others, but as parts of that great class who are the support of society— that is, the upright, the intelligent, and the industrious. Hence we cease to be absorbed by one set of narrow ideas; and the least duties are dignified by being viewed as parts of a general system. The bulk of mankind must and ought to confine their attention principally to their own immediate business. But if they who belong to the higher orders, do not avail themselves of their command of time, to enlarge their minds and acquire knowledge, one of the great uses of an upper class will be lost."
The trite and ridiculous axiom, the common refuge of imbecility, that women should take no interest in politics, is then sifted and exposed; it would be as wise to say, that women should take no interest in the blood that circulates through their bodies because they are not physicians, or in the air they breathe because they are not chemists. The people who are most fond of repeating this absurdity, are, it may be observed, the very people who are most furious with women for not acquiescing at once in any absurdity which they may think proper to promulgate as an incontrovertible truth. Ill temper, and rash opinions, and crude notions, are always mischievous; but it is not in politics alone that they are exhibited, and the women most applauded for not meddling with politics, (an expression which, as our author properly observes, assumes the whole matter in dispute,) are generally those who adhere to the most obsolete doctrines with the greatest tenacity, and pursue those who differ with them in opinion with the most unmitigated rancour. In short, it is not till enquiry supersedes implicit belief, till violence gives place to reflection, till the study of sound and useful writers takes the place of sweeping and indiscriminate condemnation, that this aphorism is brought forward by those who would have listened with delight to the wildest effusions of bigotry and ignorance. But in the work before us, the author (convincing as her reasons are) has furnished the most complete practical refutation of this ridiculous error.
Infinitely worse, however, than any evil which can arise from this or any other source, is that which the opinions and ideas of a frivolous woman must entail upon those unhappy beings of whom she superintends the education.
"Turpe est difficiles habere nugas
Et stultus labor est ineptiarum,"
is a text on which, even in this great and free country, many comments may be found.
The pursuit of eminence in trifles, the common sign of a bad heart, is an infallible proof of a feeble understanding. A man may dishonour his birth, ruin his estate, lose his reputation, and destroy his health, for the sake of being the first jockey or the favourite courtier of his day. And how should it be otherwise, when from the lips whence other lessons should have proceeded, selfishness has been inculcated as a duty, a desire for vain distinctions and the love of pelf encouraged as virtues, and a splendid equipage, or it may be some bodily advantage, pointed out as the highest object of human ambition? To set the just value on every enjoyment, to choose noble and becoming objects of pursuit, are the first lessons a child should learn; and if he does not learn their rudiments on his mother's knees, he will hardly acquire the knowledge of them elsewhere. The least disparagement of virtue, the slightest admiration for trifling and merely extrinsic objects, may produce an indelible effect on the tender mind of youth; and the mother who has taught her son to bow down to success, to pay homage to wealth and station, which virtue and genius should alone appropriate, is the person to whom the meanness of the crouching sycophant, the treachery of the trading politician, the brutality of the selfish tyrant, and the avarice of the sordid miser, in after life must be attributed.
This argument is closed by some very judicious remarks on the degree in which the perusal of works of imagination is beneficial.
"It is not easy to explain to a person whose mind is trifling, the consequences of the over-indulgence in passive impressions produced by light reading, or to make them understand the different effect produced by the highest order of works of imagination, and the trivial compositions which inundate the press, with no merit but some commonplace moral. Both are classed together as works of amusement; but the first enrich the mind with great and beautiful ideas, and, provided they be not indulged in to an extravagant excess, refine the feelings to generosity and tenderness. They counteract the sordid or the petty turn, which we are liable to contract from being wholly immersed in mere worldly business, or given up to the follies of the great world; in either case confined too much to intercourse with barren hearts and narrow minds. It is of great use to the 'dull, sullen prisoner in the body's cage' sometimes 'to peep out,' and be made to feel that it has aspirations for somewhat more excellent than it has ever known; and that its own ideas can stretch forth into a grandeur beyond what this real existence provides for it. It is good for us to feel that the vices into which we are beguiled are hateful to our own minds in contemplation, and that it is our unconquerable nature to love and adore that virtue we do not, or cannot, attain to."
