In 1797—seven years after the date of the first edition of "Charlotte Temple"—the second of our two novels appeared. It was called "The Coquette" and was written by Mrs. Hannah Foster, the wife of a Brighton, Massachusetts, minister. For many years it was read and re-read throughout the country, the latest edition appearing in 1866. Like "Charlotte Temple" its theme was the tragedy of abandonment. It seems, indeed, that the writer who wished to intrigue the interest of our ancestors of this period was compelled to hang his plot on the judiciously interwoven threads of sentiment and gloom. Perhaps no further proof of this is needed than the example of Charles Brockden Brown's portentous and sinister romances, with their undeniable flashes of genius. But it is well to remember, too, that these were the days when "The Castle of Otranto," "Clarissa Harlowe," and "The Vicar of Wakefield" were all popular, and all exhibited varying phases of the literary vogue of the day. In other words, though the prevailing mode of thought found expression in different forms, the imaginative impulses beneath the various manifestations were the same.
Therefore it is not surprising to find little relief from the tragic note in "The Coquette." It is true that the author endeavors to present the heroine, Eliza Wharton, as a worldly and volatile young woman, but these touches of lightness have lost with the passing years whatever approaches to polite comedy they may have once implied. One must confess that regarded strictly as a piece of fiction the book makes rather hard reading today. But examined with some knowledge of the mystery upon which it is founded, the old novel becomes a genuine human document.
Mrs. Foster was a family connection of Elizabeth Whitman, the original of "Eliza Wharton," and may have known her. Whatever the shortcomings of her portrayal may be, it is clear that the authoress was endeavoring to set forth in her book the character, as she estimated it, of the charming and gifted girl, the tragedy of whose death is still unexplained. It is true that the accuracy of the portrait in all respects may be doubted. For example, the few letters of Elizabeth Whitman that have been preserved are far more spontaneous and delightful than any of Eliza Wharton's epistles which constitute so large a part of the story.
Evidently they are the letters of a different person, as well as a more attractive one, than Mrs. Foster's heroine. Then, too, Mrs. Foster's tale has something of the effect of a tract, of a moral effort. She is driving home an ethical lesson and Eliza is the example to be shunned, whereas modern speculation, grown more tolerant, is apt to question the pre-judgment which guided the novelist's pen. He who today seeks to penetrate the old secret realizes that he is furnished with only half of the evidence. On that incomplete data how can a verdict of condemnation be fairly based? Elizabeth's own story has never been told.
Nevertheless, here, for what it is worth, is Mrs. Foster's notion, adapted to her fictional purposes, of the kind of person the real Elizabeth was, and from this reflection, faint and clouded though it may be, of a genuine and appealing character, the old novel today gathers its greatest interest. For against the somewhat somber background of her New England period this Hartford girl stands forth with a flash of brilliancy and charm. In the midst of a somewhat limited and narrow social life, she was an individualist, an exotic. In contrast with her Puritan environment she seems almost Hellenic—yet one fancies that there is something about her more Gallic than Greek.
She was the eldest of the three daughters of the Rev. Elnathan Whitman, D.D., a Fellow of Yale College, and pastor from 1732 till his death in 1777 of the Second Church in Hartford. It is a singular coincidence that through her mother, born Abigail Stanley, she traced kinship to the Charlotte Stanley who was the original of "Charlotte Temple." Her father was a grandson of that noted divine, Solomon Stoddard of Northampton, who, it will be remembered, was the grandfather of Jonathan Edwards. John Trumbull, the poet and judge, was a cousin and so was Aaron Burr. Besides these, the Pierreponts, the Whitneys, the Ogdens, the Russells, the Wadsworths, were all kin or connected by marriage.
Fairly early in life Elizabeth became engaged to be married to the Rev. Joseph Howe, a Yale graduate, and for a while a tutor at the college, whose chief pastorate was at the New South Church in Boston. During the siege he was compelled to flee from the city and, his health failing, he died at Hartford, probably in 1776.
In that rare volume, "American Poems, Selected and Original," published at Litchfield, 1793, is "An Ode, Addressed to Miss—. By the late Rev. Joseph Howe, of Boston." Its occasion was the departure, by sea, of the young woman to whom it was addressed.
"Nor less to heaven did I prefer,
For thy dear sake, my pious prayer.
O winds, O waves, agree!
Winds gently blow, waves softly flow,
Ship move with care, for thou dost bear
The better part of me."
It is possible, indeed probable, that Elizabeth Whitman, who visited occasionally in Boston, inspired these lines, but it appears that on her part this love affair was of only moderate intensity and that her father's death, which occurred in the year following the death of her betrothed, affected her far more than that of the young minister she was to have married. Not long after Mr. Whitman died, while Elizabeth was visiting in New Haven at the home of Dr. Ezra Stiles, President of Yale College, whose daughter Betsy was her intimate friend, her second love affair developed.