:
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 AT LOS angele:
 
 A WOMAN 
 OF WIT AND WISDOM
 
 A WOMAN 
 OF WIT AND WISDOM 
 
 A MEMOIR OF ELIZABETH CARTER 
 
 ONE OF THE 
 
 *BAS BLEU' SOCIETY 
 
 (1717-1806) 
 
 BY 
 
 ALICE C. C. GAUSSEN 
 
 AUTHOR OF ' A LATER PEPYS ' 
 
 WITH PORTRAITS, ILLUSTRATIONS 
 AND FACSIMILE 
 
 
 NEW YORK: E. P. BUTTON & COMPANY 
 
 31 WEST TWENTY-THIRD STREET 
 1906
 
 • • • ^ • • 
 * « t I « » • 
 
 
 .*. ,-• . 
 
 t « " . 1.. • . • . . 
 
 . " . ... ■ . • • . 
 
 » •••• • •• • « • 
 
 V,'..'. ..:..* •.•:•:• ' •.• '••
 
 J^^ 
 
 DA 
 
 PREFACE 
 
 Few but the most enthusiastic students of the 
 eighteenth century can find time to dig for the 
 hidden treasures that lie buried in the numerous 
 volumes containing the life and letters of Mrs. 
 Elizabeth Carter. To throw light upon the 
 t\ brilliant picture of her personality, brimful of 
 animation, and of mental and physical activity, 
 and to focus the many side-lights that stream in 
 from various sources upon the stage on which 
 >^ this remarkable woman moved, with men and 
 ^ women of genius clustering in the foreground, 
 ^ it is necessary to explore the mass of contem- 
 V porary literature that recalls her times, and the 
 ofifted circle to which she beloncred. 
 
 The endeavour to bring back, however 
 faintly, even a breath of the atmosphere of 
 those days that are long since gone is a re- 
 freshing and invigorating task. No picture can 
 ever be complete. There must always be a side 

 
 VI 
 
 PREFACE 
 
 that is not shown. Every artist has a tendency 
 to catch the characteristics that appeal to him- 
 self, and give his sitter somewhat of his own 
 expression, as in the French fable each animal 
 asserted that the harlequin was entirely of his 
 own hue. But it is in the expression that the 
 likeness consists, and it is just this that is to 
 be found surviving in the quaint and original, 
 though perhaps slightly eccentric character of 
 Elizabeth Carter. Though the versatility of her 
 thoughts and sayings may make the narrative 
 appear to a certain extent disjointed, I have 
 tried, as far as possible, to tell the story of 
 her life in her own words, gathered from all 
 sources, for it is only by letting the real Mrs. 
 Carter speak for herself that we can see her as 
 she was. 
 
 Erratic and eccentric she could only appear 
 to those who mistrust the unconventional, and 
 hesitate to say and write what they really think. 
 Elizabeth Carter spoke her mind without dis- 
 guise, for the simple reason that of her inmost 
 thoughts she had no reason to be ashamed. 
 Reserve, while adding force and dignity to the 
 strongest characters, may if carried too far 
 stifle and kill originality, and reduce them to a 
 conventional dead level. Mrs. Carter, though
 
 PREFACE vii 
 
 she ' lets herself go,' is entirely free from the 
 opposite extreme of gush and sentimentality. 
 Epictetus taught men to restrain, but not sup- 
 press, the movements of the heart. 
 
 It was a strong sympathy between the 
 ancient philosopher Epictetus and his eigh- 
 teenth-century translator, Elizabeth Carter, 
 which led her after the lapse of many centuries 
 to reveal him to English readers. Both were 
 thinkers ; both were sufferers ; both bore their 
 sufferings cheerfully according to their different 
 lights, and both were philosophers. 
 
 Mrs. Carter saw no virtue in suffering. She 
 did not demand that the narrow path should 
 be full of thorns ; but was content with those 
 already planted there, and did not insist on the 
 spiked girdle and other self-imposed aids to 
 mental and physical discomfort. For this, 
 some will condemn her as too self-satisfied and 
 optimistic. 
 
 On the other hand, her childlike faith and 
 implicit assurance of a joyful hereafter will not 
 be in accordance with the more fashionable 
 views of those who hold the doctrine ' Carpe 
 diem.' Between these two extremes she steered 
 a middle course, but in that happy medium, 
 where truth is generally to be found, she
 
 viii PREFACE 
 
 escaped mediocrity. Her rule, like that of 
 Epictetus, was ' bear and forbear ; ' she just 
 went her own way, and left other people to go 
 theirs. She never tried, like the man in the 
 fable, to carry the donkey, or to pose in un- 
 natural attitudes. 
 
 Elizabeth Carter possessed a genius for 
 friendship that prevented her life being a lonely 
 one, though in some respects it was solitary, 
 as the lives of all must be whose thoughts and 
 aspirations are not quite normal, or on a level 
 with that of their average fellow-creatures, for 
 the probability of being associated with those 
 of like mind, scattered here and there in the 
 world and up and down the ages, is always 
 remote. From her inability to make talk, she was 
 held of small account by those ' Deal misses ' 
 whose chatter only reflected the local gossip of 
 their native town, and no one could suppose 
 that any of the ' Strephons ' who in her youth 
 had done her the honour of wishing to marry 
 her would have proved congenial companions 
 through life. Neither the faithless versifier to 
 whom she was really attached, nor the im- 
 petuous youth whose ' wig was always in an 
 uproar,' nor yet the inquisitive Yorkshireman 
 would have added to her happiness or useful-
 
 PREFACE ix 
 
 ness. As to those grave prelates, statesmen, 
 and men of letters who in her later years the 
 world declared would marry Madam Carter, 
 she was far too sensible a woman to mistake 
 their friendship and respect for any other senti- 
 ment, or to suppose that they had ' any such in- 
 tention,' However, under other circumstances, 
 she would no doubt have accommodated herself 
 cheerfully to their idiosyncrasies as she did to 
 those of her own relations. She never com- 
 plained of being misunderstood by her family, 
 that constant lamentation of the egotistical 
 which a present-day preacher wisely meets with 
 the prompt assurance that the family of the 
 interesting sufferer understand her only too 
 well. 
 
 Mrs. Carter's life was spent to a great 
 extent in retirement, but her outlook on the 
 world from her little ' vinegar bottle ' at Deal, 
 like that of Epictetus from his hut at Rome, 
 was one of an acute and judicious observer of 
 manners, and her instructions, like his, were 
 free from dogmatism, vanity, or rudeness. She 
 was a woman of the world in the best sense 
 of the word. By her little touches of humour 
 she shows how much she knew of human 
 nature and its ways. She never sneers, nor
 
 X PREFACE 
 
 frowns, nor grumbles ; she is never cynical, 
 nor sarcastic, nor contemptuous ; but she has 
 a wonderful way of hitting hard and hitting 
 straight. If at times she seems to soar in the 
 clouds, she always manages to come down on 
 her feet. Her flights of imagination are just 
 enough to give us for one instant an additional 
 peep of that smile which beams, and plays, and 
 twinkles, and hovers over her whole character, 
 as it is conjured up to us. 
 
 It has been said that in common with other 
 of the ' Bas Bleu ' ladies, Elizabeth Carter 
 lacked a certain lightness of touch ; but it must 
 be remembered that it is always easier to float 
 gracefully and quietly with the stream than 
 to pull vigorously against it, and those who 
 joined Dr. Johnson in his endeavour ' to make 
 mankind more reasonable creatures,' trod the 
 thorny path of the reformer. 
 
 Her eager activities in the early morning 
 hours may perhaps give the idea of restlessness. 
 There is an impetus in the woman which might 
 expose her to the charge of having been impul- 
 sive and headstrong, and unable to sit still. But 
 we look again, and see her at her work, and 
 her assiduity is such, she is so riveted, so con- 
 centrated, that we seem to find her all at once
 
 PREFACE 
 
 XI 
 
 transformed to a silent, motionless statue, totally 
 absorbed, and wholly unconscious of every- 
 thing except her task. She also knows how 
 to rest, and can enjoy ' basking in the sun, 
 indolently happy, mighty tranquil, in an abso- 
 lute vacation of all thought.' Both in repose 
 and in action she possesses a charm and dignity 
 which her marvellous vitality and vivacity only 
 serve to enhance. 
 
 It speaks well for the bracing climate of 
 Deal that such a character should have been 
 nurtured there. Like the sea, which is ever 
 changing its tints only to reveal fresh beauties, 
 so this hardy child of nature seems to breathe 
 the fresh sea air of her native place all through 
 her life. Like the sea-gull that rests calmly on 
 the crest of the stormy wave, or skims along it 
 and dives for its prey, so this lady of many 
 sides and accomplishments seems to have been 
 here, there, and everywhere, roaming free and 
 unfettered in the very largeness of her own 
 expanse and outlook. The hard strain of work 
 brought her no weariness, no reaction, for she 
 was not in the habit of looking back ; she was 
 far too interested ever to be bored. With her, 
 ennui was impossible. There is a bonhoinie 
 about her that speaks for itself, and the object
 
 Xll 
 
 PREFACE 
 
 of this book will be fulfilled if it puts its readers 
 in touch with the clever, kindly cheerfulness 
 which belongs to Mrs. Elizabeth Carter, and is 
 peculiarly her own. 
 
 I desire to express my thanks to Mr. Robert 
 Brudenell Carter, whose grandfather, Henry 
 Carter, was half-brother to Elizabeth, and until 
 he entered the University was entirely edu- 
 cated by her. Besides writing the genealogical 
 appendix relating to the Carter family, Mr. 
 Brudenell Carter has allowed me to use letters 
 and papers in his possession, and two books of 
 hitherto unpublished correspondence that were 
 kindly placed at his disposal by the Mayor of 
 Deal and the 'Carter Institute' in that town. 
 Also I desire to thank Mr. Taylor-Whitehead 
 for his kindness in making researches and 
 furnishing me with many interesting facts. 
 
 The portrait of Bishop Hayter has been 
 reproduced, by kind permission of the Bishop 
 of London, from the picture at Fulham Palace, 
 and the view of Deal, by the courtesy of Mr. 
 Soutter, from an engraving in his possession. 
 
 For most of the other illustrations I am 
 indebted to Mr. Brudenell Carter. The 
 original medallion, reproduced on the cover of 
 the book, was modelled from the life in wax.
 
 PREFACE 
 
 Xlll 
 
 and cast in hard white enamel paste by James 
 Tassie (1735-90), the well-known Glasgow 
 artist, who settled in London in 1766. He exe- 
 cuted portraits of Adam Smith and many other 
 eminent Scotsmen. Specimens of his work are 
 now rare in this country, as they have been 
 largely acquired by American collectors. But 
 there is a collection of his medallions in the 
 Scottish National Portrait Gallery. His me- 
 dallion of Elizabeth Carter is enclosed in a 
 crystal pendant, and bears the monogram of 
 her sister, Mrs. Douglas, at the back. It passed 
 afterwards into the possession of Mrs. Carter's 
 niece, the Princesse de Vismes et de Penthievre, 
 and is now owned by Mr. Brudenell Carter. 
 
 In this, as in all my work, I acknowledge 
 the kind help and advice that I have found 
 literary friends ever ready to give, 
 
 Alice C. C. Gaussen. 
 
 88 Eaton Place : February 1906. 
 
 /
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPIER PAGE 
 
 vii 
 
 PREFACE 
 
 I 'a long life without a story 
 
 IL DEAL . . . . . . 
 
 in. MRS. carter's views on marriage 
 
 IV. ARCHBISHOP SECKER AND CATHARINE TALBOT 
 
 V. MRS. carter's literary WORKS AND PHILO 
 SOPHICAL VIEWS 
 
 VI. SOCIETY 
 
 VII. DR. JOHNSON 
 
 VIII. MRS. MONTAGU 
 
 IX. MRS. VESEY 
 
 X. LORD BATH ...... 
 
 XI. SPA AND FOREIGN TOUR .... 
 
 XII. BODY AND MIND 
 
 APPENDIX : GENEALOGICAL NOTE. BY ROBERT 
 BRUDENELL CARTER, F.R.C.S. 
 
 I 
 
 29 
 60 
 78 
 
 92 
 
 161 
 
 189 
 202 
 
 227
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 ELIZABETH CARTER Frontispiece 
 
 From a crayon drawing by Sir Thomas Lawrence, 
 P.R.A., iti the National Portrait Gallery. 
 
 DEAL ........ To face p. 30 
 
 From an etigraving after a painting by J. W. M. 
 Turner, R.A.) 
 
 THOMAS HAYTER, BISHOP OF LONDON . ,, 66 
 
 F7-om a painting in Fulham Palace. 
 
 SAMUEL RICHARDSON ,,70 
 
 Fro7n a painting by Joseph Highmorein the National 
 Portrait Gallery. 
 
 CATHARINE TALBOT „ 78 
 
 From the frontispiece to ' The Works of the late 
 Miss Catharine Talbot,' 1812. 
 
 THOMAS SECKER, ARCHBISHOP OF CANTER- 
 BURY ....... „ 100 
 
 From an engraving after a painting by Sir Joshua 
 Reynolds, P. R.A. 
 
 BOOK PLATE OF ELIZABETH CARTER . . „ 1 28 
 
 SAMUEL JOHNSON, LL.D. ... „ 162 
 
 After the painting by Sir Joshua Reynolds, P. R.A.) 
 
 WILLIAM PULTENEY, EARL OF BATH . . ,, 202 
 
 From a painting by Sir Joshua Reynolds, P.R.A., in 
 the National Portrait Gallery. ) 
 
 ANCELL MONUMENT IN GREAT BARFORD 
 
 CHURCH ,, 256 
 
 From a photograph. 
 
 FACSIMILE OF A LETTER FROM ELIZABETH 
 CARTER TO HER BROTHER, DATED NO- 
 VEMBER I, 1798 .... „ 186
 
 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE 
 
 Elizabeth Carter was born in 1717 
 
 Wrote verses in the ' Gentleman's Magazine,' signed 
 
 'Eliza' 1734 
 
 Published a small collection of poems . . . 1738 
 Translated from the French an attack on Pope's 
 
 ' Essay on Man,' by M. Crousaz . . . . 1739 
 Translated from the Italian Algarotti's ' Newtonian- 
 
 ismo per le Dame ' ...... 1739 
 
 Commenced her translation of Epictetus at the re- 
 quest of Archbishop Seeker 1749 
 
 Published her translation of Epictetus by guinea 
 
 subscription ....... 1758 
 
 Printed a second collection of poems, dedicated to 
 
 Lord Bath 1762 
 
 Removed to a house of her own at Deal . . . 1762 
 Travelled on the Continent with Mr. and Mrs. 
 
 Montagu and Lord Bath . . . . . . 1763 
 
 Lost her friend, William Pulteney, Earl of Bath . 1764 
 
 Archbishop Seeker died 1768 
 
 Catharine Talbot died 1770 
 
 Dr. Nicholas Carter (her father) died . . . . 1774 
 
 Dr. Johnson died ....... 1784 
 
 Mrs. Carter was presented to Queen Charlotte at 
 
 Lord Cremorne's house at Chelsea . . . . 1791 
 
 Died February 19 . . . . . . . 1806
 
 A WOMAN 
 
 OF 
 
 WIT AND WISDOM 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 ' A LONG LIFE WITHOUT A STORY ' 
 
 As the personality of Mrs. Elizabeth Carter 
 claims our attention, more than either her life 
 or works, her uneventful career, marked by few 
 of the epochs which form the milestones of 
 the individual life, is best recorded in her own 
 quaint phraseology. No attempt has been 
 made to modernise her language, which is 
 characteristic both of herself and her period ; 
 all that she wrote, said, or thought has, as far 
 as possible, been interwoven into the story, 
 which was the method by which Boswell said 
 'mankind were enabled to see his hero live.' 
 Modern English she could not endure. She 
 
 B
 
 2 A WOMAN OF 
 
 lived to see the mushroom growth of a new 
 language, filled with phrases which nobody- 
 could have understood when she was young, 
 and there seemed to be such a rage for writing ; 
 and ' Oh, lack ! What writing,' as somebody- 
 used to say, ' what writation it all is ! ' It was 
 her woeful destiny on one occasion to entertain 
 a Beauty, who made most fearful counterfeit 
 coinage of the current language of this land. 
 Happily, she could not foresee the modern 
 young woman, who is not even as * a jewel of 
 gold in a swine's snout,' for she often lacks 
 beauty as well as discretion, and will tell you 
 with a languid drawl, that she is ' so fearfully 
 devoted to electric light.' Only when the 
 phrase had meaning, when under the influence 
 of strong emotion she thought the whole cir- 
 culation of her blood would have stopped, did 
 Elizabeth Carter declare she had never seen 
 or felt anything so ^shockingly well acted' as 
 the part of Shylock. 
 
 To Epictetus's uneventful life and circum- 
 scribed surroundings Dean Farrar applies the 
 saying, that ' Great men have often the 
 shortest biographies, their real life is in their 
 books ;' it might equally be said of his translator, 
 Elizabeth Carter, that her life was in her
 
 WIT AND WISDOM 3 
 
 quaint personality, well-regulated mind, and her 
 shrewd and witty sayings. 
 
 She was born on December 16, 171 7, at 
 Deal, and passed the greater part of her life in 
 those regions of obscurity and dulness where 
 nothing remarkable ever happened since the 
 landing of Julius Caesar, and all that took 
 place ten miles distant was absolutely unknown ; 
 thence she could transmit no journal but a table 
 of the tides, or a register of the weather. P'or 
 the journal that consists of facts must contain 
 facts of great consequence. But in her quiet 
 and obscure life she read, wrote, thought, and 
 felt, and the whole wide creation was open to 
 her observation. 
 
 Elizabeth was the eldest daughter of the 
 Rev. Nicholas Carter, D.D., Perpetual Curate 
 of the chapel that was erected in Deal when 
 the church was found to be too small and dis- 
 tant. Dr. Carter was one of the six preachers 
 in Canterbury Cathedral. At the age of ten 
 she lost her mother, whose death was attributed 
 to vexation at the loss of a handsome fortune 
 she had brought her husband. The bursting 
 of the South Sea Bubble in 1720 swept away 
 
 the greater part of it, and the poor lady, who 
 
 B 2
 
 4 A WOMAN OF 
 
 had not the spirit to conquer fate, fell into a 
 gradual decline. 
 
 A perfect knowledge of French, acquired at 
 an early age from a Huguenot refugee minister 
 at Canterbury, was the foundation of Elizabeth 
 Carter's education ; her father taught her, 
 together with her brothers, Latin, Greek, and 
 Hebrew, though the slowness of her apprehen- 
 sion tired out his patience. Italian, Spanish, 
 and German she taught herself without any 
 assistance, and later in life she set herself to 
 learn Portuguese, but for want of books she 
 made no great progress. Lastly, she taught 
 herself Arabic, and made an Arabic Dictionary, 
 containing various meanings of words which 
 elsewhere had been improperly translated. 
 
 Louis XV., when his daughter's lectrice 
 confessed to being only familiarly acquainted 
 with two foreign languages, replied ' En voila 
 bien assez pour faire enrager un mari.' Eliza- 
 beth Carter, however, inflicted her learning on 
 no man. 
 
 Youthful prodigies were not unknown or 
 unapproved in the eighteenth century. Lord 
 and Lady Grey's little girl, ' just turned 
 five, had no joy but in books which she 
 picked out for herself,' and her favourite read-
 
 WIT AND WISDOM 5 
 
 ing was Dr. Newton's ' Dissertation on the 
 Prophecies.' 
 
 We also hear of a beautiful girl of eighteen 
 who had written two plays, two novels, two 
 sermons, and several poems, and was engaged 
 in writing comments on the book of the Reve- 
 lation, on which subject she was corresponding 
 with a Dignitary of the Church. 
 
 Like Lord Macaulay, who acquired the gift 
 of tongues by reading the Bible, Elizabeth 
 Carter held that grammar ought to be a con- 
 segttence of understanding a language rather 
 than an aid to learning it. Grammar as a 
 general science she understood well, but not as 
 taught in schools, and though considered by 
 Dr. Johnson to possess a more thorough 
 knowledge of Greek than anyone he ever knew, 
 she would contemptuously declare she had 
 never learnt either Latin or Greek grammar. 
 A short daily reading in each language enabled 
 her to keep what she had acquired, but the 
 penalty of such unwearied application during 
 her early years was life-long suffering from 
 severe headaches, and throughout her career 
 ' her untoward head was mighty apt to frus- 
 trate many an honest intention of her heart.' 
 
 In spite of her father's protests, she con-
 
 6 A WOMAN OF 
 
 tracted a habit which she was never able to 
 shake off, of taking snuff to keep herseff awake 
 during her midnight studies, and she used also 
 to put a wet towel round her head, and chew 
 green tea and coffee. But she soon found 
 herself obliged to avoid all * intemperance in 
 Hebrew and Greek,' for if she did not content 
 herself with a moderate degree of application 
 (eight to twelve hours a day), her perverse 
 temperament rendered her incapable of any 
 application at all. However, an aching head 
 proved an excellent antidote against a giddy 
 one, and there was no fear of its being turned 
 round like a whirligig by the perpetual motion 
 of London life ; it also made her very philo- 
 sophical as to all vanities of a hat and feathers. 
 Had many of the speakers in both Houses been 
 similarly afflicted, she believed it would have 
 greatly tended to the good order and quiet of 
 the nation, but trembling nerves she found 
 were a much greater bar to knowledge than 
 the heaviest weight of dulness. When Dr. 
 Johnson complained of tooth-ache a voluble 
 Frenchman, regardless of probable cause and 
 effect, exclaimed ' Ah, Monsieur, vous etudiez 
 trop ! ' 
 
 At one time she made considerable pro-
 
 WIT AND WISDOM 7 
 
 gress in astronomy. A friend wrote to 
 her: 
 
 * You have been so taken up with the stars 
 that you forget us poor mortals here below. 
 Your mind and body have quarrelled lately, 
 and are separated — in plain English, your wits 
 are gone a wool-gathering. Build no castles 
 in the air, forsake your imaginary palace in 
 the Milky Way, and bless us, your quondam 
 friends, with your pleasant conversation. 
 
 ' P.S. — A great many people here run 
 mad.' 
 
 Her severe studies were varied by equally 
 severe recreation, which she thus described : 
 
 * I have played the rake enormously these 
 last two days, and sat up till near three in the 
 morning. I walked three miles in a wind that 
 I thought would have blown me out of this 
 planet, danced nine hours, and then walked 
 back again. I am not so devoted to these 
 earthly entertainments but that I still retain a 
 great regard to the stars.' 
 
 * Dancing,' she said, 'was not an argument 
 of being either well or happy.' It seemed odd 
 that, having thought of little but books at 
 fifteen, she should at five-and-twenty run mad 
 after balls and assemblies ; however, she
 
 8 A WOMAN OF 
 
 declared she was too inconsistent in her follies 
 to be long under the power of any one, and per- 
 haps the next might be learning the Chinese 
 language or studying Duns Scotus and Thomas 
 Aquinas. 
 
 At the age of twenty-two Elizabeth Carter 
 consulted a doctor, who gave her little hopes 
 of ' a cure on this side of the grave,' alternate 
 succession of ease and pain was all he could 
 prophesy for her through life. She sub- 
 sequently enjoyed nearly seventy years of 
 vigorous health, that must have inclined her 
 to distrust physicians who assume the role of a 
 prophet. 
 
 She therefore was very careful of her health, 
 and upon that principle ' exceedingly afraid of 
 doctors ; ' of all considerations next to a good 
 conscience, health, she said, was the most im- 
 portant, as the sine qtia non not only of every 
 comfort, but of all the active duties of life. For 
 those who set out on a mad pursuit after know- 
 ledge, and think it possible to improve their 
 understandings while they neglect their health, 
 soon run themselves out of breath, and are 
 stopped in the midst of their career, when a 
 sober, moderate pace might have carried them 
 securely to their point.
 
 WIT AND WISDOM 9 
 
 Instead of wearying herself, however, to 
 acquire perfect health which was not in her 
 power, she was thankful for the amount she 
 enjoyed ; for the knowledge of what positive 
 health meant, she was content to wait till some 
 future state of being. In spite of an untoward 
 constitution and youthful indiscretions, she was 
 granted what she called the ' tremendous bless- 
 ing ' of long life, and died in her eighty-ninth 
 year. 
 
 She was always an early riser, and one 
 summer that she was compelled to pass in the 
 care of her health and the utter neglect of her 
 intellect, she rode or walked out by the advice 
 of her physician between four and five o'clock 
 every morning. 
 
 When engaged in this eager and somewhat 
 violent pursuit of health, she rambled at times 
 to the top of a hill by moonlight, enjoying a 
 superiority over the slumbering world with a 
 sense of dignity in finding herself awake. After 
 contemplating the still beauties of the land- 
 scape in the soft light of the moon, all the 
 spirit and glory of the opening day enlivened 
 her walk home, as the sun darted its full 
 splendour on the waves. Dr. Johnson, one 
 New Year's Day, made the heroic resolve to
 
 lo A WOMAN OF 
 
 rise in future about eight. In this he per- 
 severed until the following March, when he 
 said that, though he had accomplished but little 
 when he was up, he had obtained for so many 
 more hours the ' consciousness of being.' Some 
 may object that eight o'clock is not very early ; 
 to such he would answer, ' Why, sir, a London 
 morning does not go with the sun.' Elizabeth 
 Carter found something inexpressibly delightful 
 in an autumn morning, when the elements 
 seemed to be reposing after they had finished 
 their work of distributing the blessings of 
 heaven to the inhabitants of the earth. 
 
 When debarred from the delight of rambling 
 alone by a set of ' rakish fellows ' who infested 
 the place, she chose a companion of Amazonian 
 bravery who feared nothing but apparitions 
 and frogs, from which she promised to secure 
 her if she on her part would undertake to 
 defend her from May-bugs and men, which 
 she most dreaded ; so by the strength of that 
 alliance they both proceeded in great safety. 
 
 Without vanity, Elizabeth Carter claimed 
 to be one of the best walkers in England, and 
 her fellow-travellers followed her panting and 
 grumbling at a considerable distance, climbing 
 up the hill ' Difficulty,' till at length they sank
 
 WIT AND WISDOM ii 
 
 into the ' Slough of Despond.' One of her 
 sisters declined to go with her until she had 
 learnt to fly, and another of her followers sent 
 word that she could not possibly venture any 
 more, as her last walk had absolutely dislocated 
 all her bones. 
 
 So she had no one to depend on but her 
 half-sister Mary, who was as strong as a little 
 Welsh horse, and trudged after her with great 
 alacrity, promising never to forsake her, if she 
 should walk to the North Pole. Those frightful 
 insects May-bugs, which so greatly molested 
 her walks in spring, were ' creatures with only 
 one head, no feathers, but two wings, a good deal 
 less than a crab, and not at all like it.' This 
 very accurate description of her formidable 
 enemies was at least as clear, she maintained, 
 as many she had met with in books, and would 
 enable the reader to form a very perfect idea 
 of these insects, that devastate the flowery fields 
 of Kent like the Northern army in Joel. 
 
 Elizabeth Carter describes the manner in 
 which she continued to pass her days at Deal 
 with little variety for nearly a century. * As 
 you desire a full and true account of my whole 
 life and conversation, it is necessary in the first 
 place that you should be made acquainted with
 
 12 A WOMAN OF 
 
 the singular contrivance by which I am called 
 in the morning. There is a bell placed at the 
 head of my bed, and to this is fastened a pack- 
 thread and a piece of lead, which, when I am 
 not lulled by soft zephyrs through the broken 
 pane, is conveyed through a crevasse of my 
 window into a garden below, pertaining to the 
 sexton, who gets up between four and five and 
 pulls the said packthread with as much heart 
 and good will as if he were ringing my knell. 
 Some evil-minded people have most wickedly 
 threatened to cut my bell-rope, which would be 
 the utter undoing of me, for I should infallibly 
 sleep out the whole summer. And now I am 
 up, you may inquire "To what purpose?" 
 I sit down to my several lessons, as regular as 
 a schoolboy, and lay in a stock of learning to 
 make a figure with at breakfast.' Boswell re- 
 lates that when the sexton failed she contrived 
 that her chamber light should at a certain hour 
 burn a string to which a heavy weight was 
 suspended, which then fell * with a strong, 
 sudden noise ' that roused her from her sleep. 
 
 ' My general practice about six,' she con- 
 tinued, * is to take up my stick and walk, 
 sometimes alone, and at others with a com- 
 panion whom I draw out half asleep and, con-
 
 WIT AND WISDOM 13 
 
 sequently, incapable of reflecting on the danger 
 of such an undertaking ; however, she has the 
 extreme consolation of grumbling as much as 
 she pleases without the least interruption, 
 which she does with such a variety of comical 
 phrases, that I generally laugh from the be- 
 ginning to the end of our journey. 
 
 * Many are the exercises of patience she 
 meets with : sometimes half-roasted upon an 
 open common, then dragged through a path in 
 the middle of a cornfield, bathed up to the ears 
 in dew, and perhaps forced to scratch her way 
 through bushes never before frequented by any 
 animal but birds. 
 
 ' In short, towards the conclusion of our 
 walk, we make such deplorable ragged figures, 
 that I wonder some prudent country justice 
 does not take us up for vagrants, and cramp 
 our rambling genius in the stocks ; an appre- 
 hension that does not half so much fright me, 
 as when some civil swains pull off their hats, 
 and I hear them signify to one another, with a 
 note of admiration, that I am Parson Carter's 
 daughter. I had rather be accosted with " Good 
 morrow, sweetheart ! Are you walking for a 
 wager ? " 
 
 ' When I have made myself fit to appear
 
 14 A WOMAN OF 
 
 among human creatures we go to breakfast, 
 and we are extremely chatty ; this and tea in 
 the afternoon are the most sociable parts of the 
 day. 
 
 * We have a great variety of topics, but 
 whenever we get beyond Latin and French my 
 sister and the rest walk off, and leave my father 
 and me to finish the discourse and the tea- 
 kettle by ourselves, which we should infallibly 
 do if it held as much as Solomon's molten sea.' 
 
 Their discourse, like their correspondence, 
 was probably often carried on in Latin. Many 
 of their letters are dated ' Anno Mundi ' instead 
 of ' Anno Domini,' on the basis of the Julian 
 chronology. A Xenophon of Elizabeth's, now 
 in the possession of Mr. Brudenell Carter, is 
 dated in her handwriting ' 6449.' 
 
 'After breakfast,' she continued, ' my first 
 care is to water the pinks and roses, and when 
 this task is finished I sit down to a spinnet, 
 which in its best state might have cost about 
 fifteen shillings, with as much importance as if I 
 knew how to play. After deafening myself for 
 about half an hour with all manner of noises, 
 I proceed to some other amusement, and thus 
 between reading, working, writing, twirling the 
 globes, and running up and down stairs to see
 
 WIT AND WISDOM 15 
 
 where everybody is and how they do, I seldom 
 want either business or entertainment. 
 
 * It is the fashion here for people to make 
 such unreasonable long visits that before they 
 are half over I grow so restless and corky that 
 I am ready to fly out of the window. About 
 eight I visit a very agreeable family, but always 
 return precisely at ten, beyond which hour I 
 do not desire to see the face of any living 
 wight, and thus I finish my day and this tedious 
 description.' 
 
 To a friend who did not share her taste 
 for early rising she wrote the following 
 verses : 
 
 ' Of the many queer trifles my brains often hatch, 
 I've enclosed you a paper to put in your watch ; 
 'Tis designed from a true equinoctial projection, 
 Tho' belike 'tis not done to the greatest perfection ; 
 But 'twill show you (with many more curious devices) 
 When the sun goes to bed, and eke when he rises. 
 A thing of prodigious importance, you'll say. 
 To folks who ne'er see him except at mid-day. 
 Now I wonder, dear Hetty, a person of reason 
 Should not choose to enjoy each good thing in its season ; 
 And believe me, who commonly rise pretty soon, 
 There are many fine shows to be seen before noon. 
 The poets will tell you a deal of Aurora, 
 And how much she improves all the beauties of Flora 
 Tho' you need believe neither the poets nor me, 
 But convince your own senses, and get up and see.
 
 i6 A WOMAN OF 
 
 I've considered your doubts of the ways and means how, 
 And will give you the very best council I know : 
 Even purchase a 'larum as loud as e'er squall'd, 
 And set but your hour, and you're sure to be called.' 
 
 Elizabeth Carter thus describes her accom- 
 phshments : — ' My present reigning scheme is 
 music. Having for some time past made a 
 composition of noises between the hissing of a 
 snake and the lowing of a cow upon a German 
 flute, I am now set down to the spinnet, which 
 unfortunately stood in my way, and before I 
 can play three bars in any one tune, am trying 
 at a dozen. I content myself with thinking it 
 is a superficial world one lives in, and super- 
 ficial understandings suit it best, so vive la 
 bagatelle, I'll e'en trifle on and be content.' 
 
 Though these spasmodic efforts to make 
 music failed, throughout life she loved the art, 
 and enjoyed the works of Handel and Corelli 
 beyond all others. * Mr.' Handel's 'powerful 
 magic ' recalled to her thoughts fine passages 
 from her favourite authors, striking conversa- 
 tions, and the memory of those she loved. 
 ' Though he deserved to be maintained,' she 
 doubted how long his oratorios, once so 
 crowded, might be fashionable, for he played 
 to empty walls in the opera house. It pained
 
 WIT AND WISDOM 17 
 
 her to notice amongst the most constant fre- 
 quenters of his oratorios ' profligate poor 
 wretches, who Hved inharmonious and disor- 
 derly lives,' and she lamented to see 'a passion- 
 ate love of music and the fine arts often united 
 with a dissipated head and wicked heart.' 
 /^ However, it was more fashionable to run 
 mad about Mr. Thomson's play ' Tancred and 
 Sigismunda,' to the success of which tragedy 
 the acting of David Garrick and Mrs. Gibber 
 no doubt contributed. It was written in 1748, 
 the year of his death, by James Thomson, 
 author of 'The Seasons,' the Roxburghshire 
 poet, who was born at Ednam in 1700. 
 
 Of painting she wrote : ' I have lately 
 taken great pains to acquire some litde notion 
 of this delightful art ; but with such wretched 
 success, that I begin to lose courage. I never 
 had any instruction but from books as unintel- 
 ligible to me as if they were written in the 
 Calmuck language ; I have nothing to assist me 
 but industry ; genius I have none, and I want 
 mightily to know whether one can make any 
 progress without it.' 
 
 She wrote to a friend : ' Pray can you 
 knit ? I have just taken it into my head 
 to learn ; I have taken incredible pains, and 
 
 c
 
 i8 A WOMAN OF 
 
 observed as profound a silence as if I had 
 entered myself a disciple in the school of 
 Pythagoras, to the great offence of Mrs. 
 Underdown, who insists that knitters are as bad 
 company as smokers, and observing that I 
 felt somewhat vain of my proficiency in finish- 
 ing a round in somewhat less than an hour,"has 
 endeavoured to mortify my vanity by telling 
 me that, notwithstanding all my efforts, I am 
 blundering at an art in which I shall be excelled 
 by every goody in the parish.' 
 
 To Elizabeth Carter's active mind the 
 monotonous drudgery of learning to knit 
 appeared likely to qualify her for that earliest 
 of philosophical schools, ' which was one of 
 moral abstinence and purification.' Pythagoras, 
 the founder, attached great importance to 
 mathematical studies, and while counting her 
 stitches, she, too, probably found that numbers 
 are the principles of all things ; she hoped, no 
 doubt, that her work would eventually become 
 like the universe according to the doctrines of 
 Pythagoras, a harmonious whole (Kosmos), 
 though the object attained after finishing a 
 round in somewhat less than an hour might 
 appear, like the ultimate aim of his philosophi- 
 cal school, to be wrapped in mystery.
 
 WIT AND WISDOM 19 
 
 The traditional gypsy woman has always 
 been represented with a pipe in her mouth, but 
 of smoking amongst educated English women 
 of the eighteenth century there does not appear 
 to be any record, although they were not averse 
 to a pinch of snuff. Had Dr. Johnson fore- 
 seen the present necessity of a cigarette to 
 soothe the overwrought feminine nerves, he 
 would not have so hastily condemned knitting 
 as the nearest approach to idleness. John 
 Bright used to testify from his own experience 
 to the calming power of this mechanical work, 
 to which he had recourse when harassed with 
 the affairs of the State, and which to the 
 habitual knitter requires no effort of the brain. 
 
 Elizabeth Carter had also been greatly en- 
 gaged in the ' important affair of working a 
 pair of ruffles ' and handkerchief, and though 
 her friends highly applauded such laudable 
 imitation of the quiet domestic virtues of our 
 great-grandmothers as working in muslin and 
 lawn, they thought it would be an unpardon- 
 able sacrifice in those capable of employing 
 their eyes so much better. 
 
 Recognising his daughter's unusual abilities, 
 the worthy and learned Dr. Carter desired her 
 
 to qualify herself by the study of German for 
 
 c 2
 
 20 A WOMAN OF 
 
 a place about the Court. Though the narrow 
 circle which bounds the views of a mere cour- 
 tier would have been very uncongenial, her pen 
 would probably have produced pictures of the 
 household of the Princess of Wales (mother of 
 George 1 1 1.) as vivid as those in Fanny Burney's 
 Diary, which have made good King George and 
 his worthy Queen real and living persons for us. 
 
 She might also have influenced that un- 
 happy Princess Caroline Matilda, afterwards 
 Oueen of Denmark, who wanted nothing but a 
 blameless life to have been accounted one of 
 the noble army of martyrs. The King of Den- 
 mark thus excused his cruel conduct to his wife. 
 He wrote to George III. that his sister had 
 behaved in a manner that had obliged him to 
 imprison her, but that from regard for his 
 Majesty her life should be safe. 
 
 Elizabeth Carter had heard with sympathetic 
 interest how this poor child, as she then was, 
 had gone out alone into the wide world, not a 
 creature that she knew attending her farther 
 than Altona. It was worse than dying, for it 
 was dying out of one bad world into another, 
 where she would have cares, and fears, and 
 dangers, and sorrows that were yet all new 
 to her.
 
 WIT AND WISDOM 21 
 
 Contented as Elizabeth Carter was with her 
 manner of life, other people did not seem to 
 think it a life to be contented with. A good old 
 gentleman had proposed a variety of schemes, 
 which, though they might be very advantageous, 
 presented no attractions to her. To give up 
 one's ease and liberty, and to be under perpetual 
 restraint for the sake of wearing a finer gown, 
 eating a greater variety of dishes, and seeing 
 more company and fewer friends, appeared to 
 her a very strange scheme ; and moreover, 
 unless it were to instruct the young Princesses 
 in Latin and Greek, which since the days of 
 Queen Elizabeth and Lady Jane Grey had 
 never been thought of, she could not imagine 
 for what important function she was designed. 
 
 The night before receiving a letter suggest- 
 ing her appointment to a post in the Princess 
 of Wales's household, she dreamed that for the 
 greater convenience of curling her hair she had 
 cut off her head : which she considered marvel- 
 lously applicable — for what was going to Court 
 but setting one's cap handsomely at the ex- 
 pense of losing one's head ? 
 
 Few people were more attentive to the 
 subject of Court Intelligence than Elizabeth 
 Carter ; for those engaged in the bustle and
 
 22 A WOMAN OF 
 
 shifting scenes of Court life have very little 
 leisure to attend to the spectacle from which 
 quiet observers, who content themselves with 
 seeing the drama without any wish for the 
 pleasures and tinsel, and the long trains of 
 the actors, derive so much amusement. She 
 willingly adopted the following advice from her 
 father : ' Preserve the character of an inoffen- 
 sive and prudent woman, take extreme caution 
 concerning the company you keep, be civil 
 to all, not too intimate with any, and very 
 reserved with some, and your extraordinary 
 qualifications will in time produce something 
 desirable.' 
 
 Like Maria Edgeworth, who cheerfully wel- 
 comed a perpetual succession of stepmothers, 
 Elizabeth Carter lived on very happy terms 
 with her father's second wife, a woman of good 
 heart and useful life, whose devotion to her 
 husband was not of that narrow and selfish 
 kind that seeks to alienate a man from his own 
 children. She was one with him in the loyal 
 discharge of his duty to those who had a prior 
 claim. She was not a woman of strong nerve. 
 An unexpected offer of marriage for her step- 
 daughter Elizabeth ' quite scared her,' and 
 when it was rumoured that the French fleet
 
 WIT AND WISDOM 2^ 
 
 o 
 
 was about to land 12,000 troops at Deal, she 
 ' gaped,' whilst her husband merely looked pro- 
 found. Fear equally revealed the characters of 
 the servants. Polly secured her money, and 
 Betty wrung her hands, lifted up her eyes and 
 roared most wonderfully. At the time of this 
 ofood woman's death, Elizabeth Carter wrote : 
 *A few hours after my arrival at Lambeth I 
 received the sad news of the death of my 
 mother ; she was no otherwise related to me 
 than by marrying my father, but her uncommon 
 care of his family rendered her a most valuable 
 blessing to us all. After her laborious cares, 
 I hoped she would have enjoyed relaxation and 
 ease, and that by my attentions I should con- 
 tribute to her happiness. How shall I miss 
 her kind indulgence, her tender concern for my 
 health, her constant watchful care of me, and 
 the particular assistance she was always ready 
 to give ! ' 
 
 Dr. Johnson marvelled when he heard 
 that Hannah More and her four sisters lived 
 happily together ; but they kept a school — five 
 unemployed women living harmoniously in one 
 house might have aroused his incredulity. 
 