The remarks on the influence of frivolity on religion, on the mistaken name and worldly spirit introduced amongst its most solemn ordinances, are no less excellent. After pointing out the danger of mistaking excitement for devotion, and of separating the duties of man from the will of God, the sanctions of religion from the lessons of morality, the writer observes—
"The weak and ignorant are peculiarly liable to be infected with these doctrines, and to them they are peculiarly hurtful. Unable to take a just view of their particular duties, or of the uses and purposes of our natural faculties, creatures of impulse, slaves of circumstances, the pleasures of this hour fill them with vanity, the devotion of the next with enthusiasm, or perhaps terror. Charmed by worldly follies because they are ignorant or idle, and without resistance to vice because they have never learned self-command, they seek to extirpate all the natural emotions and desires which they do not know how to regulate, and so give up the world. But they deceive themselves; their moral defects are not lessened; they have only changed their objects. The frivolity which formerly made trifles absorb them, now spends itself on religion, which it degrades. Whatever the former defects of their character, whether selfishness, vanity, pride, ill-temper, indolence, or any other, it remains unconquered, though the manner in which it exhibits itself is different. In one respect they are much worse; formerly they were less blind to their own imperfections; they sometimes suspected they were wrong; now they are quite satisfied they are right; nor can they easily be undeceived, because, when about to examine their hearts and their conduct, the error in their views directs their efforts to a false standard."
We think we cannot more appropriately close the faint outline, in which we have endeavoured, however feebly, to shadow forth the merit of these volumes, than by placing before our readers the tribute to departed excellence, which this touching and finished picture is intended to convey.
"Leaving the contemplation of feverish excitement, fantastic and complicated subtleties, angry zeal, and dissocial passions, I turn to the records of memory, where are graven for ever the lineaments of one who was indeed a disciple of Christ, and whose character seemed the earthly reflection of his. Wherever there was existence her benevolence flowed forth, never enfeebled by the distance of its object, yet flushing the least of daily pleasures with its warmth. Her views rose to the most comprehensive moral grandeur, while her calm, uncompromising energy against sin, was combined with an ever-flowing sympathy for weakness and woe. She spent her life in one continued system of active beneficence, in which her business, her projects, her pleasures, were but so many varied forms of serving her fellow-creatures. Never for a moment did a reflection for herself cross the current of her purposes for them. Her whole heart so went with their distresses and their joys, that she scarcely seemed to have an interest apart from theirs. The simplicity of her character was peculiarly striking, in the unhesitating readiness with which she received—I might even say, with which she grasped at—the correction of her errors, and listened to the suggestions of other persons. One undivided desire possessed her mind—it was not to seem right, but to do right.
"What heightened the resemblance between her and the model she followed, was, that her counsels came not from a bosom that had never been shaken with the passions she admonished, or the sorrows she endeavoured to soothe. Her character was one of deep sensibility and passions strong even to violence; but they were controlled and directed by such vivid faith as has never been surpassed. Her long life had tried her with almost every pang that attends the attachment of such beings to the mortal and the suffering, the erring and perverse; and when those sorrows came, that reached her heart through its deepest and most sacred affections, the passion burst forth, that showed what the energy of that principle must have been, that could have brought such a mind to a tenor of habitual calmness and serenity. When every element of anguish had been mingled together in one dreadful cup, and reason for a week or two was tottering in its seat, she was seen to resume the struggle against the passions that for a moment had conquered. The bonds that attached her to life were indeed broken for ever, but she recovered her heart-felt submission to God, and she learned by degrees again to be happy in the happiness she gave.
"It was this depth and strength of feeling that gave her a power over others, seldom surpassed, I believe, by any other mortal. In her the erring and the wretched found a sure refuge from themselves. The weakness that shrunk from the censure or the scorn of others, could be poured out to her as to one whose mission upon earth was to pity and to heal; for she knew the whole range of human infirmity, and that the wisest have the roots of those frailties that conquer the weak. But in restoring the fallen to their connexion with the honoured, she never held out a hope that they might parley with their temptations, or lower their standard of virtue: a confession to her cut off all self-delusion as to culpable conduct or passions. While she inspired the most uncompromising condemnation of the thing that was wrong, she never advised what was too hard for the "bruised reed;" she chose not the moment of excitement to rebuke the misguidings of passion, nor of weakness to point out the rigour of duty. But strength came in her presence: she seemed to bring with her irresistible evidence that any thing could be done which she said ought to be done. The truths of religion, stripped of fantastic disguises, appeared at her call with a living reality, and for a time, at least, the troubles of life sank down to their just level. When our sorrows are too big for our own bosoms, if others receive then with stoicism, it repels all desire to seek relief at their hands; but the calmness with which she attended to the effusions and perturbations of grief, seemed the earnest of safety from one who had passed through the storm. The deep and tender expression of her noble countenance suggested that feeling with which a superior being might be supposed to look down from heaven on the anguish of those who are still in the toils, but know not the reward that awaits them.
