LADY HAMPDEN
His sister-in-law, Lady Hampden,[166] is a woman of a most extraordinary character, and a melancholy proof of how much we depend upon others even for our virtues. Her father was the man who first mentioned the present Queen to Lord Bute, and was employed by him afterwards to arrange the business, and he was, by-the-bye, neglected by the upstart Majesty merely because he knew the obscurity and poverty of her native Court. Ly. H. was his only child, and was extremely young and beautiful when first married. For ten years their marriage was perfectly happy—the old Lord was living; they lived in retirement and were poor. His death gave them riches, and the fond, domestic husband was lost in the dissipated gambler. His house was amongst the first where a faro bank was kept. Unfortunately this has become prevalent, and many hold a share at those houses where every allurement is held out to attract and seduce. It was in this country that a man first dared to deal at faro without a mask, so infamous did they esteem the office upon the Continent.
It would be a curious subject to investigate and write a book upon, to trace back the little points and hazards upon which the fate of the world, its manners and opinions, have depended. Had Carthage triumphed, and Hannibal been a second Alexander, how different in all probability would have been the genius and customs of the world! Commerce would have stifled the glory of arms, and crushed the taste for the fine arts. Their industry would have spread civilisation into the heart of Africa, and that extent of country, now only a barbarous land, might have satisfied the wants of society, and these miserable Northern latitudes might still have been left to their Odins, their Druids, their fogs, and their frosts. What a blessing to have been confined to go no farther north than the Pyrenees! I may be justified in this wish, whilst at the moment of making it I am wrapped up in flannels, and roasting by a fire, to keep my blood in sufficient circulation to carry on the economy of animal life. Another epoch that would have operated even more powerfully upon the character of mankind and their usages was the chance of the battle in France between the Saracens and the Christians.[167] What would have been the effect had the former succeeded? One good would have been certain, the human mind would not have been priest-ridden as it is, and the fear of death would have been checked and not encouraged. The worst part of the Christian dispensation is the terror it inculcates upon a deathbed. The wisest dread it; no person who is strictly brought up in the principles of Christianity can ever thoroughly shake off the fear of dying. The Catholics supply instances of this every day; from infancy to manhood their minds are debased by superstition in every terrific shape. When capable of reflecting they shake off their shackles, and become from bigots atheists. So they live, but in fact the evil is but suspended; a fit of illness throws them back into the bosom of credulity, and like Gresset[168] they die in sackcloth.
The claims of the Romish Church are stronger upon the imagination than those of the more purified sects of Protestants. The priests found it so much to their interests to pervert the understanding, that the love of power made them hold their empire beyond the grave—hence their Purgatory.
EFFECT OF RELIGIOUS WARS
The Christian priests, with all their subtlety and policy, from vanity gave the staff out of their own hands. Proud of the praise centred upon them for being the preservers of learning, they weakly taught the laity the valuable treasures they had preserved, and by enlightening them the progress has been such as we see. Had they, like the priests of Egypt, confined all knowledge to their own body, society would still have been dependent upon them, and whilst there was no contention, they might have been a harmless theocracy. Certainly during the middle ages they were serviceable even to the cause of humanity, for those very Crusades eventually benefited Europe. They drew forth many turbulent spirits, who, had they remained at home, would have fallen into intestine broils, and kept up the feudal governments. Whereas, though two-thirds of the vast armies that issued out never returned, yet the one-third that did introduced a taste for foreign productions to which commerce became the consequence, and the manners of every country in Europe by degrees softened and civilised. Yet this good they did was severely bought by the horrors of the religious wars after the Reformation in Germany when Gustavus Adolphus was called in. That embraces a horrid period in the annals of history: it was an awful struggle between reason and bigotry. Fortunately for the advantage (perhaps) of mankind the former conquered to a degree, and but for the absurd excesses which have disgraced morality in this French Revolution, the cause of common sense would have completely succeeded. But we are nearer a relapse into old errors than a reformation.
Had the Saracens been masters of Europe the lot of womankind would have been but indifferent, for it is a very remarkable circumstance that all the institutions in Southern countries are very degrading to the sex. Morally and physically we are treated as beings of an inferior class, and though it is not quite demonstrable that we are supposed to be without a claim to immortality of soul, yet the reward is but trivial, and we are excluded the Paradise of men. On the contrary, the natives of the North hold even the feminine gender in respect, so great is their veneration for us: they fought with us by their sides as tutelary angels, and submitted to the government of a female chief. They called the Sun the greatest luminary, to honour it with a feminine name, and the moon, which is inferior, by a masculine one. This spirit melted into chivalry, and it is to the preux chevaliers, the Arthurs, the Orlandos, and the Round Table, that we owe our present situation in society. However, the Saracens were a great and enlightened people, and till lately literature and science have never fairly been grateful for what they owe them, and half the world to this day even confound them with those savages, the Turks. It is true that at first they fought with the sword in one hand and the Alkoran in the other, but once conquerors they cultivated the milder virtues. Where is there a better government than that under the Caliphs in Spain? The University of Granada educated our first literati, Friar Bacon, etc. It would be endless to enter into their merits: Andrès,[169] a Spanish Jesuit who lives at Mantua, has written an excellent book in Italian about them.
HER EDUCATION
I have had so strange an education, that if I speak freely upon sacred subjects it is not from an affectation of being an esprit fort, but positively because I have no prejudices to combat with. My principles were of my own finding, both religious and moral, for I never was instructed in abstract or practical religion, and as soon as I could think at all chance directed my studies; for though both my parents were as good and as virtuous people as ever breathed, and I was always an only child, yet I was entirely left, not from system, but from fondness and inactivity, to follow my own bent. Happily for me I devoured books, and a desire for information became my ruling passion. The experiment of leaving a child without guidance or advice is a dangerous one, and ought never to be done; for if parents will not educate it themselves they should seek for those that will; but I do not complain, as perhaps all is for the best in this instance, though I should be bien autre chose if I had been regularly taught. I never had any method in my pursuits, and I was always too greedy to follow a thing with any suite. Till lately I did not know the common principles of grammar, and still a boy of ten years old would outdo me.
But I never look back upon the early period of my life, but I turn from the picture with disgust. At fifteen, through caprice and folly, I was thrown into the power of one who was a pompous coxcomb, with youth, beauty, and a good disposition, all to be so squandered! The connection was perdition to me in every way; my heart was good, but accustomed to hear and see everything that was mean and selfish, I tried to shut it to the calls of humanity, and used my reason to teach me to hate mankind. Fortune smiled, and made me ample amends for seven or eight years of suffering, by making me know the most favoured of her sons. At Florence, in 1794, I began to think there were exceptions to my system of misanthropy, and every hour from that period to this (’97), which now sees me the happiest of women, have I continued to wonder and admire the most wonderful union of benevolence, sense, and integrity in the character of the excellent being whose faith is pledged with mine. Either he has imparted some of his goodness to me, or the example of his excellence has drawn out the latent good I had—as certainly I am a better person and a more useful member of society than I was in my years of misery.