 Be it remembered to the credit of ' blue- 
 stockings,' often exposed to ridicule by the
 
 24 A WOMAN OF 
 
 uncouth appearance of those who cultivate their 
 minds, that two such distinguished literary 
 women as Elizabeth Carter and Maria Edge- 
 worth shone conspicuously in their home duties 
 and the complication of step-relationships. 
 
 Elizabeth Carter entirely undertook the 
 education of her half-brother Henry (who was 
 twenty-one years her junior), from whom she 
 was inseparable. A friend wrote to her : ' Do 
 not get into such idle Mama- panics about " your 
 son Henry," because panics are endless, and 
 make reasonable people silly, and happy people 
 miserable.' 
 
 Much contrivance was necessary to find 
 employment for this lively boy; 'he skipped, 
 danced, and played all manner of monkey 
 tricks,' which she never checked, but racked 
 her brain to amuse him, allowing him the use 
 of every picture book in her cupboard, and 
 permission to stun her head by playing with 
 his tops and whips in her chamber ; but of all 
 this he soon tired. At length, anticipating the 
 ' kindergarten ' scheme of after generations, 
 she hit upon a lucky expedient by setting him 
 to draw perpendiculars and triangles. A scale 
 and compasses kept him as quiet and as well 
 pleased as heart could wish.
 
 WIT AND WISDOM 25 
 
 She considered it her duty to contribute to 
 the cheerfuhiess of her family society, and said 
 if people would recollect what they do not suffer 
 it would alleviate the sense of what they do. 
 
 * My nerves,' she wrote, ' are in a wretched 
 state and my spirits fluttering and low. Very 
 well, but I am not blind, nor in prison, nor among 
 heathen, nor betrayed by friends. As it is a 
 duty to feel for the sorrows of all, so it is 
 equally one to enjoy with cheerful thankfulness 
 one's own blessings.' She had learned from 
 Epictetus that ' If man is unhappy, hisunhappi- 
 ness is his own fault, for God has made all men 
 to be happy and free from perturbations. We 
 sit trembling for fear that something will 
 happen, and weeping, lamenting, and groaning 
 for what does happen, and yet God, like a true 
 Father, has given us faculties to bear with 
 greatness of soul and manliness everything that 
 happens without being depressed or broken 
 by it.' 
 
 She had nevertheless her seasons of de- 
 pression. In 1745 she wrote to a friend : 
 
 * Such is the present state of things I must 
 visit you in sackcloth and ashes, as the habit 
 best suited to the now disposition of my mind. 
 Indeed one would not imagine it from the
 
 26 A WOMAN OF 
 
 lively colours in which I appear to everybody 
 else. To look gay when one is really unhappy 
 is a duty society has a right to demand, but I 
 have a higher opinion of you than of anybody 
 else, therefore choose to appear before you 
 without disguise. 
 
 * I do not know I was ever so perfectly out 
 of humour with the world, and all in it, as I am 
 at present, a very unpleasant reverse of my 
 usual error in liking it perhaps better than it 
 deserves. Everything now looks joyless and 
 uncomfortable. There is neither light in the 
 sun nor verdure In the fields, nor cheerfulness 
 In any human face. I am sick of people of 
 sense because they can act like fools, and of 
 fools because they cannot talk like people of 
 sense, and of myself for being so absurd as 
 to trouble my head about them. There is a 
 strange kind of magic in some circumstances 
 that can thus alter the whole face of things. A 
 little while ago I was mightily disposed to be 
 pleased with all I met with, and now I am 
 pleased with nothing. 
 
 * 'Tis surely a fatal error to give oneself up 
 to certain enchantments that lead the mind into 
 fairy regions of dreams and shadows, where It 
 Is amused and fixed on Imaginary forms of
 
 WIT AND WISDOM 27 
 
 happiness and perfection, which vanish with 
 the fickle cause that gave them being, and 
 one is left in the midst of a wild, perplexed 
 solitude, astonished and utterly at a loss what 
 road to take or where to meet with any object 
 to divert it. What a figure I must appear to you ! 
 I am ashamed but not sorry, as it begins to do 
 me a great deal of good ; the picture I have 
 been drawing of myself is so deformed that it 
 quite shocks me. Surely conversing with you 
 has a wonderful power of harmonising my 
 thoughts, for I find myself getting into good 
 temper apace — Me void done passab lenient gai, 
 le inonde se repeuple et tout va asses bien. I'll 
 e'en put on my Venetian cap, stick a great 
 sunflower in my bosom, look very fine, laugh, 
 and be as well pleased with people and things 
 as I used to be.' 
 
 Elizabeth Carter's advice to whoever will 
 apply it to herself : 
 
 ' Madam, — Are you young ? Then be wise 
 and be a wonder. Are you old } Be cheer- 
 fully prudent and decently agreeable ; as for 
 your opinions, be consistent in all and obstinate 
 in none, and rejoice that you are got so far in 
 safety through a dangerous world, Are you 
 naturally gay ? Why, then, never go out of
 
 28 A WOMAN OF 
 
 your way to seek for pleasure, and you will 
 constantly enjoy it. Are you serious ? Re- 
 member that not to be happy is not to be 
 grateful. Are you melancholy ? Beware of 
 romance. Are you handsome ? Be unaffected, 
 
 and charm, like Lady C . Are you plain ? 
 
 Be easy, and outshine all beauty. Are you rich ? 
 Make use of your fortune with a generous 
 economy ; beware equally of trifling and in- 
 dolence ; keep your money out of a purse and 
 a toy shop ; make other people happy and 
 yourself considerable. Do you want employ- 
 ment ? Choose it well before you begin, and 
 then pursue it. Do you want amusement ? 
 Take the first you meet with that is harmless, 
 and never be attached to any. Are you in a 
 moderate station ? Be content, though not 
 affectedly so ; be philosophical, but for the 
 most part keep your thoughts to yourself. Are 
 you sleepy ? Go to bed.'
 
 WIT AND WISDOM 29 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 DEAL 
 
 The spot on earth where one dwells may be 
 nothing or may be a great deal. EHzabeth 
 Carter thought her abode the most charming 
 she had ever seen. The stormy ocean, hang- 
 ing ch'ffs, and rocky shore formed a fine 
 contrast to the ' cultivated, sociable, and good- 
 humoured country ' that lay between Deal and 
 Canterbury. From the gentle beauties of the 
 landscape the mind turned to the vast, wild, 
 awful works created by the Almighty hand, and 
 untouched by human littleness. ' Man,' said 
 Epictetus, ' is a witness summoned by God not 
 only to be a spectator, but an interpreter of 
 His works, and he bids us to take care not to 
 die without havino- seen them.' 
 
 ' What have I done to you, and what has 
 poor Kent done to you,' wrote Elizabeth Carter, 
 ' that in your direction you stick us in the
 
 30 A WOMAN OF 
 
 mire of Sussex, when we are in reality so 
 happy as to be placed on the coast of 
 Kent?' 
 
 There summer might be seen in all its 
 charms, the sun shining bright and warm by 
 day, and the moon shedding a soft light and 
 cool freshness over the evening, so that the 
 fields did 'laugh and sing.' Yet very fine 
 weather was so transitory a good in that un- 
 certain sky that Mrs. Carter found there was 
 no great hope that it would wait till she had 
 more leisure to attend to it. 
 
 On the 1st of June poor mortals on the 
 Kentish coast might be petrified with cold 
 winds, or on Midsummer Day alternately 
 scorched and frozen by a hot sun and cold 
 north-east wind ; but in all weathers she had 
 the resolution to ramble in the fields, although 
 she had rather be loitering over a book, from 
 a conviction that any kind of weather is more 
 wholesome than too much Greek. Whenever 
 she tired of reading, her garden amused and 
 occupied her, even when the effects of a long 
 succession of north-east winds were shown in 
 the shabby, drooping appearance of her flowers. 
 Watering and planting were her great resource. 
 Elizabeth Carter loved her birthplace, as the
 
 WIT AND WISDOM 31 
 
 ' frozen Russian prefers his interminable wastes 
 of snow to the citron groves and spicy fragrance 
 of Arabia.' During nearly a century Deal was 
 her home, though the v/inter storms made fear- 
 ful havoc of her aching head. She could not 
 put her nose out of doors without securing her 
 cap and bonnet in a ' very powerful manner ' 
 with the largest pins she could find to avoid 
 the awkward distress of having them blown to 
 the Goodwin Sands. 
 
 From her window, which looked towards 
 the North Foreland, she enjoyed a view of the 
 sea of which she never wearied. Every hour 
 it wore some new appearance. Sometimes a 
 dark cloud, illuminated by a rainbow, over- 
 shadowed part of the ocean, while over the 
 other the setting sun was shining on the sails 
 of the ships, forming a variety of the most 
 sublime and inconceivable beauty. At one 
 moment it displayed all the grandeur of a 
 storm, the waves of the Goodwin Sands dash- 
 ing against the clouds, or when the storm had 
 spent its fury from all points of the compass it 
 would settle into a calm. The Greeks had an 
 epithet for the sea, which interpreters translate 
 unfruitful, because, say they, the sea does not 
 produce any vineyards. Now the same word,
 
 32 A WOMAN OF 
 
 Elizabeth Carter declared, by another deriva- 
 tion signifies ' unwearied,' and ' indefatigable, 
 and forms an epithet of the highest propriety 
 and beauty. 
 
 Sometimes she would take solitary moon- 
 light walks on the beach, indulging her melan- 
 choly thoughts by a view of the ocean that 
 had separated her from a favourite brother, a 
 lieutenant in the Navy, who died on foreign 
 service ; at others, she would sit on the shore 
 surveying the dashing waves, or in her airy 
 little room, listening to the howling wind, 
 beating rain, and roaring billows. Fond as she 
 was of the sea, her house was too much like 
 the Eddystone, and her rooms (which were 
 smaller than she could wish) were in every- 
 thing but motion absolute cabins. But, then, it 
 was in such a situation that even her intem- 
 perate love of air had enough to content it. 
 She always called it the ' Vinegar Bottle,' pro- 
 bably alluding to its shape. She considered a 
 high hill, where one is solidly fixed and sur- 
 rounded by the free air of heaven, a good 
 station ; but to be suspended between earth 
 and sky, and enclosed in walls of brick and 
 stone, as in the ' flatts ' in Edinburgh, was a 
 most fearful s^jour ; it reminded her of the ' old
 
 WIT AND WISDOM 33 
 
 woman who was drawn up in a basket three or 
 four leagues as high as the moon.' 
 
 Mrs. Montagu gladly left the magnificence 
 of her palace in Portman Square and the 
 Gothic beauties of Sandleford, and Mrs. Vesey 
 deserted her blue room in Bolton Street or 
 her Irish home full of mortal comforts and con- 
 veniences, to visit their friend in her ' Vinegar 
 Bottle.' Mrs. Carter's only attendants were 
 two damsels, who on one occasion during her 
 absence had behaved so wickedly that she 
 endeavoured to replace them by two others, 
 who knew no earthly thing save how to speak 
 the truth and do as they were bid. One such 
 prize she quickly found, and when another 
 equally ignorant was secured, she was con- 
 stantly employed, first in teaching herself, and 
 next in teaching them the art and mystery of 
 their business ; for they, poor souls, would have 
 run their noses against every door in that in- 
 tricate little tenement without knowing whither 
 it would lead, if she had not served them as 
 guide. Whether they would get acquainted 
 with the odd ways of their mistress she could 
 not tell, but she was not discouraged by any 
 former want of success ; for trial is always a 
 duty, and with success she had nothing to do. 
 
 D
 
 34 A WOMAN OF 
 
 Locks and bolts she always looked upon as the 
 most severe satire upon mankind. Elizabeth 
 Carter was not amongst those who 
 
 ' Prepare a home from which to run away.' 
 
 To the indolence of her temper a journey 
 of sixteen miles seemed as formidable as a 
 voyage to * Grand Cairo,' and that distance 
 placed her friends as completely out of her 
 reach as if they were perched on the farthest 
 point of the Orkneys. With the coaches and 
 chariots of this world she had nothing to do, 
 and her knowledge of riding was so slight 
 that she would as soon think of flying through 
 the air on the back of a hippogriff (the 
 winged horse of Ariosto). She told a cala- 
 mitous story of how she had ridden out one 
 evening to take the air with a friend, when her 
 friend's horse started and threw her. ' But as 
 the creature happened to have no legs it was 
 pretty near the ground, and she received little 
 damage except the breaking of a little glass 
 bottle in her pocket, which she feared might 
 put out her eyes.' In 1744 she described her- 
 self as having become so extremely plodding 
 and stupid, that she feared all her gay, whim- 
 sical ideas would dwindle into a sober relish for
 
 WIT AND WISDOM 35 
 
 a comfortable life, and instead of soaring in the 
 air as volatile as a skylark, she expected to be 
 soon reduced to waddling upon earth like a fat 
 goose. In the spring the usual flight of Kentish 
 people to London depopulated the county, and 
 when her own wings were clipped, she found 
 it melancholy to sit listening to the roaring 
 of the waves and the horrible howling of the 
 north-east wind. But she was well adapted 
 for solitude, for she possessed a genius for 
 ' castle building ' that would have afforded her 
 many happy hours if she had been banished 
 to the Orcades. 
 
 Her situation at this period resembled that 
 of poor Hero ; and, warned by her fate, a 
 friend wrote : ' Do not expect a Leander from 
 the opposite coast, but rather return to London, 
 and when he is found may he be equally 
 faithful and more happy.' 
 
 Her friends at Deal knew nothinof of the 
 larger world in which Elizabeth Carter shone 
 as a prominent member of the most exclusive 
 literary society ; they were indifferent to every- 
 thing outside their own narrow circle, and could 
 only imagine her as taking part in their local 
 society, and joining their parties of whist and 
 
 quadrille. As no one there thought either better 
 
 D 2
 
 36 A WOMAN OF 
 
 or worse of her for her attainments, she contrived 
 to live happily without ' spirit, taste, or senti- 
 ment,' or a hundred other fine things which her 
 blue-stocking friends in town reckoned among 
 the necessaries of life. 
 
 When engaged for the afternoon with a 
 party of ' vociferous fat gentlewomen ' at fancy 
 quadrille, she could with great tranquillity 
 make tea for them, and quietly withdraw her 
 thoughts to a more amusing entertainment 
 than their comments on the black aces, voles, 
 sanprendres, &c., &c. She had enough com- 
 mon sense to keep in good humour through the 
 daily round, and to prevent her from running 
 the needle into her fingers when she was at 
 work. She found the good men and women 
 with whom she was associated as unentertain- 
 ing as dormice, yet as they bore the figure of 
 human creatures, and might be, for aught she 
 knew, of more use in society than herself, she 
 did not feel at liberty to shock their ideas of 
 good manners by drawing a book out of her 
 pocket. She comforted herself with the thought 
 that they would soon betake themselves to 
 their black aces, and though she might be 
 stifled with the heat, she would not be oblioed 
 to talk. Of all the teasing exercises of the
 
 WIT AND WISDOM 37 
 
 spirits, she found few so wearying as that of 
 mere mechanical, uninteresting talking, unless 
 looked upon as a wholesome mortification. 
 She had a ' laudable affection for conversation,' 
 but mortally hated talking. A long walk was 
 required to give her spirit to pay a visit to two 
 or three of the Deal 'misses/ 'Oh, dear! oh, 
 dear ! ' she would cry, ' how can I contrive to 
 make talk ? ' The gossip in a country town 
 like Deal made novel-reading unnecessary, for 
 the scandal gleaned from a few of these visits 
 supplied all the plots of the ordinary novel, 
 with the advantage of freshness and origi- 
 nality. She consoled herself with the reflec- 
 tion that perpetual intellectual pleasures might 
 in our present imperfect state withdraw 
 us from our duties, and weaken our human 
 sympathies. Neither her intellectual powers 
 nor futile efforts to make small talk were 
 always required to enliven these ceremonies, 
 for with a very aching head she paid a visit 
 where her hostess talked very loud, the parrot 
 screamed, the lap-dog barked, the child cried, 
 and the maid, to quiet all this tintamar^^e 
 blew a horn. 
 
 The less pretentious of her townsfolk were 
 quicker to recognise her talents, and were 
 
 2112S0
 
 38 A WOMAN OF 
 
 proud of the distinction they reflected on their 
 locality. 
 
 'Why, Punch,' said the showman of a pup- 
 pet-show at Deal, ' what makes you so stupid ? ' 
 
 * I can't talk my own talk,' answered Punch ; 
 'the famous Miss Carter is here.' 
 
 The inhabitants of Deal were amply satis- 
 fied with all that pertained to themselves ; they 
 had an excellent set of actors, that wanted very 
 few qualifications but washing their faces and 
 learning to read ; and as to the choir of St. 
 Paul's Cathedral, Mrs. Carter exclaimed : ' We 
 have such a very fine psalm singing here at 
 present, that we would hardly condescend to 
 listen to any music but our own.' 
 
 Occasionally foreign talent was exhibited. 
 Monsieur Blanchard fixed on a spot on the 
 South Foreland, whence he proposed to begin 
 a flight to Calais in his balloon. This attempt 
 Mrs. Carter viewed with great distrust, for she 
 supposed that the principles upon which a post- 
 chaise moves upon earth are equally secure, 
 and yet some chance might overturn it, and 
 * non deplaise a Monsieur Blanchard, a tumble 
 from the clouds is rather more formidable than 
 the breaking of a wheel or an axle on a turn- 
 pike road.'
 
 WIT AND WISDOM 39 
 
 The ' Gentleman's Magazine ' gives a ' parti- 
 cular account of a voyage in a grand balloon, in 
 the atmosphere, from Dover Castle to France, 
 by those skilful and enterprising philosophers 
 Messrs. Blanchard and Jeffries,' and from this 
 we learn that, after waiting at Dover from 
 December 25, 1784, for a favourable gale to 
 reach the Continent, they determined on Friday 
 morning, January 7, 1785, to prepare for their 
 voyage, the sky being clear, the weather 
 moderate, and the wind N.N.W. At eight 
 o'clock the signal gun was fired, the flag hoisted 
 at the Castle, and soon after twelve the ascent, 
 which was successful in every way, took place. 
 Although the aeronauts had to throw out all 
 their ballast and gear, and finally cut away 
 the car itself in order to escape falling into 
 the Channel, at three o'clock they ' entered 
 France,' and descended at a point just twelve 
 miles from the coast. Some years later, when 
 the French proposed transporting an army of 
 invasion across the Channel in 1797 by means 
 of balloons, Mrs. Carter sarcastically remarked : 
 ' Surely they must have great confidence in the 
 friendship of the " Prince of the power of the 
 
 air. 
 
 The good people of Deal contented them-
 
 40 A WOMAN OF 
 
 selves with plain practical sins, such as smug- 
 gling, and never troubled their heads about 
 speculative refinements upon wickedness. Mrs. 
 Carter heartily wished that all books that 
 taught people to be wicked under colour of 
 argument and principle were publicly burnt at 
 Tyburn. 
 
 ' Our great people,' she wrote, ' break 
 through all the sacred authority of law, and 
 lose all sense of what is decent in pursuit of 
 French diversions, and are surrounded by 
 French tailors, French valets, French dancing 
 masters, and French cooks. Our fine ladies 
 disgrace the " human shape divine," and become 
 helpless to themselves and troublesome to all 
 the world besides, with French hoops, and run 
 into indecent extravagance of dress, inconsis- 
 tent with all rules of sober appearance and good 
 economy. Little people always follow the ex- 
 ample of their superiors, and we misses in the 
 country have our heads equally turned with 
 French fashions and French fooleries, which 
 makes us break the law, and smuggle for the 
 sake of getting French finery.' 
 
 In this description she hardly does herself 
 justice, for she had never squandered her 
 money on blonds and gauzes.
 
 WIT AND WISDOM 41 
 
 Mrs. Carter was no free trader. Smuggling 
 was a subject on which she felt strongly, and 
 she was always willing to assist her suffering, 
 misled neighbours by any means in her power. 
 It hurt her to see the carriages of people of the 
 first rank in the kingdom leave Deal laden with 
 every article of contraband goods, and she was 
 indignant that the rich and great should avail 
 themselves with impunity of the frauds which 
 caused these poor, miserable people to be 
 brought to ruin, and entailed a fearful sacrifice of 
 life, for this infamous trade indirectly contributed 
 to many murders. The insolence of the smug- 
 glers was no doubt very great, as their trade 
 was encouraged by those who both made the 
 laws and broke them ; but there were sad de- 
 vastations amongst them, and the seizures, like 
 their gains, were immense. They reckoned that 
 if they saved one boat out of three they were 
 quits, which showed the amount of their profits. 
 
 Colonel Thomas Best, of Chilston Park 
 and Cowling Castle, Kent, M.P. for Canter- 
 bury, and Governor of Dover Castle, was 
 amongst Elizabeth Carter's friends and neigh- 
 bours. His nephew, Thomas Best, lived at 
 Boxley, near Maidstone, on the direct road 
 between Deal and London. At dead of night
 
 42 A WOMAN OF 
 
 his slumbers were occasionally disturbed by 
 sounds, the cause of which he suspected, and 
 perhaps did not wholly condemn. On opening 
 the window to make a faint protest, he received 
 the invariable reply, ' Good night. Squire ; it's 
 all right, we'll shut the gates ! ' with which ex- 
 planation he had perforce to content himself, 
 though he knew full well that twenty stalls in 
 his stables would that night be vacant, and that 
 all the servants, grooms, gardeners, stablemen, 
 and labourers were out on the same errand. 
 Even the outrider who preceded the family 
 coach and four with a large lamp strapped to 
 his waist in front, when they dined out, and 
 was called 'the Moon,' would at that moment 
 be lighting the smugglers through the green 
 lanes that then did duty for roads. In Boxley 
 Woods contraband articles were temporarily 
 hidden, and removed when convenient to a 
 neighbouring well, where they could be safely 
 stowed away in a chamber twenty feet below 
 the surface of the ground, of sufficient size in 
 which to turn a coach and four. There they 
 awaited removal by other willing helpers from 
 a neighbouring parish, and in this manner 
 eventually reached their destination. Though 
 murders and hangings must occasionally result
 
 WIT AND WISDOM 43 
 
 when thieves fall out, in the main the whole 
 country side worked harmoniously together, 
 with a right good will and common purpose, 
 and were all ready to join the gay throng not 
 only for the greed of gain, but the love of sport. 
 
 These tales of bygone days are recounted 
 by Thomas Best's grandson, Major Mawdistly 
 Gaussen Best, who also declares that his wife's 
 ancestor, Sir William Brockman, of Beech- 
 borough, was placed in rather an equivocal 
 position by the untimely leakage of a keg of 
 brandy just as his carriage was crossing 
 Rochester Bridge. It had been stowed away 
 ostensibly by the servants, in the sword case 
 at the back of the carriage, and covered with a 
 hanging cushion against which the passengers 
 rested. If they should be attacked by high- 
 waymen the cushion would be removed, and 
 the swords pulled out at a moment's notice. 
 
 From the same source a tradition is handed 
 down directly of the origin of the word 'grog.' 
 Admiral Vernon, of Nacton, Suffolk, and M.P. 
 for Ipswich, who took Portobello with six ships 
 of the line on November 22, 1739, married 
 Sarah Best, of Boxley. He is described by his 
 relative as an obstinate old fellow, who bullied 
 the naval authorities. When his men were out
 
 44 A WOMAN OF 
 
 of beer he substituted rum and water, to which 
 the men promptly gave the name of ' grog ' in 
 compliment to the old suit of grogram that the 
 Admiral invariably wore. His monument in 
 Westminster Abbey was erected by his uncle, 
 Lord Orwell. 
 
 Deal had become an important place about 
 the beginning of the eighteenth century. It 
 possessed three streets running parallel to the 
 sea, but until 1790 it was neither paved, lighted, 
 nor cleaned. The inhabitants were seafaring 
 men, and many of them smugglers. The sea 
 immediately opposite the town affords a pro- 
 tected anchorage, about eight miles long and 
 six broad, called the Downs, and was the ren- 
 dezvous for the East India Fleet and other 
 shipping ; sometimes nearly 400 sail were safely 
 riding there. The Goodwin Sands form the 
 southern boundary of the Downs, and extend 
 about ten miles, almost from Ramsgate to 
 Kingsdown. In stormy weather, when the waves 
 break over them with violence, they are a source 
 of great danger to ships coming from the East. 
 At low water, people frequently land on them, 
 but when the tide begins to flow the sand be- 
 comes soft and quick, and the largest vessel 
 driven upon them is quickly swallowed up.
 
 WIT AND WISDOM 45 
 
 A set of brave and experienced seamen, 
 called ' hovellers,' assisted ships in distress, and 
 were the means of rescuing thousands of lives. 
 
 William Falconer, in the first canto of his 
 poem, 'The Shipwreck,' dedicated in 1762 to 
 Edward, Duke of York, describes the skill and 
 intrepidity of these brave men ; whose exploits 
 were often varied by acts of extortion and 
 plunder. 
 
 In 1799 Deal was in a great bustle with 
 the embarkation of troops for Holland. The 
 ' hovellers ' volunteered their services for carry- 
 ing not only the men, but their baggage, on 
 board, and though their impedimenta appeared 
 to Elizabeth Carter sufficient for an army like 
 that of Xerxes, they transported it in safety 
 with surprising despatch. They patriotically 
 refused any reward from Government, in spite 
 of the ' amazing fatigue ' they had endured. 
 As the troops and baggage-waggons passed 
 Mrs. Carter's door, she saw with satisfaction 
 that the bulk was increased by beds slung like 
 hammocks, so that the soldiers would not be 
 obliged to lie on the damp ground. The Duke 
 of York gave the men, in whose boat he went 
 off, ten guineas. 
 
 Elizabeth Carter's parcels were conveyed
 
 46 A WOMAN OF 
 
 from London in a Sandwich ' hoy,' which was 
 a barge with one deck and one mast, something 
 between a boat and a ship. In the ' Fairy- 
 Queen ' we read of the arrival of three * hoys ' 
 of Saxons. Though goods had never been 
 known to miscarry, it ' was proper ' to require 
 the master's name. From Sandwich to Deal 
 they were forwarded once a week by a carrier. 
 
 With regard to the origin of the Goodwin 
 Sands, tradition asserts that during the reign 
 of William Rufus an island belonging to the 
 great Earl Godwin was suddenly submerged 
 as a mark of Divine displeasure. 
 
 Lesser upheavals caused by internal dis- 
 sensions disturbed the peace of this quiet little 
 town at a later period. 
 
 Dr. Carter incurred the severe displeasure 
 of his congregation by refusing to read the 
 Athanasian Creed, so, in order to appease their 
 wrath, his brother gave him i,ooo^. wherewith 
 to keep a curate to read it for him. 
 
 A friend wrote a satirical letter to the 
 * Mayor and Corporation of Deal,' congratulat- 
 ing them on the step they had taken in ' pre- 
 senting their Minister in the Spiritual Court 
 for omitting to read that antient and venerable 
 part of our Liturgy. The laudable zeal they
 
 WIT AND WISDOM 47 
 
 had shown for the purity of the Catholic Faith 
 would transmit their memories with a sweet- 
 smelling- savour to the latest posterity. It would 
 be said that when orthodoxy was retiring from 
 the innermost parts of the land, the men of 
 Deale arrested her flight, and detained her for 
 a while on the borders of the sea.' After a 
 learned theological disquisition, the writer con- 
 cludes : ''Tis possible you may suspect I have 
 been talking to you hitherto in a bantering and 
 sarcastic strain. I am really very much in 
 earnest when I ask whether you can approve 
 the severe treatment that Dr. Carter has 
 received ? Allowing that you have fallen into 
 a squabble with him about the weighty matter 
 of a parish clerk, could you settle the dispute 
 no otherwise than by driving him to keep a 
 curate ? You bear testimony to the honesty 
 of his character at the same time that you hurt 
 his fortune. You must know him to be a man 
 above prevarication, who would not outwardly 
 assent to what he could not approve. I hope 
 that now the Doctor is a declared heretic, you 
 are so consistent as to avoid all manner of con- 
 versation with him ; nay, I can hardly think it 
 quite safe for you to hold any correspondence 
 with his most ingenious and amiable daughter,
 
 48 A WOMAN OF 
 
 the young lady being, I fear, a little Infected 
 with her father's pestilential principles. Pray 
 keep your own wives and daughters, yea, and 
 your sons too, out of her way, or very fatal may 
 be the consequences. Whether in the course of 
 your trading with the opposite Continent, you 
 have never smuggled one cargo of French 
 principles, you yourselves best know. If such 
 Is the case. It will surely be the wisest way to 
 confine your dealings for the future to brandy, 
 wine, tea, gold and silver lace, and not to 
 meddle with goods so little suited to a Protes- 
 tant Constitution.' 
 
 Mrs. Carter wrote from these regions of 
 discord, where the sun rose and set In a 
 quarrel, expressing a wish to enter into 
 acquaintance with the fishes, for fishes, good 
 creatures, are mute. This mighty commotion 
 made her even perpetrate an Irish bull, for she 
 exclaimed : * Do not dissuade me, for I am 
 quite determined, if ever I keep a lapdog, or a 
 monkey. It shall be a fish.' She trusted less to 
 'time and chance which happens to all,' than 
 to the disposal of Providence, which often by 
 unexpected methods calms the tumult of human 
 passions. She sometimes walked to Kings- 
 down, a small fishing village, where the good
 
 WIT AND WISDOM 49 
 
 folks had not even heard (happy people !) that 
 the clerk of Deal Chapel was dead. The 
 kind of reading she most wanted to see was 
 a ' subpoena ' to summon her out of this up- 
 roar, where she was driven about by storms 
 of commotion. She agreed with Shenstone 
 that ' no one should destroy an insect or 
 quarrel with a dog without a reason sufficient 
 to vindicate it through all the Courts of 
 Morality.' 
 
 The building of Deal Chapel, of which Dr. 
 Carter was perpetual curate, was commenced 
 in 1707. The parish church was one mile 
 inland, and did not suffice for the accommo- 
 dation of the increasing population of Lower 
 Deal, so a brick building, with a roof of 
 curiously framed timber-work, wholly supported 
 on the side walls, was erected. The total cost, 
 including the inclosing of two acres of burial 
 ground, of 2,554/. 12s. 4^d., could not be de- 
 frayed by subscriptions, so an Act of Parliament 
 was obtained in 171 2 by which a duty of 
 two shillings was laid upon every ton of coals 
 brought into the town till May i, 1727, to be 
 applied to the building and adorning of the 
 said chapel. 
 
 Elizabeth Carter frequently paid long visits 
 
 E
 
 50 A WOMAN OF 
 
 to Canterbury, and from thence gave graphic 
 descriptions of life in a country town during 
 the eighteenth century. With regard to every- 
 thing external she found it a most agreeable 
 situation. Every morning she was serenaded 
 by a concert of rooks lodged in the elms at a 
 litde distance from the window, and ' Oh, 
 enchanting sound ! she heard the owl.' All 
 looked so like the country that she was apt to 
 think herself in a village. The venerable 
 ruins of the old Castle, and their desolate 
 buildings overgrown with moss and ivy, added 
 greatly to the beauty of the poetical surround- 
 ings. A little antique tower that had sustained 
 the silent batteries of time through a long 
 course of centuries, would be a fitting place to 
 converse with the dead, for there would be 
 little fear of interruption from the living. The 
 fine warm weather enjoyed at Canterbury 
 would be great news to anybody at Deal, where 
 in April the thermometer must be many degrees 
 below extreme cold. The town was by no 
 means always in repose, as from the foregoing 
 description might be supposed — there were 
 assemblies, charades, and lampoons. 
 
 The game of ' Push Pin,' in which Mrs. 
 Carter delighted, was introduced into the
 
 WIT AND WISDOM 51 
 
 assemblies as a variety from dancing, to the 
 great annoyance of ' all the smart squires in 
 the county,' who, doubtless, thought it beneath 
 the dignity of territorial magnates. When 
 there was no ' Push Pin' going forward, Mrs. 
 Carter was heartily fatigued, sitting in dismal 
 solitude till three in the morning. When asked 
 if it was true that her London friends had 
 expressed surprise at ' Push Pin ' being played 
 at the Canterbury assemblies, she answered 
 ' No, but I am informed that it is publicly 
 talked of in the drawing-room at Madrid, and 
 that the Queen of Spain thinks it very odd.' 
 Though the dignity of ' the assembly ' was a 
 source of great amusement to her, she did not 
 wish to affront the company, against whom she 
 bore no malice, and wondered if any of her 
 friends had heard rumours of her ' trundling a 
 hoop in the cloisters.' This might escape 
 censure, as it was no affront to the assembly, 
 but she was told it was ' very near as bad,' as it 
 would be an affront to the Church. 
 
 Canterbury society suddenly became pos- 
 sessed of * the spirit of tragic fury,' and gave a 
 representation of ' The Royal Convert,' in which 
 Elizabeth Carter played the part of Hengist, 
 
 All the actors came off with flying colours, 
 
 £ 2
 
 52 A WOMAN OF 
 
 although they had never rehearsed it but once, 
 for whenever they met for that purpose, they 
 had so much to say to themselves in plain 
 English that they could not confine themselves 
 to talking in buskins. They feared they might 
 be lampooned, for there was a lampoon going 
 about in Canterbury, that some attributed to 
 an officer in the Army, and others to a gentle- 
 man in the Navy ; while a third party compli- 
 mented Elizabeth Carter. However, a fourth 
 denied her the honour, or in any case were 
 positive that she had been assisted to a very 
 considerable extent. The true author must 
 have laughed at these profound conjectures. 
 As Canterbury had conferred the dignities of 
 author and satirist upon her, Elizabeth Carter 
 warned her friends that it would be dangerous 
 to offend her, as she might make good the 
 accusation by beginning to lampoon them. It 
 was the best time in the world to turn author, 
 for the spirit of scribbling was extremely 
 powerful, and verses swarmed during the warm 
 weather in great abundance, and with as 
 striking effect as gnats. As she had become 
 so great a critic, her friends would find her 
 lying in wait to catch their harmless syllables 
 as spiders do f^ies.
 
 WIT AND WISDOM 53 
 
 Elizabeth Carter lived to see great changes 
 in the neighbourhood of Deal. She remem- 
 bered a house that contained noble rooms, a 
 cedar gallery with striking air of sombre great- 
 ness, magnificent chimney-pieces, a chapel which 
 she had seen gilded by the rays of the setting 
 sun, and a pavilion fronted by a marble colon- 
 nade, which looked upon a garden that reminded 
 her of the groves of Babylon. This estate 
 was divided, the building sold for the material, 
 and for the most part levelled to the ground. 
 A noble old seat en decadence impressed her 
 most painfully, even if its downfall were uncon- 
 nected with guilt. It showed how little the 
 objects which formed the pride and pleasure 
 of one generation influence the fickle taste 
 of the next. But she rejoiced to think the 
 destructive folly of man has no power over the 
 works of God. ' People who have so little 
 taste or feeling,' she said, 'as to show no 
 respect for the abode of their ancestors seem 
 to be singularly careless of everything prior 
 to their own individual selves. When a fair 
 inheritance is transmitted to a family, they 
 ought to feel a certain degree of tenderness 
 for the abode of the ancestors from whom it 
 is derived.'
 
 54 A WOMAN OF 
 
 An absolute ruin, though a melancholy 
 object, may, however, soothe the imagination 
 by the idea of repose ; and, while it proves 
 the weakness and littleness of all that is great 
 below, and the overthrow of human art and 
 magnificence, it causes us to look through the 
 desolations of time to our own eternity. Were 
 it not for the certainty of immortality the sight 
 of a ruin would only inspire a feeling of gloom 
 and horror. 
 
 The mansion of Northbourne Court had 
 been granted to Sir Edwin Sandys, son of the 
 Archbishop of York, by James I. Colonel 
 Edwin Sandys was, however, fighting with 
 Cromwell's army at the battle of Worcester 
 when he received the wounds of which he died 
 at Northbourne. His grandson. Sir Richard 
 Sandys, left the property to his four daughters, 
 who sold it. The house was pulled down, and 
 only the walls, that formed a very considerable 
 ruin, remained of the once large and stately 
 building. 
 
 Sir Egerton Bridges, a Kentish baronet 
 and man of letters, claimant of the barony of 
 Chandos of Sudeley, and editor of the ' Censura 
 Literaria ' and ' Collins' Peerage of England,* 
 describes in his autobiography the prevailing
 
 WIT AND WISDOM 55 
 
 characteristics of the county society during the 
 eighteenth century, which, Hke that of every 
 neighbourhood, varied according to the tone 
 given to it by a few conspicuous personahties. 
 
 In earlier days, Kent produced Sir Thomas 
 Wyatt, the poet and statesman in the reign of 
 Henry VIII., whose son was beheaded as a 
 leader of the rebellion against Queen Mary ; 
 Lord Buckhurst ; Sir Philip Sidney, the gallant 
 and accomplished soldier and poet, and his 
 father-in-law, Sir Francis Walsingham ; during 
 the reign of Charles I., Sir Dudley Digges, 
 whom ' y^ most knowing of Princes King- 
 James sent as Embassador to y^ Emperour 
 of Russia,' Sir Edwin Sandys, Sir Roger Twis- 
 den, the scholar and historian, and Sir Edward 
 Dering, who founded the library at Surrendar 
 Dering. But, at the time of which Sir Egerton 
 Bridges wrote, unintelligent squires ruled the 
 day. Their talk he could not bear, but he 
 admits he acted upon them as a wet sheet, for 
 they suspected that he had ridiculed them in his 
 novel 'Arthur Fitzalbini.' One of the Knatch- 
 bulls, it is true, was an author, but no one had 
 ever heard of a Honywood having written a 
 book. Unlike Job, who longed that his enemy 
 might commit himself by rashly attempting to
 
 56 A WOMAN OF 
 
 write a book, Sir Egerton Bridges apparently- 
 thought it detracted from the esteem in which 
 the Honywoods had been held in Kent since 
 the reign of Henry III. that no member of the 
 family had tried his hand at the making of 
 books. The Furnesses of Waldershare raised 
 themselves by smuggling, and enriched Lord 
 Guildford, Sir Edward Dering, and Lord 
 Bolingbroke. Catherine, the last representa- 
 tive of the Furness family, married first, Lewis, 
 Earl of Rockingham, and secondly, Francis, 
 Earl of Guildford. She died without issue and 
 bequeathed her estate to her second husband. 
 Lord Cowper, with his pack of hounds, was 
 popular at the Moat, until the Corporation of 
 Canterbury, within whose bounds the manor 
 was situated, insisted that he should employ no 
 workmen in the rebuilding of his house but 
 such as were freemen of the city. He con- 
 sequently made his home in Hertfordshire, and 
 the Moat was pulled down. Nothing remains 
 but a farmhouse and part of the old dog- kennel. 
 Lord Rockingham, the second Marquis, who 
 was Prime Minister in 1765, was well esteemed 
 at Lee's Court. But those who possessed 
 talents were rarely seen. Mr. Robinson, after- 
 wards Lord Rokeby, brother of Mrs. Montagu,
 
 WIT AND WISDOM 57 
 
 * Queen of the Blues,' on retiring from Parlia- 
 ment, secluded himself at Horton, near Hythe. 
 Old John Lewis pursued his antiquarianism at 
 the little fishing village of Margate, of which he 
 was vicar, while Dr. Brook Taylor, LL.D. and 
 F.R.S., indulged his philosophical genius at 
 Bifrons, so called from its two fronts. Sir John 
 Hales shut himself up, like the miser Elwes, on 
 his immense estate, living on a crust, and allow- 
 ing his only son to die in prison. The bold 
 refractory and clever boy, Thurlow, afterwards 
 Lord Chancellor, was leading his schoolmaster, 
 Talbot, a life of torment at the Canterbury 
 Grammar School, and by his temper, and the 
 daring directness of his talents, laying the foun- 
 dation of his future greatness. From a small 
 house opposite the west door of Canterbury 
 Cathedral had once issued a Countess of Salis- 
 bury, and the same humble tenement was 
 destined to be the birthplace of a Chief Justice 
 of England. Dover had supplied a Lord Chan- 
 cellor who occupied the woolsack for nearly 
 -twenty years in the person of Philip Yorke. 
 Mrs. Macaulay, the republican historian, was 
 at Ollantigh, a fine old house that had been 
 erected by Sir Thomas Kemp in the reign of 
 Henry VII., while her brother, John Saw-
 
 58 A WOMAN OF 
 
 bridge, the patriotic alderman and member for 
 the City of London, was dreaming of civic 
 honours and John Wilkes. Old Dr. Nicholas 
 Carter, the father of Elizabeth, was writing 
 theological tracts against his neighbour, the 
 orthodox Randolph, and bandying Latin epi- 
 grams with Sir George Oxenden of Deane ; 
 and the poetess herself was writing odes to 
 wisdom, corresponding with Archbishop Seeker, 
 and translating Epictetus, Near Sandgate there 
 were the Brockmans of Beechborough, whose 
 ancestor, Sir William Brockman, gallantly de- 
 fended Maidstone in 1648 against the Parlia- 
 mentary forces under General Fairfax ; and 
 Mr. Deedes, of Sandling and Saltwood Castle, 
 which was partially destroyed by the earth- 
 quake of 1587. Sir John Shaw had a small 
 marine villa on the beach. 
 
