Miss P⸺.
The personal acquaintance, on the part of the Sexagenarian, with this most prolific author, was but slight; but he ever and invariably expressed the most unaffected regret, that one so endowed, so qualified to contribute to the improvement of others, should, by pursuing one undeviating path, have made herself generally obnoxious, to those alone excepted, who considered all as deserving of the burning fiery furnace, who did not fall prostrate before the shrine of Bonaparte, and adore the Briarean Idol of the French Revolution.
The most extraordinary thing, with respect to each and every one of these doughty females, appears to have been this:—The very moment that they had made up their minds to acknowledge the wisdom of the French Revolution, the goodness of its leaders, and the felicity of its operation, they fancied themselves (as by some magic charm, some irresistible power of enchantment) converted into grave, subtle, and profound politicians. They knew every thing which was involved in the great questions of law, and right, and equity, as it were by intuition, and they pronounced their fiats ex Cathedra, as if it were both impious and treasonable at all to question their wisdom, their knowledge, and their sagacity. They became all at once, in their own foolish conceits, as subtle as Machiavel, profound as Vattel, learned as Selden, and capable as Grotius himself, to discuss the momentous question de Jure Belli at Paris.
Oh for the good old times! when females were satisfied with feminine employments, with cultivating their minds so far as to enable them to instruct their children in useful learning only, and to regulate their families with judicious economy; to learn those graces and that demeanour, which obtained and secured love and esteem, nor suffered the Laban images of foreign vanities to contaminate their tents. Daughters of England, be not beguiled; be assured that the study of politics is not essential to female accomplishments, that the possession of this Machiavelian knowledge will neither make you better mothers, wives, or friends; that to obtain it, a long life, severe study, and the most laborious investigation, are indispensably necessary. Must it not excite the strongest emotions of contempt, to hear pert misses, just escaped from boarding-schools, harangue in a more peremptory language than Selden would have assumed, and with the slightest reading, and most superficial knowledge, presume to pass judgment on the political rights and conditions of nations?
Miss P. was one of the daughters of a venerable clergyman, who was, at the same time, Master of a College at Cambridge, and Prebendary of N⸺. It may therefore be presumed, though nothing at all is known of the matter, that her education was in every respect correct, and consistent with her sphere of life.
On the death of her parents, and at the accursed crisis of the French Revolution, she came to the metropolis. Here she immediately, with unreserved confidence, threw herself into the kindred arms of H. M. W. divided her enthusiasm, and partook of all her follies. France, France, France! Liberty, Liberty, Liberty! occupied their waking thoughts, and disturbed their midnight dreams. In a word, they became totally Frenchified; and as Free-masons, when once initiated into their mysteries, retain the Shibboleth, which admits them beyond the Tyler, so did these females suffer themselves to be so intoxicated with the Circean draught, that the phrenzy remained incurable and unalterable. They determined to drink at the fountain-head, so up and away for Paris. We have heard of the Englishman at Paris, his prodigality and folly, but heaven bless us! our English women at Paris beat their countrymen hollow, or, to use a homely phrase, “out and out.”
“Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, if there be any praise.”
This emphatical and beautiful apostrophe of the apostle, in the judgment of this lady and her clan, could alone be applied to the French nation, under the benign influence of the Revolution, and to the Polar star of all who exercised the supreme authority in France from Robespierre to Bonaparte.
According to the sagacious and candid inferences of these subtle and profound Female Machiavels, in this country of England there was no wisdom, no foresight, no justice, and no public virtue; whilst on the opposite side, the murders of the King, Queen, Princess Elizabeth, and the Duke d’Enghein, were acts either of fair retribution, or of unavoidable necessity; either the just consequences of the imbecility of the sufferers, or provoked by their profligacy and crimes.
Reader, is not all this truly lamentable? Far other emotions are awakened by the recollection of what this female, immediately under review, once was, when she appeared as a candidate for honourable fame in the general walks of literature. Her talents claimed respect—her diligence deserved praise. The variety of her information, and the extent of her knowledge, particularly of languages, qualified her to be useful, and entitled her to esteem.
Whether she subsequently repented of and restrained the extreme extravagance of her prejudices; whether Bonaparte, his glory, his wisdom, his magnanimity, his religion, and his clemency, (and, for all these qualities he had this lady’s praise) continued to any protracted period the objects of her fond idolatry, could not possibly be known to him, from whose collection the materials, which appear, in these pages, have been extracted. It is hoped that she may have seen the error of her ways; have discovered a less dangerous and obstructed path, and auspiciously pursued it.
With pleasures too refined to please,
With too much spirit to be e’er at ease,
With too much quickness ever to be taught,
With too much thinking to have common thought.