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 CONTENTS. The Pulpit and the Age; the Revs. Thorns 
 Binney ; Henry Melville, B. D. ; Dr. Edward Andrews; Dr. 
 Richard Winter Hamilton; James Parsons; Alfred J Morris; 
 Dr. Robert Newton ; Dr. Joseph E. Beaumont ; Benjamin 
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 Dawson, M.A. The Welch Pulpit. Concluding Summary.
 
 REPEESENTATIYE WOMEN,
 
 REPRESENTATIVE WOMEN ; 
 
 QUEENS, HEROINES, PEASANTS, CONFESSORS, 
 AND PHILANTHROPISTS. 
 
 BT 
 
 AUTHOR OP "THE AGE AND ITS ARCHITECTS," "MORAL 
 
 MANHOOD," "GENIUS AND INDU8TBY," COMMON 
 
 SENSE," ETC. ETC. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 PUBLISHED BY PARTRIDGE & OAKEY, 
 
 PATBBNOSTEB-BOW. 
 MDCCCLUI.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. PAGE 
 
 THE USES OF GOOD WOMEN . . 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 REPRESENTATIVE WIVES 
 
 CHAPTER in. 
 
 REPRESENTATIVE MOTHERS . . 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 A CHAPTER ON OLD MAIDS . . 74 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 REPRESENTATIVE QUEENS. ZENOBIA . * 97 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE ELIZABETHS. Elizabeth Fiy Elizabeth of 
 Hungary Elizabeth of England Elizabeth B. 
 Browning 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE JANES. Jane Fremoit Jeanne Bisect Lady 
 Jane Grey Jeanne d' Arc, the Maid of Orleans . 1 90
 
 CONTENTS. 
 CHAPTER VIIL PAGE 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS REPRESENTATIVE WOMEN. Catherine 
 
 Vassent The City of Dort, in Holland, preserved 
 by Milkmaids Nan Clarges Camiola Turinga 
 The Actress and the Methodist Mrs. Winter 
 Mrs. Bouchier Helen Walker Bcty Ambos 241
 
 REPRESENTATIVE WOMEN. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE USES OF GOOD WOMEN. 
 
 HONOUR TO WOMAN ! To her it is given 
 
 To garden the Earth with the roses of Hearten, 
 
 All blessed she linketh the Loves in their choir, 
 lu the veil of the Graces her beauty concealing, 
 She tends on each Altar that's hallowed to Feeliug, 
 
 And keeps ever living the Fire ! 
 
 Woman at peace with all being reposes, 
 
 A nd seeks from the moment to gather tha roses, 
 
 Whose sweets to her culture belong. 
 A h ! richer than He though his soul reigneth o'er 
 The mighty dominion of Genius and Lore, 
 
 And the infinite circle of Song. 
 
 SCHILLBK.* 
 
 How needless it seems now to add another to 
 the thousand volumes already published in mo- 
 dern times about women, especially when tha 
 writer or compiler is bold at once to assert that 
 ho has nothing new to say only seeks plainly 
 
 * Bulwer's Translation.
 
 2 REPRESENTATIVE WOMEN. 
 
 to repeat old sayings sayings which to him do 
 appear to be truths, illustrated by characteriza- 
 tions and facts which to the writer develope the 
 genius of her being and existence. 
 
 WOMAN ! MAN ! How insignificant the 
 place is in history occupied by the one. How 
 conspicuous the place occupied by the other. 
 To man we have assigned the literatures, the 
 heroisms, the despotisms, the laws of the world 
 man is emphatically representative. How 
 prominently he stands forth to the gaze on all 
 occasions. How boldly he asserts his rights. 
 How he avows his determination to rule the 
 world, and sway the destinies of the globe, and 
 its mighty populations. Woman is absorbed 
 lost sight of. Her right her claim to a 
 position at all is scarcely conceded. Her ap- 
 pearance in any conspicuous situation would be 
 judged unnatural, and unwomanly. 
 
 THE USES OF WOMEN ! We can fancy 
 some brainless puppy, some leathern-faced, old 
 California!! mummy, saying " The Uses of 
 Woman. Uses ! What should they be but 
 to wait on us to keep house to mend stock- 
 ings to make fires to wash, cook, and await 
 our return." Woman is undoubtedly the ser- 
 vant of man. Alternately his play-thing, or 
 his victim. Petted like a doll scourged like 
 a slave. Sometimes dressed up like an offering 
 for sacrifice. Doomed to long years of painful 
 confinement to agonising moments of sus- 
 pense. Consigned, in virtue of her sensibility, 
 to more suffering than man. Consigned, in 
 virtue of her mission, to more physical pain. 
 These are her uses. To be the carrier of the
 
 THE USES OF GOOD WOMEN. i 
 
 great globe ; from age to age the constant ser- 
 vant, handmaid, and slave. 
 
 Oh, tremendous is the weight of forgiveness 
 some among us have to receive from woman. 
 Terrible is the catalogue of injustices we have 
 some of us piled up against her, and for which 
 we must give an account. What have we 
 done? we men. We have virtually, in our 
 conduct to woman, insulted and dishonoured 
 our mothers, our sisters. We have maligned 
 their spirituality of character and influence 
 have proclaimed the end of their being to be 
 gross and material. We have been blind .s 
 moles to the most grand and permanent end of 
 woman's creation. Dishonouring her, we have 
 equally dishonoured ourselves."" 1 "We have often 
 coased ourselves to be heroic and brave because 
 she has ceased to be to us beautiful and noble ; 
 for woman is most unconsciously a Nemesis 
 her cause is avenged. Unjust behaviour to 
 her, unjust views of her, when on a greater 
 scale, return on all society. Enslaved woman- 
 hood, is enslaved manhood. Lock up your 
 best sensibilities against her, and you become 
 callous to all the highest emotions. 
 
 Without (says Dr. Gannett,) touching the 
 question of the relative superiority of the sexes, 
 we cannot doubt that their powers are various. 
 The sensibilities and affections are the strength 
 of woman's nature. Feeling is the favourite 
 element of her soul. She has an instinctive 
 sympathy with the tender, the generous and 
 the pure. We expect from her examples of 
 goodness. Vice appears more unnatural in 
 her than in the other sex ; it certainly is more
 
 4 REPRESENTATIVE WOMKK. 
 
 odious. Vulgarity seems coarser, immorality 
 more inexcusable, impiety more shocking. 
 
 A wicked woman expresses the climax of 
 depravity. By the law of her nature, more- 
 over, woman is determined towards reliance 
 and confidence, rather than towards an inde- 
 pendence of foreign support. She is willing to 
 rest on another's arm, she seeks protection, 
 she covets affection. We describe her as the 
 gentler and feebler sex ; and these are not 
 the epithets of poetry, so much as of fact and 
 nature. 
 
 The influence of the female sex is not con- 
 fined to their homes. No; it is felt through 
 society, felt where they are never seen, felt by 
 man in his most busy and stormy hours. It 
 would not be easy to exaggerate the amount or 
 importance of the influence, which they hold 
 over manners, opinions and customs. I am 
 speaking of a state of society, where that place 
 is given to the sex, of which they have in so 
 many countries and for so many ages been 
 defrauded. 
 
 The tone of moral sentiment through ths 
 land depends upon the women of the land. It 
 will bear the character which they consent to 
 have it bear. Neither irreligion nor hypocrisy, 
 neither coarse nor polished vice, neither a false 
 standard of truth, nor a false standard of hon- 
 our, can prevail if they discountenance it. 
 
 Pertness and foppery would be driven by 
 their contempt into the darkness, from which 
 they should never have issued. Arrogant 
 scepticism and light-tongued mirth, would be 
 rebuked by their frown while purity of taste,
 
 THE USES OF GOOD WOMEN. 
 
 lofty sentiment, intellectual improvement, 
 moral feeling, and a simple but steadfast piety, 
 would flourish under their patronage, like the 
 flowers under the mild sunshine of spring. 
 
 And let every one, be she in humble or con- 
 spicuous place, be wealth or. toil her portion, 
 have she many or few friends, be she admired 
 or passed by in the crowd, let her remember 
 that the whole is made up of its parts, that the 
 influence of the sex results from the character 
 and deportment of each one whom it includes, 
 and that an exception to the general practice 
 might be injurious, though conformity to it 
 might as a single force be productive of little 
 good. 
 
 Every woman is as accountable for whatever 
 influence she may exert, as if it would be felt 
 over a continent. Catharine of Russia, even 
 among that rude people, owed a service to 
 society as much in her youthful obscurity, as 
 when she was the sole occupant of the throne. 
 
 The daughters of Necker wielded an influ- 
 ence, which she ought to have more respected, 
 long before her writings were the admiration 
 of Europe. It is not authors or queens, the 
 git'tod with talent or with wealth, who deter- 
 mine the spirit and character of the age. It is 
 tin; nnny, of whom each individual is an im- 
 portant one. 
 
 If through female encouragement and ex- 
 ample, the spirit of this age is to he purified of 
 folly, if it is to be elevated and adorned by ex- 
 cellence, women must be sincerely and particu- 
 larly religious. Their regard for religion must
 
 6 REPRESENTATIVE WOMEN. 
 
 not be superficial ; their reverence and love 
 for it must appear to be seated in the heart. 
 
 Let it be known that they are the advocates 
 of a piety which they cherish in their own 
 souls, and that they are opposed in principle 
 and habit, to every practice inconsistent with 
 the morality of the Gospel, and however great 
 a change must be made in the sentiments or 
 usages of the other sex, it will be made. 
 
 For when the alternative is amendment or 
 exclusion from their favour, hesitation shall 
 not precede choice. Here is a suitable and 
 noble field for their patriotism. Here they 
 may render better service to the state, than if 
 the'ir votes were given for its rulers, or their 
 voices were heard in its deliberative assemblies. 
 They may send to exercise the prerogatives of 
 freemen and magistrates those, who, never 
 swerving from the line of duty, will fear God 
 and work religiousness. 
 
 The situation of woman is very different 
 now from her education before Christianity 
 had enlightened the world ; very different in 
 Christian Europe and America, and in Maho- 
 medan or Pagan Asia and Africa. The sex 
 owe a debt of gratitude to the Gospel of Jesus 
 Christ, which they can never discharge ; and 
 in this circumstance, I find a reason for urging 
 upon them the culture of religious character. 
 
 It was Christianity which raised woman 
 from degradation and servitude, which placed 
 her by the side of man, and taught him to 
 treat her as an equal and a friend. It was 
 Christianity which awakened in hgr the con- 
 sciousness of a nature which the blind tyranny
 
 THE USES OF GOOD WOMEN. / 
 
 of the other sex had doomed to inattention and 
 oblivion. 
 
 It was Christianity which opened to her 
 treasures of happiness, from which she had been 
 debarred on earth, and joys celestial, to which 
 she had never dared lift an eye of hope. It is 
 Christianity that has made her what she is in 
 every civilized nation on the globe, and may 
 ultimately redeem every one of her sex from an 
 unjust bondage to ignorance and human will. 
 
 The uses of woman, once more, then, we 
 say, are not all included in the idea of a cook, 
 a housemaid, or even a nurse. Does the use of 
 a man terminate with the service he renders to 
 his family or to himself? The deeds of every 
 man live after him. The deeds of every man 
 have in them a spiritual power and vitality. 
 No man would like to be assured that all his 
 actions were only of value to his own selfish- 
 ness. The uses of a good man are most mani- 
 fold. His labours are all perennial : they all 
 bear within them the seeds of future living and 
 doing, and the world surely receives the benefit 
 of the existence of a good man, although none 
 beyond his family ever heard his name. Are 
 the uses of a good woman less vital ? are they 
 less real I Have they no name, no existence, 
 beyond the mere drudgery of life ? Do they, 
 unlike the lords of the creation, die and leave 
 behind them no print on the shores of Time ! 
 Does goodness of the male sex live for ever, 
 and goodness of the feminine gender die in- 
 stantly ? So the pride of our powerful com- 
 peers teaches ns. So much less is the import- 
 ance of woman than that of man.
 
 8 REPRESENTATIVE WOMEN. 
 
 Not so, oh ! not so let the voluptuary and 
 the pedant argue as they will. The uses of 
 woman range far, very far beyond those seen 
 and acknowledged contributions which she ren- 
 ders to the world's comfort and happiness, not 
 merely to the private circle of the fireside with 
 the light and presence of her own peculiar 
 smile ; not merely the intense seriousness of 
 the mother's counsel, the words so perpetual in 
 their influence, falling on the ears and sinking 
 into the hearts of her children ; not merely to 
 the husband whom she comforts, and sustains, 
 and redeems from the frivolity and heartless- 
 ness of that life to which he is more especially 
 devoted. No f not these alone, but other cha- 
 racteristics mark her and give a stamp to her 
 character. She is the perpetual intimation of 
 a lofty spirituality of life and being more lofty 
 than those of man. Her weakness is her great- 
 ness and her strength. Her alleged inferiority 
 is the mark and credential of her superiority. 
 Her inferiority of intellect is the result of a 
 more keen intuitive life. True, she does not 
 thread her way through subjects by circuitous 
 and often deceptive thought. She does not 
 penetrate to a knowledge of character by long, 
 painful, and defective observation. Her know- 
 ledge is far more primitive, her powers and 
 sagacities are far more instinctive, and therefore 
 more certain. She sees, where man has to 
 know. She reads what she understands far 
 more plainly. The inferiority of woman has 
 resulted from a most undue and mistaken appre- 
 hension of the faculty we call intellect. Intel- 
 lect we have regarded as the greatest distinction
 
 THE USES OF GOOD WOMEN. 
 
 of our race, yet, compared with some other 
 powers within us, it is but the cart-horse fa- 
 culty. Illustrious instances are not wanting 
 of women equal to men in the breadth and 
 depth of their intellect ; but not in that faculty 
 are we to look for the power of woman. Affec- 
 tions, intuitions what are they? A higher 
 nervous energy what is it ? A power to see 
 more deeply into the nature and substance of 
 spiritual character, this is the distinction of 
 woman. In the possession of the intellectual 
 energies of the soul man has cashiered her, but 
 he has given her no credit for the possession of 
 another class of faculties to which he is a com- 
 parative stranger. 
 
 The intellect ! How deep will be the scorn 
 of some on reading these pages, when they see 
 the writer's assurance of its real inferiority. 
 The intellect has no sympathies ; the intellect 
 acknowledges no affection ; it prescribes no 
 duties beyond those of a hard mechanical law. 
 The intellect wears no fascinating attractive 
 virtue by its side or on its face. Its lessons 
 are hard to learn; it drags its way along very 
 heavily, and wears its ornaments like chains. 
 It can only be understood by those who have 
 read its lessons, the erudite and hard-learned 
 few ; and even to this it does not commend 
 itself by any strong affinity. No ! the pride of 
 the world may be based on something deeper, 
 nobler, and greater than the mere eagle eye and 
 sagacity of its intellectual men. And the great 
 use of woman to the world has been in every 
 age to proclaim the existence of a perception 
 keener than the mere senses, and nature more 
 B 2
 
 10 REPRESENTATIVE WOMEN. 
 
 noble and truly unselfish than the intellect 
 could ever boast. Why, if man were to strain 
 his biographic encyclopedias till their vellum 
 bindings cracked again, he could not find a 
 catalogue a hundredth part so noble as that 
 which woman from the chronicles of her sex 
 most easily, produces. The very selfishness of 
 woman, unlike that of man, lias an unselfish 
 air and spirit in it the selfish love of the 
 mother and the wife. Thus our finest instances 
 of devotedness, of love braving death and sur- 
 viving the grave, must all be found in woman- 
 hood. Man can produce no instances like 
 them. All his most magnanimous efforts at 
 the destruction of poverty, at the diminishing 
 of disease, at the cheering the lot of orphanhood 
 all these, and innumerable other things like 
 these are to be traced to the spontaneous 
 affections and active energies of woman's mind. 
 Had not woman led the way by her fresh, 
 bright, genial impulses, man could scarcely 
 have developed at all either a generous or sym- 
 pathetic nature. She has shown even in her 
 degradation and sin frequently the possibility 
 of living without a thought of self ; in holiness 
 and virtue, she has shone frequently like a 
 seraph in a charnel. 
 
 We hear much talk of the sphere ot woman, 
 nnd when any one of the fair sex manifests ex- 
 traordinary genius or accomplishments, enter- 
 tains the world with a novel, or inspires it with 
 a poem, the question is instantly put Can she 
 eook a steak, or knit a stocking ? 
 
 We have ever noticed that when a female 
 gives evidence of a superior mental cultivation
 
 THE USES OF GOOD WOMEV. 
 
 that she had lived to some purpose, above 
 
 and beyond the everyday animal routine of 
 menial duties that she aspired to drink of the 
 fountain of knowledge to take the place in 
 the scale of intellectual being, which it was 
 designed by her Creator that she should fill, 
 she is rnet with sneers like the above from the 
 " lords of creation." Tis true, we would not 
 have them usurp, or attempt to usurp the places 
 more congenial to the rougher natures of the 
 sterner sex to go far out of the sphere of the 
 affections the endearments of domestic life 
 to mingle in the political arena, or to take part 
 in the turmoil of active business, which would 
 wear off the gentleness of their nature, and unfit 
 them for the holier duties assigned them in the 
 order of creation ; but we would not confine 
 them to the " broiling of steaks and knitting of 
 stockings," as if they had not the soul's aspir- 
 ings alter the rich and varied treasures which 
 are everywhere spread out for the grasp of 
 mind. This narrow, illiberal, and menial spirit 
 dwelleth not with those who are themselves 
 fitted for the appreciation and enjoyment of 
 these treasures. A knowledge of domestic 
 affairs, in all their relations, is desirable nay, 
 essential, to the complete education of every 
 female, the rich as well as the poor ; for in the 
 changes of fortune and of time, none are secure 
 from the contingencies of adversity. A well 
 regulated household, in fivery station of society, 
 is one of woman's brightest ornaments a 
 source of happiness to her and to those who 
 are dependant upon her labours of love for the 
 attractions of home and its endearments. But
 
 12 REPRESENTATIVE WOMEN. 
 
 what is home, where there is no intellect no 
 cultivation no refinement no knowledge, 
 save that which partakes of menial duties! 
 
 When we hear of the eloquence, the learn- 
 ing, the statesmanship, of a distinguished man, 
 who ever thinks of asking, Can he hold a 
 plough I Can he saw wood ? Can he drive a 
 team ? Can he plant potatoes, or hoe corn ? 
 Oh no ! it is assumed to be the natural position 
 of man to triumph in the conflict of mind ; to 
 him is assigned an exclusive monopoly of the 
 deep treasures of learning ; eloquence is his 
 birthright, and fame his just reward. But 
 whenever one of the other sex ventures be- 
 yond the sphere assigned for the mass when- 
 ever she displays natural talents highly culti- 
 vated, and the gifts which God has bestowed 
 upon her improved, enlarged, elevated it is 
 received as something that ought to be frowned 
 upon as an assumption of prerogatives belong- 
 ing not to her. But this feeling is wearing 
 away with the progress of society with a 
 juster appreciation of woman's duties, and their 
 influence upon all the relations of life. And 
 what though hers be to rule in the affections ? 
 let these be chastened and hallowed by mental 
 culture and better and happier will we all be 
 for the change.
 
 13 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 REPRESENTATIVE WIVES. 
 
 OH, blest is he whose arms enfold 
 
 A consort virtuous as fair, 
 Her price is far above the gold 
 
 That worldly spirits love to share ; 
 On her, as on a beauteous isle, 
 
 Amid life's dark aud stormy sea, 
 In all his trouble, all his toil, 
 
 He rests wich deep security. 
 
 E'en in the night-watch, dark and lone, 
 
 The distaff fills her busy hand ; 
 Her husband in the gates is known 
 
 Among the nobles of the land ; 
 Her household all delight to share 
 
 The food and raiment she bestows 
 E'en she, who, with a parent's care, 
 
 Regards their weakness and their woes 
 
 Her lovely babes around her rise, 
 
 Fair scions of a holy stem ; 
 And deeply shall her bosom prize 
 
 The blessings she receives from them. 
 Beauty is vain the summer bloom 
 
 To which a transient fate is given, 
 But hers awaits a lasting doom 
 
 In the eternal bowers of heaven. 
 
 WILLIAM KNOX. 
 
 WOMAN, THE WIFE ! What innumerable 
 delights and blessings start up to the memory 
 and the imagination at the combination ot thos
 
 REPRESENTATIVE \VOMKV. 
 
 words. It is surely a great privilege to be en- 
 dowed with the power of diffusing over a home 
 so large a share of happiness as is placed within 
 the power of woman to command in this posi- 
 tion. And doubtless it is one of the great ends 
 of her existence, princess or peasant. The un- 
 married state is an incomplete state. Indivi- 
 dual exceptions there may be in which marriage 
 may be impolitic and unadvisable, but in gene- 
 ral, where marriage is not regarded as the most 
 necessary and delightful, obvious condition of 
 human society, there must exist appalling 
 wrong, and the prophecy of appalling danger, 
 too, to the state. The social sphere is preemi- 
 nently woman's. Man, the hermit and ancho- 
 rite, is a much more conceivable character than 
 woman, the recluse. Woman in society fashions 
 and moulds society. Man does but rear the 
 top stone where she lays the foundation. He 
 bears the building, she constructs the architec- 
 ture. And she does this, of course, not by 
 leaving society, but by continuing in all parti- 
 culars a member of it by fulfilling the be- 
 nignant duties of a domestic situation. 
 
 Whoever may have sympathy with the in- 
 sane talk about the rights of woman, the writer 
 of these pages has none, nor does he know a 
 subject upon which these later days have heard 
 more ridiculous utterances than upon this. Tho 
 individual rights of woman have indeed been 
 too little regarded, as we have already said. 
 Her control over her property, and, if unmar- 
 ried, her right to a voice in the affairs of her 
 own parish, where the interests of her property 
 may perhaps be immediately hazarded these,
 
 REPRESENTATIVE WIVES. 15 
 
 and other matters like these, are affairs of sim- 
 ple justice justice, however, that has been but 
 little attended to. But those who would de- 
 sire to see woman elevated (ridiculous misap- 
 propriation of the word) to a place of judicial 
 or legislative power, do in effect lower the sanc- 
 tity of her peculiar character. Make woman 
 a soldier, a sailor, a judge, an advocate, a bray- 
 ing, babbling member of a House of Commons. 
 But the idea is too ridiculous to be seriously 
 entertained for a moment. This is the last 
 descent of that appeal to the understanding for 
 which this age is so remarkable the under- 
 standing, that low, sensational form of thought 
 which makes the obvious and the seen to be 
 greater than the invisible, which gives to the 
 rude power of manhood a more imperial domi- 
 nion than the gentle reign of womanhood, and 
 makes the pocket and the stomach the prime 
 subjects for legislation, and for life. In oppo- 
 sition to the speculations of these children of 
 the understanding, let us place woman, the 
 wife, with the fulfilment of whose beautiful 
 round of duties, the noble work of directing 
 armies, speaking upon hustings, aud taking the 
 commanding lead in parish business, seems to 
 be somewhat incompatible. When it is rer 
 membered that home is the centre of all govern- 
 ment, that it represents all, that it is yet greater 
 than all, it does not appear to be a degradation 
 of woman to point to this as the sphere at onee 
 of dignity, usefulness, and power. Unagitated 
 by the breath of parties, she is able to form a 
 calmer judgment, and to aid hor husband, or her 
 son, by calmer deliberations than those to which
 
 16 REPRESENTATIVE WOMEN. 
 
 they are accustomed to listen in the chambers 
 of hot dispute. Does not the good wife recall 
 perpetually to the voices of conscience, and re- 
 ligion, and rectitude, and order ? To sum up 
 the character and mission of woman in a sen- 
 tence, is she not the better conscience and in- 
 stinct of humanity ? 
 
 In every kingdom we have seldom met with 
 more beautiful illustrations of the value of a 
 good wife as the natural adviser of man, than 
 in the memoirs of Lavater, the eminent phy- 
 siognomist, who was, however, still more cele- 
 brated as the Pastor of St. Peter's Church, in 
 Zurich, in Switzerland. An instance or two 
 may be cited of the beauty of the disposition 
 and character of Madame Lavater, from the 
 journal of her husband. 
 
 " January 2nd. My wife asked me during 
 dinner, what sentiment I had chosen for the 
 present day. I answered, ' Henceforth, my 
 dear, we will read and pray together in the 
 morning, and choose a common sentiment for 
 the day. The sentiment I have chosen for 
 this day is ' Give to him that asketh of thee, 
 and from him that would borrow of thee, turn 
 not thou away. 1 r: 
 
 " ' Pray how is this to be understood ?' said 
 she. 
 
 " ' I replied ' literally.' 
 
 " ' That is very strange, indeed, 1 answered 
 she. 
 
 " I said, with some warmth, ' We, at least, 
 must take it so, my dear, as we would do, if we 
 heard Jesus Christ himself pronounce the words, 
 " Gave to him that asketh of thee, 1 ' saith he,
 
 REPRESENTATIVE WIVES. 
 
 17 
 
 " whose property all my possessions are. I am 
 the steward, and not the proprietor of my tor- 
 tune."' . , , 
 " My wife merely replied, that she would take 
 
 it into consideration. 
 
 " I was just risen from dinner, when a widow 
 desired to speak with me. I ordered her to be 
 shown into my study. 
 
 " ' My dear sir, I entreat you to excuse me, 
 said she, * I must pay my house rent, and I am 
 six dollars too short, I have been ill a whole 
 month, and could hardly keep my poor children 
 from starving. I must have the six dollars to- 
 day or to-morrow. Pray hear me, dear sir 
 
 " Here she took a small parcel out of her 
 pocket, untied it, and said 'There is a book 
 encased with silver ; my husband gave it to me 
 when I was betrothed. It is all I can spare, 
 yet it will not be sufficient ; I part with it 
 with reluctance, for I know not how I shall 
 redeem it. My dear sir, can you assist me !' 
 
 " I answered ' Good woman, I cannot assist 
 you ' So saying, I put my hand accidentally, 
 or from habit, into my pocket ; I had about 
 two dollars and a half. 'That will not be 
 sufficient,' said I to myself, ' she must have the 
 whole sum ; and if it would do, I want it my- 
 self. 1 I asked if she had no patron or friend 
 who would assist her ? She answered ' No, not 
 a living soul; and I will rather work whole 
 nights, than go from house to house. I have 
 been told you were a kind gentleman ; if you 
 cannot help me, I hope you will excuse me for 
 giving you so much trouble ; I will try how I 
 can extricate myself: God has never yet for-
 
 18 REPRESENTATIVE WOMEN. 
 
 saken me, and 1 hope he will not begin to turn 
 away from me in my seventy-sixth year. 1 
 
 " My wife entered the room. Oh thou traito- 
 rous heart ! T was angry and ashamed ; I should 
 have been glad if I could have sent her awav 
 under some pretext or other; because my con- 
 science whispered to me ' Give to him that 
 asketh of thee, and do not turn away from him 
 that would borrow of thee. 1 My wife, too, 
 whispered in my ear, irresistibly ' She is an 
 honest, pious woman, and has certainly been 
 ill ; do assist her if you can. 1 
 
 " Shame, joy, avarice, and the desire of 
 assisting her struggled together in my heart. I 
 whispered, ' I have but two dollars, and she 
 wants six ; I will give her something, and 
 send her away. 1 
 
 '-' My wife pressing my hand witli an affec- 
 tionate smile, repeated aloud, ' Give to him who 
 asketh thee, and from him who would borrow 
 of thee, turn not thou away.' 
 
 " I asked her archly, ' whether she would 
 give her ring, to enable me to do it ?' 
 
 " * With great pleasure, 1 she replied, pulling 
 off her ring.' 
 
 " The good old woman was too simple to ob- 
 serve, or too modest to take advantage of the 
 action. When she was going, my wife asked 
 her to wait a little in the passage. 
 
 " 'Were you in earnest, my dear, when you 
 offered your ring?' said I. 
 
 " ' Indeed I was,' she replied. ' Do you 
 think I would sport with charity ? Remember 
 what you said to me a quarter of an hour ago. 
 I entreat you not to make an ostentation of
 
 REPRESENTATIVE WIVES. 19 
 
 the gospel. You have always been so bene- 
 volent. Why are you now so backward to 
 assist this poor woman 2 Did you not know 
 there are six dollars in your bureau, and it 
 will be quarter-day very soon f 
 
 " I pressed her to my heart, saying, 
 " ' You are more righteous than I. Keep 
 your ring. I thank you.' 
 
 " I went to the bureau, and took the six 
 dollars. I was seized with horror because I 
 had said, ' I cannot assist you.' The good 
 woman at first thought it was only a small 
 contribution. When she saw that it was more, 
 she kissed my hand, and could not at first 
 utter a word. 
 
 " ' How shall I thank you !' she exclaimed. 
 k Did you understand me 2 I have nothing 
 but the book, and it is old.' 
 
 " ' Keep the book and the money, 1 said I 
 hastily, 'and thank God, not me. I do not 
 deserve your thanks, because I so long hesi- 
 tated to assist you. 1 
 
 " I shut the door after her, and was so 
 much ashamed I could hardly look at my 
 wife. 
 
 " ' My dear, 1 said she, ' make yourself easy. 
 You have yielded to my wishes. While I 
 wear a gold ring (and you know I have se- 
 veral), you need not tell a fellow-creature in 
 distress that you cannot assist him. 1 
 " I folded her to my heart and wept. 
 "Jan. 23rd, 1769. My servant asked me 
 after dinner whether she should sweep my 
 room.
 
 20 REPRESENTATIVE WOMEN. 
 
 " I said, ' Yes ; but you must not touch 
 my books or papers.' 
 
 " I did not speak with the mild accent of 
 a good heart. A secret uneasiness and fear 
 that it would occasion me vexation had taken 
 possession of me. When she had been gone 
 some time, I said to my wife, 
 
 " % I am afraid she will cause some confusion 
 up-stairs.' 
 
 " In a few moments my wife, with the best 
 intentions, stole out of the room and told the 
 servant to be careful. 
 
 " ' Is my room not swept yet !' I exclaimed 
 at the bottom of the stairs. . 
 
 Without waiting for an answer, I ran up into 
 my room. As I entered, the girl overturned 
 an inkstand which was standing on the shelf. 
 She was much terrified. I called out harshly, 
 
 " ' What a stupid beast you are ! Have I 
 not positively told you to be careful f 
 
 " My wife slowly and timidly followed me up 
 stairs. Instead of being ashamed, my anger 
 broke out anew. I took no notice of her ; 
 running to the table lamenting and moaning, 
 as if the most important writings had been 
 spoiled ; though in reality the ink had touched 
 nothing but a blank sheet, and some blotting- 
 paper. The servant watched an opportunity 
 to steal away, and my wife approached me 
 with timid gentleness. 
 
 " ' My dear husband P said she. 
 
 *' I stared at her with vexation in my looks. 
 She entranced me. I wanted to get out of her 
 way. Her face rested on my cheek for a few
 
 IIEPRKSENTATIVE WIVES. 21 
 
 moments; at last, with unspeakable tender- 
 ness, she said 
 
 " ' YOU will hurt your health, my dear I 1 
 
 " I now began to be ashamed. I was silent, 
 and at last began to weep. 
 
 " ' What a miserable slave to my temper I 
 am,' I said. ' I dare not lift up my eyes. I 
 cannot rid myself of the dominion of that sin- 
 ful passion. 1 
 
 " My wife replied ' Consider, my dear, how 
 many days and weeks pass away without your 
 being overcome by anger. Let us pray to- 
 gether.' 1 
 
 " I knelt down beside her ; and sbe prayed 
 so naturally, so fervently, and so much to the 
 purpose, that I thanked God sincerely for that 
 hour and for my wife." 
 
 How beautiful are these illustrations of do- 
 mestic life. This is true marriage, where both 
 husband and wife find their happiness and 
 their help in each other. It is in a region like 
 this that woman's serenest influence spreads 
 most happily and benignantly. 
 
 It will be seen immediately that the dis- 
 sent expressed from the opinions of those 
 who would invert altogether woman's present 
 position in society does not result from any 
 foolish and wicked notions about Man being 
 the lord of the creation. Far from this: wo- 
 man is the natural adviser of man ; and, there- 
 fora, her value as a wife and in her character 
 of wife, therefore, her value to society in 
 general. Has not Nature everywhere set up a 
 system of compensations ? and, are not the re- 
 lations of the sexes thus balanced to each other !
 
 22 REPRESENTATIVE WOMEN. 
 
 Where man hurries rapidly and impetuously 
 along, woman lays her hand upon his shoulder, 
 and says " Wait !" When man indignantly 
 frowns, and talks of revenge ; woman looks be- 
 seechingly, and says " Forgive !" Where 
 man plunges along the road of Revolution 
 and Anarchy, woman walks calmly by his 
 side, and presents motives to endurance. Is it 
 not wisely arranged that man is the reformeF, 
 woman the conservative? These are their 
 elemental characters. Thus, she lingers the 
 last amidst even the broken fanes of a lost su- 
 perstition the dimmed shrines of a departed 
 faith unless endowed with more than ordi- 
 nary fervour, fitting her like a Madame Guyon, 
 or one indeed wonderfully different and superior 
 to her in genius Madame Roland. 
 
 Truly men have not perceived the great 
 meaning of woman's mission to the world. 
 Husbands, in general, mistake the nature of 
 the dominion granted them over their wives, 
 and absurdly fancy they thence have a right to 
 be tyrants. It is one of the great social mis- 
 takes still in being, although very happily qua- 
 lified from the atrocities of the Ancient Regime. 
 The domestic history of all countries reminds 
 us of a time when men were tyrants, and 
 women slaves indeed : but the proper dominion 
 of a man over his wife is not to make her a 
 slave. The use of this dominion is to preserve 
 order and peace in the family, for which end 
 the husband's will is to be obeyed, when it 
 happens conscientiously to differ from the wife's. 
 But though, for the sake of peace, the man's 
 will is to be the rule, the wife is his natural
 
 REPRESENTATIVE WIVES. 23 
 
 adviser and counsellor, whose opinion he should 
 always listen to and follow, if he find it more 
 just and reasonable than his own. It is con- 
 trary to the laws of God and Nature for a hus- 
 band to require blind obedience from his wife. 
 But many men foolishly imagine this dominion 
 gives them such a superiority over women, as 
 renders the whole sex despicable, in compari- 
 son with themselves. 
 
 The opinions of women are treated with 
 scorn, although it would be found in most in- 
 stances, upon trial, that their mind is eminently 
 practical and clear ; especially upon all matters 
 where the affections are concerned : the men of 
 highest talent would have to confess, if they 
 uttered the simple truth, that in many instances 
 they were relieved from embarrassment by fol- 
 lowing the advice of a good and high-minded 
 wife, jealous of the honour of her husband and 
 her family. 
 
 How many a name would have been saved 
 from bankruptcy and the Gazette* How many a 
 course that ended disgracefully had terminated 
 with honour ? How many a character had shone 
 forth unspotted, instead of being dimmed by 
 foul taints, had the text only been remembered, 
 that woman is "the help meet of man ? We 
 charge on woman frequently the ruin of her 
 husband or her family ; we make her domestic 
 arrangements the scape-goat of many follies ; 
 in justice, not to say generosity, let us turn the 
 scale, and think how much might have been 
 averted had her natural and proper position in 
 society been regarded ! Jiut ignorant men will 
 not suffer their wives to reason with them.
 
 21 REPRESENTATIVE WOMEN, 
 
 because they are women ; and crown their des- 
 potic triumphs by asking, " How should a 
 woman know anything !" This procedure is so 
 absurd, so ridiculous, that where it is to be 
 found, the husband may properly be said to 
 want common sense. Some stupid and tyran- 
 nical husbands pretend to a miserable kind of 
 low wit ; and, for want of invention, can never 
 bring forth a jest but at the expense of their 
 wives. All the stale invectives against the 
 sex are trumped up by these heroes to abuse 
 their wives with. And as such doughty cham- 
 pions, without antagonists, must always appear 
 victorious, women are thus abused to their 
 faces : while, for very sensible and decent rea- 
 sons, they either dread or refuse to defend 
 themselves ; which so plume these triumphant 
 gentlemen, that at length they turn their stupid 
 jest into earnest, and thence really acquire a 
 'shameful and unnatural contempt of women. 
 We would, however, remind them, in the 
 words of Bishop Home, that " men themselves, 
 who have all the authority in public, cannot 
 yet by their deliberations establish any effec- 
 tual good, without the concurring assistance of 
 women to carry them into execution." 
 
 Contemporary writers have extolled the piety 
 and virtues of ladies now scarcely remembered. 
 Anne Killigrew, the poetess, praised by Dry- 
 den, died in 'the flower of her age ; worthy, it 
 is said, of the laudatory epitaph inscribed on 
 her tombstone. The learning and piety of 
 Anne Baynard drew no less admiration ; thp 
 names of Lady Grace G-ethin, Lady Halket, 
 Lady Masham, and of Susannah Hopton, emi-
 
 REPRESENTATIVE WIVES. 25 
 
 rent for her charity, are still remembered in re- 
 ligious biography, 
 
 Amongst these memorials of th3 good and 
 pious women of the seventeenth century, there 
 is one to which the generous character of the 
 heroine, the name of the writer, and the grave 
 and solemn tone of the composition, give pecu- 
 liar interest we allude to the life of Margaret 
 Baxter, written by her husband, the celebrated 
 non-conformist divine. 
 
 Richard Baxter has delineated the character 
 of the woman whom he loved and who shared 
 his sufferings, his prison, and his labours with 
 much delicacy, power, and eloquence. The 
 affection of an earnest soul that can feel passion, 
 but that never sinks into weakness, appears iu 
 every page. Few have read without some 
 emotion the sad and humble deprecation in the 
 opening : " Reader, while I give thee but the 
 truth, forgive the effects of age, weakness, and 
 grief. As the man is, such will be his thoughts 
 and works." And who, after perusing this life 
 of a wife written by her husband, sees no beauty 
 in the proud confession with which it closes : 
 " Perhaps love and grief may make me speak 
 more than many will think fit. But though 
 some passion blind the judgment, some doth 
 but excite it to duty, and God made it to that 
 ond ; and I will not be judged by any that never 
 ftft the like.'"' He might have added, that not 
 only those who had never loved, but those who 
 had not such a woman to love, were unfit to 
 judge him. It may sometimes happen that 
 unworthy objects inspire devoted passions ; but 
 on .such fuel ings ever equal, in ibrco and ia-
 
 26 KEPitESENTATlVE WOMEK. 
 
 tensity, the love which a noble being awakens 
 in a generous heart ? 
 
 The life, character, and writings of Richard 
 Baxter, are well known ; his strength of prin- 
 ciple, his moderation, his earnestness and fer- 
 vour, have secured the admiration and respect 
 of posterity. He belonged to those whom suf- 
 ferings have no power to embitter, and whom 
 their own wrongs cannot render partizans a 
 rare class at any time, and certainly very rare 
 in the political and religious excitement of the 
 seventeenth century. 
 
 In France and in England that century was 
 characterized by a struggle between the princi- 
 ples of worldliness and devotion, which is in- 
 deed of every age, but which was then stronger 
 than it has been since, and more relentless iu 
 England than elsewhere. The memoirs, plays, 
 and various writings of the times, paint two 
 worlds, between which yawns an impassable 
 abyss. For where shall we find a link between 
 the false glitter, the impious wit, the extra- 
 vagance, the gross profligacy of the court, and 
 the gloom, the rigidity, the enthusiasm of the 
 morose Puritans in their austere home. Di- 
 vided by a deep hatred, as much as by the dif- 
 ference of their tempers and inclinations, they 
 were pitiless in their mutual reprobation ; their 
 censure was scorn, and scorn is cruel. Their 
 life was a perpetual warfare ; the worldly called 
 their enemy hypocrisy the devout named him 
 Satan. 
 
 Yet, in the midst of all this strife, so little 
 favourable to charity, did virtue and gentle 
 piety assert their rights in many good and amia-
 
 REPRESENTATIVE WIVES. 27 
 
 ble beings ; and of these Margaret Baxter, 
 though fervent and enthusiastic, was assuredly 
 one. In her, were blended qualities the most 
 opposed ardour and gentleness, timidity and 
 courage. Her character, though frank and 
 firm, w r as like her theological belief, full of nice 
 and subtle distinctions ; above which it often 
 rose. The portrait traced by her husband 
 looks true ; and, though in some points contra- 
 dictory, it may not be less real for this. The 
 two principles which divided the age workl- 
 liness and devotion also divided her life. 
 
 When Richard Baxter, " son of a mean free- 
 holder,"" and Margaret Charlton, daughter of 
 Francis Charlton, justice of the peace, first met 
 in Kidderminster, there seemed little chance of 
 their future union. Difference of rank, age, 
 and temper, divided them. Baxter was nearly 
 fifty, and had long given up all thoughts of 
 marriage ; and Margaret Charlton, then little 
 past twenty, was " glittering herself in costly 
 apparel, and delighting in her romances :" for, 
 as we are informed before this, " in her vain 
 youth, pride and romances, and company suita- 
 ble thereto, did take her up ; and an imprudent 
 rigid governess that her mother had set over 
 her in her absence, had done her hurt by 
 poisoning her with ill thoughts of strictness in 
 religion."" When the young and gay Marga- 
 ret came to Kidderminster to see her mother, 
 kt she had," we are told, " great aversion to the 
 poverty and strictness" of Richard Baxter's. 
 flock. She continued in this mood until a 
 strange and sudden change came over her : tho 
 doctrine of conversion, as preached by Baxter,
 
 28 REPRESENTATIVE WOMEN. 
 
 was received in her heart as the seal on wax 1 . 
 For a long time, being naturally of a secretive 
 temper, she would not confess the alteration. 
 The house in which she then resided was large, 
 and the middle part had been ruined in the 
 civil wars ; she chose a closet at the further 
 end, where she retired whenever her soul was 
 troubled, and prayed aloud. Without her 
 knowledge, some listened to these secret out- 
 pourings of her heart, and declared that never 
 from any person had they heard such devout 
 prayers. Thus, and to the great joy of her 
 relatives, was discovered the change from 
 worldliness and religious indifference to faith 
 and its fervent aspirations, which Margaret 
 continued to conceal from those most dear to 
 her. She might have many motives for so 
 doing. Eichard Baxter has not exactly said 
 that his eloquence had wrought the change ; 
 but it is certain that it was so ; and, though 
 he has not confessed it, it is not doubtful that 
 human feelings, in which he had a part, ac- 
 companied the agitation inseparable from so 
 great an alteration in the heart of Margaret 
 Charlton. She herself wrote about this time, 
 analyzing her feelings, as washer habit: "how 
 hard it is to keep our hearts in going too far, 
 even in honest affections, towards the creature, 
 while we are so backward to love God, who 
 should have all the heart and soul and might. 
 Too strong love to any, though it be good in 
 the kind, may yet be sinful and hurtful in the 
 degree. 1. It will turn too many of your 
 thoughts from God, and they will be too often 
 running after the beloved creature. 2. And
 
 REPRESENTATIVE WIVES. 29 
 
 by this exercise of thoughts and affections on 
 the creature, it may divert and cool your love 
 of God, which will not be kept up unless our 
 thoughts be kept more to him ; yea, though it 
 be for his sake that you love them. 3. It will 
 increase your suffering, by interesting you in 
 all the dangers and troubles of those whom you 
 overlove." 
 
 But when did reason wholly prevail over the 
 feelings that sway the heart and become its 
 very life ? This dreary triumph was not re- 
 served to Margaret Charlton : it was, indeed, 
 most difficult to contend against her passion. 
 When she sank into a decline, from which her 
 recovery was not expected, the prayers and 
 fasts of one already too dear, were offered up 
 in her behalf. She recovered in a manner 
 esteemed miraculous ; but remained oppressed 
 with a strange sadness that was partly the re- 
 sult of temperament. 
 
 Whatever suspicions might have been 
 entertained of the truth, the announcement 
 of her marriage with Baxter created some 
 surprise ; which was, indeed, warranted by 
 her youth, wealth, and superior rank. He 
 gives on this subject the following imperfect 
 explanation : 
 
 * The unsuitableness of our age, and my 
 former known purpose against marriage, and 
 against the conveniency of ministers' 1 marriage, 
 who have no sort of necessity, made our mar- 
 riage the matter of much public talk and won- 
 der. And the true opening of her case and 
 mine, and the many strange occurrences which 
 brought it to pass, would take away *Aie wonder
 
 RKPIUCSEXTATIVE WOMEN. 
 
 of her friends and mine that knew us, and the 
 notice of it would much conduce to the under- 
 standing of some other passages of our lives. 
 Yet wise friends by whom I am advised, think 
 it better to omit such personal particularities, 
 at least at this time. Both in her case and 
 mine there was much extraordinary, which it 
 doth not much concern the world to be ac- 
 quainted with. From the first thoughts of it, 
 many changes and stoppages intervened, and 
 long delays, till I was silenced and ejected 
 with many hundreds more ; and so, being 
 separated from my old pastoral charge, which 
 was enough to take up all my time and labour, 
 some of my dissuading reasons were then over. 
 And at last, on September 10th, 1662, we 
 were married in Bennet Fink Church, by Mr. 
 Samuel Clark, having before been contracted 
 by Mr. Simeon Ash, both in the presence of 
 Mr. Ashunt and Mrs. Ash." 
 
 Margaret Baxter was then twenty-three, her 
 husband was forty-seven ; but difference of 
 age, which had not prevented love, could prove 
 no bar to married happiness. Baxter acknow- 
 ledges with much simplicity, that " when they 
 were married, her sadness and melancholy 
 vanished/ 1 They never repented, in spite of 
 all the toil and care to which this union led. 
 Though one of the most moderate of Noncon- 
 formists, Baxter was bitterly persecuted : sud- 
 den and frequent removals, heavy losses, and 
 finally, prison, entered into his lot. His wife 
 bore everything with courage and love ; and 
 wherever they went, endeared herself to all, 
 by her amiable temper and abundant charity.
 
 REPRESENTATIVE WIVES. 31 
 
 Too firm and ardent in her faith to shrink from 
 persecution, she laboured to extend her husband's 
 ministry ; and shared his prison as she shared 
 Ins home : when he was carried to the common 
 gaol, she cheerfully accompanied him, and 
 brought her best bed with her. 
 
 The record which Richard Baxter has left of 
 his wife's efforts in what she esteemed the 
 cause of truth, shows her to have possessed a 
 7nind of singular energy and resources, as well 
 as a zealous and indefatigable temper. She 
 spent much to establish places of Nonconformist 
 worship ; and had the ignorant children of St. 
 James's taught at her expense. She ended by 
 exhausting her means ; and on this subject her 
 husband observes : 
 
 " I take it yet for a greater part of her 
 charity, that when her own estate proved much 
 too short to maintain her in the exercise of 
 such good works as she was devoted to, she at 
 length refused not to accept with thanks the 
 liberality of others, and to live partly on charity, 
 that she might exercise charity to them that 
 could not so easily get it from others as we 
 could do." For one of her naturally proud 
 temper, this was, indeed, no slight concession 
 made to charity. Baxter confesses that " her 
 expectations of liberality to the poor from 
 others were too high, and her displeasure too 
 great towards them that denied : whereupon, 
 wittn she saw a worthy person in debt, or 
 prison, or great want, she would promise to 
 gather them such a sum ; and sometimes she 
 was put to pay most of it herself. But a 
 fortnight or a mouth before site died, she
 
 32 
 
 REPRESENTATIVE WOMEN. 
 
 promised to get 20 towards the relief of -one 
 of known name and worth, and could get 
 but 8, and somewhat over it, and paid all the 
 rest herself." 
 