 Such was East Kent from about 1720 to 
 1765. Sir Egerton Bridges regretted that he 
 was only slightly acquainted with Elizabeth 
 Carter, from whom he might have learned 
 much. For a clearer, more extensive, or better 
 regulated mind, he declared, was unrecorded in 
 the annals of genius and learning. He found 
 her manners cold, stiff, and formal, the result 
 of constitutional shyness, of which her intimate
 
 WIT AND WISDOM 59 
 
 friends, however, had no cause to complain. In 
 Kent she Hved principally within the narrow 
 limits of her native town, but, like Sir Egerton, 
 she found it pleasant to escape from provincial 
 surroundings to the world at large. 
 
 There might be found at this period Pope, 
 Bolingbroke, Gray, Johnson, Hume, Chester- 
 field, Robertson, Warburton, Lowth, Burke, 
 Lord Chatham, Fielding, Richardson, the 
 Whartons, Akenside, Young, Lyttelton, Horace 
 Walpole, Pulteney, Colman, Mason, Soame 
 Jenyns and Garrick. With most of these men 
 she was acquainted, and many of them were 
 her intimate friends.
 
 6o A WOMAN OF 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 MRS. carter's views ON MARRIAGE 
 
 In accordance with the dignified custom of the 
 day, which conceded to ladies the privilege of 
 being the first to acknowledge the flight of 
 time, Elizabeth Carter at a certain age as- 
 sumed the brevet rank of a matron, for which 
 she had not qualified by matrimony : a fashion 
 which has become obsolete in these latter days, 
 when of course all the world is young. 
 
 Matrimony she considered ' a very right 
 scheme for everybody but herself,' and she 
 returned from her brother's marriage exceed- 
 ingly consoled by the reflection that, ' though 
 she was very much tired of a wedding, it was 
 not her own.' Her gloomy forebodings on her 
 sister-in-law's chances of happiness, founded on 
 an intimate knowledge of her brother's temper 
 and uncomfortable health, were happily not 
 realised ; it proved to be a union of uninter-
 
 WIT AND WISDOM 6i 
 
 rupted affection, confidence, and happiness. 
 In spite of her clear sight and common sense 
 she overlooked the fact that in this matter, as 
 in many another hazardous enterprise, fortune 
 often favours the brave. 
 
 Her 'square cornered heart' and views on 
 this subject filled her family and friends with 
 dismay. Her father told her that, though it 
 always gave him a ' sharp uneasiness ' to differ 
 from her, like every good parent he secretly 
 prayed to see her married to a good man, who 
 could maintain her decently, and whose temper 
 was suitable to her own. No one ought to 
 marry against his or her will, he allowed, but will 
 should be guided by reason. Though she did 
 not value the judgment of the world, it was not 
 to be slighted, and marriage ' procured more 
 consideration than single life, which is often 
 errant, and seldom meets with much respect.' 
 He laid no commands upon her, as he wished 
 neither to part with her nor to keep her against 
 her desire. He did not condemn her, but 
 commended her to the direction of Heaven, 
 
 These urgent appeals and warnings were 
 dispatched to ' Dear Bet ' at intervals during 
 many years. The respective merits of Mr. B,, 
 Mr. D., and Mr. G. were severally set forth,
 
 62 A WOMAN OF 
 
 according to the proposal under immediate dis- 
 cussion. (Even at this distance of time, as- 
 suredly Mrs. Carter's sense of honour would 
 have forbidden their real names being given.) 
 At length, weary of platitudes, feigned resigna- 
 tion, and the conventional methods of parental 
 persuasion, the worthy Doctor pours out his 
 whole soul, like a woman, into a postscript, the 
 only place where the feminine mind is said to 
 be clearly set forth. 
 
 It contains a terrible threat : 
 
 ' P.S. — I cannot forbear saying that when I 
 die, and you are single, you will certainly find a 
 vast difference with regard to the respect of the 
 world.' 
 
 Fortunately, however, his daughter Eliza- 
 beth possessed a personality that insured her 
 the respect of all whose opinion she valued, 
 and greater than any that she could have 
 secured by a commonplace and loveless mar- 
 riage. Elizabeth Carter was nevertheless a 
 woman, though a very extraordinary one. 
 Once, indeed, she hesitated, and came very 
 near to accepting a gentleman ' in every way 
 unexceptionable,' to whom she was very much 
 attached, but he was so ill advised as to publish
 
 WIT AND WISDOM 63 
 
 at that moment some verses of which she could 
 not approve, and in spite of the regrets and 
 remonstrances of her father and friends ' at her 
 missing so good a prospect,' she remained 
 obdurate. Her Strephon quickly found another 
 Delia, and ever after expressed a strong sense 
 of her obliging and handsome conduct ! Her 
 friends were less accommodating, and reminded 
 her that, after all, as ' Strephons were not so 
 plenty,' she need have no fear of their again 
 finding occasion to weary her with their per- 
 suasions. Such an irresolute Strephon would 
 have proved a very incapable lord and master, 
 but her good sense would have prevented her 
 ever exhibiting to the world that sorry spectacle, 
 a husband that is not the head of the wife, or 
 even the better man of the two. 
 
 That stormy February passed, and only 
 from time to time do we read of fresh breezes 
 arising to ruffle the still waters. Perhaps the 
 ease with which Strephon consoled himself 
 shook her faith in the constancy of mankind, 
 for she wrote to a friend, ' I agree with you 
 on the effect fine scenery might have on such 
 lovers as are really in love, but as this is a 
 circumstance which happens much less fre- 
 quently than the misses are apt to suppose, a
 
 64 A WOMAN OF 
 
 ball-room does better for small talk than an 
 Arcadian solitude.' After all, one Delia ap- 
 peared to do practically as well as another, and 
 a poor black man who was an object of charity 
 afforded her a comfortable proof that, however 
 destitute of all other possessions, every mortal 
 man may, at all events (if he desire it), be 
 sure to find a wife. Dr. Johnson wished there 
 might be a special form of service for ' marriages 
 of convenience.' 
 
 Dr. Carter, the worthy clergyman at Deal, 
 with two families to provide for, was exaspe- 
 rated by these views, and wrote severely : 
 
 ' If you intend never to marry, you certainly 
 ought to live retired, and not appear in the 
 world with an expense which is reasonable 
 upon the prospect of getting a husband, but 
 not otherwise.' 
 
 Mrs. Carter's family were startled one 
 evening at ten o'clock by a most outrageous 
 ringing at the door, which proved to be a 
 letter containing a proposal from an impetuous 
 young man, whose wig was always in an 
 uproar, and who ran over everybody he met, 
 hanging his clothes upon every lock and bolt 
 in the extreme trepidation of his pace. The 
 servant of the aforesaid Orlando, who was the
 
 WIT AND WISDOM 65 
 
 bearer of the letter, demanded an immediate 
 answer, but Mrs. Carter thought it might be 
 as well to read it first ; and, though she had 
 an emphatic * No ' extremely at his service, 
 would not detain his emissary. This hasty 
 youth had resolved ' prendre le Roman par 
 la queue, et debuter par le mariage ' ; but, as 
 he had never signified his intention before, to 
 be sure, the demand was somewhat abrupt and 
 peremptory. The next morning, before any 
 soul was up, the messenger returned, with the 
 same violence of ringing, to carry back her 
 answer to his master, whom she expected any 
 day to come and fly away with her in a chaise 
 and one, unless he should happen to meet with 
 somebody else and be married on the road. 
 
 It was alleged that both the Archbishop of 
 Canterbury (Dr. Seeker) and the Bishop of 
 London (Dr. Hayter) wanted to marry Mrs. 
 Carter. She always positively denied the 
 rumour about Archbishop Seeker, but her 
 contemporaries were not clear that in the case 
 of Bishop Hayter the report was equally un- 
 founded, though she never allowed that it was 
 true. One day in her presence, the Arch- 
 bishop, feeling his freedom in jeopardy, and 
 losing that presence of mind so essential to
 
 66 A WOMAN OF 
 
 good breeding, exclaimed : ' Brother Hayter, 
 the world says that one of us two is to marry 
 Madam Carter ; now I have no such intention, 
 and resign her to you.' Bishop Hayter, how- 
 ever, knew her well, and was assured that 
 whatever might be the views of her family and 
 friends, for her own part she would probably 
 be inwardly murmuring ' God forbid ! ' in Greek 
 at the idea of either of them, as she had been 
 heard fervently to ejaculate when it was sug- 
 gested that the learned but uncouth Dr. Burton 
 was very much her admirer. So, with more 
 courage and gallantry, the Bishop bowed to 
 her and replied, ' I will not pay your Grace 
 the same compliment ; the world does me great 
 honour by the report.' 
 
 Though the Archbishop's manners were 
 not prepossessing, he remained her staunch 
 friend through life. She was frequently his 
 guest at Lambeth, and was indebted to him 
 for his advice in her translation of Epictetus. 
 As the owner of her house at Deal, he proved 
 a most generous landlord, though he indulged, 
 it is true, in a few malicious insinuations when 
 the world said that Madam Carter would marry 
 Lord Bath (Pulteney). 
 
 When the Archbishop died she sincerely
 
 THOMAS HAYTER, BISHOP OF LONDON 
 
 From a t^aintinn in Fnilunti Pahicc
 
 WIT AND WISDOM 67 
 
 mourned the great and good man, with whose 
 friendship she had been honoured for more than 
 twenty years, and to whom she was under such 
 innumerable obligations. He left a sealed 
 packet for her, the contents of which were never 
 known. It was not found amongst her papers, 
 nor was there any memorandum of it. 
 
 When Mrs. Carter was upwards of forty 
 years of age, her father received a ' marvellous 
 odd letter ' from a Yorkshireman, desiring to 
 be informed with all possible speed whether his 
 daughter had made any resolution against 
 marrying, and if not if she was engaged. But 
 Mrs. Carter said, ' Surely the poor man must 
 have lived in a wood, or he would have known 
 that no one has a right to ask the first ques- 
 tion, and could not suppose that the curiosity 
 of a stranger would be gratified as to the last.' 
 
 It is hardly necessary to note the fact that 
 no more was heard of the Yorkshireman. If 
 Dr. Carter's answer was half as concise and 
 definite as his daughter's, it would not require 
 the astuteness of a North Countryman to see 
 that nothing farther remained to be said on the 
 subject. 
 
 On one occasion, when Mrs. Carter had 
 been much tormented by her kind friends as to 
 
 F 2
 
 68 A WOMAN OF 
 
 the designs of a man who had absolutely none 
 with regard to her or anyone else, she wrote, 
 * I am convinced that one is not secure from 
 these malicious insinuations on this side an 
 hundred ; having run away from matrimonial 
 schemes as far as dry land goes, my next step 
 must be the sea.' She occasionally retorted by 
 raising the hopes of her tormentors. * Learn 
 not to be too confident,' she wrote ; * my heart 
 which I thought so secure was yesterday in 
 one half hour entirely given up to a — would 
 you believe it ? — to a Dutchman ! The reason 
 of my being thus taken by surprise was that I 
 never suspected danger from an amphibious 
 inhabitant of the bogs of Holland. I know I 
 shall find no compassion from you, but it 
 luckily happens I do not want it ; for this 
 morning I took a dose of algebra fasting, which 
 has entirely cured me.' 
 
 To another friend who had urged her to 
 marry she wrote : ' Bless me, I had almost 
 forgot to let you into a most important secret, 
 that I am grown desperately in love, more in 
 love than anybody, with a most agreeable man, 
 who talks a good deal, laughs a good deal, 
 sings a good deal, and yet I cannot very well 
 define why I so greatly admire him. I believe,
 
 WIT AND WISDOM 69 
 
 however, the strange enchantment that renders 
 him so universally agreeable must be the most 
 settled look of good-nature and happiness that 
 ever appeared in any human countenance. 
 And now I suppose you begin to be in great 
 pain for my heart, but it is really in no danger, 
 and I can safely answer for its giving me no 
 kind of trouble.' 
 
 At last her friends learnt to approach the 
 subject more cautiously, and when one of them 
 wrote of a worthy man that had the highest 
 regard for Mrs. Carter, she hastened to add, 
 ' Do not be frightened, I mean nothing more 
 dangerous than Mr. Richardson ' (the novelist). 
 Mrs. Carter replied : ' The paragraph in your 
 letter did really put me in a fright. I had for 
 a moment forgot that some folks are married, 
 that other folks are galloped away, ready to 
 break their necks and look for a wife in some 
 distant country, and that there are no folks in 
 the world that trouble their heads about me. 
 It was not till I saw the quiet, harmless name 
 of Richardson that all these comfortable con- 
 siderations occurred to my thoughts.' 
 
 She was informed that Richardson possessed 
 an ' exceedingly like portrait ' of her, drawn by 
 Mrs. Chapone without her knowledge, but that,
 
 70 A WOMAN OF 
 
 as he could not possibly wear it in his snuff- 
 box, she need not be scandalised. 
 
 Though Mrs. Carter believed that mankind 
 were upon the whole a much better set of 
 beings than some moralists think proper to 
 represent them, she either failed to find per- 
 fection, or, having found it, the fates were 
 adverse. 
 
 Before creating the personality of Sir Charles 
 Grandison, Richardson asked Mrs. Carter to 
 define her ideal of the perfect man, uniting the 
 fine gentleman and the Christian, that every- 
 one wanted him to draw. She replied : ' One 
 distinguishing part of his character must be an 
 absolute superiority to false glory and false 
 shame, a steady opposition to the false maxims 
 of the world in essential points, and a perfectly 
 good-natured compliance in trifles.' 
 
 Richardson had, Mrs. Carter declared, no 
 doubt a very good hand at painting excellence, 
 but there was a strange awkwardness and ex- 
 travagance in his vicious characters. To be 
 sure, poor man, he had read in a book, or heard 
 someone say that there was such a thing in the 
 world as wickedness, but being perfectly igno- 
 rant in what manner it operates on the human 
 heart, he drew such a monster as probably
 
 SAMUEL RICHARDSON 
 
 Fniin ,1 Iniintinn by Josc/^h Hinhincirc in the Wl/ioinl! Ptirhcut Giilh-ry
 
 WIT AND WISDOM 71 
 
 never existed in mortal shape. Mrs. Chapone 
 apprehended that his creation of Sir Charles 
 Grandison would occasion the kingdom being 
 overrun with old maids. The difference be- 
 tween this ideal character and the generality of 
 men would be so striking, and would make 
 women so hard to please, the consequence 
 would be single life to ninety-nine out of a 
 hundred. 
 
 Fielding, on the contrary, seemed to think 
 no character natural but such as are a disgrace 
 to the human species. 
 
 Richard Savage wrote to Elizabeth Carter 
 in 1739: 
 
 ' Dear Madam, — Be pleased to accept my 
 thanks for your pious intention of making me 
 a saint. I am truly desirous of becoming so, 
 because as saints they say are allowed the 
 happiness of conversing with angels, I may be 
 so blest as to become worthy of the conversa- 
 tion of Miss Carter. . , . 
 
 ' Your most affectionate and devoted ser- 
 vant, 
 
 ' R. Savage.' 
 
 The following reflections flowed from Mrs. 
 Carter's pen as she was thinking of the
 
 72 A WOMAN OF 
 
 marriagfe of one of her friends, whose chance 
 of happiness appeared to her problematic : 
 
 ' After all, excepting the sine qua non of 
 a good conscience, and exemption from real 
 calamity, that odd thing which we call happiness 
 entirely depends upon the temper and imagina- 
 tion of every individual ; and as " the heart 
 knows its own bitterness," so " a stranger does 
 not intermeddle with its joys," Upon this 
 principle I comfort myself that the way of life 
 which would harass and perplex my aching 
 head with perpetual agitation and cares, serves 
 only to keep some of my friends in good 
 humour and good spirits.' 
 
 A very imprudent match caused Mrs. Carter 
 to be drawn into a sorrowful scrape by ex- 
 pressing her opinions too strongly. ' Bless me,' 
 she exclaimed, * what business had I to talk 
 about things I know nothing about ? As my 
 ill stars would have it, I happened to express 
 great pity for people under these dolorous cir- 
 cumstances. Out of mere indolence I shall 
 give up the point, and leave all lovers to hang 
 or drown themselves as they think fit.' 
 
 Assurance of the ' mutual society, help and 
 comfort, both in prosperity and adversity, that 
 the one ou^ht to have of the other ' carried
 
 WIT AND WISDOM ^z 
 
 little conviction to Mrs. Carter's mind, for 
 when harassed almost to death with various 
 disputes and turmoils, she wrote, ' Although I 
 know you will be angry, I cannot for my life 
 help telling you, that ever since I was made 
 unhappy by these commotions, it has been a 
 great consolation to me that I never was 
 tempted by any voluntary connection to en- 
 gage myself in the tumults of the world. If 
 I have suffered from the troubles of others, 
 what might I not have suffered from a hus- 
 band ? ' Socrates, by taking to wife the most 
 impossible person of his acquaintance, sought 
 to show the world that there was no one with 
 whom he could not live peaceably. He desired 
 to have under his roof one who would hourly 
 exercise his powers of endurance. When the 
 ill-tempered Xanthippe trampled on his cake, 
 poured water on his head, and transmitted her 
 failings to a very foolish son, he found the 
 taming of the shrew a more impossible task 
 than Shakespeare has since represented it to 
 be. He was, after all, outdone in patience by 
 the philosophic navvy who, when his wife beat 
 him, said, ' It don't hurt me, and it do her a deal 
 o' good.' The navvy kept silence, whereas the 
 unhappy married life of Socrates was prover-
 
 74 A WOMAN OF 
 
 bial amongst the ancients. It is, therefore, not 
 surprising that Epictetus did not consider ' the 
 affair of marriage in this state of the world a 
 thing which is especially suited to the cynic' 
 When one of his hearers ventured to remind 
 him of the beautiful Hipparchia who adopted 
 the views and the austere life of her husband 
 Crates, and gave them as conspicuous an 
 example of what a good wife may be as 
 Xanthippe did the reverse, Epictetus sternly 
 rebuked him for quoting such an exceptional 
 case. ' You are speaking of a circumstance 
 which arose from love,' he said, ' and of a woman 
 who was another Crates, but we are inquiring 
 about ordinary marriages.' Crates placed his 
 wife's fortune in the hands of the bankers, with 
 directions that it should be given to his sons 
 if they should prove fools, and to the poor if 
 they proved philosophers. 
 
 After all, neither Epictetus nor his translator 
 had any practical experience in the matter, and 
 circumstances are but externals ; the immovable 
 self should be the same in all. Therefore, 
 argued a friend, ' Miss Carter at Paris, Miss 
 Carter with a ducal coronet on her coach, 
 would be the same domestic, affectionate, 
 dutiful creature, as Miss Carter at Deal in her
 
 WIT AND WISDOM 75 
 
 peaceful retirement. She would, like a reason- 
 able woman, secure to herself every day some 
 hours for recollection and improvement, and 
 would as highly enjoy every moment of leisure 
 as she does now. And Miss Carter in a family 
 of her own, ordering her family affairs, sur- 
 rounded by sons and daughters, dressed in her 
 plain work, fed with her own plum-puddings, 
 taught by her own care, would be still as happy 
 and as valuable a person as either.' 
 
 However much gratified Elizabeth Carter 
 may have felt by her friend's opinion of her 
 individuality that surroundings could not affect, 
 she rather resented the allusion to the possible 
 family that under other circumstances she would 
 have so ably clothed, fed and educated, and 
 answered with some asperity : 
 
 * One would think by the comfortable do- 
 mestic scenes into which you introduce me, 
 that you had Lovelace's tombstone in your eye. 
 One part of your description I can answer, for 
 children I have, and though I say it who 
 should not say it, four as fine children as need 
 be desired [her half-brother and sisters]. They 
 are not, indeed, fed with my own plum-pud- 
 ding, because I have not any to give them, 
 but as far as they have any appetite for the
 
 76 A WOMAN OF 
 
 slender diet of learning, all I have in the world 
 is much at their service.' 
 
 ' Whate'er we think on't, Fortune's but a toy, 
 Which cheats the soul with empty shows of joy ; 
 A mere ideal creature of the brain, 
 That reigns the idol of the mad and vain ; 
 Deludes their senses with a fair disguise. 
 And sets an airy bliss before their eyes. 
 But when they hope to grasp the glitt'ring prey, 
 Th' unstable fantom vanishes away. 
 
 • •••••• 
 
 Could mortals learn to limit their desires, 
 Little supplies what Nature's want requires, 
 Content affords an inexhausted store, 
 And void of that a Monarch's wealth is poor. 
 Grant but ten thousand pounds, Philaurus cries, 
 That happy sum would all my wants suffice. 
 Assenting powers the golden blessing grant. 
 But with his wealth, his wishes too augment. 
 With anxious care he pines amidst his store. 
 And starves himself to get ten thousand more. 
 Ambition's charms Philotimus inspire, 
 A treas'rer's staff the pitch of his desire : 
 The staff he gains, yet murmurs at his fate, 
 And longs to shine first Minister of State. 
 A coach and four employ'd Cosmelia's cares, 
 For this she hourly worried Heav'n with pray'rs. 
 Did this when gained her restless temper fix ? 
 No, she still prays — for what ? — a coach and six. 
 
 A soul which uncorrupted Reason sways 
 With calm indiff'rence Fortune's gifts surveys ; 
 If Providence an affluent store denies, 
 Its own intrinsic worth that want supplies ;
 
 WIT AND WISDOM ^^ 
 
 Disdains by vicious actions to acquire 
 That glitt'ring trifle vulgar minds admire ; 
 With ease to Heaven's superior will resigns, 
 Nor meanly at another's wealth repines ; 
 Firmly adheres to Virtue's steady rules, 
 And scorns the fickle deity of fools.' 
 
 When Mrs. Thrale had given great occasion 
 to the enemy to blaspheme and triumph over 
 the ' Bas Bleu ' ladies by her marriage with 
 Piozzi, her daughter's singing master, and Mrs, 
 Macaulay, the republican historian, had capti- 
 vated a youth, twenty-six years her junior — a 
 marriage which might have been pardonable, 
 Mrs. Montagu sarcastically said, if he had been 
 great-great-grandson to one of the regicides — 
 Mrs. Carter, aged sixty-five, wrote to Mrs. 
 Montagu : 
 
 ' Marriage seems to be as general this year 
 as influenza. I hope, as you and I have escaped 
 the one, we shall not be carried off by the 
 other. Good lack a day ! What a tapage 
 such an event would make in the world ! ' 
 
 Up to the time of her death, in her eighty- 
 ninth year, Mrs. Carter would say, ' Nobody 
 knows what may happen ; I never said I would 
 not marry.'
 
 78 A WOMAN OF 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 ARCHBISHOP SECKER AND CATHARINE TALBOT 
 
 Elizabeth Carter's knowledge of the world 
 was considerably extended during her earlier 
 years by her friendship with Catharine Talbot, 
 the adopted daughter of Dr. Seeker, Arch- 
 bishop of Canterbury. Mrs. Carter was fre- 
 quently the guest of Dr. Seeker, when, as 
 Bishop of Oxford, he resided at Cuddesdon, 
 and also at St. Paul's, when preferment to that 
 deanery provided the Bishop with a house in 
 London. 
 
 Later on, when Archbishop of Canterbury, 
 Dr. Seeker, with Mrs. and Miss Talbot, was 
 always ready to bid her welcome to Lambeth, 
 where they did not insist on her company all 
 day long, but left her free to sit as unmolested 
 by her own fireside as in her own home. In 
 summer she might watch from the windows the 
 * family syllabub ' and dance under the trees in 
 the garden.
 
 CATHARINE TALBOT 
 
 From the frontispiece to ' The Works of the late 
 Miss Catharine Talbot,' (1S12)
 
 WIT AND WISDOM 79 
 
 As a guest of Archbishop Seeker, Mrs. 
 Carter was lodged in one of the towers, and 
 was the only occupant of that side of the palace 
 which is separated from the rest of the house 
 by the chapel. Through this and other vener- 
 able buildings she used to pass every night, 
 under Gothic arches dimly lighted by pale 
 lamps, with all the winds of heaven whisding 
 round her, followed by the echo of her own 
 steps, and the deep hollow sound of the closing 
 doors. In this situation she felt with great 
 force the grandeur of a storm. The prospect 
 from one of her windows was a long green 
 court, terminated by the gateway which forms 
 a ' fine perplexity of arches ' in all directions. 
 The other side of the tower was shaded by tall 
 trees, and through their branches there was 
 a view of the Thames, which washed their 
 roots. She delighted in rambling through the 
 long, narrow Gothic passages which led she 
 knew not whither. From a little window in one 
 of them she could look down into the chapel, 
 which she often viewed by moonlight. 
 
 The more frequented parts of the house 
 were so modernised as to have lost all their 
 ancient style, and what in its original state 
 would have appeared solemn and venerable
 
 8o A WOMAN OF 
 
 became merely dull, the only point ever gained 
 by modernising Gothic buildings. She always 
 * honoured Lord and Lady Northumberland for 
 preserving the Gothic grandeur of Alnwick 
 Castle, undiminished by the fopperies of modern 
 prettiness.' 
 
 During her visits to Lambeth Elizabeth 
 Carter joined the daily family readings of 
 English authors, conducted in an orderly and 
 sociable way, after breakfast and supper. Ten 
 o'clock was the closing hour both morning and 
 evening. After chapel they all retired to 
 their apartments, unless sunshine tempted them 
 abroad, and Lady Mary Grey, who was a prin- 
 cipal figure in their little domestic history, read 
 Tully's 'Offices' or Moliere to Miss Talbot, 
 while she embroidered or painted. When day- 
 light failed, the ladies exercised themselves by 
 walking in a large unfurnished room, sometimes 
 by moonlight, conversing in a manner that 
 made that hour the most agreeable of the four- 
 and-twenty. After seven, quadrille was called 
 in, to vary the object of their attention from 
 history and spinning wheels to aces black 
 and red. 
 
 Thomas Seeker, who was born in 1693, was 
 the son of a Dissenter, and whilst studying
 
 WIT AND WISDOM 8i 
 
 divinity with a view to the ministry, finding 
 himself unable to determine with which sect he 
 wished to identify himself, he resolved to study 
 physic until his opinions were more thoroughly 
 settled. He took his degree of M.D. at Leyden 
 in 1 72 1, and whilst studying anatomy in Paris 
 formed a life-long friendship with Martyn Ben- 
 son, afterwards Bishop of Gloucester, of whom 
 Pope wrote : 
 
 ' Manners with candour is to Benson giv'n.' 
 
 Through the persuasion of his school-fellow, 
 Joseph Butler, author of the ' Analogy ' and 
 afterwards Bishop of Durham, who had also 
 been educated for the Dissenting ministry, 
 Seeker returned to England and followed his 
 example of taking orders in the Established 
 Church. 
 
 The advancement of these three young 
 men. Seeker, Butler, and Benson, was entirely 
 due to their friend Edward Talbot, who on his 
 death-bed recommended them to the notice of 
 his father, the Bishop of Durham, and was thus 
 the means of providing the Church with three 
 distinguished prelates. 
 
 Edward Talbot died of small-pox a few 
 months after his marriage, and his daughter, 
 Catharine Talbot, was born in 1720, five months
 
 82 A WOMAN OF 
 
 after her father's death. The family is now repre- 
 sented in the peerage by Lord Dynevor, who is 
 descended through the female line from Edward 
 Talbot's elder brother, the Lord Chancellor. 
 
 Thomas Seeker married, in 1725, Catherine 
 Benson, sister of the Bishop of Gloucester. 
 She lived with the widow of his friend, Edward 
 Talbot, and after their marriage the Seekers 
 persuaded Mrs. Talbot to make her home with 
 them. They had no family, and her infant 
 daughter, Catharine, was brought up as their 
 own child. 
 
 After twenty years of married life Mrs. 
 Seeker died, and Mrs. and Miss Talbot con- 
 tinued to live with Archbishop Seeker till his 
 death in 1768. Catharine Talbot only sur- 
 vived him for a short time, and died unmarried 
 in 1770, in her forty-ninth year. 
 
 Dr. Seeker was successively Rector of St. 
 James's, Piccadilly, Bishop of Bristol (1734), 
 Bishop of Oxford (1737), Dean of St. Paul's 
 (1750), and in 1758 he was raised to the 
 Archiepiscopal See of Canterbury. As Rector 
 of St. James's, Piccadilly, Dr. Seeker had much 
 trouble in steering a clear course amidst the 
 difficulties occasioned by the unfortunate 
 differences between King George IL and
 
 WIT AND WISDOM 82 
 
 o 
 
 his eldest son, the Prince of Wales. His 
 Royal Highness having removed to Norfolk 
 House, which is in the parish of St. James's, 
 constantly attended Divine service at that 
 church. The first time he came the curate 
 inadvertently began prayers with the usual 
 sentence, ' I will arise and go to my Father,' 
 and it was asserted that the Rector preached 
 on the Fifth Commandment, ' Honour thy 
 father and thy mother,' 
 
 Bishop Sherlock could only defend Seeker 
 by saying that he must certainly have been in 
 a course of sermons on the Commandments, 
 and was, unfortunately, obliged to preach on 
 this particular one in its turn. Seeker him- 
 self declared that his whole discourse had been 
 on the subject of ' The Lord is good to all.' 
 
 In any case his Royal Highness forgave 
 him, and he baptized most of the Royal 
 children, including the future King George III. 
 He could not, however, attend the Prince's 
 Court, which was forbidden to all those who 
 went to the King's. Dr. Seeker had also the 
 misfortune to incur his Majesty's displeasure, 
 who supposed his influence much greater with 
 the Prince than it really was, and thought he 
 might have used it to more purpose. For this 
 
 G 2
 
 84 A WOMAN OF 
 
 reason the King did not speak to him for a 
 great number of years. 
 
 Through life Seeker, Butler, and Benson 
 lost no opportunity of advancing each other's 
 interests. Seeker mentioned Butler to the 
 Queen (Caroline the illustrious), who thought 
 he had been dead. On making further in- 
 quiries she was assured he was not ' dead, but 
 buried.' The kind-hearted Queen, acting on 
 this suggestion, soon after appointed him her 
 Clerk of the Closet. 
 
 Archbishop Seeker made a proposal for 
 appointing bishops in some of the American 
 colonies to save the loss and hazard incurred 
 by candidates for ordination, who were obliged 
 to cross the Atlantic at the cost of lOO/. ; of 
 those who undertook that voyage nearly a fifth 
 part actually lost their lives. He contended 
 that the members of the English Church in 
 America did not enjoy its benefits, having no 
 Protestant bishop within 3,000 miles of them, 
 a case which never had its parallel before in 
 the Christian world. His Grace further declared 
 it never had been intended to appoint a bishop 
 in New England, but that episcopal colonies 
 had always been proposed. He bequeathed 
 1,000/. to this scheme.
 
 WIT AND WISDOM 85 
 
 A volume of Catharine Talbot's essays, 
 reflections, and poems was published after her 
 death by Elizabeth Carter ; her writings show 
 her to have been a woman of culture and 
 common sense, and, as in the every-day con- 
 duct of life sense is none too common, her 
 reflections and maxims bear reiteration. The 
 following is a specimen : 
 
 * On the employment of wealth,' she writes, 
 describing people who, by squandering their 
 fortunes, reduce themselves to all the shifts 
 and pinches that often make them rapacious 
 and dishonest. ' By lavishing their money on 
 a hundred poor devils who have run them- 
 selves into misery from mere worthlessness 
 their fortune has become a prey to the good- 
 for-nothing, and is like a quantity of gold dust 
 dispersed uselessly in the air, that might have 
 been melted down and formed into regal crowns 
 and monuments of glory. Thus the man 
 of quality is reduced to all the meannesses 
 imaginable, and has the humbled air of in- 
 feriority when he meets the eye of his unpaid 
 tradesman.' 
 
 Elizabeth Carter corresponded regularly 
 with Catharine Talbot, who could not for the 
 life of her write short letters. One of her
 
 86 A WOMAN OF 
 
 immoderately long epistles to a friend who was 
 travelling in the East saved him the loss of a 
 valuable ring that had been given to him by 
 Lord Northumberland. He was attacked by 
 robbers, who examined his papers, but the 
 sight of so much writing discouraged them, 
 and they returned all the packets, including one 
 containing the ring. 
 
 As a specimen of laconic letters. Miss 
 Talbot quoted that of Quin the actor, whose 
 tongue, his monument in Bath Abbey tells us, 
 
 ' Kept all the table on a roar.' 
 
 ' Mr. Rich, — I have received yours, and am 
 at Bath. Quin.' 
 
 * Mr. Quin, — I have received yours, and you 
 may stay at Bath and be hanged. Rich.' 
 
 Miss Talbot was afraid, however, that hanged 
 was not the orioinal word. 
 
 When residing at St. Paul's Deanery, 
 Sunday was the evening allotted for Mrs. and 
 Miss Talbot to be at home, in order that fine 
 ladies might not be interrupted by drays and 
 waggons, or hindered from going to drums and 
 plays. 
 
 In this way the Talbots saw many more
 
 WIT lAND WISDOM 87 
 
 friends than they did when living in Piccadilly 
 during Dr. Seeker's incumbency at St. James's, 
 for, owing to the distance, fixed days and ap- 
 pointed times were necessary. When the fine 
 folk set about going to St. Paul's in an after- 
 noon, they so much over-reckoned the distance, 
 that by means of dining by sunrise they arrived 
 an hour earlier than they would have thought 
 it possible at St. James's to ring for tea. Every- 
 one was so glad and so obliged by these labo- 
 rious visits, and innumerable court'sies were 
 made to a neighbour at St. James's that in 
 other days the Talbots would have put them- 
 selves in no hurry to visit. 
 
 The Spring Miss Talbot sometimes passed 
 in the beautiful, well - cultivated country at 
 Brompton, which was all laid out in gardens, 
 where she enjoyed the cuckoo and thrush, and 
 sometimes the nightingale. There was some- 
 thing so charmingly alive in the environs of 
 London, where the joy of town and country was 
 united, and it was possible to sit on a shady 
 seat in pure air and sunshine, surrounded by 
 roses and carnations, and to hear the guns from 
 the Park and Tower. She also delighted in a 
 sweet village called Kilburn, where the air and 
 grass were as fresh as a thousand miles from
 
 88 A WOMAN OF 
 
 London. Mrs. Carter declared that the vale of 
 Tempe that ancient poets extol could not have 
 exceeded in beauty those delightful meadows 
 that form the banks of the Thames. She visited 
 Richmond in 1738 with a company large enough 
 to form an Eastern monarch's travelling camp, 
 and though she was so 'ratded about in the 
 coach ' that she was fit for nothing but to lie 
 down and sleep on her arrival, she walked from 
 thence to Twickenham and enjoyed the charm- 
 ing landscapes. By the interest of one of their 
 company with • Mr. Pope's celebrated m^an 
 John,' they got a sight of the gardens that 
 adorned the poet's villa at Twickenham. From 
 them all the tedious regularity that he thus 
 describes was banished : 
 
 ' No pleasing intricacies intervene, 
 No artful wildness to perplex the scene, 
 Grove nods to grove, each alley has a brother, 
 And half the platform just reflects the other.' 
 
 As Mr. Pope was so sensible of the false 
 taste of this dull, unnatural uniformity, he took 
 care to avoid it in his own garden, which, if 
 not so unbounded as his genius, had as much 
 variety in it. This charming spot resembled, 
 more closely than anything Mrs. Carter had 
 previously seen, those beautiful descriptions
 
 WIT AND WISDOM 89 
 
 that till then she had feared existed only in the 
 imagination of poets. The shrubs were scattered 
 about with the most agreeable wildness. The 
 trees were grown with as much freedom as in 
 a forest, and not distorted into the unnatural 
 shapes of triumphal arches or elbow-chairs. 
 In one part of the garden was a winding ascent, 
 leading to the top of a mount, that was sur- 
 rounded by a hedge of yew and covered with 
 trees. Through their branches was discovered 
 a vista of the Thames. The whole place ap- 
 peared to be the sequestered habitation of a 
 society of wood-nymphs, and formed a retreat 
 for the Muses equal to their own Parnassus, 
 so ' 'twas no wonder they took so long a journey 
 to pay such frequent visits to Mr. Pope.' 
 
 Miss Talbot was thoroughly versed in the 
 theory of cheerfulness, and had no notion that 
 anybody could be seriously in the spleen, though 
 almost everybody is subject to waking dreams 
 of misery. But a little serious reflection sets 
 life in a very different light from that in which 
 fancy places it upon every little vexation. She 
 had a great notion that half one's business in 
 this world is to make the best of everything, as 
 common good-breeding teaches us to do at the 
 most ordinary entertainment that is made for us.
 
 90 A WOMAN OF 
 
 She had no notion of the nne-lady airs of 
 hating her neighbours, and when she resided 
 at Cuddesdon during the years Dr. Seeker was 
 Bishop of Oxford, she visited eighteen families 
 at distances varying from three to fourteen 
 miles, and twenty neighbours in Oxford. ' As 
 for seeing people one likes,' she declared, * one 
 must learn to like people one sees. 'Tis a note 
 to this body, a message to that ; an errand to 
 one end of the house, and a whim to send one 
 to another ; a robin to be fed at this window, 
 and a tom-tit to be attended to at another ; 
 cats or chickens, spinsters or ague patients. 
 Methusalem was a happy man, if he had any 
 genius for filling up his time. When anybody 
 has read or writ a folio they have somewhat to 
 show ; but bills of fare, messages, letters of 
 business, are Sibyl's leaves dispersed by the 
 breeze.' 
 
 Miss Talbot had but three creatures in the 
 world over whom she had any right to exercise 
 control — a foolish dog, a restive horse, and a 
 perverse gardener. She did not wish to be 
 one of those reformers who desire to mend 
 everybody around them, while poor self, the 
 only person they could really influence, is 
 forgot. She rather agreed with the well-bred
 
 WIT AND WISDOM 91 
 
 Pericles, who denied that either prudence, 
 justice, or fortitude can belong to women, and 
 therefore gave them a polite admonition to 
 keep quiet, and make themselves as little talked 
 of as possible.
 
 92 A WOMAN OF 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 MRS. carter's literary WORKS AND 
 PHILOSOPHICAL VIEWS 
 
 In 1738, at the age of twenty-one, Elizabeth 
 Carter published a small collection of poems, 
 printed by Cave, the original and enthusiastic 
 editor of the ' Gentleman's Magazine,' who, as 
 Johnson declared, scarcely ever looked out of 
 the window but with a view to its improve- 
 ment. In this periodical some of her poems 
 had previously appeared with the signature of 
 ' Eliza.' 
 
 A cut of St. John's Gate figures on the 
 title-page. This edition is very scarce, and 
 only two of the poems contained in it were 
 included in the edition generally called the first, 
 which was not published till 1762, when she 
 was forty -five years of age. 
 
 In the year 1739 she translated from the 
 French of M. Crousaz a critique of Pope's
 
 WIT AND WISDOM 93 
 
 ' Essay on Man.' There is no preface ; no 
 translator s name is mentioned ; the notes are 
 few and not of any great importance. 
 
 Crousaz, a Swiss professor, and zealous 
 promoter of pure religion, believed Pope's 
 ' Essay on Man,' notwithstanding Warburton's 
 elaborate explanation, to be hostile to revealed 
 religion, and written under the influence of 
 Bolingbroke. Mrs. Carter's notes tended to 
 moderate the severity of Crousaz's criticism. 
 She always defended Pope against accusations 
 of ill-nature, and declared that he had been 
 stung by provocation and ill-treatment. 
 
