Women of History: Selected from the Writings of Standard Authors

by Various

With this we may compare what Klopstock says, writing of her: "How perfect was her taste! how exquisitely fine her feelings! she observed everything even to the slightest turn of the thought. I had only to look at her, and could see in her face when even a syllable pleased or displeased her; and when I led her to explain the reason of her remarks, no demonstration could be more true, more accurate, or more appropriate to the subject. But, in general, this gave us very little trouble, for we understood each other when we had scarcely began to explain our ideas."

But all this happiness, too bright for earth, or for long endurance, was about to be suddenly extinguished. There is another letter from Meta to Richardson, dated 26th August, in which she informs him that she has a prospect of being a mother in the month of November, and of thus attaining what has been her only wish ungratified for these four years. She writes from Hamburg, where she was on a visit to her family, while her husband had been obliged to make a journey to Copenhagen. It was the first time that they had been separated. It is remarkable that she seems to have had more than a mere apprehension, almost an assured foreboding, of what awaited her. Klopstock rejoined her at last about the end of September; her last lines, written to him before his return, are dated the 26th of that month. The two following months they spent together at Hamburg. From that place poor Meta was never to return. There, where she had first drawn breath, she died in childbed on the 28th of November. [Klopstock lived till 1803, and was then buried under a lime tree in the churchyard of Ottenson, near Altona, by the side of his Meta and the child that slept in her arms.]

ELIZABETH BLACKWELL.

[1720.]
JAMES BRUCE.

HE piety and domestic virtues of Elizabeth Blackwell entitle her to rank among the best women whose names have found their way into public history; a fortune which has happened to her and Lady Rachel Russel, and two or three other virtuous women; but which has, in the instance of most of their sex who have attained to celebrity, been a calamity upon their memory, being a rank at which it is not easy for a woman to arrive by the practice of those private and retiring virtues and graces which are the real solid ornaments of the female character. Elizabeth Blackwell was the daughter of a stocking merchant in Aberdeen, where she was born about the beginning of last century. The first event of her life which is now known, was her secret marriage with Alexander Blackwell, and her elopement with him to London. He had received a finished education, and was an accurate Greek and Latin scholar. He had studied medicine under the famous Boerhaave, and, in travelling over the Continent, had lived in the best society, and had acquired an extensive knowledge of the modern languages. He was, however, unsuccessful in his endeavours to secure a comfortable livelihood. After having in vain attempted to get into practice as a physician, and having now a wife also to provide for, he applied for the situation of corrector of the press to a printer of the name of Wilkins, and for some time continued in that employment. He then set up a printing establishment in the Strand, but became involved in debt, and was thrown into prison.

It was this circumstance that brought into practice the talents and virtues of Mrs Blackwell. She resolved, by an unexampled labour for a woman, to effect the delivery of her husband. She had in her girlish days practised the drawing and colouring of flowers, a suitable and amiable accomplishment of her sex. Engravings of flowers were then very scarce, and Mrs Blackwell thought that the publication of a Herbal might attract the notice of the world, and yield her such a remuneration as would enable her to discharge her husband's debts. She now engaged in a labour which is at once a noble and marvellous monument of her enthusiastic and untiring conjugal affection, and interesting evidence of the elegant and truly womanly nature of her own mind. Having submitted her first drawings to Sir Hans Sloane and Dr Mead, these eminent physicians encouraged her to proceed with the work. She also received the kindest countenance from Mr Philip Miller, a well-known writer on horticulture. Amongst those who were honoured in patronising her labour of piety was Mr Rand of the Botanical Garden at Chelsea. By his advice Mrs Blackwell took lodgings in the neighbourhood of this garden, from which she was furnished with all the flowers and plants which she required for her work. Of these she made drawings, which she engraved on copper, and coloured with her own hands. Her husband supplied the Latin names and the descriptions of the plants, which were taken principally from Miller's "Botanicum Officinale," with the author's permission.

In 1737, the first volume, a large folio, came out under the following title, "A Curious Herbal, containing 500 Cuts of the most useful Plants which are now used in the Practice of Physic. Engraved in Folio Copperplates, after Drawings by Eliz. Blackwell." The profits which Mrs Blackwell received from this work enabled her to relieve her husband from prison. The adventures of Blackwell after his release are well known. Having devoted much of his attention to agricultural science, he obtained for some time a lucrative employment from the Duke of Chandos. He was subsequently invited to Sweden on account of a work he had published on agriculture. He went there, leaving his wife in England. He was received with honour at the court of Stockholm, where he lived with the prime minister, in the enjoyment of a salary from the government. During this period of prosperity he had continued to send large sums of money to his wife, who was now making arrangements to leave England with her only child and join her husband. But heaven, which often brings human histories to a very different conclusion from what readers of romances are disposed to acquiesce in, for the wise end of impressing men with the most solemn conviction of the reality of another world, which is the appointed place of rest and reward for goodness, saw fit to remove from this noble woman the husband whom she had loved so ardently, and for whom she had wrought a work of such singular piety, and to take him from the world by a melancholy and frightful death. A conspiracy against the constitution of Sweden was formed by Count Tessin; and Blackwell, it is believed innocently, was suspected of being concerned in the plot. He was seized and put to the torture. He was beheaded in July 1747.