[p. 371.
Such topics, and many more of a higher order, which were the subject of persistent debate in the drawing-rooms of the Hôtel de Rambouillet, were also discussed in England; there was, it is true, no Hôtel de Rambouillet, but there was the house of the Philips at Cardigan. There was no Marquise, but there was Catherine Philips, the "matchless Orinda," who did much to acclimatize in England the refinements, elegancies, and heroism à panache of her French neighbours. With the help of her friends she translated some of the plays of Corneille, not without adding something to the original to make it look more heroical. The little society gathered round her imitated the feigned names bestowed upon the habitués of the Parisian hotel. While she went by the name of Orinda, plain Mr. Philips, her husband, was re-baptized Antenor; her friend Sir Charles Cotterel, translator of "Cassandre," was Poliarchus; a lady friend, Miss Owen, was Lucasia;[332] fine names, to be sure, which unfortunately will remind many a reader not only of matchless Arthenice, of the Hôtel de Rambouillet, but of Molière's Cathos and Madelon, who, too, had chosen to imitate the Marquise, and insisted on being called Aminte and Polixène, to the astonishment of their honest father.[333]
The high morality and delicacy, both of the "Hôtel," and, alas, of Molière's "Précieuses," were also imitated at Cardigan. To get married was a thing so coarse and vulgar that people with refined souls were to slip into that only at the last extremity. "A fine thing it would be," says the Madelon of the "Précieuses," "if from the first Cyrus were to marry Mandane and if Aronce were all at once wedded to Clelia!" We have seen that such is not the case, and that ten volumes of adventures interpose between their love and their marriage. In the same way an eternal friendship, a marriage of soul to soul, having been sworn between Orinda and Lucasia, it was a matter of great sorrow, shame and despair for the first when the second, after thirteen years of this refined intercourse proved frail and commonplace enough to marry a lover of appropriate age, fortune and position.
Another centre for heroic thoughts and refined morality was the country house of the pedantic but pretty Duchess of Newcastle, a prolific writer of essays, letters, plays, poems, tales, and works of all kinds. To her, literature was a compensation for the impossibility, through want of opportunity, of performing with her own hand heroical deeds: "I dare not examine," says she, "the former times, for fear I should meet with such of my sex that have out-done all the glory I can aime at or hope to attaine; for I confess my ambition is restless, and not ordinary; because it would have an extraordinary fame. And since all heroick actions, publick employments, powerfull governments and eloquent pleadings are denyed our sex in this age or at least would be condemned for want of custome, is the cause I write so much."[334]
[p. 375.
She wrote a great deal, and not without feeling a somewhat deep and naïvely expressed admiration for her own performances. The epithet "restless" which she applies to her ambition, well fits her whole mind; there is restlessness about everything she did and wrote. She is never satisfied with one epistle to the reader; she must have ten or twelve prefaces and under-prefaces, which forcibly remind us of her contemporary, Oronte, in his famous sonnet scene with Alceste. Her "Natures pictures drawn by Fancies pencil to the life" is preceded by several copies of commendatory verses and a succession of preambles, entitled: "To the reader—An epistle to my readers—To the reader—To the reader—To my readers—To my readers"; each being duly signed "M. Newcastle." It seems as if the sight of her own name was a pleasure to her. These prefaces are full of expostulations, explanations and apologies, quite in the Oronte style: "The design of these my feigned stories, is to present virtue, the muses leading her and the graces attending her.... Perchance my feigned stories are not so lively described as they might have been.... As for those tales I name romancicall, I would not have my readers think I write them either to please or to make foolish whining lovers.... I must entreat my readers to understand, that though my naturall genius is to write fancy, yet ... Although I hope every piece or discourse in my book will delight my readers or at least some one, and some another ... yet I do recommend two as the most solid and edifying." Great is the temptation to answer with Alceste: "Nous verrons bien!"[335] But how could one say so when she was so pretty? The best preface to her volumes is in fact the charming engraving representing a party meeting at her house to tell and hear tales round the fire, and of which we give a reproduction. The only pity is that the figure meant as her portrait, though laurel-crowned, looks much more plain and commonplace than we might have expected.
She wrote then abundantly "romancicall" tales, as she called them, with a touch of heroism; edifying tales in which she prescribes "that all young men should be kept to their studies so long as their effeminate beauties doth last;" dialogues "of the wise lady, the learned lady and the witty lady," the three being only too wise; plays in which she depicts herself under the names of Lady Sanspareile, of Lady Chastity, &c., unpardonable sins, no doubt, to give oneself such names; but it is reported she was so beautiful!