 Warburton, afterwards Bishop of Gloucester, 
 had joined in a cabal against Pope. He 
 accused Milton of borrowing from pride and 
 affectation, Dryden from want of leisure and 
 indolence, Addison from modesty, and Pope 
 of necessity, from want of genius. Though he 
 helped Theobald in the edition of Shakespeare 
 published in opposition to that of Pope, he 
 afterwards transferred his allegiance, and be- 
 came as ardent in his defence of Pope as he 
 had been zealous for the triumph of his oppo- 
 nent. He ' undertook to rescue Pope from the 
 talons of Crousaz.' Pope thus expressed his 
 o-ratitude :
 
 94 A WOMAN OF 
 
 ' You have made my system as clear as I 
 ought to have done, and could not. ... I 
 know I meant just what you have explained ; 
 but I did not explain my own meaning so well 
 as you. You understand me as well as I do 
 myself, but you express me better than I could 
 express myself.' 
 
 Pope thus clearly shows that he did not 
 intentionally attack religion. If Bolingbroke 
 made him unwittingly the means of disseminat- 
 ing his views, he was, as Dr. Johnson triumph- 
 antly declares, ' now engaged with his eyes 
 open on the side of truth.' Bolingbroke always 
 disguised his real opinions from his pupil, and 
 hated Warburton for having revealed them to 
 him. Pope repaid his services by introducing 
 him to Mr. Allen, ' who gave him his niece 
 and his estate, and by consequence a bishopric' 
 Warburton admitted that some of his own 
 writings were thought vain, insolent, and ill- 
 natured, and many of his bold and original 
 criticisms and conjectures in his edition of 
 Shakespeare have been exposed by Dr. 
 Johnson. 
 
 The concluding sentence of a sermon War- 
 burton preached before the House of Lords 
 in 1760, on the anniversary of King Charles's
 
 WIT AND WISDOM 95 
 
 martyrdom, sums up that ill-fated monarch's 
 character in a manner that displays the 
 preacher's ingenuity in not sacrificing truth 
 even in the panegyric of princes : 
 
 'In a word, his princely qualities were 
 neither great enough nor bad enough to suc- 
 ceed in that most difficult of all attempts, the 
 enslaving of a free and jealous people.' 
 
 Elizabeth Carter translated in the same 
 year (1739), from the Italian, Algarotti's * New- 
 tonianismo per le Dame,' Sir Isaac Newton's 
 Philosophy explained for the use of the ladies, 
 in six dialogues on light and colour. Dr. Birch 
 wrote of her : ' This lady is a very extra- 
 ordinary phenomenon in the republic of letters, 
 for her knowledore of the ancient and modern 
 languages ; an equal skill in any one of them 
 would be a distinction to a person of the 
 other sex.' Mrs. Carter never spoke willingly 
 of either of these translations — they were un- 
 worthy of her powers. 
 
 With these exceptions, it does not appear 
 that she wrote anything for the press till her 
 celebrated translation of Epictetus, which she 
 began in 1749, though it was not published till 
 1758. From this hard work she declared her 
 head received no kind of injury. She would
 
 96 A WOMAN OF 
 
 hardly ever read or work for more than half 
 an hour at a time, and then visit for a few 
 minutes any relations In the house, or go into 
 her garden. 
 
 After the success of this great work, which 
 not only brought her in i,ooo/., but made her 
 acquainted with all the literary people of the 
 day, she wrote to one who feared her head 
 might be turned : * I have no painful excellence, 
 alas ! to give you any particular apprehension 
 about me ; I wear my hat in the same way as 
 I used to wear it, I dress just as awkwardly, 
 and look just as silly as ever.' Some years 
 earlier she had written to a friend whose 
 exaggerated admiration of her talents pre- 
 vented an easy intercourse, and whose obse- 
 quious letters annoyed her : 
 
 ' It is with the utmost diffidence that I 
 venture to do myself the high honour of 
 writing to you, when I consider my own 
 nothingness and utter incapacity of doing 
 any one thing upon earth. Unless I had 
 as many tongues in my head as there are 
 grains of dust between this and Canterbury, 
 it is impossible for me to express the millionth 
 part of the obligations I have to you, there- 
 fore I must content myself with assuring you
 
 WIT AND WISDOM 97 
 
 that I am, with the subHmest veneration and 
 most profound humility, 
 
 ' Your most devoted, obsequious, respectful, 
 obedient, obliged, and dutiful humble servant, 
 
 ' E. Carter. 
 
 * I shall die with envy if you outdo this.' 
 
 The extraordinary circumstance of a trans- 
 lation from the Greek of so difficult an author 
 by a woman made a great noise all over 
 Europe. In her own country, however, some 
 persons chose to assert that her father wrote 
 it, and others said it was Archbishop Seeker. 
 George, first Lord Lyttelton, said that he ad- 
 mired Mrs. Carter's preface more and more, 
 and was much struck by the poem prefixed to 
 it by Mrs. Chapone. ' The English ladies,' he 
 wrote, ' will appear as much superior to the 
 French in wit and learning as the men in 
 arms.' 
 
 The quarto volume, published by subscrip- 
 tion, consisted of all Epictetus's discourses 
 preserved by Arrian in four books, fragments 
 ranslated from the original Greek, and the 
 ' Enchiridion,' which is the only part that had 
 been previously translated into any modern 
 language, except French. In 17 10, when 
 
 H
 
 98 A WOMAN OF 
 
 scarcely twenty years old, Lady Mary Wortley 
 Montagu had translated the ' Enchiridion ' of 
 Epictetus, but only from the Latin version. 
 Her great-grandson Lord Wharncliffe, in his 
 edition of her works, published in 1837, draws 
 attention to it as a great literary curiosity. He 
 adds that, when she presented it to Dr. Gilbert 
 Burnet, Bishop of Salisbury, for his emenda- 
 tions, she wrote, ' Here is the work of one 
 week of my solitude.' Mr. Harris, the author 
 of * Hermes,' and father of the first Earl of 
 Malmesbury, lent Mrs. Carter a copy of the 
 French translation, which was extremely scarce, 
 and had been published 150 years earlier. He 
 was a deep scholar, a philosopher and philo- 
 logist, and his critical knowledge of the Greek 
 language induced her to consult him on all 
 obscure passages. 
 
 This work was undertaken at the request 
 of Miss Talbot, who spent the hours before 
 breakfast reading Epictetus, and was provoked 
 that there was no translation of his precepts 
 preserved by Arrian, a work which she was 
 ' vastly curious ' to see. She lamented that 
 she was confined to dull, imperfect translations 
 of the noblest authors. The family readings 
 of Livy showed the greatest sentiments clothed
 
 WIT AND WISDOM 99 
 
 in the meanest words, provoking" the most 
 absurd mixture of admiration and ridicule. In 
 defence of their faith and homes, the Samnites 
 were described as fighting ' for church and 
 chimney,' and the style very much resembled 
 that of a celebrated orator in the county of 
 Kent, who in the petition for the King before 
 the sermon prayed for 'George and family.' 
 
 Though Mrs. Carter's first translation ap- 
 peared to her neither sense nor language, she 
 preferred to write obscure bad English rather 
 than disoblige her friend, and claimed to be, 
 perhaps, the first translator who was ani- 
 mated by a spirit of enthusiasm. Dr. Seeker 
 considered it very good, and only objected to 
 its being ' writ too smooth,' and in too orna- 
 mented a style. Epictetus was a plain man, 
 and spoke plainly, to express which fact the 
 translation should preserve the spirit of the 
 original, and unless she could prove that Epic- 
 tetus wore a laced coat, the Archbishop would 
 not allow her to dress him in one. 
 
 Mrs. Carter acknowledged that the ' En- 
 chiridion ' was merely plain common sense ; but 
 maintained that Arrian's commentary was much 
 less simple, and in some places abrupt and 
 
 unconnected, and if the sense was preserved, 
 
 H 2
 
 loo A WOMAN OF 
 
 it was lawful to make him speak a language 
 that is easy and natural, rather than retain any- 
 peculiar modes of his own country, which may 
 appear uncouth and awkward. Arrian, the 
 Archbishop argued, was not a commentator on 
 Epictetus as Simplicius was, but professed to 
 exhibit his very conversations and discourses, 
 as Xenophon did those of Socrates, and a 
 translator should preserve his genuine air and 
 character, as far as is consistent with making 
 him rightly understood. 
 
 The following extract from a letter shows 
 the extent to which her old friend the Arch- 
 bishop, assisted her with his advice : 
 
 Letter from Dr, Seeker, Archbishop of Canter- 
 bury (then Bishop of Oxford) 
 
 Cuddesdon : Sept. 13, 1749. 
 
 * Good Miss Carter, — . . . Every ancient 
 writer should be laid before the modern reader 
 such as he is. Epictetus will make a better 
 figure in his homely garb than in any other. 
 Abruptness often adds much force and per- 
 suasion to what is said. It shows the speaker 
 to be in earnest, which hath the greatest 
 weight of anything ; and the same sentiments
 
 
 THO.MAS SKCKKK, ARCHHISIlOl' OK CANTERBURY 
 From an ciiiSniviliK u/ter u /^ttinliiiu hy Sir Ji>!<Iiiul fieyiKthls. P.R.A.
 
 WIT AND WISDOM loi 
 
 delivered in a smooth and polite professional 
 style are no longer the same. These last 
 were the methods in vogue when Epictetus 
 lived, and they had brought philosophy into 
 disregard and disgrace. He saw it with grief; 
 and reproved Messieurs les Philosophes with 
 an honest zeal. ... I confess myself to have 
 bent the stick as strongly as I could the oppo- 
 site way to yours, yet I think a rough and 
 almost literal translation, if it doth but relish 
 strongly of that warm and practical spirit which 
 to me is the characteristic of this book, infi- 
 nitely preferable to the most elegant para- 
 phrase, that lets it evaporate and leaves the 
 reader unmoved.' 
 
 After this Dr. Seeker, who had shut him- 
 self up with Epictetus for near a month, never 
 leaving his study but for a morning ride or 
 walk, refused to give her any more assistance, 
 and wrote in his usual blunt manner : ' Are 
 you not ashamed to persecute a poor English 
 Archbishop with heathen Greeks, which it may 
 be hoped he hath the grace to forget entirely ? 
 But you cannot be quiet in your bed, you say, 
 without doing it. Very probable truly ; for 
 I read of some persons, " They sleep not
 
 I02 A WOMAN OF 
 
 except they cause some to fall." Mrs. Carter 
 answered : 
 
 ' 'Tis not to be told how miserably I looked 
 upon Epictetus, and how miserably Epictetus 
 looked upon me at the news that my Lord had 
 so inhumanly given us up to our own devices ; 
 however, in consequence of our philosophy, we 
 are determined to go peaceably blundering on ; 
 he in being translated till I cannot understand 
 him, and I in translating till nobody can under- 
 stand me.' 
 
 Mrs. Carter was very careless in revising 
 her proof sheets, and the Archbishop wrote to 
 her : 
 
 ' Do, dear Madam Carter, get yourself 
 whipt, get yourself whipt. Indeed, it is quite 
 necessary. I know you mean to be careful, 
 but you cannot without this help. Everything 
 else has been tried, and proves ineffectual. 
 The first thing I have cast my eyes on is 
 Epictetus for Epicurus ; one need go no further 
 to see what prescription your case indicates.' 
 
 In her preface Mrs. Carter mentions the 
 fact that the Stoic sect was founded by Zeno 
 about three hundred years before Christ, and 
 fell with the Roman Empire. 
 
 All philosophers held that the end of man
 
 WIT AND WISDOM 103 
 
 is to live conformably to nature, though their 
 methods of attaining to this end varied. Some 
 of the Epicureans by means of pleasure de- 
 based man into a mere animal, while to others 
 pleasure meant only freedom from uneasiness, 
 for even Epicurus recognised the universal 
 obligation of a virtuous life, and his adversaries 
 admitted that his own was simple, pure, and 
 manly. 
 
 The Stoics, on the contrary, aimed at an 
 absolute perfection of the soul, but their noble 
 efforts resulted in the idolatry of human nature, 
 and a proud self-sufficiency that insulted it, by 
 enjoining a perfection of which this life is in- 
 capable. Neither sect understood man in his 
 mixed capacity ; both considered him as inde- 
 pendent and self-reliant ; thus self-satisfaction 
 checked progress and improvement. 
 
 Between these two doctrines Horace wa- 
 vered ; at one time he aspired to become an 
 active man and plunged into public life ; at 
 another he glided back insensibly into the pre- 
 cepts of Aristippus and the pleasure-seekers, 
 and strove to make circumstances subservient 
 to himself, instead of adapting himself to 
 circumstances. 
 
 Modern heathens are apt to be Epicureans
 
 I04 A WOMAN OF 
 
 in practice and Stoics in theory, and when 
 both fail have recourse to the pistol, that 
 open gate of which Epictetus probably spoke 
 ironically, as it was contrary to his principles 
 and to the practice of the best of his sect : 
 ' Go hang yourself, like a grumbling, mean- 
 spirited wretch as you are ; God has no need 
 of such querulous, discontented people as you.' 
 
 Unacquainted with the doctrine of a future 
 state, the Stoic saw no other means of vindi- 
 cating the justice and goodness of God, and 
 reconciling it with the unequal distributions of 
 things, than by renouncing the feelings of the 
 human heart and denying pain to be an evil. 
 
 The preparation of the mind by the anti- 
 cipation of calamities was a favourite Stoic 
 doctrine, but misfortunes are not better sup- 
 ported by being considered beforehand. 
 
 By the regulation of his desires the Stoic 
 endeavoured to escape disappointment, to anni- 
 hilate feelings of aversion, and to regard all 
 external objects with absolute indifference. 
 Good and evil meant virtue and vice, and 
 excluded life, health, ease, friends, reputation, 
 which were mere appearances, from any share 
 in human happiness. A universal apathy fol- 
 lowed.
 
 WIT AND WISDOM 105 
 
 Active exertion or restraint of the inclina- 
 tions insured a proper observance of all social 
 relations, and comprehended the whole system 
 of moral duties. A Stoic never formed any 
 opinion, so could not be misled even during 
 sleep, intoxication, or delirium, though some 
 authors were so very reasonable as to admit 
 the possibility of his being mistaken in his 
 judgment after he had lost his senses. The 
 judgments of the mind the Stoics termed prin- 
 ciples, and determined the faculty of willing 
 on the actions or course of life. The precon- 
 ceptions were innate notions, the adaptation of 
 which is the office of reason, and is insisted 
 upon by Epictetus as a point of the highest 
 importance. By prosperity the Stoics under- 
 stood the actual state of mind, when the 
 affections and active powers are so regulated 
 that all events appear happy, and nothing can 
 fall out contrary to its wishes. Stoical insensi- 
 bility fell far short of Christian fortitude, for 
 to walk in the narrow way and do our best, 
 humbly acknowledging our failure, rejoicing in 
 hope, and aiming at perfection, appeared to the 
 Greeks, including Epictetus, foolishness. 
 
 Though the Stoics carried their logic to 
 such a degree of subtlety as rendered their
 
 io6 A WOMAN OF 
 
 reasoning incoherent and perplexed, they held 
 that there is one God, incorruptible, unorigi- 
 nated, immortal, rational, perfect in intelligence 
 and happiness, unsusceptible of all evil, govern- 
 ing the world and everything in it, the Creator 
 of the universe and Father of all, though not 
 of human form ; and those authors who repre- 
 sent them as little better than atheists do them 
 great injustice. They believed in the eternity 
 of matter, but that it was reduced into form 
 by God ; and that the world was made, and is 
 continually governed, by Him. They were the 
 most zealous defenders of the doctrine of a 
 particular Providence, and utterly rejected the 
 notion of chance. By Fate they understood 
 the events appointed by the immutable counsels 
 of God. Cicero allows that Chrysippus, whose 
 eloquence, it was said, the speech of the gods 
 must resemble, endeavoured to reconcile Fate 
 with Free Will. God's own eternal Will is 
 His Law; that He cannot change, because 
 He always ordains what is best. As Fate is 
 no more than a connected series of causes, 
 God is the first Original Cause, on which all 
 the rest depend. On the subject of the im- 
 mortality of the soul the Stoics were confused 
 and uncertain. Plato held that it is as a
 
 WIT AND WISDOM 107 
 
 punishment that the soul is united to the body, 
 and buried in it as in a tomb. After its libe- 
 ration it takes its essence in the ether, and 
 becomes immortal and Divine. 
 
 That a good man stretched on a rack or 
 reposing on a bed of roses should enjoy himself 
 equally, was a doctrine that gained few prose- 
 lytes, and drove many disciples from the thorny 
 asperities of the painted Portico, where Zeno 
 opened his school, to the flowery gardens of 
 Epicurus. 
 
 Few could attain to the spirit of the epi- 
 taph of the emancipated slave : 
 
 ' I, Epictetus, was a slave, and ailing in body. 
 But poor as I was, yet dear to the Immortals.' 
 
 The doctrine of virtue being its own reward 
 could not safeguard them from sufferings en- 
 tailed by the follies and wrong-doings of others. 
 Though Mrs. Carter had learnt from Epic- 
 tetus to talk of the headache as if it were no 
 evil, her friend Mrs. Chapone would have felt 
 greater respect for that philosopher if she could 
 furnish a receipt to prevent one suffering any 
 pain from the faults and follies of those with 
 whom we are connected. Failing this, she 
 held Mrs. Carter's stoical airs and all such stuff
 
 io8 A WOMAN OF 
 
 in mortal contempt, and was not at all com- 
 forted by her jargon. 
 
 It is remarkable that in no sect of philo- 
 sophers was suicide so frequently committed as 
 among the Stoics ; whereby they contradicted 
 their noble precepts of submission to the Divine 
 Will. Zeno hanged himself when his finger 
 ached. 
 
 They allowed the duty of praise and thanks- 
 giving for Divine assistance in moral improve- 
 ments, but they knew no repentance of their 
 failings. 
 
 Socrates, who had of all mankind the fairest 
 claim to be an instructor and reformer of the 
 world, confessed that he knew nothing, and 
 acknowledged the want, of a superior Guide. 
 There is a remarkable passage in Epictetus in 
 which he represents it as the office of God, or 
 of one deputed by Him, to appear among man- 
 kind as a Teacher and Example. 
 
 Mrs. Carter thought Epictetus inferior to 
 Socrates, but saw no reason to reduce him to 
 the level of modern heathen like Lord Boling- 
 broke, who treated Plato and St. Paul with 
 equal virulence, being opposed to all that was 
 good in either Christians or heathen. 
 
 She had more pleasure in reading Plato,
 
 WIT AND WISDOM 109 
 
 and other philosophers who wrote before our 
 Saviour, than Epictetus, Marcus AureHus 
 Antoninus, and those that Hved after ; the re- 
 markable difference in the clearness of whose 
 notions show that they must have borrowed 
 their best lights from the Christian religion. 
 
 Like her friend, Miss Talbot, with whom 
 she often corresponded on this subject, she was 
 more willing to believe that Epictetus had 
 never read the New Testament, than that, 
 having read it, he should have remained un- 
 converted. Had he not been dazzled with 
 the little light he had, and too well satisfied 
 that he himself was a luminous body from 
 whence it proceeded, he would have sought 
 for the true sunshine, and seeking would have 
 found it. 
 
 Mrs. Carter was very partial to Plato, and 
 thought he wanted nothing but the help of 
 Divine Revelation, which he longed for, and 
 knew was to come. He foretold, as Grotius 
 expresses it, that in order that a truly righteous 
 man should be manifested, it was necessary 
 that his virtue should be despoiled of all its 
 ornaments, so that he should be considered by 
 others as a malefactor (' numbered amongst the 
 transgressors '), be derided, and at last be
 
 no A WOMAN OF 
 
 hanged {suspendatur, Grot. ' De Verit.' lib. Iv.). 
 So likewise he says that Socrates told Alci- 
 biades that, in proper time, a Divine person 
 would come into the world, who out of his care 
 and tender regard to mankind, would remove 
 all doubts, disperse all darkness, and fully in- 
 struct them how to present their prayers, 
 praises, and religious offerings to the Supreme 
 Being in a pure and acceptable manner. (Alci- 
 biad II,' as cited by Blackwall, ' Sacred Classics,' 
 vol. ii. p. III.) 
 
 The cruelty of the Athenians proved that 
 something more than the illumination of specu- 
 lation, reason, and the fine arts is necessary to 
 dispel the darkness of disordered principles and 
 tame the savage outbreak of passions. 
 
 The whole heathen system of augury, divi- 
 nation, oracles, &c., arose from the universal 
 want felt for some Divine assistance, and the 
 insufficiency of the soul to its own virtue and 
 happiness. How unlike the soi-disant philo- 
 sophers of Edinburgh and Paris was that 
 distinguished ornament of polished Greece, 
 Xenophon, one of the greatest generals and 
 most illustrious philosophers in all heathen 
 antiquity. He carefully sought his way through 
 clouds and darkness ; they, on the contrary.
 
 WIT AND WISDOM m 
 
 shut their eyes against the Divine illumination 
 which brightened all around them. 
 
 The most hopeless people to convince of 
 the truth of Christianity Mrs. Carter found to 
 be amongst those of vacant life, reasoning- — 
 not reasonable — heads, and regular conduct ; 
 too highly conceited of human understanding 
 to think it needs any assistance, and too well 
 satisfied with human virtue to think it wants 
 any forgiveness. ' Seest thou a man wise in 
 his own conceit ? There is more hope of a fool 
 than of him.' 
 
 She thought there was something so grovel- 
 ling and base, so unworthy of an intelligent 
 being, in the endeavour of levelling itself to the 
 condition of a mere clod. David Hume wrote 
 in favour of suicide, unmoved with horror at 
 the mischief produced by such a doctrine. The 
 distraction of those unhappy families in which 
 such a dreadful accident has ever happened 
 might have checked the pen of a demon ; and 
 Voltaire's verses attempted to destroy the only 
 hope which makes life supportable, for no- 
 thing can give real delight unless connected 
 with immortal ideas. To those who complained 
 to Epictetus that they could no longer endure 
 being bound to the body, and cried, ' Did we
 
 112 A WOMAN OF 
 
 not come from God ? Allow us to depart to the 
 place from which we came,' he would answer, 
 * Friends, wait for God : when He shall give 
 the signal to release you from His service, then 
 go to Him ; but for the present dwell in the 
 place where He has put you. Short indeed is 
 the time of your dwelling here.' 
 
 Miss Talbot thought many people would 
 study Mrs. Carter's translation who would 
 scorn to look into a Bible ; fine gentlemen 
 would read it because it was new ; fine ladies 
 because it was Mrs. Carter's ; critics because 
 it was a translation out of the Greek ; and 
 Shaftesburian heathen because Epictetus was 
 an honour to heathenism and an idolater of the 
 beauty of virtue. 
 
 The work sold so well, and the price kept up 
 so remarkably that, some years after. Archbishop 
 Seeker brought her a booksellers' catalogue, 
 saying, * Here, Madam Carter, see how ill I 
 am used by the world ; here are my sermons 
 selling at half-price, while your Epictetus truly 
 is not to be had under eighteen shillings ; three 
 shillings less than the original subscription.' 
 
 After the publication of her ' Epictetus ' 
 Mrs. Carter became wholly independent of her 
 father, and she was enabled to spend several
 
 WIT AND WISDOM 113 
 
 months every winter in London. No. 20 
 Clarges Street, where she had rooms for many 
 years on the first floor, was next door to the 
 house, No. 21, where she eventually died. 
 Clarges Street had been built in 17 17, the 
 year of Mrs. Carter's birth, on the site of 
 Clarges House, a property owned by the family 
 of Anne Clarges, wife of General Monk, Duke 
 of Albemarle. Mrs. Carter had as neighbours 
 the distinguished Admiral, Lord St. Vincent, 
 and Charles James Fox, and at No. 11, Emma, 
 Lady Hamilton, is believed to have resided. 
 Later on Edmund Kean occupied No. 12. 
 A turnpike that stood at the corner of Picca- 
 dilly was abolished in 1761. Boswell enter- 
 tained Dr. Johnson hard by, in Half Moon 
 Street. 
 
 In 1762 Mrs. Carter's establishment at 
 Deal was also put on a different footing. Her 
 brothers and sister were all married, and her 
 stepmother was dead. She therefore bought 
 a house for herself at the southern extremity 
 of the town, commanding a view both of the 
 country and the sea, where her father lived 
 with her. Her friends lamented that her 
 talents should be wasted on the daily round of 
 domestic economy, but she said with her usual 
 
 I
 
 114 A WOMAN OF 
 
 good sense that, though she must be more 
 confined at home and less at the disposal of her 
 friends than when her sister, Mrs. Douglas, 
 supplied her place, she had no idea of its hurt- 
 ing the dignity of her head, for the true post of 
 honour consists in the discharge of those duties 
 which arise from that situation in which Provi- 
 dence has fixed us. 
 
 She presided over the cookery, despatched a 
 deal of plain work, and read a world of Greek. 
 When pressed by Archbishop Seeker to add a 
 Life of Epictetus to her translation of his works, 
 she replied, * Whoever that somebody or other 
 is who is to write the Life of Epictetus, seeing 
 I have a dozen shirts to make, I do opine that 
 it cannot be I.' 
 
 Shirt-making was not naturally congenial 
 to her, and when she had been working her 
 eyes out, she resolved that if she were ever 
 blessed with a family of boys, they should learn 
 to make their own. 
 
 Mrs. Chapone, who pronounced Mrs. Carter 
 to be the first of women, the truest philosopher, 
 and one of the best Christians she ever knew, 
 not only in word but in action, said her great 
 and good character was most appreciated by 
 those familiar with her. She was thought by
 
 WIT AND WISDOM 115 
 
 many of her admiring acquaintance to be buried 
 at Deal, yet that was the place where she most 
 shone. The applause of the world was not the 
 end or motive of any of her attainments, and 
 she enjoyed her position as much as many of 
 her friends regretted it for her. Failure in 
 such homely abilities as the science of pud- 
 dings only proved an incentive that eventually 
 caused her to excel. She wrote to Miss Tal- 
 bot : ' One would think you had a mind to 
 insult me upon a misfortune that happened to 
 me some fifteen years ago, when I produced a 
 pudding of a new invention, so overcharged 
 with pepper and brandy that it put the whole 
 family in a flame. The children all set up their 
 little throats aorainst Greek and Latin, and I 
 found this unlucky event was like to prove 
 my everlasting disgrace, for they made a 
 perfect era of it — every remarkable thing was 
 sure to happen on the day ''my sister made 
 the brandy pudding'' So, to stop their clamour, 
 I happily applied myself to the forming a 
 special good sweet cake, with such success 
 that the former mishap was forgot, and I was 
 employed to make every christening cake 
 that happened in the family ever after. And 
 
 though I say it, that should not say it, several 
 
 I 2
 
 ii6 A WOMAN OF 
 
 grave, notable gentlewomen of unquestionable 
 good housewifery have applied to me for the 
 receipt. I hope you will not infer that I am 
 fond of brandy, for I put it in out of pure good 
 management to save milk.' 
 
 Mrs. Carter and her father seldom met 
 except at meals : each had a separate library 
 and apartment ; this continued till his death in 
 1774, at the age of eighty-seven. To the last 
 he composed a sermon with the same per- 
 spicuity and force as at forty. She suffered 
 much anxiety when he insisted on mounting a 
 ladder to prune his vines, for to those advanced 
 in years, and unaccustomed to gymnastics, 
 she considered it hazardous, and saving a few 
 shillings was not worth the risk of giving pain 
 to his family. Some years previously she 
 seems to have entertained hopes of welcoming 
 yet another stepmother, and of thus being 
 relieved of her home duties ; she wrote : * Well, 
 at length my father is arrived from London, 
 
 and mayhap . There are some misses 
 
 coming in all possible expedition to spend some 
 time at Deal. ... A journey to London, if I 
 live and prosper, in spite of the misses I shall 
 have. My father has been so good as to 
 propose my taking a lodging. ... He will
 
 WIT AND WISDOM 117 
 
 soon be in London and fix on a place for me 
 in the environs of St, Paul's.' 
 
 The visit of the misses, if it ever took place, 
 proved to be void of significance, and Mrs. 
 Carter continued doing her duty to her father 
 as far as her aching head would allow her. 
 
 The premises which Mrs. Carter had pur- 
 chased at Deal consisted of several adjoining 
 tenements, held under the Archbishop of Can- 
 terbury, but by different leases ; she wished, 
 therefore, to have them all inserted in one 
 lease. Archbishop Seeker granted her request, 
 and wrote : 
 
 ' Madam Carter, — I am glad to find that 
 you are so prudent. And now it is my turn to 
 show that I am prudent too. As you will save 
 money by the re-union of four houses, I can 
 the better whip you up in your fine, especially 
 as I hear you like your house. Letting me 
 know that, was not quite so discreet. But the 
 wisest in their generation did not become so at 
 once. 
 
 ' Under so able a master [Lord Bath] as 
 you have had for some months past, I do not 
 doubt but you will come on apace. And who 
 knows how much a few instances of gude 
 economy may contribute to bring about a
 
 ii8 A WOMAN OF 
 
 certain great event that hath been long de- 
 pending.' 
 
 In this letter the Archbishop, alluding to 
 the report that Lord Bath would marry Mrs. 
 Carter, permits himself a few malicious insinua- 
 tions as to his reported love of money, against 
 which Mrs. Carter had always so ably defended 
 her friend. 
 
 The Archbishop, however, when it came 
 to business, acted very generously to his old 
 friend, and when her lease was renewed he 
 would take nothing for it, and sent her word 
 that, as her fine did not satisfy him, he would 
 not receive it, and meant to keep it in his 
 power to arrest her until she could tender him 
 legal payment ; to which she replied that her 
 only comfort was that if he screwed her up till 
 she broke nobody would be so great a loser by 
 her bankruptcy as he. 
 
 One day, when staying at Lambeth, Mrs. 
 Carter complained to the Archbishop of the 
 unfair manner in which our translators, for the 
 evident purpose of supporting the superiority 
 of the husband, have translated the same Greek 
 verb differently. ' If any brother hath a wife 
 that believeth not, and she be pleased to dwell 
 with him, let him not put her away. And a
 
 WIT AND WISDOM * 119 
 
 woman which hath a husband that believeth 
 not, and if he be pleased to dwell with her, let 
 her not leave him! The Archbishop denied 
 the fact, and asserted that the word in the 
 original was not the same, but finding his 
 antagonist obstinate, said, * Come with me, 
 Madam Carter, to my study, and be confuted ; ' 
 they went, and his Grace, instead of being 
 angry when he was proved to be wrong, said 
 good-humouredly, ' No, Madam Carter, 'tis I 
 that must be confuted, and you are right.' 
 Granting, however, that the home belongs to 
 the husband, the translators were surely justi- 
 fied in accentuating the difference between 
 leaving and being turned out. 
 
 Archbishop Seeker appointed Mrs. Carter's 
 brother-in-law one of his chaplains, and to the 
 end of her days his kindness followed her, even 
 after he was himself long since dead. In 1798 
 Bishop Porteous, of London, in presenting a 
 living to her nephew, wrote : 
 
 ' Although you and I have long been very 
 good friends, I don't think I ever had the gal- 
 lantry to present you with a New Year's gift. 
 I now wish to mend my manners, and as we 
 are both of us a little past our prime, it would 
 not suit either of us to wait very long for any-
 
 I20 A WOMAN OF 
 
 thing. I will therefore enter upon a new course 
 (as all penitents ought to do) without delay, 
 and will in one respect at least begin the New 
 Year well by desiring you to accept, as a New 
 Year's Gift, the living of Thorley, in Hertford- 
 shire, for your nephew, Mr. Pennington. In 
 offering you this benefice, I have the great 
 pleasure of testifying my regard for a most 
 excellent lady, whose talents, learning, and 
 piety are an honour to her sex and the age in 
 which she lives ; and who is the oldest and 
 most intimate friend of my revered patron, 
 Archbishop Seeker, who, were he now living, 
 would not be displeased with this mark of my 
 attention to one whom he most highly esteemed 
 and loved.' 
 
 Mrs. Carter wrote a poem on the death of 
 Queen Caroline, wife of George II. (Caroline 
 the Illustrious), which was presented to the King 
 by Sir Robert Walpole, and in Coxe's ' Life 
 of Walpole ' it has been erroneously ascribed 
 to Lord Melcombe. Richardson inserted her 
 ' Ode to Wisdom ' in his ' Clarissa ' without 
 her permission. She complained ; he apolo- 
 gised, and explained that, as the ode had been 
 shown to him as written by a lady, he had 
 inserted it to enliven a work that was written
 
 WIT AND WISDOM 121 
 
 with the intention of doing honour to the sex 
 to the best of his poor abihties. ' Clarissa ' was 
 translated into Dutch in 1752, and with it the 
 ' Ode to Wisdom.' 
 
 She was a great admirer of Richardson's 
 works, and believed that he was determined to 
 be revenged on the people who thought him too 
 prolix, by a judicious conclusion that left them 
 longing to learn how Clementina was disposed 
 of, and made them wish the book still longer. 
 
 Elizabeth Carter's fame spread to the Con- 
 tinent. In 1739, at the age of twenty-two, 
 with her father's consent, she commenced 
 a literary correspondence with Jean Philippe 
 Baratier, that youthful prodigy of learning, who 
 was three years her junior. He wrote several 
 works of theology and ecclesiastical history, 
 and was admitted to the Academy of Science 
 at Berlin when he was fourteen, and died in 
 1740, aged nineteen. His father was a French 
 Huguenot who settled in Germany, and his 
 mother was a Prussian, so he possessed the great 
 advantage of two nationalities. His letters to 
 Elizabeth Carter expressed an effusive admira- 
 tion, that must have rather astonished his mat- 
 ter-of-fact correspondent. He was mortified, 
 he said, at not even seeing her portrait, and
 
 122 A WOMAN OF 
 
 knew not if she were a fair or brown beauty. 
 Her actual presence he feared would be 
 dangerous, but he hoped she was not tall, as, 
 being small himself, he found many perfections 
 in short stature. The Latin epigram, written 
 by * La nymphe Elize,' he declared filled him 
 with envy, and Heaven knew if he would not 
 end by hating her cordially. No doubt she 
 had stolen her verses from Apollo, and passed 
 them off as her own, but ' a nymph of her 
 merit ' was one of the most dangerous creatures 
 under Heaven, for she might with four lines 
 wound a man in Pekin. For his own part, he 
 said, he preferred Chinese to Latin, in which 
 perhaps he was wise, as in that language at 
 least his fair competitor was out of her depth. 
 In his determination to learn English he worked 
 like a horse, or rather, like an author compiling 
 his own index. One of his sentences indeed 
 appeared to him to be so long and involved as 
 to be almost English. * Car vous faites des 
 affreuses periodes, vous autres. Anglais ; je m'y 
 perds, j'y suffoque, et quel tourment pour un 
 Frangais.' He sent her a copy of his History 
 of the first Bishops of Rome, but added ' n'allez 
 pas me jouer le tour de le lire.' Like Dr. John- 
 son, he thought that books presented by the
 
 WIT AND WISDOM 123 
 
 author are less read and valued than if the 
 reader has been at some pains to acquire them 
 himself. This promising young life was cut 
 short the following year. 
 
 The Empress Catherine expressed high ad- 
 miration of Mrs. Carter's translation of Epicte- 
 tus, and in Russia, where Mrs. Carter said the 
 people were just learning to walk on their hind 
 legs, there appeared in the ' Sotschinenie : ou 
 Melanges de Litterature en Russe, pour le mois 
 de Mai, 1758': 
 
 ' Anecdotes au Sujet dune savante Fille en 
 Ano-leterre, Mademoiselle Elizabeth Carter, 
 qui vient de donner au public une belle traduc- 
 tion en Anglais de tousles ouvrages d'Epictete. 
 Elle est fille de Nicholas Carter, Docteur en 
 Th^ologie, etabli a Deal, ville maritime, dans 
 le Comte de Kent. Cet ecclesiastique, homme 
 de beaucoup de piete et d'erudition, remarquant 
 dans sa fille de tres heureuses dispositions, reso- 
 lut de ne rien negliger de ce qui pourrait con- 
 tribuer a son education. Mais, craignant avec 
 raison que ces avantages ne produisissent en 
 elle une sotte vanite, il s'appliqua a lui inspirer 
 des sentiments d'humanit6 et de modestie, et 
 surtout une pi6te eclairee et solide. 
 
 ' Mademoiselle Carter possede le Latin, le
 
 124 A WOMAN OF 
 
 Grec, I'Anglois, le Frangois, I'ltalien et I'Espa- 
 gnol ; et elle lit I'Hebreu et rAllemand. Elle 
 serait trop accomplie, si a toutes ces qualit^s 
 etait joint un exterieur egalement parfait 
 (quoiqu'elle soit assez agreable) avec de plus 
 grands avantages du cote de la fortune. Mais 
 son temperament, son goiit pour la simplicite, 
 et enfin une philosophie soutenue et epuree par 
 la religion, lui font presque regarder toutes ces 
 choses d'un ceil de Stoique. 
 
 ' SO"'^ de Mai 1758.' 
 
 Elizabeth Carter was not ambitious to attain 
 fame by affecting new discoveries in religion 
 or morals, but her sound principles were the 
 result of research and conviction, and secured 
 her own happiness, while it added to that of her 
 fellow-creatures.
 
 WIT AND WISDOM 125 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 SOCIETY 
 
 Mrs. Carter equally condemned a life passed 
 in perpetual society or in perpetual solitude. 
 Social pleasures at proper intervals stimulated 
 her mind and spirits, but she wearied of con- 
 stant dissipation, and home alone presented the 
 joyful means of rest and recreation. Variety, 
 she considered, is best adapted to the human 
 mind during its life of probation. Only as a 
 rest from work can repose be enjoyed. Queen 
 Elizabeth acknowledged two methods of bring- 
 ing our years to an end, ' wearing out ' and 
 ' rusting out,' but those who neither know how 
 to work nor how to rest contrive to do both, 
 and that very rapidly. They loiter through the 
 day in a purposeless activity, and boast that they 
 never rest. Their weeks, like their days, are 
 unbroken by the alternate work and rest ap- 
 pointed to man, and if, after having transgressed
 
 126 A WOMAN OF 
 
 the law of work for six days, they attempt to rest 
 for conscience' sake on the seventh, they find it 
 very dull. It was not made for the unemployed. 
 If circumstances, said Epictetus, make it neces- 
 sary for us to live alone, we should enjoy tran- 
 quillity and freedom, and not complain of soli- 
 tude. If we find ourselves in a crowd we 
 should cheerfully endure the trouble and un- 
 easiness, and not treat our neighbours as knaves 
 and robbers. We cannot escape from men, 
 nor can we change them, so we should regard 
 an assembly of them as a festival. At times 
 God wills that we should be at leisure to medi- 
 tate, write, read, hear, and prepare ourselves. 
 When we have had sufficient time He says, 
 ' Come to the contest ; now is the opportunity 
 for you to prove whether you are worthy of 
 victory, or whether you are among those who 
 go about the world defeated.' No contest is 
 without confusion, and some will plead that 
 their only desire is to live quietly. To such 
 weak, discontented folk, who dishonour God's 
 summons, Epictetus answers contemptuously, 
 ' Lament, then, and groan as you deserve to do, 
 be grieved, envious, disappointed, and unhappy.' 
 He despises the impotent wailings of those who 
 have not had the courage to take their part
 
 WIT AND WISDOM 127 
 
 In life, and cry ' I am in a wretched condition, 
 master, and I am unfortunate ; no man cares 
 for me, no man gives me anything, all blame 
 me, all speak ill of me.' 
 
 In her youth, Mrs. Carter would not have 
 chosen to live year after year upon the same 
 spot, in the same contracted circle, had It been 
 in her power to do otherwise. She thought it 
 important to mix now and then in the hurry of 
 society, in order to keep up with the ' universal 
 community of mankind,' to enlarge and vary 
 her ideas, and thus become more useful and 
 agreeable to those v/ith whom she lived than it 
 is possible to be if leading an absolutely regular 
 clockwork life, always moved by the same 
 springs and perpetually striking the same note. 
 The wisest and best of the human race must 
 sometimes need to be diverted from their own 
 thoughts and feelings ; and in town opportuni- 
 ties are every hour at hand. Those refined 
 and cultivated minds that depend little on 
 external entertainment are liable to despise the 
 amusements that are necessary to keep others 
 in good humour. There is a danger of their 
 becoming ' odd, out-of-the-way people to whom 
 the important affair of a masquerade is a 
 grievous task, nothing but good sense, and true
 
 128 A WOMAN OF 
 
 purposes of living an amusement, and all the 
 gay bagatelles of folly, immense labour, and 
 vexation of spirit.' Feeling no want them- 
 selves, such minds may be disappointed not to 
 find in the generality of mankind the reasonable 
 intelligence that belongs to very few. Conse- 
 quently those who might elevate society are 
 often inclined to run away from it. * After all,' 
 she concludes, ' the men and women of this 
 world must have their rattles and their play- 
 things, and the only way people of superior 
 talents can hope to make them wiser and better 
 is by condescending to play with them. Re- 
 member that Socrates and Plato frequented all 
 the routs, visiting rooms and raree-shows in 
 Athens, or they would never have gained so 
 many proselytes to virtue,' Socrates even 
 learnt to dance at an advanced age. 
 
