Lady Bradshaigh to Richardson (March 29, 1751).
I think we pretty nearly agree, as to learning in women. And I was glad to find our opinion corresponding with an author esteemed by the judicious. In the letters of Balzac to Mr. Chapelain, are the following words: "I could more willingly tolerate a woman with a beard, than one that pretends to learning. In earnest, had I authority in the civil government, I would condemn all those women to the distaff, that undertook to write books, that transform their souls by masculine disguise, and break the rank they hold in the world."
Few bits of correspondence could be more illuminating. Lady Bradshaigh holds the conventional mid-century view while Richardson represents the most advanced feminist ideas of his day. Mrs. Makin, Mary Astell, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, and "Sophia" asked hardly more than Richardson freely grants.
In his letters to Miss Margaret Collier, Richardson is most earnest in his defense of literary women. In answer to her complaint that Fielding's Voyage to Lisbon was counted an inferior work and hence attributed to her, he "inveighed vehemently" against women who published anonymously, and wished it in his power to punish those geniuses of the female sex who studiously "wrapped up their napkin'd talents," elaborately concealing their "God-given talents." "What is it that they fear?... Is it that the men will be afraid of them, and shun them as wives? Unworthy fear! Let the wretches shun and be afraid of them. Unworthy of such blessings, let such men not dare to look up to merits so superior to their own; and let them enter into contract with women, whose sense is as diminutive as their own souls." Miss Collier answers (with a deep sigh) that a preference for "little-minded creatures" and an aversion to women of uncommon understanding is not confined to the wretches he anathematizes, but is as characteristic of "men of real good sense, great parts, and many fine qualities." Miss Collier styles Richardson "the vindicator" of her sex, but he holds his wrath and asks, "Who shall vindicate the honour of a sex, the most excellent of which desert themselves?"[439]
Henry Fielding
Fielding has, in Tom Jones, an entertaining learned lady in the person of Mrs. Western, the sister of Squire Western. She was of a masculine form, near six foot high, which, added to her manner and learning, possibly prevented the other sex from regarding her, notwithstanding her petticoats, in the light of a woman. "She had considerably improved her mind by study; she had not only read all the modern plays, operas, oratorios, poems, and romances—in all which she was a critic—but had gone through Rapin's History of England, Eachard's Roman History, and many French Mémoires pour servir à l'Histoire: to these she had added most of the political pamphlets and journals published within the last twenty years. From which she had obtained a very competent skill in politics, and could discourse very learnedly on the affairs of Europe." Squire Western did not approve of his sister's learned tastes. "You know," he says, "I do not love to hear you talk about politics; they belong to us, and petticoats should not meddle."
But in Fielding's attitude towards his sister's work, and in the personal opinions he expressed in the prefaces to her novels, we find quite a different tone.[440] Mrs. Western represented a self-assertive, pretentious woman whose claim to learning was without justification, and as such Fielding satirized her. For a modest woman of real learning and ability Fielding had great respect.
Pompey the Little (1757)
In Coventry's Pompey the Little is a satirical sketch of a "Lady Sophister" who had visited most of the courts of Europe and who affected a character of wisdom. We first meet her at the bedside of Lady Tempest who is being attended by Dr. Kildarby and Dr. Rhubarb. Lady Sophister had associated with the literati in France "where the ladies affect a reputation of science, and are able to discourse on the profoundest questions of theology and philosophy." She had somehow caught up with the notion that the soul is not immortal, and she never found herself in the company of learned men without launching forth into a discussion of this subject. "This extraordinary principle, to show that she did not take up her notions lightly and wantonly, she was able to demonstrate; and could appeal to the greatest authorities in defence of it. She had read Hobbes, Malebranche, Locke, Shaftesbury, Woolaston, and many more. But Locke was her principal favourite, and consequently she rested chiefly upon him to furnish her with quotations whenever her ladyship pleased to engage in controversy." She attacks the two doctors with, "Have you ever read Mr. Locke's controversy with the Bishop of Worcester?" and hardly waiting to triumph over their confused attempts to evade the question she proceeds: "What do you esteem the soul to be? Is it air, or fire, or æther, or a kind of quintessence, as Aristotle observed—a composition of all the elements?... You know Mr. Locke observes there are various kinds of matter. But first we should define matter, which, you know, the logicians tell us is an extended solid substance. Out of this matter some is made into rose and peach-trees; the next form which matter takes is animal life; from whence we have lions and elephants and all the race of brutes: then the last, as Mr. Locke observes, is thought, and reason, and volition, from whence are created men; and therefore, you plainly see it is impossible for the soul to be immortal." Dr. Rhubarb is dazed by this fluent reasoning, but protests he can recall nothing in Locke about roses and peach-trees and elephants and lions. "Nay, sir," cried she, "can you deny me this? If the soul is fire, it must be extinguished; if air, it must be dispersed; if it be only a modification of matter, then of course it ceases when matter is no longer modified; if it be anything else, it is exactly the same thing: and therefore you must confess—indeed, doctor, you must confess—that it is impossible for the soul to be immortal."[441] Before such a rapid fire of phrases the doctors retire discomfited. It was generally thought that Mr. Coventry meant this sketch for Lady Orford, but even without this personal reference the passage would stand as Coventry's estimate of many of the women of his day who were devoting themselves to metaphysics and knots of divinity.
Jonathan Swift