A Book of Sibyls: Miss Barbauld, Miss Edgeworth, Mrs Opie, Miss Austen

by Anne Thackeray Ritchie

From Godwin's by the city they come to Marlborough Street, and find Mrs. Siddons nursing her little baby, and as handsome and charming as ever. They see Charles Kemble there, and they wind up their day by calling on Mrs. Inchbald in her pleasant lodgings, with two hundred pounds just come in from Sheridan for a farce of sixty pages. Godwin's attentions seem to have amused and pleased the fair, merry Amelia, who is not a little proud of her arch influence over various rugged and apparently inaccessible persons. Mrs. Inchbald seems to have been as jealous of Miss Alderson at the time as she afterwards was of Mary Wollstonecraft. 'Will you give me nothing to keep for your sake?' says Godwin, parting from Amelia. 'Not even your slipper? I had it once in my possession.' 'This was true,' adds Miss Amelia; 'my shoe had come off and he picked it up and put it in his pocket.' Elsewhere she tells her friend Mrs. Taylor that Mr. Holcroft would like to come forward, but that he had no chance.

That some one person had a chance, and a very good one, is plain enough from the context of a letter, but there is nothing in Mrs. Opie's life to show why fate was contrary in this, while yielding so bountiful a share of all other good things to the happy country girl.

Among other people, she seems to have charmed various French refugees, one of whom was the Duc d'Aiguillon, come over to England with some seven thousand others, waiting here for happier times, and hiding their sorrows among our friendly mists. Godwin was married when Miss Alderson revisited her London friends and admirers in 1797—an eventful visit, when she met Opie for the first time.

The account of their first meeting is amusingly given in Miss Brightwell's memoirs. It was at an evening party. Some of those present were eagerly expecting the arrival of Miss Alderson, but the evening was wearing away and still she did not appear; 'at length the door was flung open, and she entered bright and smiling, dressed in a robe of blue, her neck and arms bare, and on her head a small bonnet placed in somewhat coquettish style sideways and surmounted by a plume of three white feathers. Her beautiful hair hung in waving tresses over her shoulders; her face was kindling with pleasure at the sight of her old friends, and her whole appearance was animated and glowing. At the time she came in Mr. Opie was sitting on a sofa beside Mr. F., who had been saying from time to time, 'Amelia is coming; Amelia will surely come. Why is she not here?' and whose eyes were turned in her direction. He was interrupted by his companion eagerly exclaiming, 'Who is that—who is that?' and hastily rising Opie pressed forward to be introduced to the fair object whose sudden appearance had so impressed him.' With all her love of excitement, of change, of variety, one cannot but feel, as I have said, that there was also in Amelia Alderson's cheerful life a vein of deep and very serious feeling, and the bracing influence of the upright and high-minded people among whom she had been brought up did not count for nothing in her nature. She could show her genuine respect for what was generous and good and true, even though she did not always find strength to carry out the dream of an excitable and warm-hearted nature.

IV.

There is something very interesting in the impression one receives of the 'Inspired Peasant,' as Alan Cunningham calls John Opie—the man who did not paint to live so much as live to paint. He was a simple, high-minded Cornishman, whose natural directness and honesty were unspoiled by favour, unembittered by failure. Opie's gift, like some deep-rooted seed living buried in arid soil, ever aspired upwards towards the light. His ideal was high; his performance fell far short of his life-long dream, and he knew it. But his heart never turned from its life's aim, and he loved beauty and Art with that true and unfailing devotion which makes a man great, even though his achievements do not show all he should have been.

The old village carpenter, his father, who meant him to succeed to the business, was often angry, and loudly railed at the boy when good white-washed walls and clean boards were spoiled by scrawls of lamp-black and charcoal. John worked in the shop and obeyed his father, but when his day's task was over he turned again to his darling pursuits. At twelve years old he had mastered Euclid, and could also rival 'Mark Oaks,' the village phenomenon, in painting a butterfly; by the time John was sixteen he could earn as much as 7s. 6d. for a portrait. It was in this year that there came to Truro an accomplished and various man Dr. Wolcott—sometimes a parson, sometimes a doctor of medicine, sometimes as Peter Pindar, a critic and literary man. This gentleman was interested by young Opie and his performances, and he asked him on one occasion how he liked painting. 'Better than bread-and-butter,' says the boy. Wolcott finally brought his protégé to London, where the Doctor's influence and Opie's own undoubted merit brought him success; and to Opie's own amazement he suddenly found himself the fashion. His street was crowded with carriages; long processions of ladies and gentlemen came to sit to him; he was able to furnish a house 'in Orange Court, by Leicester Fields;' he was beginning to put by money when, as suddenly as he had been taken up, he was forgotten again. The carriages drove off in some other direction, and Opie found himself abandoned by the odd, fanciful world of fashions, which would not be fashions if they did not change day by day. It might have proved a heart-breaking phase of life for a man whose aim had been less single. But Opie was of too generous a nature to value popularity beyond achievement. He seems to have borne this freak of fortune with great equanimity, and when he was sometimes overwhelmed, it was not by the praise or dispraise of others, but by his own consciousness of failure, of inadequate performance. Troubles even more serious than loss of patronage and employment befell him later. He had married, unhappily for himself, a beautiful, unworthy woman, whose picture he has painted many times. She was a faithless as well as a weak and erring wife, and finally abandoned him. When Opie was free to marry again he was thirty-six, a serious, downright man of undoubted power and influence, of sincerity and tenderness of feeling, of rugged and unusual manners. He had not many friends, nor did he wish for many, but those who knew him valued him at his worth. His second wife showed what was in her by her appreciation of his noble qualities, though one can hardly realise a greater contrast than that of these two, so unlike in character, in training, and disposition. They were married in London, at Marylebone Church, in that dismal year of '98, which is still remembered. Opie loved his wife deeply and passionately; he did not charm her, though she charmed him, but for his qualities she had true respect and admiration.

V.

Opie must be forgiven if he was one-idead, if he erred from too much zeal. All his wife's bright gaiety of nature, her love for her fellow-creatures, her interest in the world, her many-sidedness, this uncompromising husband would gladly have kept for himself. For him his wife and his home were the whole world; his Art was his whole life.

The young couple settled down in London after their marriage, where, notwithstanding fogs and smoke and dull monotony of brick and smut, so many beautiful things are created; where Turner's rainbow lights were first reflected, where Tennyson's 'Princess' sprang from the fog. It was a modest and quiet installation, but among the pretty things which Amelia brought to brighten her new home we read of blue feathers and gold gauze bonnets, tiaras, and spencers, scarlet ribbons, buff net, and cambric flounces, all of which give one a pleasant impression of her intention to amuse herself, and to enjoy the society of her fellows, and to bring her own pleasant contributions to their enjoyment.