 The pleasures of a ' volatile head ' are at 
 any rate much less liable to disappointment 
 than those of a ' sensible heart.' For such as 
 can be contented with rattles and raree-shows 
 there are rattles and raree-shows in abundance, 
 and when one is broken, it is mighty easily re- 
 placed by another. 
 
 Though Mrs. Carter had a strange, stubborn, 
 constitutional disposition to be pleased that
 
 Cy Cr//'^' /■ -/^>//^' A^/l/- 
 
 BOUK-1'LATE OF ELIZABKTH (. AKTER
 
 WIT AND WISDOM 129 
 
 made her sociable and tolerant, she suffered all 
 her life from weak nerves and fluttering pulses, 
 constitutional evils, for which she foresaw no 
 cure but in the regions of immortality. Her 
 shyness aggravated by short sight made it im- 
 possible, she complained, to divest herself of 
 her idiot look, though self-control enabled her 
 to enter a room with ' a very graceful intrepidity.' 
 With an aching head and twitching limbs, she 
 went about the world active, useful, cheerful, 
 and thankful, and showed none of those sym- 
 ptoms of bad nerves, well described as a ' term 
 one is pleased to give to the indulgence of ill 
 humour that disgraces one's best principles, 
 ofrieves one's best friends, and makes one's 
 whole being ungrateful. A disposition that, 
 though troublesome and teasing to others, so 
 scratches and tears the poor owner, that it is 
 more worthy our compassion than we are will- 
 ing to allow.' The most nervous people fre- 
 quently appear the most composed, and sudden 
 fear only makes them calmer. They have 
 learnt to exercise that self-control, without 
 which they would be like the Roman, described 
 by Epictetus, who wrapped up his head when 
 his favourite horse was running, and when, con- 
 trary to his fears, it won, the revulsion of his 
 
 K
 
 130 A WOMAN OF 
 
 feelings was so strong that sponges were 
 required to recover him from a fainting fit. 
 Housebreakers, Dr. Johnson allowed, may have 
 just cause for fear, as they may be ' shot get- 
 ting into a house, or hanged when they get 
 out of it,' but ordinary mortals should control 
 their nerves. 
 
 Though Mrs. Carter might appear tran- 
 quil, she said, ' people who make it a point 
 never to squall, and do not often speak, have 
 nevertheless their feelings.' If she had not 
 been a Christian she would have been a * Stoic, 
 a metaphysician, a bear and a wit' When her 
 solitude was occasionally turned into hurry and 
 company, to which she had been long disused, 
 she felt like a wild thing just caught, and 
 doubted if in her fright she would not run into 
 holes and corners like a wild kitten. In the 
 midst of all these foolish flutters she wrote : 
 * I bless myself for being placed in a situation 
 which seldom exposes me to them, and born to 
 a position neither of hard labour nor the equally 
 fatiguing one of splendid slavery.' None but 
 those who enjoy it can have any idea of the 
 comfort of insignificancy. She often secretly 
 exulted in the privilege of being suffered to 
 go in and out of a room with as much silence
 
 WIT AND WISDOM 131 
 
 and as little ceremony as a cat, while people of 
 more consequence were kept at a distance by 
 the forms and fashions of this world, and could 
 only strain their eyes by looking at each other 
 through a telescope. Excess of good house- 
 wifery had prevented her ever making use of 
 the fan, and it was so long since she had 
 appeared without either a shuttle or needle in 
 her hands, that she would be utterly at a loss 
 what to do with them, and in her perplexity, 
 regardless how she disposed of her feet, she 
 would infallibly tumble over her nose. Miss 
 Talbot considered it her duty to get rid of 
 this awkwardness. ' Learn the exercise of the 
 fan,' she said ; ' I will furnish you with fan- 
 mounts.' 
 
 Unfortunately Mrs. Carter's modesty and 
 straightforwardness lessened her influence in 
 raising the general tone of society. Like all 
 shy people she loved listening better than talk- 
 ing. The world has no leisure to attend to the 
 wisest if they are backward and diffident in 
 asserting their opinions. Dr. Johnson, when 
 assured that a man to whom he had just been 
 introduced would grow very entertaining pre- 
 sently, calmly answered, ' Sir, I can wait.' 
 
 Lady Louisa Stuart tells us that Mrs. Carter 
 
 K 2
 
 132 A WOMAN OF 
 
 not only lacked a quick perception of her 
 neighbours' absurdities, but was equally free 
 from any desire to expose them. She sat still, 
 honestly admiring what a livelier but shallower 
 person would have criticised and ridiculed. 
 
 It was not the glitter and finery of this 
 world that awed Elizabeth Carter, for even at 
 Deal, where folks were nearly all on a level, 
 she was as much flurried as in the most 
 splendid assembly ; on the contrary, she was 
 no doubt more at her ease with well-bred 
 people, whatever position they chanced to oc- 
 cupy, as the best bred are invariably those 
 ' who make the fewest persons uneasy.' Her 
 head, she declared, was fortunately a very un- 
 important one in the world of literature or busi- 
 ness, so that it might act ^ sans consequence! 
 and with half a ray of twilight she was able to 
 pass her day, resting her aching head upon a 
 pillow, or indulge in the alleviations of an 
 elbow-chair. 
 
 An occasional visit to her uncle, a wealthy 
 silk merchant living in St. Paul's Churchyard, 
 was her only experience of city life during her 
 early years ; there, panting for breath in the 
 smoke of London, she read, wrote, sung, 
 played, hopped and amused herself as well as
 
 WIT AND WISDOM 133 
 
 she could, and every afternoon walked as if 
 she were bewitched to keep herself in health. 
 Though a tragic account of the alteration in 
 her size and complexion might reach her 
 friends at Deal, so that they would expect to 
 see her as pale and thin as Dean Swift's 
 Daphne, she felt confident that a month's fresh 
 sea air would restore her to ' the impolite 
 colouring of a milkmaid.' 
 
 She was carried off to see the Royal Society 
 by one of the Fellows, and returned half choked 
 with the venerable dust of the Arundelian 
 Library. She was much entertained with look- 
 ing over the old manuscripts, and would have 
 been well pleased to be locked up there for a 
 week. The Museum was finely decorated with 
 the most frightful productions in Nature — 
 spiders, crocodiles, rattlesnakes, and sea-calves. 
 Then there were such rarities as Julius Cesar's 
 wife's maid's grandmother's hat, and a Lapland 
 pagod, that had to be protected from injuries 
 from dust and spiders. 
 
 Her translation of Epictetus not only made 
 her independent and enabled her to pass every 
 winter in lodgings in Clarges Street, but it was 
 also the means of introducing her to the whole 
 ' Army of Blues.' With Mrs. Montagu, their
 
 134 A WOMAN OF 
 
 ' queen,' she had been acquainted from child- 
 hood, as many of her early years had been 
 passed at Horton, near Hythe. 
 
 * My London life,' Elizabeth Carter wrote, 
 ' has not that hurry and bustle it might have 
 if I was of more importance. My insignifi- 
 cance exempts me from forms and ceremonies 
 to which higher situations are subject ; my 
 hours pass quietly in the society of my friends, 
 and, without mixing in what is called the world, 
 I partake of that vivacity which always enlivens 
 conversation in a great metropolis.' Unfor- 
 tunately she heard too many ' smart things ' to 
 remember any. If she were only now and then 
 to discover some bright thought shooting like 
 a star through the gloom of a dull conversation 
 its singularity would have struck her so forcibly 
 that she might be able to retain it, but being 
 constantly in the midst of one continued cloud- 
 less sunshine, her eyes were dazzled and at a 
 loss where to fix their gaze. 
 
 She declined to stay with any of her 
 friends, as she said she must have somewhere 
 to rest her aching head without giving trouble, 
 and have some hours of the day to call her 
 own. When merely paying a visit, she felt 
 quite ' out of the track ' of her proper employ-
 
 WIT AND WISDOM 135 
 
 merits, for it is only ' chez-soi ' that books, 
 pencils, and pens are within reach, and ease 
 and convenience she found nowhere but in her 
 own house. With her friends she was drawn 
 into all the hurry of other people's affairs. In 
 the universal uproar and flutter, every room, 
 closet, corner cupboard — nay, the very bird- 
 cages — seemed full of people. She felt like ' a 
 dog in a dancing-school,' her brains were in 
 an everlasting rotation, and whirled round so 
 quick, there was no distinguishing one thing 
 from another. When up to her ears in all this 
 trumpery her ' upper room ' was quite in dis- 
 order, littered all over with bits and ends of 
 half-formed thoughts, which kept fluttering 
 about, and would take her an age to set right 
 again. 
 
 As for writing, she found herself temporarily 
 accommodated with her mathematical box for 
 a ' standish,' and a harpsichord for a table, but 
 
 * Not the desk with silver nails, 
 Nor bureau of expense, 
 Nor standish finely gilt avails 
 To writing common sense.' 
 
 She could only hope that her periods would 
 run half as musically as her hostess's spinet, 
 but she feared her letter would contain nothing
 
 136 A WOMAN OF 
 
 but words. Greater philosophy was required 
 to sit calmly down and pen a grave epistle 
 when mortal ears were enchanted by these soft 
 sounds, than to remain unmoved in the midst 
 of earthquakes and inundations. When all the 
 world was gone to an assembly, she consoled 
 herself with the thought of how much happier 
 she was in bed, even with a headache, while 
 her friends were at the assembly, than she 
 would have been at the assembly if they had 
 been at home in bed. On one of these occa- 
 sions a friend, who had gone to a ball, pro- 
 mised that she should be called up to drink tea 
 with her when she returned in the morning, 
 but in the meantime her repose was disturbed 
 by the chimney catching fire. The hostess, 
 assisted by two maids, ran about extinguishing 
 it with brooms, and looking like the witches 
 in Macbeth. So peace is not always ensured 
 even to those who eschew the world. Some- 
 times at night she would write long letters to 
 her friends and break off in the middle of a 
 sentence ('dear, how the watchman made me 
 jump!'), and she would conclude ' My candle 
 is out, so Good-night ! ' For sleepless nights 
 she had Young's * Night Thoughts,' and re- 
 gretted there were not more than seven nights
 
 WIT AND WISDOM 137 
 
 in the week, unlike the lady who, when she 
 had reached the fifth, exclaimed, ' What ! will 
 that man have never done complaining ? ' 
 
 Mrs. Carter did not care for the pompous 
 suite of apartments lighted up for the joyless 
 drum, but liked a number of large comfortable 
 rooms, well furnished, and warmed with good 
 fires, where an intelligent circle of friends met 
 every evening. Though she could perfectly 
 conceive the joy of talking to a thousand people 
 during half the day, she heartily pitied those 
 who did not spend the other half ' quietly and 
 decently in the sober conversation of books.' 
 She never dined at home, unless prevented by 
 illness from going out. The chairs and carriages 
 of her friends were always sent to fetch her to 
 dinner, and brought her back at ten at the 
 latest. Though she thought it wrong to debar 
 people from ' the comfortable privilege of play- 
 ing the fool,' she would have wished the revival 
 of the curfew, so that any assembly of folks 
 out of their own habitations after ten o'clock at 
 night might be deemed a riot. This would 
 save many an aching head, and perhaps, too, an 
 aching heart, and introduce much good order 
 and economy into the world. For her own 
 part, she fluttered up and down the world in
 
 138 A WOMAN OF 
 
 the height of good spirits, which she never 
 lavished away by keeping ' bad hours,' for 
 except on pubHc occasions ten o'clock was her 
 invariable rule. 
 
 Though the season broke up towards the 
 end of May, Mrs. Carter declared that winter 
 in London lasted till July, but then, she added, 
 you have the comfort of spending it among 
 creatures of your own species and in your own 
 way, while the rest of the world are catching 
 cold in the country by fancying that June and 
 July must be summer. In the country no one 
 appreciated the blessing of a fine day more 
 than she did. A French philosopher, in the 
 short compass of ninety pages, had accurately 
 demonstrated that the weather which is par- 
 ticularly favourable to the growth of cabbages 
 is downright poison to the human genius, but 
 in town she considered fair weather * no other- 
 wise ' than as a matter of convenience to keep 
 her out of the dirt. From any other view one 
 day in the city was just as good as another. 
 
 She sometimes visited the moon and stars 
 at Lambeth, where they were rather more 
 visible than in the smoke of London, but even 
 there the atmosphere was very different from 
 that of the country.
 
 WIT AND WISDOM 139 
 
 Mrs. Carter did not agree with her friend, 
 Miss Talbot, who complained that there was an 
 enchantment in the air of London which made 
 people avoid each other the moment they found 
 themselves in that vile place, who previously 
 had been wishing above all things to meet, and 
 that those happy hours spent with agreeable 
 friends in all the ease and freedom of familiar 
 intercourse, not on trifles such as ' actors and 
 dramas,' but on subjects worthy of the attention 
 of reasonable creatures, was a sort of society 
 that seemed to be extinct. In the country, 
 Miss Talbot lamented, we cannot have it 
 because the people are not there, and in town 
 we cannot have it because everybody is daily 
 engaged in some public place. 
 
 Mrs. Carter, on the contrary, in the 
 brightest splendour of summer suns, looked 
 forward with joy to the dark days of January 
 and the smoke of London. ' If I had no other 
 motive,' she exclaimed, * to bring me to 
 London than to avoid the hollow blasts of the 
 wind, I could sit through the wintry months 
 listening to the tempests, and looking at the 
 dashing ocean with great tranquillity, but Dr. 
 Johnson says, " London is the land of ideas," 
 and I say that it is the land of friendship.'
 
 I40 A WOMAN OF 
 
 ' Few people give themselves time to be 
 friends,' she said, ' or allow themselves to be as 
 wise, good and happy as Heaven designed 
 them to be, even in their present state.' In 
 the congenial society of her intimate circle she 
 discussed a number of subjects that never 
 entered into the heads of people who were 
 ' sick of no other distemper but the vertigo of 
 the world ; ' such pleasures are never experi- 
 enced by those to whom amusement is a toil- 
 some business. They may have, as Epictetus 
 said, ' their vessels of gold, but their discourse, 
 their principles, their assents, their pursuits, 
 their desires are of mere earthenware.' They 
 can never attain to his ideal, and become ' per- 
 fected and polished like a statue, doing nothing 
 unworthy of the artist who made it, and show- 
 ing themselves modest, noble, and free from 
 perturbation.' According to Epictetus the 'only 
 way of escaping from the slavery of the world is 
 found by those who can say with all their soul, 
 
 * " Lead me, O Zeus ! and thou, O destiny ! 
 The way that I am bid by you to go." ' 
 
 She delighted in the constant cheerfulness 
 and ease she experienced in the company of 
 friends who neither gave nor felt any of those
 
 WIT AND WISDOM 141 
 
 little groundless disquietudes with which people 
 are apt to tease those whom they most sin- 
 cerely love. Their very quarrels were vastly 
 amusing, for they used to quarrel sometimes, 
 but with so little resentment on either side that 
 it only served as a diversion. 
 
 * It is no doubt a very reasonable wish,' 
 she said, ' that the whole creation should con- 
 tribute to our amusement, and no impediment 
 ever stand in the way of our enjoying at one 
 season the conversation of our friends, and at 
 another the song of the nightingales and the 
 bloom of roses, one pleasure being thus im- 
 mediately replaced by another. A fine system 
 this, and one extremely well adapted to the 
 undeviating rectitude of the race of Adam ! 
 After all, we must be content to take things as 
 they are, and it is from our own folly if they 
 are not mighty well.' 
 
 For the sake of health Mrs. Carter walked 
 sometimes in the Mall during the fine weather, 
 but, though there was plenty of gossip to be 
 had there, she seldom heard anything ' very 
 smart.' The following is a specimen of the 
 wit that satisfied the fine folk, but that she 
 feared to spoil by a blundering repetition : 
 
 Lady , whose unhappy married life was
 
 142 A WOMAN OF 
 
 notorious, was very ill, and, fearing that her 
 lord would show 'the triumph of hope over 
 experience,' by rushing headlong into another 
 union, told him that she would not mind dying 
 if she were not afraid of a successor who was 
 the devil's eldest daughter. ' Your ladyship 
 may be perfectly easy about that,' answered 
 my lord, ' for it is against the canon for any 
 man to marry two sisters.' 
 
 Grotius says that * All are fools who do 
 appear to be such, and one half of those who 
 do not.' 
 
 If human nature, Mrs. Carter thought, 
 were estimated by the figure it makes in his- 
 tory, the result would be extremely mortifying, 
 but it would be as fair to judge the elements by 
 some earthquake, that once in a century lays 
 waste half a province, whilst successive years of 
 plenty pass unrecorded. History recounts the 
 violent passions and perverse principles that 
 effect revolutions, but takes no notice of the 
 regular tenor of common life. 
 
 Such a man as Sir James Macdonald, with 
 his great and noble schemes for the civilisation 
 and improvement of his property in the Isle 
 of Skye (to which end he acquired the Erse 
 language), and, at twenty, possessed the
 
 WIT AND WISDOM 143 
 
 knowledge and experience of age, was excep- 
 tional, but he had as much right to be regarded 
 as representing his class as the opposite 
 extreme, those Macaroni gentlemen who wore 
 artificial nosegays, and were ' surely a species 
 of animal and not an English character.' Such 
 a composition of monkey and demon as at one 
 half of the day appeared to be studying all the 
 tricks of the most trifling and contemptible 
 foppery, and at the other was raving and blas- 
 pheming at a gaming table, was surely an 
 aggregate of all the follies and all the crimes 
 that a worthless head and profligate heart could 
 collect from all parts of the globe. 
 
 A sermon was preached at Bath to a con- 
 gregation of fine people ; the clergyman took 
 for his text, * I speak this to your shame,' and 
 told them he heartily concurred with St. Paul 
 He drew such a picture of their life and con- 
 versation that, if it did not make them ashamed, 
 made them very angry. Mrs. Carter considered 
 gambling, extravagance, neglect of domestic 
 order, the inversion of day and night, and the 
 hurry of perpetual crowds, equal disqualifica- 
 tions for the duties of a rational life. Associat- 
 ing with all kinds of characters destroys a 
 due regard to reputation, and weakens that
 
 144 A WOMAN OF 
 
 distinction between right and wrong which it is 
 of infinite importance to preserve. Into what 
 is called the world, she said, no true penitent 
 would have the effrontery to try to enter. A 
 female gamester seemed to her a blot in 
 nature. ' Pray,' she asked, ' could you ever 
 discover who gets the money that is lost ? 
 I never remember hearing of above two or 
 three people who made a fortune by gaming. 
 Does Satan sweep the stakes and carry off the 
 winnings ? At least one never heard they 
 were anywhere extant on earth. It would be 
 well if no honest tradespeople were hurt, but 
 their lawful debts are the last thing people of 
 this stamp ever think of paying.' 
 
 The round of diversion at Bath is described 
 by Dr. Carter in a letter written to his daughter, 
 when he accompanied his Kentish neighbours, 
 Sir George and Lady Oxenden, to that fashion- 
 able resort. Tuesday and Friday evenings 
 there were balls ; Monday, Wednesday, Thurs- 
 day and Saturday assemblies ; and every night 
 there was gaming of all sorts. On Sunday 
 evenings all profane diversions gave way to 
 tea-drinking ! The company met in the Pump 
 Room to drink the waters in the morning, and 
 were entertained with music. * For my own
 
 WIT AND WISDOM 145 
 
 part,' wrote the Doctor, ' though I generally 
 attend these meetings, I stay not long at them, 
 but read, walk, and converse with Sir George, 
 which is the chief part of my pleasure. Last 
 Monday night a bloody fray happened betwixt 
 the footmen and the bath-chair-men, which put 
 the ladies into a great consternation. The 
 contest was sharp but not long, and the suc- 
 cess very doubtful. The footmen had the 
 advantage in numbers, and the chair-men in 
 the goodness of their weapons. The damage 
 of both sides is computed to be the breaking of 
 half a dozen heads, and the windows of forty 
 chairs, so that there has been more business 
 for the glazier than the surgeon. Sir George 
 met with a little brush upon his leg ; Lady 
 Oxenden and I just escaped.' 
 
 During her early years Elizabeth Carter 
 joined the movement, originated by Dr. John- 
 son and Mrs. Chapone, to substitute conversa- 
 tion for cards. She was delighted when her 
 old friend Horace Walpole succeeded to the 
 earldom of Orford, and immediately begged 
 him * to get an Act of Parliament for putting 
 down faro.' ' As if I could make Acts of Par- 
 liament ! ' exclaimed Lord Orford, whose power 
 as an hereditary legislator was so greatly over-
 
 146 A WOMAN OF 
 
 rated. The attempt would have ill become one 
 who ' for some years played more faro than 
 anybody.' 
 
 * I played commerce last night,' wrote Mrs. 
 Carter in 1741, 'and made such wonderful 
 improvement as to know that clubs are red, 
 hearts black, and that the knave is the highest 
 card in the whole pack, with many other 
 particulars too tedious to mention, only I was 
 willing to give you a specimen of my extra- 
 ordinary genius. However, I lost every 
 counter, and retired into a corner with other 
 unfortunate gamesters, to bewail my lot and 
 tell quaint stories.' 
 
 ' For the punishment of my iniquities,' she 
 wrote on another occasion, ' I was once 
 drawn into a — what shall I call it ? a drum, 
 a rout, a racket, a hurricane, an uproar, a 
 something in short that was the utter con- 
 fusion of all sense and meaning, where every 
 charm of conversation was drove away by 
 that foe to human society — whist ; in a word, 
 where I was kept up muzzing and half dead 
 with sleep and vexation till one in the morn- 
 ing, and from that time made a resolution 
 in whatever company I met a pack of cards 
 to fly fro7n it as from the face of a se7'pent.
 
 WIT AND WISDOM 147 
 
 I have often borne such a situation among 
 people I was indifferent to, but it is beyond 
 mortal sufferance to see those capable of 
 the most enlivening entertainment look as 
 stupid as dormice, and whenever they did 
 speak, it was in a language utterly unintel- 
 ligible.' Miss Talbot, to whom she addressed 
 this complaint, only objected to cards when 
 they became the business of life and the 
 bane of conversation ; in mixed company she 
 reverenced them, and amongst a eood- 
 humoured set of people that were not con- 
 versible, she really loved them. Mrs. Carter 
 subsequently modified her views, and in her 
 old age enjoyed a quiet rubber. 
 
 People who fancy themselves busy, running 
 from one crowded room to another, wearing 
 their spirits and ruining their health with late 
 hours and splendid entertainments, or wasting 
 life in wild ambition or dishonest gain, are, she 
 declared, the truly idle, and not those who, by 
 cheerful relaxation from useful industry, one 
 part of the day provide themselves with health 
 to perform with comfort and spirit the duties of 
 the other. 
 
 Mrs. Carter was full of insular prejudices, 
 and considered the new French ambassador, 
 
 L 2
 
 148 A WOMAN OF 
 
 M. de Noailles, who came to England about 
 1770, very superior to some of the 'frippery, 
 dancing, smuggling things, which the French 
 Court sometimes send to amuse our Masters 
 and Misses, and scandalise people of sober 
 sense.' French ladies, she found, were not 
 invariably ^z^^r-dressed : they occasionally, even 
 to her mind, erred on the side of simplicity. 
 During the French Revolution, Madame C. de 
 Noailles escaped, disguised as a sailor, and hid 
 in the hold of the vessel, covered with ropes. 
 On her arrival she had but one single shift with 
 her, and in that and Lady Clermont's powder- 
 ing gown she dined with the Prince of Wales. 
 In London, Mrs. Carter found that life without 
 fashion was reckoned but ' mere breathing,' and 
 though she had attained to a considerable 
 reputation at Deal in point of dress, she was 
 sorrowfully convinced since her arrival in town 
 of her great deficiency in that important affair. 
 The * embellishment of her externals, therefore, 
 became her ardent pursuit, and she endeavoured 
 to make a gallant appearance in a dress of 
 black silk, but to aspire to any perfection in 
 the science of clothes would be, she said, * act- 
 ing out of character.' She rarely mentions the 
 subject, except to protest indignantly when an
 
 WIT AND WISDOM 149 
 
 artificial bouquet was considered necessary to 
 the perfecting of her exterior. * Judge, then,' 
 she exclaimed, ' what an animal I must be ! ' Mr. 
 Cave regretted that Richard Savage, who ex- 
 pressed such warm admiration for her character, 
 had never seen her in a certain little straw hat. 
 As to her personal appearance, probably the 
 Russian newspaper, quoted in the preceding 
 chapter, gives the truest account when it 
 declares that she was 'assez bien,' but that her 
 charms would have been enhanced by rather 
 an increased supply of beauty and fortune. 
 
 At one of Mrs. Vesey's parties Mrs. Carter 
 met that singular but worthy character, Lord 
 Monboddo, author of the ' Origin and Progress 
 of Language,' &c. ; he was dressed in a pompa- 
 dour-coloured coat, and a large white grizzle 
 wig, and was the most fashionable object in all 
 polite circles. He had 'writt to prove' that 
 human creatures in their natural state have 
 tails like a cat, for he gravely maintained 
 that men were originally monkeys, possessing 
 neither speech nor reason, and was the first to 
 direct attention to the origin of Darwinism and 
 Neo-Kantism. As Mrs. Carter was sitting in 
 a cool corner among some quiet people of her 
 own sort, without tails, Mrs. Vesey dragged
 
 I50 A WOMAN OF 
 
 her into a hot crowd that was listening to my 
 Lord Monboddo, and had no sooner stuck her 
 at his elbow, than he went off to another part 
 of the room, whereupon she walked back re 
 infecta to her corner. He was pleasant and 
 unassuming, with an astonishing quantity of 
 erudition, an enthusiast in Greek literature and 
 a worshipper of Homer. Notwithstanding his 
 learning and talents, he declared he had re- 
 ceived more information during the time he 
 had conversed with society in London than he 
 ever found before. Though unable to acquire 
 the tail of his ancestors. Lord Monboddo en- 
 deavoured, as far as the laws of society would 
 permit, to enjoy their freedom, by taking a 
 daily air-bath in his room, where he walked 
 unattired with the windows open. 
 
 Mrs. Carter's own appearance at one of 
 Mrs. Yesey's assemblies is thus described in 
 the year 1785 by Elizabeth Sheridan : 
 
 ' Our circle was increased by the arrival of 
 Mrs. Carter ; on her being announced you may 
 suppose my whole attention was turned to the 
 door. She seems about sixty [she was really 
 sixty-eight] and is rather fat ; she is no way 
 striking in her appearance, and was dressed in a 
 scarlet gown and petticoat, with a plain undress
 
 WIT AND WISDOM 151 
 
 cap and perfectly flat head. A small work-bag 
 was hanging at her arm, out of which she drew 
 some knitting as soon as she was seated ; but 
 with no fuss or airs. She entered into the 
 conversation with that ease which persons have 
 when both their thoughts and words are at 
 command, and with no toss of the head, no 
 sneer, no emphatic look, in short no affected 
 consequence of any kind.' 
 
 That our heroine when verging on seventy 
 should have elected to clothe herself in scarlet 
 is rather a shock, but her ' perfectly flat head ' 
 only implies that she did not adopt the * tower- 
 ing i?a;<^^/onian ' head-dress crowned with 
 feathers then in vogue. She was always more 
 sociable and easy when there were few people, 
 and avoided entertainments where, as Hannah 
 More said, ' 200 persons met together, dressed 
 in the extremity of fashion ; painted as red as 
 bacchanals ; poisoning the air with perfumes ; 
 treading on each other's gowns ; making the 
 crowd they blame ; not one in ten able to get 
 a chair ; protesting they are engaged in ten 
 other places, and lamenting the fatigue they 
 are not obliged to endure.' 
 
 When Epictetus was annoyed by the rude- 
 ness, the pushing, the abuse, and the thievish
 
 152 A WOMAN OF 
 
 propensities of his fellow-creatures at the public 
 baths, he did not lose his temper — or, at least, 
 he recommended his followers not to lose 
 theirs — for, he said, ' It is more important you 
 should keep your will in harmony with nature 
 than that you should bathe.' 
 
 Neither Epictetus nor his translator could 
 foresee the congested state of modern society, 
 or imagine that at the Court of Queen Victoria 
 a crowd, largely composed of well-bred women, 
 would have to be restrained by solid barriers, 
 guarded by Gentlemen-at-Arms, from storming 
 each line of defence as they approached the 
 Royal presence. During the early years of the 
 present reign the scene of conflict was happily 
 changed to the outer hall of the palace, which 
 enabled loyal subjects to pass their Majesties 
 unruffled by the fray. The sight of beauty in 
 distress during the struggle that ensued as the 
 crowd departed sometimes melted the large 
 heart of a stalwart Life-Guardsman. With 
 grim humour he would allow an importunate 
 fair one to pass, knowing that her farther pro- 
 gress was barred by a solid barrier of high 
 seats that no persuasion could move, and that 
 impeded by train and veil it would be im- 
 possible to negotiate. Baffled and dejected,
 
 WIT AND WISDOM 153 
 
 she would soon be craving re-admission to 
 the seething mass of dishevelled humanity, 
 from which she had lately prayed to be de- 
 livered. 
 
 Mrs. Carter always wished our Empire re- 
 strained to Great Britain and Ireland. A large 
 extent of territory placed beyond the grasp of 
 the seat of empire ever has been, and ever 
 will be, she considered, the ruin of the mother 
 country. Though the loss of the American 
 colonies occasioned great convulsions, she pre- 
 dicted that in the next age the nation would be 
 the happier for being rid of them. On the 
 subject of American Independence she felt 
 much like the Frenchman who said, ' Nous 
 sommes ^erases, nous sommes abimes, et nous 
 allons a I'opera.' 
 
 She described the uproar occasioned in 
 London by the eclipse in July 1748 as incon- 
 ceivable ; the very beggars in the streets in- 
 sulted folks who refused to give them small 
 beer, by threatening them that the Day of 
 Judgment would be next Thursday. 
 
 She felt much concerned at the imprison- 
 ment of a negro for calling himself 'esquire.' 
 She had never heard of anybody being taken 
 up for calling himself a scholar, or a critic, or
 
 154 A WOMAN OF 
 
 a man of honour, and yet how many went 
 about the world in unmolested possession of 
 these titles to which they had no better right 
 than her poor friend to his esquireship. 
 
 As an onlooker the petty vanities of society 
 amused her. Besides other impertinences 
 essential to the character of a fine lady she 
 noted a peculiar kind of vanity, which dis- 
 played itself in a perpetual alteration of the 
 will, for which purpose one of her acquaintance 
 contracted with a lawyer by the year. ' 'Tis 
 not,' she said, ' that the woman has any love 
 for the people she puts in, or resentment against 
 those she scratches out, but a determination to 
 show her power ; and those who would get any- 
 thing by her must catch her at her last gasp.' 
 
 Lord Chesterfield's cynicism, however, 
 rather disappointed a virtuoso of his acquaint- 
 ance, who bought an old picture of a man and 
 woman and two boys, and observing the Stan- 
 hope arms in one corner, presented it to my 
 lord, imagining he would be delighted to have 
 a proof of the antiquity of his family. To pre- 
 vent all disputes of precedency for the future, 
 my lord, who treated this sort of vanity very 
 whimsically, inscribed under the figures, ' Adam 
 Stanhope, of Eden Garden, Egypt, and Eve
 
 WIT AND WISDOM 155 
 
 Stanhope, his wife, with their two sons, Cain 
 Stanhope and Abel Stanhope.' His genealogy- 
 would have been indisputable if he had put 
 Seth Stanhope instead of Cain. 
 
 That self-advertisement and pose without 
 which no one, though possessing the beauty of 
 Venus herself, would fill the r61e of a profes- 
 sional beauty she severely censured ; the very- 
 term, which is supposed to have been invented 
 towards the end of the nineteenth century, was 
 applied by Mrs. Carter to the Miss Gunnings, 
 of whom she wrote : ' Indeed a beauty by pro- 
 fession is a kind of being much too hurrying 
 and bruyant not to overset all the tranquil ideas 
 of sequestered life, and is supportable only in its 
 proper element — a crowded town assembly.' 
 She agreed that nothing makes people tired 
 of a fine face but a want of something in 
 the mind and character, and its being seen 
 everywhere in that idle, fluttering way, that 
 makes half the fine faces in England old and 
 neglected in a twelvemonth. 
 
 She considered mere constitutional good 
 humour and civility mighty pretty decorations 
 for an afternoon visit, but at home, or in the 
 important duties of life, they are of little avail, 
 if the behaviour is regulated only by a system
 
 156 A WOMAN OF 
 
 of mere 'savoir vivre.' For the value of each 
 action depends on its being performed in 
 obedience to the will of God. Our powers are 
 inconceivably increased and the most trifling 
 acts acquire dignity from a sense of duty. 
 When good people are lacking in courtesy, 
 they are certainly so far deficient in goodness. 
 
 The carelessness of extreme youth is no 
 doubt an excuse in many instances for want 
 of consideration, ' and beauty much admired * 
 often chokes better feelings ; but the mind will 
 have its hours of repose in spite of fashion, and 
 then all the better seeds, which were early 
 sown, will spring up and bear fruit. 
 
 From the society of politicians Mrs. Carter 
 found she received much more literary informa- 
 tion than from scholars and authors, who on one 
 occasion ranged themselves on one side of the 
 room, leaving the ladies to twirl their shuttles 
 and amuse each other as they could. From 
 what little she overheard of their conversation 
 she learnt that they were discoursing on the 
 old English poets, a subject that did not seem 
 much beyond her female capacity. These men 
 of letters did not show even the courtesy of 
 two individuals of ' the squire kind,' with whom 
 she travelled in a coach, whose discourse for
 
 WIT AND WISDOM 157 
 
 the whole day turned on horses and dogs, 
 except now and then a word upon the weather, 
 dust, and heat, out of pure condescension to 
 her Hmited powers of conversation. Dr. 
 Carter's Kentish neighbour and Hterary friend, 
 Sir George Oxenden, warned Elizabeth in her 
 youth that there was hardly an instance of a 
 woman of letters entering into an intimacy 
 with men of wit and parts — particularly poets 
 — who were not afterwards abused and mal- 
 treated by them in print. Mr. Pope, he said, 
 had done so more than once. Her father 
 added, * As you never abuse others, you may 
 hope not to be abused. Hold your own, but 
 without any appearance of ill-nature or con- 
 tempt.' She always maintained that the unjust 
 manner in which Pope had been attacked ex- 
 cused any apparent malice on his own part. 
 
 She regretted the more powerful avocations 
 that caused Burke to quit the tranquil pleasures 
 of the select * Bas Bleu ' society for the turbu- 
 lent schemes of ambition and the tricks of 
 political life ; he rarely found time to step in to 
 their assemblies, where, if he marked no one 
 with whom he wished to exchange ideas, he 
 would seize the first book or pamphlet he could 
 catch to sooth his harassed mind by reading a
 
 158 A WOMAN OF 
 
 passage or two aloud. ' He did not talk,' 
 Johnson said, ' from a desire of distinction, but 
 because his mind was full. A man who is used 
 to the applause of the House of Commons has 
 no wish for that of private company. A man 
 accustomed to throw for a thousand pounds, if 
 set down to throw for sixpence, would not be 
 at the pains to count his dice.' Burke's talk 
 was ' the ebullition of his mind.' 
 
 Throughout her life Mrs. Carter never came 
 much in contact with the Royal family, but in 
 1 79 1 Queen Charlotte expressed a desire that 
 she should be presented to her at Lady Cre- 
 morne's house in Chelsea. She also received 
 visits from the Princess of Wales and the Duke 
 of Cumberland at her house at Deal. 
 
 The pleasure Mrs. Carter found in society 
 was intelligent intercourse with real friends, 
 and, as this enjoyment was not limited to the 
 fleeting season of youth, she could prepare for 
 growing old with a good grace, and never be- 
 came contemptible to society, or burdensome 
 and disagreeable to her friends. She was de- 
 scribed as a really noble-looking woman ; age 
 had rarely been so gracefully seen in the female 
 sex ; her face was a benediction ; goodness and 
 philanthropy beamed in the placid serenity of
 
 WIT AND WISDOM 159 
 
 her interesting countenance. Thackeray in his 
 ' Virginians' mentions Mrs. Carter amongst the 
 most attractive women of her day. When Sir 
 George Warrington succeeded to his uncle's 
 estates he soon wearied of his surroundings, and 
 the only possession he contemplated with un- 
 mixed satisfaction was his wife, who had shared 
 his poverty in his ' dear little cottage at Lam- 
 beth.' Though reminding her somewhat pom- 
 pously how immeasurably inferior she was to the 
 women he might have married, with the spirit 
 of the Turk that is said to lurk in all English- 
 men, he allowed that she did very well. ' I 
 have never cared,' he said, ' for another woman. 
 I have seen more beautiful, but none that suited 
 me as well as your ladyship. I have met Mrs. 
 Carter and Miss Mulso [Mrs. Chapone], Mrs. 
 Thrale, and Mme. Kaufmann, and the angelical 
 Gunnings, and her Grace of Devonshire, and a 
 host of beauties who were not angelic by any 
 means ; and I was not dazzled by them.' 
 
 It was impossible not to be better as well 
 as happier for an intimate acquaintance with 
 Mrs. Carter ; the most insignificant people she 
 inspired with confidence in themselves, by 
 showing them how to regulate their minds, as 
 well as their actions, by the power of will.
 
 i6o A WOMAN OF 
 
 Mrs. Carter's talk was all upon books ; of life 
 and manners, Fanny Burney declared she was 
 as ignorant as a nun. If certain phases of them 
 escaped her observation, the oversight happily 
 contributed to her optimism ; her shrewdness 
 and common sense were undoubted. Dr. John- 
 son questioned if much consolation is to be 
 drawn from seeing life as it is, but, he added, 
 ' that drawn from truth, if any there be, is solid 
 and durable.' Possessing few of the surround- 
 ings and ties that in the eyes of the world re- 
 present happiness, Mrs. Carter exemplified the 
 maxim that to be good is to be happy. * Happy 
 she certainly was beyond the race of women.' 
 Mrs. Chapone observed a * few dear comfortable 
 signs of weakness ' in her which were attractive, 
 because the most endearing ties of society arise 
 from mutual indulgence of each other's failings. 
 She kept out of an easy-chair as long as possible, 
 and was content to take the blessings of friend- 
 ship and affection, with the inevitable tax of 
 anxiety, that is wisely imposed on them, till we 
 wake amidst a society from which we can dread 
 no future separation.
 
 WIT AND WISDOM i6i 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 DR. JOHNSON 
 
 For Dr. Johnson Mrs. Carter had a very great 
 esteem. She had enjoyed his friendship for 
 nearly fifty years. He had been introduced to 
 her by Mr. Cave, editor of the ' Gentleman's 
 Magazine.' On this event her father wrote to 
 her on June 25, 1738 : 'You mention Johnson ; 
 but that is a name with which I am utterly 
 unacquainted. Neither his scholastic, critical, 
 or poetical character ever reached my ears. I 
 a little suspect his judgment if he is very fond 
 of Martial.' In one of her last conversations 
 with Dr. Johnson, when she was expressing 
 her approval of his unswerving adherence to 
 religion, and admiration for his sound princi- 
 ples, he took her by the hand, and said with 
 great eagerness, 'You know this to be true; 
 testify it to the world when I am gone.' 
 
 She blamed his biographers for recording 
 
 M
 
 i62 A WOMAN OF 
 
 arguments he had maintained only for the sake 
 of victory, which did not convey his genuine 
 sentiments, for he held that a man should be 
 able to argue equally well on either side. His 
 real opinions, she declared, were to be found in 
 his works. 
 
 His ' Lives of the Poets,' which had lost 
 him the friendship of many eminent people, did 
 not alter her steadfast regard for him ; all that 
 it contained of envy or ill-nature she attributed 
 to a morbid irritability of the nerves, brought 
 on by bodily suffering. 
 
 Referring to their first acquaintance, he 
 wrote to her : ' To every joy is appended a 
 sorrow. The name of Miss Carter introduces 
 the memory of Cave. Poor dear Cave ! I 
 owed him much ; for to him I owe that I 
 have known you.' Dr. Johnson concluded 
 one of his letters to her with the expres- 
 sion of a respect ' which I neither owe nor 
 pay to any other.' Having dined at Mrs. 
 Garrick's in the society of Mrs. Carter, Hannah 
 More, and Fanny Burney, he declared, ' Three 
 such women are not to be found ; I know not 
 where I could find a fourth, except Mrs. Len- 
 nox, who is superior to them all.' So much 
 excellence, however, seems to have been rather
 
 SAMUEL JOHNSON, LL.D. 
 After the f>,iiittinu hy Sir Jashiui Heyiiolilx. I' l< .\.
 