 " Her judgment was, that we ought to give, 
 more or less, to every one that asketh, if we 
 have it ; and that neighbourhood, and notice, 
 and asking, next known to indigence and great 
 worth, are the marks by which to know whom 
 God would have us give. I thought that, 
 besides these, we must exercise prudence in 
 discerning the degrees of need and worth. 
 But she practised as she thought, and especially 
 to those imprisoned for debt, and blamed me 
 if I denied any one." 
 
 " Alas .' I know many poor widows, and 
 others, who think they have now lost a mother, 
 and are left desolate, whom I could wish some 
 that are able would help, instead of the help 
 they have lost." 
 
 So sincere, indeed, was the charity of 
 Margaret Baxter, that, besides the presents 
 she accepted, she borrowed to extend her alms; 
 and at her death there still remained some of 
 these debts of mercy unpaid. She had always 
 been delicate ; and a brief illness carried her 
 off in June, 1681, in the forty-second year of 
 her age. 
 
 The grief of her husband was deep. They 
 had been married nineteen years, and had spent 
 that time in untroubled union, peace, and love. 
 The aid which, in all his worldly afflictions, 
 and often, too, in spiritual difficulties, he had 
 derived from her, is gratefully and touchingly 
 acknowledged by Eichard Baxter. Although
 
 REPRESENTATIVE WIVES. 33 
 
 he. speaks of her " weak and too passionate 
 nature," he has drawn in her a woman of no 
 ordinary character and acquirements. Quick, 
 sensitive, gentle, too ardent perhaps in the 
 good at which she herself aimed or expected 
 from others, too intense in her affections and 
 desires, she was yet of a lofty and generous 
 nature. Though she was far from acting 
 hastily, and was all for prudence and delibera- 
 tion ; calmness was the virtue, or rather the 
 state of mind, she most needed. She felt it 
 herself, for she had a morbid apprehension of 
 madness, to which some members of her family 
 had been subject. Her own understanding 
 was unusually firm and clear; but, as her 
 husband confesses, "like the treble strings of 
 a lute, strained up to the highest sweet, but 
 in continual danger." Her fears were partly 
 realized, for she died in a state of delirium : 
 yet even then her thoughts were all fixed on 
 God. 
 
 The natural reluctance of Baxter to record 
 charities in the merit of which he shared, has 
 prevented him from giving a detailed account 
 of the good deeds with which his wife filled 
 her life ; yet she was undoubtedly one of the 
 most charitable women of England during this 
 age : remarkable not only for the amount she 
 gave, but also for the spirit in which it was 
 given. 
 
 Mr. Audubon married early, in the family 
 of the Bakewells in England. The family 
 name, so familiar in this country, is a sufficient 
 pronunciation of her probable worthiness to 
 share the fortunes of such a num. But apart 
 c 2
 
 - EliPKKSiiXTATIVE WOMKN'. 
 
 from all such extraneous considerations, her 
 life is the best commentary upon, and her sons 
 the best illustration of, what such a matron 
 should be : she shared with a smiling bravery 
 all the wanderings and necessities of her hus- 
 band. Whether the temporary occupant of 
 some log or frame hovel attached to a trading 
 post of the great south-west, where it was 
 necessary for the husband to take up his 
 quarters in the double capacity of trader and 
 naturalist, or share of honour, regal, so far as 
 artistic and scientific appreciation could fashion 
 them, bestowed upon him amid the imposing 
 luxuries of European life, she was always the 
 calm, wise, cheerful helper, as well as sympa- 
 thiser. A. noble relict of that almost exploded 
 school of matrons, who recognized the compact 
 of. marriage as a sacred union of purpose as 
 well as life ; she does not seem to have aimed 
 at a loftier honour than that of being the true 
 wife of J. J. Audubon. In this is her greatest 
 glory ; for a common woman, with the fears 
 and weaknesses of common character, would 
 soon have crossed the gossamer life of his fine 
 enthusiasm, beneath the weight of vulgar cares 
 and apprehensions. So far from this being the 
 case, she appears to have been so entirely 
 identified with his successes, that it would be 
 impossible to separate her loving recognition of 
 them. She was his resolute companion in 
 many of the long journeys he found it necessary 
 to make, in his early days, to the far west. 
 She crossed the Alleghanies with him on horse- 
 back, at a time when there existed no other 
 facilities for making the journey. She shared
 
 ItKPUESKXTATIVE VVIVES. 35 
 
 with him the wayside hovel of the mountaineer; 
 laughed with him over the petty inconveniences 
 of the travel, and shared the lovely enthusiasm 
 which burst forth, when its accidents threw in 
 his way a long coveted or entirely new specimen. 
 When it became necessary for him to sink his 
 Jacob's staff here and there, and leave her 
 with his family amidst strange associations, 
 for long months together, he could go with the 
 calm feeling, that, as the favourite bird of his 
 own discovery, (the bird of Washington,) his 
 eyrie would be safe in the jealous strength of 
 his mate, and open and warm for him on his 
 return. 
 
 How many dark hours amidst the deep 
 shadows of savage woods, has such reposeful 
 trust been luminous with joy and faith to him. 
 How many gloomy denies can be passed, how 
 many cold and sudden plunges be endured, how 
 many fierce extravagant exigencies be faced, 
 by that deep abiding assurance which feels and 
 is certain that there is beyond all this a true 
 heart to welcome, and a home ! Some of the 
 most noble, unpremeditated expressions of 
 tenderness we remember, are to be found in 
 his biography of birds, referring to the antici- 
 pated delight of such re-unions with his family. 
 
 But the mechanic's wife has often appeared 
 to us the ideal woman. " There," says an 
 eminent writer, "we behold woman in all her 
 glory not a doll to carry silks and jewels ; 
 not a puppet to be nattered by profane adora- 
 tion ; reverenced to-day, discarded to-morrow ; 
 always jostled out of the place which nature 
 and society would assign her, by sensuality or
 
 36 REPRESENTATIVE WOMEN. 
 
 contempt ; admired, but not esteemed ; ruling 
 by passion, not affection ; imparting her weak- 
 ness, not her constancy, to the sex she would 
 exalt ; the source and mirror of vanity we 
 see her as a wife, partaking the cares and 
 cheering the anxiety of a husband ; dividing 
 his toils, by her domestic diligence ; spreading 
 cheerfulness around her, for his sake ; sharing 
 the decent refinements of the world, without 
 being vain of them ; placing all her joys and 
 her happiness in the man she loves. As a 
 mother, we find her the affectionate, the ardent 
 instructress of the children whom she has 
 tended from their infancy; training them up 
 to thought and virtue, to piety and benevolence ; 
 addressing them as rational beings, and pre- 
 paring them to become men and women in 
 their turn. Mechanics' daughters should make 
 the best wives in the world." 
 
 We always liked William Cobbett's estimate 
 of a wife. " I hate," he somewhere remarks, 
 "a dull, melancholy, moping thing; I could 
 not have existed in the same house with such 
 a thing for a single month. The mopers are, 
 too, all giggle at other times ; the gaiety is for 
 others, and the moping for the husband, to 
 comfort him (happy man !) when he is alone : 
 plenty of smiles and of badinage for others, 
 and for him to participate with others ; but 
 the moping is reserved exclusively for him. 
 One hour she is capering about, as if rehearsing 
 a jig ; and the next, sighing to the motion of 
 a lazy needle, or weeping over a novel : and 
 this is called sentiment ! Music, indeed i 
 Give me a mother singing to her clean, and
 
 REPRESENTATIVE WIVES. o7 
 
 fat, and rosy baby, and making the house ring 
 with her extravagant and hyperbolical enco- 
 miums on it. That is the music which is 
 ' the food of love ;' and not the formal, pedantic 
 noises, an affectation of skill in which is now- 
 a-days the ruin of half the young couples in 
 the middle rank of life. Let any man observe, 
 as I so frequently have with delight, the ex- 
 cessive fondness of the labouring people for 
 their children. Let him observe with what 
 pride they dress them out on a Sunday, with 
 means deducted from their own scanty meals. 
 Let him observe the husband, who has toiled 
 all the week like a horse, nursing the baby 
 while the wife is preparing the bit of dinner. 
 Let him observe them both abstaining from a 
 sufficiency, lest the children should feel the 
 pinchings of hunger. Let him observe, in 
 short, the whole of their demeanour, the real 
 mutual affection evinced, not in words, but in 
 unequivocal deeds. Let him observe these 
 things, and having then cast a look at the lives 
 of the great and wealthy, he will say with 
 me, that when a man is choosing his partner 
 for life, the dread of poverty ought to be cast 
 to the winds. A labourer's cottage on a 
 Sunday, the husband or wife having a baby 
 in arms, looking at two or three older ones 
 playing between the flower-borders, going from 
 the wicket to the door, is, according to my 
 taste, the most interesting object that eyes ever 
 beheld ; and it is an object to be beheld in no 
 country on earth but England."
 
 88 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 EEPRKSEN'TATIVE MOTHERS. 
 
 THAT mother's love ! How sweet the name ! 
 
 What was that mother's Jove ? 
 The noblest, purest, tenderest flame, 
 
 That kindles from above. 
 Within a heart of earthly mould, 
 As much of heaven as earth could hold, 
 Nor thro' eternity grows cold : 
 
 This was that mother's love. \ 
 
 JAMES MONTGOMERY. 
 
 THK mother has heen ever regarded as the 
 most peculiarly sacred of woman's character- 
 istics. The depth and potency of its affection, 
 never to^be overrated, the onus and responsi- 
 bility of it never to be sufficiently estimated. 
 Appeal to the woman ! you may sometimes 
 fail, but whenever did an appeal fail presented 
 to the mother? What a revelation of divine 
 goodness is there in the construction of the 
 mother's heart. If the mother's heart be so 
 tender, what must be the tenderness of that 
 great and benignant being who fashioned that 
 mother's heart, and gave to it all its wonderful 
 adaptations? For as the child comes forth 
 from the mother, and as its relation to heir is 
 the peculiar link which invests her character 
 with such wonderful and awful beauty, even so
 
 REPRESENTATIVE MOTIliiUS. 39 
 
 do we all corne forth from God. What is 
 there in mere unintelligent nature which could 
 so beautify the human tabernacle ? What is 
 there in the arrangements of unthinking matter 
 that could thus wreath around the hardest 
 hearts the flowers of the most intense devoted- 
 ness ? No, and it has always appeared to us 
 that one of the most touching arguments for 
 the existence of our Father, God, and for the 
 love and mercy of the Divine character, is to 
 be found in the fact, that wo have, in all parts 
 of the world, mothers so wonderfully true to 
 the beautiful instincts implanted in the soul, 
 instincts which sin cannot altogether crush, 
 nor the witherings of fashion wholly overcome. 
 There would seem to be some wonderful lair 
 written upon our human constitution that we 
 shall prize most, that for which we suffer 
 most ; that the feeling of value is usually 
 annexed to an object in the proportion to the 
 price which we pay for it. Hence it is not 
 often that the father sets so high a price on his 
 children as the mother. The father's affection 
 is usually more selfish, the mother's is won- 
 derfully divine. She does not love because 
 there attaches to her child any hope of gain 
 it is not gratified pride it is not the ex- 
 pected prop and support of the future ; it is 
 love ! unselfish love. And most wonderful is 
 it to notice how, if the child be weak, a cripple, 
 deformed, sickly, foredoomed to sorrow ; that 
 very circumstance which shuts it from all the 
 world's regards and expectations; which make* 
 the child useless, as one of the great workers 
 and soldiers of life ; the.sc oircunisUiaees mukc
 
 40 HEPRESENTATIVE WOMEN. 
 
 it to the mother more invaluable Therefore 
 she opens her heart for it to enter and sit down; 
 therefore she folds it round with peculiar love; 
 broods over it, delights to play with it, to 
 watch it, to hoard for it ; the world has pro- 
 nounced it valueless, therefore it has become 
 more valuable to her. I have seen a mother 
 so watching a son, an idiot, and blind, and full 
 of all evil passions, too, and frequently indulg- 
 ing in those passions at her expense. But to 
 him what a depth of love ; how careful for 
 him how devoted how self-denying. Poor, 
 very poor ; for him she saved and put by the 
 choicest pieces of food ; for him she hoarded 
 her hardly-won pennies, to buy the best and 
 warmest apparel she could find ; for him she 
 laboured with ever declining strength ; and 
 doubtless for him, if need had been, she would 
 have spent her last drop of blood ! 
 
 Oh ! in the great world museum of life, 
 what think you of the cabinet of mothers ? 
 Crime and vice, the last extremities of shame, 
 of sin, even these make no impression upon 
 her. To say that she pities the criminal, if he 
 be her child, is to use language far too weak. 
 Again, it is true that because he has done that 
 which has raised the hand of society against 
 him, therefore she feels that he has a stronger 
 claim upon her. How often have we seen men 
 deserted by the whole world, men who had set 
 the world at defiance, to whom the world, in- 
 deed, could show no compassion ; yet the 
 mothers did not forsake them ; the mother's 
 heart remained true to its first instincts ; the 
 mother's heart still retained the same affection
 
 REPRESENTATIVE MOTHERS. 41 
 
 with which it kindled in the first proud mater- 
 nal glance with which it surveyed its uncon- 
 scious babyhood ; when the warm blood set in 
 deeper gushings, and heaved with higher emo- 
 tions round the great central thought of her 
 existence. 
 
 Even so ! and it is most beautiful ; but yet 
 beautiful as it is, is it not astonishing how 
 much the mother can love without passing 
 beyond the bounds of the senses ; without 
 loving with more nobility than even an animal, 
 unreasoning affection; the unintelligent de- 
 votedness of the heart. This shows, too, 
 the wisdom of the great God of Nature : for 
 without this how could the world have been 
 conceived, if the affection of the mother had 
 not been strong and mighty, as the most 
 necessary demands of the senses ; if there had 
 not been a resolution in it, mighty as the 
 mightiest passion, how then could the world 
 have held together its mighty peoples ? how 
 could the poor have been preserved from desola- 
 tion and death I This is mysterious ; but this 
 is not all. How strange, again, is it to notice, 
 that for the intensity of the affections of the 
 human mother, there should appear to be the 
 necessity for some lair, binding the parents 
 together in reciprocal relationship and interest. 
 The illegitimate mother, and the illegitimate 
 child ; they do not appear to be so nearly 
 related together; nay, is it not in this. relation 
 that we meet with nearly all that inhumanity 
 winch shocks so much, because it sometimes 
 appears more cruel, far, than the cruelty to 
 which the savage beast of the desert can
 
 42 REPRESENT AT IVK WOMEN. 
 
 descend the mother forgetting her child. 
 Does not this often look like the revenge of 
 Nature for some outrage committed on her ? 
 Her rights were violated, and therefore she 
 neglected to sow the seeds of the maternal 
 nature in the heart. Without insisting too 
 much upon the fact, nothing is more certain, 
 attested by general observation, than the fact, 
 that the poor illegitimate has less love than the 
 child of wedlock and marriage. Pain, diffi- 
 culty, sorrow, these intensify love in the married 
 mother's heart ; but these combining in the 
 opposite instance, weaken its foundations, 
 while the most flattering and favourable cir- 
 cumstances do not often produce the feeling of 
 gentleness and affection towards the offspring. 
 Surely in all this there is a lesson as clear and 
 solemn as it is mysterious. * 
 
 It was probably in Tagasta, a small town of 
 Numidia, that the mother of Augustine was 
 born, in 332, of Christian parents, who reared 
 their children in the fear and love of God. An 
 old nurse, who had often carried the father to 
 Monica on her shoulders during his infancy 
 was now entrusted with the guardianship of his 
 daughters. She was austere, vigilant, and her 
 authority was great. 
 
 The young girls took their meat at the frugal 
 table of their parents ; they drank no wine, 
 and were allowed water but sparingly ; their 
 governess would never let. them drink between 
 their meals, howsoever great their thirst might 
 be. When they begged hard for just one cup, 
 the severe monitress inflexibly replied, " Now 
 you want water because you caunot have wine ;
 
 RKPRKSEXTATIVE MOTHERS. 43 
 
 but when you are married, and mistresses of 
 the cellar, you will despise water, and yet the 
 habit of drinking will stick to you." 
 
 As Monica grew up, her parents, confiding 
 in all the lessons of temperance she had re- 
 ceived, intrusted her with the task of daily 
 fetching from the cellar the quantity of wine 
 needed for the family. After filling her flask 
 from the cup which she had dipped in the cask 
 for that purpose, Monica could not resist tlfe 
 temptation of taking a sup, just to see how it 
 tasted. She disliked it, but found it more pala- 
 table on the following day, and still more plea- 
 sant as she went on ; she ended by liking it so 
 well, that in the end she could drink" off a 
 cupful easily. This secret habit was fortu- 
 nately checked by a quarrel with a maid-ser- 
 vant who accompanied her mistress to the 
 cellar, and who, in the heat of her resentment, 
 rather disrespectfully called her " drinker of 
 pure wine." The insult stung so deeply the 
 proud soul of the young girl, that from that day 
 she observed the most exact temperance. 
 
 Soon after this Monica received baptism, 
 and being of marriageable age, was given by 
 her parents to a citizen of Tagasta ; an idola- 
 ter, but a man of probity. Such unions, 
 though censured by the most devout, were not 
 uncommon ; and never was the precept, 
 ' Wives, submit yourselves unto your hus- 
 bands, as unto the Lord," more faithfully fol- 
 lowed than by this Christian wife of an 
 idolatrous husband. Monica sought to convert 
 him by the ex-imple of her own purity, pa- 
 ttftttee, and gentleness; and the conversion was
 
 44 HEPRESENTATIVE WOMEN. 
 
 sadly needed. Patricius was hasty in temper 
 and licentious in habits, yet he never once 
 heard an impatient or reproachful word in his 
 home ; if he blamed her unjustly, Monica 
 heard the reproof in silence, waited until his 
 anger was exhausted, and then calmly justified 
 her conduct. When ladies of Tagasta, whose 
 husbands bore more likeness to Patricius than 
 they to Monica, came to her with the marks 
 of ill usage on their faces, and complained 
 bitterly of the vices and violence of those to 
 whom they had been united, Monica scrupled 
 not to say, " Lay the blame rather on your 
 own tongues;" then with an appearance of 
 pleasantry, under which she hid her perfectly 
 serious meaning, she added, " Remember that 
 when your marriage contract was read to you, 
 you heard the contract of your servitude. For- 
 get not then what you are, and strive not 
 against your masters."" 
 
 Few obeyed the austere and humble counsel. 
 Four a^es of Christianity had nearly elapsed, 
 and woman had still only the choice of evils : 
 submission to the caprices of a tyrannical and 
 licentious master, or ill usage. Need we then 
 wonder at those crowds of virgins and widows 
 to whom their vows of chastity gave honour 
 amongst men, and the freedom of hearts that 
 owned no master save God ? Alas ! it was 
 not always divine love that filled the cloisters 
 of the olden time, and gave, for ages, so many 
 brides to heaven. 
 
 Monica had three children Augustine, 
 another son, and a daughter, who died an 
 abbess. Augustine was born in 354, and im-
 
 REPRESENTATIVE MOTHERS. 4o 
 
 mediately numbered among the catechumens 
 by receiving on his forehead the sign of the 
 cross, and on his lips the mysterious and sym- 
 bolic salt : infant baptism was not then in use. 
 Spite of his many faults, Patricius loved his 
 wife and children. Proud of the dawning 
 genius of his eldest son, he strained his means 
 to give him a good education ; even the devout 
 Monica, growing somewhat worldly for the 
 sake of her favourite child, shared all his 
 eagerness on this subject. Augustine was sent 
 to the neighbouring town of Madaura, to study 
 belles lettres and eloquence ; he subsequently 
 prosecuted his studies at Carthage, amidst all 
 the dangers and the dissipation of a great city. 
 Monica, in earnest and touching language, 
 begged of him to lead a pure life, and above all 
 never to attempt to seduce a married woman. 
 In his Confessions the penitent saint acknow- 
 ledges that he listened to her impatiently, and 
 held her advice mere woman's talk, which he 
 would have been ashamed to heed or obey. 
 
 Patricius died in 371. For a year he had 
 wholly relinquished his dissolute courses, re- 
 ceived baptism, and lived like a sincere Chris- 
 tian. The father rose from his slough, but the 
 son fell : he became the slave of his passions, 
 renounced the Catholic faith, in which he hud 
 been brought up, and embraced the creed of 
 the Manicheans, who contended for the ex- 
 istence of two first principles, one good, the 
 other evil. Yet in the midst of all his errors, 
 Augustine continued to display that admirable 
 genius which stamps everything he has left and 
 written with a lofty and eloquent tenderness.
 
 46 REPRESENTATIVE WOMEN. 
 
 To relieve his mother from the expenses of his 
 education he opened a school of grammar and 
 rhetoric in Tagasta. 
 
 Monica mourned over him with deep and 
 yearning grief* Shocked at his blasphemies, 
 she would no longer allow him to reside under 
 her roof, or to sit at her table ; but she wept 
 and prayed for him incessantly. Her dreams 
 became the image of her waking thoughts. One 
 of those nightly. visions comforted her greatly ; 
 she saw herself sorrowfully standing alone on a 
 rule of wood, when a youth, radiant with light, 
 carne up and asked her why she wept. When 
 she answered that it was for the soul of her 
 fallen son, he bade her look well, for that where 
 she was she should see Augustine. She looked 
 round, and beheld him standing on the same 
 rule of wood with her. When she mentioned 
 this dream to Augustine, he slighted it, and 
 endeavoured to interpret it in the sense that 
 his mother would adopt his creed, and not that 
 he should return to hers. " No, not so," very 
 promptly replied^ Monica, " for it was not said 
 to me, where Tie is you also are, but he is where 
 you are." 1 The quickness of the answer struck 
 her son more than the dream itself; which, 
 however, gave her so much hope that she once 
 more allowed him to dwell in her house. 
 
 For nine years Augustine persisted in his 
 dissolute life and false faith. Monica prayed 
 for him, and omitted no human means of bring- 
 ing him over to her belief. A certain bishop, 
 urged by her to come and argue with him, dis- 
 creetly refused, and said he would himself end 
 by finding out the truth ; but as Monica per-
 
 REPRESENTATIVE MOTHERS. 47 
 
 sisted, and with fervent entreaties and many 
 tears besought him to make at least the attempt, 
 he replied, as if weary of her importunities, 
 '" Continue as you have begun : surely the son 
 of so many tears cannot perish.' 1 Struck with 
 his words, Monica took them as a prophecy, 
 and insisted no more. 
 
 The weariness of the world and its pleasures, 
 of life and its aims nay, of the heart itself, 
 and of all its promised delights, is no new 
 sorrow : it clings to humanity as the bitterest 
 portion of the curse which fell on Adam and 
 his posterity. This curse overtook Augustine, 
 in spite of his fame, genius, and pleasures. His 
 dearest friend died ; the guilty love in which 
 he had indulged for years was embittered by 
 quarrels and jealousies ; fame when won seemed 
 worthless ; his very belief failed him, and no 
 other faith came to fill the void of soul and 
 heart. He was scarcely thirty ; yet, in the 
 strength of manhood and prime of life, the 
 sweetness of existence was over, and nothing 
 .seemed left to quaff but the bitter dregs of the 
 enchanting cup. Wearied of Africa, he re- 
 solved to go to Rome. Monica was filled with 
 grief. The shadow which darkened the days 
 of the erring son, had fallen lightly on the pure 
 life of the mother: patient beneath her hard 
 destiny, she had made the happiness of life 
 consist in the peace of home, and its ambition 
 in the aspirations of her soul to God. Her 
 heart still owned one human tie her children. 
 She followed Augustine to the seaside, hoping 
 that her tears would induce him to remain, or 
 to take her with him. He wished to do neither ;
 
 48 REPRESENTATIVE WOMKN. 
 
 but she kept so close on his steps, that he was 
 compelled to deceive the love he could not shake 
 off. He assured her that on going on board he 
 only meant to bid farewell to a friend, with 
 whom he wished to remain to the last moment. 
 The distrustful mother wept, and clung to his 
 garments ; at length she was persuaded to pass 
 the night in a chapel consecrated to St. Cyprian. 
 It stood on the shore, not far from the spot 
 where the vessel lay at anchor. Whilst she 
 spent the night in vigil and prayer, the ship 
 set sail. Dawning day found her in the little 
 oratory, and her son far away on the waters. 
 She returned, sad and alone, to her home at 
 Tagasta. 
 
 From Kome, Augustine proceeded to Milan, 
 where his mother joined him ere long, braving 
 the terrors of a long voyage to see him again. 
 A great joy awaited her : after a long and 
 bitter struggle, Augustine cast off the trammels 
 of his former passions, until his soul at length 
 stood pure and free before God, confessing the 
 faith of Christ, and rejoicing in its liberty. 
 Soon after his conversion, which he has himself 
 admirably related in the memorable "Confes- 
 sions," Augustine gave up the school of rhetoric 
 which he held at Milan, and retired to a coun- 
 try house at Cassiacorum, lent to him by one 
 of his friends. Monica, his brother, two of 
 his late pupils, and some friends, accompanied 
 him. In this quiet retreat, devoting themselves 
 to prayer, contemplation, and social converse, 
 they spent that most pleasant part of the year 
 in southern climates, the warm and genial 
 vintage-time.
 
 REPBBSKXTATIVE MOTIIilHS. 49 
 
 When the little household had prayed 
 together, Augustine and his friends walked 
 forth to enjoy the cool morning time. Monica 
 remained within, engaged in household tasks. 
 She however shared in the religious and literary 
 conferences, of which some have been preserved 
 by her son ; he speaks with admiration of her 
 remarks, and of her firm and manly heart, 
 strong in its faith. After the baptism of St. 
 Augustine, this little society resolved to embark 
 for Africa, and seek a home where they might 
 all live together in religious and philosophic 
 retirement. They began their journey in the 
 autumn of 387, and stopped at Ostia, near the 
 mouth of the Tiber, whence they thought to 
 embark. Here Monica suddenly sickened and 
 died. 
 
 The pages in which Augustine records the 
 last hours and aspirations of this noble woman 
 are amongst the best he ever wrote; they 
 breathe the very spirit of tenderness and prayer. 
 But they must be read with what preceded : 
 taken apart, the style seems peculiar and obscure 
 scarcely anything of the charm remains. 
 The day now approaching wherein she was 
 to depart this lite," writes Augustine, " it 
 came to pass that she and I stood alone in a 
 certain window, which looked into the garden 
 of the house where we now lay at Ostia; 
 and where, removed from the din of men, we 
 were recruiting from the fatigues of a long 
 journey for the voyage. We were discoursing 
 hen together, alone, very sweetly ; and forget- 
 ting the past in the future, we were inquiring 
 between ourselves of what sort the eternal life
 
 50 REPRESENTATIVE WOMEV. 
 
 of the saints was to be, which eye hath not 
 seen, nor ear heard, nor hath it entered into 
 the heart of man to conceive. But yet we 
 longed with all our hearts after those heavenly 
 streams of the fountain of life, that we might 
 in some sort meditate upon so high a mystery. 
 And then our discourse was brought to that 
 point, that the very highest delights of the 
 earthly senses, in the very purest material light, 
 were, in respect of the sweetness of that life, 
 not only not worthy of comparison, but not 
 even of mention. Raisins; ourselves with a 
 more fervent affection towards the eternal, we 
 passed by degrees through all corporeal things; 
 even the very heavens, whence sun, and moon, 
 and stars shine upon the earth : yea, we were 
 soaring higher yet, by inward musing and dis- 
 course of, and admiring Thy works ; and we 
 came to our own minds, and went beyond 
 them, that we might arrive in that region of 
 never-failing plenty, where Thou feedest Israel 
 for ever with the food of truth." 
 
 Thus soaring in spirit, they sought to ima- 
 gine how it would be if the tumult of the senses, 
 and all they perceive of the soul herself and 
 her imaginings, were suddenly hushed : if God 
 spoke to her not through external signs, angel's 
 voice, or mysterious parable, but in living 
 reality. Then comparing her state to that 
 rapid thought which for a moment had raised 
 them so high, they found that this bliss of in- 
 tellect and love surpassed all other, and they 
 placed eternal happiness in the mere presence 
 of the divinity. 
 
 " As we spake," adds Augustine, " this
 
 REPRESENTATIVE MOTHERS. 51 
 
 world with all its delights became contemptible 
 to us. My mother said, " Son, for mine own 
 p.-trt, I have no further delight in anything in 
 this life. What I do here any longer, and to 
 what end I am here, I know not, now that my 
 hopes in this world are accomplished. One 
 thing there was for which 1 desired to linger for 
 a while in this life that I might see thee"a Ca- 
 tholic Christian before I die. My God hath 
 done this for me, and more ; since I now see 
 thee despising earthly happiness, and become 
 his servant : what then do I here ?" 
 
 Five or six days after this, Monica was 
 seized with a fever. Recovering from a faint- 
 ing fit, she said to her sons, " You will bury 
 your mother here." The brother of Augustine, 
 knowing with what care she had formerly pren 
 pared her own grave near that of Patricius, 
 seemed to deplore that she should die and sleep 
 in a foreign land. Monica chid him, and bid- 
 ding both her sons lay her body wherever she 
 died, and not trouble themselves about it, she 
 added but one request, " that they should re- 
 member her before the altar of the Lord. 11 
 
 On the ninth day of her illness, and in the 
 ifty-sixth year of her age, Monica died. " I 
 closed her eyes," writes Augustine, "and there 
 flowed withal a mighty sorrow into my heart." 
 lime brought consolation, but not forgetful- 
 ness. It is strange and touching, after so "many 
 ages have passed away, to read the request 
 which he addresses to all those who may per- 
 use his Confession's, "that ;.t the altar of God 
 they may remember Monica, and Patricius, 
 her husband;" that so his mother's last request
 
 52 REPRESENTATIVE WOMEN. 
 
 may be, ' ; through the prayers of many, more 
 abundantly fulfilled to her." 
 
 We have lingered too long, perhaps, over 
 this life of a simple woman of the fourth cen- 
 tury. Her existence was calm and domestic ; 
 happy because her soul was with God. Such 
 as it was we give it, as one of the last glimpses 
 of the sphere within which woman's hopes 
 grew and died, or blossomed into immortality, 
 until the great Barbarian invasion shattered to 
 pieces the foundations of the old world ; and, 
 in the midst of seeming ruin, laid the seeds of 
 that other civilization which has not yet run its 
 course of ages. 
 
 The only reason why we do not speak of 
 Agrippina as a representative queen, is because 
 she, the queen, was absorbed by the regards of 
 the mother the mother of Nero. What a 
 son ! and what a return for the affections of 
 such a mother ! All her character is revealed to 
 us in the answer she gave to the prophetic 
 Auger, who bade her beware lest the son she 
 elevated might prove her ruin, " Let me 
 perish," she answered, " but let Nero reign."" 
 Was it not a true maternal answer? Was it 
 not an answer in the spirit of every true mother 
 that ever lived ? Agrippina was born in the 
 Augustan age of crime and ingratitude, in 
 Borne ; she was the daughter of that Agrippina 
 who was called " the glory of the Roman 
 matrons," and of the great victor Germanicus ; 
 she was born and reared in the midst of war, 
 and very early received wonderful lessons in the 
 aptitude of princes for ingratitude ; her parents 
 both suffered death from the jealousy of the
 
 REPRESENTATIVE MOTHERS. 53 
 
 atrocious Ernperor Tiberius Tiberius, the ante- 
 type of Nero ; for was not he the murderer of 
 his wife and of his mother ? She was early 
 trained to adversity, soon losing' her first hus- 
 band, the husband of her choice, the father of 
 her darling boy, that Nero who was early torn 
 from her arms, and committed for education to 
 the care of a rope-dancer ; upon the death of 
 Messalina, she was married to Claudius, the 
 emperor a beast upon a throne who shows 
 to us how far men may sink into the mere vile- 
 ness and brutality of sensualism. But as soon 
 as Agrippina mounted the throne, she became 
 the empress and the mistress of Rome the 
 orgies of the vile Messalina ceased ; she 
 snatched the reins from the hands of her im- 
 becile husband she became a reformer; she 
 abolished espionage; she rigidly scrutinized 
 and rearranged the matters of finance ; anarchy 
 ceased, vigour took the place of weakness, 
 economy in the expenditure of the palace suc- 
 ceeded to the lavish and unthrifty outlay of 
 preceding years; her brilliant genius shone 
 through all the administration, and sheds a 
 light to the present day over those disgraceful 
 epochs of Roman story. 
 
 As we see her there sitting, by Claudius, the 
 first empress, receiving the same honours as the 
 emperor; accepting the homage of Caractacus, 
 the British captive, whose life was granted to 
 her intercession ; or, issuing her orders for the 
 foundation of that now magnificent old city, on 
 the Rhine, Cologne, the town where she first 
 saw the light; or, mounting the steps to still 
 greater power, upon the death of her husband
 
 54 REPRESENTATIVE WOMEN. 
 
 Claudius What attracts us ? the empress ! 
 No. The mother ! We see it that, from her 
 first accession to the throne, all her thoughts 
 
 re for the elevation of the boy, the son of 
 
 omitius her lover and her .husband : she 
 first procured the adoption of Domitius to the 
 royal family, with the style of Nero Claudius 
 
 sesar, to the prejudice of the emperor's own 
 infant, Britannicus ; and then she procured his 
 marriage with the daughter of Claudius Octavia, 
 thus she cleared his pathway to the throne ; 
 and while the emperor was dying, she sent him 
 away to the army, to propitiate the then indis- 
 pensable leaders, by speeches committed to 
 memory from the instructions of Seneca. Nero 
 became emperor when eighteen years of age. 
 His mother had been the minister of state and 
 power for Rome for five years ; for five years 
 longer she held, with equal authority, the 
 sceptre of her son ; for a little while he bowed, 
 with affected reverence, to the parent who had 
 raised him from obscurity, and had schemed, 
 and toiled, and endured so patiently for him. 
 
 h, blind historian ! complimenting as the 
 spring of the events of that time ! Seneca, the 
 age, or Burrhus, the warrior look a little 
 more closely, and you will find that it was 
 maternal instinct, the love of the mother, 
 twisting, in her fondness, a brilliant crown for 
 her son ; excavating a pathway for him to 
 mount, with ease, his seat of power that sen- 
 tence revealed it all " Let me perish, but let 
 Nero reign !" 
 
 Probably our readers have not to be informed 
 how the mother fared for the devotion to her
 
 REPRESENTATIVE MOTHERS. OO 
 
 son. Some writers have noticed in the earlier 
 years of the reign of Nero, the manifestation of 
 a different spirit to that which marked the latter 
 period of his reign, and made his name through 
 all succeeding ages synonymous with horror 
 and cruelty. But we do not believe it ; he 
 was ever the same. Very early Agrippina must 
 have perceived his utter destitution of those 
 noble elements of sensibility which make a man 
 or a monarch wise and worthy ; for all that is 
 great in those years, we are indebted to Agrip- 
 pina; for all that is undeveloped in Nero, to 
 his cunning ; a cunning, however, that could 
 not possibly escape the keen eye of a mother. 
 She said to one, who, by betraying her confi- 
 dence, has made her apothegm historical. 
 " The reign of Nero has begun as that of Au- 
 gustus ended ; but when I am gone, it will 
 end as that of Augustus begun." 
 
 The awful prophecy was soon accomplished. 
 How did it end ? Let mothers guess the 
 anguish of this one, as she beheld all her 
 schemes for the elevation of Rome to its ancient 
 grandeur frustrated by the vicious and dissolute 
 eon. Is it wonderful that she reproached 
 him as she beheld him yielding himself to the 
 embrace of harlots, neglecting his wife for the 
 dissolute Popptea, whom he had forced from 
 her husband, the bravest of his generals ? is it 
 wonderful that when this son publicly insulted 
 her before the whole assembled court, she 
 threatened and talked of drawing forth the 
 young Brittanicus, the son of Claudius, and 
 persuading the Prajtorian guards to prefer him 
 to the son who now seemed so unworthy ; and
 
 55 REPRESENTATIVE WOMEN. 
 
 when all the passions of Nero were unloosened, 
 and Brittanicus was murdered, poisoned while 
 supping with the Emperor and Empress ; his 
 sister, when she hereelf was imprisoned, and 
 her life sought by poison too, would it be won- 
 derful if the feelings of the mother sunk before 
 this baseness and barbarity. 
 
 But it did not ; and when she was charged 
 with conspiring against her son, pleading her 
 own cause, in a passionate outburst of feeling 
 against Julia Silana who brought the charge 
 against her, she exclaimed " the woman who 
 has made this accusation, never had a son." 
 
 Poor mother, she was reconciled to her son ; 
 she believed the reconciliation sincere, but it 
 was not; the world was not deceived. Nero 
 was resolved upon her death, but he could not 
 well arrange the method of it. But on the 
 festival of Minerva, he invited her to Baise, he 
 sent an affectionate message to her, saying, 
 " From such a mother, one must endure much 
 and forgive all." A warningvoi.ee reached her, 
 but she did not regard it, she flew to her son. 
 
 During the festival, he placed her at his 
 right hand, and talked to her, sometimes with 
 familiar gaiety, sometimes with an air of gra- 
 vity, that gave to his whispered sentences the 
 air of state secrets. 
 
 At an hour after midnight, Agrippina with- 
 drew, leaving the younger guests to prolong 
 their orgies. Nero himself conducted her to 
 the barge, in which she was to return. Their 
 parting, it is said, was marked by the strong 
 emotion (whether of apprehension or of regret) 
 of the emperor, who stood on the shore till the
 
 REPRESENTATIVE MOTHERS. 57 
 
 little vessel, on which his eyes were fixed, had 
 disappeared behind a headland. 
 
 The night was calm and clear ; the firma- 
 ment sparkled with the lights of myriads of 
 stars ; and the sea, as if to accuse the criminal, 
 was smooth as a mirror. The happy mother 
 (then all a mother), reclined on a couch spread 
 on the deck beneath a canopy of rich drapery ; 
 in the fullness of her heart, she continued con- 
 versing with Creperius Gallus, who stood near 
 the helm, and with her freed woman, Aeerro- 
 nia, who lay at her feet. They were still feli- 
 citating her on her perfect reconciliation with 
 the emperor, and spoke of happy days to come 
 for Rome and for the world, when the canopy 
 fell above them suddenly with a tremendous 
 crash, which proved it to be laden with lead 
 and iron. Gallus was killed on the spot. A 
 rower rushing forward to dispatch the empress, 
 arrested the attention of Acerronia, who ex- 
 claiming " You mistake I am Agrippina," 
 received the blow on her bosom, and expired. 
 Agrippina, With her usual energy and presence 
 of mind, plunged into the calm waters, and was 
 taken up by a vessel from the Lucrine Lake, 
 and conveyed to Bauli in safety. 
 
 Nero received the intelligence of the failure 
 of his machinations with horror and consterna- 
 tion. Agrippina alive, and aware of his medi- 
 tated crime, was a witness against him to the 
 world to all posterity. So he called to his 
 councils Burrlms, the warrior, and Seneca, the 
 moralist, and the death of the daughter of 
 Germanicus was again resolved on ; and in- 
 stantly shi> was to be murdered in cold blood : 
 
 D2
 
 REI'llESENTATiVE WOMEN. 
 
 and Anicetus, the one man in Rome capable of 
 the deed, was called on to consummate it. 
 
 It was evening when this awful council was 
 held ; it was scarcely night when Anicetus and 
 a party of soldiers landed on the flowery shores 
 of Bauli, and crept with noiseless steps to the 
 Bilent villa where Agrippina lay on her restless 
 couch, confiding to her female slave her suffer- 
 ing and her suspicions. The soldiers had sur- 
 rounded the palace, when Anicetus, with a 
 centurion and others, burst open the doors, 
 seizing the slaves they met in their way. 
 When they reached the half-lighted chamber 
 of the empress, the slave with whom she was 
 conversing screamed and fled. Agrippina, 
 raising herself, with all the assumed dignity of 
 her birth and station, exclaimed, " If you are 
 sent to inquire after my health, tell the emperor 
 I am better. But if you come with evil intent, 
 beware ; my son can never have commanded a 
 parricide." 
 
 To this artful but noble apostrophe, the 
 captain of the galley replied by striking the 
 empress on the head. Roused, rather than 
 stunned, by the blow, she sprang up like a 
 wounded lioness, and, observing the centurion 
 drawing his sword, she rent aside her drapery, 
 and cried " Strike here ! This is the womb 
 that gave birth to Nero !" The centurion 
 obeyed ; and, under the reiterated blows of her 
 murderers, the mother of the world's master 
 ank, without further resistance, and fell dead 
 upon her couch. 
 
 So fell the mother of Nero the great woman 
 of her age ; her faultless form and face, the
 
 REPRESENTATIVE MCTHF.US. 59 
 
 sculptor claimed for his marble the painter, 
 for his canvass ; while the brilliancy of her wit 
 is said to live yet in the style of Tacitus ; her 
 slaves loved her one, Maester, plunged a sword 
 in his body, and died on the pyre where she in 
 haste was buried. They raised no tornb to her 
 they composed no oration ; Seneca wrote to 
 justify her murder, and the people of Rome 
 hailed the parricide with joyful acclamation. 
 
 It was not till after his death, that the 
 household slaves of Agrippina ventured to raise 
 a lowly monument to their mistress, near a 
 ruined villa of Julius Caesar, on the high road 
 to Misenum. After a sweep of nearly two 
 thousand years, when the traveller wanders 
 along the delicious shores of Baise, and tracks 
 the steps of antiquity, some simple cicerone is 
 sure to guide him to the spot, and, pointing, 
 with a sigh of traditional sympathy, to an 
 almost illegible inscription, traced on a moul- 
 dering rock, observes 
 
 " Ecco la tomba rlella Grande Agrippina." 
 
 Tn the memoir of Agrippina we have fol- 
 lowed, for the most part, the graphic outline of 
 Lady Morgan, in " Woman and her Master."' 
 
 The three instances we have quoted, have 
 been various in their character : the Inhuman 
 Mother, the Christian Mother, and the Pagan 
 Mother. The first mother was inferior to the 
 mere brute ; the second surrounded her affec- 
 tions with intellectual pride, and worldly am- 
 bition ; and what heart is there which does not 
 bleed at the defeated parent defeated in the
 
 60 REPRESENTATIVE WOMKN. 
 
 world of its proudest and most unselfish hopes ; 
 no defeats are so dreadful as those of the affec- 
 tions the hest and the noblest hurled back 
 upon the possessor. Who does not pity 
 Agrippina? but, how infinitely does not Monica 
 distance both the preceding instances. Im- 
 mense infinite is the distance between a 
 Mrs. Brett and the Roman empress ; but the 
 gulf is almost as great between the Pagan and 
 the Christian mother. The light of the first is 
 derived from Time of the last, from Eternity. 
 
 Romance has not failed to give beautiful and 
 illustrious touches of maternal devotedness ; 
 Poetry has mixed its most vivid colours for 
 such sketches ; but, perhaps, when the utmost 
 has been done, they cannot equal the hues of 
 Nature and of truth ; for the most daring con- 
 ceptions do not rise to the capabilities of the 
 maternal nature. The mother for her child 
 will laugh at obstacles ; and we know how 
 often fire and storm, crag and ocean, have been 
 passed and repassed for the loved child. 
 
 What we are about to quote has usually 
 been regarded as merely the offspring of the 
 poet's fancy, as presented to us by dear Chris- 
 topher North. It undoubtedly wears the dra- 
 pery of poetry, but it is not all fancy. The 
 vesture is in the imagination ; but the fact is 
 real, and such events have happened more than 
 once. A child at Tinlcaleen, in the Feroe 
 Islands, being carried off by the great golden 
 eagle, its mother climbed the hitherto unas- 
 cended precipice to rescue her babe. She suc- 
 ceeded in reaching the nest, but unhappily 
 arrived too late : the innocent object of her
 
 REPRESENTATIVE MOTHERS. 61 
 
 search was dead. But the beautiful and vivid 
 sketch is founded upon another such event 
 which happened in the Orkneys and was more 
 happy in its termination. The mother had 
 the happiness, the inexpressible happiness, to 
 rescue her child from tbe dreadful death 
 awaiting it. And CHRISTOPHER NORTH has 
 seized the event and surrounded it with the 
 following beautiful glow of narrative : 
 
 " Almost all the people in the parish were 
 leading in their meadow hay (there were not 
 in all its ten miles square twenty acres of rye- 
 grass) on the same day of midsummer, so 
 drying was the sunshine and the wind ; and 
 huge heaped-up wains, that almost hid from 
 view the horses that drew them along the 
 sward, beginning to get green with second 
 growth, were moving in all directions towards 
 the snug farm-yards. Never had the parish 
 seemed before so populous. Jocund was the 
 balmy air with laughter, whistle, and song. 
 But the tree gnomons threw the shadow of 
 " one o'clock" on the green dial-face of the 
 earth the horses were unyoked and took in- 
 stantly to grazing groups of men, women, 
 lasses, lads, and children collected under grove, 
 and hedge-row graces were pronounced, some 
 of them rather too tedious in presence of the 
 mantling milk cans, bullion bars of butter and 
 crackling cakes ; and the great Being who 
 gave them that day their daily bread looked 
 down from hits eternal throne, weil pleased with 
 the piety of his thankful creatures. 
 
 " Tho great golden eagle, the pride and tho 
 pest of tho i parish, stooped down and away with
 
 62 REPRESENTATIVE WOMEN. 
 
 something in his talons. One single sudden 
 female shriek and then shouts and outcries as 
 if a church spire had tumbled down on a con- 
 gregation at a sacrament. ' Hannah Lamond's 
 bairn ! Hannah Lamond's bairn !' was the 
 loud fast-spreading cry. ' The eagle's ta'en 
 aff Hannah Lamond's bairn f and many hun- 
 dred feet were in another instant hurrying 
 towards the mountain. Two miles of hill and 
 dale and copse and shingle lay between, but in 
 an incredibly short time the foot of the moun- 
 tain was alive with people. The eyrie was 
 well known, and both old birds were visible on 
 the rock ledge ; but who shall scale that dizzy 
 cliff, which Mark Stewart, the sailor, who had 
 been at the storming of many a fort, once at- 
 tempted in vain ? All kept gazing, or weeping, 
 or wringing of hands, rooted to the ground, 
 or running back and forwards like so many 
 ants essaying their new wings in discomfiture. 
 1 What's the use what's the use o' ony puir 
 human means ? We have nae power but in 
 prayer T And many knelt down fathers and 
 mothers thinking of their own babies as if 
 they would force the deaf heavens to hear. 
 
 " Hannah Lamond had all this while been 
 sitting on a stone with a face perfectly white, 
 and eyes like those of a mad person fixed on 
 the eyrie. Nobody noticed her ; for strong as 
 all sympathies had been with her at the swoop 
 of the eagle, they were now swallowed up in 
 the agony of eye-sight. ' Only last Sabbath 
 was my sweet wee wean baptized in the name 
 of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy 
 (jrliost !' And on uttering these words she
 
 REPRESENTATIVE MOTHERS. 63 
 
 flew off through the brakes and over the huge 
 stones, up, up, up, faster than ever huntsman 
 ran in to the death, fearless as a goat playing 
 among the precipices. No one doubted, no one 
 could doubt, that she would soon be dashed to 
 pieces. But have not people who walk in their 
 sleep, obedient to the mysterious guidance of 
 dreams, clomb the walls of old ruins, and found 
 footing, even in decrepitude, along the edge of 
 unguarded battlements, and down dilapidated 
 stair-cases, deep as draw-wells or coal pits, and 
 returned with open, fixed, and unseeing eyes 
 unharmed to their beds at midnight ? It is all 
 the work of the soul, to whom the body is a 
 slave ; and shall not the agony of a mother's 
 passion who sees her baby, whose warm 
 mouth bad just left her breast, hurried off by a 
 demon to a hideous death bear her limbs 
 aloft wherever there is dust to dust, till she 
 reach the devouring den, and fiercer and more 
 furious than any bird of prey, that ever bathed 
 its beak in blood, throttle the fiends that with 
 their heavy wing would fain flap her down the 
 cliffs, and hold up her child in deliverance. 
 
