Women of England

by Bartlett Burleigh James

In the Sunday schools the children received religious instruction, and in the day schools they were taught to spin flax and wool. No missionary bishop travelled more constantly, no Methodist itinerant cultivated his circuit district more assiduously, than did Hannah and her sister Patty More their lay diocese. The many difficulties which had to be overcome by them cannot be appreciated by workers among the destitute to-day, with all the appliances and books and methods which represent a century's experience in such lines. Nothing of the sort was to hand for these sisters; but Hannah More was an author as well as a philanthropist, and the tales for the interest and instruction of the children she wrote herself.

While Hannah More lived and worked in the eighteenth century, her life's service extended over into the nineteenth century also. She was a contemporary of Miss Mitford, Mary Carpenter, Mrs. Summerville, and Maria Edgeworth. The eighteenth century brought forth the women who were to carry into the nineteenth century the elements of service for society, which were to be like the seed sown in good ground and to bring forth the maximum fold of fruitage.

The national system of education had not been developed in the eighteenth century, making the acquirement of an education somewhat dependent upon individual circumstances as affected by personal ambitions. There was nothing in the way of general education for women. But the dawn of better things intellectually was shown by the development of a group of women of literary comprehension and productivity, who formed a set apart and yet were in a real sense prophets in a wilderness, proclaiming the democracy of letters. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu writes very bitterly of the low esteem in which was held the intellectuality of the sex, and in speaking of the study of classics, says: "My sex is usually forbid studies of this nature, and folly reckoned so much our proper sphere we are sooner pardoned any excesses of that, than the least pretensions to reading or good sense.... Our minds are entirely neglected, and, by disuse of reflections, filled with nothing but the trifling objects our eyes are daily entertained with. This custom so long established and industriously upheld makes it even ridiculous to go out of the common road, and forces one to find as many excuses as if it was a thing altogether criminal not to play the fool in concert with other women of quality, whose birth and leisure only serve to render them the most useless and most worthless part of the creation. There is hardly a creature in the world more despicable or more liable to universal ridicule than a learned woman! These words imply, according to the received sense, a tattling, impertinent, vain, and conceited creature.... The Abbé Bellegarde gives a reason for women's talking over much: they know nothing, and every outward object strikes their imagination and produces a multitude of thoughts, which, if they knew more, they would know not worth thinking of. I am not now arguing for an equality of the two sexes. I do not doubt God and nature have thrown us into an inferior rank; we are a lower part of the creation, we owe obedience and submission to the superior sex, and any woman who suffers her folly and vanity to deny this rebels against the laws of the Creator, and indisputable order of nature; but there is a worse effect than this, which follows the careless education given to women of quality—it's being so easy for any man of sense, that finds it either his interest or his pleasure to corrupt them. The common method is to begin by attacking their religion: they bring a thousand fallacious arguments their excessive ignorance hinders them from refuting; and, I speak now from my own knowledge and conversation among them, there are more atheists among the fine ladies than among the lowest sort of rakes." This bitter plaint of a lady of quality, with its humiliating acknowledgment of the inferiority of her sex and the hopelessness of that inferiority, sounds very pathetic in the light of the present-day estimate of woman and her acknowledged equality with man in all matters, saving only in the exercise of the public functions for which the advocates of the full programme of woman's rights contend.

It is not surprising that women of intellectual gifts grew morbid under a sense of social inferiority; it is not strange that they hid their light under a bushel, and were afraid of acknowledging their talents or their aspirations, when men regarded learning for their daughters "as great a profanation as the clergy would do if the laity should undertake to exercise the functions of the priesthood." In matters intellectual, woman was negative. She must not embarrass her superiors by displaying in their presence indications of talent or evidences of learning; her theories and opinions were not worthy of statement or consideration in the presence of the male sex. Her gentility was one of breeding, but it did not involve the brain. Of necessity the intellectual development of woman in such a mental atmosphere was slow. Her elevation was dependent upon an awakening of thought in all departments of life. There was lacking an incentive to intellectual industry when the fruits of such toil might not be enjoyed.

Under such adverse conditions, the names of the women of exceptional intellectual gifts in the eighteenth century constitute a roll of honor worthy to be inscribed in every hall of learning devoted to the education of women. This literary coterie included, besides Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, Mrs. Elizabeth Montagu, Elizabeth Parker, Mrs. Vesey, Hannah More, Mrs. Chapone, Elizabeth Carter, and Miss Talbot.

Lady Montagu was of an aggressive nature, and well fitted to conquer difficulties rather than to despair in their presence. She was a good classical scholar, a student under Bishop Burnet, and was abreast of all the thought of her time. She is credited, among other things, with the courage to introduce the system of inoculation for smallpox, having had her son so treated.

Mrs. Elizabeth Montagu was an insatiable devotee of society, and abounded with a fund of mirth for the enlivenment of the dullest company. In her correspondence, amid a lively flow of chatter, she introduces discussions of Dr. Middleton's Life of Cicero and other critical and historical allusions relating to the classic authors, and evinces familiarity with such literature. Again, she is found descanting in a critical vein on the qualities of Warburton's Notes on Shakespeare. Her observations upon English history are appreciative of its distinguishing features. In these remarks she says: "In some reigns, the kingdom is in the most terrible confusion, in others it appears mean and corrupt; in Charles II.'s time, what a figure we make with French measures and French mistresses! But when our times are written, England will recover its glory; such conquests abroad, such prosperity at home, such prudence in council, such vigor in execution, so many men clothed in scarlet, so many fine tents, so many cannon that do not so much as roar, such easy taxes, such flourishing trade! Can posterity believe it? I wish our history, from its incredibility, may not get bound up with fairy tales and serve to amuse children, and make nursery maids moralize." The same light touch and whimsical insight displayed in this quotation are evidenced in all her writings. It matters not the subject—balls or books, flirtations or syllogisms, the same delicate vein of humor runs throughout them.

Miss Carter, the particular friend of Mrs. Montagu, frail in health and devoted, a beauty, a wit, a brilliant conversationalist, was yet of a much more retiring disposition than was her friend. She created no Hillstreet and Portman Square assemblies, although she was by no means a recluse; and even if she did not have so strong a social following as Mrs. Montagu, her presence possessed charm for those who assembled about her. She had a wide acquaintance with literature, and patronized the libraries extensively; her linguistic accomplishments included French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, and, most rare acquirement in those days, German. She was discriminating in her literary tastes, and is found commenting upon German books of fiction. She says that they are dangerous for young people, for the reason that they possess the singular art of sanctifying the passions. Mere sentimentality was repugnant to her feelings, and she dismissed from her attention a German book, with the expression: "A detestable book, but I know of no other in German that is exceptionable in the same horrid way."

Mrs. Vesey was another literary character whose salon, made thoroughly delightful, was frequented only by persons of the greatest culture. Just how the name bas-bleu came to be identified with the assembly which Mrs. Vesey gathered about her is not known. One explanation which was current at the time attributes the term to a foreign gentleman who was invited to go to either Mrs. Montagu's or Mrs. Vesey's, and was assured as to the informality of the occasion by an acquaintance, who told him that full dress was quite optional, and, in fact, he might go in blue stockings if he was so minded. Other accounts do not agree with this; one lays the phrase at the door of Mr. Benjamin Stillingfleet, the naturalist, who always wore blue stockings; but it is asserted by Miss Carter's biographer that Stillingfleet died before the name came into vogue. Hannah More, in some whimsical lines, describes a bas-bleu assembly:

"Here sober Duchesses are seen,