 WIT AND WISDOM 163 
 
 oppressive, for when Boswell exclaimed, ' What ! 
 had you them all to yourself, sir ? ' he answered, 
 ' I had them all, as much as they were to be 
 had ; but it might have been better had there 
 been more company there.' 
 
 Dr. Johnson was Mrs. Carter's favourite 
 author. Of his notes on Shakespeare she 
 wrote, ' I will not undertake his defence as a 
 commentator, but his work is valuable for many 
 strokes of his own great, refined and delicate 
 way of thinking. With all his encomiums on 
 our Bishop [Warburton], he sometimes, in the 
 most polite and elegant language, treats him 
 more severely than his open enemies ; these 
 have 
 
 ' " Kicked and cuffed, and split, and tore and rent, 
 And done they know not what, in their avengement," 
 
 but the pen of Dr. Johnson, like the ethereal 
 stroke of lightning, without any external mark 
 of violence has penetrated to his vitals.' 
 
 Dr. Johnson, she said, had no vanity, and 
 there was never a human mind more regardless 
 of censure and applause. This excused the 
 want of tenderness he had shown for the 
 weaknesses of others, though a knowledge of 
 mankind should have taught him that people 
 
 M 2
 
 i64 A WOMAN OF 
 
 whose minds are not of the same impenetrable 
 firmness may suffer by having their blundering 
 and folly exposed with such unmitigated severity. 
 
 He once, however, had the satisfaction of 
 outdoing even Mrs. Carter in charity towards 
 his neighbour. When they were both dining 
 with Mrs. Garrick, in company with Hannah 
 More, Mrs. Boscawen, Sir Joshua Reynolds, 
 and Dr. Burney, the conversation turned on 
 Thomas Hollis, whose democratic books, deco- 
 rated with daggers and caps of liberty, were 
 being circulated throughout Europe. ' I doubt 
 he is an atheist,' said Mrs. Carter, in one of 
 those unguarded moments which are sure to 
 occur when the most charitable allow themselves 
 to discuss their neighbours. ' I don't know 
 that,' replied Johnson, smiling triumphantly ; 
 * he might have become one if he had had time 
 to ripen, he might have exuberated into an 
 atheist' 
 
 Dr. Johnson always took a friendly interest 
 in her literary work, and suggested that she 
 should undertake a translation of ' Boethius de 
 Consolatione ' because there is prose and verse, 
 and put her name to it when published. 
 
 Of his epigram on Mrs. Carter,^ Dr. Johnson 
 
 ^ See Gent. Mag. vol. viii. p. 210.
 
 WIT AND WISDOM 165 
 
 wrote : * I have composed a Greek epigram 
 on Eliza, and think she ought to be celebrated 
 in as many different languages as Louis le 
 Grand.' He always treated her with civility, 
 attention, and respect. Her winning gentle- 
 ness and the politeness of her conversation and 
 address were said to be such as to disarm even 
 brutality itself, and her religious cast of charac- 
 ter and gravity of deportment, as well as her 
 erudition, imposed some check on the asperity 
 and eccentricities of Dr. Johnson, who wrote to 
 her, ' Who is there that you cannot influence ? ' 
 It was the affectation of learning that he 
 disliked, not the learning itself; she was not 
 ' herissee de grec,' nor blown up with self- 
 importance. 
 
 ' And Carter taught the female train, 
 The deeply wise are never vain.' 
 
 He respected her domestic qualifications, 
 and though he considered that a man is in 
 general better pleased when he has a good 
 dinner on his table than when his wife talks 
 Greek, he said, ' My old friend, Mrs. Carter, 
 can make a pudding as well as translate 
 Epictetus, and work a handkerchief as well as 
 compose a poem.' 
 
 He quite allowed that a man of sense and
 
 i66 A WOMAN OF 
 
 education should find a suitable companion in 
 his wife, and that it is a miserable thing when 
 conversation is limited to a dispute as to 
 whether the mutton should be boiled or roasted. 
 
 When consulted by a friend as to the 
 advisability of proposing to a woman whom he 
 greatly admired, but whose talents he feared, 
 the Doctor assured him that after she had been 
 married to him for one year he would find her 
 reason much weaker, and her wit not so bright. 
 This man, ' who praised one whom he would 
 have been afraid to marry,' probably ended by 
 ' marrying one whom he would have been 
 ashamed to praise.' 
 
 Of Dr. Johnson's opinion of the ' Bas Bleu' 
 ladies she wrote to Mrs. Montagu : 
 
 ' Oh, dear ! Oh, dear ! how pretty we look, 
 and what brave things Mr. Johnson said of us! 
 I am just as sensible to present fame as you 
 can be. Your Virgils and Horaces may talk 
 what they will of posterity, but I think it is 
 much better to be celebrated by the men, 
 women and children among whom you are 
 actually living. One thing is particularly 
 agreeable to my vanity, that you and I always 
 figure in the literary world together, and that 
 from the classical poet of water-drinking
 
 WIT AND WISDOM 167 
 
 rhymes to the highest dispenser of human 
 fame, Mr. Johnson's pocket-book, it is per- 
 fectly well understood that we are to make 
 our appearance in the same piece. I am 
 mortified, however, that we do not in this last 
 display of our persons and talents stand in the 
 same corner as I am told we do not, for, to 
 say truth, I cannot exactly tell which is you, 
 and which is I, and which is anybody else. 
 But this must arise from mere deficiency of my 
 sight, for some of the good people of Deal 
 affirm my picture to be excessively like.' 
 
 At a time that much dissatisfaction was 
 expressed at the maladministration of the 
 Government, some of the Streatham coterie 
 professed themselves weary of male administra- 
 tion and proposed a/^male one. Dr. Johnson, 
 when called upon to arrange it, replied, ' Well, 
 then, we will have : 
 
 Carter : for Archbishop of Canterbury. 
 Montagu : First Lord of the Treasury. 
 Hon. Sophia Byron : Head of the 
 
 Admiralty. 
 Mrs. Crewe : Speaker of the House of 
 
 Commons. 
 Mrs. Wedderburne : Lord Chancellor.
 
 i68 A WOMAN OF 
 
 Mrs. Wallace : Attorney-General. 
 
 Mrs. Chapone : Preceptor to the Princes. 
 
 Hannah More : Poet Laureate. 
 
 and the Heralds' Office under the care of Miss 
 Owen. 
 
 ' And no place for me ? ' cried Mrs. Thrale. 
 
 ' No, no,' replied Dr. Johnson ; ' you will 
 get into Parliament by your little silver tongue, 
 and then rise by your own merit' 
 
 ' And what shall I do ? ' exclaimed Fanny 
 Burney. 
 
 * Oh, we will send you for a spy — and 
 perhaps you will be hanged ! ' rejoined the 
 Doctor with a loud laugh, that a French 
 writer has compared to that of a rhinoceros. 
 
 Mrs. Anna Williams, the blind lady who 
 found an asylum in Dr. Johnson's house, en- 
 deavoured to supplement her scanty means by 
 publishing a volume of ' Miscellanies,' to which 
 the Doctor had contributed the preface and 
 several of the pieces. When she urged its 
 immediate publication, he always put her off 
 with ' Well, we'll think about it,' and Goldsmith 
 said, ' Leave it to me.' But Mrs. Carter was 
 more practical, for by her activity and kindness 
 she procured a long list of subscribers.
 
 WIT AND WISDOM 169 
 
 Mrs. Carter wrote a paper (No. 100 in ' The 
 Rambler ') on modish pleasures, signed Cha- 
 riessa, ' recommending they should give their 
 readers a complete history of Forms, Fashions, 
 Frolics, Drums, Hurricanes, Balls, Assem- 
 blies, Ridottos, Masquerades, Auctions, Plays, 
 Operas, Puppet-shows, and Bear-gardens, and 
 the whole art and mystery of passing day after 
 day, week after week, and year after year, 
 without the assistance of any one thing that 
 formal animals are pleased to call useful or 
 necessary. . . . 
 
 ' Such irresistible arguments,' she wrote, 
 ' must convince numbers of the error of sup- 
 posing they were sent into the world for any 
 other purpose but to flatter, sport, and shine, 
 and that an everlasting round of diversion, the 
 more sprightly and hurrying the better, is the 
 most important end of human life. 
 
 ' As for the antiquated notions of duty, they 
 are not to be met with in any French novel 
 but derived almost wholly from authors called 
 I think, Peter and Paul, who lived a vast many 
 years ago. ... It does not appear that even 
 their most zealous admirers (for some parti- 
 sans of his own sort every writer will have) 
 can pretend to say they were ever at one
 
 I70 A WOMAN OF 
 
 masquerade. . . . Little oaths, polite dissimula- 
 tion, tea-table scandal, delightful indolence, the 
 glitter of finery, the triumph of precedence, the 
 enchantments of flattery, are things of which 
 they seem to have had no notion ; . . . indeed, 
 one cannot discover anyone thing they pretend 
 to teach people, but to be wise and good. 
 
 * In short, Mr. Rambler, by a faithful repre- 
 sentation of modish life, you will have done 
 your part in promoting what everybody seems 
 to confess the true purpose of human existence 
 — perpetual dissipation. . . . 
 
 ' All feelings of humanity, the sympathies of 
 friendship, all care of a family, and solicitude 
 about the good or ill of others, will be happily 
 stifled in a round of everlasting racketing, and 
 all serious thoughts, particularly of hereafter, 
 will be banished out of the world, as it is so 
 very clear a case that nobody ever dies,' 
 
 The paper of which the above is a short 
 resume was written at the suggestion of Miss 
 Talbot, who suffered from the effects of ' mere 
 wicked racketing,' that consisted not only in 
 going to public places and consuming life in 
 idle visits and dress, but merely in being out on 
 the most plausible pretences perpetually, all
 
 WIT AND WISDOM 171 
 
 day and every day, discharging the ordinary 
 civilities of Hfe without time to read, reflect, 
 recollect or think. Though she did not fre- 
 quent card-tables, bear-gardens, and auctions, 
 or lead the life of the * Ranelagh-education 
 Misses,' her head was as giddy and empty as if 
 she had whirled through the whole round of 
 impertinence. Her acquaintance lay amongst 
 excellent people whom she loved and esteemed, 
 but she complained that there were so many of 
 them that her narrow mind had not room to 
 hold them all at once, with all the attentions 
 that belong particularly to every one. 
 
 Mrs. Carter wrote another paper in ' The 
 Rambler ' (No. 44) on ' Religion and Supersti- 
 tion.' Religion, she asserted, is not confined 
 to cells or sullen retirement. ' These are the 
 gloomy doctrines of superstition. The greatest 
 honour we can pay the Author of our being is 
 shown by a cheerful behaviour and a mind satis- 
 fied with his dispensations. The restraints and 
 difficulties of social active life furnish the most 
 useful discipline of the human heart, and the 
 best means of improvement to ourselves and 
 others. Suffering is no duty unless in a good 
 cause, nor pleasure a crime unless it de- 
 moralises.'
 
 172 A WOMAN OF 
 
 ' I am more and more charmed with *' The 
 Rambler," ' wrote Mrs. Carter. ' Some have 
 thought it too serious ; but is it not strange 
 that human creatures, designed for noble and 
 serious thought, should be perpetually calling 
 out for something to make them laugh ? ' 
 
 In 1 75 1 she wrote to Miss Talbot : 
 
 * I was outrageous at your not uttering a 
 sigh of lamentation over the departure of " The 
 Rambler," nor once mentioning his farewell 
 paper. It put me a good deal out of humour 
 with the world, and more particularly with the 
 great and powerful part of it. To be sure, 
 people in a closet are apt to form strange, 
 odd ideas, which as soon as they put their 
 heads out of doors, they find to be utterly in- 
 consistent with that something or other that 
 regulates or, rather, confounds the actions of 
 mankind. In mere speculation it seems mighty 
 absurd that those who govern states and call 
 themselves politicians should not eagerly decree 
 laurels, and statues, and public support to a 
 genius who contributes all in his power to make 
 them the rulers of reasonable creatures. 
 
 ' However, as honours and emoluments are 
 by no means the infallible consequences of 
 such an endeavour, Mr. Johnson is very happy
 
 WIT AND WISDOM 173 
 
 in having proposed to himself that reward to 
 his labours which he is sure not to be dis- 
 appointed of by the stupidity or ingratitude 
 of mankind,' 
 
 Notwithstanding the enthusiasm of the 
 literati, and the high esteem in which ' The 
 Rambler' was held, the sale was very incon- 
 siderable — seldom more than 500 copies were 
 disposed of. It was thought that the price of 
 2d., or the unfavourable season of its first pub- 
 lication, might have hindered its sale. The 
 first paper of ' The Rambler ' was published on 
 Tuesday, March 20, 1749-50 ; and it was con- 
 tinued without interruption every Tuesday and 
 Saturday, till Saturday, March 14, 1752, on 
 which day it closed. Dr. Johnson received no 
 assistance except four letters in No. 10, by 
 Mrs. Chapone ; No. -^o, by Catharine Talbot ; 
 No. 97, by Samuel Richardson ; and Nos. 44 
 and 100, by Elizabeth Carter. 
 
 Mrs. Carter did not regret that the patron- 
 age of men of letters by the great seemed 
 completely abolished, for ' authors are now,' 
 she said, ' happily obliged to trust solely to that 
 best of all patrons — that best of all judges of 
 literary merit, the public'
 
 174 A WOMAN OF 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 MRS. MONTAGU 
 
 In 1 78 1 a paragraph in the newspapers, which 
 Fanny Burney thought insufferably impertinent, 
 announced that the sprightly writer of ' Eve- 
 lina' was domesticated with Mrs. Thrale, in the 
 same manner that Miss More was with Mrs. 
 Garrick, and Mrs. Carter with Mrs. Montagu. 
 
 This statement was one of those half truths 
 that is worse than a lie. 
 
 Mrs. Carter lived in constant intercourse 
 with the ' Queen of the Blues,' assisting at 
 her breakfast parties held in Adams's famous 
 Chinese room in Hill Street, and later at the 
 * Bas Bleu ' assemblies in Portman Square, and 
 was also admitted to those quiet evenings that 
 Mrs. Montagu spent in unreserved interchange 
 of thought with Lord Bath and Lord Lyttelton ; 
 but she always kept her own rooms in Clarges
 
 WIT AND WISDOM 175 
 
 Street, that she might have somewhere to lay 
 her aching head without troubUng anybody. 
 
 As Elizabeth Robinson, Mrs. Montagu had 
 lived much at Horton, near Hythe, a property 
 that had descended to her mother, Elizabeth 
 Drake, from the Morris family. She had con- 
 sequently been acquainted with Mrs. Carter 
 from childhood. Her uncle, the Archbishop of 
 Armagh, was created Lord Rokeby, which title 
 descended to her nephew, Matthew Robinson, 
 to whom she bequeathed her husband's vast 
 possessions. He consequently assumed the 
 name of Montagu. 
 
 Mrs. Montagu was endowed, according to 
 Lady Louisa Stuart, with vanity ' of the most 
 contented and comfortable kind,' and to attend 
 her assemblies was to drink at the fountain- 
 head. Though she was possessed of great 
 vivacity, a sufficiency of learning, a large 
 fortune, and a fine house, her excellent cook 
 alone could have carried on the war sinorle- 
 handed, and maintained his employer's supre- 
 macy over all other competitors as undisputed 
 ' Oueen of the Blues.' Mrs. Montag^u courted 
 distinguished authors, critics, artists, orators, 
 ecclesiastics, lawyers, and travellers, whilst 
 she patronised their minor brethren, if they
 
 176 A WOMAN OF 
 
 were willing to pay their court to her. All 
 ambassadors or foreigners of note she enter- 
 tained, and occasionally provided some royal 
 or distinguished personage upon whom the 
 more rustic geniuses might gaze. But she 
 could never accomplish Mrs. Vesey's feat of 
 squaring the circle : even the very chairs and 
 tables seem to conspire against her, and form 
 themselves into a ring. She possessed no 
 power of harmonising the conflicting elements 
 of which her assemblies were composed. Her 
 guests arrived in a mass, and each individual 
 departed * feeling himself single, isolated, and 
 embarrassed with his own person.' On one 
 occasion about twenty-five women formed a 
 barrier round the fireplace in the shape of * a 
 vast half-moon,' through which the Chancellor, 
 a body of prelates, and other eminent men 
 found it impossible to penetrate. After look- 
 ing wistfully towards the fire, they had to 
 content themselves with drawing chairs from 
 the wall, and seating themselves solemnly and 
 silently in an outer crescent of their own, until 
 such time as the exit of one of the inferior sex 
 created a ' gap for the wise men to enter in 
 and take possession of the fireplace ' — the 
 instinctive stronghold of the Englishman.
 
 WIT AND WISDOM 177 
 
 For, however much they may endeavour to 
 imitate their foreign neighbours, the EngHsh 
 are after all a home-loving race, and our fellow- 
 countrymen in society always appear more or 
 less on the defensive ; therefore, to take their 
 stand with their back to the fire gives them 
 that feeling of assurance that standing with 
 their back to the wall would inspire in another 
 kind of conflict. 
 
 Mrs. Montagu's constant pretension caused 
 the ' Bas Bleu ' set to be accused of pedantry 
 and affectation, from which most of its in- 
 dividual members were entirely free. Mrs. 
 Carter's sound scholarship sat as easily and 
 quietly upon her as upon a man of learning, 
 and her knowledge of Greek was as natural to 
 her as the knowledge of spelling to an ordinary 
 woman. The name of Carter alone, Lady 
 Louisa assures us, is of sufficient importance to 
 prove that Mrs. Montagu was not without 
 sincere and valuable friends. But she was 
 surrounded not only by flatterers of the more 
 common sort— whose high-flown compliments 
 grew in extravagance as those who inter- 
 changed them cooled towards each other, and 
 could only be checked by the ridicule of 
 Horace Walpole or Soame Jenyns — but also 
 
 N
 
 178 A WOMAN OF 
 
 by good, honest people whose organs of admira- 
 tion unduly predominated over those of dis- 
 crimination. These simple souls in all truth 
 and integrity would pour forth their hearts, and 
 call the attention of the young to all that could 
 improve their minds. Lady Louisa found her- 
 self pulled by the sleeve with ' My dear, did 
 you listen to what Mrs. Montagu said ? Did 
 you mind what Miss Hannah More observed ? 
 or what Mr. Harris [afterwards Lord Malmes- 
 bury] replied ? ' The discourse of the most 
 learned men and women must sometimes be 
 trivial, and Mrs. Montagu and Mr. Harris 
 might at that moment be debating whether 
 from the appearance of the sunset fair or foul 
 weather might be looked for on the morrow. 
 Miss Gregory, whom Mrs. Montagu had 
 almost adopted as a daughter, possessed the 
 sense of humour to enjoy the comedy that was 
 daily enacted, but she would never permit a 
 word to be said that in any way detracted from 
 her hostess. 
 
 The chief honour and felicity of Mrs. Mon- 
 tagu's life was derived, she declared, from the 
 superior merits of her friends (for principles, 
 opinions, and habits are acquired from those 
 with whom we live most) ; she was cautious and
 
 WIT AND WISDOM 179 
 
 even a little ambitious in the choice of them, not 
 in the vulgar sense of the word, but her honest 
 ambition was to establish friendship with the 
 ' wise and virtuous.' In Mrs. Carter she found, 
 no doubt, as she did in Lord Lyttelton, 'not 
 only the most sincere and amiable friend, but 
 the best instructor and director of her studies, 
 the companion and guide of her literary 
 amusements, without whom she would have 
 lost her use and importance in society ; for her 
 house when he appeared in it was a school of 
 knowledge and virtue.' 
 
 When Mrs. Montagu built her palace in the 
 north-west corner of Portman Square, which 
 combined ' the nobleness of greatness in a 
 moderate space,' Mrs. Carter wrote to her: 
 
 * I never think of your house in Portman 
 Square as other folks think and talk about it : 
 as a magnificent house, and a fine house, and 
 an elegant house — though all this is very true 
 — but as a house containing a great quantity of 
 air, which I trust will, by the blessing of God, 
 be a means of preserving your health. I wish 
 you as much enjoyment of its magnificence as 
 magnificence can bestow ; but magnificence is 
 an idea of form and ceremony. Comforts and 
 conveniences are the every-day necessaries of 
 
 N 2
 
 i8o A WOMAN OF 
 
 life, and the materials of constant cheerfulness ; 
 the sunshine without which the palace would 
 be a dungeon, and with it the " vinegar bottle " 
 (as I, who live in a vinegar bottle, experience) 
 a pleasant habitation.' When we look with 
 admiration on the solid buildings of the 
 eighteenth century, we recall with astonish- 
 ment Mrs. Carter's wish that, for the safety of 
 society, some lawful method could be found for 
 the punishment of those wretched builders, 
 whose carelessness and villainy had exposed 
 Mrs. Montagu to dangers that only a timely 
 discovery had been able to avert. 
 
 The trouble which Mrs. Montagu received 
 from the curiosity of people to see her im- 
 provements at Sandleford was the natural 
 penalty of 'I'embarras des richesses.' Nobody 
 plagued Mrs. Carter by besieging her doors in 
 carriages or upon pillions to see her cottage. 
 
 From her wind-swept little habitation at 
 Deal Mrs. Carter's thoughts sometimes followed 
 her friend, Mrs. Montagu, who had no distemper 
 but what is common to all fine ladies, the form- 
 ing of more engagements than it is possible to 
 digest ; she figured her sitting in her dressing 
 room, perplexed with messages and answering 
 notes, longing to run away from * Courts and
 
 WIT AND WISDOM i8i 
 
 Countesses,' her mind hardly able to push and 
 squeeze its way through visits, dinners, assem- 
 blies, notes, letters, bricks, mortar and wain- 
 scot, and Mr. Stewart (Athenian Stewart). 
 Or else her imagination placed Mrs. Montagu 
 beneath a green tree at Sandleford where her 
 nerves were fluttering at full liberty after the 
 crowded rooms of London, the bustle of society, 
 and the turmoil of this work-a-day world. 
 Having escaped from the embarrassments, 
 forms, and frivolities of polite life to the pure 
 and unsophisticated joys of the country, she 
 found herself perfumed by roses and honey- 
 suckles, and serenaded by nightingales ; zephyrs 
 had flown before her into Berkshire introducing 
 summer that a scowling north-east wind had not 
 suffered to be seen in Kent. 
 
 A fine lady must be always in extremes ; 
 from the ' beau monde ' she looked down upon 
 those strange, unlicked creatures, the Misses 
 in the country towns, and, poor souls ! how the 
 town lady would despise them when she was 
 herself in the purer air and in all the heroics of 
 pastoral surroundings. Miss Talbot wondered 
 how anybody could live in a place where vile 
 houses of brick and stone hinder the sight 
 of that pure azure sky, about which for the
 
 i82 A WOMAN OF 
 
 moment she was in high rapture. She described 
 the progress from the gay town lady to the con- 
 tented country housewife. First the tragedy 
 princess in an august melancholy, and then the 
 pastoral nymph lolling on a green bank, among 
 roses and honeysuckle, singing sonnets to the 
 zephyrs, idle indeed, but perfectly rural. In 
 like manner did Marie Antoinette enjoy an ela- 
 borate simplicity, and imagine her artificially 
 rustic Arcadia to be truly pastoral. 
 
 Mrs. Montagu found it very agreeable to 
 see no human creature but her servants, nor to 
 hear an articulate sound except the cuckoo's 
 unvarying note ; but Mrs. Carter warned her 
 * that in solitude we are tempted to think our- 
 selves wise and virtuous ; these short and im- 
 perfect views of the grandeur and dignity of the 
 soul should incite our wishes for a less imperfect 
 state, and encourage a cheerful compliance with 
 the humiliating duties of our present condition.' 
 
 Though Mrs. Montagu extolled the simple 
 pleasures of the country, ' that general feast 
 nature spreads for all her children, to which she 
 came a happy guest,' and boasted that she 
 wanted not Stewart, Adams, nor Brown (Capa- 
 bility Brown) to build her a palace or lay a 
 county into garden for her, she constantly em-
 
 WIT AND WISDOM 183 
 
 ployed these artists to embellish both Sandle- 
 ford, her home in Berkshire, and her residence 
 in Portman Square, where she added to her 
 already large house the room of the Cupidons 
 painted with roses and cupids, and the ' feather 
 room ' adorned with the plumage of every pos- 
 sible bird, her pillars of verd antique and the 
 * porte cochere. Of Mrs. Montagu's ' feather 
 room ' Cowper wrote in 1788 : 
 
 ' The birds put off their every hue 
 To dress a room for Montagu. 
 The peacock sends his heavenly dyes, 
 His rainbows, and his starry eyes ; 
 The pheasant, plumes which round infold 
 His mantling neck with downy gold. 
 The cock his arch'd tail's azure show. 
 And river-blanched the swan his snow. 
 All tribes beside of Indian name 
 That glossy shine or vivid flame 
 Where rises and where sets the day, 
 Whate'er they boast of rich and gay, 
 Contribute to the gorgeous plan. 
 Proud to advance it all they can. 
 This plumage neither dashing shower 
 Nor blasts that shake the dripping bower. 
 Shall drench again or discompose. 
 But, screen'd from every storm that blows. 
 It boasts a splendour ever new, 
 Safe with protecting Montagu.' 
 
 It was during some of these works, when Mrs. 
 Montagu had been complaining of bad seasons
 
 i84 A WOMAN OF 
 
 and agricultural depression, that Mrs. Carter 
 wrote : 
 
 ' It grieves me to hear of the mischief the 
 rain has done to your property. I am interested 
 in your "Menus plaisirs," and should be sorry 
 that the fly in the turnips or the smut in the 
 wheat should retard the completion of your 
 elegant room.' 
 
 In Mrs. Montagu's contribution to her 
 friend Lord Lyttelton's ' Dialogues of the Dead,' 
 there is a conversation between Mercury and a 
 modern fine lady, Mrs. Modish, who excuses 
 her unreadiness to cross the Styx, not on the 
 plea of conjugal attachment and maternal duties, 
 but a glance at her chimney-piece showed it 
 crowded with engagements : to the play on 
 Mondays, balls on Tuesdays, the opera on 
 Saturdays, and card assemblies for the rest of 
 the week, and though late hours and fatigue 
 gave her the vapours, she was ambitious to be 
 thought * du bon ton.' 
 
 '"Bon ton!'" exclaims the astonished 
 Mercury, ' what is that, madam ? ' 
 
 Mrs. Modish, who had admired and aimed 
 at it all her life, answered it was one of the 
 privileges of ' bon ton ' never to define or 
 be defined. Though it was the child and
 
 WIT AND WISDOM 185 
 
 parent of jargon, she could only explain what 
 it was not. ' In conversation it is not wit ; 
 in manners it is not politeness ; in be- 
 haviour it is not address ; but it is a little like 
 them all.' 
 
 This fine satire was a great favourite with 
 the town and showed much good sense ; but 
 with all her talents Mrs. Montagu did not pos- 
 sess the charm of simplicity. Though she had 
 a sensible and penetrating countenance, and 
 the air and manner of a woman accustomed to 
 being distinguished, her acquaintance unfor- 
 tunately could remember her trying for this 
 same air and manner. There was always that 
 half-conscious effort to play the role of a fine 
 lady, on which Mrs. Carter often rallied her. 
 ' As for fashion,' she exclaimed, ' whatever Mrs. 
 Montagu does 7nust be right.' When she was 
 accompanying Mr. Montagu rather unwillingly 
 on a visit to his northern property, Mrs. Carter 
 wrote : 
 
 ' It ofrieves me to think that instead of 
 soaring into regions of intellectual delight, your 
 spirits should be suffocated in the damps of a 
 coal-mine. But, after all, the true proof of 
 wisdom is doing the thing which ought to be 
 done. If you had stayed behind, you might
 
 i86 A WOMAN OF 
 
 have appeared a much finer lady, and a much 
 finer genius, and might have sat in your 
 Chinese and Athenian rooms and have written 
 more " Dialogues of the Dead," but you cer- 
 tainly are a more reasonable being in accom- 
 panying Mr. Montagu, and assisting him in his 
 business, and the entertainment of his north- 
 country neighbours.' 
 
 Mrs. Carter applauded Mrs. Montagu's con- 
 descension in riding pillion for some hours in 
 every day, which, though it degraded her from 
 a fine lady to appearing like a mere reputable 
 gentlewoman, was necessitated by the wretched 
 state of her eyes, that betrayed her into such 
 blunders. She hoped Mrs. Montagu would 
 never attempt to ride a single horse, but get 
 behind some good, staid, sober, dull man, on a 
 dull horse, with a strong leathern belt round 
 his coat, on which she might take good, sure 
 hold, and ride much more safely than by 
 mounting a Pegasus of her own guiding. She 
 also begged she would not attempt to drive 
 herself, adding : ' I should be mighty sorry, 
 both for your sake and my own, to be a 
 cottage or a church in your way ; however, if 
 you do run into anything, pray let it be John 
 of Gaunt's Castle, and converse with the
 
 WIT AND WISDOM 187 
 
 melancholy spectres of the race of York and 
 Lancaster.' 
 
 Mrs. Montagu's charities were on the 
 munificent scale that rigid economy in the 
 administration of her great wealth and a 
 wholesome horror of debt made possible. 
 When she was in doubt as to whether the pur- 
 chase of a new ' whisky ' (a fashionable carriage 
 of the day) might be deemed an extravagance, 
 Mrs. Carter wrote to her : 
 
 ' In general the best relief to the poor is 
 from supplying their wants by means of their 
 own honest labour ; therefore our expenditure 
 can only be ranked amongst the vices of 
 useless luxury when, by too great expense in 
 employing those who can work, there is not 
 enough reserved for the relief of those who 
 cannot.' 
 
 Whiskys were then * the most prevailing 
 fashion of two- wheel vehicles.' They were 
 one-horse chairs of the lightest construction, 
 and in spite of Mrs. Montagu's qualms of 
 conscience cheaper than any other. The ease 
 and expedition with which they moved enabled 
 them to whisk past other carriages. Hence 
 their name. The whisky curricle had a more 
 solid appearance than the whisky, and on that
 
 i88 A WOMAN OF 
 
 account was particularly affected by the 
 Quakers, and was commonly known as a 
 Quake-chaise. 
 
 Mrs. Montagu declared she would be per- 
 fectly happy if dowlas and linsey-woolsey 
 were so cheap that she could clothe half the 
 parish. Of this aspiration Mrs. Carter warmly 
 approved, and answered : 
 
 ' I think your dowlas shifts and chequered 
 aprons a more enviable contrivance than the 
 finest birthday trimming that ingenious vanity 
 ever devised. The one will tarnish and fade, 
 and the other furnish materials for a " sky-spun 
 robe," which may figure in a more splendid 
 assembly than any Imperial drawing-room 
 below the stars.' 
 
 After all, Mrs. Carter reflected, large pos- 
 sessions often prove as great an obstacle to 
 carrying out our inclinatiQns as poverty. For 
 the comfort of little people, be it remembered 
 that excess is as strong an impediment some- 
 times as defect ; both rich and poor are fet- 
 tered by external things. She wrote to Mrs. 
 Vesey, to whom she longed to pay a visit : 
 
 ' I cannot get to you because I have not a 
 post-chaise ; and Mrs. Montagu cannot get to 
 you because she has a coal-mine.'
 
 WIT AND WISDOM 189 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 MRS. VESEY 
 
 Every individual that strongly engaged Mrs. 
 Carter's affection had some characteristic and 
 distinguishing mark. The spirit of some 
 enlivened her indolence, while her quiet 
 tempered their vivacity. Mrs. Vesey she 
 honoured for having the simplicity of a little 
 child. Throughout her life she remained as 
 lively and picturesque as at eighteen, because 
 ' those sullen demons, turbulent agitations, sor- 
 did principles and interested schemes, had not 
 put to flight the fair forms of imagination, which 
 can never subsist but in gentleness of disposi- 
 tion and simplicity of heart, for the bustles, 
 perturbations, and competitions of the world 
 are much more destructive than the ravages of 
 age.' 
 
 To these characteristics Mrs. Vesey owed 
 her perpetual youth.
 
 I90 A WOMAN OF 
 
 She could always wave a fairy wand, and 
 conjure up pleasures and amusements all 
 around her in whatever climate or element she 
 happened to be thrown. Her imagination 
 could raise up palaces and coral groves beneath 
 the sea, and convert a pigeon-house into a 
 dressing-room, and a heap of brick and mortar 
 into a walk of roses upon earth. She would 
 be more amused raising fairy visions uninter- 
 rupted at Lucan (her husband's place in 
 Ireland) than in mixing with the gay society 
 of ' geniuses and rational parrots ' in Dublin. 
 In fact, she shared Rousseau's power of trans- 
 porting himself whenever he was alone into an 
 ideal world, where he made for himself the 
 society he liked, and found all those blessings 
 which this world denied him. Though there 
 was little of the turbulent in the composition of 
 the Sylph (as Mrs. Vesey was called by her 
 friends), the uproar of a stormy sea was as 
 much adapted to her sublime imagination, as 
 the soft murmurs of a gliding stream to the 
 gendeness of her temper. 
 
 Mrs. Vesey shared with Mrs. Montagu the 
 honour of having originated the * Bas Bleu ' as- 
 semblies, but according to Fanny Burney she was 
 ' gentle and diffident, and dreamed not of any
 
 WIT AND WISDOM 191 
 
 competition, only desiring to collect celebrities 
 under her roof, and without attempting to shine 
 herself, or be accounted one of their number, 
 she had the happy secret of bringing forward 
 talents of every kind, and diffusing over the 
 society the gentleness of her character. With 
 no advantage of appearance and manner, she 
 possessed, with a reserve of good sense, that 
 easy politeness that gained everyone in a 
 moment, and had the almost magic art of 
 putting all the company at their ease.' 
 
 By the dedication of her poem, the ' Bas 
 Bleu,' Hannah More gave Mrs. Vesey the 
 preference, not only of Mrs. Montagu but of 
 any philosopher who should square the circle, 
 a feat both these hostesses were constantly 
 attempting in the arrangement of their chairs. 
 Sometimes in Mrs. Vesey's anxiety to render 
 all her guests easy with one another, her fear 
 of ceremony, and eagerness to break a circle, 
 she insisted upon everybody sitting back to 
 back, the chairs being drawn into little parties 
 of three together in a confused manner, all 
 over the room, so that the occupants could not 
 catch sight of their neighbours except by 
 twisting their necks. But such was Mrs. 
 Vesey's magic power that she could arrange
 
 192 A WOMAN OF 
 
 forty people in her room, and yet contrive to 
 give it a less crowded appearance than it would 
 have with a dozen people filled by anyone else. 
 * One would think,' said Mrs. Carter, ' that you 
 stript the souls of your company of their bodies, 
 and left only a phantom to cover their naked- 
 ness ; yet I never perceived that a human soul 
 is more clearly seen through at your assemblies 
 than at any other.' 
 
 Though Mrs. Vesey was famous for her 
 dexterity and skill in selecting her guests, 
 owing to her kindness of heart, her circle 
 threatened to become too wide for comfort ; so 
 Hannah More, Mrs. Carter, and Horace Wal- 
 pole made their own parties for her assemblies, 
 and asked and excluded just whom they liked. 
 
 'Our last "Vesey" was a little too large,' 
 wrote Hannah More, * and had too many great 
 ladies. We are agreed to keep the next a 
 secret, but poor dear Mrs. Vesey is so sweet- 
 tempered that, though she vows she will not 
 mention it to anybody, she cannot help asking 
 every agreeable creature that comes in her way.' 
 
 Even Mrs. Vesey's deafness did not detract 
 from her love of society. With numberless 
 ear-trumpets hanging at her waist, slung about 
 her neck, or tossed upon the chimney-piece,
 
 WIT AND WISDOM 193 
 
 she moved about among her guests, and in her 
 eagerness to participate in all their bons mots 
 she would hasten from one group to another, 
 carrying her stool, cushion, and trumpets with 
 her, and often thought fit to change her place 
 fifteen times in a quarter of an hour. But, alas ! 
 encumbered with so many impedimenta she 
 invariably arrived at the moment the speaker 
 had become the listener, and in her haste, 
 frequently clapping the brazen ear of the trum- 
 pet to her forehead, pathetically exclaimed, ' As 
 soon as I come near nobody speaks.' In vain 
 her guests tried to explain, but the Sylph, 
 detecting amusement elsewhere, had already 
 darted off, trumpet in hand, in hopes of better 
 fare, and would gently murmur her disappoint- 
 ment on finding herself again too late. 
 
 It was Mrs. Vesey's misfortune to raise her 
 expectations too high for the condition of 
 mortality, which gave her that perpetual rest- 
 lessness of body and mind that harassed and 
 wore out both. She scarcely ever enjoyed one 
 object from apprehension that something better 
 might possibly be found in another. 
 
 The singularity of her personality, and the 
 art by which she preserved the jarring charac- 
 ters that composed her motley assemblies from 
 
 o
 
 194 A WOMAN OF 
 
 quarrelling with each other, was to her friends 
 a matter requiring deep investigation. Her 
 secret, they decided, was that she contrived to 
 put all her guests in perfect good humour with 
 themselves, and without any appearance of flat- 
 tery, effort, or design, making each individual 
 with whom her enchanting blue room was 
 crowded consider itself as the principal and 
 distinguished object. Wherever people imagine 
 themselves to possess the first place, they will 
 always be in wonderful good humour with 
 all the world, and external war is at an end. 
 This art would have been impossible to attain 
 if Mrs. Vesey had possessed a grain of vanity, 
 but as she had no merely personal feelings, she 
 had an infinite deal of attention to bestow in 
 adapting herself to the feelings of others : hence 
 her success. 
 
 The goodness of Mrs. Vesey 's heart, and 
 the * uncommon turn of her head,' showed * a 
 genius of that eccentric kind which is mighty 
 apt to be accompanied by a plentiful lack of 
 common sense.' When a friend who was 
 staying with her in the country was ordered 
 not to use her crutches on the floor for fear of 
 slipping, but to be carried downstairs and use 
 them on the gravel walk, Mrs. Vesey started
 
 WIT AND WISDOM 195 
 
 up, and said she would order the gardener 
 immediately to gravel the drawing-room. The 
 dear Sylph would also a la Vesey frequendy 
 offer Mrs. Carter a lodging, totally forgetting 
 that she had long before engaged her only 
 spare room. 
 
 Simplicity and absent-mindedness were her 
 chief characteristics, she could hardly remem- 
 ber her own name. ' What has become of 
 our Sylph ? ' Mrs. Carter wrote ; ' I do not 
 know, I expect she hardly knows herself, but 
 I hope she is as well as nervous people must 
 ever expect to be.' During a severe winter 
 she consoled herself with the reflection that the 
 Sylph would be in no danger of petrifaction, 
 for ether does not petrify. All Mrs. Vesey's 
 domestic arrangements were superintended by 
 her sister-in-law, Mrs. Handcock, a very 
 practical woman. From the contrast of their 
 endowments they were known as * Body ' and 
 ' Mind.' When Mrs. Vesey invented a coffee- 
 pot with all the essential advantages of a 
 beautiful form, Mrs. Handcock most unreason- 
 ably objected because the lid would not open 
 to put in the coffee, nor the spout answer to 
 pour it out. 
 
 Mrs. Carter wrote sympathetically : 
 
 o 2
 
 196 A WOMAN OF 
 
 'And so Mrs. Handcock had no taste for 
 your new invention. But she is an intolerable 
 common-sense woman. As to her strange 
 objections that the pot has neither spout nor 
 handle, and that the lid will not open, they are 
 quite nugatory ; for, as it is of a beautiful 
 Etruscan form, it answers every essential 
 purpose of a good coffee-pot — except the pos- 
 sibility of making coffee in it, which is only 
 a mere circumstance, which anyone of true 
 genius would easily overlook.' 
 
 Mrs. Vesey's imagination could be agree- 
 ably amused in furnishing her new dressing- 
 room so as no mortal dressing-room was 
 ever yet furnished, and making it enchanting 
 with the decorations devised by her genius. 
 Though her friends were attached by associa- 
 tion to the ' dear blue room ' in Bolton Row, 
 they felt sure of finding a pleasant apartment, 
 of whatever shape, size or colour, wherever she 
 resided. 
 