 " No stop no stay she knew not that she 
 drew her breath. Beneath her feet Providence 
 fastened every loose stone, and to her hands 
 strengthened every root. How was she ever 
 to descend ? That fear, then, but once crossed 
 her heart as up, up, up to the little image made 
 of her own flesh and blood. ' The God who 
 holds me now from perishing will not the 
 same God save me when the child is at my 
 breast ?' Down came the fierce rushinir of tho 
 eagles' wings. Each savage bird dasLt-d close
 
 64 REPRESENTATIVE WOMEN'. 
 
 to her head, so that she saw the yellow of their 
 wrathful eyes. All at once they quailed and 
 were cowed. Yelling, they flew off to the 
 stump of an ash jutting out of a cliff a thou- 
 sand feet above the cataract ; and the Christian 
 mother falling across the eyrie, in the midst of 
 bones and blood, clasped her child, dead dead 
 no doubt hut unmangled and untorn, and 
 swaddled up just as it was when she laid it 
 down asleep among the fresh hay in a nook of 
 the harvest-field. Oh ! what a pang of perfect 
 blessedness transfixed her heart from that faint 
 feeble cry. ' It lives ! it lives ! it lives i 1 and 
 baring her bosom, with loud laughter, and eyes 
 dry as stones, she felt the lips of the uncon- 
 scious innocent once more murmuring at the 
 fount of life and love. ' O thou great and thou 
 dreadful God ! whither hast thou brought me, 
 one of the most sinful of thy creatures? Oh ! 
 save me lest I perish ! Even for thy own 
 name's sake, thou, who died to save sinners, 
 have mercy upon me T Cliffs, chasms, blocks 
 of stone, and the skeletons of old trees, far, far 
 down and dwindled into specks a thousand 
 creatures, of her own kind stationary or running 
 to and fro ! Was that the sound of the water- 
 fall or the faint roar of voices ? Is that her 
 native strath 2 and that tuft of trees, does it 
 contain the hut in which stands the cradle of 
 her child ? Never more shall, it be rocked by 
 her foot ! Here must she die and when her 
 breast is exhausted, her baby too. And those 
 horrid beaks, and eyes, and talons, and wings 
 will return, and her child will be devoured at
 
 Ui:?UKSKXTATlVE MOTHKRS. G5 
 
 last, even within the dead arms that can pro- 
 tect it no more. 
 
 " Where all this while was Mark Stewart, 
 the sailor? Half way up the cliffs. But his 
 eyes had got dim, and his head dizzy, and his 
 heart sick and he who had so often reefed the 
 top-gallant sail, when at midnight the coming 
 of the gale was heard afar, covered his face 
 with his hands, and dared look no longer on 
 the swimming heights. ' And who will take 
 care of my poor bed-ridden mother f thought 
 Hannah, who through exhaustion of so many 
 passions could no more retain in her grasp the 
 hope she had clutched in despair. A voice 
 whispered, ' God.' She looked round, expect- 
 ing to see a spirit ; hut nothing moved except 
 a rotten branch, that under its own weight 
 broke off from the crumbling rock. Her eye 
 by some secret sympathy with the inanimate 
 object, watched its fall ; and it seemed to stop 
 not far off on a small platform. Her child 
 was bound upon her shoulders she knew not 
 when or how, but it was safe and scarcely 
 daring to^open her eyes, she slid down the 
 shelving rocks, and found herself on a piece 
 of firm root-bound soil, with the tops of 
 bushes appearing below. With fingers sud- 
 denly strengthened into the power of iron, 
 she swung herself down by briar, and broom, 
 and heather, and dwarf birch. There a loosened 
 stone leaped over a ledge, and no sound was 
 heard, 1 so profound was its fall. Then the 
 shingle rattled down the screes, and she 
 hesitated not to follow. Her feet bounded 
 against the huge stone that stopped them, but
 
 66 REPRESENTATIVE WOMEX. 
 
 she felt no pain. Her body was callous as the 
 cliff. Steep as the wall of a house was now 
 the side of the precipice. But it was matted 
 with ivy centuries old, long, long dead, and 
 without a single green leaf, but with thousands 
 of arm-thick stems petrified into the rock, and 
 covering it as with a trellice. She felt her 
 baby on her neck, and with hands and feet 
 clung to that fearful ladder, turning round her 
 head, and looking down, she saw the whole 
 population of the parish, so great was the mul- 
 titude, on their knees. She heard the voice of 
 psalms a hymn breathing the spirit of one 
 united prayer. Sad and solemn was the strain 
 but nothing dirge like sounding not of 
 death but of deliverance. Often had she heard 
 that tune, perhaps those very words but them 
 she heard not in her own hut, she and her 
 mother, or in the kirk, along with all the con- 
 gregation. An unseen hand seemed fastening 
 her fingeri to the ribs of ivy, and in sudden 
 inspiration, believing her life was to be saved, 
 she became almost as fearless as if she had been 
 changed into a winged creature. Again her 
 feet touched stones and earth the psalm was 
 hushed but a tremulous sobbing voice was 
 close beside her, and a she goat, with two little 
 kids, at her feet. ' Wild heights,' thought she, 
 ' do these creatures climb ; but the darn will 
 lead down her kids by the easiest paths ; for in 
 the brute creatures holy is the power of a 
 mother's love T and turning round her head, 
 she kissed her sleeping babe, and for the first 
 time, she wept. 
 
 " Overhead frowned the front of the preci-
 
 REPRESENTATIVE MOTHERS. 67 
 
 pice, never touched before by human hand or 
 foot. No one had ever dreamt of scaling it, 
 and the golden eagles knew that well in their 
 instinct, as, before they built their eyrie, they 
 had brushed it with their wings. But the 
 downwards part of the mountain's side, though 
 scarred, and seamed, and chasmed, was yet 
 accessible, and more than one person in the 
 parish had reached the bottom of Glead's Cliff; 
 many were now attempting it, and ere tha 
 cautious mother had followed her dumb guides 
 a hundred yards, through dangers, that although 
 enough to terrify the stoutest heart, were tra- 
 versed by her without a shudder, the head of 
 one man appeared, and then another, and she 
 knew that God had delivered her and her child 
 into the care of their fellow creatures. Not a 
 word was spoken she hushed her friends with 
 her hands and with uplifted eyes, pointed to 
 the guides sent to her by Heaven. Small 
 green plats, where those creatures nibble the 
 wild flowers, became now more frequent, trod- 
 den lines, almost as plain as sheep paths, 
 showed that the dam had not led her young 
 into danger ; and now the brushwood dwindled 
 away into straggling shrubs, and the party 
 stood on a little eminence above the stream, 
 and forming part of the strath. 
 
 ' There had been trouble and agitation, 
 much sobbing, and many tears, among tha 
 multitude, while the mother was scaling the 
 cliffs ; sublime was the shout, that echoed afar, 
 the moment she reached the eyrie ; then had 
 succeeded a silence deep as death in a little 
 while arose that hymning prayer, succeeded by
 
 68 REPRESENTATIVE WOMEN. 
 
 mute supplication ; the wildness of thankful 
 and congratulatory joy had next its sway, and 
 now, that her salvation was sure, the great 
 crowd rustled like a wind swept wood. And 
 for whose sake was all this alternation of 
 agony ? A poor humble creature unknown to 
 many even by name, one who had but few 
 friends, nor wished for more ; contented to 
 work all day, here there any where, that 
 she might be able to support her aged mother 
 and her child, and who on Sabbath took her 
 seat in an obscure pew, set apart for paupers, 
 in the kirk. 
 
 " ' Fall back, and give her fresh air,' said 
 the old minister of the parish ; and the ring of 
 close faces widened round her lying as in death. 
 * Gi'e me the bonny bit bairn into my arms,' 
 cried first one mother and then another ; and 
 it was tenderly handed round the circle of 
 kisses; many of the snooded maidens bathing 
 its face with tears. ' There's no a single scratch 
 about the puir innocent, for the eagle, you see, 
 maun ha'e stuck its talons into the lang claes 
 and the shawl. Blin', blin' maun they be who 
 see not the finger of God in this thing T r 
 
 This is fact, highly wrought and coloured by 
 the powerful words of our most accomplished 
 prose poet ; but the fact cannot rise beyond 
 that circumstance which, in the close of the 
 seventeenth century, startled with wonder the 
 city of Florence : A lion escaped from the 
 iDenagerie of the Grand Duke, it ran through 
 the streets of the city, and everywhere spread 
 terror and dismay. A woman fled from its 
 fury, bearing in 'her arms her child, a mere
 
 REPRESENTATIVE MOTHERS. 69 
 
 infant, she dropt it in her fright ; and most 
 horrible the lion seized upon it, and was bear- 
 ing it away; she, poor creature, was frantic in 
 her despair what could she do ? Well may 
 we conceive the wonder with which the terri- 
 fied gazers, from the house-tops and windows, 
 beheld her throw herself at the feet of the lion 
 appeal to it in her agony implore it to 
 return her babe the tears gushed from her 
 eyes, her arms were wide extended ; she did 
 not attack the royal beast, that would indeed 
 have been vain, she implored him to return 
 her child ; nor did she implore in vain. The 
 lion stopped he fixed his eyes upon her then, 
 dropped the child, and stalked royally away. 
 Our feelings are in suspense between the 
 majesty of the mother's abandonment and 
 the majesty of the king of the forest." 
 
 These are representative mothers ; so far a8 
 the page can chronicle the memory and the 
 deed, happy is the reader if he can turn to the 
 beautiful recollections of his own life, and feel 
 that a beautiful face, to him the type of all 
 beauty, bent over his cradle, and that with that 
 face he is able to associate love as strong to his 
 own imagination as any recorded here, affec- 
 tions as full of instinct, as full of pride, as full 
 of piety, as full of energy ; for the tenderness 
 of the mother, with almost equal warmth, 
 watches over all occasions and all places, and 
 it is only the extraordinary occasion that calls 
 for the extraordinary development. 
 
 There is one instance of a representative mo- 
 ther which stands so perfectly alone that it 
 may be introduced here, although it will be in
 
 70 REPRESENTATIVE WOMEN. 
 
 perfect contrast to the other instances which 
 may follow. It is the history of Anne, Coun- 
 tess of Macclesfield, afterwards Mrs. Brett, the 
 mother of Richard Savage, the poet. Perliapg 
 the whole compass of biography does not chro- 
 nicle such an illustration of fiendish malignity. 
 In order to secure a divorce from her husband, 
 the Earl of Macclesfield, she boldly proclaimed 
 that the child by which she was then pregnant 
 was not his, but begotten by the Earl Rivers. 
 The consequence of this was a divorce, procured 
 by special act of parliament. Before it was 
 procured the child was born, Earl Rivers gave 
 to it his own name, and it was registered in 
 the parish books of St. Andrew's, Hoi born. 
 From the first years of its life, the mother, 
 who was very speedily married again to Colonel 
 Brett, manifested to it extreme hatred hatred 
 passing all comparison and parallel. She dis- 
 ewned him immediately on his birth ; but her 
 mother, Lady Mason, with some kindness, at- 
 tended to him. Still his nurse was charged to 
 bring him up in the belief that he was her own 
 child. The Earl Rivers frequently enquired 
 after him ; but hisquestions were always evaded. 
 On his deathbed he still more seriously and 
 earnestly enquired, intending to leave him six 
 thousand pounds ; his mother then declared 
 he was dead. 
 
 Dr. Johnson says, " this is perhaps the first 
 instance of a lie invented by a mother to de- 
 prive her son of a provision which was designed 
 him by another, and which she could not ex- 
 pect herself, though he lost it. She next at- 
 tempted to ship him off secretly to the Ame-
 
 REPRESENTATIVE MOTHERS. 71 
 
 rican plantations ; but this design was defeated, 
 but by whose agency is not so well known. 
 But, unable to banish him from his own country, 
 she laboured, although herself living in the 
 height of affluence, to bury bim in obscurity in 
 his own country. She arranged, therefore, for 
 the apprenticing him to a shoemaker in Hoi- 
 born, although, in consequence of the superin- 
 tendence of his grandmother, he had received 
 some education, such as could be afforded by a 
 respectable grammar school. But his nurse 
 died, and looking over her papers, he discovered 
 his own parentage. The discovery appears to 
 have awakened a host of new emotions in hi* 
 heart ; and no wonder, for his nature was a 
 strong, vehement, and passionate one, and he 
 knew nothing of his mother's inhuman and 
 fiendish conduct. He saw her she could not 
 disown him but she would not help him. He 
 left his apprenticeship, and betook himself to 
 literature for support. An accident happened 
 he became involved in a quarrel, in which 
 one of the parties was killed Savage waa 
 charged with killing him it is quite doubt- 
 ful whether he did not so or not he was sen- 
 tenced to death strong efforts were made to 
 save him, and they were eventually successful ; 
 but his mother laboured hard to secure his 
 death, and to interpose the mercy of the crown. 
 He was saved by the generous and unsolicited 
 kindness of the Countess of Hertford. Soon 
 uftcr his liberation he published a poem, now 
 well known to the readers of the literature of 
 that age, called the " Bastard," remarkable at 
 once for p:;tho,s and for satire. He dedicated
 
 72 REPRESENTATIVE WOMEN T . 
 
 ** 
 
 it to his mother, and so wide was instantly the 
 popularity of the poem, that she had the satis- 
 faction of hearing it everywhere quoted and 
 applied to her. We have no intention of writ- 
 ing the biography of Savage. His life was a 
 most chequered and sorrowful one. Affliction 
 met him at every avenue. Debt and disease 
 were his familiar companions. His vices, too, 
 shot up powerful and unpruned ; what wonder, 
 when no hand had attempted to prune, and his 
 mother had so helped to foster them. At last 
 he died in prison, the most remarkable victim 
 of maternal wickedness and cruelty. This in- 
 stance is so singular that it furnishes a curious 
 study to those fond of such speculations. 
 Whence arose the mother's hatred .to an inno- 
 cent infant ? Is there anything to explain this 
 monstrous atrocity ? There are no facts ; but 
 the probability of the matter is, that as she hated 
 so cordially the Earl of Macclesfield, the child 
 might, notwithstanding her declaration, be his, 
 and that her hatred and detestation to Savage 
 might result from her hatred of the father. 
 
 The history of womanhood is not stained by 
 many instances like this. It stands, as we 
 said in introducing it, quite singular and 
 alone, and it has been quoted because so re- 
 markable an exception ; but it is often, per- 
 haps, the case that the hatred to a father turns 
 the mother's milk to gall. She tramples in- 
 dignantly beneath her feet all the pleadings and 
 the yearnings of tenderness tears the fibres of 
 the mother from her heart and blots all the 
 appeals to her kindliness and humanity. Not 
 many such, more frequently the father, whose
 
 REPRESENTATIVE MOTHERS. 73 
 
 image had begun to hang like a darkened and 
 obscured picture, looming in the gallery of the 
 soul, becomes invested with a new life and new 
 loveliness. The child clothes the father with 
 new grace and tenderness, part his, but most 
 its own. The unkind man, brutal almost, if 
 he ever thought, might wonder how it is, and 
 why, that the mother looks up at him so be- 
 seechingly through her tears, so uncomplainingly 
 never reminding him of his unkindness 
 never taunting never recriminating;- and if 
 the love were traced home to its source, it 
 would be found that that fount of unmurmuring 
 goodness has been flowing, flowing on, from a 
 heart warm with the pressure of little baby 
 fingers, cheered and softened by the tenderness 
 of baby smilings and lovinga. For the making 
 life lovely and cheerful, what do we not owe 
 to the tenderness of the maternal heart ?
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 A CHAPTER ON OLD MAIDS. 
 
 WE often meet with books upon women the 
 wife, the mother, the maiden, but we seldom 
 take up one in which we meet with any refer- 
 ence to old maids. Hayley, the poetaster, wrote 
 three volumes indeed upon the subject; they 
 are characterised by good humour, and kindli- 
 ness of feeling, but sadly want delicacy both of 
 expression and sentiment ; and it is just possi- 
 ble that in touching this subject, we may lay 
 ourselves open to the same charge of indelicacy ; 
 yet, amidst all the chapters devoted to woman- 
 hood, in so many of its relations, we could not 
 forego some remarks upon a rather despised 
 but not unlovely class of women ; a class spoken 
 of frequently with contempt and satire. Hayley 
 might have condensed his books into one nice, 
 pleasant, portable, useful little volume, but it is 
 swollen out with absurd and indelicate quota- 
 tions and allusions, and is altogether in the 
 manner of the times when it was written. 
 
 Our readers must know, however, that to be 
 an old maid was not always an occasion for 
 satire and for ridicule. In those dark ages 
 which formed the ni^ht time of Europe, it was 
 frequently a very desirable thing to consign 
 life to perpetual isolation and celibacy. Women
 
 A CHAPTER ON OLD MAIDS. 75 
 
 who could overcome the claims of the senses, 
 might well immure themselves in the convent 
 parlour and cell ; frequently there was nothing 
 lost by it everything gained by it. 
 
 There were Hildas, Ethelfledas, Ediths and 
 Alice's, who were quite unfit to mate with the 
 barbaric men of those times, who did not ad- 
 mire the rough courtship and the unsympa- 
 thizing manners of the age. How could they ! 
 Historypresentsthemto us assweet, soft, amiable 
 women, but with a depth of soul, a power and 
 capacity for higher things, rather to be recipro- 
 cated in the solitude of the convent life, than 
 in the halls of their baronial relatives ; then, 
 many a lovely low born maid with lofty soul, 
 may be easily conceived, who shrank from con- 
 tact with the churls of her own class and kind, 
 and thus the celibate life of woman became 
 frequently most admired and sought after. Of 
 course, it often happened, that what had been 
 consecrated by high necessity, became the sub- 
 terfuge of mere sentiment ; but the necessity 
 existed still. 
 
 This we take to be the solution, natural and 
 proper, of those martyrial cleavings to maiden- 
 hood and virginity, which have received the 
 canonization of the Catholic Church. 
 
 The woman who could shrink from marriaoe 
 itself with horror and disgust, who could btf- 
 eve it to be an uncleanness and a crime, who 
 could feel that celibacy better supplied the ne- 
 L-ssitics of her nature, would be simply more a 
 monster than a woman ; and the same would 
 jf course be equally true of the man entertain- 
 ing such feelings. Marriage is the honourable,
 
 76 REPRESENTATIVE WOMEN'. 
 
 the perfect, and the natural state of both man 
 and woman ; yet in the history of individuals 
 and nations, it may happen that the duties 
 of life are better performed, and the intentions 
 and ideal of life better realized in the single 
 than in the married state ; and the life perfect 
 in its singleness is better than the life imperfect 
 in marriage. 
 
 Wonderful are the miracles related of the old 
 maids of the ancient Romish Church. The 
 old maids we say ; yet we do rather believe 
 that most of the wonderful stories relate to 
 the young and the fair ones. There was the 
 Saint Ositba, who honoured her virginity after 
 she had been murdered by the Danes, in rising 
 and carrying her severed head to the distance 
 of many yards from the spot where she was 
 murdered. There, was the wonderful Saint 
 Bridget, of Scotland, who being pestered by 
 the bold importunities of a lover, prays to 
 heaven to guard her chastity, by making her 
 from a blithe beauty, to a preternaturally ugly 
 woman ; heaven complied with the expensive 
 request, and gave her as its direst affliction red 
 eyes. There was the fair Editha, the very 
 crown and pride of chastity, whose purity was 
 called in question by Canute, at Wilton, in 
 Wiltshire, and who thereupon rose from her 
 .mausoleum, veiled, and proceeded to give this 
 monarch a sound lecturing for his impertinent 
 reflections upon her character. There is the 
 marvellous history too, of the fair ^Ediltruda, 
 canonized as a maiden, yet the wife of three 
 husbands. And more wonderful than any 
 other, the most celebrated of all martyrs in de-
 
 A CHAPTEE ON OLD MAIDS. 77 
 
 fence of chastity, Saint Thecla, who refusing to 
 be married, from hearing the discoursings of 
 St. Paul on virginity, was condemned to be 
 thrown to the lions as a sorceress, and found in 
 her purity a preservative against the wild beasts. 
 Innumerable are the histories on record of St. 
 Agnes, of St. Demetrius, of St. Theodora, who 
 all testified their allegiance to their idea of 
 purity, either by death, or persecutions almost 
 to death. 
 
 Yes, the ideal of the representative Roman 
 of the early ages of the Christian era, was the 
 Old Maid. 
 
 " It is recorded, 1 ' says Aldhelm, " in a cer- 
 tain volume from the narrative of an angel, 
 how virginity, chastity, and wedlock differ from 
 each other, and mark m three degrees the 
 quality or worthiness of life ; how, according to 
 the angel's discrimination, virginity is gold, 
 chastity is silver, and wedlock brass ; how 
 virginity is wealth, chastity a competence, and 
 wedlock poverty ; how virginity is peace, chas- 
 tity redemption, and wedlock captivity; how 
 virginity is the sun, chastity the moon, and 
 wo llock darkness ; how virginity is day, chas- 
 tity the dawn, and wedlock night." And this 
 is the spirit of all the Patristic writings, a mis- 
 take touching the person of the Virgin Mary : 
 the mother of Jesus inflicted with error the 
 early Church, and gave to it utterly false and 
 erroneous ideas of human nature. The very 
 means ordained by God himself for the per- 
 petuation of the lite and being of the globe, 
 were regarded as impure, and thus the dis-
 
 78 REPRESENTATIVE WOMEN'. 
 
 honouring of God became a portion of re- 
 ligion. 
 
 Few in the present day will be disposed to 
 give much heed to the absurdities of St. Jerome, 
 that most impure minded saint, or to St. Gre- 
 gory of Nyssa, that most inconsistent saint, 
 who deprecated marriage so heartily, and 
 cried up virginity, although he was himself a 
 married man. " Marriage" says this holy saint, 
 " was the last step that completed our separa- 
 tion from Paradise," and he advises those de- 
 sirous of returning thither, to begin by relin- 
 quishing marriage. 
 
 He goes on to reason " That the production 
 of children does not so much minister to life as 
 to death, since their birth only leads to their 
 dissolution ; but they who devote their persons 
 to virginity, place themselves as an isthmus 
 between life and death to stop the fury of the 
 latter. The devastation of death is thus pre- 
 vented ; for, as the power of fire cannot subsist 
 without fuel, so the force of death cannot pre- 
 vail, unless marriage supplies him with his 
 prey." But the writings of the Fathers is full 
 of this blasphemous rubbish, and it is now only 
 remarkable or noteworthy as illustrating an 
 ancient state of the human mind, a diseased 
 and barren thought, which once drove the 
 Christian world nearly mad. 
 
 There is no necessity for insisting on this 
 idea now ; and we have only ventured to 
 touch upon the personality of old maids to 
 notice their value ; a number of them we know 
 truly beautiful, so kind, so prompt to serve, so 
 attentive, so excellent ; they appear to have
 
 A CHAPTER ON OLD MAIDS. 79 
 
 remained unmarried because too good for a 
 human partner. 
 
 Almost every village has some gentle lovely 
 creature sinking into a quiet and serene old 
 age, over whom many of her neighbours will 
 mourn, who has shed around her a happy and 
 Denial atmosphere ; beautiful characters will be 
 beautiful, either as maids or wives, and there 
 are many reasons why an old maid should meet 
 with honour and respect, which cannot be 
 alleged always for old bachelors. 
 
 As a body, it may be doubted whether they 
 deserve the same respect which maiden ladies 
 deserve. Their life in any neighbourhood 
 usually presents strong points of contrast. The 
 life of woman, married or unmarried, is not 
 usually engrossed by selfish aims and thoughts. 
 The life of the bachelor is usually exclusively 
 so. The bachelor is usually a most useless 
 member of society ; he shuffles through life 
 paying far less than his proportionate share of 
 its expences ; not unfrequently he is known in 
 his neighbourhood as an impure liver. Excep- 
 tions hold in every case ; but while the offici- 
 ousness, the avarice, the scandal talk of the old 
 maid is so constantly reiterated, let the reader 
 think of the thousands whom circumstances 
 have separated from the marriage state, and 
 who relieve their solitude by deeds of quiet 
 kindness, who cannot offer the prayers of 
 Hannah, and therefore make clothes with 
 Dorcas. 
 
 OLD MAIDS ! What is the meaning of the 
 contemptuous term? God has employed the 
 services of many women who could not have
 
 80 REPRESENTATIVE WOMEN. 
 
 been employed, speaking after the manner of 
 men, by God, had they not been single. This 
 was the case with SARAH MARTIN, of Yar- 
 mouth. The name of this good woman is not 
 known as it ought to be known. She led a 
 long course of energetic self-denial, for the pur- 
 pose of benefiting the prisoners of the jail in 
 the town exercising an incessant supervision 
 over their temporal and spiritual wants 
 sedulously attending to their moral improve- 
 ment and when they left, attempting to pre- 
 vent the possibility of their return, by placing 
 within their reach easy and accessible employ- 
 ment. She also visited the workhouse, and 
 altogether showed how much might be accom- 
 plished by a poor, weak, unprotected woman, 
 in increasing the virtue and the happiness of 
 her neighbourhood. All who talk of the po- 
 verty of their means of usefulness should think 
 of heri Poor, dependent on her own fingers 
 for her daily bread, yet surrounded with so 
 much character, that the most hard, unfeeling, 
 and worldly men were compelled to respect 
 her, and to pay homage to her motives ; and 
 even felons, hardened to every appeal, except 
 to hunger and thirst, and the cravings of the 
 senses, although they revolted at first, came to 
 know her, and acknowledge the kindness of 
 that good and simple-minded friend. 
 
 In the beautiful spirit of a true Christian, 
 she speaks of her visits to the gaol, and the 
 workhouse, to do good, as favours conferred 
 upon her not as favours she was conferring 
 upon others. She says, 
 
 " And now, in the glorious liberty wherewith
 
 A CHAPTER ON OLD MAIDS. 81 
 
 Christ had made me free, I wished to give proof 
 of my love, and desired the Lord to open 
 privileges to me of serving my fellow creatures, 
 that happily I might, with my Bible in my 
 hand, point others to those fountains of joy, 
 whence my own so largely flowed. 
 
 " The first generous favour thus conferred on 
 me was, attendance to teach in a Sunday 
 school : nor did God withhold from me the 
 sight of His power in many beautiful results. 
 
 One sweet child, a girl of ten years old, S 
 
 , was attacked with inflammation, and 
 died in a fortnight. Her testimony was, her 
 Saviour taught her first by a short prayer I 
 had written and given to her : her views of 
 sin, of God's justice, and her Saviour's redeem- 
 ing power, were clearly expressed. She named 
 a woman of the worst character, saying, ' She 
 is bad, but I am the worse;' and the dear 
 believer welcomed her Lord through death 
 without a sting. The blessing of our Father 
 was neither held back from me nor the children, 
 but after a course of years, when strength failed 
 for both, this duty was resigned in favour of 
 the prison. 
 
 "In the spring of 1810, I had a strong desire 
 to visit the poor in the workhouse; and by 
 my gracious God I was soon indulged in this 
 also. Having been told of a young woman 
 afflicted with an abscess, I found admission by 
 going to visit her, and at her death, obtained 
 the desire of my heart, in the request of a 
 number of aged and sick women in the room, 
 to continue my visits to read the Scriptures and 
 pray with them; and my comfort was extended 
 E 2
 
 82 REPRESENTATIVE WOMKN. 
 
 by a hearty welcome from the inmates of all 
 the sick rooms. 
 
 " In the same year, (1810,) whilst frequently 
 passing the gaol, I felt a strong desire to 
 obtain admission to the prisoners to read the 
 Scriptures to them, for 1 thought much of their 
 condition, and of their sin before God : how 
 they were shut out from the society whose 
 rights they had violated, and how destitute 
 they were of Scriptural instruction, which alone 
 could meet their unhappy circumstances. 
 
 "After a few slight difficulties, the first 
 wish of my heart was granted. My Saviour 
 had said, ' Whatsoever ye shall ask in my 
 name, believing, ye shall receive :' and I found 
 it true, in being soon admitted into that inter- 
 esting field of occupation, which increasingly 
 obtained the first interests of my life for the 
 last twenty-four years. I did not make known 
 my purpose of seeking admission to the gaol, 
 even to my beloved grandmother, until the 
 object was attained, so sensitive was my fear 
 lest any obstacle should thereby arise in my 
 way, and the project seem a visionary one : 
 God led me, and I consulted none but Him. 
 
 "In August, 1819, I heard of a woman 
 being sent to the gaol for having cruelly beaten 
 her child, and having learned her name, went 
 to the gaol and asked permission to see her, 
 which, on a second application, was allowed. 
 When I told the woman, who was surprised 
 at the sight of a stranger, the motive of my 
 visit, her guilt, her need of God's mercy, &c., 
 she burst into tears, and thanked me, whilst I 
 read to her the twenty-third chapter of St.
 
 A CHAPTER ON OLD MAIDS. 83 
 
 Luke. For the first few months, I only made 
 a short visit to read the Scriptures to the 
 prisoners, but desiring more time to instruct 
 them in reading and writing, I soon thought 
 it right to give up a day in a week from dress- 
 making, by which I earned my living, to serve 
 the prisoners. This regularly given, with 
 many an additional one, was never felt as a 
 pecuniary loss, but was ever followed with 
 abundant satisfaction, for the blessing of God 
 was upon me. 
 
 "At this time there was no divine worship 
 in the gaol on the Lord's day, nor any respect 
 paid to it, at which I was particularly struck, 
 when in going one Sunday to see a female 
 convict, before her departure for transportation, 
 I found her making a bonnet. I had long 
 desired and recommended the prisoners to form 
 Sunday service, by one reading to the rest. 
 It was at length adopted ; but aware of the 
 instability of a practice in itself good, without 
 any corresponding principle of preservation, 
 and thinking that my presence might exert a 
 beneficial tendency, I joined their Sunday 
 morning worship as a regular hearer. On 
 discovering that their afternoon service had 
 been resigned, I proposed attending on that part 
 of the day also, and it was resumed. After 
 several changes of readers, the office devolved 
 on me. That happy privilege thus graciously 
 opened to me, and embraced from necessity, 
 and in much fear, was acceptable to the pri- 
 soners, for God made it so ; and also an un- 
 epeakahle advantage and comfort to myself. I 
 continued the two services on Sundays, unti
 
 84 REPRESENTATIVE WOMEN*. 
 
 1831, when, as my strength seemed failing 
 for both, it pleased God that a good minister, 
 who then came to reside in our parish, should 
 undertake the afternoon service, which was a 
 timely relief to me. 
 
 " In my happy and quiet course, compara- 
 tively unknown and unnoticed, and where no 
 influence beyond that of the governor and his 
 wife was essential, it pleased God to give me 
 that important advantage : and I would grate- 
 fully acknowledge the kind support I received 
 from them. 
 
 " After having visited the gaol about three 
 years, a lady who felt much interest in my 
 success, with the view of enabling me to allow 
 myself more rest for my health's sake, kindly 
 proposed the gift of an additional day at her 
 own expense, which was to compensate me, as 
 if I were engaged in dressmaking : this I at 
 first feared to accept, because, whilst rest would 
 be sought in serving my fellow creatures, more 
 money would then be needful ; for the narrow 
 sphere already entered upon with such limited 
 means as were in my own power, required all 
 I had. This objection was met by a few 
 quarterly subscriptions, chiefly 2s. 6d. each, for 
 bibles, testaments, tracts, and other books for 
 distribution : with this happy prospect of 
 advance, promising no more than it realized, I 
 set apart Monday, as the additional day every 
 week, for claims distinct from the prison : it 
 was a source of great pleasure for several years, 
 to reserve an hour or two of it to hear a num- 
 ber of girls and boys repeat verses, from the 
 holy Scriptures, which they had committed to
 
 A CHAPTER OV OLD MAIDS. 50 
 
 memory during the week ; the largest number 
 that ever attended was seventy, but at a later 
 period, when Sunday schools were formed in 
 the parish church, and in other places of wor- 
 ship, the number who attended became smaller, 
 and on giving them up, I recommended them 
 to a better advantage." 
 
 Nor should it be forgotten that HANNAH 
 MORE was an old maid ; and although her 
 influence upon public opinion has to a great de- 
 gree, perhaps all but entirely, ceased, no person 
 living at the close of the last century, exercised 
 a more wide, efficient, and useful control over 
 it than she did. Her writings were translated 
 into all languages of Europe ; she had the good 
 fortune to gain the ear, not only of the hum- 
 blest in the land, but the highest ; had she 
 been married, it is impossible that she could 
 have effected the work she accomplished ; her 
 time so fully occupied for the world, would 
 have been devoted to family arrangements, and 
 apparently one of the most important agencies 
 for good would have been lost. 
 
 Hannah More was one of the five daughters 
 of Mr. More, master of a foundation school in 
 the parish of Stapleton, Gloucestershire ; where 
 .she was born, in 1745. She early displayed a, 
 precocious facility for learning, strong religious 
 feeling, and a tendency towards moral teaching, 
 and the inculcation of her own opinions; which 
 remained her characteristics through life. 
 of her favourite amusements was to correspond 
 with an imaginary sinner : her letters were full 
 of advice, exhortation, and warning ; his an- 
 aicers overflowed with repentance \and promiset
 
 86 REPRESENTATIVE WOMEN. 
 
 of reformation. When Mary, the eldest of 
 Mr. More's five daughters, had reached her 
 twenty-first year, she opened a hoarding-school 
 in Bristol ; she was assisted by her two sisters, 
 Elizabeth and Sarah, whom she had helped to 
 instruct ; and she took the younger ones, Han- 
 nah and Mary under her care. A degree of 
 affection, rare even amongst kindred, united 
 the five sisters. They never married, and were 
 seldom separated for any length of time ; they 
 all reached a great age, and, with one exception, 
 the order in which they entered life, was also 
 that of their departure. Mary, the eldest, was 
 the first to go ; Hannah, the youngest but one, 
 the last. 
 
 Hannah was about twelve when the school 
 was opened. She was then, and remained 
 during her long life, subject to severe attacks 
 of illness ; which tended to develop still fur- 
 ther the grave and reflective turn of her mind. 
 She studied much, and learned languages with 
 ease ; translations from Latin, Spanish, and 
 Italian authors were amongst her first poetical 
 attempts. '* The Search of Happiness," a 
 pastoral drama, was her first production of any 
 importance ; it is characteristic, that it had in 
 view a moral purpose to substitute an inno- 
 cent production for works of injurious tendency, 
 which, in the rage for private dramatic per- 
 formances, were then placed in the hands of 
 youth. 
 
 Hannah More was about seventeen when 
 she became acquainted with a gentleman of 
 property named Turner, the uncle of two pupils 
 in the establishment of her sister. She received
 
 A CHAPTER ONT OLD MAIDS. 87 
 
 from him proposals of marriage, which she first 
 accepted and then declined. The whole affair 
 was fraught with much pain to her, and made 
 her determine never again to contract such an 
 engagement : nothing in after-life could induce 
 her to break this resolve. Whilst her sisters 
 prospered in their school, Hannah continued 
 engaged in those literary pursuits which brought 
 her into so much notice, when she came to 
 London in 1773. She was received with flat- 
 tering distinction, and soon numbered amongst 
 her friends, Dr. Johnson, Sir Joshua Reynolds, 
 Mrs. Montagu, Mrs. Boscawen, David Garrick 
 and his wife ; with others then eminent in the 
 world of literature, art, and fashion, but now 
 of less note. The letters which she wrote 
 home at this period of her life are both agree- 
 able and interesting. If we were now sketch- 
 ing, not the quiet history of a few pure and 
 pious women, but the witty and varied social 
 world which reverenced the sententious wisdom 
 of Johnson, and frequented the blue-stocking 
 club of Mrs. Montagu in Portman Square, the 
 letters of Mrs. Hannah More would indeed 
 afford us many curious and pleasant pictures of 
 gaieties grown obsolete, of wit and charms once 
 extolled, now known by hearsay and tradition, 
 and give us an interesting insight into the 
 characteristics of English SQciety during the 
 eighteenth century. 
 
 But it will be our task to collect from these 
 letters knowledge of a very different nature ; 
 we shall find in them other records besides 
 those of polite society and its intellectual plea- 
 sures : they tell iu simple language the story
 
 88 REPRESENTATIVE WOMEN. 
 
 of a few women who undertook to civilize, 
 by religion, districts where vice, brutal igno- 
 rance, and crime, had replaced the fabled pas- 
 toral innocence of poets. These generous 
 women, sisters according to the blood, and still 
 more according to the spirit, penetrated into 
 spots where their very lives were not held safe; 
 and braved every petty persecution to accom- 
 hlish their noble object : time, money, and 
 pealth were devoted to the task, and never 
 regretted. 
 
 For twenty years Mrs. Hannah Mere con- 
 tinued to visit London, and mingle with its 
 fashionable and literary society ; and it was 
 during this period that she wrote her two 
 tragedies and her sacred dramas. But gradu- 
 ally she withdrew from those fascinating circles; 
 the death of her attached friend, Garrick, 
 spared her the pain of giving up her yearly 
 visits to one to whom she owed much, and 
 whom she both loved and esteemed. 
 
 It was towards the year 1783, that Mrs. 
 Hannah More purchased, near Bristol, a small 
 estate, called Cowslip Green, on which she 
 built a little cottage. About the same time 
 that she fixed her residence in this quiet place, 
 her sisters retired to Bath, in easy circumstances : 
 they had honourably conducted, for upwards 
 of thirty years, an excellent establishment, 
 esteemed one of the best and most prosperous 
 in the west of England. They now fixed their 
 home at Bath, where they had a house ; be- 
 tween which and Cowslip Green they hence- 
 forth divided their time. 
 
 Hannah More had retired from the world
 
 A CHAPTER ON OLD MAIDS. 89 
 
 in order to lead a more perfect life in the eyes 
 of God ; and, whilst she restricted the sphere 
 of her pleasures, to extend that of her duties. 
 She soon exerted herself with zeal and enthu- 
 siasm in a cause dear and sacred to every gene- 
 rous heart. This was the time when the energy 
 and eloquence of Wilberforce were devoted to 
 the abolition of the slave-trade. It is recorded 
 that, when he was but fourteen years of age, 
 he addressed a letter to the editor of the York 
 paper, " in condemnation of the odious traffic 
 in human flesh." His manhood adhered to 
 the principles of his youth. It lies not within 
 our province to do more than allude to the 
 long and persevering struggle which Wilber- 
 force waged against this great iniquity : a 
 struggle crowned with a success so glorious, 
 and in which he was assisted by the most 
 earnest and gifted of his contemporaries. To 
 aid this noble cause, Hannah More wrote her 
 poem of " Slavery." Thus began between 
 them, in mutual sympathy for a long-oppressed 
 race, a friendship that proved both warm and 
 lasting. 
 
 The philanthropic exertions of Hannah 
 More in favour of the blacks, did not prevent 
 her from devoting a portion of her time to 
 other literary pursuits. She wrote her 
 ' Thoughts on the Manners of the Great," 
 and her " Estimate of the Religion of the 
 Fashionable World ;" both of which were 
 very successful. Her chief relaxation from 
 the more serious thoughts and tasks which 
 occupied her, was to embellish and cultivate 
 with her own hands the pleasant garden of
 
 90 REPRESENTATIVE WOMEN'. 
 
 Cowslip Green. This innocent indulgence 
 was, however, the source of some self reproach : 
 to one who esteemed duty the end of every 
 hour of life, it could scarcely be otherwise. A 
 new sphere of usefulness opened before her, 
 and removed these conscientious scruples. 
 
 At some distance from Cowslip Green, and 
 in the immediate vicinity of the Mendip Hills, 
 lies the village of Cheddar, a decayed market 
 town of Somersetshire. It was then in a state 
 of barbarous ignorance ; which caused Mrs. 
 Hannah More to observe, that "while we 
 were sending missionaries to propagate the 
 Gospel in India, our own villages were in 
 pagan darkness." In more than pagan dark- 
 ness would have been as correct an expression: 
 there is something noble in the free life of the 
 savage; though he maybe criminal and barba- 
 *ous, he cannot, whilst he breathes the pure air 
 of liberty, be quite degraded. But what con- 
 dition is that of the peasant who, to physical 
 misery unknown to the savage state, unites the 
 vices of civilization with few or none of its 
 virtues ! By law, indeed, the spiritual distress 
 of Cheddar and its vicinity was provided for : 
 the vicar of Cheddar resided at Oxford, and 
 received fifty pounds a-year for duties which 
 he never fulfilled ; the resident rector ,of 
 Axbridge " was intoxicated about six times 
 a-week, and very frequently prevented from 
 preaching by two black eyes, honestly acquired 
 by fighting." 
 
 Mrs. Hannah More, and her sister Martha, 
 who was then staying with her, resolved to go 
 amongst those heathens of Christianity, and
 
 A CHAPTER ON OLD MAIDS. 91 
 
 see what good they could do in a place where 
 they knew not a single individual ; where the 
 literary fame of one sister was unheard of, and 
 where the station of both was not likely to 
 possess much influence with the few wealthy 
 and ignorant farmers whose will was the law 
 of the place. It possessed no gentry, and of 
 the two thousand inhabitants, by far the greater 
 number were miserably poor. A clergyman 
 rode over from Wells once every Sunday, to 
 preach to a congregation of eight persons ; and 
 in the whole village there was but one Bible, 
 and that was used to prop a flower-pot. 
 Hannah More and her sister began by taking 
 a lodging in a small public-house ; then, after 
 having examined the state of things, they 
 resolved to open a school. In a letter written 
 by Mrs. Hannah More to a friend, we find the 
 following account of this first attempt. " I 
 was told we should meet with great opposition, 
 if I did not try to propitiate the chief despot 
 of the village, who is very rich and very brutal; 
 *o I ventured to the den of this monster, in a 
 country as savage as himself. He begged I 
 would not think of bringing any religion into 
 the country ; it made the poor lazy and useless. 
 In vain I represented to him that they would 
 be more industrious, as they were better prin- 
 cipled, and that I had no selfish views in what 
 I was doing. He gave me to understand that he 
 knew the world too well to believe either the 
 one or the other. I was almost discouraged 
 from more visits, but I found that friends must 
 be secured at all events; for if these rich 
 savages set their faces against us, I saw that
 
 92 REPRESENTATIVE WOMEN*. 
 
 nothing but hostilities would ensue ; so I made 
 eleven more of these agreeable visits, and, as I 
 improved in the art of canvassing, had better 
 
 success. Miss W would have been 
 
 shocked had she seen the petty tyrants, whose 
 insolence I stroked and tamed, the ugly children 
 I praised, the pointers and spaniels I caressed, 
 the cider I commended, and the wine I swal- 
 lowed. After these irresistible flatteries, I 
 inquired of each if he could recommend me a 
 house, and said I had a little plan which I 
 hoped would secure their orchards from being 
 robbed, their rabbits from being shot, their 
 game from being stolen, and which might 
 lower the poor-rates. If effect be the best 
 proof of eloquence, then mine was a good 
 speech, for I gained in time the hearty concur- 
 rence of the whole people, and their promise 
 to discourage or favour the poor as they were 
 attentive or negligent in sending their children." 
 A house in which to establish a school was 
 procured, not without some difficulty. The 
 poor, for whose benefit this was intended, were 
 almost as difficult to conciliate as the rich ; but 
 patience and perseverance ultimately overcame 
 their prejudices. The school was opened by 
 Hannah More and her sister, one Sunday 
 morning ; children attended it, and receive.d 
 their first lessons in the presence of their 
 parents. On the Sundays they were taught 
 reading, and received religious instruction ; on 
 week-days the girls learned to knit and sew. 
 The two ladies soon had three hundred children, 
 whom they placed under the charge of a discreet 
 matron.
 
 A CHAPTER ON OLD MAIDS. 93 
 
 Encouraged by success, they resolved to 
 extend the benefits tbey had conferred on 
 Cheddar to other places, where it was fully as 
 much needed. Funds were required, and 
 were liberally supplied by their friends. Thus 
 supported, they set about establishing schools 
 in the neighbouring districts ; but everywhere 
 the farmers opposed them ; and when this 
 obstacle was overcome, another no less serious 
 existed in the difficulty of finding proper 
 teachers. Mrs. Hannah More and her sister 
 had, in the end, to teach the teachers, a 
 laborious and fatiguing task. 
 
 Near the summit of Mendip there existed 
 two mining villages, noted for the depravity 
 and ignorance of their inhabitants. The ladies 
 were warned that constables would not venture 
 to execute their office in this wild region, and 
 that by seeking to penetrate amongst these 
 barbarians they were only perilling their own 
 lives, with little chance of doing good. They 
 persisted ; but their reception was not en- 
 couraging : the people thought they wanted to 
 make money by selling their children as slaves, 
 and that if they were unfortunately allowed to 
 teach them for seven years, they would in- 
 dubitably acquire the right of sending them 
 over the seas. Spite of this unpropitious 
 beginning, they succeeded in securing pupils ; 
 their number ultimately exceeded twelve 
 hundred, and parents gladly availed themselves 
 of the instruction they had at first dreaded for 
 their children. 
 
 Hannah More has not recorded all the diffi- 
 culties, and, to a certain degree, the dangers
 
 04 KEPRESENTATIVE WOMEN. 
 
 which beset her, in her efforts at civilizing rude 
 and degraded peasants ; but the little she has 
 said is significant. In a letter to her friend 
 Wilberforce, from whom she derived both aid 
 and counsel, she thus describes the opening of 
 n school, in a spot more abandoned and depraved 
 than any she had yet visited : " It was an 
 affecting sight ; several of the grown-up youths 
 had been tried at the last assizes three were 
 the children of a person lately condemned to 
 be hanged many were thieves ! all ignorant, 
 profane, and vicious, beyond belief. Of this 
 banditti we have enlisted one hundred and 
 seventy : and when a clergyman, a hard man, 
 who is also a magistrate, saw these creatures 
 kneeling round us, whom he had seldom seen 
 but to commit or punish in some way, he burst 
 into tears.'' 
 
 The bodily wants of these unhappy people 
 were not forgotten, by the benevolent sisters ; 
 their purse was ever open in seasons of famine 
 or sickness, and the schoolmistresses whom 
 they appointed were the ministers of physical 
 as well as of spiritual charity. Generally 
 speaking, the schools succeeded, and were 
 attended with the most beneficial results. In 
 one parish so violent a persecution was raised 
 by the clergyman, (who had, however, been 
 the first to invite Mrs. Hannah More,) that 
 she was compelled to relinquish her task. 
 Repeated attacks of ill health, and the in- 
 firmities of old age, naturally restricted her 
 labours ; but she had the satisfaction of know- 
 ing that what she could not always do herself, 
 was done by able assistants : many of whom
 
 A CHAPTER ON OLD MAIDS. 95 
 
 had been educated in these schools, where they 
 now taught in their turn. 
 
