CHAPTER L.
With respect to the individual next introduced, the writer appears to have been conscious how much delicacy was required, and seems to have distrusted his own ability in the management of his subject.
He commences thus:—As the comet is invariably accompanied by its blazing appendix, so are malignant envy and the bitterest enmity, everlastingly found in attendance upon eminent virtue and splendid talents.
To contemplate these four qualities, virtue and talent, enmity and envy, in their fullest force and energy, it is only necessary to take a view of the life and character of H⸺ M⸺.
If the esteem and friendship of the wise and good, limited to no gradation of rank or pre-eminence, denote virtue, piety, and those more amiable endowments which improve and adorn society, then may the friends of this excellent female, boldly claim for her every honourable appellation. At the same time, it must be reluctantly acknowledged, that envy has been busily employed in ascribing to her, various failings and imperfections, much at variance with the lofty pretensions asserted in her behalf. Truth, however, unsupported but by itself, its own firmness, and its own excellence, boldly defies surmise, insinuation, and falsehood.
With respect to intellectual distinction and superiority, there can be no occasion for discussion. The catalogue of H. M.’s works speaks a language which all comprehend, and whose beauties and excellence all without hesitation, acknowledge. She exhibited claims to popular admiration and applause at a very early period of life, nor has she written or published any thing which had not the cause of religion, morality, and virtue, as its immediate and avowed object. To enumerate them all, with a concise estimate of the value of each and of the whole, would be a pleasing occupation, but would unavoidably extend this narrative beyond the proposed limits[5]. The last of her labours may perhaps be pronounced the most extensively important, and the most generally useful. By much practice, she has obtained a style which classes her very high amongst our best writers of English prose. It is strong without being pedantic, forcible yet exceedingly perspicuous, elegant but not too elaborate.
Is it not to be seriously lamented, that an individual, so endowed, so confessedly entitled to the applauses of her countrymen, so constantly exercised for their benefit, and so perpetually engaged in the most amiable and useful occupations of social life, should have had active and zealous adversaries, who have disputed the sincerity of her piety, and maliciously and injuriously impugned the accuracy of her conduct? What was termed the Blagden Controversy, can hardly be forgotten; but notwithstanding the tricks and artifices which were made use of, it terminated most highly to her honour.
Among other stratagems, the following is not the least curious. One of her great adversaries published a pamphlet against her, to which he gave the title of “H. M.’s Controversy on Sunday Schools,” which drew in many to buy and to read it, thinking it to be written by her. The book was printed for Jordan, who was the publisher of the notorious Tom Paine’s works, and at the end were stitched advertisements of all the well-known Jacobinical publications.
H. M. has moreover been accused of fanaticism and jacobinism, of disaffection to church and state. Now it must be acknowledged to be a little hard, that an individual should be accused of failing in those very points and objects, which it has been the study of a laborious and protracted life, to vindicate and promote.
How unjust and unfounded these imputations are, any one may be easily and effectually convinced, who will be at the pains to examine the edition of H. M.’s works, published in eight volumes, in 1801. Let him but pay attention to the story of Fantom, in the beginning of the fourth volume, or to the first chapter of the Fashionable World, vol. 6, with the answer to Dupont, in this same volume, and he will require no other evidence or argument, to convince him of the absurdity and falsehood of such imputations.
Further than this, to impress on the lower classes of people a reverence for the clergy, this excellent writer has laboured with no ordinary sedulousness. This must be obvious from the Fictitious Tales in the 4th and 5th volumes of the edition above-mentioned, where a parish minister is almost constantly introduced as an example of every virtue. It may be expedient also to refer to “Village Politics,” at the end of the first volume.
But this discussion apparently leads to the path which it was determined to avoid. It may therefore be sufficient to terminate this article, by the memorandum of our friend, expressed to this effect in the margin of the manuscript, that he reckoned (he observes) among the most agreeable circumstances of his life, his personal introduction to H. M. He was pleased with the unaffected simplicity of her manners, the spirit of her conversation, which, though instructive, was modest and unobtrusive. He had also the occasional honour of her correspondence, and he felt justified in speaking in the highest terms of her knowledge, sagacity, and judgment.
It ought, however, to be observed, that, during all the virulent attacks made upon her, in the above-mentioned controversy, H. M. preserved a dignified and inviolable silence; never suffering herself to be provoked into contention with those, who so ardently desired to involve her in it. By this prudence, no less than by her real innocence, she finally obtained the victory.
Non ego illam mihi dotem duco esse quæ dos dicitur
Sed pudicitiam, et pudorem et sedatum Cupidinem.