 But unfortunately for her immediate be- 
 longings, her lively imagination had also the 
 power of twisting her sister-in-law's bad cold 
 into a paralytic seizure, and her own ailments 
 into a dozen apoplectic fits, so that ' she never 
 had recourse to hope, if she could catch at the
 
 WIT AND WISDOM 197 
 
 smallest reason for despair,' and in default of a 
 dragon had always an objection ready to any- 
 thing that tended to the accomplishment of her 
 own wishes. Mrs Carter, on the contrary, 
 hated to dwell on anything that would give her 
 pain, and never believed what she did not like 
 till she could not possibly help it. Mrs. Vesey's 
 little misfortunes and vexations, imaginary and 
 real, made her friends smile, but even her 
 servants, who were exemplary, were moved by 
 her charm, and found it impossible to resist not 
 only her will but her wishes. There must, 
 however, have been something wanting in the 
 composition of the Sylph, for, alas ! Mr. Vesey 
 understood her not. 
 
 His lack of appreciation roused the indigna- 
 tion of her devoted circle of admirers, but is 
 comprehensible to those not under her spell. 
 When Mr. Vesey was made a Privy Councillor 
 in Ireland, her friends admitted their poor 
 Sylph would have preferred his being appointed 
 a constable or churchwarden in England, and 
 that his home in Ireland appeared very little 
 'adapted to her genius.' It was a mere pro- 
 saical house, full of mortal comforts and con- 
 veniences, without a particle of romance ; in 
 short, Mrs. Carter declared it was ' much better
 
 198 A WOMAN OF 
 
 adapted to the wants and purposes of the Right 
 Honourable Agmondisham Vesey than to those 
 of his more ethereal partner.' The dear old 
 castle, with the niches in its walls, she valued 
 beyond everything, and the display of Mr. 
 Vesey's correct Grecian taste was very grievous 
 to her poetic imagination. However, she con- 
 trived to pass the winter at Lucan very tolerably 
 — at least judging from the manner in which 
 she talked of it afterwards, though it was true, 
 Mrs. Carter added, that the winter of which 
 she made the ' eloge ' was past. 
 
 ' God mend her health and give her better 
 spirits,' wrote Mrs. Carter of the poor Sylph, 
 who, like all excitable people, was subject to 
 fits of depression. * By all means, my dear 
 Mrs. Vesey,' she wrote, * leave Dr. James to 
 swallow his own powders, and Mr. Vesey to 
 squabble with his two old gentlemen, and get 
 as fast as you can to Tunbridge ; if you do not 
 find health in the springs, you will at least 
 acquire good spirits from the society, but 
 do not seduce Mrs. Montagu into any of 
 your lively schemes for being diverted to 
 death.' 
 
 Mrs. Vesey had a much better art of 
 amusing herself in a crowd than Mrs. Carter,
 
 WIT AND WISDOM 199 
 
 who to the end remained just as many degrees 
 removed from a rake as ever. 
 
 Mrs. Carter was exceedingly disappointed 
 at the Sylph's rejection of a scheme for visiting 
 Walmer Castle, within a mile of her house at 
 Deal. * But I expect,' she wrote, ' it is Mrs. 
 Handcock's fault ; she probably represented it 
 to you merely as a pleasant dwelling, where 
 you might eat your dinner and drink your tea 
 like any modern house. If she had told you 
 that some discontented spectre walked its 
 melancholy rounds every night along the grass- 
 grown platform, the attraction would have been 
 irresistible to your curiosity. She might have 
 told you how the spirits of the air talk in 
 whistling winds through its battlements, and 
 the angel of the waters dashes the roaring 
 billows at its foot. Instead of alluring you by 
 these sublime ideas, I suspect she dwelt chiefly 
 on the pleasure you would confer upon a couple 
 of mere two-legged human creatures ; upon 
 which you turned about and said, " Why, Mrs, 
 Handcock, we can meet enough of these 
 upon the Pantiles ! " and so the die turned for 
 Tunbridge.' Sometimes Mrs. Carter's friends 
 would take a cottage at Walmer, ' for the con- 
 venience of going into the sea' [bathing?].
 
 200 A WOMAN OF 
 
 * 'Tis a mighty pretty scheme,' she declared, 
 ' for Walmer is one of the pleasantest villages 
 about here,' 
 
 When Mr. Vesey died he left ' the Sylph,' 
 to the great indignation of her friends, wholly 
 dependent on the bounty of his nephew, who 
 fortunately proved himself worthy of the trust. 
 Though Mr. Vesey's case is not stated, he 
 secures our uninvited sympathy, as his ethereal 
 partner had always obtruded her superiority 
 to all earthly considerations of ' mere mortal 
 comforts and conveniences.' When he was 
 proposed in 1773 as a member of the Literary 
 Club, Burke began by saying he was a man 
 of gentle manners. * Sir,' said Johnson, ' you 
 need say no more. When you have said a 
 man of gentle manners, you have said enough.' 
 
 Mrs. Vesey's friends were provoked at 
 ' their dear Niobe ' continuing to weep so 
 immoderately for what they considered little 
 deserved her tears — the loss of Mr. Vesey. 
 
 ' Had the subject been ever so worthy,' 
 wrote Mrs. Carter, ' it would have been her 
 duty to check them, but, alas ! she has no 
 resolution.' 
 
 Though Mrs. Carter had no personal 
 experience, she might have imagined the pos-
 
 WIT AND WISDOM 201 
 
 sibility of there being something in the tie, 
 that after years of estrangement would in the 
 end reassert itself, and that sorrow would be 
 only intensified by the fatal 'too late.' 
 
 Poor Mrs. Vesey's timorous and feeble 
 mind fluctuated between the extremes of un- 
 belief and superstition ; though tormented with 
 doubts as to a future existence, she would 
 start at the sudden opening of a door, expecting 
 a visit from her departed friends. Mrs. Carter 
 wrote to her on this matter : 
 
 ' I am flattered to find I agree with Mr. 
 Burke. Yes, ask your own heart ; and it will 
 tell you what is the rule of life that best directs 
 it to grow wise and good. Be thankful for 
 this gracious guidance, and never listen to the 
 ha.\(-/ea7^nmo^, the perverted understanding, and 
 pert ridicule of French philosophers and beaux 
 esprits, who would persuade you it is best to 
 wander over a wide stormy ocean without a 
 pilot, and without a leading star ! '
 
 202 A WOMAN OF 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 LORD BATH 
 
 William Pulteney, Earl of Bath, born in 1682, 
 the poHtical antagonist of Sir Robert Walpole, 
 was the intimate friend of Mrs. Montagu. At 
 her house Mrs. Carter was accustomed, when 
 in town, to my Lord Bath's society almost 
 every day. His wit, strong sense, knowledge 
 of the world, and charm of manner made him 
 the admiration of society, but he often declared 
 he spent no time so happily as in the company 
 of Mrs. Montagu and Mrs. Carter. His letters 
 to Mrs. Carter were found after her decease, 
 but she had written a memorandum that they 
 were to be destroyed, and they were burnt by 
 her executor. 
 
 She spent the summer of 1761 in the 
 company of Mrs. Montagu, Lord Bath and 
 Lord Lyttelton, at Tunbridge Wells, where the 
 prospect had * nothing of the sublime and
 
 WIl.l.IAM I'ULTENEY, EARL OF BATH 
 
 i-><»ri <j f''i»>iiiH l>y Sir Joshua licyiiolils. I'.K.A.. in Ihc Sittioii.il l>nih\iil G.illcry
 
 WIT AND WISDOM 203 
 
 magnificent rudeness of Bristol, but the wild- 
 ness was all soft and agreeable ' — surroundings 
 amidst which the geniuses of the age ' sported 
 sentiment from morn till noon, from noon to 
 dewy eye,' and wit flowed more copiously than 
 the springs. It was owing to their persuasions 
 that Mrs. Carter was prevailed on to publish 
 the collection of her poems which appeared in 
 1762. The proposal of printing these trifles 
 was made by my Lord Bath, who desired they 
 might be dedicated to himself; and that she 
 might be under no kind of difficulty added that 
 he himself would write the dedication, which he 
 did in a style exactly suited to her taste, for she 
 had such an objection to flattery that she would 
 not even allow herself to say what she really 
 thought. His politeness, his constant cheerful- 
 ness, and generous, friendly disposition made 
 her indeed heartily esteem and love him, but 
 she declared she would be as far from putting 
 her sentiments into a dedication, as he would 
 be from allowing her to do so. Of her verses 
 addressed to Lord Bath, Archbishop Seeker 
 said : ' Why, Madam Carter, you have not 
 been tolerably civil to the man.' 
 
 Lord Lyttelton's verses were prefixed to the 
 collection of Mrs. Carter's poems.
 
 204 A WOMAN OF 
 
 It was supposed at one time that Mrs. 
 Carter would marry my Lord Bath, on which 
 report Archbishop Seeker often ralHed her. 
 In answer to the Archbishop's most maHcious 
 message of condolence, on the attentions that 
 Lord Bath was reported to be paying to Lady 
 Abercorn at Tunbridge, she answered in the 
 same spirit, and asked indignantly, ' Did my 
 Lord B. ever take the very nosegay from his 
 button-hole, and deliver it into the hand of 
 Lady A. ? Did my Lord Bath ever go to a toy 
 shop and purchase a knotting-shuttle, painted 
 all over with cupids, and cages, and fishes on 
 a hook, and present it to Lady A. ? And may 
 not people who have such distinctions to boast 
 of bid defiance to all the witcheries of Lady 
 A. ? When one fine gentleman said to another 
 fine gentleman upon the Pantiles, " She talks 
 Greek faster than any woman in England," 
 pray was this meant of my Lady A. ? Or when 
 the market folks left their pigs and their fowls 
 to squall their hearts out, while they told each 
 other, ** Sartainly she is the greatest Scollard 
 in the world!" was the person they stared at 
 my Lady A. ? ' 
 
 * It is true,' she admitted, * that my Lord 
 Bath does sometimes draw his chair, in a sort
 
 WIT AND WISDOM 205 
 
 of a kind of an edgeway fashion, near my 
 Lady A. But pray consider the difference. 
 It is by mere dint of scratching and clawing 
 that Lady A. can draw Lord Bath — poor man ! 
 — a few plain steps across the Pantiles ; while 
 we, by the natural power of sober attraction, 
 draw him quite up " Tug Hill " to the top of 
 Mount Ephraim, and keep him there, till we 
 are quite afraid he will endanger his life in 
 returning.' 
 
 The disembarkation of Princess Charlotte 
 of Mecklenburg Strelitz at Harwich owing to 
 bad weather, and her consequent visit to Lord 
 Abercorn at Witham on her way to London, 
 before her marriage to George III., furnished 
 the Archbishop with fresh matter of condol- 
 ence, conveyed through Miss Talbot, w^ho 
 wrote : ' Alas, poor Miss Carter, what joy can 
 anything give you if it be true that your per- 
 secutor, Lady Abercorn, lives with her son at 
 Witham ; for consider that after being the sole 
 object of all eyes, and engrosser of all admira- 
 tion at Tunbridge, she only went from thence 
 to prove to the world that not only could Lord 
 Bath make his parties with none but her lady- 
 ship — but even the Princess, whom so many 
 thousands had been expecting for a fortnight
 
 206 A WOMAN OF 
 
 at Greenwich, could find no one fit to honour 
 with her first visit to England but Lady 
 Abercorn. You may talk of your Apollos and 
 Minervas as long as you please, but, after this, 
 never let me contend again with the friends of 
 honest Eolus and Boreas.' 
 
 Princess Charlotte had embarked at Cux- 
 haven on August 28, 1761, in the Royal 
 yacht ' Charlotte ' that had been launched the 
 previous summer at Deptford, and named in 
 honour of the future Queen. The crew were 
 clothed at his Majesty's expense in a red 
 uniform, with gold lace hats, light grey stock- 
 ings, buckles and pumps. This gala costume 
 must have hampered the handy British seaman. 
 No news of the vessel was received until Sep- 
 tember 6, for after twice sighting the coast 
 of England, she had been repeatedly driven off 
 by contrary winds. 
 
 To persons of delicate constitutions sea 
 voyages are sometimes * very pernicious,' but 
 her Highness, though one day in hopes of 
 landing on English ground, and the next in 
 danger of being driven on the coast of Norway, 
 continued in good health, and diverted herself 
 with playing English tunes on the harpsichord. 
 On her journey to St. James's she was refreshed
 
 WIT AND WISDOM 207 
 
 at Colchester with tea and coffee handed to her 
 simultaneously by two of the principal inhabi- 
 tants, and she proceeded to Witham, where 
 Lord Abercorn provided as elegant an enter- 
 tainment as time would permit. The King's 
 coach and servants met her at Rumford. 
 
 Mrs. Carter found during her stay with 
 Mrs. Montagu, Lord Bath and Lord Lyttelton 
 at Tunbridge, that * two public breakfasts, two 
 days' excursion into Sussex, one fit and a half 
 of the headache, the making up of four dozen 
 franks, and then falling violently in love with 
 the man who signed them [evidently Lord 
 Bath], added to the ordinary routine of life at 
 the W^eils, left her very litde leisure for any 
 other occupation.' 
 
 Her real opinion of the man, apart from all 
 joking or fear of flattery, was shown in a letter 
 written after his death, in which melancholy 
 event she felt her own share very sensibly, for 
 she said ' most truly did I love him.' 
 
 None of his friends, she declared, would 
 remember him longer, or with equal affection. 
 With all his talents, that rendered him the 
 object of popular admiration, he had not the 
 least tincture of vanity and importance. Though 
 he excelled in conversation, he never took the
 
 2o8 A WOMAN OF 
 
 lead, or assumed that superiority to which he 
 had a claim. He did not dictate, dogmatise 
 or talk essays like Lord Bolingbroke, or mono- 
 polise the conversation like Lord Granville, 
 but called forth the powers of others. He 
 did not lead up to pre-arranged bons mots 
 like Lord Chesterfield, all was natural and 
 easy, and his wit directed to whatever chanced 
 to be the subject of the moment. Whether in 
 a small or large circle, he was more agreeable, 
 entertaining and instructive than any other man 
 of his time. He outshone all the other members 
 of the Opposition, known as the ' Cobhamites ' 
 or ' Grenville cousins ' assembled at Stowe. 
 His temper always appeared equal, there was 
 a perpetual flow of vivacity and good humour 
 in his conversation, and most attentive polite- 
 ness in his behaviour, which was not the effect 
 merely of external and partial good-breeding. 
 
 Lord Bath was accused by his enemies of an 
 undue love of money, that instinct of accumula- 
 tion often the besetting sin of really great men. 
 But many stories told to his disadvantage reflect 
 on his accusers. Lord Chesterfield desired to 
 purchase from him the land that lay between 
 Chesterfield House and Hyde Park, in order that 
 his view might not be obstructed. To oblige
 
 WIT AND WISDOM 209 
 
 him, Lord Bath agreed to sell it for 3,000/., al- 
 though with the general rage for building the 
 land was worth more. Lord Chesterfield made 
 * a heavy outcry ' against Lord Bath's avarice 
 and extortion, but at length agreed to pay the 
 money, and then, regardless of his view, imme- 
 diately resold the land to a builder for 5,000/. 
 
 In 1746 Lord Bath had the satisfaction of 
 being Prime Minister for very little over forty- 
 eight hours, but he reaped none of the h-uits of 
 office, being constantly in the Opposition, that 
 he not only supported by his abilities, but car- 
 ried on chiefly at his own expense. 
 
 Bishop Newton tells us that his love of 
 money was not near so great as was reported, 
 for in that age of prodigality everyone was 
 deemed covetous that paid his way honestly, 
 and did not squander his money. He was 
 strict and exact in all his accounts, and any 
 attempt to impose upon him he considered as 
 an insult to his understanding. Like Hotspur 
 he would 'give to any well-deserving friend,' 
 but he loved a bargain, and in that matter 
 would not readily yield a point. 
 
 He contributed largely to the education of 
 many promising young men, encouraged learn- 
 ing, and subscribed liberally to literary under-
 
 2IO A WOMAN OF 
 
 takings. He dispensed considerable sums in 
 private pensions, and it was affirmed that he 
 gave a tenth part of his income to deserving 
 charities. He never stooped to unfair methods. 
 An ingenious rascal begged to be employed by 
 the Opposition in opening and copying letters, 
 however carefully folded and sealed, and restor- 
 ing them, so that the writer himself could not 
 detect that they had been touched. Lord Bath 
 sent the man into an adjoining room with 
 a letter sealed with a finely cut coat of arms ; 
 after a quarter of an hour he returned with 
 a copy of the letter, and the cover intact. 
 Lord Bath merely regretted his inability to 
 punish so dangerous a character, and bade him 
 seek his reward elsewhere, which he did with 
 success, for he soon after found employment in 
 the Secretary of State's office. 
 
 Lord Bath's saving propensities were in- 
 stilled into him by his wife, a lady who had 
 such good intelligence in the * Alley ' with 
 Gideon (the Portuguese Jew, afterwards created 
 Lord Eardley) and other stockbrokers that her 
 brother. Colonel Gumley, called her dressing- 
 room, where her advisers congregated, the Jews' 
 synagogue. Lord Bath possessed such implicit 
 faith in his wife's financial sagacity, that on her
 
 WIT AND WISDOM 211 
 
 marriage he gave her 10,000/. to employ and 
 improve as she pleased. Having increased 
 this sum to 60,000/., she refused to make a 
 will, saying to her lord, that she owed him all 
 she had, and to him it should all return. 
 
 Though Lord Harvey denied that she 
 possessed any one good quality but beauty, 
 Lady Bath, like many another, was a wonder- 
 fully agreeable woman when she was in a good 
 humour, but, possibly owing to financial 
 anxieties, her spirits were oftener clouded and 
 overcast. She did not live to see the failure of 
 all the ambitious schemes of family aggrandise- 
 ment for which she and Lord Bath had toiled 
 in vain. Soon after her death their only son. 
 Lord Pulteney, died of fever at Madrid. The 
 agonies of grief endured by Lord Bath are 
 described by Bishop Newton, who sought to 
 comfort his friend with the reflection that 
 ' Man walketh in a vain shadow, and disquieteth 
 himself in vain ; he heapeth up riches, and 
 cannot tell who shall gather them.' Though the 
 truth of this assertion cannot be gainsaid, it was 
 rather an ill-timed reminder that no heir sur- 
 vived to inherit Lord Bath's vast accumulations. 
 
 His chaplain. Dr. Douglas, declared Lord 
 Bath was of all men the best and easiest to live 
 
 F a
 
 212 A WOMAN OF 
 
 with. So familiar and engaging was his manner 
 that you could not be with him half an hour 
 without being entirely at ease ; your awe of him 
 vanished, while your respect increased. As an 
 orator, Speaker Onslow described him as 
 ' having the most popular parts for public 
 speaking of any great man he ever knew,' and 
 Walpole feared his tongue more than another 
 man's sword. 
 
 But In spite of the favourable testimony of 
 his friends, It has been truly said that his career 
 was marred by a spirit of faction, that caused 
 him to stake his whole reputation on over- 
 throwing Walpole, and later, on attempting to 
 get rid of Pitt. He was not moved by any 
 personal enmity to Sir Robert Walpole, or 
 ambitious views of supplanting him. He liked 
 the man, but disliked his measures. ' In the 
 protracted course of this contest he narrowed 
 public life to the petty conditions of a duel, and 
 at last, for reasons which no on-looker could 
 understand, fired Into the air. Thus he called 
 down upon him his proper Nemesis ; he 
 
 ' Left not faction, but of it was left.' 
 
 In 1739 Lord Bath suffered from a dan- 
 gerous illness, that cost him 750 guineas in
 
 WIT AND WISDOM 213 
 
 physician's fees, and from which he was 
 eventually cured by a draught of small beer. 
 Mindful of the efficacy of simple remedies, in 
 1763, accompanied by Mr. and Mrs. Montagu 
 and Mrs. Carter, he had recourse to the Spa 
 waters. During their tour he appeared to be 
 the youngest, liveliest, and healthiest of the 
 whole party. He preserved that freshness of 
 mind which in his younger days was combined 
 with great bodily activity. It did Mrs. Carter's 
 heart good to see with what universal respect 
 he was treated by all people, of all ranks, and 
 all nations at Spa. There was so much dignity, 
 politeness, and good humour in his behaviour 
 to all, that he well deserved the attention that 
 was paid him. The following year he died. 
 
 Extract from Mrs. Carters verses to Lord 
 Bath, written when 
 
 ' Subdued at length beneath laborious hfe, 
 In peaceful age the harass'd virtues sink to rest. 
 
 Yet not in flovv'ry Indolence reclin'd, 
 They waste th' important gift of sober hours : 
 To every state has Heav'n its task assign'd. 
 To ev'ry task assign'd its needful powers. 
 
 For better purposes to favour'd man 
 
 Is length of days — tremendous blessing ! — given ;
 
 214 A WOMAN OF 
 
 To regulate our life's disorder'd plan, 
 And purify the blemish'd soul for Heav'n. 
 
 Such, gracious Heav'n, be Pulteney's setting day. 
 And cheerful peace its various labours close ; 
 May no dark cloud obscure its soften'd ray, 
 Nor ruffling tempest shake its calm repose.'
 
 WIT AND WISDOM 215 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 SPA AND FOREIGN TOUR 
 
 Soon after the treaty of peace was signed 
 in the beginning of the year 1763, Mr. and 
 Mrs. Montagu and Lord Bath persuaded Mrs. 
 Carter to make a tour on the Continent with 
 them, in the course of which they were to visit 
 Spa for the benefit of Lord Bath's health. 
 They were also accompanied by Dr. Douglas, 
 afterwards Bishop of Salisbury, the learned 
 detector of literary forgeries, who was Chaplain 
 to Lord Bath, and his intimate friend. Mrs. 
 Montagu said that when she had Mrs. Carter 
 she had nothing to wish for ; and Mrs. Carter 
 declared she would even enjoy Mrs. Montagu's 
 company in a ramble by moonlight, amongst 
 the ruins of an old abbey. This wish expressed 
 more than a thousand speeches, for she said, 
 there are many very good sort of folks whom 
 one may tolerate, and even be mighty pleased
 
 2i6 A WOMAN OF 
 
 with, in broad sunshine who would be quite 
 insufferable by moonlight. 
 
 She had visited Oxford and Blenheim with 
 a set of very well-meaning folk, some of whom 
 were dull, some were peevish, and some were 
 in love ; and most of them, even in their natural 
 state, would have considered a consular statue 
 of Cicero and a waxen image of Queen Anne 
 in pretty much the same light, so, for want of a 
 companion of critical taste and glowing imagina- 
 tion to give distinction, the whole expedition 
 made her heartily weary. She could enjoy the 
 pleasures of imagination in solitude, or in still 
 greater perfection with a companion of taste 
 and spirit, but to be bound to worthy people, 
 who saw no difference between the ruins of a 
 Gothic castle and a square brick house, the 
 solemn music of a waterfall and the sharpening 
 of a saw, and that never allowed her to dwell 
 on any object that struck her, she could not 
 endure. These uncongenial companions were 
 nevertheless a set of literary people from St. 
 John's Gate. Before they had gone ten miles 
 they were seized with pangs of hunger, that 
 wreaked its rage on a plum-cake at the nearest 
 village. While she decorated Waller's grave 
 at Beaconsfield with laurels, and made a poetic
 
 WIT AND WISDOM 217 
 
 excursion to the top of a hill, treading on 
 hyacinths and violets, and conversing with the 
 genius of the wood, the literati plodded 
 prosaically along the road, and described her 
 powers of climbing as merely acrobatic. 
 
 Mrs. Carter with the Montagus and Lord 
 Bath landed at Calais on June 5, and returned 
 to Dover on September 19 of the same year. 
 They went first to Spa, then after a short tour 
 in Germany proceeded down the Rhine into 
 Holland ; and thence through Brussels, Ghent, 
 Bruges, and Dunkirk to Calais again. 
 
 Their equipages consisted of a coach, a vis- 
 a-vis, a post-chaise, and a chaise-marine, with 
 ten or twelve outriders. A vis-a-vis, so called 
 from the fact that only two persons could sit 
 facing each other, was a narrow, contracted 
 coach, where it was possible to ' sit warmer ' 
 than in other carriages, and was so confined 
 as to prevent passengers being tossed about. 
 Though somewhat higher in the body than an 
 ordinary coach, it did not usually exceed it in 
 weight. The vis-a-vis was seldom used by any 
 other than persons of high character or fashion. 
 
 According to a French-German dictionary 
 a ' chaise-marine ' was a sedan-chair, and a 
 ' chasse-maree ' a fish-cart. The ' chaise-
 
 2i8 A WOMAN OF 
 
 marine ' possibly combined the advantages of 
 both. 
 
 Mrs. Carter travelled with ' as little Incum- 
 brance as is possible for any animal not clothed 
 with wool or feathers,' and made the best of any 
 difficulties on the road ; once at the end of 
 a journey she declared that she felt 'pretty 
 faint, having taken nothing but serpents' food 
 [dust] on the way.' She found the ' politesse 
 et empressement pour vous servir' of the 
 lower orders in France very engaging, though 
 throughout her foreign travels she was struck 
 with the infinite inferiority of all advantages 
 when put in competition with the Bible and 
 Magna Charta. 
 
 There was a little perruquier with a most 
 magnificent queue, belonging to the inn at 
 Calais, who was her second page ; she adds, 
 ' My first is provided for me by my Lord Bath, 
 a little French boy with an English face.' 
 
 This 'little rogue of a page' was ex- 
 cessively entertained when, on Mrs. Montagu 
 and Mrs Carter inquiring if it were possible to 
 see the inside of a convent, a nun answered : 
 ' Pas sans y rester au moins.' Such confine- 
 ment would hardly have suited the social tastes 
 of the ' Bas Bleu ' ladies.
 
 WIT AND WISDOM 219 
 
 The roads appeared very fine, but tore the 
 English vehicles all to pieces. The horses 
 were harnessed with ropes, and the travellers 
 were thankful when they arrived with no worse 
 accident than some fractures in their tackle, 
 which was always getting out of gear. 
 
 Lord Bath's coach lost one of its hind 
 wheels half-way between Brussels and Liege ; 
 the damage took two hours to repair, so there 
 was no hope of reaching their destination by 
 daylight, which was desirable in the lawless and 
 undisciplined territory of Liege, described by 
 Mrs. Montagu as ' the Seven Dials of Europe.' 
 However, as the evening was fine, except for 
 some apprehensions from the crippled state of 
 the coach, they went on in good spirits. 
 
 Just as they had passed the Gate of Liege, 
 which is situated at the bottom of a long steep 
 hill, Mrs. Montagu and Mrs. Carter, who were 
 in the vis-a-vis, heard a violent crash, followed 
 by a fearful yelling in the street, which the 
 darkness made still more terrible. They found 
 it to be what they apprehended : the coach was 
 broken. Nobody was hurt, but Mrs. Montagu 
 was so frightened that Mrs. Carter was afraid 
 she would faint. In this perplexity she spied 
 an honest-looking man with a candle at the
 
 220 A WOMAN OF 
 
 side of their vehicle, who, to her great comfort, 
 could speak French, so she begged he would 
 let her come into his house. With ' great good 
 nature ' he offered to call an English gentleman 
 who lodged with him. Here she procured 
 some hartshorn for Mrs. Montagu, and by the 
 time she got better, my Lord Bath and Mr. 
 Montagu arrived perfectly unhurt. 
 
 From Liege to Spa all the carriages held 
 out very well, except the * chaise-marine,' 
 which was overturned. The little page, with 
 whom my Lord Bath had provided Mrs. 
 Carter, gave a terrible account of the affair. 
 * A gun, which was deeply loaded, broke in 
 pieces by the overthrow, but did not go off' 
 
 At Spa the rains were perpetual, and they 
 went on * drinking and clothing ' themselves in 
 water. On the walks of the Geronsterre were 
 seen priests and Hussars, beaux and hermits, 
 nuns and fine ladies, stars and crosses, cowls 
 and ribbons, all blended together in the most 
 lively and picturesque manner imaginable. As 
 to beaux esprits, Mrs. Carter thanked her stars 
 she had neither seen nor heard of such trum- 
 pery in the place, and there seemed to be none 
 of those fashionable pests of society, the bucks 
 and choice spirits among them. The society of
 
 \ 
 
 WIT AND WISDOM 221 
 
 Spa was the least factious of any she had ever 
 met at a water-drinking place ; for there were 
 neither quarrels, nor parties, nor lampoons ; 
 people in general drank their water, and held 
 their toncrues. Mrs. Carter's definition of a 
 lampoon in a country town had relieved her 
 friend, Miss Talbot, in a grievous fit of the 
 spleen. In Canterbury,^ she said, everything 
 that people do not like or understand is com- 
 prehended under the name of a lampoon, 
 whether it be prose or verse, song, riddle, 
 panegyric, or funeral elegy. 
 
 Our countrymen were at that time held in 
 good repute on the Continent. An old French 
 general said he had fought against them with 
 all his might, in order to gain their good 
 opinion. 
 
 Princess Esterhazy wished to be introduced 
 as soon as possible to the English, but desired 
 to take her own time as to the rest of the 
 company ; so quiet were they, that Mrs. Carter 
 felt a little foolish at hearing a foreigner ob- 
 serve maliciously that it would not be known 
 there were any of her countrymen at Spa if a 
 footman did not now and then run through the 
 street, screaming in English after a stray dog. 
 
 ' See p. 52.
 
 222 A WOMAN OF 
 
 She was, however, scandalised to see some 
 of her * compatriotes ' whom she had formerly 
 known with pale, decent, unsophisticated faces 
 at Bath and Tunbridge, now appearing at Spa 
 in glaring Parisian complexion. * It is pro- 
 digious,' she exclaimed ; ' how I long to beat 
 them.' The Comtesse de Choiseul had just 
 come from Paris with a face like a coach 
 wheel. French manners seemed to be grow- 
 ing as universal as their language, and even 
 German gravity appeared to have ' culbute ' into 
 French philosophy. It was quite terrifying to 
 meet a chapter of German Chanoinesses all 
 with such fierceness of countenance. The 
 most complete beauty, however, was one of 
 their order, who, with nothing to put one in 
 mind of the Venuses and Helens of old, had 
 the expression and countenance of an angel. 
 
 Everyone at Spa was preparing to pay their 
 court to Princess Ferdinand of Prussia, but as 
 a hoop was absolutely necessary, Mrs. Carter 
 declined the honour of looking silly in the 
 Royal presence, for no hoop had she, and no 
 hoop did she design to have. After all, the 
 Princess gave a dispensation for going without 
 hoops, but one of Mrs. Carter's severe head- 
 aches got her out of the scrape.
 
 WIT AND WISDOM 223 
 
 Poor Prince Ferdinand of Prussia suffered 
 much from the unkind treatment of his brother, 
 Frederick the Great ; this hero, as Mrs. Carter 
 said, 'who defied Omnipotence, this philosopher 
 sans souci who was the slave of his own capri- 
 cious humours and the torment of all who had 
 any dependence on his favour.' At Spa Prince 
 and Princess Ferdinand were very gay and 
 joyous, their manners were unaffected and 
 agreeable, and ' Vive la bagatelle ! ' seemed to 
 be their motto. 
 
 The Princess was a most indefatigable 
 dancer ; she wore a cap of such a size as had 
 never yet been seen upon the head of the 
 tallest plebeian gentlewoman. Her Royal 
 Highness and her suite were the most extra- 
 ordinary sight, their dresses were so ridiculously 
 stiff that they put Mrs. Carter in mind of King 
 Pharaoh's Court in a puppet show. They 
 were laced within an inch of their lives, their 
 stays excessively stiff, and their stomachs of 
 an amazing length, nearly approaching to their 
 chins. But what struck her most was that 
 their features were at a dead stand ; never did 
 anything in the human countenance so much 
 realize the fable of the Gorgon. The Princess, 
 strange to say, had a fine complexion, and was
 
 224 A WOMAN OF 
 
 as pretty as it was possible to be with such 
 a stony look. As for her French pronunciation, 
 all that could be said of it was * Cela ecorche les 
 oreilles.' 
 
 Mrs. Carter declared that for her own part, 
 she had never since she came to Spa been in 
 love to signify, except with a Russian Ambas- 
 sador, a pretty little man, who had cast the 
 bear-skin, and did not at all resemble the plump 
 gentleman with the arrow in his throat on her 
 seal. But Mrs. Montagu, who was very fond 
 of the fine folk and fine things of this nether 
 world, carried on an infinite flirtation with the 
 Prince Bishop of Augsburg, * en attendant le 
 Roi de Prusse'. 
 
 The talents of this Royal Prelate did not 
 appear to Mrs. Carter to be of the most shining 
 kind, like his diamonds. But arrayed in a 
 blossom-coloured coat, with embroidered star 
 and diamond cross, there was perfect decorum 
 and much good nature in his behaviour, and in 
 his religion she believed him to be perfectly 
 sincere. He desired her not to have the head- 
 ache the evenings she was engaged to dine 
 with him, but the headache, alas ! was no 
 flatterer of foreign Princes. In the midst of 
 this society of grave bishops, serene princesses,
 
 WIT AND WISDOM 225 
 
 English lords and ladies, High Dutch barons, 
 Low Dutch burgomasters, and Flemish fat 
 gentlewomen, Mrs. Carter wrote : * Dining 
 with Princes and Princesses to be sure is 
 one way of life, and playing at penny qua- 
 drille is another ; each is a mighty good thing 
 in its turn, and I can very cordially accom- 
 modate myself to both ; but in spite of all 
 the honours and amusements of Spa, I look 
 forward with great delight to seeing my friends 
 at Deal again.' 
 
 On their return journey Mr. and Mrs. 
 Montagu, Lord Bath, and Mrs. Carter dined at 
 the Haoue with Prince Louis of Brunswick. All 
 the Foreign Ministers were there ; the entertain- 
 ment was 'very noble,' about forty-five dishes 
 in each course. They crossed from Rotterdam 
 in a vile vessel to Moerdyke ; the navigation of 
 the river so near its mouth was very unsafe, 
 but it could only have been avoided by crossing 
 a ferry four miles long, where the father of the 
 late Prince of Orange was drowned sitting in 
 his coach. Much was said to reconcile the 
 ladies to a nocturnal expedition, but they were 
 thunderstruck at the information that they 
 were to embark and sail all night ; they 
 found the cabins and beds very good for people 
 
 Q
 
 226 A WOMAN OF 
 
 who could breathe without air, but, having no 
 inchnation to be buried aUve, they insisted on 
 having the state room to themselves for the 
 night, and resigned the beds below to the 
 gentlemen, who were so charmed with them. 
 As to my Lord Bath, he was so impatient to get 
 into his delectable hole that he went off early in 
 the afternoon with great glee. As soon as they 
 landed they procured, as fast as they could, 
 a ' miserable, ragged, dirty thing called a coach,' 
 and hurried away to Breda, and there immedi- 
 ately went to bed. 
 
 At Brussels they waited on Lady Prim- 
 rose, and met a lady who desired to be intro- 
 duced to them. Mrs. Carter added : ' I hap- 
 pened to be in a talking fit, and as I always talk 
 bad French much more boldly than I do good 
 English, there was no end to my larum ; so 
 the poor soul is gone home, blessing herself, 
 and crossing herself, and praying to every saint 
 in her calendar to deliver her from ever more 
 attempting to be introduced to a learned lady.'
 
 WIT AND WISDOM 227 
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 BODY AND MIND 
 
 Mrs. Carter considered long life a ' tremen- 
 dous blessing ' ; she was 
 
 'Joyful to live, yet not afraid to die.' 
 
 It was a very ' fashionable maxim ' that people 
 should forget their friends, and drive the 
 remembrance of mortality out of their heads 
 as fast as possible. But the thoughts of 
 death did not depress her, for she never 
 allowed her mind to dwell on the physical 
 aspect ; in all her meditations on the sub- 
 ject she passed at once from this life to a 
 better. Life, with all its toils and sufferings, 
 is mercifully diversified with comforts and 
 pleasures that render it greatly preferable to 
 non-existence. Innumerable joys find a place 
 amidst the evils of mortality ; we suffer only 
 just enough to reconcile us to the limits of our 
 present life, and to make us look forward to 
 that which is to come. If every prospect were 
 
 Q2
 
 228 A WOMAN OF 
 
 limited by the grave, what horror should we 
 feel at the thought of quitting a world full of 
 wonder, beauty, and magnificence ! How terri- 
 ble to close our eyes on the flowery earth and 
 radiant sun, to ' leave the warm precincts of 
 the cheerful day,' and sink into a cold, dark, 
 eternal night ! To lose all sense of intellectual 
 pleasure and human affection ! From this 
 dreadful extinction Mrs. Carter exclaimed, 
 ' God be thanked we are secured ! ' Much as 
 she was attached to this world, she heartily 
 rejoiced that it was not to last for ever. 
 
 Yet she had little curiosity concerning a 
 better. She was content and thankful to know 
 that those who endeavour to fulfil the conditions 
 on which future happiness is promised, and to 
 perform their present duties, will, when the 
 task is over, infallibly be happy, and convinced 
 that He Who formed our capacities for happiness 
 alone knows what will make us so. * We can 
 none of us,' she concluded, ' feel much concern 
 at the thoughts of being divested of spasms, 
 apoplexies, fluttering nerves, and aching heads.' 
 The humiliation of mortal frailty can never be 
 completely subdued but in that state where alone 
 the ' spirits of the just ' will be ' made perfect.' 
 
 When advanced in life she wrote : ' It is
 
 WIT AND WISDOM 229 
 
 my birthday ; there are few people who have 
 so many reasons to be fond of life as myself, 
 and yet perhaps there are not many to whom 
 the thoughts of its being so far advanced would 
 give less concern. In a course of travelling, 
 though the road be ever so pleasant, and the 
 company ever so good, one cannot help some- 
 times feeling that one is not at home, and 
 looking forward to the journey's end. How 
 thankful ought we to be that there is at last a 
 home, where all who do not wilfully take a 
 wrong path will be sure to find repose and 
 security, which in the most prosperous journey 
 can never be found on the road. Yet, except 
 in cases of violent pain, life has always its 
 attractions, and the weary passenger, though in 
 sight of home, and travelling through a rough 
 path, yet sees on either hand some flowery 
 spot, or hears some tuneful note ; and thus 
 charmed by colour and enlivened by song, 
 walks contentedly on, without too impatient 
 wishes for the end of the journey.' 
 
 She had always been struck with the truth 
 of Seneca's observation, that ' nothing is really 
 great which is not calm and gentle,' and she 
 scarcely recollected any passage in antiquity so 
 melancholy as the answer of a celebrated orator,
 
 230 A WOMAN OF 
 
 on being asked how he did : * As well as any- 
 one can who is turned of fourscore, and who 
 considers death as the greatest of all evils.' 
 Death, when considered without any regard to 
 futurity, must appear dreadful to the best and 
 wisest of men. ' Such brutes as Diosfenes 
 and Crates, indeed, might treat the idea of 
 death very cavalierly ; might throw themselves 
 on the first dunghill and die without regret. 
 For what motive had they to wish to live ? 
 They cared for nobody ; and the world, which 
 in this matter is always perfectly just and well- 
 bred, returned the compliment, and nobody 
 cared for them.' When asked the same ques- 
 tion, Mrs. Carter answered : ' As to your 
 inquiries of how I do ? and what I think ? I 
 do like anyone who every day feels increasing 
 symptoms of the depredations of time on a 
 shattered machine, and I endeavour to think 
 such thoughts as befit such a discovery.' 
 
 Mrs. Carter held it to be a very unreason- 
 able kind of impatience to quarrel with those 
 elements to which we belong, and which, with 
 all their inconveniences, we are generally very 
 unwilling to quit ; yet the world can never 
 bestow any real and secure enjoyment, unless 
 it is connected with the hope of a better. For
 
 WIT AND WISDOM 231 
 
 the dark cloud of death is ever impending over 
 the gayest scene, and the trap-door constantly 
 opening beneath our feet. Surely it must be 
 worth our attention to try and penetrate the 
 shade, and discover the prospect of immortality 
 and happiness beyond. 
 
 No one can dispute Bourdaloue's assertion, 
 that as the certainty of dying is more assured 
 than any other truth that can be demonstrated 
 or proved, the only way to annihilate the fear 
 of it is to dare to look it in the face. ' I 
 must die,' wrote Epictetus ; 'but must I die 
 groaning ? Why should I not depart smiling, 
 cheerful and serene ? ' ' Keep your eye steadily 
 fixed on the great reality of death,' he added, 
 ' and all other things will shrink to their true 
 proportion.' 
 
 Mrs. Carter agreed with a friend who 
 wrote : ' Death is almost the only subject that 
 is never treated of in conversation, farther than 
 a mere uninteresting fact. Were any number 
 of persons destined to embark for a distant, 
 unknown country, of whom some might be 
 called upon to-morrow, and all must be called 
 thither soon, would they not be inquiring 
 amongst themselves how each was provided for 
 the journey, and excite each other to despatch
 
 232 A WOMAN OF 
 
 what yet was possible to be done, and might 
 to-morrow be irretrievably too late ? Yet the 
 flight of time is mighty apt to deceive our 
 observation. How seldom is it that the mind 
 can rise to that point of view whence it sur- 
 veys time hurrying on towards eternity, and 
 inviting all our hopes and fears to follow.' 
 