 In 1802 Mrs. Hannah More removed from 
 Cowslip Green to Barley Wood ; where she 
 had erected a mansion, large enough for herself 
 and her sisters, who gave up their house at 
 Bath to reside exclusively with her. Here 
 Hannah More, though suffering from ill health, 
 wrote "Coelebs in Search of a Wife;" 
 " Practical Piety," dedicated to Mrs. Fry; 
 " Christian Morals ;" "Moral Sketches," &c. 
 She had the sorrow to lose her four sisters, one 
 by one : Mary, the eldest, died in 1813, at the 
 advanced age of eighty; Elizabeth departed 
 in 1816 ; Sarah, who had helped her sister in 
 some of her popular writings, followed her in 
 less than a year ; Martha, the last and the 
 most beloved, the sharer of her labours in the 
 schools, lingered until 1819, when she died in 
 great sufferings. Of the five sisters, but one, 
 a lonely woman of seventy- four now remained. 
 She bore, without repining, her solitary lot. 
 If literary fame and popularity could console 
 under such painful sorrows, Hannah More 
 need not have felt grief. Her name was 
 known wherever her native language was 
 spoken : the religious and moral aim of her 
 writings had spread them to an extent which 
 is not always granted to genius. Numerous 
 editions of her works, and translations of them 
 in almost every language, showed the value in 
 which they, and the lessons they taught, were 
 
 1_ 1 J 11 l_ 
 
 held. Jint her motives for resignation were 
 higher than those which human fame holds 
 out. She survived her sister fourteen years,
 
 REPRESENTATIVE WOMEN. 
 
 during which she suffered much from repeated 
 attacks of illness. Her last years were sad- 
 dened by the ingratitude of her servants, who 
 took advantage of her condition to rob and 
 defraud her. She was compelled to leave 
 Barley Wood, endeared by so many recollec- 
 tions, for Clifton ; where she died five years 
 afterwards, in J833, having then reached the 
 advanced age of eighty-eight. 
 
 It is difficult to estimate the influence which, 
 as a popular writer, Hannah More has exer- 
 cised in this country : it was political, moral, 
 and religious. She met, in many essential 
 points, the spirit of the times in which she 
 lived ; she was zealous, earnest, and succeeded. 
 Her temper was more liberal and generous 
 than her principles : she deplored the Catholic 
 Emancipation, and yet, at the time of the 
 Revolution, she had published a book expressly 
 for the benefit of the emigrant priests, and the 
 profits of which amounted to <240. In the 
 same spirit, she, who had braved so much in- 
 convenience to serve the poor who had sacri- 
 ficed time, health, and money, to instruct their 
 children seriously apprehended danger and 
 evil if their education should go beyond the 
 Scriptures : as if the bountiful Creator, who 
 who has given the same noble faculties to all 
 his children, had not by this proclaimed the 
 free use of those faculties as their alienable 
 birthright.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 REPRESENTATIVE QUEENS. ZENOBIA. 
 
 DURING the anarchical reign and divided sway 
 of the Emperor Gallienus, (whose father 
 Valerian, was held in captivity by " the great 
 king," who had already humbled "Rome, and 
 was at the head of a force which recalled the 
 armies of Artaxerxes,) a new political power 
 suddenly sprung up amidst the sandy deserts 
 of the East. This power, (a political phe- 
 nomenon, like the produce of some sudden 
 eruption in the natural world) was created by 
 the energy and genius of a woman ; and it 
 swept over the hosts of the worshippers of the 
 Sun, humbling the pride, and checking the 
 rapid course of the haughty representatives of 
 Cyrus and Mandane. 
 
 Amidst the most barren deserts of Arabia, 
 there bloomed an oasis, (like some island Eden 
 rising out of the sandy ocean) which, from 
 the beauty and shade of its palms, bore the 
 name of Palmyra, and which tradition assumed 
 to have been the site of the Tadmor of King 
 Solomon. Its pure air, its numerous springs, 
 and fruitful soil, with its happy position, 
 (between the Gulph of Persia and the Medi- 
 terranean) had made it a halt for the caravans,
 
 ,98 REPRESENTATIVE WOMKN. 
 
 which bore to Eome and to the remotest nations 
 of its empire, the rich productions of India. 
 For the mutual commercial benefits it conferred 
 on the Roman and Parthian empires, the little 
 republic of the desert had been long suffered 
 to maintain a peaceable obscurity ; and it still 
 preserved a humble neutrality, until it was 
 suddenly raised to be the capital of an empire, 
 and to stand forth the rival of Rome herself. 
 
 Odenatus, the brave chief of that peculiar 
 tribe of Arabs, called Saracens, who rather 
 dwelt in than reigned over the desert regions 
 that surround Palmyra, becoming alarmed at 
 the approach of Sapor, sent ambassadors to 
 the Persian Monarch, with the voluntary offer 
 of his homage, and with costly presents to 
 bribe his friendship. Sapor received both with 
 contempt, threw the presents into the water, 
 and ordered the donor to come in person, and 
 (his hands tied behind his back,) to prostrate 
 himself at the feet of his sovereign master. 
 
 The Arab chief writhed under the insult. 
 But there was one for ever near him, in war 
 or peace in the fight, or in the chase who 
 urged him to avenge it ! and who, pouring 
 her " spirit into his ear," 1 * encouraged him to 
 take arms against " the greatest king of the 
 earth," to oppose his own wandering Arabs to 
 the Persian phalanx, and, fighting for his 
 honour and independence, to conquer, or to die. 
 
 * Non aliter etiam, conjuge assueta quae multorum 
 sentential fortior marito fuisse perhibetur, mulierum 
 omnium nobilissima Orientalium faeminsrum, et ut Cor- 
 nelius Capitolinus assent, speciosisshna. Trebellius Pollio 
 in triginta Tyranuis.
 
 REPRESENTATIVE "QUEENS. ZKXOBIA. 99 
 
 The counsel, like the enterprise, seemed 
 more than human ! But Odenatus listened to 
 it, as though it were oracular ; for it came 
 from Zenobia, his wife, companion, and friend, 
 the supposed descendant from Semirarnis, and 
 from the Ptolemies, a woman, in genius and 
 patriotism resembling her immediate ancestress 
 Cleopatra. "If the doubtful achievements 
 of Semiramis be excepted," says Gibbon, 
 " Zenobia, perhaps, was the only female, whose 
 superior genius broke through the servile in- 
 dolence imposed on her sex by the climate, 
 the manners, (and the institutions) of Asia. 1 " 
 
 To a mind, whose resources assisted to raise 
 her husband from a private station to a throne, 
 she united a person, whose beauty the dryest 
 and sternest historians have deigned to cele- 
 brate. The philosophy of Gibbon, and the 
 scepticism of Bayle, have alike paused, while 
 their flattered imagination lingered over pages 
 of the personal gossipry of Pollio, in which 
 the charms of Zenobia were enumerated, from 
 the " dark flashes of her large black eyes," to 
 the "pearly lustre of her beautiful teeth."* 
 Her Voice, like her mind, was strong and 
 harmonious, and her manly understanding, 
 strengthened and developed by study, enabled 
 her, in the midst of the fatigues of war and 
 of the chase, to conquer the difficulties of the 
 Greek, the Syriac, and the Egyptian languages; 
 
 * " Oculis supra modum vigentibus, nigris, spiritua 
 divini, venustatis incredibilis : tautus candor in dentibu, 
 nt margaritaa earn pleriquc putarent habere, non dentes." 
 Pollio. Eyes and teeth never had "une plus belle
 
 100 REPRESENTATIVE WOMEN. 
 
 all of which she spoke with grace and purity : 
 and, though she did not venture to converse in 
 Latin, she was learned in every branch of its 
 literature. 
 
 Such was Zenobia, when her counsels worked 
 on Odenatus, and encouraged him to undertake 
 a war, which could only be justified by its 
 success, a success to which she mainly con- 
 tributed.* Her eloquence, her beauty, and 
 iier genius, are allowed by all writers to have 
 had a miraculous effect on the ardent tempera- 
 ments and fervid spirits of the warm-blooded 
 sons of the desert ; and the Arabs of all tribes 
 and denominations crowded to her standard, 
 panting to resent the wrongs of the brave 
 chief, whom she had chosen for her husband. 
 The forces of Odenatus and Zenobia thus 
 became so considerable, as to induce the Roman 
 legions to join them, and to make common 
 cause against the common enemy. Zenobia, 
 (who had enured her constitution to fatigue) 
 disdaining to take the field in a covered carriage, 
 (like the ladies of the Persian camp) appeared 
 on horseback, in a military habit, and in all 
 the brilliant panoply of war. Sometimes she 
 descended from her Arab charter, and marched 
 on foot for many miles across the Syrian desert, 
 at the head of the troops. It was thus, when 
 at the side of her husband, she first encoun- 
 tered the Persian army, in the plains of 
 Mesopotamia. 
 
 * " Elle contribua beaucoup aux grandes victoires qu'i 
 (Odenate) remporta eur les Perses, et qui conservferent 
 1'oritnt aux Remains." EAYLE.
 
 REPRESENTATIVE QUEENS. ZEXOBIA 10] 
 
 The engagement that ensued was long and 
 doubtful ; but the impetuous courage of the light 
 Arab cohorts prevailed over the ponderous un- 
 wieldly armament of "the great king." The 
 Persians gave way ; Mesopotamia, Nisibis, and 
 Carrie, were taken. The troops of Sapor were 
 cut to pieces, his treasures plundered, his wo- 
 men made prisoners, and Sapor himself pursued 
 to the very walls of his gorgeous city of Ctesi- 
 phon, (the rival of Babylon), above whose ram- 
 parts the Roman eagles and the palmy stan- 
 dards of Zenobia soon fluttered.* 
 
 Sapor and Zenobia are now but sounds, 
 representing to men's minds the passing incar- 
 nations of great passions and great powers, 
 which, sixteen centuries back, influenced the 
 destinies and happiness of society. But, while 
 of these splendid existences not a particle of 
 dust remains, the local features of the grand 
 wild scene on which they played their pirts are 
 still the same ; and in their sublime durability 
 they seem to mock the brief supremacy of self- 
 sufficient humanity. The Diola still rolls on 
 its tributary stream into the Tigris, as when it 
 reflected from its shores the sunny banners of 
 Persia, and the green standards of Palmyra. 
 
 * Aurelian bears testimony of this fact in a letter writ- 
 ten to the senate in the following tena. Audio P. C. 
 mihi objici quod non virile munus impleveritn, Zenobiam 
 triutnpha'ido. Nee illi qni me reprelienduijt, satis la'i- 
 dareut, si scierent qualit) ilia e*t niulier, quam prudent in 
 couciliis, quam coustans in disposition! bus, quaui erga 
 niiiites gravis, quam larga quum uecos^itas p'.atulet, quam 
 tristi* <|num nevcrita ]><> oat. Possum dice re illius essa 
 quod Odt-na'us IVr-as vicit, ac. fu'za'o Sapore, Cteaipfaon- 
 tciu usque pervemt, &c. I rebellius Pollio in 
 'lyrauuia.
 
 102 KLPllESEXTATIVK WO.MEX. 
 
 The mounds of Ctesiphon* still attract the 
 distant gaze of fche travellers of the caravan 
 from Aleppo to Bagdad ; and the plain, which 
 spreads far and wide round the area of the ruin- 
 ed city, once the scene of fierce comhat between 
 the Persians and Arabians, now affords a covert 
 to the hare and the gazelle, where they repose 
 in peace among the fragments of extinct dynas- 
 ties, and browse luxuriously on the aromatic 
 heath, whose soil the blood of kings and heroes 
 have ennobled. 
 
 That the success of Odenatus was, in a great 
 measure, ascribable to the incomparable pru- 
 dence and fortitude of Zenobia, is affirmed by 
 Gibbon. " Their splendid victories over the 
 great king," he says, " whom they twice pur- 
 sued as far as the gates of Ctesiphon, laid the 
 foundations of their united fame and power. 
 The armies which they commanded, and the 
 provinces which they had saved, acknowledged 
 not any other sovereigns than these invincible 
 chiefs. The senate and people of Rome revered 
 the strangers who had avenged their captive 
 emperor, and even the insensible son of Valeri- 
 an accepted Odenatus for his legitimate col- 
 league." He granted the dignity of a Roman 
 empress to Zenobia, with the title of Augusta. 
 These distinctions, accorded by the faineant 
 emperor to the saviours of his throne and pow- 
 er, covered the indolent Gallienus with ridi- 
 
 * " Ctesiphon was the second of the two cities, the gran- 
 deur of which contributed to the progressive annihilation 
 of Babylon. It stood opposite to Seleucia, on the banks 
 of tlie Tigris." See Excursions to the Ruins of Ctesiphon 
 and Seleucia, in Mr. Buckingham's Travels in Mesopotamia.
 
 REPRESENTATIVE QUEENS. - ZEXOBIA. 103 
 
 cule; and enrolled Odenatus and Zenobia in 
 the imperial list of " the thirty tyrants " 
 
 When the pacification of the East by the 
 victories of the King and Queen of Palmyra 
 (as they were now styled) had been ratified, 
 and when Odenatus and Zenobia with their 
 children and friends were beginning to enjoy 
 all the pleasures of domestic life, at their beau- 
 tiful capital of the desert, the days and glory 
 of Odenatus were suddenly terminated by as- 
 sassination. Mseonius, his nephew, ambitious 
 of his uncle's throne, sought to possess it by 
 treachery and murder ; and he found an oppor- 
 tunity,, in the familiarity of private intercourse, 
 to assassinate both him and his eldest son 
 Herod.* 
 
 Surrounded by a feeble band of partisans, 
 the young and unnatural assassin had scarcely 
 assumed the title of Augustus, as a colleague 
 of the Roman empire, when Zenobia defeated 
 his intentions, and sacrificed the self-styled 
 emperor to the manes of her husband and his 
 son. "f* 
 
 Supported .by the faithful friends of her de- 
 ceased husband, the idol of the troops, and of 
 
 * The story of the crime of Msoouius is variously told. 
 Some of the accounts are confused and inconsistent. In 
 the Augustan history, the murder of Odenatus is ascribed 
 to a dispute between the uncle and nephew at a hunting- 
 party, in which the latter dared to dart his javelin before 
 that of the royal sportsman. 
 
 f Herod, the s.on of Odenatus, was not by Zenobia. 
 He was a younff man of soft and effeminate temper, and 
 BO childish in his habits and pursuits, that his parents 
 were wont to send him presents of gems and toys, found 
 among the spoils of the enemy, which he received with
 
 104- REPRESENTATIVE WOMEN'. 
 
 the people, and the pride even of the wealth} 7 
 magnates of Palmyra, (to whose splendid city 
 of palaces she had given a reflection of her own 
 glory) Zenobia was declared the successor most 
 worthy to fill the throne of her husband. For 
 six years she governed Palmyra, Syria, and 
 Egypt,* with manly counsels and womanly 
 humanity. 
 
 But she governed not for herself; she pro- 
 fessed to rule only for the interests, and during 
 the minority, of her three sons. To the first- 
 born she had given a Latin name, to the 
 second a Greek, to the third a Syrian ;f for, 
 with an ambition that " grew with what it fed 
 on," Zenobia, proud of her imperial title of 
 " Augusta," and over-excited by maternal f-el- 
 ing, and by her own splendid success in all her 
 enterprises, had destined her elder son to reign 
 in Rome, her second son over Greece, and her 
 youngest over the Asiatic kingdom, of which 
 she proudly considered herself as the foundress. 
 
 By the death of Odenatus, that imperial 
 title and authority was at an end, which the 
 
 delight. This fact proves that his illustrious stepmother 
 did not merit the epithet of " Maratre," bestowed on her 
 by a Greek historian ; but it is remarkable that, while all 
 the faults attributed to Zenobia are giveu, a-i on dits, her 
 great deeds are recorded as historical truths, to which the 
 most implacable of her enemies, as well as the most care- 
 less of her detractors, bear witness. 
 
 " Non seulement elle conscrva les provinces qui 
 avaient et e sous 1'obeissance d'Odenat, mais elle conquit 
 aiisai 1'Egypte, et se preparait a d'au f res conq'ietes. lorsque 
 1'Empereur Aurelien lui alia faire la guerre." BAYLE. 
 
 t Herenneamis, Timolatis, and Vaballath. It was thus 
 that Catherine of Russia created "foregone conclusions" in 
 favour of her grandsons.
 
 REPRESENTATIVE QUEENS. ZFXOBIA. 105 
 
 senate had granted him only as a personal dis- 
 tinction. " But his martial widow, disdaining 
 both the senate and the Emperor Gallienus, 
 obliged one of the Roman generals who was sent 
 against her, to retreat into Europe, with the 
 loss of his army and of his reputation ;" and 
 increased her power by the defeat of those from 
 whom it was derived. 
 
 Raised by high motives and ennobling pur- 
 suits above all the petty passions which so fre- 
 quently perplex a female reign, even more than 
 foreign adversaries, the steady administration of 
 Zenobia was guarded by the most judicious 
 maxims of prudent policy. " If it was expe- 
 dient to pardon, she could calm her resentment : 
 if it was necessary to punish, she could impose 
 silence on the voice of pity. Her strict econo- 
 my was accused of avarice ; yet on every proper 
 occasion she appeared magnificent and liberal. 
 The neighbouring states of Arabia, Armenia, 
 and Persia, dreaded her enmity, and solicited 
 her alliance. To the dominions of Odenatus, 
 which extended from the Euphrates to the fron- 
 tiers of Bithynia, his widow added the inheri- 
 tance of her ancestors, the populous and fertile 
 kingdom of Egypt. The Emperor Claudius 
 ackowledged her merit, and was content that, 
 while he pursued the Gothic war, she should 
 assert the dignity of the empire in the East." 
 
 The conduct, however, of Zenobia was said 
 to have been " attended with somo ambiguity ; M 
 nor is it unlikely that she had conceived the de- 
 sign of erecting an independent and hostile mon- 
 archy; for she blended with the popular manners 
 of Roman princes the stately pomp of the courts 
 F 2
 
 10G TIEPRKSENTATIVK WOMEN. 
 
 of Asia, and exacted from her subjects the same 
 adoration that wus paid to the successors of Cy- 
 rus. " She bestowed on her three sons a Latin 
 education, and often showed them to the troops 
 adorned with the imperial purple. For herself 
 she reserved the diadem, with the splendid but 
 doubtful title of ' Queen of the East.' "* 
 
 During this happiest and most glorious epoch 
 of her life, she gave herself up to the most in- 
 tellectual occupations. She had drawn up for 
 her own use an epitome of oriental history, 
 (for history she was wont to say was " the true 
 science of kings,") and she familiarly compared 
 the beauties of Homer and Plato, under the tu- 
 itiou of her preceptor and first teacher, the well- 
 known Greek writer, Longinus. No contempory 
 sovereign is represented as being capable of such 
 high pursuits ; nor did any sovereign of any time 
 select a wiser or more illustrious minister ; nor 
 any minister ever serve a more enlightened and 
 judicious sovereign, of either sex. 
 
 But, while on one side Zenobia devoted her- 
 self to Pagan learning, and, loaded with wealth 
 and favours the most eminent Pagan writer of 
 the age, she was not only suspected of profess- 
 ing the Jewish doctrines, and of favouring 
 its writers, but at the same time she entered 
 
 "Melant a-propos la douceur," (says one of the latest 
 historians, who have borne testimony to the wise reign of 
 one df the feebler sex) " melant a-propos la douceur et la 
 severifce, prodigue d'or et d'houneurs pour ceux qui ser- 
 vaient ses_ desseins, elle egala en habilete le plus graud 
 rois. Amie des lettres, elle honora de sa compagnie, et 
 combla de faveurs le celebre Longin, qui trouva souv<it 
 dans le genie de cette reiue le modele du sublime qu'il 
 uoui apprit a. connoitre." SEGUK, Hk>x. Uwiv.
 
 REPRESENTATIVE QUEF.XS. 7EXOBIA. ] 07 
 
 freely into the religious quarrels by which the 
 Christians at the close of the third century were 
 beginning to impede the progress of their own 
 great cause. Zenobia, herself a Platonist, was 
 well adapted to comprehend the mysteries and 
 subtilties ^Yith which the contending Christian 
 councils were mingling the pure and simple 
 moralities of Christ ; and the Queen of the East, 
 in the midst of her complicated duties and pur- 
 suits, political and literary, became, in her mira- 
 culous versatility, the protectress of Paul of 
 Samosata, Bishop of Antioch, against the 
 synodical persecutions of the council of An- 
 tioch. The bishop was accused of adopting the 
 heresy of Artemon, a doctrine which Zenobia 
 was far from favouring.* 
 
 From occupations so ennobling, and so spi- 
 ritual, the philosophic legislatress of Palmyra 
 was suddenly drawn off, by the astounding in- 
 telligence of the immediate expedition of the 
 Emperor Aurelian into Asia, who, after his 
 victories in the west, and the death of Victoria, 
 was resolved on turning the whole force of his 
 prowess against the Queen of the East. 
 
 Aurelian (the successor of the feeble Clau- 
 dius II.), one of the bravest, fiercest, and most 
 
 * " St. Athanase dit qu'elle 6toit juive, ce qu' Abulfa- 
 rege crit apres lui, mais au moins lle suivoit beaucoup 
 les sentimens des Juifs. et on pr6tend quo ce fut u c;i'i>o 
 d'elle, que Paul de Samosate, eveque d'Antioche, duquel 
 cllc etoit protectrice, tomba dans 1'heresie d'Art6mou, dont 
 les sentirnens touchant J6sus-Christ approchaient fort de 
 ceux de la synagogue." Pe Tillemont, cited by Bayle, 
 who, however, adds: " Pour persuader aux gons qu'elle 
 ^toit juivc de religion, il fatidroit qu'il allegiuU d'autres 
 tCruoignages." Diet. Art. Zenobie.
 
 REPRESENTATIVE WOMEN. 
 
 invincible of Rome's barbarian emperors, was 
 the offspring of a Pannonian peasant, and of a 
 frail and inferior priestess of the Sun. He had 
 owed the fortunes of his private life, and the 
 glory of his public career, to his matchless 
 valour and unconquerable energies, qualities 
 which eventually raised him from a common 
 soldier to the throne of the empire. The repu- 
 tation of having killed with his own hand nine 
 hundred enemies, marks his bravery and fero- 
 city. But the severe and rigid nerve of the 
 soldier rarely yielded to the sympathy of the 
 man ; and the judge who sustained without 
 emotion the sight of the most dreadful tortures, 
 and inflicted the cruellest deaths, mistook that 
 for a virtue, which was only the irresistible 
 propensity to cruelty of one defective in all the 
 higher and softer qualities which spiritualize 
 man. 
 
 His piety was also an extreme ; and it was 
 marked by the grossest superstition : still his 
 devotion to the god of light (which the " for- 
 tunate peasant" had imbibed with the milk of 
 his mother's bosom), was the only sentiment 
 in which some tincture of an imaginative feel- 
 ing brightened the density of his rigid organiza- 
 tion. 
 
 The temple raised on the Quirinal Hill to 
 his own tutelar deity, irradiated with gold and 
 jewels, is said never to have been surpassed, 
 even by those altars which now glorify the same 
 site, in that Christian temple, which is un- 
 rivalled in beauty and magnificence. Firm of 
 purpose, and endowed with great powers of 
 mental concentration, the unlettered soldier
 
 KEPRIiSEXTATIVE QUEENS. ZKXOBIA. 100 
 
 was yet destitute of all the ordinary advantages 
 of education ; and his laconic and characteristic 
 epistles are said to have been so interlarded 
 with the idiom of the camp, as to he scarcely 
 intelligible, to those uninitiated in the military 
 rhetoric of the age. 
 
 After having put an end to the Gothic war, 
 severely chastised the Germans, and recovered 
 Gaul, Spain, and Britain out of the hands of 
 the unfortunate Tetricus, Aurelian resolved on 
 destroying another proud monarchy, erected on 
 the ruins of the Roman Empire in Asia. But 
 above all, he resolved on humbling the pride of 
 the conqueress of Persia and of Egypt, the one 
 sole surviving opponent of Rome and its vic- 
 torious emperor, the as yet unconquered and 
 irresistible Zenobia. 
 
 Having established some legislative regula- 
 tions (useful, indeed, and expedient, hut marked 
 with the impression of his fearful severity), 
 having fortified Rome, so recently invaded by 
 the barbarians (extending its boundaries, and 
 raising its walls), Aurelian was free to execute 
 his great and daring design ; and he left Italy, 
 to give battle to Zenobia, who, since her recent 
 conquests of Egypt, had crowned her eUlest son, 
 and given him the title of a " Roman Emperor." 
 Aurelian triumphed over every obstacle 
 by which a barbarian enemy impeded his pro- 
 gress ; and, fighting his way through Sclavo- 
 nia, Thrace, and Byzantium, poured down upon 
 Asia Minor, at the head of an army mighty 
 even for Rome. 
 
 From the moment of his departure on this 
 expjditiju, there was obviously a rapid reck-
 
 110 REPRESENTATIVE WOMEX. 
 
 lessness in all his movements ; and his vio- 
 lence, or his lenity, as he proceeded in his 
 career of conquest, or of forgiveness, was 
 marked with an obvious impatience, as if some 
 greater glory was yet to he achieved, than the 
 submission of Bythinia, and the capture of 
 Ancyra. Even the unexpected mercy with 
 which he treated the countrymen of Apollonius 
 the philosopher, his mildness to the unpunished 
 inhabitants of Antioch, were an anomaly in 
 the conduct of the most relentless of con- 
 querors and of men. By thus conciliating the 
 confidence of the Syrians, his salutary edicts 
 brought him more quickly to the gates of 
 Emesa, within a hundred miles of Palmyra. 
 
 " Aurelian would have disdained to confess, 
 that he had passed into Asia, solely to meet 
 face to face the victorious heroine, whose sex 
 alone could have rendered her an object of 
 contempt :" yet that the conquest of Zenobia 
 was the object of this expedition, history has 
 left no doubt. 
 
 The Queen of the East would have ill de- 
 served her reputation for vigilance and fore- 
 thought, had she indolently permitted the 
 Emperor of the West to approach within a hun- 
 dred miles of her capital, without taking such 
 precautions as were characteristic of an able 
 general, and a profound stateswoman. A part 
 of her army, therefore, were promptly stationed 
 along the shores of the Orontes, near Antioch. 
 Aurelian attacked and put it to flight, by a 
 stratagem worthy of his profound military 
 experience ; and Zenobia (undismayed) waited 
 his approach in the plains of Emesa, at the
 
 REPRESENTATIVE QUEEN T S. ZEXOBIA. 111. 
 
 head of seventy thousand men-at-arms. This 
 force she animated by her presence and her 
 eloquence, while she devolved the execution of 
 her orders to her general in chief, Zabdas, who 
 had signalized his valour in the conquest of 
 Egypt. 
 
 Conspicuous by the splendour of her staff, 
 (to use the military phrase of modern times) 
 but more conspicuous by her own lofty deport- 
 ment and unrivalled beauty, the Queen of the 
 East appeared mounted on an Arab steed, 
 uniting in her person and dress all that was at 
 once most characteristic of the woman, the 
 sovereign, and the warrior. Her rich robe 
 was surmounted by armour of solid gold, stud- 
 ded with jewels; her plumed helmet was bound 
 by a royal diadem of costly gems ; and her 
 right arm was bared to the elbow, that she 
 might be free to wield the flashing lance, 
 borne in her firm grasp. 
 
 It was thus she presented herself to the most 
 formidable of her enemies, (but most passionate 
 of her admirers and eulogists). Her brillia-nt 
 army was for the most part composed of light 
 archers, with a cavalry habited in an armour of 
 complete and polished steel. But troops of 
 Arabs, fleet, quick, and intelligent, (as their 
 descendants, who at no distant day from the 
 battle of Emesa kindled the light of mind in 
 Europe, and then disappeared like the genii of 
 their own bright fables) perpetually hovered 
 round the queen of their deserts, in desultory 
 bands. Thus they were enabled to harass the 
 more disciplined and rigid legions of the lloinan 
 army, in their march over the desert.
 
 j!2 REPRESENTATIVE WOMEN'. 
 
 Aurelian drew up in the plain of Emesa. at 
 the head of a mighty armament, principally 
 composed of veteran troops, whose fierce valour 
 had been well tried in the Allemanic wars. 
 This dense stern body was flanked by a 
 swarthy phalanx of Moorish and lllyrian horse. 
 All the prowess of a Koman army, led on by 
 its emperor, (and that emperor conqueror of 
 half the world,) lent its effent to the brightest 
 battle-field the sun had ever shone on ! Before 
 this scene, its masses, groupings, and foreground 
 figures, the imagination pauses, in the gratifica- 
 tion of its highest enjoyments : and, until the 
 fixedness of the rival armies was broken up by 
 the war-word of their commanders,* they, too, 
 may have paused and gazed upon each other, 
 with an interest, whose expression no art could 
 seize, nor poetry embody. 
 
 Aurelian and Zenobia may have now met, 
 for the first time, face to face, lance to lance, 
 the Augustus and Augusta of that disputed 
 world, which they had hitherto divided between 
 . them. They met in the splendid region, where, 
 we are told, God first created man, and gave 
 him woman to be an help and a mate unto him ; 
 and they represented in their own persons and 
 organization, those respective attributes, by 
 which the sexes, through the awful sweep of 
 five thousand years, had been distinctly and 
 severally characterized and governed. 
 
 * At Emesa. The Temple of the Sun at Eniesa was 
 that at whose altars Heliogabalus had served. Gibbon ob- 
 serves that Zenobia was present both at the battles of An 
 tioch and Eraesa, "animating," he says, the armies by her 
 preeeuce. Vopiscua mentions only the second. HIST. AU- 
 GUST.
 
 REPRESENTATIVE QUEENS. ZENOB1A. 113 
 
 * 
 
 Zenobia, in her intellectual aspirations and 
 maternal impulses, was the champion of moral 
 force .and human affections fighting the battle 
 of mind and country, for her children, and for 
 philosophy ; Aurelian warred to establish the 
 right of' might, to place power on its broadest 
 basis, to raise tyranny to its extremest point, 
 and to check the inroads of reform, by the 
 resistance of military prowess ! 
 
 The destiny of an empire, and through that 
 empire of the world, was thus placed at the 
 issue of a single battle, which was long, bloody, 
 and terrible on both sides. The onset of 
 Zenobia was a woman's charge, petulant and 
 brilliant ; and the heavy Moorish and Illyrian 
 cavalry of the imperial army were unable to 
 sustain its shock, and suddenly gave way. 
 
 Aurelian, indignant at the success of this 
 female general, attacked the Palmyrans with 
 fury ; but Zenobia encouraged her troops by 
 her spirit and her eloquence. The imperial 
 infantry had already exhausted their quivers, 
 and fled in real or affected disorder ; the im- 
 prudent victors, when exhausted in the pursuit, 
 were, in their turn, discomfited in a desultory 
 combat : the stratagem won the day for Rome. 
 Zenobia, routed, hut not discouraged, made an 
 able retreat upon Palmyra, and secured her 
 remaining forces within its walls. Making 
 every preparation for a vigorous resistance, and 
 addressing the citizens and soldiers of her 
 capital with her usual intrepidity, telling them 
 44 that the last moment of her life should be 
 that of her reign," she awaited the enemy. 
 
 Aurtlian followed close upon the retreating
 
 ] 1 4 REPRESENTATIVE WOMEX. 
 
 
 
 arm} T ; but, in his march between Emesa and 
 Palmyra, suffeisd much from the guerilla 
 warfare of the harassing Arabs, whose. light 
 and fugitive troops watched the fit moment of 
 surprise, and eluded the slow pursuit of the 
 more disciplined, but less active Roman legions. 
 Arrived before Palmyra, the emperor found 
 that its siege would be an object far more 
 difficult and important than he or his most 
 experienced generals had contemplated. 
 
 Aurelian pressed the attacks in person with 
 incessant vigour; and it may be that the view 
 of the fairy palace of the Queen of the East, 
 gleaming through the palms of its gardens, 
 stimulated his efforts. It is possible that they 
 may have fixed his gaze, at the moment when 
 an arrow, winged from the walls, reached his 
 person, and inflicted a deep wound ; and it was, 
 probably, while rankling under this infliction, 
 that he wrote to the senate his memorable 
 despatch, which, in defending his own delays, 
 and the protraction of the siege, has immor- 
 talized the genius and prowess of his enemy. 
 
 "The Roman people," says Aurelian, "speak 
 with contempt of the war which I am waging 
 against a woman. They are ignorant both of 
 the character and of the power of Zenobia. 
 It is impossible to enumerate her warlike 
 preparations of stones, of arrows, and' every 
 species of missile weapons. Every part of 
 tlie walls is provided with two or three 
 balistse ; and artificial fires are thrown from 
 her military engines. The fear of punishment 
 has armed her with a desperate courage. Yet, 
 still I trust in the protecting deities of Rome,
 
 REPRESENTATIVE QUEF.XS. ZEXOBIA. 115 
 
 
 
 who have hitherto heen favourable to all my 
 undertakings." 
 
 Notwithstanding, however, this pious con- 
 fidence, Aurelian became so doubtful of the 
 event of the siege, that he judged it most 
 prudent to propose terms of an advantageous 
 capitulation. He offered to the queen a splen- 
 did retreat, and to the citizens their ancient 
 privileges. Zenobia rejected his offer, accom- 
 panying her refusal with irony. Her letter, 
 addressed to the emperor himself, breathed a 
 spirit worthy of a hero, and a patriot. Its 
 superscription was " Zenobia, Queen of the 
 East, to Aurelian Augustus. 11 
 
 " It is not," she observes, " by writing, but 
 by arms, that the submission you require from 
 me can be obtained. You have dared to pro- 
 pose my surrender to your prowess. But you 
 forget that Cleopatra preferred death to ser- 
 vitude. The Saracens, the Persians, the 
 Armenians, are marching to my aid, and how 
 are you to resist our -united forces, who have 
 been more than one - scared by the plundering 
 Arabs of the desert ? When you shall see 
 me march at the head of rny allies, you will 
 not repeat an insolent proposition as though 
 you were already my conqueror and master." 
 
 This haughty reply silenced the hopes of 
 Aurelian, and sharpened his resentments. He 
 attacked Palmyra with fresh vigour, but he 
 failed to triumph either over the obstinate 
 bravery of the garrison, or the indomitable 
 spirit of the queen. 
 
 Informed of the approach of the Persians, 
 the emperor marched against them, and chal-
 
 116 REPRESENTATIVE WOMEN. 
 
 lenged them to a pitched battle ; but the enor- 
 mous sums of money by which he bribed the 
 Saracens and Armenians to defection, are 
 thought to have served his cause more power- 
 fully, than the arms of his legions. 
 
 Palmyra, thus deprived of the aid of her 
 natural allies, and disheartened by the death of 
 Sapor, was further weakened by a famine and 
 'fearful mortality! The possibility of further 
 resistance was at an end. The rich magnates of 
 the magnificent Palmyra were not superior to 
 the desire of saving their splendid palaces, 
 even at the expense of their national inde- 
 pendence ; and all were ready to surrender. 
 J3ut the firmness of Zenobia still held out. 
 Supported by the expectation that eventually 
 famine must compel the Roman army to repass 
 the desert, encouraged by the counsels of her 
 minister Longinus, and animated by her hopes 
 and fears for her children, their safety, and 
 their fortunes, she refused to surrender. 
 
 The valour and perseverance of Aurelian, 
 however, overcame every obstacle. From 
 every part of Syrizf, " a regular convoy safely 
 arrived in the Roman camp, which was in- 
 creased by the return of Probus with his 
 victorious troops from the reconquest of Egypt." 
 It was then, when all was lost save her own 
 honour, that Zenobia resolved to escape the 
 ignominy of a capture, and to fly. Two of her 
 youthful sons were no more ; but she had pro- 
 vided for the safety of her two daughters, and 
 of her younger boy Vaballath, as is proved by 
 their having long survived the disastrous day, 
 which rose upon the captivity of Palmyra.
 
 REPRESENTATIVE QUKENS. ZF.XOBIA. 117 
 
 Zenobia, mounted on the fleetest of her 
 dromedaries, directed her flight to the Eu- 
 phrates, (sixty miles from Palmyra) and 
 reached its shores in safety, with the intention 
 of passing into Persia, and claiming protection 
 from her new allies. She had escaped from 
 Palmyra under the shadows of evening. 
 Miraculously eluding the vigilance of the 
 Roman outposts, she arrived, (probably by the 
 wonderous fleetness of the dromedary,)* in 
 the early morning at the point of the mighty 
 river, beneath and above which, a tunnel and 
 a bridge were supposed to have connected the 
 two royal palaces of Babylon, which stood on 
 either side. 
 
 But of the "golden city," the "lady of 
 kingdoms," "the beauty of the Chaldee's 
 excellency ,"f what remained to raise the spirit 
 and cheer the hopes of the fugitive descendant 
 of its foundress ? The Euphrates then, as noW,| 
 rolled on majestically through mounds of ruins 
 and hills of rubbish, which once were temples, 
 palaces, and gardens, " gates of brass," and 
 " broad walls," (the all that remained of " the 
 glory of kingdoms," " the praise of the whole 
 earth.") The fragments of its " pleasant 
 palaces" were already, in the words of the 
 Prophet, " the possessions of the bittern, and 
 doleful creatures ;" and the presence of the last 
 and lonely representative of Semiramis may 
 have startled them from their lairs, on a spot 
 
 * " The Arabs affirm that the dromedary or camel will 
 run over as much ground in oue day as horses can perform 
 in eight or ten." BUFFON. 
 
 f Isaiah. Pliny.
 
 REPRESENTATIVE WOMEN. 
 
 where " the Arabian ventured not to pitch his 
 tent." 
 
 One great fragment existed then (and still 
 exists) rising above all, which Alexander had 
 gazed on with wonder and envy the Tower of 
 Belus ! a fragment, which, taken with all the 
 poetry of desolation that surrounded it, may 
 have first brought home to the bosom of the 
 Queen of the East a conviction and a feeling, 
 to which much of her after conduct may be at- 
 tributable ! What, indeed, was Palmyra to 
 Babylon ? and what was the end and object of 
 the highest aspirations of mere vain-glorious 
 and personal ambition ? The mounds of 
 Babylon, and the formless fragments of the 
 Tower of Belus, were sublime and ready 
 
 anoTOjorc I 
 
 answers 
 
 It was in this scene, so humiliating to the 
 last great foundress of an empire in the East, 
 that Zenobia may have fully awakened from the 
 false dreams of glory, and felt how far beyond 
 their highest accomplishments were the af- 
 fections of Nature ! All the mother may 
 then have superseded the high excitements 
 of the potentate ; and the queen, who had 
 so lately, in the flushed spirit of her heroism 
 and of her disappointed vengeance, resolved 
 on self-destruction, may have here first 
 conceived the idea of a far more difficult 
 sacrifice : she may have resolved to live ; for, 
 Zenobia, unlike Cleopatra, though defeated and 
 bereaved, had yet something to live for her 
 children .'* 
 
 "In discovering the doubtful cui bono of all things, 
 Zenobia may have well despised the pride of stoicism, and
 
 REPRESENTATIVE QUEENS. ZKXOlilA. 119 
 
 The bark which was to convey her over the 
 Euphrates into the land of her allies, was 
 already touching the shore, when a corps of 
 Roman cavalry, sent in her pursuit by Aurelian, 
 arrived on the spot ; and Zenobia, when on 
 the point of embarking, was seized and brought 
 prisoner to the imperial head-quarters. 
 
 That a change had come over the rnind and 
 spirits of Zenobia, in this most awful epoch of 
 her life, was testified by her conduct and 
 manner from the moment of her captivity ; 
 for a calm and passionless dignity from thence- 
 forth is said to have marked her deportment. 
 Aurelian, whoso little mind and great revenge 
 had stomach for every species of mortifying 
 insult, could not restrain his impetuous taunt- 
 ings, when she first appeared in his tent. 
 Suddenly bursting forth, with all the brutality 
 of the lllyrian peasant, and the abruptness of 
 the despotic soldier, rie asked her, " how she^ 
 a woman, had dared to oppose the power of 
 man, her lord and master ; and, above all, to 
 sot herself up in authority against the unity and 
 supremacy of Rome and its mighty emperors P 
 
 The answer of Zenobia waa adroit and 
 womanly, at once firm and respectful : 
 acknowledge you alone," she said, " as worthy 
 of title of emperor ; but for your predecessors 
 Gallienus and Claudius, they were unworthy of 
 a throne, which they permitted to be over- 
 
 itn ostentatious display of unnatural insensibility ; and 
 havo preferred living for IHT family, to dymn for UK; 
 of a nam<!. Thi.s lioniimm, fur greater than an act of self- 
 destruction, Im.-s however, been brought against her to 
 prove that, ' as female fortitude ia commonly artificial, BO 
 it ia seldom, steady or consistent.' " GIBIJUN.
 
 120 REPRESENTATIVE, WOMEN. 
 
 thrown, and which I upheld and saved for 
 them." 
 
 To this fact, to which Aurelian himself had 
 borne testimony, he replied by referring to a 
 council of war the fate of the captive queen and 
 her partizans; although he had already in his 
 omnipotence decided, that she should live to 
 grace his triumph, and to be humbled by his 
 clemency ! 
 
 The Roman soldiers, however, in their brutal 
 fury, opposed themselves to the edict of their 
 emperor : they cried aloud and with furious 
 yells for the life of Zenobia. The emperor 
 with difficulty resisted the demands of these 
 tyrants over all tyrants, who panted to tear his 
 illustrious prisoner to pieces ; and he was com- 
 pelled to offer to them, as an expiatory victim, 
 her counsellor and minister, the immortal Lon- 
 j:inus, whom he himself affected to consider as 
 the responsible adviser of the daring resistance 
 which Zenobia had made to his own power and 
 prowess. The woman, however, who, at the 
 head of a band of Arabs, had taken the field 
 against the Persians, wanted no other coun- 
 sellor than her own brave spirit, to impel her 
 to the defence of the kingdom she had founded, 
 against the ambitious aggression even of Aure- 
 liari himself. 
 
 Longinus, the sublime philosopher, the 
 zealous minister, the devoted friend, was led 
 forth to a public execution, by order of the con- 
 queror of his sovereign and disciple, Aurelian ; 
 and still farther to glut the brutal ferocity of 
 the savage soldiers, the greatest writer of his 
 age (whose glorious works are still raising the
 
 REPRESENTATIVE QUEKNS. ZENOBIA. 121 
 
 human mind in its own consideration), was 
 permitted to be tortured to death. The current 
 of the LattedellaLupa was still running strong 
 in the Roman temperament, when Aureliau 
 and his victorious legions could gloat over the 
 lingering agonies and palpitating fibres of one, 
 whose death, like his life, had illustrated " the 
 great sublime he drew."* 
 
 That Longinus perished the victim of his 
 zeal for Zenobia there can be no doubt ; but 
 that his miserable fate was due to her weak- 
 ness or ingratitude there is no proof. The 
 feeble and unsupported suppositions of the 
 writers, who have furnished modern historians 
 with their philippics against Zenobia, are not 
 worthy of confidence, when weighed against 
 the undeniable facts of her life and character, 
 and against the well-known cruelty and 
 avenging temperament of Aurelian. Success- 
 ful sovereigns have always had laudatory his- 
 toriographers, and Aurelian had his ; but the 
 defeated and unfortunate Zenobia had no faith- 
 ful chronicler to tell her story, and to make her 
 defence. He, whose genius she honoured, and 
 who best knew her motives, would have best 
 written her history, and that of the times she 
 lived in, had he not perished prematurely by a 
 cruel death. He died not, however, as has 
 been written, " the innocent victim of his sove- 
 reign's fears," but the selected victim of the 
 unlettered tyrant, who, in punishing the un- 
 compromising minister, was " incapable of 
 
 * " Without uttering a complaint, he calmly followed 
 the executioner, pitying his unhappy mistress, and bjstow- 
 iii comfort on his afflicted friend*." GIBBON.
 
 122 REPRESENTATIVE WOMF.X. 
 
 being moved by the genius and the learning, 
 which had served equally to harmonize and 
 elevate the souls of Longinus and Zenobia." 
 
 The insignificant retailer of the on-dits of 
 this dark and illiterate epoch of antiquity, 
 Vopiscus, who took Aurelian as the subject of 
 one of his historical romances,* is the authority 
 quoted by a modern, who is himself a great 
 authority, for the supposition that Zenobia 
 " ignominiously purchased her own life, by the 
 sacrifice of her fame and friends." But what 
 were the " friends" of the bereaved and con- 
 quered Zenobia to her imperial rival and con- 
 queror ? Had he not the Queen of the East, 
 the last of the thirty tyrants, the " Augusta, 1 ' 
 
 * Flavius Vopiscus, in the reign of Dioclesian, composed 
 the history of Aurelian, and of some of his immediate suc- 
 cessors, which ekes out the not very authentic compilation 
 of the Augustan history. The negative eulogium passed on 
 Vobiscus by a modern critic, is worth citing : " quoique 
 oe n'est pas un bon auteur, il est cependant moins mauvaia 
 que tous les autres, dont on a fait une compilation pour 
 composer," I'Historise Augustae Scriptores. Zosimus (the 
 other author,) who furnishes Gibbon with references against 
 Zenobia, was a Greek writer of the fifth or sixth century, 
 of whom little is known, except that he wrote a history of 
 the empire from A ugustus to Dioclesian. He was a zealous 
 supporter of the old church of Paganism, and he could not, 
 therefore, be very favourable to the philosophical pupil of 
 Longinus, who favoured the Jews, and protected a Chris- 
 tian bishop; "car il voyait avec peine s'etablir sur les 
 mines de la religion de ses peres celle des chre'tiens ; et de 
 cette opinion peu reflechie, et de son zele pour sa religion, 
 naissent des traits de partialitd, dont on peut excuser 
 ITiomme, mais non pas 1'historien !" Such were the histo- 
 rians on whose opinions Gibbon formed his own idea of 
 Zenobia's latter conduct. Longinus and Zenobia (had such 
 scribblers written in their time,) would have laughed at 
 opinions thus hazarded, on events, so far removed from the 
 scrutiny of the calumnious inditera.
 
 REPRESENTATIVE QUEEN'S. ZENOBIA. 123 
 
 who had disputed the empire with him in his 
 power ? and how was she compelled to offer 
 such a price for her own life, as the lives of hr 
 friends, when to preserve that life, for the 
 illustration of his own vain-glorious triumph, 
 (the matchless pearl that was to give lustre to 
 the victor's crown) was the ambition and fond- 
 est hope of Aurelian's pride and policy ? 
 
 After the conquest of Palmyra, and the sup- 
 pression of the rebellion in Egypt, followed the 
 well-known triumphal entry of Aurelian into 
 Rome ; and " since the foundation of Borne," 
 (says the great historian of its decline and fall), 
 " no general had more nobly deserved a tri- 
 umph than Aurelian, nor was a triumph ever 
 celebrated with superior pride and magnifi- 
 cence." So long and various, indeed, was the 
 pomp of this ceremony, that though it began 
 with the dawn, it was still winding its gor- 
 geous way to the capital, amidst the shadows of 
 twilight: and the great hero of the mighty 
 melo-drama did not reach his palace till it was 
 dark. The multitudinous people rent the air 
 with acclamations, the expression of their "un- 
 feigned joy, wonder, and gratitude." 
 
 The pomp opened with an unwieldy proces- 
 sion of tout royal tigers, twenty elephants, and 
 two hundred wild and curious animals, the 
 produce of every clime and region of the north, 
 east, and south. These grim and fearfui 
 images of brute force in all its most reckless sa- 
 vagery, were followed close by sixteen hundred 
 men, formed in the pride of Nature's finest type, 
 who were then wending their melancholy way 
 to horrid immolation. Chosen for their strength
 
 REPRESENTATIVE WOMKN. 
 
 and symmetry, to grace the triumph, they were 
 destined with the morning's light to be torn to 
 pieces by the wild beasts, in whose track they 
 now followed for the. amusement of the Bo- 
 man people, and the glory of their emperor. 
 The victims thus set apart from the lists of 
 humanity, were stigmatized with the name of 
 Gladiators ; but they were, neverthless, men 
 men such as the chisel of the noblest of all the 
 arts has recorded them, for the wonder and ad- 
 miration of posterity.* 
 
 Close upon this frightful spectacle, so calcu- 
 lated to strike terror and pity upon every heart, 
 came the chariots that were loaded with the 
 tpolia of pima an evidence of the gorgeous 
 puerility and mean ambition of the worshipped 
 gods and tyrants of Rome They consisted of 
 the plundered wealth of Asia, and the arms and 
 ensigns of the conquered nations, who had 
 vainly struggled for independence against su- 
 perior force. But amidst these spoils of war, 
 there was one sumpter-chariot loaded with 
 household elegancies, with articles of royal and 
 domestic magnificence, gold and silver plate of 
 Greek and Indian workmanship, carpets of 
 Persia, and urns of Egypt, chairs of ivory, and 
 ewers gemmed with precious stones. All these 
 were piled together, in artful disorder. 
 
