Very good, Mrs Stowe! But are no soldiers to be allowed to think, except those belonging to a despot’s army? And is every individual soldier to be permitted to act exclusively upon his own impressions of the abstract propriety or justice of the service in which he is engaged? Passages such as these—and they are not unfrequent in her work—go far indeed to unsettle our faith in the sense, judgment, and discretion of Mrs Stowe—qualities without which even the highest talent fails in attaining at its aims.
But we must now follow Mrs Stowe to London, where her reception was of a most marked and gratifying kind. Our readers cannot have forgotten the remonstrance or expostulation which was addressed by the ladies of Great Britain, under the generalship of the Duchess of Sutherland, to the ladies of America, on the subject of the emancipation of the slaves. That document was freely commented upon at the time; and, if we recollect aright, some rather pungent strictures were made upon it, even by writers in this country, as if, by taking this step, the fair remonstrants had somewhat transgressed the reserve which is expected from their sex. In that view we cannot join. We have intimated, perhaps broadly enough, our objections to the American notion of the “Rights of Woman;” but we trust to stand acquitted of entertaining any such discourteous view as might preclude the ladies from a fair expression of their opinion. In a question such as this, embracing all the domestic considerations and feelings to which women are more alive than men, it was not only well and commendable, but noble and Christian, that women should take a decided part, and attempt, at least, by an appeal to the common sympathies of the sex, to awaken commiseration for the degraded condition of thousands of their human sisters, and to urge an effort in their behalf. We really think that one such representation, addressed by women to women, is more likely to have a lasting and salutary effect, than five hundred public meetings, such as Mrs Stowe witnessed at Glasgow and elsewhere, where bull-throated ministers and blethering bailies assemble to make trial of their powers of oratory. Notwithstanding the reply of Juliana Tyler, who came forward as the champion on the other side, we believe that the appeal, on the part of the ladies of Great Britain, must have made a deep impression on the minds of many in America. We do not feel ourselves called upon to discuss the arguments which Mrs Tyler employed; for in a ladies’ controversy, no male has a right to interfere. Mrs Stowe tells us that the origin of the address was this: “Fearful of the jealousy of political interference, Lord Shaftesbury published an address to the ladies of England, in which he told them that he felt himself moved by an irresistible impulse to entreat them to raise their voice, in the name of their common Christianity and womanhood, to their American sisters.” We shall add, what Mrs Stowe is too modest to say, or perhaps what she does not know, that, but for the publication of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, and the interest excited thereby, Lord Shaftesbury might have worn his pen to the stump before he could have succeeded in eliciting any such remonstrance.
Most graceful indeed, and becoming, was the attention which was lavished, on the part of the Duchess of Sutherland and her kindred, upon Mrs Stowe; and to us by far the most pleasing portion of the book is that in which she records her impressions of London society. In the very highest circles of the metropolis, and while moving for a time in a sphere which might very well dazzle and perplex one to whom such scenes must have appeared like a fairy dream, she really appears to have kept her equilibrium, and preserved her coolness of judgment much better than when she was greeted by civic demonstrations in the North, or by gatherings of the peaceful but somewhat prosy and dogmatic brotherhood of the Quakers in the Midland Counties. To our great astonishment we have observed that poor Mrs Stowe has been accused by various liberal journals in England, of “flunkeyism,” for conveying to her friends an accurate account of what she saw at Stafford House, and one or two other mansions to which she was invited. Anything more unfair and even monstrous than this style of criticism it is impossible to conceive. Mrs Stowe is writing her impressions of British society for the information of her friends in America. In London it was her good fortune to be received cordially and hospitably by several of the most distinguished and estimable of the nobility and public characters; and because she gives a fair, and by no means too minute relation of what she saw and heard, she is scoffed at, by a certain section of the liberal gentry of the London press, as a kind of parasite. This is really very shabby and disgusting; for we do think that her modest, unaffected, and sometimes naïve observations upon what she saw passing around her, might have saved her from any such reflection. She enjoyed in England particular advantages such as very few Americans could boast of. Had N. P. Willis ever been able to compass an admission to Stafford House, his literary fortune would have been made. We should have heard no more of Count Spiridion Ballardos, or any such small-deer; but the intrepid Penciller would have fixed at once upon the Duke of Argyll as his victim, and have magnified himself in some inconceivable way, by introducing Philip Slingsby as the triumphant rival and competitor of the MacCallum-Mhor. Mrs Stowe does not try by any means to exalt herself—indeed her figure does not appear at all prominently in the picture. She has endeavoured to give as accurate a sketch as she could of London society, and in some respects has succeeded pretty well. Blunders there are of course, but that was unavoidable, and a good deal of what appears to us to be gossip, but which possibly may have a higher value in the eyes of her Transatlantic readers. She very fairly admits in her preface, that her narrative may be tinged couleur de rose; and we are only surprised, considering the temptations in her way, that she has used the Claude Lorraine glass with so much discretion. Society is quite as intoxicating as champagne; and it is impossible to write a book of this kind, without recalling, to a considerable extent, the feeling of the bygone excitement. We have no doubt that the printed narrative would seem peculiarly sober, could we be favoured with a perusal of the actual letters which Mrs Stowe despatched to America from the bewildering whirl of London.
One thing, however, we have remarked with pain; and that is the introduction by Mrs Stowe of an elaborate defence or explanation of what were called the “Sutherland Clearings.” Her motive for doing so is quite apparent; but we cannot help thinking that she has placed both herself, and the noble family for whom she appears as an advocate, in a false and disagreeable position, by putting forth statements of the accuracy of which she had no means of judging. The transactions to which she refers are of an old date; and they occurred in a district of which she has absolutely no personal knowledge. She never was in Sutherland, or indeed any other part of the Highlands, and therefore she was not entitled in any way to deal with such a subject. That she was furnished with materials for the purposes of publication seems more than probable: if so, we cannot commend the prudence of those who took so singular a method of refuting what may very possibly be calumny or misrepresentation. With the merits of the case we have nothing to do, nor shall we express any opinion upon them; but it does seem to us a most extraordinary circumstance that Mrs Stowe should have been induced to put forth a long, elaborate, and statistical argument upon a subject of which she is wholly ignorant. A defence of this kind—supposing that any defence was required—is positively hurtful to the parties whose conduct has been called in question; and anything but creditable to their discretion if they consented to its issue.
Interspersed with the actual narrative, are commentaries, or rather criticisms, upon art and literature, which, for the sake of the authoress, we could wish omitted. Her taste, upon all subjects of the kind, is either wholly uncultivated or radically bad—indeed it would be absolutely cruel to quote her observations on the works of the old masters. In literature she prefers Dr Watts, as a poet, to Dryden, and has the calm temerity to proceed to quotation. She says, “For instance, take these lines:—
“‘Wide as his vast dominion lies
Let the Creator’s name be known;
Loud as his thunder shout his praise,
And sound it lofty as his throne.
Speak of the wonders of that love