"Every thing petty seemed to drop off from her mind, but she imbibed the spirit of essentials so perfectly, she followed it throughout with such singleness of heart, that its influence affected her minutest actions, not by an effort of studied attention, but with the steadiness of a natural law. Nature and revelation she regarded as the two parts of one great connected system; she always contemplated the one with reference to the other; her views were therefore all practical and free from confusion, and nothing that promoted the welfare of this world could cease to be a part of her duty to God. It was her maxim that the motive dignified the action, however trivial in itself; and all the actions of her life were ennobled by the motive of obedience to an all-powerful Being, because he is the pure essence of wisdom and goodness. In the virtue of those who had not the consoling belief of the Christian, she still saw the handwriting of God, that cannot be effaced from a generous mind; and she used to dwell with delight on the idea that the good man, from whose eyes the light of faith was withheld in this life, would arise with rapture in the next, to the knowledge that a happiness was in store for him which he had not dared to believe.
"It was not the extent of her intellectual endowments that made her the object of veneration to all who knew her; it was her extraordinary moral energy. The clear and vigorous view she took of every subject arose chiefly from her habit of looking directly for its bearing on virtue or happiness; she saw the essential at a glance, or could not be diverted from the truth by a passion or a prejudice. Hence, also, her lofty undeviating justice; her regard to the rights of others was so scrupulous, that every one within reach of her influence reposed on her decisions with unhesitating trust; nor would the certainty that the interests of those she loved best were involved, have cast a shadow of doubt over her stainless impartiality.
"She could be deceived, for she was too simple and lofty always
to conceive the objects of base minds:—
"'And oft, though wisdom wake, suspicion sleeps
At wisdom's gate, and to simplicity
Resigns her charge, while goodness thinks no ill,
Where no ill seems.'
Paradise Lost.
"Nevertheless, she generally read the characters of artifice and insincerity with intuitive quickness, though it was often believed she was duped by those whom she saw through completely. Of this she was aware, but she was so exempt from all desire to prove her sagacity, that she never cared to correct the misconception; and she held that it was neither useful nor quite justifiable to expose all the pretences we may discover, till it became necessary to set the unwary on their guard.
"She never renounced the innocent pleasures or pursuits of life, nor the proprieties of a distinguished station, though she partook so little of its luxuries, that she could pass from the splendour of her own establishment to one the most confined, apparently without sensibility to the change. Wherever she moved, she inspired joy and cheerfulness; yet she was by no means unreserved, except to those she tenderly loved, and it was surprising how any manner so gentle, could at the same time oppose a barrier so impassable to the advances of the unworthy. She enjoyed the beauty of nature with passion. Her mind, at an advanced age, had all the elasticity and animation of the prime of life, and she could be led to forget half the night in the excitement of conversation. Happy were the hours spent with her in the discussion of every subject that could call forth her opinions, and her wide knowledge of the eventful times in which she had lived!—hours that exalted the feelings, informed the understandings, and animated the playfulness of younger minds, who found that forty years of difference between their age and hers, took nothing from their sympathies, but added a new and rare delight to their intercourse.
"But she is gone! To those who knew her, her counsels are silent and her place void; but there remains the distinct consciousness, that to them had been given a living evidence of the true Christian spirit, for if hers were not true, than many errors be more excellent than truth! Far distant, and with unequal steps, they endeavour to follow her course and perhaps the distaste with which they turn from the defective and ill-proportioned models that are forced on their admiration, is scarcely consistent with the charity she always taught."
Great, indeed, is the task assigned to woman. Who can elevate its dignity? who can exaggerate its importance? Not to make laws, not to lead armies, not to govern empires, but to form those by whom laws are made, and armies led, and empires governed; to guard from the slightest taint of possible infirmity the frail, and as yet spotless creature whose moral, no less than his physical, being must be derived from her; to inspire those principles, to inculcate those doctrines, to animate those sentiments, which generations yet unborn, and nations yet uncivilized, shall learn to bless; to soften firmness into mercy, to chasten honour into refinement, to exalt generosity into virtue; by her soothing cares to allay the anguish of the body, and the far worse anguish of the mind; by her tenderness to disarm passion; by her purity to triumph over sense; to cheer the scholar sinking under his toil; to console the statesman for the ingratitude of a mistaken people; to be the compensation for hopes that are blighted, for friends that are perfidious, for happiness that has passed away. Such is her vocation—the couch of the tortured sufferer, the prison of the deserted friend, the scaffold of the godlike patriot, the cross of a rejected Saviour; these are the scenes of woman's excellence, these are the theatres on which her greatest triumphs have been achieved. Such is her destiny—to visit the forsaken, to attend to the neglected; amid the forgetfulness of myriads to remember—amid the execrations of multitudes to bless; when monarchs abandon, when counsellors betray, when justice persecutes, when brethren and disciples fly, to remain unshaken and unchanged; and to exhibit, on this lower world, a type of that love—pure, constant, and ineffable—which in another world we are taught to believe the best reward of virtue.
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