 The Roman people must have gazed on these 
 monuments of a barbarian civilization with 
 envy and wonder ; while the eyes of the female 
 portion of the multitude may have moistened, 
 as, amidst this gorgeous splendour of the palace- 
 
 * The dying Gladiator of the Capitol.
 
 REPRESENTATIVE QUEENS. ZENOBIA. J '25 
 
 home of the Queen of the East,* they discovered 
 her very wardrobe, her rich Syrian tunics, 
 her Persian diadem, and imperial mantle : for 
 such was the meanness of the conqueror, " who 
 so nobly deserved a triumph," that the minutest 
 articles of Zenobia's toilet were exposed to the 
 popular gaze ! Perhaps, too, in derision of the 
 pedantic woman, her golden stylus, and the 
 rolls on which she had written her " History 
 of the East," together with the works of Lon- 
 ginus,-f whose preservation, above all others, 
 posterity would most have coveted, may have 
 been among these precious spoils. 
 
 After these came the ambassadors from the 
 remotest parts of the earth, from Ethiopia, 
 China, Persia, Arabia, India, and Bactriana ; 
 their rich and picturesque dresses were called 
 in to aid the scenic effect, and their own pre- 
 sence in Rome was employed to confirm tha 
 fame and power of the emperor ! 
 
 Crowns of gold, too, " the offerings of grate- 
 ful cities," which Aurelian had plundered and 
 depopulated, and other offerings from nations 
 he had enslaved, equally grateful, relieved the 
 eye between the passage of these living tributes 
 
 * "Zenobia aimait le faste, et voulait que sa cour e"gal&t 
 en splendeur celle des rois de Perse." Hint. Univer., Xe- 
 gur, 
 
 f These were at that time voluminous, though now re 
 duced to the single treatise on the sublime. Longimia 
 was named "the living library." His "Treatise on tha 
 Sublime" was found in an old monastic library at Bale, in 
 1554, by Francois Rohentel. The world probably owes 
 the loss of his " Critical Remarks on the Greek Authors," 
 to the barbarian plunder of Aurelian's soldiers, when they 
 took Palmyra, or to the paltry vengeance of the emperor, 
 after he had put the illustrious author to death.
 
 126 REPRESENTATIVE WOMEN. 
 
 to his glory. Then came the train of captives, 
 who best attested the great northern victories 
 of Aurelian, warriors of a new creation, the 
 free children of the forests, the wild sons of the 
 mountain and the hill. Often defeated, but 
 never subdued or exterminated, their races con- 
 tinued to pour forth from age to age, in increas- 
 ing multitudes, and with deathless energies, 
 till Rome and all her greatness was trampled 
 under their victorious steps. These were the 
 Franks, the Gauls, the Sarmatians, and the 
 Vandals, each tribe distinguished by its pecu- 
 culiar standards and inscriptions. 
 
 On one of these banners was emblazoned 
 " the Amazons," a name given in irony, or in 
 policy, to a little band of women, remarkable 
 for their heroic beauty, who had been taken 
 with arms in their hands, fighting at their 
 husbands' sides : " for among barbarian nations 
 women have often been found so fighting," 
 a violence, indeed, done to Nature, but done 
 by Nature herself, and sanctioned by the cir- 
 cumstances. 
 
 The unfortunate Emperor Tetricus* fol- 
 lowed, the representative of her, who made 
 him Emperor, of Victoria, " the heroine of the 
 West." But every eye, disregarding all the 
 other captives, was strained to catch the first 
 glimpse of the greater than all ! the Roman 
 Augusta the rival of Aurelian, the Queen of 
 the East ! She appeared at last, on foot, pre- 
 
 * Tetricus was accompanied by his Bon. They were 
 both in the Gallic costume, browsers, a saffron tunic, and 
 a purple mantle. This is one of the earliest notices of 
 French fashions on record.
 
 REPRESENTATIVE QUEENS. ZENOBIA. 127 
 
 ceding her own magnificent chariot, the trium- 
 phal car in which she had once hoped to enter 
 the gates of Rome as its empress mother ! Her 
 beautiful figure was fettered by ponderous ma- 
 nacles of gold, and the chains which encircled 
 her neck were so weighty, that a slave walked 
 beside her to support them, as she moved in 
 the majesty of her humiliation. She seemed 
 almost to faint under the weight of the jewels, 
 with which her enfeebled, yet queen-like per- 
 son, was decorated and encumbered. Not so 
 her conqueror, who followed her steps in a 
 triumphal car, drawn by four elephants : 
 
 " Aloft, in awful state, 
 The godlike hero sate " 
 
 the crowned " Deus" and " Dominus" * of a 
 new species of worship. 
 
 The senate, the people, and the army closed 
 the procession : but, amidst their shouts of joy, 
 some symptoms of discontent were manifested 
 by the " conscript fathers, 11 who, in their esprit 
 de corps, as men and magistrates, could not 
 suppress a rising murmur, when the " haughty 
 emperor thus exposed to ignominy a Roman 
 and a magistrate, in the person of the ex- 
 emperor Tetricus. For the Roman empress, 
 however, who much more than shared this 
 " ignominy, 1 ' there was no sympathy ! None 
 at least was openly demonstrated ; though 
 among the women some proud, feeling hearts 
 
 * See the medals of Aurelian. Such homage had been 
 rejected with abhorrence by the first Crosars ; but the title 
 of "our lord and emperor" was given by the people, aiid 
 accepted by the later sovereigns.
 
 128 REPRESENTATIVE WOMEX. 
 
 may have swelled, as this nohle creature, this 
 faithful wife, this devoted mother, this spi- 
 rited queen, trod her doleful way to the capi- 
 tol in chains, where she was so worthy to be 
 crowned. 
 
 They may have even felt their own wrongs 
 in her's, and wept as they gazed on the fallen 
 greatness of this glory of their sex; and if one 
 man of genius, or of learning, mingled with 
 the brute mass of a degraded population, he, 
 too, may have considered the intellectual queen, 
 the friend of Longinus, the lover of science and 
 philosophy, with a far other sentiment than 
 that which he was forced to affect in lavishing 
 loud vivats on the hero, whose glory was 
 founded on the destruction and misery of the 
 species .' 
 
 On this great occasion, the moral triumph 
 was the woman's ; the gorgeous and theatrical 
 solemnity was her master's ! Posterity must 
 now judge between them ; but it is a remark- 
 able feature in this triumph, granted to a hero, 
 that it opened with tigers and ended with 
 slaves. 
 
 It had been customary, upon all such occa- 
 sions, to strangle those princes who had unsuc- 
 cessfully opposed the Roman arms in the de- 
 fence of their own thrones and freedom ; and 
 their execution was perpetrated as soon as the 
 triumphal pomp had ascended the steps of the 
 capitol. It was the wiser lenity of the Empe- 
 ror Aurelian to spare the lives of the two 
 unfortunate sovereigns he had defeated, and 
 to permit Tetricus and Zenobia to enjoy an 
 honourable repose. Aurelian presented Zeno-
 
 REPRESENTATIVE QUEEN'S. ZENOBIA. 129 
 
 bia with an elegant villa at Tivoli, in place of 
 the kingdom he had ravaged from her. 
 
 Thither she retired with her two daughters 
 and her son, elevated, not degraded, to the rank 
 of a Roman matron ; and if the ruins of Baby- 
 lon and the deserted palaces of Palmyra may 
 sometimes have recurred to her amidst the 
 pleasant paradise of Tivoli, the affections of 
 Nature must have compensated her for the ex- 
 tinction of that false grandeur which her ambi- 
 tion had led her to seek at the expense of her 
 happiness and repose. She had taken Semi- 
 ramis and Cleopatra for the models of the 
 heroic portions of her life. Like the first, she 
 had legislated and reformed; while, like the 
 second, she had carried on the tradition of mind 
 by her encouragement of the learned ; and, like 
 both, her moral energies fell only before that 
 physical force which then governed the univer- 
 sal world ! In her latter days the Queen of the 
 East emulated the virtues of Cornelia, and may 
 have recalled them to the Romans by her 
 example and her life. Her intellectual poste- 
 rity, illustrating a new phasis of society in 
 the fifth century,* bore evidence to the most 
 ancient of all dogmas that great and good 
 mothers are the true foundresses of the dynas- 
 ties of genius. They were so in the great 
 days of Israel ; and they were so in the best 
 days of Rome.'f 
 
 * Zenobius, Bishop of Florence in the time of St. Am- 
 brose, is supposed by Baronius to have been a descendant 
 of the Queen of Palmyra. 
 
 + The foregoing sketch is extracted from Lady Morgan's 
 eloquent book entitled, " Woman and her Muster." 
 G 2
 
 130 
 
 CHAPTEE VI. 
 
 THE ELIZABETHS. 
 
 THE name of ELIZABETH FRY is regarded 
 now through the whole world with the same 
 veneration with which we regard the name of 
 HOWARD. She has been very appropriately 
 called the Female Howard. She illustrates 
 very finely the noblest character of the pure 
 benevolence of principle, belonging to families 
 whose names are the very patronymics of vir- 
 tue and benevolence the families of Buxton, 
 to which she was related by marriage and 
 (rurney, which was her own maiden name. 
 She has made the name of Fry synonymous 
 with the most noble efforts and endeavours for 
 the alleviation of the ignorance, criminality, 
 and impiety of the most degraded and sinful 
 portion of the sinners of London. 
 
 A young lady, refined in manners, in the 
 habit of mingling with polite society a woman 
 commanding by her noble bearing and presence 
 involuntary homage and respect such a wo- 
 man voluntarily entering prisons, gaving up her 
 time and attention to the most impure of her 
 sex, prosecuting her glorious labours to infuse 
 into their minds habits of industry and pity 
 undismayed by the coarseness of their language
 
 THE ELIZABETHS. 131 
 
 by the frequent spectacle of their vileness 
 by no means fastidious sustained by her own 
 God-inspired thoughts surely this is a lovely 
 spectacle ! What an argument for the won- 
 derful purity of her own spirit ! How a being 
 like this lightens the human darkness of 
 society ! All her life was consistent, as we 
 should expect, for she began very young ; and 
 when she was young, schools were but little 
 known. The first we hear of her is, her 
 teaching in a school which she established, 
 when very young, in her own neighbourhood ; 
 and, from this time it may be remarked 
 though it is not remarkable, because it only 
 shows the segment of the whole character 
 that into whatever neighbourhood she travels, 
 her thoughts seize actively on the circumstances 
 of its moral condition. The first mention we 
 have of her sympathies being drawn out by 
 the moral degradation of her species, was while 
 on a tour through part of Wales and the south 
 of England, in company with her father and 
 six sisters. When at Plymouth, (1 798) they 
 visited the dock yards ; and she notes in her 
 Diary : My mind felt deeply hurt on ac- 
 count of the poor sailors and women, of whom 
 I have seen a sad number, and longed to do 
 them good, to try one day to make them sen- 
 sible of that evil state they appear to be in." 
 
 It was in 1813 that her attention was first 
 directed to Newgate by some members of the 
 Society of Friends, where the female portion 
 of its inmates were found in a state which no 
 language can describe. Three hundred women, 
 of every gradation of crime, some under sen-
 
 132 REPRESENTATIVE WOMEN. 
 
 tence of death some waiting for transporta- 
 tion some untried, crowded together in two 
 wards and two cells, which are now appropri- 
 ated to the untried alone, and are found inade- 
 quate to contain even the diminished number. 
 Every one, even the governor himself, was re- 
 luctant to go amongst them. He persuaded Mrs. 
 Fry to leave her watch in the office, telling 
 her, that even his presence would not prevent 
 its being torn from her. She saw enough to 
 convince her that the wretched inmates of the 
 prison were engaged in every species of wick- 
 edness. '" In short," said she, to her friend, 
 Mr. Buxton, in giving him this account, "all 
 I tell thee is a faint picture of the reality : the 
 filth the closeness of the room the ferocious 
 manners, and the abandoned wickedness which 
 everything bespoke, are quite indescribable." 
 
 Her efforts, at this time, were directed 
 mostly to the increase of the material comfort 
 of the prisoners confined there, and she, accom- 
 panied by a female friend, Anna Buxton, en- 
 tered this abode of misery and crime, for the 
 purpose of affording warm clothing to the 
 wretched inmates. Owing to ill health and 
 domestic trials, she did not renew her visits 
 for three or four years ; but during that time 
 she was learning in the school of affliction to 
 sympathise even more truly with the suffering 
 of others. Her next efforts were made in 
 1817, when she formed a school for the chil- 
 dren of the prisoners and the young criminal. 
 
 In a letter to her eldest sister, she expressed 
 the interest she took in the cause of these poor 
 outcasts : " My heart, and mind, and time,"
 
 THE ELIZABETHS. 1 G3 
 
 she says, "are very much engaged in various 
 ways. Newgate is a principal object ; and I 
 think until I make some attempt at amend- 
 ment in the plans for the women, I shall not 
 feel easy ; hut if such efforts should prove 
 unsuccessful, I think that I should then have 
 tried to do my duty, and be easy." In the 
 spring of this year an association was conse- 
 quently formed for the " Improvement of the 
 Female Prisoners in Newgate." The object 
 of this Society was to provide clothing, em- 
 ployment, and instruction for the women. 
 They were paid for their work, and received 
 part of their pay immediately, that they might 
 procure any little comfort they needed; the 
 rest was placed in the hands of the committee, 
 as a reserve for future use. This plan was 
 found highly beneficial, by occupying the time 
 which had before been spent in gambling, 
 drinking, and quarrelling. 
 
 Before these steps were taken, however, the 
 city authorities were consulted. They ex- 
 pressed their approbation of the plans, but 
 looked upon their realization as hopeless, think- 
 ing that the prisoners would never be brought 
 to submit to the restraints which such a change 
 must impose upon them. But Mrs. Fry col- 
 lected the women together ; and after having 
 pointed out to them the advantages of industry 
 and sobriety, and the pleasures of conscious 
 rectitude at the same time time contrasting 
 this picture with her own direful experience <>f 
 the misery of vice she told them that the 
 ladies of tne committee had not come to com- 
 mand their obedience, but had left their home*
 
 REPRESENTATIVE WOMEN. 
 
 and families to entreat them for their good. 
 She then asked if they were not willing to act 
 in concert with them, assuring them that not 
 a rule should be made without their entire and 
 united concurrence. Each rule was then put 
 separately to the vote, and such was the effect 
 of gentleness and reason, even upon minds so 
 untractable, that they were all unanimously 
 carried. 
 
 Love, persuasion, and self-interest were the 
 only weapons employed by this dear and 
 honoured lady to conquer their stubborn and 
 sinful spirits. A wonderful change was very 
 soon perceptible in the prisoners and the ar- 
 rangements of the prison. After many doubts 
 of the possibility of effecting these change?, 
 the functionaries of the city all began to lend 
 their help, the magistrates adopted the plan 
 acted upon by Mrs. Fry as a part of the 
 system of Newgate, while they loaded her and 
 her co-workers with thanks and benedictions. 
 A single circumstance will illustrate the effect 
 wrought by the advice and the admonitions of 
 the ladies. It was a practice of immemorial 
 usage for convicts on the night preceding their 
 departure for Botany Bay, to pull down and 
 to break every thing breakable within their 
 part of the prison, and to go off shouting with 
 the most hardened effrontery. When the 
 period approached after Mrs. Fry had com- 
 menced her ministrations, every one dreaded 
 the night of disturbance and devastations. It 
 was matter of wonder whether these visitations 
 would produce any change it was a time of 
 doubt, of fear, of hope. To the surprise of the
 
 THE ELIZABETHS. 135 
 
 oldest turnkey, no noise was heard, not a win- 
 dow was intentionally broken. They took an 
 affectionate leave of their companions, and ex- 
 pressed the utmost gratitude to their benefac- 
 tors : the next day they entered their con- 
 veyances without any tumult, and their de- 
 departure, in the tears that were shed, and the 
 mournful decorum that was observed, resem- 
 bled a funeral procession ; and so orderly was 
 their behaviour, that it was unnecessary to send 
 for more than half the usual escort. 
 
 It was kindness that melted these hearts 
 hearts so long steeled against the terrors of 
 punishment. When will the world perceive 
 how strong, how potent this mighty weapon is ? 
 
 Hitherto, also a riot and confusion had oc- 
 curred on the occasion of removing the female 
 convicts from Newgate in open waggons. The 
 common sense of Mrs. Fry revolted at this 
 indecent exhibition, and she suggested that the 
 removal should take place privately by means 
 of hackney coaches. The governors having 
 acceded to the proposal, the experiment was 
 tried and proved perfectly successful. When 
 on board, Mrs. Fry and the ladies of her party 
 examined into the accommodation, and made 
 many wise arrangements for the voyage; among 
 others, materials tor work were provided, which 
 was to be sold for the benefit of the convicts on 
 reaching the place of their destination. This 
 was of more essential service to them than she 
 was then aware of, for she afterwards learned 
 from the chaplain of the colony of New South 
 Wales that there was at that time no asylum 
 provided for them on their arrival. A build-
 
 136 REPRESENTATIVE WOMEK. 
 
 ing has since then been erected, and many pro- 
 per arrangements made for the preservation of 
 the morals of these unhappy beings. 
 
 Queen Charlotte being informed of the lauda- 
 ble exertions of Mrs. Fry, expressed a wish to 
 see her, and in an interview which took place, 
 testified in the most flattering terms the ad- 
 miration which she felt for her conduct. 
 
 The grand jury of the city of London also 
 marked their approbation of Mrs. Fry's meri- 
 torious services in their report to the court 
 at the Old Bailey, on visiting Newgate, the 
 2tst of February, 1818, in the following hand- 
 some manner. 
 
 " The grand jury cannot conclude this report 
 without expressing in an especial manner the 
 peculiar gratification they experience in ob- 
 serving the important services rendered by Mrs. 
 Fry and her friends, and the habits of religion, 
 order, industry and cleanliness, which her hu- 
 mane, benevolent, and praise-worthy exertions 
 have introduced among the female prisoners ; 
 and that, if the principles which govern her 
 regulations were adopted towards the males as 
 well as females, it would be the means of con- 
 verting a prison into a school of religion ; and 
 instead of sending criminals back into the 
 world (as is now too generally the case,) har- 
 dened in vice and depravity, they would be 
 restored to repentance and probably become 
 useful members of society." 
 
 The grand jury repeated the same senti- 
 ments in a letter which they wrote to Mrs. 
 Fry herself, inclosing a donation for her bene- 
 volent fund.
 
 THE ELIZABETHS. 137 
 
 Probably there was more self-denial involved 
 in this first great labour of this truly illustrious 
 woman, but her active mind during her whole 
 life travelled over innumerable plans of practi- 
 cal benevolence. 
 
 In August, 1818, Mrs. Fry journeyed in the 
 north of England and Scotland, accompanied 
 by her brother, Mr. Joseph J. Gurney. They 
 made a close examination into the state of the 
 prisons on their route, and Mr. Gurney pub- 
 lished an account of these investigations, and 
 laid before the magistrates at the various places 
 a statement of facts, pointing out to them 
 modes of improvement, which were in most 
 instances adopted. Two years after, Mrs. 
 Fry took another journey into the north, and 
 in many places was able to form committees of 
 ladies, to visit the female prisoners in their 
 own county gaols. " The British Ladies' 
 Society for Promoting the Reformation of 
 Female Prisoners" was instituted soon after. 
 Its object was to unite these branch societies 
 in one body, that there might be systematic 
 effort in the good work. This association has 
 proved highly beneficial in many ways by es- 
 tablishing houses of shelter for discharged 
 prisoners who had no homes, and affording 
 relief, part in the shape of a loan, and part as 
 a gift, to such as were willing to earn an 
 honest living, by their own exertions : also by 
 founding schools of discipline for female 
 vagrants and juvenile offenders, &c. 
 
 In the summer of 1824, in consequence of 
 ill-health, Mrs. Fry made a stay of several 
 months at Brighton. While here she wag
 
 13$ REPRESENTATIVE WOMEN 
 
 much interested in the state of the poor around 
 both that of the numerous beggars and the 
 resident poor in the neighbourhood. She had, 
 a short time before, consulted with Dr. Chalmers 
 on the best method of assisting this class, and 
 was, therefore, in some measure acquainted 
 with his views : she now directed her atten- 
 tion to the subject, and " District-visiting 
 Societies" were in consequence set on foot, to 
 examine into and relieve real cases of want. 
 
 Her illness was attended by frequent attacks 
 of faintness in the early morning, and she was 
 at such times carried to an open window for 
 the influence of the fresh breezes. The coast 
 was visible from her chamber ; and as she sat 
 and watched the first grey streaks of dawn 
 over the foaming ocean, or gazed on the dreary 
 cliffs before her, only one living object was 
 present to her view. This was the coast guard, 
 who paced with measured step the lonely 
 beach. Her thoughtful and ever-active bene- 
 volence suggested means of benefiting these 
 men, who were in a great measure shut out 
 from intercourse with their fellow- creatures. 
 One day, when passing near one of the stations, 
 she ordered her coachman to stop, that she 
 might make inquiries into their general condi- 
 tion. The man addressed, however, politely 
 told her that he was not allowed to hold com- 
 munications with any one whilst on duty. 
 Fearing that this short colloquy might there- 
 fore bring him into trouble, she gave him her 
 card, telling him to present it to his command- 
 ing officer. A few days after the lieutenant 
 in command called upon her, and offered to
 
 THE ELIZABETHS. 139 
 
 answer any inquiries. He informed her that 
 the coast guard were subject to many dangers 
 and privations, being exposed to all weathers, 
 as well as to the violence of the smugglers. 
 
 She at once provided those in the vicinity 
 with Bibles, and afterwards made strenuous 
 efforts to obtain libraries for the use of all the 
 men thus employed. She saw that the lone- 
 liness of their situation, and the absence of 
 proper subjects for thought, together with their 
 contact with lawless smugglers, must of neces- 
 sity produce idle habits and fierce manners ; 
 and that, to prevent this moral evil, it was 
 requisite to provide wholesome food for the 
 mind. In consequence of her representations, 
 a committee was formed for this object, and 
 by means of a liberal grant from the govern- 
 ment, and various subscriptions, upwards of 
 51,000 persons were supplied with religious 
 and instructive books ; 498 libraries were 
 established for the stations on shore, contain- 
 ing 25,896 volumes ; 74 also for districts, 
 comprising 12,880 volumes ; 48 others for 
 cruisers, composed of 1767 volumes, besides 
 5357 numbers of pamphlets, and 6424 school 
 hooks for the use of the children of the crews ; 
 making a total of 52,466 volumes. 
 
 In 1835, Mrs. Fry accompanied her husband 
 on a journey into the south of England ; and, 
 as usual, it furnished objects of interest for 
 that strangely active mind, which found 
 *' sermons in stones and good in every thing. 11 
 When passing over Salisbury Plain she noticed 
 the monotonous life le-1 by the numerous shep- 
 herds, and the thought suggested itself that
 
 140 REPRESENTATIVE WOMEN. 
 
 the libraries would be equally useful to them 
 as to the coast guards. She therefore stopped 
 a short time at Amesbury, in order to form a 
 library there ; and the following letter, which 
 was written a few months after, by the person 
 who had the charge of the books, will show 
 the success of the plan. " Forty-five books 
 are in constant circulation, with the additional 
 magazines. More than fifty poor people read 
 them with attention, return them with thanks, 
 and desire the loan of more, frequently 
 observing, they think it a very kind thing 
 indeed that they should be furnished with so 
 many good books, free of all cost, so enter- 
 taining and instructive these long winter 
 evenings." 
 
 Our limits will not allow of our entering 
 into details respecting these journeys; but 
 Mrs. Fry and her brothers made personal 
 appeals to the sovereigns of England, France, 
 Holland, Belgium, Denmark, Prussia, Hanover, 
 and others, on behalf of suffering humanity. 
 Nor did they forget the claims of the poor 
 slave, but remonstrated with those exalted 
 individuals on their countenancing the slave 
 trade in their colonies. They were received 
 with courtesy, and many of their suggestions 
 adopted. None could listen to Mrs. Fry's 
 simple eloquence, bold in its truthfulness, yet 
 breathing the very soul of love, without being 
 touched by it. The monarch felt that the 
 beauty of sincerity surpassed the homage of the 
 courtier ; and the hardened heart of the 
 criminal melted under the genial influence of 
 her nature, and felt the loveliness of virtue.
 
 THE ELIZABETHS. HI 
 
 That she experienced no 8elf-exaltation from 
 the universal respect that was shown her, ia 
 obvious from many passages in her diary. At 
 one time she says " I have fears for myself 
 in visiting palaces rather than prisons, and 
 going after the rich rather than the poor, lest 
 my eyes should become blinded, or I should 
 fall away in anything from the simple, pure 
 standard of truth and righteousness." 
 
 Fatigue of body and mind had long been 
 weakening her health, and in July, 1843, her 
 friends became alarmed. This illness continued, 
 with short intervals of amendment, until 
 October, J845, when her earthly career ended. 
 All that affection could devise was done for 
 her ; she was taken from one watering place 
 to another ; but nature was exhausted. In 
 her sixty-sixth year she breathed her last at 
 Ramsgate, deeply lamented not only by all 
 who were bound to her by the ties of kindred, 
 but by thousands whom her philanthropy had 
 assisted, and her virtues had attached- to her. 
 When estimating the success of her labours, 
 something must be attributed to the general 
 spirit of improvement of the age ; yet surely 
 much praise is due to those individuals who 
 nobly pioneer the way. At the time that 
 Mrs. Fry entered this field of labour, the 
 prisons were in a lamentable state. Various 
 causes had operated to destroy the good which 
 Howard had laboured to effect, and the acts of 
 parliament which were passed in consequence 
 of his exertions, had become a dead letter. 
 The ground had therefore, as it were, to be 
 trodden afresh, and for this work Mrs. Fry
 
 142 REPRESENTATIVE WOMEN. 
 
 was eminently qualified. Her warm, loving 
 heart embraced the whole human family ; but 
 her chief object was to stretch forth the hand 
 of encouragement to those of her own sex who 
 had sunk in vice and misery, and to lead them 
 to virtue and happiness. 
 
 In the beginning of the thirteenth century, 
 Hermann, Landgrave of Thuringia and of 
 Hesse, and Count Palatine of Saxony, ranked 
 amongst the greatest princes of Germany. He 
 was allied to Frederick Barbarossa, to the 
 houses of Bohemia, Saxony, Bavaria, and 
 Austria ; he made and unmade emperors at 
 his pleasure, and ruled over vast dominions, 
 that extended from the Lahn to the Elbe. 
 Warned, it is said, by a prediction of the cele- 
 brated Klingsohr, minstrel and necromancer, 
 the landgrave resolved, in the year 1211, to 
 request, for his eldest son, Lewis, the hand of 
 Elizabeth of Hungary, then four years of age. 
 An embassy of noble lords and ladies was sent 
 to the court of the pious and warlike Andrew 
 II., King of Hungary. Both Andrew and 
 his wife Gertrude agreed to give their daughter 
 in marriage to the son of Hermann. The little 
 Elizabeth, clothed in a robe of silk, embroidered 
 with gold and silver, was brought in a cradle 
 of massive gold, and given up to the Thurin- 
 gian ambassadors. " I confide her to your 
 knightly honour," said the king to the Lord of 
 Varila, the chief of the knights of Thuringia. 
 After three days spent in rejoicing, the embassy, 
 laden with rich presents, took away the young 
 princess to the land of her future husband. 
 She was solemnly betrothed to him immediately
 
 THE ELIZABETHS. 1 4-3 
 
 on her arrival, and brought up with him at 
 the court of the landgrave. Lewis was then 
 eleven years old, and the two children, accord- 
 ing to the custom of the times, gave one 
 another the tender and familiar names of brother 
 and sister. 
 
 The childhood of Elizabeth was marked by 
 a piety and purity both touching and rare : 
 even then, God seemed the centre of her soul, 
 heart, and desires. Her father allowed her a 
 yearly income, worthy the daughter of a 
 king ; and all of it that was at her disposal 
 went to the poor. Her propensity to give 
 was irresistible : she drew down on herself the 
 murmurs, and almost the aversion, of the 
 household, by lingering about the kitchen and 
 pantry, in order to pick up fragments of broken 
 meat, which she bestowed in charity. 
 
 Elizabeth was about nine years old when 
 the landgrave, who had always loved her very 
 tenderly, died. Her betrothed was now 
 sovereign prince ; but he was still too young 
 to rule his dominions, or to possess any power. 
 With the landgrave, Elizabeth hath lost her 
 only efficient protector. Sophia, his widow, 
 disliked her ; and her daughter Agnes, vain 
 of her dazzling beauty, looked down with 
 contempt on the humbls Elizabeth, and plainly 
 told her that she was only fit to be a chamber- 
 maid or a servant : indeed all the courtiers 
 agreed that there was nothing in her noble or 
 princely. Her love of retirement, her modesty 
 of bearing, her tender familarity with the 
 poor, and the affection she showed for the 
 young Hungarian attendants sent with her
 
 REPRESENTATIVE WOMEX. 
 
 by her father, were imputed as so many crimes 
 to the little Granger. 
 
 Once on the festival of Assumption, the 
 mother of the young landgrave said to Agnes 
 and Elizabeth, " Let us go down to Eisenach, 
 to the church of our Lady, and hear the fine 
 mass of the Teutonic knights : perchance they 
 will preach something about her. Put on your 
 rich garments, and your crowns of gold." 
 The young princesses obeyed. As they entered 
 the church they knelt down. Before them 
 stood a large crucifix ; on beholding it, Eliza- 
 beth took off her crown, and prostrated herself 
 bareheaded. The Princess Sophia sharply re- 
 proved her, and asked if the crown were too 
 heavy for her? Elizabeth looked up, and 
 humbly answered, " Be not angry with me, 
 dear lady. Here, before my eyes, is my God 
 and my King, the mild and merciful Jesus, 
 crowned with sharp thorns ; shall I, who am 
 only a vile creature, remain before him crowned 
 with pearls, gold, and precious stones, and by 
 my crown mock his ?" So saying, she began 
 to weep with love and tenderness, and again 
 bowed down. To avoid a contrast that would 
 have been noticed, Sophia and Agnes were 
 compelled to follow her example. 
 
 Their hatred and ill usage of her daily in- 
 creased, and the haughty Agnes once went so 
 far as to say, u Lady Elizabeth, you strangely 
 mistake if you imagine my brother will marry 
 you. For this you must become verydifferent 
 indeed from what you are." It was to this 
 to break off the marriage of the young stranger 
 with the landgrave that all the efforts of her
 
 THE ELIZABETHS. 145 
 
 enemies tended ; and since the family of her 
 betrothed looked coldly upon her, the mean 
 instinct of the servile had given Elizabeth 
 enemies in the whole of that court, which she 
 had ever edified with examples of modesty, 
 humility, and devotion. 
 
 But, in the midst of this ungenerous persecu- 
 tion, Elizabeth found a faithful and steadfast 
 friend in her future husband. Neither the in- 
 fluence of a mother, nor the sneers of courtiers, 
 could induce him to break the faith he had 
 plighted to his childish bride. He loved her 
 for those virtues which drew down on her the 
 envy and hatred of others ; nor was she less 
 dear to the generous and chivalrous heart of the 
 youth for being persecuted by all save him. He 
 would see and console her privately ; and every 
 time that, in the course of his travels, he saw 
 some rare or precious object, he bought it for his 
 betrothed : he never came back empty-handed. 
 Beads of coral, a crucifix, an image of devotion, 
 a little knife or purse, gloves, jewels, chains or 
 pins of gold, were his usual presents. No 
 sooner did Elizabeth hear of his return than 
 she would all joyously run forth to meet him. 
 The young man would then take her in his 
 arms, and caressing her tenderly, give her 
 whatever he had brought, as a token of his 
 love, and of the faithful remembrance he had 
 kept of her during their separation. 
 
 It once happened that, being in company 
 with some foreign knights, he forgot to bring 
 his usual'gift. Elizabeth was mortified ; for her 
 enemies publicly rejoiced at this proof of forget- 
 fulness. The young princess confided her sorrovr 
 u
 
 146 REPRESENTATIVE WOMEN. 
 
 to an old friend, that Lord of Varila, to who?e 
 honour her father had intrusted her; and he pro- 
 mised to mention the matter to the prince. A 
 fit opportunity soon offered. As the Lord of 
 Varila and the landgrave were resting from the 
 chase, and lying down in the grass within the 
 shadow of a wood, whence they could clearly 
 see the Inselberg, the highest mountain of all 
 Thuringia, the former said to the prince, " May 
 it please you, my lord, to answer a question I 
 shall put to you ?" " Speak freely," was the 
 answer. " Do you mean," resumed the Lord 
 of Varila, " to marry the Lady Elizabeth whom 
 I brought to you, or will you send her back to 
 her father?" Lewis rose, and extending his 
 hand towards the Inselberg, he said, " Seest 
 thou this hill before us? Well, then, if it 
 were of pure gold from the base to the summit, 
 and that the whole of it should belong to me 
 on the condition of sending back mine Eliza- 
 beth, I would never do it. Let the world 
 think and say of her all it likes ; I say this 
 I love her, and love nothing more. I will 
 have mine Elizabeth : she is dearer to me, by 
 her virtue and piety, than all the lands and 
 riches of this world." The Lord of Varila 
 asked and obtained the permission of repeating 
 this to Elizabeth ; and as a token of his faith, 
 the prince commissioned him to present her 
 with a little pocket mirror, double bottomed 
 and mounted in silver, with an image of our 
 Lord crucified, under the glass. Elizabeth 
 smiled joyously as the Lord of Varila repeated 
 the words of her betrothed, and gave her his 
 present ; and when she opened the mirror,
 
 THE ELIZABETHS. 147 
 
 and beheld within it the image of the Saviour, 
 she kissed it, and devoutly pressed it to her 
 heart. 
 
 In 1218, Lewis was duhbed knight; and, 
 two years later, he married Elizabeth, in the 
 midst of splendid festivities. The tournament 
 alone, to which all the knights of Thuringia 
 had been invited, lasted three days. Lewis 
 was twenty, his young bride was thirteen ; and 
 both were remarkable for great personal at- 
 tractions : the manly beauty of the young land- 
 grave was celebrated amongst his contem- 
 poraries. His bearing was dignified and noble; 
 and his long fair hair, transparent complexion, 
 and mild countenance, gave him something of 
 angelic serenity: his whole aspect inspired 
 love ; and nothing, it is said, could surpass the 
 charm of his voice and smile. 
 
 Elizabeth, though so young, was not unfit to 
 stand near him as his bride ; for Heaven had 
 been prodigal to her of the gifts which con- 
 stitute the loveliness of woman. She was 
 tall, and of a most noble and graceful figure : 
 historians mention with admiration the match- 
 less dignity of her mien, as well as the pure 
 and perfect beauty of her face. Though a 
 daughter of the north, she had the clear olive 
 complexion of a southern maiden ; hair of the 
 darkest hue, and eyes full of tenderness and 
 love. 
 
 The outward graces of this accomplished 
 pair were far surpassed by the inward gifts of 
 their high and noble natures. We have spoken 
 of the youth of Elizabeth ; that of her husband 
 had not been less pure. He had early chosen
 
 148 REPRESENTATIVE WOMEN. 
 
 as his motto : "Piety, chastity, justice :" and 
 he remained true to all it implied. In him 
 blended in a rare degree the virtues of the Chris- 
 tian, of the knight, and of the sovereign : he 
 was faithful to his God, to his love, and to his 
 people. He delighted in pious exercises, in 
 the society of monks and learned men, in the 
 relief of the sick and the poor ; to whom he 
 often gave his own garments. With all this, 
 he was a valiant knight, excelling in all martial 
 exercises ; and so full of daring that without arms 
 and by the mere might of his strong heart, he 
 once quelled the rage of an escaped lion, and 
 made him lie down cowed and subdued at his 
 feet. To piety and bravery Lewis united a rare 
 degree of modesty : a light word made him 
 blush like a maiden. Both before and after his 
 marriage, licentious courtiers vainly endeavour- 
 ed to seduce him into sin ; he repelled their at- 
 tempts with the calm indignation of a virtue 
 nothing could move. Magnanimous, cheerful, 
 and gentle, he had but one passion : justice. 
 He held himself bound to redress the wrong! 
 of his meanest subject, as well as to punish the 
 crimes of the most mighty. Under his sway 
 the prosperity of Thuringia rose to the highest 
 degree it could attain, and her people spent 
 their days in happiness and peace. This good 
 and pious prince has never been canonized : but 
 for several years after his death, the people 
 came to his tomb in pilgrimage ; and in history 
 he is still designated as " The Saint." 
 
 The affection which united the landgrave to 
 his wife was deep ; it rendered their marriage 
 a sort of heaven upon earth. They loved one
 
 THK ELIZABETHS. 149 
 
 another with divine and human love ; and 
 seeing them so pure, " angels," says an old Ger- 
 man chronicler, " abode with them." The 
 love which she bore her husband by no means 
 diminished the fervent piety of Elizabeth. 
 Every night whilst Lewis slept she rose to pray. 
 When he awoke and missed her, he chid her 
 mildly, calling her " Dear Sister," according to 
 that habit of their childhood which they had 
 both preserved ; he entreated her not to injure 
 her health, and taking her hand gently, com- 
 pelled her to return to rest. Sometimes he fell 
 asleep in the midst of his entreaties, and the 
 eyes of Elizabeth closed, in spite of her wish 
 to pray. Often when her women entered her 
 room in the morning, they found her sleeping 
 on the carpet by the bedside, with her hand 
 still clasped in that of her husband. 
 
 It was seldom indeed that they could bear 
 to be apart : contrary to the etiquette which 
 already prevailed, they sat by one another at 
 table; and unless when the journeys he took 
 were too distant, Elizabeth always accompanied 
 the landgrave. She braved heat, frost, snow, 
 and overflowing rivers, the worst roads and the 
 most violent storms, for the pleasure of bearing 
 him company. If he could not take her with 
 him, she clothed herself in widow's weeds, and 
 lived in deep retirement until the time of his 
 return. Then indeed she adorned herself care- 
 fully, and ran forth to meet him with the joy- 
 ful eagerness of love. 
 
 The landgrave deserved that love, by an 
 affection and fidelity over which absence and 
 -temptation had no power. Whilst he waa
 
 150 REPRESENTATIVE WOMEN. 
 
 once travelling without his dear Elizabeth, 
 some lords who accompanied him endeavoured 
 to render him unfaithful. He heard them si- 
 lently, but as they insisted, he angrily replied . 
 "If you wish for rny goodwill, speak thus no 
 more. I have a wife, and am bound to keep 
 my faith to her." On another occasion, when 
 a perfidious host, wishing either to try or 
 tempt him, introduced into the apartment of 
 Lewis a young girl of singular beauty, the 
 landgrave said to the Lord of Varila, " Send 
 away this woman quietly, and give her a mark 
 of silver to buy herself a new cloak, so that want 
 shall no more make her sin. Verily, I tell thee, 
 that even though such an action were not a sin 
 against God and a scandal in the eyes of my 
 brethren, yet should I never think of it, solely 
 for the love of my dear Elizabeth, and not to 
 trouble or sadden her soul." Shortly after his 
 return, the Lord of Varila related this circum- 
 stance to Elizabeth in the presence of the land- 
 grave ; kneeling with much emotion, she said : 
 " Lord, I am not worthy of so good a husband ; 
 but help us both to observe the holiness of life, 
 so that we may eternally abide together near 
 thee." 
 
 We have hitherto dwelt more on the trials 
 and joys of Elizabeth, than on those actions 
 which show us the happy girlish bride under 
 the pure and immortal aspect of a saint. Her 
 austerities were great, but they never affected 
 her natural cheerfulness : she was gay and 
 merry in the very midst of penance. She saw 
 no sin in innocent amusements, where she 
 never placed her heart : she shared in the fes-
 
 THE ELIZABETHS. 
 
 tivities of her court, and danced and played like 
 other ladies. She blamed those whose gloomy 
 and severe faces were a reproach to religion. 
 *' They look, 11 said the cheerful Elizabeth, " as 
 if they wished to frighten God. Let them give 
 him what they can gaily, and with a willing 
 heart." 
 
 This free and generous spirit by no means 
 led Elizabeth to love or indulge in the vanities 
 of the world. She once went to Eisenach 
 magnificently clothed, covered with jewels, and 
 wearing a golden crown ; but as she entered 
 the church, and beheld the image of the cruci- 
 fied Saviour, the same devout emotion which 
 she had felt once before assailed her so violently, 
 that she fell down in a swoon. From that 
 day she resolved to renounce dress, unless when 
 state occasions or the will of her husband should 
 oblige her to assume it as a token of her rank. 
 She gave up dyed stuffs, veils of bright colours, 
 narrow plaited sleeves, and long trailing robes, 
 all of which were then articles of great luxury. 
 
 Though rigid to herself, Elizabeth was to 
 others full of tenderness and charity. Her hus- 
 band set no bounds to her liberality : yet she 
 was ever short of money. Several times, when 
 his court was visited by foreign princes and am- 
 bassadors, Elizabeth could not appear before 
 them because she had given away all her rich 
 garments to the poor ; this was with her a con- 
 stant practice. As she went down one day 
 from the castle to the town, richly clad, and 
 wearing her crown, she was beset by a great 
 number of beggars ; to whom she gave away 
 the money she had about her. Wlieu she had
 
 152 REPRESENTATIVE WOMEN*. 
 
 thus distributed it all, a poor man came up and 
 plaintively asked to be relieved. Elizabeth 
 was filled with pity, and having nothing else 
 to bestow, she took off and gave him one of her 
 gloves, richly embroidered and adorned with 
 jewels. A young knight who followed her, 
 seeing this, turned back, and having bought 
 the glove from the beggar, he fastened it to his 
 helmet. From that day, as he afterwards de- 
 clared, with the enthusiastic faith of the age, 
 he conquered in battle and tournament. He 
 joined the crusade, fought against infidels, and 
 returned home unharmed ; on his deathbed he 
 attributed his success and glory to this token 
 of a pure and sainted woman, which he bad 
 ever faithfully preserved. 
 
 In her canonization Elizabeth is styled 
 "Patroness of the Poor." Her whole lif v 
 shows how truly she deserved the title : her 
 affection for them was constantly expressed ; 
 and she left her stately castle of Wartburg to 
 visit them in their own wretched homes. She 
 paid their debts, attended their wives in their 
 lying-in, clothed their new-born babes, watched 
 by the dying, laid out the dead, and piously 
 followed to the grave the meanest of her sub- 
 jects. At home it was still of the poor that she 
 thought : she spun wool for them with her 
 maidens ; and often got coarse food prepared 
 for herself, in order to know, by personal ex- 
 perience, how they fared. Elizabeth scarcely 
 needed such knowledge. 
 
 The expenses of the landgrave"^ table were 
 defrayed by certain taxes, which Lewis either 
 thought just, or eould not remove. The con-
 
 THE ELIZABETHS. 153 
 
 fessor of his wife, Conrad of Marburg, an 
 austere, domineering priest to whom cannot, 
 however, be denied the merit of ever seeking 
 to defend the oppressed declared that this tax 
 ground down the poor ; and forbade his peni- 
 tent to taste the food thus procured. Eliza- 
 beth obeyed ; but as of all the dishes on her 
 husband's table, there were only a few which 
 she could touch, and as she did not wish to 
 seem to make a difference, she was often starv- 
 ing in the midst of plenty. Once, being on the 
 point of accompanying the landgrave on a 
 journey, she could find nothing to eat save a 
 piece of brown bread, so hard that it had to be 
 soaked in warm water. That same day she 
 rode sixteen leagues on horseback. 
 
 These privations were more welcome than 
 painful to the devout princess : surrounded 
 by riches, she yet preserved in her heart the 
 love of Gospel poverty. Putting on the grey 
 cloak and torn veil of a poor woman, she would 
 gaily say to her ladies, " Even thus should I 
 be were I a poor beggar ;" and she took evident 
 pleasure in the thought. One night that both 
 she and her husband lay awake, she said to him : 
 " Sir, if it annoy you not, let me tell you by 
 what life we might serve God." " Speak, sweet 
 love," replied Lewis, " what is your thought ?" 
 " I should wish," said Elizabeth, " that we had 
 only one piece of land, that would give us 
 wherewithal to live, and about two hundred 
 sheep. You could thus plough the ground, 
 lead the horses, and undergo these labours for 
 the love of God ; whilst I should mind the 
 sheep, and shear them." The landgrave laughed, 
 H 2
 
 Io4< REPRESENTATIVE WOMEN. 
 
 and said : " Gentle sister, if we had so much 
 land and so many sheep, we should not, me- 
 thinks, be very poor; and many would cer- 
 tainly think us too rich." 
 
 But charmed, we are told, with the tender 
 simplicity of his young wife, the landgrave 
 mentioned this incident to a friend; through 
 whom it became known to one of the early bio- 
 graphers of Elizabeth. 
 
 The many opportunities she found of exer- 
 cising charity did not satisfy her ardent heart. 
 Leprosy, now so rare, was then a common dis- 
 ease ; the lepers were, perforce, secluded from 
 society. The sympathy of the Church and of 
 their brethren followed them in their solitude ; 
 but with it ever blended repulsion and mysteri- 
 ous fear. Persons of eminent virtue often set 
 aside this feeling, and braved the popular pre- 
 judice and the real danger, in order to restore 
 these poor afflicted creatures to that kindly 
 communion, of which, whilst surrounded by 
 the living, they were as effectually deprived as 
 the dead. Elizabeth delighted in visiting and 
 consoling them : she fearlessly sat down by 
 them, and exhorted them to patience, in sooth- 
 ing and tender language. Her maidens of 
 honour once found her sitting in a retired spot 
 of her orchacd with a leper, whose head rested 
 on her lap. Elizabeth had just been cutting 
 off his hair, and was dressing his head, when 
 her maidens surprised her. She only looked 
 up, and smiled silently. 
 
 On another occasion, whilst Lewis was away, 
 she carried her charity so far towards a poor 
 leprous child named Elias, whom no one else
 
 THE ELIZABETHS. 155 
 
 would touch or assist, that, after washing him 
 with her own hands, she placed him in the bed 
 which she shared with her husband. The land- 
 grave just then happened to return ; and on 
 learning this circumstance from his mother, 
 Sophia, he could not help feeling somewhat 
 angered. Going up to the bed, he drew back 
 the coverlet ; but suddenly, says one of the 
 early historians of the saint, "the eyes of his 
 soul were opened, and instead of the leprous 
 child, he saw Jesus Christ himself." This 
 vision typical of the true sense of Christian 
 charity, that what is done to the meanest 
 human being, is really done to God affected 
 the landgrave so deeply, that he permitted his 
 wife to build an hospital on the slope leading to 
 their Castle of Wartburg. Twent-eight sick 
 or infirm persons were admitted within its 
 walls, and were daily visited by Elizabeth, 
 who loved to bring them food herself, and thus 
 spare them the trouble of climbing up the steep 
 path leading to the castle. As she once went 
 down thus, loaded with bread, meat, and eggs, 
 wrapped up in the folds of her mantle, she was, 
 according to a popular tradition, met by her 
 husband, who opened her cloak, and found it 
 filled with red and white roses. This poetical 
 legend is still told by the now Protestant inha- 
 bitants of the spot where the good Elizabeth 
 once lived. 
 