 A French preacher observed that ' though 
 we know we must die we are not persuaded of 
 it because we do not know when or how, or 
 under what circumstances.' We are still just as 
 we were in childhood, when the nurse, whose 
 authority was final on all grave subjects, under 
 severe cross-examination always placed the life 
 of man at a hundred years, regardless of the 
 Psalmist's opinion to the contrary. To the 
 small child who ' felt its life in every limb,' 
 and had no doubt of being;- able to reach its 
 utmost limit, was not that practically eternity ? 
 
 An attempt to recall our earliest thoughts 
 on the subject shows us that our own crude 
 and childish notions of death were not, after all, 
 far removed from those of the greatest empire- 
 maker of our day, to whose powerful mind the 
 position and surroundings of a resting-place for 
 the * sheer hulk ' he had once inhabited seemed 
 of supreme importance. As children in imagina-
 
 WIT AND WISDOM 233 
 
 tlon, we localised a probable spot, it may be 
 some tiny country church, occasionally visited, 
 where our forbears lay, the prevailing at- 
 mosphere of the family pew forming a basis 
 for speculation as to the aspect of the unseen 
 vault below. Monotony and confinement, in 
 which there would be the semi-consciousness of 
 a sleepless night, summed up the impression. In 
 London, of course, the neat and vacant gravel 
 enclosures surrounding the churches conveyed 
 the comforting assurance that, in town at least, 
 no one ever died, though in the darkness of a 
 winter's evening, that appeared to be the middle 
 of the night, when the wind was in a certain 
 direction, a bugle call rang clearly out, and 
 represented to the imagination the agitating 
 phenomenon of the last trumpet. These early 
 impressions were assisted by the study of 
 Bunyan's ' Pilgrim's Progress,' at an age when 
 the beauty of its language could not be appre- 
 ciated, and the 'foul fiend Apollyon ' with his 
 hideous monsters, and Giant Despair of grim 
 and surly voice, with his dark and nasty 
 dungeon, were more sensational and realistic 
 than the instruction about the Better Land, 
 which even the hymn admitted to be 
 
 ' Far, far away.'
 
 234 A WOMAN OF 
 
 Wandering one afternoon into a country- 
 church, at a time of great sorrow, the writer 
 found these childish and heathenish ideas being 
 actually inculcated by the following hymn for 
 the young : 
 
 ' Within the churchyard, side by side, 
 
 Are many long, low graves. 
 And some have stones set over them. 
 On some the green grass waves. 
 
 * Full many a little Christian child, 
 
 Woman, and man, lies there ; 
 And we pass near them every time 
 When we go in to prayer, 
 
 ' They cannot hear our footsteps come, 
 
 They do not see us pass ; 
 They cannot feel the warm, bright sun 
 That shines upon the grass. 
 
 Cr. ' They do not hear when the great bell 
 Is ringing overhead ; 
 They cannot rise and come to church 
 Dim. With us, for they are dead.' 
 
 At which point the wheezing organ sank 
 into a tragic diminuendo, to convey to the 
 children's minds the helpless and hopeless 
 sensation of those who could not rise and come 
 to church, * for they are dead.' It is only fair 
 to add that the concludino- verses mention 
 the resurrection, though the materialistic and
 
 WIT AND WISDOM 235 
 
 earthly aspect In which it is often represented 
 is entirely opposed to St. Paul's explanation 
 of the grain of wheat. The gloomy and morbid 
 views of death conveyed by the words : 
 
 ' Soon will you and I be lying 
 Each within his narrow bed,' 
 
 ignores the fact, that the one place where we 
 never can be is our own tomb, unless we are 
 buried alive. 
 
 Mrs. Carter wrote to Mrs. Vesey, who had 
 been sinking her spirits by reflections on moss- 
 covered grave-stones, ' Why will you suffer 
 your imagination to fix itself on the dismal 
 sound of the passing bell, and the dark chambers 
 of the grave, instead of teaching it to wander 
 through the regions of light and immortality, 
 amidst the great community of happy spirits ? 
 You love society ; take a view of that brilliant 
 assembly described by an author who gives 
 such excellent rules for securing admission to 
 " the city of the living God and the innumerable 
 company of angels, and the spirits of just men 
 made perfect" ' (Heb. xii. 22, &c.). 
 
 If the mind, like Plato's discontented ghosts, 
 only hovers over that scene of melancholy and 
 desolation, without penetrating into the world
 
 236 A WOMAN OF 
 
 of life, activity, and social joy beyond it, from 
 which the gentle spirits of those we mourn 
 look back with compassion on our imperfect 
 and Insecure enjoyments, we are perpetually 
 endeavouring to keep up their connection with 
 our own, by inviting them back from the 
 unfading blooms of paradise to a participation 
 of our mortal roses with all their thorns, instead 
 of accompanying our departed friends into their 
 happy estate. But so it must be, for while on 
 a future world we only reason, in whatever 
 relates to the present we feel. We think with 
 pleasure of friends now vanished out of sight, 
 with whom a few months ago we conversed 
 familiarly on this subject, whose minds are now 
 open to these astonishing scenes. What clear 
 views they have of those great truths that the 
 foolish bustle of this world obscures ! 
 
 Mrs. Carter anticipated through every 
 change of existence continued enjoyment in 
 the exercise of her intellect and affections, for 
 she said, ' Wherever God's will is made the 
 supreme object, all talents and all opportunities 
 become great, and extend their consequences 
 to eternity ; while the most splendid effects 
 that are produced from merely human or selfish 
 motives vanish Into nothing, and are lost in the
 
 WIT AND WISDOM 237 
 
 chaos of succeeding events. No wonder that 
 the joys of folly should have their completion 
 in a world with which they are to end, while 
 those of a higher order should be incomplete 
 in a world where they are only to begin. For 
 when death once drops the curtain on the 
 harlequin farce of versatile, unmeaning folly, 
 all hope of any future representation is for ever 
 lost.' Two things, said Epictetus, are mingled 
 in the generation of man : body in common 
 with the animals, and reason and intelligence 
 in common with the gods. Many incline to 
 the kinship that is mortal and miserable, and 
 few to that which is Divine and happy. 
 
 The gentle but feeble-minded Mrs. Vesey, 
 who was tormented with doubts and fears on 
 all subjects both in heaven and earth, bid Mrs. 
 Carter tell her what no mortal can tell, the 
 manner in which soul and body are affected by 
 each other. She answered, ' Our being so little 
 able to account for a point so intimately near 
 us affords a striking lesson of humility, and 
 should check our idle curiosity in other in- 
 stances of truth beyond our comprehension. 
 
 ' In vain we search the wondrous cause to find 
 How mind on body, body acts on mind.'
 
 238 A WOMAN OF 
 
 The union between body and soul must 
 ever be unaccountable to all human researches. 
 Dean Swift lost his understanding while he 
 retained robust bodily strength. Bishop Sher- 
 lock preserved the whole vigour of his soul 
 when his body was entirely worn out. In some 
 the powers of body and mind sink gradually 
 together in a gentle decay. Old age is indeed 
 a sad season if the mind goes first, but, God be 
 thanked, it is often otherwise. 
 
 Socrates allowed no more personal existence 
 to the material and visible part of the human 
 composition than the garment that covers it 
 — a speculation Mrs. Carter thought very 
 fine and very true. Yet she said, so strong 
 were her prejudices, that though this external 
 nothing was only a circumstance belonging to 
 her friend Mrs. Vesey, liable to be overturned 
 on a precipice or drowned in the Irish Sea, 
 she should feel very differently on any such an 
 accident than if it happened to Mrs. Vesey's 
 respectable crimson furred cloak. 
 
 Of what corporeal identity consists not all 
 solutions of chemistry, Mrs. Carter supposed, 
 will ever be able to unfold. The real essence 
 of every individual body may perhaps be com- 
 prised in a single particle of a texture so con-
 
 WIT AND WISDOM 239 
 
 stituted, as to resist all the waste and impression 
 of time and accidents, and capable of being 
 expanded into all the proportions of an or- 
 ganised form. This conjecture, she added, 
 implies no contradiction, and seems to solve 
 every difficulty. The microscope discovers the 
 largest oak to be contained in the acorn, and 
 the full ear in a grain of wheat, the very simile 
 of which St. Paul makes use. 
 
 The Romans, during the persecution of the 
 Christians under Marcus Aurelius, must have 
 vaguely felt this indestructibility of the indi- 
 vidual, for in the martyrdom of Polycarp, not 
 satisfied with killing his body, they threw his 
 ashes into the river, hoping to destroy that 
 essence of life which like the grain of wheat 
 will again expand into a spiritual body. 
 
 ' Our views on mummies,' a learned friend 
 lately remarked, ' depends on the use we an- 
 ticipate for our bodies in the future.' For the 
 absolute material shell that our spirits once 
 inhabited there is assuredly none, therefore 
 the method by which it returns to mother earth 
 once more to join in the eternal process of re- 
 vivification, is immaterial, but for that essence or 
 germ through which our bodies of humiliation 
 will be * made like unto His glorious body,' the
 
 240 A WOMAN OF 
 
 use will be eternal. Dr. Johnson reminds us 
 that the grain which is sown is not the same 
 as the grain which grows, but that it is enough 
 if there be such a sameness as to distinguish 
 the identity of person. We may smile at the 
 idea of those sects who have thought any 
 mutilation of the body in this life would injure 
 it for the next, and therefore would not permit 
 even the necessary amputation of a limb, but 
 the root of the idea is a beautiful one. In 
 childhood, any attempt to criticise the appear- 
 ance of our fellow-creatures was promptly 
 checked by a severe reminder that people do 
 not make themselves, whereas by every thought, 
 word, and deed, by every trick, habit and 
 expression they are every day making them- 
 selves, not only their minds but their bodies, 
 both for time and for eternity, and should be 
 striving with both towards perfection. Their 
 characters have built up everything but the 
 mere shell. Beauty from within is neither skin- 
 deep nor fleeting as we were taught, and what- 
 ever the outer frame may be like, wherever the 
 beauty of the mind and spirit shine out, every 
 fresh line adds force and character, and shows 
 the greatness of the soul within. Only those 
 deform that come from a narrow, envious, hard
 
 WIT AND WISDOM 241 
 
 and frivolous disposition. Though the influence 
 of heredity cannot be denied, we are descended 
 from what Carlyle calls such a * cartload of 
 ancestors ' that the influence of one may neutra- 
 lise that of the other, and we are practically 
 free to follow what is good in the best of them. 
 Warning is as valuable as example. The pro- 
 cess by which our bodies will decay and our 
 personality remain unchanged is even now 
 taking place, for science teaches us that every 
 particle changes in seven years, and yet that 
 same indestructible individuality continues 
 throughout our lives. The resurrection, if ac- 
 cepted according to St. Paul's spiritual teach- 
 ing and not obscured by the materialistic ideas 
 of our own earthly minds, solves all doubts as 
 to our retaining our individuality and powers 
 of recognition in eternity. Even the ancients, 
 when they looked on the unearthly beauty 
 and majesty of death, intuitively felt its resem- 
 blance to sleep. 
 
 Mrs. Carter found among the innumerable 
 advantages of true religion was that of its 
 freeing the mind from the terrors of super- 
 stition. She wrote to Mrs. Vesey, who was 
 tormented with doubts about a future state : 
 
 ' Why did you start and turn your eyes to 
 
 R
 
 242 A WOMAN OF 
 
 the opening door ? Ah, my dear Mrs. Vesey, 
 the heart is wiser and honester than the head. 
 If at that hour of silence and solemn thought 
 Lady Anne [Dawson] had been permitted to 
 stand before you, could even that have been 
 more convincing than the voice of common 
 sense, which with intuitive perception assents 
 to the truth of eternal revelation, and pro- 
 nounces it impossible that such virtue could 
 ever die.' 
 
 Mrs. Carter's mind was 'perpetually thwarted 
 and held back by the weakness of her body, 
 and her intellectual pursuits interrupted by a 
 weak head and fluttering nerves, that no change 
 of air or water would affect, but the air of 
 paradise, and the waters which are bordered by 
 the tree of life.' She knew something of the 
 contention of which St. Paul speaks, the war- 
 fare of the flesh and the spirit. 
 
 Her mind, Mrs. Chapone said, should have 
 been joined to a Herculean body, which could 
 have supported its share of the fatigues of so 
 active a companion. In the quarrels of Mrs. 
 Carter's body and mind, she was inclined to 
 side with body, who as she suspected met with 
 hard usage from its towering mate, who seemed 
 to treat it with disdain, and hardly acknowledge
 
 WIT AND WISDOM 243 
 
 it as a companion and partner. Mrs. Chapone 
 
 declared she would in fact as soon be Dr 
 
 Jortin's wife ; and yet it had always been her 
 
 prayer that she might never be the wife of an 
 
 overgrown scholar. 
 
 In 1740, at the age of twenty-three, Mrs. 
 
 Carter wrote the following dialogue on the 
 
 subject : 
 
 ' Says Body to Mind, " 'Tis amazing to see, 
 
 We're so nearly related, yet never agree, 
 
 But lead a most wrangling, strange sort of life, 
 
 As great plague to each other as husband and wife. 
 
 The fault's all your own, who with flagrant oppression 
 
 Encroach ev'ry day on my lawful possession. 
 
 The best room ^ in my house you have seized for your own. 
 
 And turn'd the whole tenement quite upside down, 
 
 While you hourly call in a disorderly crew 
 
 Of vagabond rogues,^ that have nothing to do 
 
 But run in and out, hurry scurry, and keep 
 
 Such a horrible uproar, I can't get to sleep. 
 
 There's my kitchen ^ sometimes is as empty as sound, 
 
 I call for my servants,'* not one's to be found : 
 
 They all are sent out on your Ladyship's errand, 
 
 To fetch some more riotous guests in, I warrant ! 
 
 And since things are growing, I see, worse and worse, 
 
 I'm determin'd to force you to alter your course." 
 
 Poor Mind, who heard all with extreme moderation, 
 
 Thought it now time to speak, and make her allegation : 
 
 " 'Tis I that, methinks, have most cause to complain, 
 
 Who am crampt and confin'd like a slave in a chain. 
 
 ' The head. '' The thoughts. ' The stomach. 
 
 ' The spirits. 
 
 R 2
 
 244 A WOMAN OF 
 
 I did but step out, on some weighty affairs, 
 
 To visit, last night, my good friends in the stars, 
 
 When, before I was got half as high as the moon, 
 
 You dispatch'd Pain and Languor to hurry me down ; 
 
 Vi et armis they seiz'd me, in midst of my flight. 
 
 And shut me in caverns as dark as the night." 
 
 '"Twas no more," reply'd Body, "than what you deserv'd; 
 
 While you rambled abroad, I at home was half starv'd, 
 
 And, unless I had closely confin'd 3'ou in hold, 
 
 You had left me to perish with hunger and cold." 
 
 " I've a friend," answers Mind, "who, tho' slow, is yet sure, 
 
 And will rid me, at last, of your insolent pow'r : 
 
 Will knock down your mud walls, the whole fabric demolish, 
 
 And at once your strongholds and my slav'ry abolish : 
 
 And while in the dust your dull ruins decay, 
 
 I shall snap off my chains and fly freely away." ' 
 
 The above dialogue was no doubt intended 
 to show that as, to the Christian, divorce and 
 suicide are ahke impossible, body and mind 
 during their temporary connection must, by a 
 system of give and take, find a modus vivendi, 
 and like an ill-assorted couple try not to let 
 their diverse interests and inclinations clash, till 
 at last something like real harmony will grow 
 up. The body if its weaknesses are neglected 
 will revenge itself, and always manage to have 
 the last word. The note of triumph in the last 
 two lines expresses the release of the mind, 
 which at death flies freely away from that ' dull 
 clog the body,' just as in our dreams, unfettered
 
 WIT AND WISDOM 245 
 
 by distance and a thousand other disabilities, 
 we pass at once, 
 
 'So swift a pace hath thought,' 
 
 into the society of our friends and the enjoy- 
 ment of unrestrained intercourse. The sense 
 of detachment of body and mind is more 
 common amongst Eastern nations, and apart 
 from all differences of creed, accounts for much 
 of their indifference to death: that feeling that 
 St. Paul expresses as ' whether in the body or 
 out of the body I cannot tell, God knoweth.' 
 
 The prospect of a solitary passage through 
 the heavy road and dim twilight of our con- 
 cluding journey Mrs. Carter admitted was a 
 melancholy idea, but happily there are few 
 cases in which it is verified. Divine good- 
 ness raises up successive comforts through the 
 whole of our progress, which alleviates our sor- 
 row for those we have lost. ' Every individual 
 that strongly engages our affection has some 
 characteristic and distinguishing mark. Thus, 
 while our present companions assist us to pur- 
 sue our journey with cheerfulness and spirit, 
 the regret for those whom we have lost gives 
 a delightful prospect of our arrival at that 
 home where human happiness will be rendered
 
 246 A WOMAN OF 
 
 complete by the assembly of all those who 
 have assisted us through different stages of our 
 mortal passage.' 
 
 Mrs. Carter acted on Dr. Johnson's advice 
 and kept her friendship in constant repair. 
 For if a man does not make new friends as 
 he advances through life, he will very soon 
 find himself alone. 
 
 Pascal wrote : * II est injuste qu'on s'attache, 
 car on n'est la fin de personne.' 
 
 The end of all living creatures Mrs. Carter 
 argued was happiness. The pleasure and 
 affection we feel in the fine qualities of our 
 associates is one of the noblest and most 
 reasonable sources of human happiness. To 
 justify this attachment it is not necessary that 
 we should be the ' end ' and sole object of our 
 friends, it suffices that we should be a means of 
 their happiness. Pascal continues : ' Mais il 
 est injuste que Ton s'attache, parce que nous 
 mourrons. ' ' Cela se r^pond fort naturellement, ' 
 exclaimed Mrs. Carter : 'nous revivrons.' ' May 
 we not delight in our friends because they may 
 be separated from us for a time ? An attach- 
 ment that does not look beyond the grave is 
 unworthy of being immortal. When one con- 
 templates this present life, not as a separate
 
 WIT AND WISDOM 247 
 
 state, but, as it is in truth, apart of eternity, the 
 objection that we must die does not affect the 
 question.' 
 
 Pascal's notions of duty appeared to Mrs. 
 Carter to be the outcome rather of a severe 
 and gloomy temper than to be founded on the 
 cheerful, social spirit of the Gospel. He was, 
 however, to be esteemed and compassionated 
 for having turned the edge of that severity 
 chiefly on his own ease. It was not in the New- 
 Testament that poor Pascal found a direction 
 for wearing a spiked girdle. What a monstrous 
 fabric of absurdities enthusiasm and supersti- 
 tion have erected on that simple plan which 
 Divine wisdom has proposed in the Gospel ! 
 
 'Very few,' she added, 'have sufficient 
 strength of mind not to be hurt by great 
 numbers of what are called good books. I am 
 not setting all serious reading at defiance. 
 Heaven forbid ! But it is most devoutly to be 
 wished, people would make their Bible their 
 principal study.' 
 
 Mrs. Carter's opinion of Pascal is merely 
 quoted for what it is worth. Whether his book 
 ' Les Pens^es ' is studied from a religious or 
 from merely a literary point of view, it must be 
 admitted to be one of the most perfect works
 
 248 A WOMAN OF 
 
 existing in the French language, and is incom- 
 parable in depth and beauty. Even Voltaire 
 allowed that Pascal was a model of eloquence 
 and humour. Mrs. Carter's horror of 'goody- 
 goody ' books has been shared by many seri- 
 ous thinkers, who deplore the mischief done 
 by them. But had she lived in the twentieth 
 century what would she have thought of the 
 religious novel, that is often irreligious and 
 even sacrilegious ? Sacred subjects are lightly 
 handled and even dragged through the mud, 
 and that by some of our most brilliant writers. 
 By harping on three strings they insure an 
 eager audience. They appeal to the weary and 
 heavy-laden hearts that, disappointed with the 
 distorted view of religion presented to them 
 through human agencies, are ready to hear any 
 new thing concerning those vital questions of 
 life and death with which they are at times 
 confronted. By sailing as near the wind as 
 they dare, along the thin imaginary border of 
 virtue and vice, they pander to the idle curiosity 
 of those who desire to penetrate the * mystery 
 of iniquity.' Finally, they appeal to the masses 
 by a caricature of social circles into which many 
 of their readers have no other means of access. 
 For instance, when the fundamental truths of
 
 WIT AND WISDOM 249 
 
 Christianity are treated as though they could be 
 lightly discarded and as lightly resumed, our 
 humanity and common sense are affronted ; for 
 it is assumed that our faith rests only on miracles, 
 while the Great Personality of their Worker, 
 that alone makes them credible, is lost sight of 
 From Hannah More, who was her zealous 
 and attached friend for near thirty years, Mrs. 
 Carter differed in religious views, ' just enough 
 to exercise their mutual charity.' To Mrs. 
 More, though she loved her honest, correct 
 heart, cultivated intellect, and calm, orderly 
 mind, Mrs. Carter appeared to be ' most 
 strictly High Church,' for she dreaded nothing 
 so much as irregularity, and scrupulously fore- 
 bore reading any book, however sound and 
 sober, which proceeded from any other quarter. 
 She would on no account read Doddridge or 
 Pascal. 
 
 To Mrs. Vesey — 1766 
 
 ' Yet check that impious thought, my gentle friend. 
 Which bounds our prospects by cur fleeting breath. 
 
 Which hopeless sees unfinish'd Life descend, 
 And ever bars the prison gates of Death. 
 
 ' Ah ! what is Friendship, if at once disjoin'd ? 
 The sympathetic tie unites no more ; 
 Ah ! what is Virtue, if below confined ? 
 The fruitless struggle of a toilsome hour.
 
 250 A WOMAN OF 
 
 ' To perfect good thro' each progressive stage 
 The pow'rs of intellectual being tend, 
 Nor raging elements, nor wasting age. 
 Shall e'er defeat their Heav'n-appointed end. 
 
 ' To perfect joy, from pain and chance secure. 
 
 The sighing heart springs upwards from the dust, 
 Where, safe from suff 'ring and from frailty pure, 
 Unite the social spirits of the just. 
 
 ' O'er the sad relics of our mortal clay 
 
 No more let Fancy sink in hopeless grief ; 
 But, rais'd by Faith to happier views, survey 
 The blooming forms of renovated life.' 
 
 ' Thus amidst the wastes of Mortality, the 
 havoc of raging elements, and the dissolutions 
 of consuming years, the thoughts look forward 
 to a period of restoration, and anticipate the 
 voice of the Archangel proclaiming to a reno- 
 vated world '* that time shall be no more." ' 
 
 Miss Catherine Phillimore has kindly al- 
 lowed me to add her beautiful translation of 
 Aleardo Aleardi's poem, in which he compares 
 the horse and his rider to soul and body 
 engaged in the battle of life, which like the 
 Italian races, with their fierce struggle for the 
 Palio, is more a fight than a race.
 
 WIT AND WISDOM 251 
 
 ' God hath knit 
 The Soul and Body in one mystic bond, 
 As horse and rider, and then sent them forth 
 To run their course upon the race of life. 
 Along the way the strife is permanent — 
 And now the rider with decided voice 
 The steed controls, and now with sudden swerve 
 The horse has thrown his rider in the dust. 
 Yet joined together onwards still they pass 
 O'er gently swelling slope through forest dark, 
 Flying o'er dreary marsh and pleasant plain. 
 Until at last one day the charger falls 
 Worn out, his strength all spent — 
 
 The hollow tomb 
 Gives back the echo of his dying groan. 
 
 ' Free to his feet the rider springs 
 And seeks the face of Him 
 Who counts alike each victory and each fall.' 
 
 As an octogenarian Mrs. Carter travelled 
 every winter by ' diligence ' to London, where 
 she found most of her friends had already 
 assembled, and ' the birthday ' brought the rest. 
 She usually set out from Deal by moonlight 
 at 8 r.M. and reached Clarges Street at 11 a.m. 
 the following day. The first part of the road 
 was safe from robbers, and daylight protected 
 the travellers, before they reached Hanging 
 Wood, where the highwaymen deposited their 
 ill-gotten gains in a cavern, that could only be
 
 252 A WOMAN OF 
 
 explored by a detachment of cavalry and foot. 
 They did not breakfast till they could do so 
 in security at Dartford. Mrs. Carter's friends 
 made a great outcry at her mode of travelling, 
 but she assured them there was no hazard, and 
 that she found it much easier than ' drawling 
 through ' two days and sleeping on the road. 
 In January 1801, at the age of eighty-four, she 
 dined with Lord Cremorne on the day of her 
 arrival, and felt no subsequent fatigue, though 
 owing to the state of the roads she had been 
 ' jolted black and blue.' She considered her- 
 self lucky in avoiding a heavy snow-storm, 
 and only complained that the dirt of the 
 London streets prevented her taking enough 
 exercise. 
 
 On December 24, 1805, Mrs. Carter arrived 
 in Clarges Street for her usual winter season. 
 She was able to dine with a few of her nearest 
 friends. Her whole life had been a preparation 
 for death, and she was ready when the sudden 
 call came. She spoke very little during her 
 last short illness, even to Lady Cremorne, her 
 most devoted friend, who never left her, and 
 on February 19, 1806, in her eighty-ninth 
 year, her happy spirit passed away without a 
 struggle.
 
 WIT AND WISDOM 253 
 
 Her body was interred in the burial-ground 
 of Grosvenor Chapel, in connection with St. 
 George's, Hanover Square, in accordance with 
 her desire that it should be buried * with as 
 little expense as possible ' wherever she died.
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 GENEALOGICAL NOTE 
 
 BY ROBERT BRUDENELL CARTER, F.R.C.S. 
 
 The recent inquiries of Mr. Francis Gallon and others 
 into the influence of heredity lend much support to 
 the belief that ' the life of every man is to some extent 
 written before he is born,' and that a knowledge of 
 past family or racial influences is of definite value as 
 an aid to the correct appreciation of character. 
 
 Elizabeth Carter was descended from a landed 
 family of moderate estate, which was settled from an 
 early period in Bedfordshire, and sent branches into 
 the adjacent counties of Buckingham and Hertford. 
 A common ancestor was Thomas Carter, of Higham, 
 in the county of Bedford, who was seated there in the 
 reign of Edward IV., and is mentioned in the records 
 of the Heralds' College as bearing arms, ' Azure, a 
 talbot statant between three round buckles, or.' On 
 the tomb of one of his descendants, William Carter, 
 erected in Kempston Church in 1702, it is said that 
 the body of the deceased was brought for burial to the 
 parish in which his family had ' possessed an estate
 
 256 A WOMAN OF 
 
 ever since the Conquest ' ; but this statement is perhaps 
 only the expression of local tradition. Thomas Carter 
 of Higham had three sons, of whom one, Richard, is 
 described as ' of Bedford,' and left descendants who 
 became landowners in the contiguous parishes of 
 Offley and Lilley, in the county of Herts, while 
 another son, William, and a third, Nicholas, are de- 
 scribed as ' of Kempston, in the county of Beds.' 
 All that is known of Nicholas is that he was Groom 
 of the Stole to Henry VHI., and that, among manu- 
 scripts in the British Museum, there is an authority 
 to him to make purchases of sheep and beeves for 
 the victualling both of the King's household and of 
 his intended military expedition beyond the seas. 
 The instrument is dated March i8, 15 13-4, and evi- 
 dently refers to the expedition to Calais in that year. 
 Nicholas Carter's will is in the Northampton registry, 
 and he divided his property between his sons, John 
 and Bartholomew, of whom there is no further record. 
 Nicholas Carter's brother William was a landed 
 proprietor at Kempston, and during the reign of 
 Henry VH., the arms, already mentioned, were 
 completed by the grant of a crest, ' Out of a mural 
 crown, or, masoned azure, a demi-monkey proper.' 
 This crest was probably in recognition of the work of 
 a member of the family who was received and rewarded 
 by the King on returning from a voyage to ' the New 
 Isle,' i.e. America. William Carter, whose will, 
 proved in 1500, is in the Northampton registry, was 
 succeeded at Kempston by his son Thomas, and he 
 by his son William, with whom the pedigree of Carter 
 of Kempston in the Bedfordshire Visitation of 1634
 
 Photo^r.iph by lil.ilic .'- Eii^ar. Bedford. 
 
 INSCRIPTION ON THE ANCELL MONUMENT ON THE NORTH WALL 
 OF THE CHANCEL WITHIN THE SANCTUARY, GREAT BARFORD 
 CHURCH, CO. BEDFORD (nR. ST. NEOTS). 
 
 ' Here lyeth the body of Thomas Ancell, son and heir to Edward Ancell of West 
 Mounton in the county of Somerset gent; who had to wife EHzabeth Whttley 
 dauiihter and co-heir of Robert Whetley of Gt. Joneby in the county of Cumber- 
 land gent, by whom he had issue sonnes: Whetley, Oliver, Thomas, and Nicholas 
 and left Thomas livinge and daughters Agnes, Rose, Mary, Temperance. Elizabeth, 
 Elizabeth and Anne, whereof he bestowed six in marriage and lift live of them 
 living and being of the age of 71 years deceased in the faythe of Christ the 27th day 
 of April Anno Dni 1591.'
 
 WIT AND WISDOM 257 
 
 commences. This William is therein recorded to have 
 married Elizabeth, sister and sole heir of William 
 Cranfield, of Great Barford, in the same county ; and 
 the son and heir of this marriage, also William, is 
 recorded to have married ' Mary, third daughter of 
 Thomas Aunscell, of Great Barford,' to whom and to 
 whose family there is an elaborate monument in Great 
 Barford Church, a monument on which four sons are 
 sculptured kneeling behind their father, and seven 
 daughters behind their mother, and on which the 
 arms of both husband and wife (daughter and heir of 
 Robert Wheatley of Great Joneby in the county of 
 Cumberland), are displayed. The marriage of William 
 Carter and Mary Aunscell was a prolific one, for upon 
 his tomb in Kempston Church there are two brass 
 plates, one of which bears the following inscription : 
 
 ' Here lieth the bodie of William Carter, Gent, 
 who tooke to wife Marie, the daughter of Thomas 
 Aunsell, Esq., by whom he had issue seaven sones 
 and ten daughters. He died the first day of Sep- 
 tember, 1605. She, surviving, in memorial of her 
 affection to him living, caused this monument to be 
 made over him.' 
 
 The second plate bears a rude engraving, which 
 appears intended to represent the ' seaven sones ' 
 mentioned in the inscription. The baptisms of six 
 of the sons and nine of the daughters are duly 
 recorded in the Kempston register, as well as the 
 marriages of six of the daughters ; but the Visitation 
 record mentions only the eldest son, Thomas, who 
 succeeded to the estate, and two of his brothers. 
 
 In course of time, the branch of the family which 
 
 S
 
 258 A WOMAN OF 
 
 had settled at Offley came to be represented by 
 William Carter of that place, who had sons, William, 
 Thomas and Robert, of whom the two elder, at least, 
 became active on the side of the Parliament in the 
 Civil War. 'WilliamCarter, of Offley, gent.,' appears in 
 the list of the Hertfordshire Parliamentary Committee ; 
 and William Carter, with no local designation, and 
 no prefix of ' Rev.,' preached before the House of 
 Commons, on their solemn fast, August 31, 1642, a 
 sermon entitled ' Israel's Peace with God, Benjamine's 
 Overthrow.' He received the thanks of the House, 
 and the sermon was published by order. The two 
 younger brothers, Thomas and Robert, both settled 
 at Dinton, in the Vale of Aylesbury, a village in the 
 immediate neighbourhood of John Hampden, and 
 where Simon Mayne was lord of the manor. William 
 and Thomas married sisters, Frances and Jane, daugh- 
 ters of William Curtis, of Bassingbourne, in the county 
 of Cambridge, the place in which the mother of Oliver 
 Cromwell resided during her married life with her 
 first husband, William Lynne, Esq. Thomas was de- 
 scribed in his marriage licence, in 161 2, as 'generosus,' 
 but he afterwards took orders and became vicar of 
 Dinton, a preferment which he held for many years. 
 He was appointed a member of the Westminster 
 Assembly of Divines, and, on the occasion of another 
 'solemn fast,' June 28, 1643, he preached before the 
 House of Commons a sermon on ' Prayer's prevalencie 
 for Israel's safetie,' for which he received the thanks 
 of the House, with an order that the sermon should 
 be printed. This was done, the author adding an 
 Address or Dedication to the House extending over
 
 WIT AND WISDOM 259 
 
 two pages. Thomas Carter's eldest son, William, 
 was called to the Bar, and seems to have died early ; 
 but his second son, John, born at Dinton in 1622, 
 entered the Parliamentary army, attained the rank 
 of major-general, was military governor of North 
 Wales during the Protectorate, joined Monk after 
 the death of Cromwell, and was knighted at Whitehall 
 in 1660. 
 
 Nicholas Carter, of Kempston, the second of the 
 ' seaven sones ' mentioned on his father's tomb, 
 appears to have maintained friendly relations with 
 his kinsfolk at Dinton, and on May i, 1609, he was 
 married in Dinton Church to Alice, daughter of 
 Christopher Brydone, a landowner in the adjacent 
 parishes of Haddenham and Aston Sand ford. The 
 eldest son of this marriage, also Nicholas, was born a 
 year later at Haddenham, and was Elizabeth Carter's 
 great-grandfather. Like his relative and neighbour, 
 John Carter, he seems to have entered the Parlia- 
 mentary army, and there is a memorandum in the 
 Record Office, conjecturally assigned in the Catalogue 
 to the year 1665, and noting that employment is to 
 be given to three men who were ' stout and of good 
 conduct,' one of them being ' Nicholas Carter, a 
 captain in Colonel Stcevens's regiment.' He died at 
 Dinton in 1679, leaving an only son, James, who 
 settled at Aston Abbotts in the vicinity, where he is 
 traceable through the register and other local records 
 for many years, and where two sons, James and 
 Nicolas, were born to him by a first marriage, and 
 (besides children who died young) a daughter Dorcas 
 by a second marriage. James, his eldest son, married 
 
 s 2
 
 26o A WOMAN OF 
 
 Mary, daughter of John Vere, of Cester Over House, 
 in the parish of Monk's Kirby, in the county of 
 Warwick, Esq., and was a merchant in London, but 
 left no children ; and Nicolas, his second son and 
 Elizabeth Carter's father, who entered as a pensioner 
 at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, in 1707, and gradu- 
 ated M.A. in 1714, D.D. in 1728, married, firstly, 
 Margaret, daughter and co-heir of Richard Swayne, of 
 Bere, in the county of Dorset, Esq., and secondly 
 Mary Bean, of Deal. Miss Swayne's mother was a 
 daughter of Thomas Trenchard, of Woherton and 
 Lychet Maltravers, in the same county, Esq , and 
 through him was descended from Paganus Trenchard, 
 who held land in Dorset under Henry I., and also 
 from the Princess Elizabeth, daughter of Edward I., 
 and her second husband, Humphrey de Bohun, 
 fourth Earl of Hereford, third Earl of Essex, and 
 Constable of England. 
 
 The foregoing genealogy, the whole of which 
 has been proved by documentary evidence, and is 
 registered at the Heralds' College, appears to have 
 been entirely unknown to the Rev. Montagu Pen- 
 nington, Elizabeth Carter's nephew and biographer, 
 who was content to say that her grandfather 
 (James Carter, of Aston Abbotts) ' was a consider- 
 able farmer and grazier in the Vale of Ailesbury, 
 where his family had been settled for some genera- 
 tions,' adding that ' probably it was originally from 
 Cornwall, since in the old ruined chapel of St. 
 Laurence, near Bodmin, among the arms of the 
 neighbouring families who had been benefactors to it, 
 are those of Carter, the same as borne by those of
 
 WIT AND WISDOM 261 
 
 Bucks, viz. azure, two lions rampant, or, which arc also 
 borne by the Carters of St. Cullumbe, in Cornwall.' 
 We have here a curious illustration of the ignorance 
 and indifference about matters of heraldry which 
 prevailed during much of the eighteenth century. 
 It was by no means uncommon even for gentlemen 
 of good lineage to be ignorant of their own armorial 
 bearings, and not only to seek for information about 
 them from engravers or stationers as ignorant as 
 themselves, but actually to use arms that were sup- 
 plied to them by such persons, among whom the 
 arms of the Carters of St. Columb were so popular 
 tliat they have been thus bestowed upon several 
 families of the name in different parts of England, 
 none of whom have had any title to them, Elizabeth 
 Carter's brothers seem to have been beguiled in this 
 manner, for variants of the St. Columb arms appear 
 upon their bookplates and tombstones, although they 
 were entitled to the talbot statant and the buckles 
 above mentioned, a bearing of older date than the St. 
 Columb coat. The family of Carter of St. Columb 
 terminated in three co-heiresses about 1670, and very 
 few, if any, of the persons of the name who now use 
 their coat of arms would be able to establish a claim 
 to it, or to obtain the sanction of the Heralds' College 
 to its continued employment. 
 
 Although Dr. Nicolas Carter (who strenuously 
 objected to the customary ' h ' in his baptismal name) 
 was appointed, soon after his ordination, to be Per- 
 petual Curate of St. George's Church, then newly built 
 at Deal as a Chapel of Ease, and although his son, Mr. 
 John Carter, was County Chairman of East Kent for
 
 262 A WOMAN OF 
 
 many years, there was no connection of any kind 
 between his family and the Carters of Crundale and 
 other places in the county, opulent yeomen who had 
 been established therein for some centuries, and who, 
 not having armorial bearings of their own, have 
 sometimes been among those who have displayed 
 the arms of the Carters of St. Columb. 
 
 Elizabeth Carter was not singular in her family 
 in possessing literary cultivation. Of her sister 
 Margaret, Pennington writes that, ' Although greatly 
 inferior to her sister in learning, she was more 
 than her equal in wit and quickness of parts. In 
 learning, however, she was far from being deficient, 
 being a very good Latin and French, and a toler- 
 able Greek and Italian scholar, with some know- 
 ledge also of Hebrew.' Their brother, John Carter, 
 was a Cambridge graduate, and afterwards a captain 
 in the 9th Regiment of Foot. After leaving the 
 service, he settled at Deal, was placed on the Com- 
 mission of the Peace for East Kent, and became 
 County Chairman, a position which he held for 
 nearly forty years. An obituary notice in the ' Gentle- 
 man's Magazine,' for September 18 10, describes him 
 as ' a man of very lively and acute natural parts, very 
 highly cultivated ; an exact and elegant classical 
 scholar ; an excellent linguist, and a man of extensive 
 general reading. His pen was continually in his 
 hand ; and, in the course of a long life, he was the 
 author of several pamphlets and political letters of 
 a temporary nature.' This gentleman left three 
 daughters, of whom the two younger were both 
 authors. Charlotte, who married Captain von
 
 WIT AND WISDOM 
 
 Humboldt, of the Hanoverian Hussars, wrote a poem 
 entitled ' Corinth,' and some minor poems which were 
 published with it in 1821 ; and Hannah, her 
 younger sister, before her marriage tD Mr. George 
 Smith, Secretary to the Navy Board, had an oppor- 
 tunity of visiting Paris before the * hundred days.' 
 She was one of a small party who were the first 
 English people to enter France after the departure 
 of Napoleon for Elba ; and she witnessed, in very 
 favourable circumstances, the whole of the celebrations 
 connected with the return of the Bourbons. Her 
 letters to her sister excited so much interest among 
 the friends to whom they were shown that the writer 
 was induced, especially by the advice of Sir Egerton 
 Brydges, to give them a wider circulation ; and they 
 were published by Messrs. Longman, in 18 14, under 
 the title of Letters from a Lady to her Sister during a 
 Tour to Paris in the months of April and May, 18 14.' 
 Her descriptions of people and events display much 
 power of observation, much liveliness, and no small 
 amount of literary skill. 
 
 R. B. C. 
 
 PRINTED BY 
 
 SPOTTISWOODE AND CO. LTD., NEW-STREET SQUARE 
 
 LONDON
 
 University of California 
 
 SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 
 
 305 De Neve Drive - Parking Lot 17 • Box 951388 
 
 LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA 90095-1388 
 
 Return this material to the library from which it was borrowed. 
 
 \ 
 
 M-
 
 DA 
 
 483 
 
 -0202- 
 
 Gaussen - 
 
 A woman of 
 wit and 
 v;isciom; a 
 
 memoir of Elizabeth 
 
 "Carter, 
 
 
 o / ijD» 01114 3061 
 
 UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 
 
 AA 000 387 092 
 
 UNIVERSITY of CALIFORNIA 
 
 Lua ajngeljBs 
 
 UBRARY
 
 Ill