 In the year 1226, the landgrave being then 
 at the Imperial Diet, the province of Thuringia 
 suffered extremely from the great dearth which 
 afflicted all Germany. The poor ate root*, 
 wild fruit, dead horses, and yet died by hun-
 
 156 REPRESENTATIVE WOMEN. 
 
 dreds on the highroads. The charity of Eliza- 
 beth was boundless. The treasury then pos- 
 sessed the large sum of sixty-four thousand gold 
 florins ; and she did not hesitate to distribute 
 it all amongst the poor. Notwithstanding 
 the strong opposition of all the officers of the 
 household, she opened the granaries of her hus- 
 band, and gave away the whole of the corn ; it 
 amounted to the value of several towns and 
 castles. Elizabeth caused as much bread to be 
 baked as the ovens of the castle would hold, 
 and daily gave away the hot loaves to those 
 that came to ask for them : their number often 
 amounted to nine hundred. 
 
 We have already mentioned that the roada 
 leading to the Castle of Wartburg were steep. 
 The weak and the infirm could not climb so 
 high ; but they were not neglected. Elizabeth 
 went down to them every morn and evening. 
 She founded two new hospitals in Eisenach, 
 and attended on their inmates with a zeal 
 nothing could check. In one of these hospitals 
 gick or orphan children were received, whom 
 Elizabeth treated with peculiar tenderness. 
 They no sooner saw her than they ran to meet 
 her, and clung to her garments, calling out ; 
 " Mamma, mamma." She made them sit 
 around her, gave them toys, and only caressed 
 the more tenderly those that were most afflicted. 
 
 The three hospitals, which she now daily 
 visited and attended, did not so much engage the 
 time of Elizabeth but that she still found meana 
 to visit the homes of the poor. She once en- 
 tered a cottage where a poor man lay sick and 
 alone ; he begged of her to milk his cow, as
 
 THE ELIZABETHS. 157 
 
 weakness prevented him from getting up ; the 
 good princess cheerfully made the attempt, but 
 failed, from not being accustomed to such an 
 office. The prisoners were not forgotten by 
 her ; she visited them frequently, prayed with 
 them, dressed the wounds their chains had in- 
 flicted, and when they were detained for debt, 
 bought their liberty. So great was her charity 
 in this season of sharp distress, that she ordered 
 the revenues of the four dukedoms belonging 
 to her husband to be exclusively devoted to the 
 relief of the poor of his dominions; and she 
 gold all her jewels and valuables for the same 
 object. 
 
 When the harvest came, Elizabeth gathered 
 tog'ether all the poor that were able to labour, 
 gave them scythes, new shirts and shoes, so 
 that their feet might not be hurt by the stubble 
 fields, and then sent them to work. Those 
 who were too weak were dismissed with a little 
 money and garments ; often her own rich veils 
 and robes, which she gave them to sell. In 
 the meanwhile, the landgrave, hearing of the 
 sad state of his dominions, obtained from the 
 emperor the permission of returning to Thurin- 
 gia. As he approached Wartburg, all the 
 officers of the household, fearing his an^cr, 
 went forth to meet him, and complained of his 
 wife's prodigality. The anger of the landgrave 
 was indeed roused, but against the accusers. 
 " Is my dear wife well ?" he asked ; "' this is 
 all I wish to know : what do I care about the 
 rest ! ' He added, " I wish you to let my good 
 little Elizabeth give away as much as she likes 
 you must help, and not thwart her. Let
 
 158 BEPRESENTATIVE WOMEN. 
 
 her only leave us Eisenach, Wartburg, and 
 Naumbtfrg ; God will give us back the rest 
 when he thinks fit : alms will never ruin us." 
 
 With this the good prince hastened to meet 
 his dear wife. Never since their marriage had 
 they been so long apart ; and her joy on seeing 
 him again was extreme : she could not weary 
 of kissing and caressing him. As Lewis held 
 her clasped in his arms, he kindly said, 
 " Dear sister, how fared thy poor people during 
 this bad year ?" She gently answered, " I gave 
 to God what belonged to him, and God kept us 
 what was thine and mine." 
 
 Hitherto Elizabeth had known as much hap- 
 piness as ever fell to the lot of woman. She 
 had been married nearly seven years, and the 
 affection of her husband had rather increased 
 than diminished. God had given her three 
 children, honours, great wealth, and every 
 earthly blessing. Heavy calamities were to 
 follow this happiness and prosperity. A cru- 
 sade was preparing for the year 1 227. Lewis 
 took the cross. He did not dare to tell his wife, 
 who was then giving birth to her fourth child ; 
 and, instead of wearing the cross openly, he 
 kept it in the purse suspended from his belt. 
 They were sitting together one evening, when 
 Elizabeth, playfully putting her hand in the 
 purse, drew forth the cross. On seeing it she 
 fainted away with grief. When she was re- 
 stored to consciousness, the landgrave vainly 
 sought to console her. After long remaining 
 silent, and weeping much, Elizabeth said, 
 " Dear brother, if it be not against the will of 
 God, stay with me." " Dear sister," he an-
 
 THK ELIZABETHS. 159 
 
 swered, " allow me to go, for it is a vow I have 
 made to God." She submitted at length, and 
 the landgrave, having now no further reason 
 for concealment, prepared everything for his 
 departure. He recommended his wife to his 
 mother, brothers, and officers. The butler 
 said, " I know that the lady Elizabeth will 
 give all she finds, and reduce us to misery." 
 Lewis answered, " he did not care, for that 
 God would know how to replace what his wife 
 would give away." Unable to tear herself 
 from him, Elizabeth accompanied her husband 
 to the frontiers of Thuringia. They reached 
 the limits of his dominions, and still she would 
 not leave him ; another day she journeyed by 
 his side, and again another ; until at length 
 their old friend, the Lord of Varila, was obliged 
 to separate them. The landgrave and his 
 knights pursued their journey, whilst Elizabeth 
 returned sorrowful and alone to the castle 
 of VVartburg. Immediately on her arrival she 
 put on widow's weeds. Her biographers nar- 
 rate that a fatal presentiment was at her heart; 
 and the event justified her fears : Lewis died 
 on his way to the Holy Land a few months 
 after their separation. The news reached 
 Thuringia in winter ; and Elizabeth was kept 
 in total ignorance of it until she had safely 
 given birth to her fourth child. 
 
 As she sat one day in her apartment, her 
 mother-in-law, Sophia, entered it with several 
 ladies. When they were all seated Sophia 
 said, " Take courage, dearly beloved daughter, 
 and be not disturbed by wha$ has happened to 
 your husband, my sou, through the will of
 
 160 REPRESENTATIVE WOMEN. 
 
 God ; to whom, as you know, he had wholly 
 given himself up." " If my brother be cap- 
 tive," replied Elizabeth, " with the aid of God 
 and of our friends, he shall be ransomed : my 
 father, I feel sure, will help us, and I shall soon 
 be comforted." " Oh, my dear daughter, 1 
 resumed Sophia, " be patient, and take this 
 ring which he has sent you ; for, to our woe, 
 he is dead." " Madam !" cried Elizabeth, 
 " what do you say !" " He is dead," repeated 
 Sophia. Elizabeth turned pale, then became 
 crimson; her hands fell on her knees, and, 
 clasping them passionately, she exclaimed in a 
 broken voice " Ah ! Lord my God ! Lord 
 my God ! Behold the whole world is dead fot 
 me : the world and all its delights." 
 
 Then she arose, and, like one bereft of sense, 
 she ran through halls and galleries exclaiming 
 
 " He is dead, dead, dead." At length a 
 
 wall opposing her passage, she stopped short, 
 and leaning against it, wept long and bitterly. 
 Her mother-in-law and the other ladies led her 
 away, and attempted to console her ; but she 
 only answered in broken exclamations, 
 have lost all ! Oh, my beloved brother oh, 
 the friend of my heart oh, my good and pious 
 husband, tliou art dead, and hast left me m 
 misery. How shall I live without thee? Ah, 
 poor lonely widow and miserable woman that 
 I am; may He who forsakes not widows and 
 orphans console me. Oh, my God, console 
 me ! Oh, my Jesus, strengthen me in my 
 weakness. ' 
 
 She asked for resignation, and it came not 
 near her. She had loved her husband with
 
 THE EI.IZABKTIIP. 
 
 impassioned human love, with all the tender- 
 ness of a saint, and all the weakness of a 
 woman. She of whom a priest once declared 
 that he had seen her from the altar, lost in 
 prayer, and shining with a divine light, could 
 yet, during the celebration of the most sacred 
 mysteries of her faith, forget all around her in 
 contemplating him to whom her life was not 
 more firmly bound than her heart. She had 
 loved him too much perhaps, and he was now 
 removed for ever : no more would that fair yet 
 manly face charm her eyes and trouble her 
 devotions. That pure fidelity which the pas- 
 sions of youth could never shake, that love 
 which had protected her from childhood, that 
 boundless trust which grew the stronger with 
 accusation : all, in short, that could render 
 conjugal affection dear and sacred, were taken 
 from her with him. Well might she weep, 
 and call this world a desert. 
 
 On leaving his wife and children, the late 
 landgrave had confided them to the care and 
 love of his two brothers. They resolved to 
 repay that trust by despoiling the widow and 
 her poor orphans of their lawful inheritance. 
 Elizabeth was mourning in her apartment with 
 her mother-in-law, when insolent courtiers, 
 sent by the princes Henry and Conrad, entered 
 the room ; and, after accusing her of squan- 
 dering the money of the state, ordered her, in 
 punishment of her crimes, to leave the castle 
 instantly. Elizabeth asked at least for a delay, 
 whilst her mother-in-law, taking her in her 
 arms, exclaimed, " She shall stay with me : 
 no one shall take her from me." Force waa
 
 162 REPRESENTATIVE WOMEN'. 
 
 used to separate them. Sophia could not see 
 her sons, and was only allowed to accompany 
 Elizabeth to the gates of the castle. In the 
 court, the widow of the late sovereign found 
 her children and two of her maids of honour. 
 She was not permitted to take away a single 
 thing. On a bleak winter's day, carrying in 
 her arms her young infant, and followed by the 
 three other children (of whom the eldest, her 
 little Hermann, was not more than four years 
 old), Elizabeth descended that steep path lead- 
 ing from Wartburg to Eisenach, and along 
 which she had so often gone down on errands 
 of charity. 
 
 Her pitiless brothers-in-law had ordered that 
 no house should be opened to receive her, and 
 none of the ungrateful beings whom Elizabeth 
 had so often assisted, dared to disobey : every 
 door was closed against her. At length she 
 stopped at a miserable tavern, which she refused 
 to leave, saying it was open to all. The master 
 of the house could not, or dared not, give her 
 any other place to sleep in than a miserable 
 hut; from which he turned out his hogs to 
 admit her and her children. The soul of 
 Elizabeth only rose the higher with her trials : 
 she wept ; but she also returned thanks to God 
 for thus visiting her. At length a poor priest 
 of Eisenach ventured to receive her ; but her 
 brothers-in-law no sooner learned this, than 
 they bade her lodge in the house of a lord who 
 had always shown himself her bitter enemy. 
 He treated her so cruelly, that she left on the 
 following day. It seems that trustworthy per- 
 sons offered to take charge of her children, for
 
 THE ELIZATETH3. 163 
 
 whose safety she feared, and that Elizabeth 
 accepted, though nearly heart-broken by this 
 separation : she thus remained alone with her 
 maidens, earning a scanty living by spinning 
 wool. 
 
 The poor and hospitable priest who had 
 given her a night's lodging is the only instance 
 mentioned of anything like sympathy received 
 by Elizabeth in Eisenach. The people gene- 
 rally treated her with brutal ingratitude. One 
 old woman, whom she had often assisted, meet- 
 ing her on a narrow bridge thrown over a 
 muddy stream, pushed her in, and said, " Thou 
 wouldst not live like a princess when thou 
 wert one : lie now in the mud ; I shall not 
 pick thee up." Elizabeth only laughed at this, 
 and saying, " This is instead of the gold and 
 jewels I wore formerly,"* she went and washed 
 her garments at a neighbouring fountain. 
 
 Her calamities at length came to the know- 
 ledge of her relatives. She first went to reside 
 with one of her aunts, abbess of the convent of 
 Kitzingen-on-the-Mein ; and afterwards with 
 her uncle Egbert, prince and bishop of Bam- 
 berg. He gave her the castle of Bottenstein, 
 where, with her children and her two faithful 
 maidens, she at length lived in peace. 
 
 Elizabeth was little more than twenty ; and 
 her uncle thought her too young to live single. 
 He wished her to marry the Emperor Fre- 
 derick II., who desired the match ardently, for 
 she was one of the most beautiful princesses of 
 the day. She refused, with modest firmness. 
 Her sorrow for tbe loss of her husband had not 
 yet subsided. Besides she had, of her own
 
 REPRESENTATIVE WOMEN. 
 
 accord, solemnly vowed to Lewis never to 
 belong to any other man should he happen to 
 die first. To shun the importunities of her 
 ambitious relative, she took a pilgrimage to the 
 monastery of Andechs; and as a token that 
 she had now done with human love, she laid 
 on the altar her rich wedding-robe, which is 
 still preserved in the church. 
 
 Whilst Elizabeth resided at the castle of 
 Bottenstein, the procession, bearing the remains 
 of her late husband, passed by Bamberg on its 
 way to Reinhartsbrunn. On her request the 
 coffin was opened. She kissed with impas- 
 sioned tenderness all that was now left of him 
 she had so much loved ; then, raising her soul 
 to God, she exclaimed aloud, in words that 
 have been transmitted, " I give thee thanks, 
 
 Lord, for having deigned to hear the prayer 
 of thy handmaiden, and for having granted my 
 ardent wish of beholding again the remains of 
 my beloved ; who was also thine. I give theo 
 thanks for having thus mercifully comforted 
 mine afflicted soul. He had offered himself, 
 and I had offered him to thee, for the defence 
 of the Holy Land. I regret it not, even though 
 
 1 loved him with all the might of my heart. 
 Thou knowest how I loved him, who loved 
 thee so much : thou knowest that to all the 
 joys of this world I would have preferred that 
 of his delightful presence ; that I would have 
 been glad to live with him, and beg with him 
 from door to door through the whole world, 
 merely for the happiness of being with him, if 
 thou hadst permitted it. But now J abandon 
 him, and 1 abandon myself to thy will ; and I
 
 THE ELIZABETHS. 165 
 
 would not, even though I could, purchase back 
 his life with one hair of my head, unless it 
 were thy will, my God !" 
 
 The lords who were bringing back the re- 
 mains of Lewis to his native land were the 
 bravest of his court, being those who had accom- 
 panied him in his crusade. They learned with 
 indignation the treatment their Lady Elizabeth 
 had received, and promised to see her and her 
 children righted. They kept their word so 
 effectually, that, shortly after their return, 
 Elizabeth, who willingly consented to a recon- 
 ciliation, re-entered the castle of Wartburg, 
 from which she had been so cruelly expelled. 
 The government of Thuringia was left to her 
 brother-in-law Henry, but the rights of her son 
 Hermann were acknowledged. A year after 
 this, she asked Henry to give her a separate 
 residence. He granted her the town of Mar- 
 burg and its revenues. 
 
 We have not space to dwell at full length on 
 the remaining years of Elizabeth. She filled 
 them with deeds of a heroic charity that almost 
 surpasses belief. She was now a wealthy lady ; 
 but her wealth was not her own it belonged 
 to the poor. She lived in a little house, and 
 earned her livelihood by spinning wool, whilst 
 thousands subsisted on her bounty, and the sick 
 were cared for in the hospital which she had 
 founded immediately on her arrival. The world 
 called her mad, because her riches were not 
 squandered in luxurious amusements; but she 
 only smiled at the imputation. She once 
 gathered together an immense number of poor 
 people, and distributed abundant alms amongst
 
 166 REPRESENTATIVE WOMEN. 
 
 them. Their joy was so great that they began 
 to sing. Elizabeth heard them from her house, 
 and exclaimed, in words that paint her heart, 
 " Did I not tell you that we must render men 
 as happy as we can !" and she went forth to 
 rejoice with them. 
 
 Her confessor, Conrad, seems to have thought 
 that she found too much pleasure in such tasks. 
 He had already forbidden her to take a vow of 
 poverty, and he now forbade her to be so pro- 
 digal. Elizabeth strove to elude his prohibi- 
 tion. He had told her to give only one far- 
 thing at a time, and she caused silver farthings 
 to be struck. The poor, accustomed to larger 
 donations, complained ; but, with the finesse 
 of a woman, she said to them, " I am forbidden 
 to give you more than one farthing at a time, 
 but I am not forbidden to give to you every 
 time you shall come." It need not be said that 
 the hint was readily taken. Conrad was much 
 irritated, and, in his resentment, did not scruple 
 to strike her. It is painful to read how far 
 this harsh and domineering priest carried his 
 authority over his docile penitent. In many 
 things his prohibitions were justified, for he 
 checked the excessive austerities in which Eli- 
 zabeth had always been prone to indulge ; but 
 the way in which he exercised his dominion 
 was harsh, and often cruel. He was indeed a 
 stern father ; yet there is no doubt that, in his 
 own austere way, he loved her, and held him- 
 self bound to treat her with severity for the 
 greater good of her soul. When he once thought 
 himself near dying, his distress at the prospect 
 of leaving her was great. He knew that, though
 
 THE ELIZABETHS. 107 
 
 he was only a poor monk, he stood between her 
 and many enemies, who would take advantage 
 of his death to work her ill. The danger was 
 averted. Elizabeth, though still in the prime 
 of youth, was the first to die. 
 
 A burning fever seized and carried her off 
 quickly. Several times during the course of 
 her illness she was heard to sing with ravishing 
 sweetness. She died in all the transports of a 
 heavenly piety, on the 19th of November of the 
 year 1231 ; being then little more than twenty- 
 four. Rarely has a life so varied and so brief 
 been graced by so many virtues. So great was 
 the renown of her sanctity, that, a few days 
 after her death and funeral, her tomb was al- 
 ready crowded with pilgrims, who waited not 
 the sanction of the Church to proclaim her holy. 
 The stern Conrad, who had given her so many 
 opportunities of practising the virtues of patience 
 and submission, suggested her canonization to 
 the pope, and it took place four years later. 
 The translation of her relics drew immense 
 crowds. The emperor, Frederick II., whom 
 Elizabeth had refused to marry, placed on her 
 head a crown of gold, saying, " Since I could 
 not crown her living as my empress, I will at 
 least crown her to-day as an immortal queen in 
 the kingdom of heaven." 
 
 For several ages, the fame of Elizabeth con- 
 tinued to increase. The romantic interest of 
 her story, and the heroic virtues which she 
 practised, have rendered her one of the most 
 popular saints of the Catholic Church. One of 
 her daughters married, and left a son, from 
 whom are descended the various branches of
 
 1SS 
 
 BEPRESEMTATIVE WOMEV. 
 
 the house of Hesse. There are few of the 
 reigning sovereigns of Europe who may not 
 claim St. Elizabeth of Hungary as their ances- 
 tress. In the year 1539, Philip of Hesse, one 
 of her descendants, who had adopted the doc- 
 trines of Luther, caused her shrine to be opened 
 and despoiled of all its ornaments : the relics 
 were buried at night in some unknown spot. 
 
 The land where Elizabeth lived has under- 
 gone great changes : the churches where she 
 was honoured, now hold another creed ; the 
 mansions of charity which she founded, exist 
 no longer. A modern traveller,* to whose 
 enthusiasm for the character of this noble 
 woman we owe the best biography of her that 
 exists, has recorded with sorrow how few traces 
 of her existence he found, in places whence the 
 changes of time and religious opinion need not 
 have effaced her memory : spots once named 
 after her now bear the names of other prin- 
 cesses. One token, however, the traveller 
 found both characteristic and touching. The 
 hospital which Elizabeth built at Wartburg is 
 there no more, but the little fountain that once 
 belonged to it exists : the clear waters still 
 flow in their stone basin, surrounded with 
 grass and flowers. Here the wife of the land- 
 grave was wont to wash with her own hands 
 the linen of the poor. No other princess has 
 oome there to perform this humble office, and 
 give her name to the fountain : it is still called 
 " the Fountain of Elizabeth." 
 
 But among Representative Queens, who fails 
 
 '- 
 * Count Cliarlea of Moutalembert.
 
 THE ELIZABETHS. 169 
 
 
 
 to remember the illustrious names of ISABELLA 
 OF SPAIN AND ELIZABETH OF ENGLAND? " It 
 is in the amiable qualities of her sex that Isa- 
 bella's superiority becomes most apparent over 
 her illustrious namesake, Elizabeth of Eng- 
 land,* whose history presents some features 
 parallel to her own. Both were disciplined in 
 early life by the teachings of that stern nurse 
 of wisdom, adversity. Both were made to 
 experience the deepest humiliation at the hands 
 of their nearest relative, who should have 
 cherished and protected them. Both suc- 
 ceeded in establishing themselves on the throne 
 after the most precarious vicissitudes. Each 
 conducted her kingdom, through a long and 
 triumphant reign, to a height of glory which 
 it had never before reached. Both lived to see 
 the vanity of all earthly grandeur, and to fall 
 the victims of an inconsolable melancholy ; and 
 both left behind an illustrious name, unrivalled 
 in the subsequent annals of the country. 
 
 But with these few circumstances of their 
 history, the resemblance ceases. Their cha- 
 racters afford scarcely a point of contact. Eliza- 
 beth, inheriting a large share of the bold and 
 bluff King Harry's temperament, was haughty, 
 arrogant, coarse, and irascible ; while with 
 these fiercer qualities she mingled deep dissi- 
 mulation and strange irresolution. Isabella, 
 on the other hand, tempered the dignity of 
 royal station with the most bland and courteous 
 manners. Once resolved, she was constant 
 
 * I.-abel, the name of the Catholie queen, ia corroctly 
 tendered into Eugli.su by that of Elizabeth. 
 I
 
 170 REPRESENTATIVE WOMEX. 
 
 in her purposes ; and her conduct in public and 
 private life wan characterized by candour and 
 integrity. Both may be said to have shown 
 that magnanimity which is implied by the 
 accomplishment of great objects in the face of 
 great obstacles. But Elizabeth was desperately 
 selfish ; she was incapable of forgiving, not 
 merely a real injury, but the slightest affront 
 to her vanity: and she was merciless in exact- 
 ing retribution. Isabella, on the other hand, 
 lived only for others, was ready at all times 
 to sacrifice self to considerations of public duty ; 
 and, far from personal resentments, showed the 
 greatest condescension and kindness to those 
 who had most sensibly injured her ; while her 
 benevolent heart sought every means to miti- 
 gate the authorized severities of the law, even 
 toward the guilty. 
 
 Both possessed rare fortitude. Isabella, in- 
 deed, was placed in situations which demanded 
 more frequent and higher displays of it than 
 her rival ; but no one will doubt a full measure 
 of this quality in the daughter of Henry the 
 Eighth. Elizabeth was better educated, and 
 every way more highly accomplished than Isa- 
 bella. But the latter knew enough to main- 
 tain her station with dignity ; and she en- 
 couraged learning by a munificent patronage. 
 The masculine powers and passions of Elizabeth 
 seemed to divorce her in a great measure from 
 the peculiar attributes of her sex ; at least 
 from those which constitute its peculiar charm ; 
 for she had abundance of its foibles a coquetry 
 and love of admiration which age could not 
 ehill ; a levity most careless, if not criminal ;
 
 THE ELIZABETHS. 
 
 and a fondness for dress and tawdry magnifi- 
 cence of ornament, which was ridiculous, or 
 disgusting, accord' ng to the different periods of 
 life in which it was indulged. Isabella, on 
 the other hand, distinguished through life for 
 decorum of manners and purity beyond the 
 breath of calumny, was content with the legiti- 
 mate affection which she could inspire within 
 the range of her domestic circle. Far from a 
 frivolous affectation of ornament or dress, she 
 was most simple in her own attire, and seemed 
 to set no value on her jewels, but as they could 
 serve the necessities of the state ; when they 
 could be no longer useful in this way, she gave 
 them away to her friends. 
 
 Both were uncommonly sagacious in the 
 selection of their ministers ; though Elizabeth 
 was drawn into some errors in this particular 
 by her levity, so was Isabella by religious feel- 
 ing. It was this, combined with her excessive 
 humility, which led to the only grave errors in 
 the administration of the latter. Her rival fell 
 into no such errors ; and she was a stranger to 
 the amiable qualities which led to them. Her 
 conduct was certainly not controlled by religious 
 principle ; and, though the bulwark of the 
 Protestant faith, it might be difficult to say 
 whether she were at heart most a Protestant or 
 a Catholic. She viewed religion in its con- 
 nection with the state, in other words, with 
 herself; and she took measures for enforcing 
 conformity to her.' own views, not a whit less 
 despotic, and scarcely less sanguinary, than 
 those countenanced for conscience' sake by her 
 more bigoted rival.
 
 172 REPRESENTATIVE WOMEN. 
 
 This feature of bigotry, which has thrown a 
 shade over Isabella's otherwise beautiful cha- 
 racter, might lead to a disparagement of her 
 intellectual power compared with that of the 
 English queen. To estimate this aright, we 
 must contemplate the results of their respective 
 reigns. Elizabeth found all the materials of 
 prosperity at hand, and availed herself of them 
 most ably to build up a solid fabric of national 
 grandeur. Isabella created these materials. 
 She saw the faculties of her people locked up 
 in a deathlike lethargy, and she breathed into 
 them the breath of life for those great and 
 heroic enterprises which terminated in such 
 glorious consequences to the monarchy. It is 
 when viewed from the depressed position of her 
 early days, that the achievements of her reign 
 seem scarcely less than miraculous. The mas- 
 culine genius of the English queen stands out 
 relieved beyond its natural dimensions by its 
 separation from the softer qualities of her sex, 
 while her rival's, like some vast, but sym- 
 metrical edifice, loses in appearance somewhat 
 of its actual grandeur from the perfect harmony 
 of its proportions. 
 
 The circumstances of their deaths, which 
 were somewhat similar, displayed the great 
 dissimilarity of their characters. Both pined 
 amidst their royal state, a prey to incurable 
 despondency rather than any marked bodily 
 distemper. In Elizabeth *it sprung from 
 wounded vanity, a sullen conviction that she 
 had outlived the admiration on which she had 
 so long fed, and even the solace of friendship 
 and the attachment of her subjects. Nor did
 
 THE ELIZABETHS. 173 
 
 she seek consolation, where alone it was to be 
 found, in that sad hour. Isabella, on the other 
 hand, sunk under a too acute sensibility to the 
 sufferings of others. But, amidst the gloom 
 which gathered around her, she looked with 
 the eye of faith to the brighter prospects which 
 unfolded of the future ; and when she resigned 
 her last breath, it was amidst the tears and 
 universal lamentations of her people."* 
 
 ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING, says Miss 
 Mitford, is too dear to me as a friend to be spoken 
 of merely as a poetess. Indeed such is the in- 
 fluence of her manners, her conversation, her 
 temper, her thousand sweet and attaching 
 qualities, that they who know her best are apt 
 to lose sight altogether of her learning and of 
 her genius, and to think of her only as the 
 most charming person that they have ever met. 
 But she is known to so few, and the peculiar 
 characteristics of her writings, their purity, 
 their tenderness, their piety, and their intense 
 feeling of humanity and of womanhood have 
 won for her the love of so many, that it will 
 gratify them without, I trust, infringing on 
 the sacredness of private intercourse to speak 
 of her not wholly as a poetess, but a little as a 
 woman. When in listening to the nightingale, 
 we try to catch a glimpse of the shy songster, 
 we are moved by a deeper feeling than curiosity. 
 
 My first acquaintance with Elizabeth Barrett 
 commenced about fifteen years ago. She was 
 certainly one of the most interesting persona 
 that I had ever seen. Everybody who then. 
 
 * Prescott.
 
 174 REPRESENTATIVE WOMEN. 
 
 saw her said the same ; so that it is not merely 
 the impression of my partiality, or my enthu- 
 siasm. Of a slight, delicate figure, with a 
 shower of dark curls falling on either side of a 
 most expressive face, large tender eyes richly 
 fringed by dark eyelashes, a smile like a sun- 
 beam, and such a look of youthfulness, that I 
 had some difficulty in persuading a friend, in 
 whose carriage we went together to Chiswick, 
 that the translatress of the " Prometheus" of 
 ^Eschylus, the authoress of the " Essay on 
 Mind," was old enough to be introduced into 
 company in technical language was out. 
 Through the kindness of another invaluable 
 friend, to whom I owe many obligations, but 
 none so great as this, I saw much of her during 
 my stay in town. We met so constantly and 
 so familiarly that in spite of the difference of 
 age intimacy ripened into friendship, and after 
 my return into the country, we corresponded 
 freely and frequently, her letters being just 
 what letters ought to be her own talk put 
 upon paper. 
 
 The next year was a painful one to herself 
 and to all who loved her. She broke a blood- 
 vessel upon the lungs which did not heal. If 
 there had been consumption in the family that 
 disease would have intervened. There were 
 no seeds of the fatal English malady in her 
 constitution, and she escaped. Still, however, 
 the vessel did not heal, and after attending her 
 for above a twelvemonth at her father's house 
 in Wimpole Street, Dr. Chambers, on the ap- 
 proach of winter, ordered her to a milder 
 climate. Her eldest brother, a brother iii
 
 THE ELIZABETHS. 175 
 
 heart and in talent worthy of such a sister, 
 together with other devoted relatives, accom- 
 panied her to Torquay, and there occurred the 
 fatal event which saddened her bloom of youth, 
 and gave a deeper hue of thought and feeling, 
 especially of devotional feeling, to her poetry. 
 I have so often been asked what could be the 
 shadow that had passed over that young heart, 
 that now that time has softened the first agony 
 it seems to me right that the world should hear 
 the story of an accident in which there was 
 much sorrow, but no blame. 
 
 Nearly a twelvemonth had passed, and the 
 invalid, still attended by her affectionate com- 
 panions, had derived much benefit from the 
 mild sea-breezes of Devonshire. One fine sum- 
 mer morning her favourite brother, together 
 with two other fine young men, his friends, 
 embarked on board a small sailing-vessel for a 
 trip of a few hours. Excellent sailors all, and 
 familiar with the coast, they sent back the 
 boatmen, and undertook themselves the manage- 
 ment of the little craft. Danger was not 
 dreamt of by any one ; after the catastrophe no 
 one could divine the cause, but in a few 
 minutes after their embarkation, and in sight 
 of their very windows, just as they were cross- 
 ing the bar, the boat went down, and all who 
 were in her perished. Even the bodies were 
 never found. I was told by a party who were 
 travelling that year in Devonshire and Corn- 
 wall, that it was most affecting to see on the 
 corner houses of every village street, on every 
 church-door and almost on every cliff for miles 
 and miles along the coast, handbills, cfFeriiig
 
 376 EEPRESENTATIVE WOMEN. 
 
 large rewards for linen cast ashore marked 
 with the initials of the beloved dead ; for it so 
 chanced that all the three were of the dearest 
 and the best ; one, I believe, an only son, the 
 other the son of a widow. 
 
 This tragedy nearly killed Elizabeth Barrett. 
 She was utterly prostrated by the horror and 
 the grief, and by a natural but a most unjust- 
 feeling that she had been in some sort the 
 cause of this great misery. It was not until 
 the following year that she could be removed 
 in an invalid carriage, and by journeys of 
 twenty miles a day, to her afflicted family and 
 her London home. The house that she 
 occupied at Torquay had been chosen as one of 
 the most sheltered in the place. It stood at 
 the bottom of the cliffs almost close to the sea ; 
 and she told me herself that during that whole 
 winter the sound of the waves rang in her ears 
 like the moans of one dying. Still she clung 
 to literature and to Greek ; in all probability 
 she would have died without that wholesome 
 diversion of her thoughts. Her medical at- 
 tendant did not always understand this. To 
 prevent the remonstrances of her friendly 
 physician, Dr. Barry, she caused a small edition 
 of Plato to be so bound as to resemble a novel. 
 He did not know, skilful and kind though he 
 were, that to her such books were not an 
 arduous and painful study, but a consolation 
 and a delight. 
 
 Returned to London, she began the life 
 which she continued for so many years, confined 
 to one large and commodious but darkened 
 chamber^ admitting only her own affectionate
 
 THE ELIZABETHS. 
 
 177 
 
 family and a few devoted friends (I, myself, 
 have often joyfully travelled five-and-forty miles 
 to see her, and returned the same evening 
 without entering another house) ; reading 
 almost every book worth reading in almost 
 every language, and giving herself heart and 
 soul to that poetry of which she seemed born 
 to be the priestess. 
 
 Gradually her health improved. About four 
 years ago she married Mr. Browning, and 
 immediately accompanied him to Pisa. They 
 then settled at Florence ; and this summer I 
 have had the exquisite pleasure of seeing her 
 once more in London with a lovely boy at her 
 knee, almost as well as ever, and telling tales 
 of Italian rambles, of losing herself in chest- 
 nut forests, and scrambling on muleback up the 
 sources of extinct volcanoes. Heaven continue^ 
 to her such health and such happiness ! 
 
 In her abundant riches it is difficult to select 
 extracts. If I did not know her scorn of her 
 own earlier works (for she was the most preco- 
 cious of authoresses, wrote largely at ten years 
 old, and more than well at fifteen) if I were 
 not aware of her fastidiousness, I should be 
 tempted to rescue certain exquisite stanzas 
 which I find printed at the end of her first 
 version of the " Prometheus Bound" for, 
 dissatisfied with her girlish translation of the 
 grand old Greek, she recommenced her labour, 
 and went fairly through the drama from the 
 first part to the last ; but she has condemned 
 the poem, and therefore I refrain. 
 
 Perhaps there is some personal preference in 
 the select ion I do make, since I first received 
 2 T
 
 ] 78 REPRESENTATIVE WOMEN. 
 
 it written in her own clear and beautiful 
 manuscript on the fly-leaf of another volume, 
 which she has also withdrawn from circulation. 
 Besides being one of the earliest, it is amongst 
 the most characteristic of her smaller poems. 
 
 THE SEAMEW. 
 
 How joyously the young seamew 
 Lay dreaming on the waters blue, 
 Whereon our little bark had thrown 
 A forward shade, the only one, 
 (But shadows aye will men pursue.) 
 
 Familiar with the waves, and free 
 As if their own white foam were he j 
 His heart upon the heart of ocean 
 Lay learning all its misty motion 
 And throbbing to the throbbing sea. 
 
 And such a brightness in his eye, 
 As if the ocean and the sky 
 Within him had lit up and nurst 
 A soul God gave him not at first 
 To comprehend their mystery. 
 
 We were not cruel, yet did sunder 
 His white wing from the blue waves under. 
 And bound it ; whilst his fearless eyes 
 Looked up to ours in calm surprise, 
 As deeming us some ocean wonder.
 
 THE ELIZABETHS. 
 
 We bore our ocean bird unto 
 A grassy place where he might view 
 The flowers that curtsy to the bees, 
 The waving of the tall green trees, 
 The falling of the silver dew. 
 
 The flowers of earth were pale to him 
 "Who had seen the rainbow fishes swim; 
 And when earth's dew around him lay 
 He thought of ocean's winged spray, 
 And his eye waxed pale and dim. 
 
 The green trees round him only made 
 A prison, with their darksome shade : 
 And drooped his wing and mourned he 
 For his own boundless glittering sea, 
 Albeit he knew not they could fade. 
 
 Then One her gladsome face did bring, 
 Her gentle voice's murmuring, 
 In ocean's stead his heart to move, 
 And teach him what was human love 
 He thought it a strange mournful thing. 
 
 He lay down in his grief to die, 
 (First looking to the sea-like sky 
 That hath no waves,) because, alas ! 
 Our human touch did on him pass, 
 And with our touch, our agony. 
 
 Perhaps the very finest of Mrs. Browning's 
 poems is " The Lady Geraldine's Courtshp," 
 written (to meet the double exigency of com- 
 pleting the uniformity of the original two 
 volumes, and of catching the vessel that was to
 
 150 REPRESENTATIVE WOMEN. 
 
 carry the proofs to America) in the incredible 
 space of twelve hours. That delicious ballad 
 must have been lying unborn in her head and 
 in her heart ; but when we think of its length 
 and of its beauty, the shortness of time in 
 which it was put into form appears one of the 
 most stupendous efforts of the human mind. 
 And the writer was a delicate woman, a con- 
 firmed invalid, just dressed and supported for 
 two or three hours from her bed to her sofa, 
 and back again. Let me add, too, that the 
 exertion might have been avoided by a new 
 arrangement of the smaller poems, if Miss 
 Barrett would only have consented to place 
 " Pan is Dead" at the end of the first volume 
 instead of the second. The difference does not 
 seem much. But she had promised Mr. Ken- 
 yon that " Pan is Dead" should conclude the 
 collection ; and Mr. Kenyon was out of town 
 and could not release her word. To this deli- 
 cate conscientiousness we owe one of the most 
 charming love-stories in any language. It is 
 too long for insertion here ; and I no more 
 dare venture an abridgment, than I should 
 venture to break one of the crown jewels. So 
 the Dead Pan shall take the place. It were 
 mere pedantry to compare Schiller's " Gods of 
 Greece" to this glorious gallery of classical 
 statues, fresh and life-like, as if just struck into 
 beauty by the chisel of Phidias. 
 
 I transcribe Mrs. Browning's own modest 
 and graceful introduction.
 
 THE ELIZABETHS. 
 
 THE DEAD PAN. 
 
 181 
 
 "Excited by Schiller's 'Goiter Griechenlands, and 
 partly founded on a well-known tradition mentioned 
 in a treatise of Plutarch ('De Oraculorum Defectu ), 
 according to which, at the hour of the Saviour's agony, 
 cry of ' Great Pan is Dead !' swept across the waves la 
 the hearing of certain mariners, and the oracles ceased. 
 
 " It ia in all veneration to the memory of the deathlew 
 Schiller, that I oppose a doctrine still more dishonouring 
 to poetry than to Christianity. 
 
 "As Mr. Kenyon's graceful and harmonious paraphrase 
 of the German poem was the first occasion of my turning 
 my thoughts in this direction, I take advantage of the 
 pretence to indulge my feelings (which overflow on other 
 grounds), by inscribing my lyric to that dear friend and 
 relative, with the earnestness of appreciating esteem a 
 well as of affectionate gratitude. E. B. B." 
 
 Gods of Hellas ! gods of Hellas ! 
 'Can ye listen in your silence ? 
 Can your mystic voices tell us 
 Where ye hide ? In floating islands 
 With a wind that evermore 
 Keeps you out of sight of shore ? 
 
 Pan, Pan is dead. 
 
 In what revels are ye sunken 
 
 In old ^Ethiopia ? 
 
 Have the Pygmies made you drunken, 
 
 Bathing in Mandragora 
 
 Your divine pale lips, that shiver 
 
 Like the lilies in the river ? 
 
 Pan, Pan is dead. 
 
 Do ye sit there still in slumber, 
 In gigantic Alpine rows ? 
 The black poppiea out of number, 
 Nodding, dripping from your brows
 
 182 REPRESENTATIVE WOMEN. 
 
 To the red lees of your wine, 
 And so kept alive and fine ? 
 
 Pan, Pan is dead. 
 
 Or lie crushed your stagnant corses 
 Where the silver spheres roll on, 
 Stung to life by centric forces, 
 Thrown like rays out from the sun ? 
 While the smoke of your old altars 
 Is the shroud that round you welters ? 
 Great Pan is dead. 
 
 " Gods of Hellas, gods of Hellas !" 
 Said the old Hellenic tongue, 
 Said the hero-oaths, as well as 
 Poets' songs the sweetest sung ! 
 Have ye grown deaf in a day ? 
 Can ye speak not yea or nay 
 
 Since Pan is dead f 
 
 Do ye leave your rivers flowing 
 .All alone, Naiades ! 
 While your drenched locks dry slow in 
 This cold feeble sun and breeze ? 
 Not a word the Naiades say 
 Though the rivers run for aye, 
 
 For Pan is dead. 
 
 From the glooming of the oak-wood, 
 0, ye Dryads, could ye flee ? 
 At the rushing thunder-stroke, would 
 No sob tremble through the tree 1 
 Not a word the Dryads say, 
 Though the-forests wave for aye, 
 For Pan is dead.
 
 THE ELIZABETHS. 1 3 
 
 Have ye left the mountain places, 
 Oreads wild for other tryst ? 
 Shall we see no sudden faces 
 Strike a glory through the mist ? 
 Not a sound the silence thrills 
 Of the everlasting hills. 
 
 Pan, Pan is dead, 
 
 twelve gods of Plato's vision 
 Crowned to starry wanderings, 
 With your chariots in procession 
 And your silver clash of wings. 
 Very pale ye seem to rise, 
 Ghosts of Grecian deities, 
 
 Now Pan is dead. 
 
 Jove ! that right hand is unloaded, 
 Whence the thunder did prev/ail : 
 While in idiotcy of godhead 
 Thou art staring, the stars pale ! 
 And thine eagle blind and old 
 Roughs his feathers in the cold. 
 
 Pan, Pan is dead. 
 
 Where, Juno ! is the glory 
 Of thy regal look and tread ? 
 Will they lay for evermore, thee 
 On thy dim straight golden bed f 
 Will thy queendom all lie hid 
 Meekly under either lid ? 
 
 Pan, Pan is dead. 
 
 Ha, Apollo ! Floats his golden 
 Hair, all mist-like where he stands ; 
 While the Musoa hang enfolding 
 Knee and foot with faint wild hands.
 
 184 REPRESENTATIVE WOMEN. 
 
 'Neath the clanging of thy bow 
 Niobe looked lost as thou ! 
 
 Pan, Pan is dead. 
 
 Shall the casque with its brown iron 
 Pallas' broad blue eyes eclipse, 
 And no hero take inspiring 
 From the God-greek of her lips ? 
 'Neath her olive dost thou sit, 
 Mars the mighty, cursing it ? 
 
 Pan, Pan is dead. 
 
 Bacchus, Bacchus ! on the Panther 
 He swoons, bound with his own vine* ! 
 And his Maenads slowly saunter, 
 Head aside, among the pines, 
 While they murmur dreamingly, 
 Evohe ah evohe ! 
 
 Ah, Pan is dead. 
 
 Neptune lies beside his trident, 
 Dull and senseless as a stone : 
 And old Pluto, deaf and silent, 
 Is cast out unto the sun. 
 Ceres smileth stern thereat, 
 " We all now are desolate." 
 
 Now Pan is dead. 
 
 Aphrodite ! dead and driven 
 As thy native foam thou art ; 
 With the cestus long done heaving. 
 On the white calm of thine heart ! 
 Ai Adonis/ At that shriek 
 Not a tear runs down her cheek 
 
 Pan, Pan is dead.
 
 THE ELIZABETHS. 185 
 
 And the loves we used to know from 
 One another huddled lie 
 Frore as taken in a snow-storm 
 Close beside her tenderly, 
 As if each had weakly tried 
 Once to kiss her ere he died. 
 
 Pan, Pan is dead. 
 
 What, and Hermes ? Time enthralleth 
 All thy cunning, Hermes thus, 
 And the ivy blindly crawleth 
 Round thy brave caduceus ? 
 Hast thou no new message for us 
 Full of thunder and Jove glories ? 
 
 Nay ! Pan is dead. 
 
 Crowned Cybele's great turret 
 Rocks and crumbles on her head : 
 Roar the lions of her chariot 
 Toward the wilderness unfed : 
 Scornful children are not mute, 
 " Mother, mother, walk afoot, 
 
 Since Pan is dead." 
 
 In the fiery-hearted centre 
 Of the solemn Universe, 
 Ancient Vesta, who could enter 
 To consume thee with this curse ? 
 Drop thy grey chin on thy knee, 
 0, thou palsied Mystery ! 
 
 For Pan is dead. 
 
 Gods t we vainly do adjure you, 
 Ye return nor words nor sign j 
 Not a votary could secure you 
 Even a grave for your" Divine !
 
 186 REPRESENTATIVE WOMEN. 
 
 Not a gra/e to show thereby 
 Here those grey old gods do lie. 
 
 Pan, Pan is dead. 
 
 Even that Greece who took your wages, 
 Calls the Obolus outworn, 
 And the hoarse deep-throated ages 
 Laugh your godships unto scorn 
 And the poets do disclaim you, 
 Or grow colder if they name you 
 And Pan is dead. 
 
 Gods bereaved, gods belated, 
 With your purples rent asunder ! 
 Gods discrowned and desecrated, 
 Disinherited of thunder ! 
 Now the goats may climb and crop 
 The soft grass on Ida's top- 
 Now Pan is dead. 
 
 Calm of old, the bark went onward 
 When a cry more loud than wind 
 Hose up, deepened, and swept sunward, 
 From the piled Dark behind : 
 And the sun shrank and grew pale 
 Breathed against by the great wail 
 
 "Pan, Pan is dead." 
 
 And the rowers from the benches 
 Fell, each shuddering on his face 
 While departing Influences 
 Struck a cold back through the place : 
 And the shadow of the ship 
 Reeled along the passive deep 
 
 Pan, Pan is dead.
 
 THE ELIZABETHS. 187 
 
 I have no room for the rest, but I must find 
 a place for one exquisite stanza : 
 
 0, ye vain false gods of Hellas, 
 Ye are silent evermore ! 
 And I dash down this old chalice 
 Whence libations ran of yore. 
 See ! the wine crawls in the dust 
 Worm-like as your glories must ! 
 
 Since Pan is dead. 
 
 The last edition of Mrs. Browning's poems 
 closes with three-and-forty sonnets from the 
 Portuguese glowing with passion, melting 
 with tenderness. True love was never more 
 fitly sung. 
 
 THE SLEEP. 
 He giveth His beloved Sleep. PSALM cxxvii. T, 
 
 Of all the thoughts of God that are 
 Borne inward unto souls afar, 
 Along the Psalmist's music deep ' 
 Now tell me if there any is, 
 For gift, or grace, surpassing this 
 "He giveth His beloved sleep ?" 
 
 What would we give to our beloved ? 
 The hero's heart, to be unmoved
 
 1S8 REPRESENTATIVE WOMEN. 
 
 The poet's star-tuned harp, to sweep 
 The Senate's shout to patriot vows 
 The monarch's crown, to light the brow* ; 
 " He giveth His beloved sleep." 
 
 What do we give to our beioved ? 
 
 A little faith all undisproved 
 
 A. little dust, to overweep 
 
 And bitter memories, to make 
 
 The whole earth blasted for our sake ! 
 
 "He giveth His beloved sleep." 
 
 " Sleep, soft, beloved !" we sometimes Bay, 
 
 But have no tune to charm away 
 
 Sad dreams that through the eyelids creep : 
 
 But never doleful dream again 
 
 Shall break the happy slumber, when 
 
 " He giveth His beloved sleep." 
 
 earth, so full of dreary noises ! 
 men, with wailing in your voices ! 
 delved gold, the waller's heap 1 
 strife, curse, that o'er it fall ! 
 God makes a silence through your all, 
 And giveth His beloved sleep ! 
 
 Hia dews drop nightly on the hill ; 
 His cloud above it saileth still, 
 Though on its slope men toil and reap ! 
 More softly than the dew is shed, 
 Or cloud is floated over head, 
 " He giveth hia beloved sleep !" 
 
 Few men may wonder while they scan 
 A living, thinking, feeling man,
 
 THE ELIZABETHS. 
 
 In such a rest his heart to keep ; 
 But angels say and through the word 
 I ween their blessed smile is heard 
 " He giveth His beloved sleep !" 
 
 For nie my heart that erst did go 
 Moat like a tired child at a show, 
 'That sees through tears the jugglers leap- 
 Would now its wearied vision close, 
 Would childlike on His love repose, 
 Who giveth His beloved sleep ! 
 
 And, friends ! dear friends ! when it shall b 
 
 That this dear breath is gone from me, 
 
 And round my bier ye come to weep 
 
 Let one, most loving of you all, 
 
 Say, " Not a tear must o'er her fail 
 
 He giveth His beloved sleep !" 

 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE JANES. 
 
 THE religious women of the seventeenth 
 century bear the mark of their age earnest- 
 ness. In England, Germany, and France, we 
 may trace in them, whether Protestant or 
 Catholic, the same high and austere character. 
 They are not always liberal or tolerant ; but 
 they are, at least, ever earnest. Though we 
 might wish for a spirit less unbending, we 
 may seek in vain for a belief more firm, for a 
 charity more fervent and yet so essentially 
 practical. Too much puritanic severity may 
 be laid to their charge, but none can say that 
 they were not deep in their feelings and in 
 their faith. 
 
 The share of France alone in this gallery 
 of serious female portraits, is sufficiently exten- 
 sive and remarkable to have suggested to. one 
 of the most celebrated of modern French 
 writers, Victor Cousin, the project of writing 
 their history. The plan has been laid aside, 
 or, at least, confined to a few striking sketches; 
 but it shows how much the truth and earnest- 
 ness of these women could impress a philo- 
 sophic mind, in many respects opposed to the 
 opinions which guided their lives. 
 
 The earliest, and, perhaps, the most eminent
 
 THE JANES. 
 
 of these women, is Madame de Chantal. She 
 was the friend of two great saints, a saint her- 
 self, and the ancestress of a woman to whom 
 witty and charming letters have given more 
 fame than Madame de Chantal earned by a 
 long life of piety and charitable deeds. 
 
 At the time of the massacre of St. Bartholo- 
 mew and the wars of the League, there lived 
 in the ancient town of Dijon, a president of 
 the parliament of Burgundy, named Benigne 
 Ijremiot. His nobility was only that " noblesse 
 de robe" on which the courtly aristocracy 
 affected to look down ; but he stood high in 
 the province, where his worth and virtues were 
 acknowledged by men of all parties. His 
 opinions were strong without fanaticism, and 
 ever tempered by a sense of justice most 
 becoming in a magistrate. He was a faithful 
 adherent of Henry IV., the Protestant king ; 
 an enemy of the League, and yet a staunch 
 Catholic. Though he took no share in the 
 persecutions directed against the Huguenots, 
 he detested their religious opinions, and ruled 
 his own in a spirit of devout obedience to the 
 Church. 
 
 This gentleman was married to a lady of 
 good family, who had already given him one 
 daughter, when a second was born on the 23rd. 
 of January of the year 1572. This was the 
 festival of St. John the Almoner, so called on 
 account of his great charity to the poor ; and 
 after him the child was named Jane. Madame 
 Fremiot bore her husband a son, afterwards 
 Archbishop of Bourges ; she then died when 
 Jane was only eighteen months old. President
 
 192 REPRESENTATIVE WOMEN*. 
 
 Benigne Fremiot proved a kind and attentive 
 father. To preserve his children from the 
 doctrines of Luther or Calvin, he instructed 
 them carefully in the points contested between 
 Catholics and Protestants. Little Jane relished 
 such teaching exceedingly, for she was a pre- 
 cocious child, deeply impressed with a sense of 
 religion, and ardent and impetuous in her faith. 
 
 She was about five years of age when her 
 father and a Protestant gentleman engaged, in 
 her presence, in a discussion concerning tran- 
 substantiation. Jane broke from her nurse to 
 argue with the Huguenot, who kindly dropped 
 some sweetmeats in her apron in order to 
 pacify her; but she threw them into the fire, 
 passionately exclaiming " Even thus shall all 
 heretics bum in the fire of hell, because they 
 do not believe what our Lord has said !" 
 
 This intemperate zeal might have degene- 
 rated into bigoted intolerance, but for the in- 
 dulgence her father inculcated, and which her 
 own goodness of heart led her to feel. An 
 incident of her youth proves, however, that she 
 could never grow reconciled to the new djoc- 
 trines. Her elder sister was married, and 
 Jane went to spend some time with her. A 
 Huguenot gentleman of rank and wealth fell 
 in love with Mademoiselle Fremiot, paid his 
 addresses to her, and passed himself off as a 
 Catholic. She discovered the cheat, and re- 
 jected him indignantly. Her sister and 
 brother-in-law vainly sought to shake her 
 resolve; Jane emphatically declared "I would 
 sooner choose a perpetual prison than the 
 dwelling of a Huguenot, and rather endure a
 
 THE JAXES. . 193 
 
 thousand deaths, one after the other, than 
 bind myself by marriage to an enemy of the 
 Clmrch/ 1 
 
 She might have added, that the man who 
 could thus attempt to deceive her, had become 
 unworthy of her respect and confidence. She 
 endured with great firmness and constancy the 
 persecution her relatives inflicted on her, in 
 consequence of this refusal ; until her father 
 fortunately recalled her to his house. Jane 
 wished to enter a cloister; but to this Monsieur 
 Fremiot would not consent : " Christian vir- 
 gins," he said, " should remain in the world, 
 and edify it with their virtues." Jane dutifully 
 yielded, and left the choice of a husband to the 
 president ; who married her, in her twentieth 
 year, to the Baron de Chantal a distinguished 
 officer, high in the favour of Henry IV., rich 
 and noble, and no more than twenty-seven 
 years of age. 
 
 A few days after the ceremony had been 
 solemnized, the baron took his bride to his seat 
 at Bourbilly. As a proof of his confidence, 
 lie insisted on giving up to her the manage- 
 ment of all his property. She shrank from so 
 heavy a responsibility, which would not, she 
 conceived, leave her sufficient time for her 
 devotions ; but M. de Chantal very sensibly 
 objected, that piety was not incompatible with 
 the daily tasks of life; he quoted the case of 
 his own mother a lady of many virtues, 
 reared in a court, and who had yet found it 
 possible to become the most notable woman in 
 the province. ' Madame de Chantal promised 
 to comply with her husband's wishes ; and by
 
 194 REPRESENTATIVE WOMEN. 
 
 her prudence, economy, and good management, 
 justified the trust be had placed in her house- 
 hold virtues. 
 
 She rose with dawn, and had finished her 
 devotions, and ordered her household affairs, 
 by the time her husband was up. She gave 
 little time to dress, and only wore plain came- 
 lot. Prayer, work, the lives of the saints or 
 French history, her husband, her family, and 
 the poor, absorbed all the thoughts of the pious 
 lady. Her great anxiety* was to keep her little 
 household pure and religious. On her arrival 
 at Bourbilly she found a few profane books 
 most probably romances with which M. de 
 Chantal amused his leisure : she remorselessly 
 consigned them to the flames ; and such works 
 never again entered the old mansion whilst she 
 was its mistress. There was a chapel in the 
 chateau; yet every Sunday, Madame de Chantal 
 resorted to the parish church, in order to share 
 in the devotions of her husband's vassals. They 
 needed not this proof of friendly sympathy to 
 love and respect their lady : in all their troubles 
 and distresses they appealed to her. M. de 
 Chantal, though kind-hearted, was passionate 
 and proud. The temper of his wife was still 
 warmer, especially where her religious feelings 
 or affections were concerned ; but she had long 
 exercised the virtue of self-control, and with 
 all who approached her, she was the gentlest 
 of human beings. She made it her task to 
 soothe her husband's anger when it had been 
 roused by vassal or servant : he allowed himself 
 to be pacified, but not without some reluctance. 
 " If I am too quick," he said, " you are too
 
 THE JANES. 195 
 
 charitable." It often happened that, in a fit of 
 choler, the baron would consign some offending 
 vassal to the prison of Bourbilly ; and thus 
 practically remind the little realm over which 
 he ruled, of the power vested in him by feudal 
 law. The dungeons of Bourbilly were damp 
 and unwholesome : the kind-hearted baroness 
 secretly delivered the captive, made him sleep 
 in one of the baron's excellent beds, and early 
 in the morning placed him once more under 
 bolt and bar ; then about the time of her hus- 
 band's rising she would enter his room, greet 
 him cheerfully, and having put him into a 
 good temper, gently coax him out of the freedom 
 of the unlucky prisoner. 
 
 Her goodness to the vassals who lived on the 
 domain of Bourbilly was not confined to these 
 acts of kindness She relieved their wants 
 with boundless charity for charity was, and 
 ever remained, her favourite virtue. She often 
 said : " I can with more confidence ask of the 
 Lord to grant me my necessities, when for love 
 of him I have bestowed alms on the poor." A 
 famine desolated the country around her she 
 opened her stores to the indigent, and daily 
 gave bread and soup to all those who asked. 
 They came in great numbers often from a dis- 
 tance. Madame de Chantal presided over the 
 distribution herself; and to render it more 
 orderly, made those who entered by a front 
 gate leave by a back door. Many took advan- 
 tage of this to walk round the chateau, and 
 coming in again, to claim a second portion ; 
 Madame de Chantal perceived the cheat, but 
 would neither notice nor resent it. To those
 
 196 UKPRESENTATIVK WOMEN. 
 
 who remonstrated with her on the subject, she 
 said that her inward reflections were : " My 
 God, am I not a beggar at the gates of thy 
 mercy ? Should I like to be refused a second 
 or third request! A thousand times hast thou 
 borne with mine importunity, why then should 
 I not endure that of thy creatures T Whilst 
 this hard time lasted, poor families, too proud 
 to beg, were relieved privately by Madame de 
 Chantal. 
 
 Such were the tasks in which she delighted, 
 and which were her only pleasures when, as 
 often happened, her husband was away at court, 
 or with the army. It was only to please him 
 that she dressed or saw company ; in his ab- 
 sence she lived retired, and wore the most 
 homely garments. If any one chanced to ask 
 her for the reason of this, or remonstrated with 
 her, she warmly replied " Speak not of this 
 to me : the eyes I must please are a hundred 
 leagues off." She loved her husband tenderly, 
 almost passionately ; for it was not in her na- 
 ture to love by halves. When he was at Bour- 
 billy, prayer was too often neglected ; and she 
 confessed, with penitent sorrow, that he rivalled 
 God in her heart. His affection for her was 
 great. He loved her as an amiable, attractive 
 w r oman, and respected her as a saint. Her ex- 
 ample influenced him so much, that he at length 
 spoke of retiring wholly from court, and fixing 
 his residence at Bourbilly. Whilst cherishing 
 that project, he fell ill. Madame de Chantal 
 attended him devotedly; his reeovery was slow ; 
 and as she sat by his bedside, the baron and 
 his wife discoursed together of religion and
 
 THE JANES. 197 
 
 death. He wished her to enter into the agree- 
 ment that, should one happen to survive the 
 other, that one should embrace a religious life. 
 Devout as she was, Madame de Chantal would 
 not hear of this ; for she said that it implied a 
 separation, of which she could not endure to 
 think. The baron at length fully recovered, 
 but he did not seem much more cheerful. He 
 told his wife that, in a recent dream, he had 
 seen himself clad in a crimson garment, which 
 he took as a sign that he should be badly 
 wounded. Madame de Chantal had a free, 
 generous spirit, wholly removed from supersti- 
 tion, even in that superstitious age. She 
 laughed at her husband's fears, and gaily said, 
 " I might as well think that I am going to 
 become a widow, for the other night I dreamed 
 that a long crape veil enveloped me from head 
 to foot." 
 
 A few days after this, the Baron de Chantal 
 went out shooting with one of his friends. He 
 wore a fawn-coloured habit. His friend, seeing 
 him moving through the bushes, mistook him 
 for a deer, fired and wounded him mortally. 
 Madame de Chantal, though recently confined 
 of her last child, was soon on the spot. She 
 found a doctor doing for him all his art could 
 do. " You must cure him !" she exclaimed, 
 in the passion of her woe. She offered to Hea- 
 ven all she had that was precious her children 
 and her wealth, for that one life but the sac- 
 rifice was not accepted. M. de Chantal sur- 
 vived this sad accident nine days. He died 
 like a Christian. His chief anxiety was to 
 console his wife, and the unhappy man who
 
 198 REPRESENTATIVE WOMEN T . 
 
 had caused his death. He repeatedly declared 
 that he forgave him freely, and caused his par- 
 don to be recorded in the registers of the parish 
 church, in order to secure him from any annoy- 
 ance or trouhle. In the same nohle and gener- 
 ous spirit, Madame de Chantal afterwards be- 
 came godmother to the child of the man who 
 had made her a widow. 
 
 She was in her twenty-eighth year when this 
 Bad event happened. She had already lost two 
 children ; but four, one son and three daughters, 
 remained to her. Her grief, though tempered 
 by resignation, was great, and she took a solemn 
 vow never again to marry. She distributed her 
 rich garments amongst the poor, and resolved 
 that henceforth the labour of her hands should 
 be devoted to them and to the Church. Prayers, 
 alms, and her children divided her life. Her 
 old longing for the cloister returned to her, and 
 but for her children, she afterwards said that 
 she thought she should have gone and buried 
 herself in the Holy Land. This confession shows 
 that her ardent religious feelings were much in 
 need of wise control. Her widowhood was a 
 time of great tribulation. She was peacefully 
 residing with her father at Dijon, when her 
 father-in-law, M. de Chantal, then seventy-five 
 years of age, wrote to her that, if she did not 
 come to live with him, he would marry again, 
 and disinherit her children. 
 
 Madame de Chantal complied with this per- 
 emptory request, and went with her children to 
 Montelon, the seat of their grandfather, near 
 Autun. She might have lived there happily 
 enough, had not her father-in-law been provided
 
 THE JANES. J99 
 
 with a shrewish housekeeper, who had ruled 
 his establishment despotically for many years, 
 and now beheld with displeasure the presence 
 of one whose near relationship and rank threa- 
 tened to interfere with her own authority. Ma- 
 dame de Chantal, who quickly saw that her 
 father-in-law's interests were not always cared 
 for by the woman in whom he trusted impli- 
 citly, did indeed attempt to interfere ; but love 
 of peace induced her to relinquish the attempt. 
 The authority of the housekeeper prevailed to 
 that degree, that Madame de Chantal had not 
 the liberty to give away a glass of water with- 
 out her knowledge and sanction. She bore 
 tli is tyranny with heroic and silent patience. 
 Years elapsed before her father learned indi- 
 rectly how much she had suffered at Montelon. 
 The only place in the whole house which she 
 claimed and owned, was a little room where 
 she kept the medicines and unguents she gave 
 away to the poor ; and the only vengeance 
 she exercised against the woman who daily in- 
 sulted and tormented her, was to rear, instruct, 
 and attend her five children with her own. She 
 washed, combed, and dressed them daily ; and 
 in reply to the objection which was once made 
 to her, that it was degrading to perform these 
 offices for children of a rank so mean, she merely 
 said " Have they not been redeemed, as well 
 as my own children, by the blood of Jesus 
 Christ r 
 
 Madame de Chantal had, like the saint 
 whose name had been given her at her birth, 
 the passion of charity. The luxuries of her 
 rank pained her; she could not bear to touch
 
 200 REPRESENTATIVE WOMEN. 
 
 dainty food whilst the poor were starving. A 
 confidential attendant served her at dinner, 
 and, whenever some choice bit of fowl or gamo 
 was placed before her mistress, took away the 
 plate, for a purpose which she alone knew. 
 Madame de Chantal gave away not only the 
 food from her plate ; she gave away everything 
 it was hers to bestow, even to a ring from her 
 finger, once that she had no money about her. 
 It is recorded of her, that she never refused 
 alms asked for the love of God. Had her cha- 
 rity been confined to mere almsgiving, it would 
 have been of little worth ; but it extended 
 much farther. On the afternoons of Sundays 
 and holidays, she went forth, a little after din- 
 ner, to visit the sick and the poor of her parish, 
 undeterred by summer heats or wintry cold. 
 Two of her women generally accompanied her. 
 She cheered them on with gay and pleasant 
 discourse, and often said to them as they went 
 along : " We are going on a pilgrimage to Cal- 
 vary, or to the Olive Mount, or to the Holy 
 Sepulchre." Her faith had all the imaginative 
 fervour of her character ; she loved to visit and 
 serve the poor, not merely because of the ten- 
 derness and compassion of her heart, but be- 
 cause the words of the Gospel, " I was an hun- 
 gered, and ye gave me meat : I was thirsty, 
 and ye gave me drink : I was a stranger, and 
 ye took me in." "Naked, and ye clothed me. 
 I was sick, and ye visited me : I was in prison, 
 and ye came unto me," were to her a strict 
 and literal truth. She confessed that the 
 most tedious day was that on which she fount 
 no fitting opportunity of exercising charity:
 
 THE JAKES. 201 
 
 Those days were few in her sanctified life: 
 seldom did there pass one of which some hours 
 had not been devoted to the sick poor in their 
 own homes : she dressed their wounds, cleaned 
 them, made their beds, gave them clothes, 
 which she kept in readiness, took home their 
 linen, boiled it, to free it from vermin and 
 other impurities, mended it, and then returned 
 it to them. All the neighbouring sick were 
 known to her ; for she had requested that, so 
 soon as a poor person fell ill, she might be in- 
 formed of it. She visited and assisted them, 
 and was often present at their agony ; when 
 they were dead, she washed and laid them out. 
 She esteemed this mournful office so great a 
 privilege, that she claimed it as a sort of reward 
 for the care she took of the sick and ailing. 
 Whenever a death occurred in her .absence, 
 Madame de Chantal was promptly acquainted 
 with the fact ; the villagers would not, through 
 respect, layout the deceased. " It was a right," 
 they said, " which belonged to Madame.' 1 
 
 Cavillers who thought fit to censure this ex- 
 cessive charity were not wanted : Madame de 
 Chantal was plainly told that her duty was to 
 stay with her aged father-in-law, and not to 
 desert him for the poor. She modestly replied, 
 that she only gave to the poor those hours 
 which her father-in-law did not need from her : 
 " Besides," she added, " has he not many ser- 
 vants to attend on him ? whereas the poor of 
 Jesus Christ will have none, if 1 forsake them. ' 
 She spoke the literal truth ; for she was indeed 
 the only hope of those, who, but for her must 
 have perished irretrievably. She hud rcquus- 
 K '2
 
 202 REPRESENTATIVE WOMEV. 
 
 ted that the forsaken poor and in those times 
 there were many such, who were often left to 
 die in a ditch, or by the hedges on the road- 
 side might be brought to her ; and the pea- 
 sants on her father-in-law's domain readily 
 obeyed. One amongst the rest, returning from 
 Autun, found, lying at the foot of a hedge, a 
 lad afflicted with leprosy, whom he brought to 
 Madame de Chantal. She received him with 
 joy, and placed him in the bed which she kept 
 'ever ready for such guests. The unfortunate 
 leper was in an awful state. Madame de 
 Chantal cut off his hair, burned it herself, and 
 would not allow any one else to touch it ; she 
 dressed his sores with her own hands, and at- 
 tended on him daily. He was half-starved 
 when brought to her, and required to be fed 
 slowly, and to receive only a little at a time ; 
 she visited him several times in the course of 
 the day, to give him his food and attend on 
 him. It sometimes happened that, being de- 
 tained by her father-in-law, she could not 
 come ; she then sent one of her attendants in 
 her stead. The woman, who had not the ar- 
 dent charity of her mistress, fulfilled the task 
 with a sense of disgust which she did not care 
 to conceal : she laid down the food near the 
 leper, and then hastened out of the room. 
 Once, on seeing this, he burst into tears, and 
 said : " When- madame comes she does not 
 stop her nose ; she sits down by me, and speaks 
 to me of my salvation ; but when she cannot 
 come, every one else forsakes me." He linger- 
 ed a few months, at the end of which death re- 
 leased him from his misery. For several nights
 
 THE JANES. 203 
 
 before he died, Madame de Cbantal sat up by 
 him, exhorting and consoling him to the last. 
 As he was on the point of expiring, he turned 
 towards her, and, clasping his hands, asked her 
 to grant him her blessing. She embraced him 
 tenderly, and said : " Go, my child, confide in 
 God ; for angels will bear thee, like Lazarus, to 
 the place of th rest." He died almost in her 
 arms ; she washed and laid him out herself, 
 in spite of the remonstrances of a haughty re- 
 lative, who could not comprehend that a lady 
 of her rank should stoop to such offices. 
 
 Not long after this, Madame de Chantal took 
 in an unfortunate woman, whose face was eaten 
 away by a frightful cancer. She was the wife 
 of one of the villagers, whose horror of her 
 condition made him inhumanly turn her out of 
 his house. Madame de Chantal kept her until 
 her death, and she lived nearly four years. The 
 details connected with the state and sufferings 
 of this poor creature display the charity of 
 Madame de Chantal as something almost be- 
 yond humanity : but we will not sicken the 
 reader by dwelling on them, as some of her 
 zealous biographers have done. The woman 
 was succeeded by an old man, covered with 
 ulcers, and who lived ten months : indeed the 
 room set apart for such afflicted guests was 
 Beldom or never empty. 
 
 In the year 1 606, Madame de Chantal went 
 to her chateau of Bourbilly for the gathering 
 in of her vintage. Other cares soon absorbed 
 her. She found her vassals afflicted with a 
 fatal dysentery, and she devoted herself to them 
 with the passion she carried into everything she
 
 201 REPRESENTATIVE WOMEN. 
 
 did. She rose -with dawn, visited the nearest 
 houses, returned to mass and breakfast, and 
 then went forth again afternoon and evening. 
 After her last visit, she still found time and 
 energy for business. It was she who managed 
 the estate and property of her children ; and 
 the task was never neglected. When it wag 
 over, she retired to rest; but she was often 
 called up before morning, to spend the rest of 
 the night by the bedside of the dying. The 
 dysentery lasted seven weeks ; during that time, 
 it is computed that Madame de Chantal laid 
 out from two to five corpses daily ; at length 
 she fell ill, literally from fatigue. Her friend 
 St. Francis of Sales wrote her a letter of ami- 
 cable reproof, warning her not to yield too 
 much to the promptings " of that strong heart 
 of her's, which loved and willed mightily." 
 
 The friendship between the. Bishop of 
 Geneva and Madame de Chantal had begun 
 two years before this, in 1604, when she went to 
 Dijon for the purpose of hearing him preach. 
 Francis of Sales was then near forty. The 
 eldest son of a noble family of Savoy, he had, 
 nevertheless, consecrated himself to God in hia 
 youth. Poor as was his bishopric, since 
 Geneva had exchanged the yoke of Catholic 
 prelates for that of Calvin and his successors, 
 he refused to leave it or his limited flock for a 
 wealthier income and a wider sway. But 
 though he chose to remain buried in Savoy, hia 
 fame was great : he was celebrated both for the 
 sanctity of his life and the force of his elo- 
 quence. Thousands hung on the words which 
 fell from his lips, and went away with the love
 
 THE JAXE?. 
 
 205 
 
 of God in their hearts. Holiness and genius 
 were in him aided by many natural advantages, 
 which gave more power to the man and the 
 orator. His voice was harmonious, his address 
 dignified and easy. He was eminently hand- 
 some ; sweetness and fire blended in his coun- 
 tenance, and expressed the contrasts of his 
 character ; an ardent temper, and too great a 
 tendency to human love, were the faults against 
 which he struggled, until he finally subdued 
 the earthly part, and kept of both failings what- 
 ever they had of divine. 
 
 In his enthusiasm, warmth of heart, and 
 boundless charity, Francis of Sales strongly 
 resembled Madame de Chantal : but in his 
 experience of spiritual things, in wisdom, pru- 
 dence, and discretion, he surpassed her greatly. 
 Their friendship was sudden, yet lasting. A 
 mystical explanation of this fact is given in 
 their respective biographies ; hut nothing su- 
 pernatural is needed to account for the mutual 
 attraction of characters so congenial. The 
 devout attention with which Madame de Chan- 
 tal listened to him as he preached, drew the 
 attention of Francis of Sales, and made him 
 inquire of her brother, the Archbishop of 
 Bourges, "the name of that widow who lis- 
 tened so attentively to the word of the Gospel T 
 
 Their friendship was strengthened by sad 
 circumstances, but too frequent in religious 
 biography. Good, pious, and charitable as she 
 was, Madame de Chantal waa not happy : her 
 soul was obscured by doubts, scruples, and 
 fears, which often rendered existence a torment. 
 An ignorant and despotic clergyman, under
 
 206 REPRESENTATIVE WOMEN. 
 
 whose spiritual guidance she had placed herself 
 in the hope of relief, only increased her distress. 
 Francis of Sales delivered her from this thral- 
 dom : his generous spirit was ahove the narrow 
 doubts and fears which pervert religion from 
 her true aim, the raising of the soul to God. 
 By his indulgence, charity, and perfect know- 
 ledge of the heart, he dispelled the gloomy 
 despondency of Madame de Chantal ; she re- 
 joiced in her liberty, and revered her deliverer 
 as an angel. There were, indeed, many re- 
 lapses, many faintings of the heart, and dismal 
 fears ; but there was also knowledge with 
 which to strive, and courage that taught her 
 to endure. When her spirit was most op- 
 pressed, she could not help saying, " Lord, 
 take this cup from me ;" but no sooner were 
 the words uttered, than she longed to drain to 
 the very dregs the cup she had rejected. " Be 
 merciful, O God !" she exclaimed, with return- 
 ing courage, " and take not this cup away until 
 I have quaffed it." It were difficult to express 
 more forcibly the mingled fear and daring of an 
 ardent heart. 
 
 The influence of Francis of Sales over 
 Madame de Chantal was great; and some 
 traits of her life prove that it was much needed. 
 Being persecuted by her family to marry again T 
 she not only refused to do so, but, in a fit of 
 fervour, branded the name of Jesus on her side, 
 over her heart, with a red-hot iron. Tt was 
 from this exaggeration of devotion, into which 
 she often fell, that Francis of Sales, the most 
 moderate and prudent of men, sought to cure 
 her. He also attempted to eradicate some
 
 THE JANES. 207 
 
 little inconsistencies which he perceived in her 
 life ; for instance, she was in the habit of pray- 
 ing for several hours of the night, during which 
 one of her women sat up waiting for her. Our 
 devotion, said Francis of Sales, should never be 
 inconvenient to others. She took the hint, and 
 acted upon it so effectually, that her servants 
 observed, " Madame prays always, yet is never 
 troublesome to anybody." This great friend- 
 ship had lasted nearly six years, when the 
 Bishop of Geneva induced Madame de Chantal 
 to take a step which exposed her to the severe 
 censure of the world ; and which her bio- 
 graphers are evidently at some trouble to ex- 
 plain. Francis of Sales had long wished to 
 establish a religious order, mild in rule, but 
 evangelic in spirit, to which ladies of feeble 
 health, and unable to bear austerities, might 
 be admitted. He purposed calling it the Order 
 of the Visitation of the Virgin Mary ; and 
 intended its members to visit the sick and the 
 afflicted, as Mary visited her cousin Elizabeth. 
 They were to reside under the same roof, but 
 neither to take the vow of poverty, nor to be 
 cloistered like nuns of the stricter orders : prac- 
 tical charity was to be their great aim. This 
 order evidently resembles that which St. "Vin- 
 cent of Paul established, in the course of the 
 same century, under the name of Sisters of 
 Charity. 
 
 Madame de Chantal had often expressed to 
 her friend her passionate desire of entering 
 some religious community, and thus fulfilling 
 the early aspiration of her youth. He objected 
 to her, that she could not desert her young
 
 208 REPRESENTATIVE WOMEN. 
 
 children, and forbade her to think of anything 
 of the kind whilst they needed her care. But 
 when he thought that she could conscientiously 
 do so, he suggested that she should become one 
 of the community he meant to found, in his 
 native town of Annecy in Savoy. She em- 
 braced the proposal with joy, but soon felt 
 strangely perplexed, not knowing how to break 
 the news to her family. 
 
 Madame de Chantal was then in her thirty- 
 eighth year. She had lost one of her youngest 
 daughters, and married the eldest to M. de 
 Thorens, the nephew of Francis of Sales. Her 
 son was fifteen years old ; and in those times 
 the sons of the nobility were launched into the 
 world, far from the control of pious provincial 
 mothers, at an age still earlier. The licentious 
 Rabutin, relative of Madame de Chantal, the 
 young Marquis de Grignan, one of her de- 
 scendants, entered the army at twelve, and 
 commanded regiments at seventeen, within the 
 same century. Her strongest tie was there- 
 fore with her father and her father-in-law, 
 both very aged. They gave their consent to 
 her project, but with the deepest reluctance, 
 and raised numerous objections, which Madame 
 de Chantal overruled. The education of her 
 eon, she said, no longer needed her presence : 
 the guardianship of her father would suffice 
 until he entered the world ; her married daugh- 
 ter would, on the contrary, be much benefited 
 by her sojourn at Annecy, as she was still very 
 young, and required the advice and direction 
 of a mother. Her youngest daughter she pro- 
 posed taking with her, and keeping under her
 
 THE JAXES. 
 
 209 
 
 own care, until she married her in a manner 
 befitting her rank : in short, she prevailed. 
 
 Only the fervour of religious enthusiasm 
 could enable a woman, whose heart was all 
 charity and tenderness, to go through the part- 
 ing, which her early biographers have related 
 as taking place, between herself and her kin- 
 dred at Dijon; where all her family had 
 gathered to bid her a solemn adieu. She knelt 
 at the feet of her father, and, not without tears, 
 besought him to bless her, and take care of 
 her son. For some time both wept in silence ; 
 at length the president said, " Oh, my God ! 
 it belongs not to me to oppose yonr designs. 
 It will cost me my life. To you, Lord, I 
 offer this dear child ; receive her, and be you 
 my comfort." He raised and blessed her as he 
 spoke. Madame de Chantal was a kind mo- 
 ther, full of tenderness ; her children loved her 
 passionately, and none loved her better than 
 the young son she was going to leave, in order 
 to become the help and comforter of strangers. 
 He cast himself at her feet, he twined his arms 
 around her neck, and entreated her not to go ; 
 seeing, at length, that his prayers would not 
 avail, he laid himself down on the threshold 
 of the door, and said, " I cannot detain you 
 but if go you must, pass, then, over the body 
 of your child." A clergyman, tutor to her son, 
 thought he saw her constancy waver, and re- 
 proved her. Her answer, " I am a mother," 
 might have softened a harder heart. 
 
 The parting was over ; the gates of Dijon 
 were past ; and the consciousness that her in- 
 tended sacrifice was fulfilled, gave Madame do
 
 210 HEPftESENTATIVK WOMK.V. 
 
 Chantal something like serenity of mind. Her 
 journey was a progress of charity. She entered 
 Annecy on Palm Sunday, 1610, and was re- 
 ceived by Francis of Sales, who came to meet 
 her, with twenty-five persons of distinction. 
 After settling her married daughter, Madame 
 de Thorens, in her ahode., she laid the founda- 
 tion of the new institute on Trinity Sunday. 
 Two ladies took the habit with her, and were 
 soon afterwards joined by ten more. The little 
 community devoted themselves to deeds of cha- 
 rity ; and in these their superior gave them the 
 example of all that the most fervent heart 
 could conceive or accomplish. She took the 
 solemn vow of doing not merely that which 
 was good, but that which was most excellent ; 
 and religiously was the vow fulfilled. The sis- 
 ters of the Visitation daily went forth to visit 
 and relieve the poor. So intense was the gra- 
 tification Madame de Chantal found in the prac- 
 tice of charity, that she conceived herself bound 
 to abstain from it occasionally, through a spirit 
 of mortification. For three or four months she 
 daily attended a poor paralytic woman afflicted 
 with dysentery, and took home her linen to 
 wash. The stench in this unfortunate woman's 
 abode was so great, that Madame de Chantal 
 often said to the nun who accompanied her : 
 " I think you had better turn your head away ; 
 for my part, I am accustomed to this." A 
 woman of dissolute life, and a recital of whose 
 infirmities has for once been spared to us by the 
 zealous biographers of Madame de Chantal, fell 
 ill at Annecy. The person who was commis- 
 sioned to inform the Superior of the Visitation
 
 THE JANES. 211 
 
 of such cases, mentioned this, adding, however, 
 " But it is not very likely that you will go and 
 serve this abandoned creature who has sinned 
 so much." " Our Lord came for sinners, and 
 not for the just," warmly answered Madame de 
 Chantal. She went to see her immediately ; 
 and, as we are told, cured both body and soul. 
 A poor strange woman, perchance a sinner 
 too, but one assuredly whom the merciful Jesus 
 would not have rejected, was taken with 
 the pains of labour in the course of her wan- 
 derings; she sought and found refuge in a 
 stable, where she gave birth to her child. 
 Madame de Chantal walked a considerable dis- 
 tance in order to visit her ; she knelt down by 
 the poor creature, took the child, baptized it, 
 and cafred for its mother until she was able to 
 leave the place and proceed on her journey. 
 All the time she was engaged in her pious 
 office, Madame de Chantal confessed that she 
 thought of the infant Jesus in the stable of 
 Bethlehem. Here lay the secret of all she did : 
 the presence of God in her heart. A nun, who 
 beheld with ever-renewing admiration the mar- 
 vellous charity of her superior towards beings 
 of repulsive and disgusting aspect, once asked 
 her how she could do so much for such mise- 
 rable outcast creatures : " Because I do not 
 gee them, but Jesus Christ in them," was the 
 fervent reply. 
 
 A year after she had founded the Visitation, 
 a great affliction befel Madame de Chantal : 
 her father died at Dijon. Her soul was torn 
 with remorse : she had forsaken him in his old 
 age, when the sacrifice of a year would have
 
 212 REPRESENTATIVE WOMEN. 
 
 made him happy, and would surely not have 
 been accounted as a sin by the merciful God 
 who commanded filial love and reverence. It 
 was long before she recovered this blow. For- 
 tunately for her peace of mind, her absence did 
 not prove injurious to her son. She visited 
 him often, superintended his education, and 
 finally saw him united to the young and amiable 
 Mademoiselle de Coulanges. Her youngest 
 daughter was in like manner happily married 
 to the Count of Tonlonjon. The establishment 
 of her children left Madame de Chantal free to 
 devote herself to the extension of the order of 
 the Visitation. It spread rapidly ; although 
 Francis of Sales was, against his own judgment, 
 induced to make several important changes, 
 which wholly altered its original aim. For 
 instance, the nuns were cloistered, and no 
 longer able to visit the sick and the poor : 
 they relieved them by their alms ; but the 
 most generous attribute of charity, sympathy, 
 could no longer exist. The labours of Madame 
 de Chantal were great, and she had amplo 
 opportunities of proving her patience, self- 
 denial, and humility ; but charity to the poor, 
 her most beautiful and congenial virtue, no 
 longer had the same scope. 
 
 Her patience under the many afflictions with 
 which it pleased God to visit her, was deep and 
 touching. She was destined to survive almost 
 all her kindred and her friends. She lost her 
 father and father-in-law, M. de Thorens and 
 his wife, her eldest daughter, within a short 
 space of one another. Her only son, the Baron 
 de Chantal, was killed fighting against the
 
 THE JA\fcS. 213 
 
 Huguenots, in the isle of Rhe. He left a wi- 
 dow and an only child, then a few months old ; 
 that child afterwards became Madame de Se- 
 vigne. The gay, brilliant, and worldly lady 
 was born and bred in that old ch&teau of Bour- 
 billy, where her pious grandmother had burned 
 romances and relieved the poor. The fatal end 
 of M. de Chantal was followed within a few 
 years by that, no less premature, of his younger 
 sister and her husband. Scarcely had Madame 
 de Chantal received the news, when a messen- 
 ger entered the parlour of the convent, and in- 
 formed her that the widow of her son had fol- 
 lowed him to the grave. She had loved her 
 daughter-in-law very tenderly, and turning pale, 
 she exclaimed " Why, how many deaths !" 
 but checking this expression of regret, she 
 clasped her hands, and added u Should I not 
 rather say, how many pilgrims hastening on to 
 their eternal dwelling !" 
 
 Her brother, and the first companions of her 
 religious life, likewise preceded her to that 
 dwelling towards which ever tended the desires 
 of her heart. But perhaps the heaviest loss of 
 all was that of Francis of Sales, her much 
 loved friend. Parted as they were, often for 
 years, by their different tasks, their hearts were 
 never asunder. A strong and pure friendship 
 between man and woman ought to need neither 
 apology nor explanation rare it may be, but 
 none can say that it is impossible. The purity 
 of the tie winch united Madame de Chantal 
 and the Bishop of Geneva cannot be doubted ; 
 but it has been said and written, for party pur- 
 poses, that the affection which she felt for her
 
 214< REPRESENTATIVE WOMEN. 
 
 religious director was a feeling more deep and 
 tender than mere friendship. We think that 
 her life and character protest most eloquently 
 against such an assumption. The woman who 
 could brand the name of Jesus on her heart, 
 who triumphed over maternal affection the 
 strongest and most passionate feeling of her 
 sex because she thought herself called away 
 by the voice of God, was not a woman whom 
 the love of mortal man could move. 
 
 The sudden and unexpected death of her 
 friend was a severe trial, but she bore it with 
 Christian fortitude. It was her habit, when 
 suddenly afflicted, to offer up her heart to God, 
 saying " Destroy, cut, burn whatever opposes 
 your holy will." As she held the letter con- 
 taining the news which she suspected and 
 dreaded, her heart began to beat she read it 
 kneeling, weeping much, but resigned. St. 
 Francis of Sales died in 1622 ; Madame de 
 Chantal survived him nineteen years. One of 
 her cherished tasks was to collect materials for 
 his life. At length she too was called away. 
 Journeying from her convent in Paris to that 
 of Annecy, she was taken ill with inflamma- 
 tion of the lungs, in the convent of Moulins. 
 She died there, in a room whence Madame de 
 Sevigne whom the nuns of the Visitation 
 called their living relic dated one of her plea- 
 sant letters. In her last moments Madame de 
 Chantal requested that the death of St. Monica, 
 as related in the Confessions of St. Augustine, 
 might be read to her. After receiving the last 
 sacraments of the Church, she expired peace- 
 fully on the 13th of December, 164J, being
 
 THE JANES 215 
 
 then sixty-nine years of age. In J 751 she was 
 canonized by Pope Benedict XIV. 
 
 The character of Madame de Chantal needs 
 few comments : her life and actions paint her 
 as she was, with her faults and her virtues. 
 Her piety was ardent and enthusiastic to the 
 last. Being asked in her old age, and whilst 
 labouring under great bodily infirmities, if the 
 early fervour of her spirit had not cooled, she 
 warmly answered : " I feel it as strong to act 
 towards God as it was twenty-five years ago." 
 This ardour might occasionally lead her into 
 exaggeration, but it was not superstitious. A 
 nun under her control thought, or pretended to 
 think, that she was possessed with evil spirits, 
 which only relics could chase away. Madame 
 de Chantal took a piece of wood, wrapped it 
 up in a paper, and used it as a relic, when the 
 fit of supposed possession was at its height. It 
 ceased immediately ; the nun declared that the 
 spirits had fled; upon which Madame de Chan- 
 tal calmly informed her of the truth. No more 
 was heard about spirits. 
 
 She was herself too thoroughly practical in 
 her faith to place much value on that elevation 
 of spirit which is the delight, but by no means 
 the aim, of religion. A lady once wrote her a 
 long account of the graces with which she was 
 favoured by Heaven. Madame de Chantal 
 wrote back : " You have sent mo the leaves of 
 the tree ; send me likewise some of its fruit, 
 that I may judge of it." Humility was one of 
 the virtues which she inculcated on others, and 
 practised herself with exact fidelity. The repu- 
 tation of saint which she had acquired, the
 
 216 fcEPttESEXTATIVE WOMEN*. 
 
 respect paid to her by queens and great ladies, 
 grieved her sincerely. The world she had 
 hoped to forget, and hy which she had re- 
 mained unheeded as wife and widow, sought 
 and revered the nun in her retreat. But, pure 
 and holy as was the life she there led, we con- 
 fess that, for our part, we prefer the charitable 
 lady of Bourbilly and Montelon to the sister 
 and superior of the Visitation.* 
 
 In those times, so disastrous for Artois,*f- the 
 inhabitants of Arras often beheld in their 
 streets a young and handsome girl, simply at- 
 tired in a black woollen robe. Ever bent on 
 some errand of mercy, she fearlessly sought out 
 dissolute women in their darkest haunts ; and, 
 to relieve the peasants dying on dunghills in 
 the streets, or the sick soldiers in hospitals, she 
 daily braved the terror of pestilence. This cou- 
 rageous maiden, well worthy of being named 
 the " Heroine of Charity," was JEANNE Bis- 
 COT, the youngest daughter of a wealthy and 
 respected citizen of Arras. Jeanne was, as we 
 have said, handsome ; tall, graceful, with regu- 
 lar features, a transparent complexion, and an 
 expression both fervent and serene. Being, 
 moreover, of a rich and honourable family, she 
 possessed all the advantages which attach the 
 soul to the world ; but her soul ever remained 
 firmly fixed on Him to whose service she had 
 consecrated herself so exclusively, that, in her 
 fourteenth year, she took the vow of never 
 marrying. From early youth unto the grave, 
 
 * The account of this admirable woman is extracted 
 from Julia Kavanah's " Womeu of Christianity." 
 t The Times of Pestilence.
 
 THE JANES. 217 
 
 Jeanne carried one fervent maxim in her heart 
 a maxim which was still more deeply im- 
 pressed in her actions : " All for God." 
 
 This great love once outstripped the bounds 
 of reason. In the village of Merville, the 
 dreary devotion of some gloomy recluse of 
 a past age had established a sort of living 
 tomb close by the church. Here human 
 beings had immured themselves of old ; and 
 here, too, Jeanne seriously contemplated re- 
 tiring, in order to forget the world, and 
 live entirely to God. This is the one 
 weak point of her life : the one moment when 
 judgment swerved; when the devotion of ima- 
 gination prevaile 1 over that of the heart. We 
 have recorded it, because it is well to know 
 the -weaknesses and delusions which beset the 
 good, even in their earnest aspirations towards 
 that ideal aim of all great souls : the perfecting 
 of humanity. Humility saved Jeanne from 
 this act of folly. She would not act without 
 consulting two persons, in whose wisdom and 
 piety she had great faith : a Capuchin monk 
 and a Jesuit. Both remonstrated so forcibly 
 with her, and condemned this project in terms 
 so strong, that Jeanne gave it up ; and, in 
 compliance with their advice, resolved to de- 
 vote herself to the active duties of Christian 
 charity. She could do so freely : her parents, 
 pious and charitable people, (in the general 
 sense of the words,) respected the more ardent 
 piety and less restricted charity of their young- 
 est daughter; and her own time and their 
 wealth were both at her disposal. 
 
 After tho death of his wife, the father of
 
 218 REPRESENTATIVE WOMEV. 
 
 Jeanne yielded to her the sole administration 
 of his business and property, in the year 1636 ; 
 and, though he knew her intention of remain- 
 ing single, he gave her a dowry equal to that 
 of her married sister. Her time was thus 
 more restricted, but her means to do good in- 
 creased, and were used to their fullest extent. 
 Opportunity did not fail her. In that same 
 year the chances of war caused a large number 
 of poor German women to be thrown upon the 
 charity of Arras ; and their position was the 
 more distressing that they knew not a word of 
 French. Jeanne could not understand their 
 language ; but she needed not this to pity and 
 relieve their misery. She hired a house, placed 
 them in it, procured them every assistance, 
 and rested not until, at the end of five months, 
 she had put them in a way to earn their bread. 
 In this good work, as in most of her other un- 
 dertakings, she was chief; but not alone: 
 several pious and charitable ladies of Arras 
 gave freely their time and money to forward 
 her generous design : not the less praise is due 
 to her with whom it originated. 
 
 One good deed interfered not with another. 
 Whilst she provided for the fate of the poor 
 German women, Jeanne, filled with concern 
 at the large number of orphans the war had 
 made, and especially at the peculiar dangers 
 to which the girls were exposed, resolved to 
 open to them a place of refuge. A house be- 
 longing to her father was devoted to that pur- 
 pose, and received seven young girls. The 
 nome duties of Jeanne did not allow her to 
 tend and instruct them herself, but she placed
 
 THE JANES. 219 
 
 a respectable woman at the head of this little 
 establishment, which filled so rapidly that the 
 aid and superintendence of a second person soon 
 became necessary. The house which she had 
 thus opened to deserted orphans, received from 
 Jeanne the pious and tender name of Holy 
 Family. 
 
 The war had driven within the walls of Arraa 
 a great number of peasants, young and old. 
 Some were half dead with want ; others were 
 badly wounded, or had their limbs frozen with 
 cold : many were afflicted with skin diseases, 
 and lay in the streets on heaps of dung, listless 
 and unheeded. Jeanne placed as many of the 
 younger ones as she could in a house, attended 
 them and dressed their wounds herself, and 
 kept them until they were well ; then, having 
 clothed and partly instructed them, she placed 
 them in apprenticeship, and received in their 
 stead the older peasants, who needed longer 
 and more attentive care : those for whom she 
 could find no room were taken home to her 
 father's house. In the meanwhile she did not 
 forget her younger proteges. They required to 
 be fed, and their masters had to be paid : her 
 active zeal saw to all their wants. Many kind 
 persons of the town agreed to give them food, 
 if they would come and look for it when their 
 work was over. Jeanne undertook to provide 
 them with places to sleep in, and to get their 
 linen washed and kept in repair. 
 
 In the year 1640, Jeanne liiscot displayed 
 a charity not less touching, and still more 
 heroic. Louis XIII. wished to wrest the pro- 
 vince of Artois from Spain, who resolved to
 
 220 REPRESENTATIVE WOMKN*. 
 
 defend it vigorously. An army of German 
 soldiers encamped beneath the walls of Arras ; 
 and dysentery broke out amongst them, which, 
 with want, made many victims. Every morn- 
 ing, those who had perished in the night were 
 found at the gates, or beneath the walls of the 
 town, lying as they had died, without religious 
 consolation or human aid. 
 
 It was not in the heart of Jeanne to see such 
 things unmoved ; and she imparted her zeal to 
 her married sister, and several other ladies. 
 They divided the town and its vicinity into 
 districts, and every evening, when household 
 tasks were over, each went forth to visit and 
 relieve the sick soldiers belonging to the quarter 
 she had undertaken to attend. These ladies 
 stooped to every office : they took large pans 
 of broth to the sick, lint and unguents to the 
 wounded, and bundles of straw to those whose 
 bed was the bare earth. Their labours were 
 carried on until a late hour of the night; when 
 they had done, they met at the house of Jeanne 
 Biscot, and there concerted the tasks of the 
 morrow. And all this was done cheerfully, 
 without excess of zeal or vain-glory; after 
 every other duty had been performed, and at 
 an hour when few were likely to heed or praise 
 them. 
 
 Disease made rapid progress; aud Arras 
 became a vast hospital : but neither Jeanne 
 nor her brave companions showed signs of 
 drawing hack. They hired two houses, which 
 they furnished, and where they placed the sick 
 soldiers ; but, to the task of attending on them, 
 was now added that of collecting funds, to
 
 THE JAXES. 221 
 
 enable them to carry on these two establish- 
 ments. The times were hard ; and the hearts 
 of men were not open to the calls of charity : 
 but few gave, and that little was given reluc- 
 tantly. The sick were badly lodged, and the 
 sight of their sufferings grieved Jeanne to the 
 heart. Accompanied by her friends, she went 
 to the municipal authorities of Arras, and re- 
 quested them to give her a large building for- 
 merly destined to receive poor travellers, but 
 no longer used for that purpose. The request 
 was granted, after many difficulties ; but no 
 sooner was it known to the neighbouring in- 
 habitants that an hospital was going to exist 
 in their vicinity, than they raised a great outcry, 
 and loaded Jeanne and her friends with abuse. 
 Jeanne bore this very patiently ; but she was 
 not to be moved from her purpose : in a few 
 hours the place was ready, and the sick 
 soldiers were removed to their new home. For 
 nine months the heroic women continued their 
 arduous labours : they attended on the sick, 
 laid out the dead, and bore them to the grave ; 
 fearing not fatigue, danger, or the mockery of 
 the selfish and worldly, in the performance of 
 their self-imposed duties. Further trials 
 awaited them : the plague broke forth in their 
 hospital. The magistrates of Arras imme- 
 diately ordered all the sick to be removed to a 
 marshy place beyond the town, where misera- 
 ble sheds had been prepared for their reception. 
 Here they lay forsaken by all, save those whose 
 fervent zeal no danger could cool. 
 
 Labours so great did not seem sufficiently 
 constant to the ardent soul of Jeanne. She
 
 222 REPRESENTATIVE WOMEV. 
 
 had lost her father, and since his death had 
 resided in the orphan asylum she had estab- 
 lished. After entertaining and relinquishing 
 a project of joining the missionaries in Canada, 
 she decided on remaining at home, and devoting 
 herself to the children she had adopted. Her 
 unceasing charity had considerably restricted 
 her means ; yet she resolved to consolidate 
 what was yet only temporary, and to perpetuate 
 a passing good, by founding a religious com- 
 munity. After numerous difficulties she suc- 
 ceeded. Civil and ecclesiastical authority 
 sanctioned her project, and she procured a 
 house which had formerly belonged to a sister- 
 hood of St. Agnes, dispersed by the troubles 
 of the times. It opened on the 7th of 
 December, 1645. Five ladies of Arras were 
 the companions of Jeanne Biscot, and a few 
 afflicted orphan girls, whom she had found in 
 the streets, her guests. The sisters of St. 
 Agnes, for thus they were called, took the 
 vows of chastity, obedience, and poverty ; 
 Jeanne was their superior, and laid down the 
 simple regulations of their institution. During 
 the space of forty-five years, the sisters received 
 and educated six hundred and eighty-six orphan 
 girls ; besides a great number of out-door 
 pupils, for whose daily instruction they received 
 no remuneration : they gave them a plain 
 education, taught them to make lace, and kept 
 them until they were old enough to earn their 
 bread. This establishment was supported by 
 voluntary contributions, and by such trifling 
 sums as the orphans could earn. 
 
 When Jeanne perceived the establishment
 
 THE JANES. 223 
 
 of Arras to be in a prosperous condition, she 
 resolved to open a similar one at Douay. Her 
 sisters and adopted children, fearing lest they 
 should lose her, earnestly begged of her to re- 
 linquish this design ; hut after a severe illness, 
 in 1660, which she attributed to Divine dis- 
 pleasure, and considered the just punishment 
 of her Inkevvarmness, Jeanne could no longer 
 be deterred from her project. She was then 
 in her fifty-ninth year, still weak from recent 
 illness, and exhausted by the fatigues of a life 
 filled with good works ; she had little or no 
 money, and but few protectors : nothing, how- 
 ever, dismayed or deterred her. Several journeys 
 to Douay being necessary, she took them on 
 foot, in the depth of winter, when snow and 
 rain had rendered the roads almost impassable. 
 On her arrival at Douay, she first settled every- 
 thing relative to the business which had brought 
 her; and it was sometimes one in the after- 
 noon before she broke her fast. A ) 7 ounger 
 'sister who accompanied her often observed, in 
 a tone of remonstrance, " How tired you are, 
 mother." ^ " All for God, my poor child ; all 
 for God," cheerfully replied Jeanne. The 
 obstacles against which Jeanne had to contend 
 at Douay, though not so great as those which 
 had beset her at Arras, were sufficient to try 
 her patience and her faith. There already 
 existed in the former place a sisterhood of St. 
 Agnes, devoted to the education of youth; 
 and with a jealousy of which conventual 
 history offers but too many instances, they 
 decried Jeanne and her attempt. They were 
 joined by a schoolmistress, who was 'at the
 
 224 RKPRESF.XTAT1VE WOMEN. 
 
 head of an establishment for female orphans, 
 and whose office had been offered to Jeanne by 
 the Mayor of Douay. Jeanne liiscot soothed 
 the ruffled temper of the sisters of St. Agnes, 
 by assuring them, with equal simplicity and 
 truth, that she could not interfere with their 
 establishment, since she was exclusively devoted 
 to the children of the poor as they were to 
 those of the rich. To the schoolmistress she 
 said nothing, but she refused to supplant her : 
 an instance of generosity which changed an 
 enemy into a friend. After some other diffi- 
 culties she succeeded in opening a house at 
 Douay. Her severest trial was to leave the 
 sisters and children of the house of Arras ; 
 who wept bitterly as they saw her depart. 
 She promised to come back to them some day ; 
 but events interfered and prevented her return : 
 her time was brief, and she saw them no more. 
 Jeanne was loved, not merely because she 
 was good, but because she knew how to love. 
 If some poor orphan, covered with rags and' 
 vermin, was brought to her, she kissed and 
 welcomed her, with as much tenderness as a 
 mother whose child was lost and who rejoices 
 because it is found. She always urged on the 
 sisters the duty of respecting the children con- 
 fided to their care. " With what inward and 
 outward respect must we not attend on those 
 children," she often said, " when we consider 
 the image of Jesus behind those disfigured 
 faces and torn garments I" 1 Her gentleness 
 towards her adopted children was extreme : 
 she would never allow them to be treated with 
 severity ; she attended them in their illnesses,
 
 TH:: JAXES. 223 
 
 and mourned for their death, with so much of 
 a mother's human love, as to excite the surprise 
 of those around her. But love was indeed the 
 atmosphere in which she breathed and lived : 
 her countenance lit up when -she spoke of it 
 to her sisters, often with so much warmth 
 and emotion as to be unable to proceed. Her 
 faith was that of a child in its persistent sim- 
 plicity. When she was seeking to establish 
 the house at Douay, a Capuchin monk repre- 
 sented to her the difficulties raised by the 
 magistrates, and declared that the project must 
 be abandoned. " Reverend father," quietly 
 replied Jeanne, " we will let them get over 
 this, and pray to God to accomplish his holy 
 will." She answered in the same spirit to all 
 those who gave her similar advice "God will 
 take his own time : the business is his." Her 
 trust was firm and boundless. 
 
 She would never receive amongst her orphans 
 tfoe children of parents in easy circumstances : 
 no offers or entreaties could induce her to do 
 what she averred would take the blessing of 
 God from the house. In the same disinterested 
 and evangelic spirit she refused the portion 
 which a rich young girl wanted to bring with 
 heron entering the sisterhood. Jeanne declared 
 that she dreaded wealth much more than poverty 
 for her institution. A modest simplicity marked 
 everything in the house she governed : the 
 chapel was almost without ornament. " It 
 will be more agreeable to God," she said, " if 
 we nourish and preserve his living temples, 
 human creatures, than if we spend to adorn 
 this his material temple." She was extremely 
 L 2
 
 225 REPRESENTATIVE WOMEN. 
 
 sparing in those expenses that only related to 
 herself, but would never allow the sisters or 
 the children to want for anything. " When 
 all our money is gone," she cheerfully remarked, 
 " we shall pledge or sell what we have : ay, 
 even to our chalice; and then I shall bless 
 God." She kept no accounts of receipt or 
 expense ; and a wooden bowl held all the 
 money of the house : there she placed whatever 
 she received, and thence she took forth what- 
 ever she needed Providence seemed to justify 
 her trust : whilst she lived, that bowl was 
 never found empty. The care of two establish- 
 ments could not absorb the zeal and charity of 
 Jeanne Biscot : she reclaimed dissolute women 
 from vice, and relieved the sufferings of the 
 poor. In the year 1654, after the siege of 
 Arras by Conde, she once more gave an example 
 of that heroic charity which she had displayed 
 in 1636', and 1640. Again, but assisted this 
 time by her sisters, she attended the sick 
 soldiers, and laid out and buried the dead. The 
 fervour of the sisters of St. Agnes equalled 
 that of their mother, Jeanne ; who led them 
 to toil and danger with her favourite and noble 
 watchword, well worthy of a true servant of 
 Christ" All for God." 
 
 Exhausted by so many labours, little suited 
 to her naturally delicate health, Jeanne became 
 infirm before her time, and fell into a languish- 
 ing state. On her deathbed she recommended 
 three things to her sisters : " To fulfil her in- 
 tentions ; never to abandon charity towards the 
 poor ; and to live in peace and unity." She 
 then gave them her blessing, and bade them
 
 THE JAXES. 
 
 227 
 
 farewell. They asked her where she would 
 like to be buried. " No matter where ; in the 
 parish," she calmly answered. The superior 
 of the house of Arras being present, ventured 
 to observe, " Mother, we should like to have 
 you at Arras with us." " Where you like," 
 replied Jeanne : these were her last words. 
 Her spirit passed away so gently that her death 
 was scarcely perceived. She died on the 27th 
 of June, K)64, in the sixty-third year of her 
 age. The useful establishment which she 
 founded still exists in her native city, under 
 the name of the House of St. Agnes. Of all 
 the charitable women of France in that age, 
 Jeanne Biscot is one of the least known ; 
 though surely not the least eminent. 
 
 We have passed over in silence, though not 
 without regret, the names of Marie- Angelique 
 Arnaukl, Catherine her sister, Angelique her 
 niece ; of Jacqueline, worthy sister of the 
 illustrious Pascal, and other ladies of the Port- 
 Koyal. There is something truly impressive 
 in the austere and energetic character of these 
 gifted women ; but to speak of them properly 
 it would be necessary to enter into the narra- 
 tive of a tedious and now well-nigh forgotten 
 controversy. We have not undertaken a his- 
 tory of opinions, but one of actions ; and we 
 could not mention the Port-Royal ladies with- 
 out also mentioning the other women who, 
 before that time or since, have taken an active 
 share in religious quarrels : which Heaven 
 forbid ! 
 
 One of the fathers said of the early Christians, 
 " They knew not how to dispute, but they
 
 228 REPRESENTATIVE WOMEN'. 
 
 knew how to dia." In the same spirit we may 
 say of the women whose names are recorded in 
 these pages " They are not mentioned here 
 for their learning in theology, or their skill 
 iu discussion. They practised the Gospel in 
 the simplicity of their hearts. They might 
 have been found weak in controversy, but none 
 can say that they knew not how to live." 
 
 The 12th of February is the anniversary of 
 the execution of the young and interesting Lady 
 JANE GREY'. This unfortunate lady was born 
 in the year 1537. It was her unhappy lot to 
 be nearly allied to the blood-royal of England, 
 through her mother, who was the daughter of 
 Mary, the youngest sister of Henry VIII., and 
 the wife first of Louis XII. of France, and 
 after his death of Charles Brandon, Duke of 
 Suffolk. By the latter she had a daughter, 
 Frances, who married Henry Grey, Marquis of 
 Dorset, and thus became the mother of the 
 subject of the present notice, and of two younger 
 daughters. When by the death of his wife's 
 two brothers, without issue, in 1551, of what 
 was called the sweating sickness, the Dukedom 
 of Suffolk, created in favour of Charles Brandon, 
 had become extinct, the Marquis of Dorset was 
 advanced to that title, through the influence of 
 the noted John Dudley, Earl of Warwick, who 
 was then in the height of his power, and who 
 at the same time obtained for himself the dignity 
 of Duke of Northumberland. The scheme of 
 this ambitious politician was to secure the crown 
 for his own descendants by marrying his fourth 
 son Lord Guilford Dudley to Lady Jane Grey,
 
 TIIK TAXES. 2-!) 
 
 and then getting his royal master, Edward VI., 
 over whom he possessed a complete ascendancy, 
 and the probability of whose early death he 
 seems to have already foreseen, to declare that 
 lady his successor. Up to a certain point this 
 project succeeded. In May, 1553, the young 
 pair, between whom there is understood to have 
 existed a warm attachment, were united at 
 Durham House, the residence of the bride- 
 groom's father, which stood on the site of the 
 present Adelphi buildings. The king, who 
 had been for some time ill, was already looked 
 upon as past recovery ; and on the 1 1th of June 
 he was persuaded by Northumberland to send 
 for several of the judges, and to desire them to 
 draw out an assignment of the crown in favour 
 of Lady Jane. That day they refused to obey 
 this command ; but on the 15th they complied ; 
 and on the 2 1st the document was signed by all 
 the members of the Privy Council, twenty-one 
 in number. Edward died on the O'th of July, 
 which seems to have been rather sooner than 
 was expected ; and, in consequence, Northum- 
 berland, not having yet every thing in readiness, 
 attempted for a few days to conceal the demise 
 of the crown. At length, on the 9th, he 
 proceeded along with the Duke of Suffolk to 
 i)urham House, where Lady Jane was, and 
 announced to her the royal dignity to which 
 she had become heir. At first she firmly 
 refused to accept wiiat she maintained belonged 
 to another ; but the entreaties of her father, 
 and especially those of her husband, finally 
 prevailed upon her to consent that she should 
 be proclaimed queen. She was accordingly
 
 230 REPRESENTATIVE WOMEX. 
 
 proclaimed in London on the following day, 
 having previously, under the direction of her 
 father-in-law, withdrawn to the Tower, whither 
 she was accompanied by all the Privy Council, 
 whom the duke was especially anxious to retain 
 at this juncture under his immediate control. 
 But all his efforts and precautions proved insuf- 
 ficient to compass the daring plot in which he 
 had engaged. The pretensions of Lady Jane 
 to the crown were so perfectly untenable accord- 
 ing to all the ordinary and established rules of 
 succession, that the nation was nearly unani- 
 mous in regarding her assumption of the regal 
 authority as a usurpation. Her reign, if it is 
 to be so called, lasted only for nine days. Her 
 authority, as soon as it was questioned, was left 
 without a single supporter. On the 19th the 
 Council having contrived to make their escape 
 from the Tower, while Northumberland had 
 gone to endeavour to oppose Mary in Cam- 
 bridgeshire, met at Baynard's Castle, in the 
 city, the house of the Earl of Pembroke, and 
 sending for the Lord Mayor unanimously de- 
 sired him to proclaim that princess, which he 
 did immediately. Mary's accession then took 
 place without opposition ; and she arrived in 
 London on the 3rd of August. The conse- 
 quences, however, of the extraordinary attempt 
 which had just terminated in so signal a failure, 
 were now about to fall with fatal effect both 
 upon the guilty authors of the conspiracy, and 
 upon the innocent young creature whom they 
 had made the instrument of their ambition. 
 Orders were issued that both Lady Jane and 
 her husband should be shut up in the Tower.
 
 THE TAXES. 
 
 231 
 
 On the 18th of August the Duke of Northum- 
 berland was tried and condemned to death ; and 
 on the 22nd he was executed. On the 13th of 
 November, Lady Jane, her husband, two of her 
 brothers-in-law, and the Archbishop Cranmer, 
 were all brought to trial, and sentence of guilty 
 pronounced against them. Instead, however, 
 of being put to death immediately, they were 
 remanded to prison ; and no further steps were 
 taken in regard to any of them till after the 
 occurrence and suppression of the rash insur- 
 rection, headed by Sir Thomas Wyatt in the 
 beginning of the following February. Wyatt 
 himself suffered death for his share in this affair, 
 as did also the Duke of Suffolk and his brother; 
 and " above fifty gallant officers, knights, and 
 gentlemen," says the historian Carte, " were 
 put to death as soon as the rebellion was quelled. 
 * * * There were above four hundred 
 common men executed before March 1 2 ; how 
 many suffered afterwards does not appear. 1 " 1 
 But among all who perished in this enormous 
 carnage there were none whose fate was so 
 much lamented at the time, or has been so long 
 remembered, as the young, beautiful, and ac- 
 complished Lady Jane Grey. On the morning 
 of the same day her husband had been executed 
 on the scaffold on Tower Hill (to the north- 
 west of the Tower, at a short distance from 
 the moat) ; and she had beheld his mangled 
 corpse as it was carried back to the chapel, 
 within the fort. She herself was soon after 
 led out to suffer the same bloody death on the 
 green in front of the chapel. She advanced 
 with a book in her hand and with a composed
 
 2."32 REPRESENTATIVE WOMEN. 
 
 countenance. Having mounted the scaffold, 
 she then addressed the people, acknowledging 
 the unlawfulness of her assumption of the 
 crown, but declaring fervently her innocence 
 of any part " in the procurement and desire 
 thereof."" She concluded by requesting the 
 people to assist her with their prayers, and 
 then knelt down and devoutly repeated one of 
 the psalms. Having arisen, she declined the 
 assistance of the executioner, who approached 
 to remove the upper part of her dress, and that 
 service was performed by her female attendants, 
 who also bound her eyes. Being then guided 
 to the block, and having requested the execu- 
 tioner to dispatch her quickly, she knelt down, 
 and, exclaiming " Lord, into thy hands I com- 
 mend my spirit,"" received the fatal stroke. Her 
 demeanour was throughout touchingly resigned 
 and beautiful, and altogether in harmony with 
 the gentle tenor of her whole previous life. 
 Lady Jane Grey, who was thus cut off before she 
 had completed her seventeenth year, was already 
 one of the most accomplished and erudite of 
 her sex in an age abounding in learned females. 
 She is said to have been a perfect mistress of 
 the French, Latin, and Greek languages. Roger 
 Ascham, in his ' School master," 1 relates that, 
 visiting her upon one occasion at her father's 
 seat in Leicestershire, he found her reading the 
 Phaedonof Plato in the original, while the rest 
 of the family were all engaged in some field 
 amusements in the parks. " I wis, all their 
 sport,"" she exclaimed, " is but a shadow to the 
 pleasure that I find in Plato." " One of the 
 greatest benefits that God gave me," she after-
 
 THE JANES. 
 
 233 
 
 wards remarked, as they continued the conver- 
 sation, " is that lie sent me so sharp and severe 
 parents, and so gentle a schoolmaster; for when 
 1 am in presence either of father or mother, 
 whether I speak, keep silence, sit, stand or go, 
 eat, drink, he merry or sad, be sewing, playing, 
 dancing, or doing anything else, I must do it, 
 as it were, in such measure, weight, and num- 
 ber, even so perfectly as God made the world, 
 or else I am so sharply taunted, so cruelly 
 threatened yea, presently sometimes with 
 pinches, nips, bobs (and other ways, which I 
 will not name for the honour I bear them), so 
 without measure misordered, that I think my- 
 self in hell, till time come that I must go to 
 Mr. Aylmer, who teacheth me so pleasantly, so 
 gently, and with such fair allurements to learn- 
 ing, that I think all the time nothing whiles I 
 am with him ; and when I am called from him 
 I fall on weeping." 
 
 The 6th of January is said to be the birth-day 
 of JEANNE d'Auc, commonly called the Maid 
 of Orleans. This extraordinary person, whose 
 exploits form one of the most brilliant adven- 
 tures in modern history, was the daughter of 
 Jacques d'Arc, a peasant residing in the village 
 of Domremy, then situated on the western 
 border of the territory of Lorraine, but now 
 comprehended within the department of the 
 Meuse, in the north-eastern corner of France. 
 Here she was born, according to one account 
 in 1402, according to another in 1412, while 
 other authorities give 1410 as the year. She 
 was one of a family of three sons and two
 
 234 REPRESENTATIVE WOMEN". 
 
 daughters, all of whom were bred to the hum- 
 ble or menial occupations suitable to the con- 
 dition of their parents. Joan, whose educa- 
 tion did not enable her even to write her own 
 name, adopted at first the business of a seam- 
 stress and spinster ; but after some time she 
 left her father's house and hired herself as 
 servant at an inn in the neighbouring town of 
 Neufchateau. Here she remained for five 
 years. From her childhood she had been a 
 girl of a remarkably ardent and imaginative 
 cast of mind. Possessed of great beauty, and 
 formed, both by her personal attractions and 
 by the gentleness of her disposition and man- 
 ners, to be the delight of all with whom she 
 associated, she yet took but little interest either 
 in the amusements of those of her own age, or 
 in any of the ordinary occurrences of life. Her 
 first, and for many years, the all-absorbing pas- 
 sion was religion. Before she left her native 
 village most of her leisure hours were spent in 
 the recesses of a forest in the neighbourhood. 
 Here she conversed not only with her own 
 spirit, but in imagination also with the saints 
 and the angels, till the dreams of her excited 
 fancy assumed the distinctness of reality. She 
 believed that she heard with her ears voices 
 from heaven ; the archangel Michael, the angel * 
 Gabriel, Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret 
 all seemed at different times to address her 
 audibly. In all this there is nothing inexplica- 
 ble, or even uncommon. The state of mind 
 described has been in every age a frequent re- 
 sult of devotional enthusiasm. 
 
 After some time another strong sentiment
 
 THE JANES. 235 
 
 came to share her affections with religion 
 that of patriotism. The state of France, with 
 which Lorraine, though not incorporated, 
 was intimately connected, was at this period 
 deplorable in the extreme. A foreign power, 
 England, claimed the sovereignty of the king- 
 dom, was in actual possession of the greater 
 part of it, and had garrisons established in nearly 
 all the considerable towns. The Duke of Bed- 
 ford, one of the uncles of Henry VI. the King 
 of England, resided in Paris, and there gov- 
 erned the country as regent in the name of his 
 young nephew. The Duke of Burgundy, the 
 most powerful vassal of the crown, had become 
 the ally and supporter of this foreign domina- 
 tion. Charles VII., the legitimate heir of the 
 throne, and decidedly the object of the national 
 attachment, was a fugitive, confined to a nar- 
 row corner of the kingdom, and losing every 
 day some portion of his remaining resources. 
 These events made a great impression upon 
 Jeanne. The village of Dornremy, it appears, 
 was almost universally attached to the cause of 
 Charles. In her eyes especially it was the 
 cause of Heaven as well as of France. While 
 she lived at Neufchateau she enjoyed better op- 
 portunities of learning the progress of public 
 affairs. Martial feelings here began to mix 
 themselves with her religious enthusiasm a 
 union common and natural in those times, 
 however incongruous it may appear in ours. 
 Her sex, which excluded her from the profes- 
 sion of arms, seemed to her almost a degrading 
 yoke, which it became her to disregard and to 
 throw off. She applied herself accordingly to
 
 23G REPRESENTATIVE WOMEN. 
 
 manly exercises, which at once invigorated her 
 frame, and added a glow of finer animation to 
 her beauty. In particular she acquired the art 
 of managing her horse with the boldness and 
 skill of the most accomplished cavalier. 
 
 It was on the 24th of February, 1429, that 
 Jeanne first presented herself before King 
 Charles at Chinon, a town lying a considerable 
 distance below Orleans on the south side of 
 the Loire. She was dressed in male attire, 
 and armed from head to foot ; and in this dis- 
 guise she had travelled in company with a few 
 individuals whom she had persuaded to attend 
 her one hundred and fifty leagues through a 
 country in possession of the enemy. She told 
 his Majesty that she came, commissioned by 
 Heaven, to restore him to the throne of his 
 ancestors. There can be little doubt that 
 Charles himself, or some of his advisers, in the 
 desperate state to which his affairs were re- 
 duced, conceived the plan of turning the pre- 
 tensions of the enthusiast, wild as they might 
 be deemed, to some account. Such a scheme 
 was not nearly so unlikely to suggest itself, or 
 so unpromising, in that age, as it would be in 
 ours : as the result which followed in the 
 present instance abundantly proves. At this 
 time the town of Orleans, the principal place 
 of strength which still held out for Charles, 
 and which formed the key to the only portion 
 of the kingdom where his sway was acknow- 
 ledged, was pressed by the besieging forces of 
 the English, and reduced to the most hopeless 
 extremity. Some weeks were spent in various 
 proceedings intended to throw around the en-
 
 THE JANES. 2-37 
 
 terprise of the Maid such show of Divine pro- 
 tection as might give the requisite effect to her 
 appearance. At last, on the 29th of April, 
 mounted on her white steed, and with her 
 standard carried before her, she dashed forward 
 at the head of a convoy with provisions, and 
 in spite of all the opposition of the enemy 
 forced her way into the beleaguered city. This 
 was the beginning of a rapid succession of 
 exploits vvhich assumed the character of mira- 
 cles. In a few sallies she drove the besiegers 
 from every post. Nothing could stand before 
 her gallantry, and the enthusiasm of those who 
 in following her standard believed that the 
 invincible might of Heaven itself was leading 
 them on. On the 8th of May the enemy, who 
 had encompassed the place since the 12th of 
 the preceding October, raised the siege, and 
 retired in terror and disorder. From this date 
 the English domination in France withered 
 like an uprooted tree. In a few days after 
 followed the battle of Patay, when a great 
 victory was won by the French forces under 
 the command of the Maid over the enemy, 
 conducted by the brave and able Talbot. Two 
 thousand five hundred of the English were left 
 dead on the field ; and twelve hundred were 
 taken prisoners, among whom was the general 
 himself. Town after town now opened its 
 gates to the .victors, the English garrison re- 
 tiring in general without a blow. On the 16'th 
 of July Itheims surrendered ; and the following 
 day Charles was solemnly consecrated and 
 crowned in the cathedral there. Having now, 
 as she said, fulfilled her mission, the Maid of
 
 238 REPRESENTATIVE WOMEN. 
 
 Orleans petitioned her royal master to suffer 
 her to return to the quiet and obscurity of her 
 native village and her former condition. Charles's 
 entreaties and commands unfortunately pre- 
 vailed upon her to forego this resolution. Ho- 
 nours were now lavishly bestowed upon her. 
 A medal was struck in celebration of her 
 achievements, and letters of nobility were 
 granted to herself and to every member of her 
 family. Many gallant and successful exploits 
 illustrate her subsequent history ; but these 
 we cannot stop to enumerate. Her end was 
 lamentable indelibly disgraceful to England, 
 and hardly less so to Frances On the 24th of 
 May, 1430, while heroically fighting against 
 the army of the Duke of Burgundy under the 
 walls of Compeigne, she was shamefully shut 
 out from the city which she was defending, 
 through the contrivance of the governor ; and 
 being left almost alone, was, after performing 
 prodigies of valour, compelled to surrender to 
 the enemy. John of Luxembourg, into whose 
 hands she fell, some time after sold her for a 
 sum of ten thousand livres to the Duke of 
 Bedford. She was then brought to Rouen, 
 and tried on an accusation of sorcery. The 
 contrivances which were resorted to in order to 
 procure evidence of her guilt exhibit a course 
 of proceedings as cruel and infamous as any 
 recorded in the annals of judicial iniquity : and 
 on the 30th of May, 1431, she was sentenced 
 to be burned at the stake. During all this 
 time no attempt had been made by the un- 
 grateful and worthless prince, whom she had 
 restored to a throne, to effect her liberation.
 
 " THE JANES. 239 
 
 In the midst of her calamities the feminine 
 softness of her nature resumed its sway, and 
 she pleaded hard that she might be allowed to 
 live. But her protestations and entreaties 
 were alike in vain ; on the following day the 
 horrid sentence was carried into execution in, 
 the market-place of Rouen. The poor un- 
 happy victim died courageously and nobly as 
 she had lived ; and the name of her Redeemer 
 was the last sound her lips were heard to utter 
 from amidst the flames. 
 
 Thus was perpetrated by the rancour of na- 
 tional animosity another deed as dishonourable 
 to the fair fame of England as the murder of 
 Wallace in the preceding century. How sadly 
 does this act of cruelty, vengeance, and foul 
 injustice tarnish the glory of Oressy, Poictiers, 
 and Agincourt ! But the contest in which 
 these great victories were won was from the 
 beginning a work of injustice and folly. As 
 waged between the Kings of England and 
 France, it was, to say the least, commenced 
 and carried on by the former on grounds of 
 very dubious right. Edward III. even ac- 
 quiesced for several years without a murmur, 
 in the succession of Philip of Valois to the 
 French throne, before he took up arms to en- 
 deavour to displace him. But surely such a 
 controversy did not concern merely these two 
 sovereigns as individuals. If there was a 
 doubt as to which was best entitled by descent 
 to the vacant crown, the unquestionable pre- 
 ference of the nation for Philip ought to have 
 been considered at once decisive as to their 
 conflicting pretensions. Regarded in another
 
 210 REPRESENTATIVE WOMEN. 
 
 point of view, these attempts of England to 
 conquer France were still more objectionable 
 and absurd. If they had succeeded, no greater 
 calamity could have befallen this island, which 
 in that case, would have been reduced to a mere 
 province of the larger country. But although 
 this catastrophe was fortunately prevented, and, 
 to all appearance, by the instrumentality of the 
 Maid of Orleans, other results of the most 
 disastrous description followed to both nations. 
 The waste of resources occasioned by these 
 wars, the quantity of blood that was shed on 
 both sides, the misery and demoralization that 
 were spread over the fairest portion of Europe, 
 are such as cannot be thought of without 
 horror. Above all, however, and forming per- 
 haps their most serious consequence, because 
 an evil of the longest duration, was the bitter 
 national hatred which they engendered between 
 the inhabitants of two countries placed in the 
 most favourable relation for friendly intercourse, 
 and formed by nature to strive together in the 
 race of civilization, instead of thus to waste 
 their energies for each other's annoyance and 
 destruction.
 
 241 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS REPRESENTATIVE WOMEN. 
 
 VERY appropriately closing this volume, we 
 may now append a few instances of those illus- 
 trious women in more humble life who have 
 vindicated the dignity and the character of 
 womanhood : many of the instances may not 
 be well known, some better known, but by 
 them we shall still further illustrate how 
 women in the simple working of private life, 
 and in the more marked and striking excep- 
 tions to ordinary life, exhibit their bravery, and 
 heroism, and tenderness. 
 
 CATHERINE VASSENT, the daughter of a 
 French peasant, exhibited at the age of seven- 
 teen, and in the humble capacity of a menial, 
 a proof of intrepid persevering sympathy which 
 ranks her with the noblest of her sex. 
 
 A common sewer of considerable depth 
 having been opened at Noyon for the purpose 
 of repair, four men passing by late in the 
 evening unfortunately fell in, no precautions 
 having been taken to prevent so probable an 
 accident. It was almost midnight before their 
 situation was known; and besides the difficulty 
 of procuring assistance at that unseasonable 
 hour, every one present was intimidated from' 
 if
 
 242 REPRESENTATIVE WOMEN. 
 
 exposing himself to similar danger by attempt- 
 ing to rescue theso unfortunate wretches, who 
 appeared alre<*dy in a state of suffocation from 
 the mephitic vapor. 
 
 Fearless or ignorant of danger, and irre- 
 sistibly impelled by the cries of their wives 
 and children, who surrounded the spot, Cathe- 
 rine Vassent, a servant of the town, insisted on 
 being lowered without delay into the noxious 
 opening, and fastening a cord, with which she 
 had furnished herself previous to her descent, 
 round two of their bodies, assisted by those 
 above, she restored them to life and their fami- 
 lies ; but, in descending a second time, her 
 breath began to fail, and after effectually secur- 
 ing a cord to the body of a third man, she had 
 sufficient presence of mind, although in a faint- 
 ing condition, to fix a rope firmly to her own 
 hair, which hung in long and luxuriant curls 
 round a full but well-formed neck. Her neigh- 
 bours, who felt no inclination to imitate her 
 heroism, had willingly contributed such assist- 
 ance as they could afford compatible with 
 safety, and pulling up as they thought the 
 third's man's body, were equally concerned and 
 surprised to see the almost lifeless body of 
 Catherine suspended by the hair, and swinging 
 on the same cord. Fresh air, with eau de vie, 
 soon restored this excellent girl ; and I know 
 not whether most to admire her generous forti- 
 tude in a third time exploring the pestilential 
 cavern, which had almost proved fatal to her 
 or to execrate the dastardly meanness and self- 
 ish cowardice of the bystanders for not sharing 
 the glorious danger. In consequence of the
 
 CITY PRESERVED BY MILKMAIDS. 
 
 delay produced by her indisposition, the fourth 
 man was drawn up a lifeless and irrecoverable 
 
 corpse. 
 
 Such conduct did not pass unnoticed: a pro- 
 cession of the corporation, and a solemn " Te 
 Deum," were celebrated on the occasion ; Ca- 
 therine received the public thanks of the Duke 
 of Orleans, the Bishop of Noyon, the town 
 magistrates, and an emblematical medal, with 
 considerable pecuniary contributions, and a 
 civic crown : to these were added the congratu- 
 lations of her own heart, that inestimable 
 reward of a benevolent mind. 
 
 THE CITY OF DORT, IN HOLLAND, PRESERVED 
 BY MILKMAIDS. During the wars in the Low 
 Countries, the Spaniards intended to besiege 
 the City of Dort, in Holland, and accordingly 
 planted some thousands of soldiers in ambush, 
 to be ready for the attack when opportunity 
 might offer. On the confines of the city lived 
 a rich farmer, who kept a number of cows on 
 his grounds, to furnish the city with butter 
 and milk. His milkmaids, at this time, 
 coming to milk their cows, saw under the 
 hedges the soldiers lying in ambush, but seemed 
 to take no notice ; and having milked their 
 cows, went away singing merrily. On coming 
 to their master's house, they told him what 
 they had seen, who, astonished at the relation, 
 took one of the maids with him to a burgo- 
 master at Dort, who immediately sent a spy to 
 ascertain the truth of the stoiy. Finding the 
 report correct, he began to prepare for safety, 
 and instantly sent to the States, who ordered
 
 244 REPRESENTATIVE WOMEN*. 
 
 soldiers into the city, and commanded the 
 river to be let in by a certain sluice, which 
 would instantly lay that part of the country 
 under water where the besiegers lay in ambush. 
 This was forthwith done, and a great number 
 of the Spaniards were drowned ; the rest, being 
 disappointed in their design, escaped, and the 
 town was thus providentially saved. The 
 States, to commemorate the memory of the 
 merry milkmaid's good service to the country, 
 ordered the farmer a large revenue for ever, 
 to recompense him for the loss of his house, 
 land, and cattle ; and caused the coin of the 
 city to have a milkmaid, milking a cow, to be 
 engraven thereon, which is to be seen at this 
 day, upon the Dort dollars, stivers, and doights; 
 and similar figures were also to be set up on 
 the water-gate of the Dort : and the milkmaid 
 was allowed for her own life, and her heirs for 
 ever, a very handsome annuity. 
 
 NAN CLARGES, THE BLACKSMITH'S DAUGH- 
 TER. The famous George Monk, afterwards 
 Duke of Albemarle, and the chief agent in 
 effecting the Restoration, was in early life an 
 officer in the service of Charles I., when that 
 monarch was engaged in contention with his 
 Parliament. While in this employment, the 
 fortune of war threw Colonel Monk into the 
 hands of the adverse general, Fairfax, by whom 
 he was sent to the Tower of London. Here 
 he lay for two years, choosing rather to endure 
 all the rigours of confinement and poverty, than 
 to accept the inviting offers made to him by 
 the anti-royalist party, to whom his military
 
 NAN CLARGES. 245 
 
 abilities were already well known. In fact, 
 George Monk would probably have fallen a 
 victim to the severities of his fate in the Tower, 
 but for the assistance which he derived from a 
 very humble source. A poor girl, the daughter 
 of a blacksmith, named Clarges, had served 
 Colonel Monk in the capacity of sempstress. 
 Anne, or, as she was much more commonly 
 called, Nan Clarges, was far from being hand- 
 some ; it is even said that she was far from 
 being nice or cleanly in her garb and exterior. 
 But Monk was in want, and the girl exerted 
 herself to give him aid. To her, it is said, he 
 frequently owed the food required for his sus- 
 tenance, when he had no visible means of ob- 
 taining it from another quarter. Monk was 
 noted all his days for being a man of plain 
 tastes. It is the less, therefore, to ^e wondered 
 at that he gave his affections to this humble 
 minister to his necessities. No marriage took 
 place at this time ; but when Monk cast aside 
 his scruples so far as to accept a command from 
 Cromwell against the Irish, and in this and 
 other employments had risen to high distinction 
 among the Commonwealth leaders, Nan Clarges 
 became his wife, notwithstanding the lowness 
 of her origin, her own degraded condition, and 
 the character of her kindred. The last must 
 have been the most serious difficulty to sur- 
 mount, one would think, as the mother of Nan 
 Clarges was a woman (according to Aubrey) of 
 by no means fair reputation, and was, besides, 
 " one of five women barbers," so notorious all 
 of them in the city, that a ballad was made- 
 upon them, the burden of which ran thus :
 
 246 REPRESENTATIVE WOMEN. 
 
 Did you ever hear the like, 
 
 Or ever hear the same, 
 Of five women barbers, 
 
 That lived in Drury-Lane ? 
 
 Nevertheless, as the lady of General Monk, 
 Nan filled no mean place in the eye of the 
 world during the times of the Oomwells ; and 
 when these were past, the share which her 
 husband had in placing Charles II. on his 
 throne, made her a British peeress of the first 
 rank, namely, Duchess of Albemarle. Her 
 understanding, it is said, was not unworthy of 
 such a station, and this, probably, was the 
 quality which Monk valued in her. In Gran- 
 ger's Biographical History of England, we are 
 informed that the general " often consulted her 
 in the greatest emergencies." How odd to 
 think that the continuation of monarchy in 
 Britain materially depended on a sempstress 
 girl, the daughter of a poor blacksmith, and a 
 woman-barber of low fame ! Yet such seems 
 to have been the case. Monk could have 
 turned the balance as he chose, previously to 
 the Restoration, and his wife, the most in- 
 fluential of his counsellors, was a thorough 
 royalist. " It is probable (says Granger) that 
 she had no inconsiderable share in the Restora- 
 tion. She is supposed to have recommended 
 several of the privy-councillors in the list which 
 the general presented to the king on landing." 
 The Duchess of Albemarle did a worse act 
 than aiding to restore the king, when she per- 
 suaded Monk to abet the fall of one of the best 
 statesmen England ever possessed. " She was
 
 NAN CLAB.GES. 
 
 247 
 
 an implacable enemy to Lord Clarendon, and 
 had so great an influence over her husband, as 
 to prevail with him to help to ruin that excel- 
 lent man, though he was one of his best friends." 
 On account of the latter circumstances, we 
 must perhaps take with some reservation the 
 many charges brought against the duchess in 
 the Continuation of Clarendon's Life. _ Certain 
 it is, however, that her husband's influence 
 enabled her to carry on a lucrative trade in 
 selling offices, which always w.ent to the highest 
 bidder. Another fault of hers is more certain 
 that she retained the low manners of her 
 early life to her dying hour. Her temper was 
 one that soon " took fire, and her anger knew 
 no bounds. She was a great mistress of all 
 the low eloquence of abusive rage, and seldom 
 failed to discharge a volley of vulgar execrations 
 against such as thoroughly provoked her. No- 
 thing is more certain than that the intrepid 
 commander, who was never afraid of bullets, 
 was often terrified by the fury of his wife." 
 
 Samuel Pepys, secretary to the admiralty in 
 Charles II."s time, tells us, in his candid and 
 curious diary, that the Duchess of Albemarle 
 was a "plain, homely dowdy," and a "very 
 ill-looked woman." He also gives various 
 anecdotes of her want of breeding and her 
 shrewish temper. She uttered a most affront- 
 ing saying respecting Lord Sandwich on an 
 occasion when Pepys and other chief intimates 
 of Lord Sandwich were present. " At table 
 the duchesse, complaining of her lord's going 
 to sea next year, uttered these biting words : 
 * If my lord had been, a coward, he had gone to
 
 248 REPRESENTATIVE WOMEN'. 
 
 sea no more : it may be then he might have 
 been excused and made an ambassador, (mean- 
 ing Lord Sandwich). This made me mad, 
 and I believed she perceived my countenance 
 change, and blushed herself very much." Pepys 
 also tells us of her selling offices. For exam- 
 ple, " My Lady Monk hath disposed of all the 
 places which Mr. Edward Montague hoped to 
 nave had, which I am afraid will undo him, as 
 he depended much upon the profit of what he 
 should make by these places :" which show 
 us that, after all, as far as offices were con- 
 cerned, the duchess only did as those around 
 her did at that period. 
 
 The following story is from the pages of the 
 " Life of Joanna, Queen of Naples," an inte- 
 resting work published some years ago, which 
 deserves to be better known, particularly by all 
 who feel anxious to think as well of their 
 fellow-creatures as possible. It struck us when 
 we read it, both the first and second time (for 
 we have given it two thorough perusals), as 
 furnishing an ample vindication of the charac- 
 ter of an excellent woman, who, by one of 
 those freaks of fortune that sometimes occur in 
 history, has been hitherto set down as a pro- 
 verbial instance of cruel and inordinate pas- 
 sions. Camiola's story has been dramatized by 
 Massinger. 
 
 " The magnanimity of a lady of Messina, 
 called CAMIOLA TURINGA, who flourished in the 
 childhood of Joanna (says our author), has 
 procured her a place among the illustrious 
 women of Boccaccio ; and though he has re-
 
 CAMIOLA TUUINGA. 249 
 
 corded no daring deed of heroism, her history- 
 would have furnished an affecting tale to his 
 ' Decameron,' had he contrasted her lofty spirit, 
 not less feminine, though more noble, with the 
 passive meekness of Griselda. 
 
 " Toward the close of the reign of King 
 Robert, Orlando of Arragon rashly encountering 
 the Neapolitan fleet was made captive and 
 imprisoned in one of the castles of Naples. His 
 brother, Peter, King of Sicily, refused to ran- 
 som him, as he had occasioned the loss of the 
 Sicilian armament by his temerity in engaging 
 the Neapolitans contrary to his express com- 
 mand. 
 
 " The young and handsome prince, un- 
 friended and almost forgotten, remained long in 
 prison, and would have been doomed for life to 
 pine away in hopeless captivity, had not his 
 wretched fate excited the pity of Camipla 
 Turinga, a wealthy lady of Messina, distin- 
 guished for every feminine grace and virtue. 
 Desirous of procuring his liberty without com- 
 promising his fair fame, and perhaps actuated 
 by sentiments still more powerful than com- 
 passion, she sent a trusty messenger to his dun- 
 geon at Naples, to offer to pay his ransom, on 
 condition of his marrying her on his return to 
 Messina. Orlando, overjoyed at his unexpected 
 good fortune, willingly sent her a contract of 
 marriage ; but she had no sooner purchased his 
 liberty than he denied all knowledge of her, 
 and treated her with scorn. 
 
 " The slighted maiden carried her cause be- 
 ore the royal tribunal ; and Peter of Arragon, 
 convinced of the necessity of governing the 
 
 A 1 2
 
 250 REPRESENTATIVE WOMEN. 
 
 Sicilians with justice, as his empire depended 
 solely on the affections of the people, adjudged 
 Orlando to Camiola, as he was, in fact, accord- 
 ing to the custom of the times and the laws of 
 war, a slave whom she had purchased with her 
 treasure. In consequence of this decree a day 
 was appointed for their marriage, and Orlando 
 accompanied by a splendid retinue repaired to 
 the house of Camiola, whom he found decked 
 out in the customary magnificence of silks and 
 jewels. But Camiola, instead of proffering the 
 vows of love and obedience which the haughty 
 prince expected to hear, told him she scorned 
 to degrade herself by a union with one who 
 had debased his royal birth and his knighthood 
 by so foul a breach of faith, and that she could 
 now only bestow on him, not her hand, of 
 which he had proved himself unworthy, but 
 the ransom she had paid, which she esteemed 
 a gift worthy a man of mean and sordid soul. 
 Herself and her remaining riches she vowed to 
 dedicate to heaven. 
 
 *' No entreaties availed to change her resolu- 
 tion ; and Orlando, shunned by his peers as a 
 dishonoured man, too late regretted the bride 
 he had lost, and falling into a profound melan- 
 choly died in obscurity and neglect." 
 
 THE ACTRESS AND THE METHODIST. 
 During Mrs. JORDAN'S short stay at Chester, 
 where she had been performing, her washer- 
 woman, a widow, with three small children, 
 was by a merciless creditor thrown into prison. 
 A small debt of about forty shillings had in- 
 creased in a short time, by law expenses, to
 
 THE ACTRESS AND METHODIST. 251 
 
 eight pounds. As soon as Mrs. Jordan bad 
 heard of the circumstance she sent for the 
 attorney, paid him the demand, and observed, 
 with as much severity as her good-natured 
 countenance could assume : 
 
 " You lawyers are certainly infernal spirits, 
 allowed on earth to make poor mortals mise- 
 rable." 
 
 The attorney, however, pocketed the affront, 
 and with a low bow made his exit. 
 
 On the afternoon of the same day the poor 
 woman was liberated. As Mrs. Jordan was 
 taking her usual walk with her servant, the 
 widow with her children followed her, and just 
 as she had taken shelter from a shower of rain, 
 in- a kind of porch, dropping on her knees, and 
 with much grateful emotion exclaimed, 
 
 " God for ever bless you, madam ! you have 
 saved me and my poor children from ruin." 
 
 The children, beholding their mother's tears, 
 added by their cries to the affecting scene, 
 which a sensitive mind could not behold but 
 with strong feelings of sympathy. The natural 
 liveliness of Mrs. Jordan's disposition was not 
 easily damped by sorrowful scenes. However, 
 although she strove to hide it, the tear of feel- 
 ing stole down her cheek, and, stooping to kiss 
 the children, she slipped a pound note into the 
 mother's hand, and in her usual playful man- 
 ner replied : 
 
 " There, there ; now it's all over. Go, good 
 woman, God bless you ! Dotf t say another 
 word." 
 
 The grateful creature would have replied,
 
 252 KEPRESENTATIVE WOMEN'. 
 
 but her benefactress insisted on her silence and 
 departure. 
 
 It happened that another person had taken 
 shelter under the porch, and witnessed the 
 whole of this interesting scene, who, as soon as 
 Mrs. Jordan observed him, came forward, and 
 holding out his hand, exclaimed with a deep 
 sigh : 
 
 " Lady, pardon the freedom of a stranger, 
 but would to the Lord they were all like 
 thee !" 
 
 The figure of this man bespoke his calling. 
 His countenance was pale, and a suit of sable, 
 rather the worse for wear, covered his tall and 
 spare person. The penetrating eye of Thalia's 
 favourite votary soon developed his character 
 and profession, and with her wonted good 
 humour, retreating a few paces, replied : 
 
 " No, I won't shake hands with you." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 " Because you are a Methodist preacher, and 
 when you know 'who I arn, you'll send me to 
 the devil !" 
 
 " The Lord forbid ! I am, as you say, a 
 preacher of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, who 
 tells us to clothe the naked, feed the hungry, 
 and relieve the distressed ; and do you think I 
 can behold a sinner fulfilling the commands of 
 my great Master without feeling that spiritual 
 attachment which leads me to break through 
 worldly customs, and offer you the hand of 
 friendship and brotherly love ?" 
 
 " Well, well, you are a good old soul, I dare 
 say ; but I don't like fanatics, and you'll not 
 like me when I tell you I am a player."
 
 MRS. WINTER. 
 
 The preacher sighed. 
 
 " Yes, I am a player ; and you must have 
 heard of me. Mrs. Jordan is my name." 
 
 After a short pause, he again extended his 
 hand, and with a complaisant countenance 
 replied : 
 
 " The Lord bless thee, whoever thou art. 
 His goodness is unlimited. He has poured on 
 thee a large portion of his Spirit ; and as to 
 thy calling, if thy soul upbraid thee not, the 
 Lord forbid that I should." 
 
 Thus reconciled, and the rain having abated, 
 they left the porch together. The offer of his 
 arm was accepted, and the female Koscius of 
 comedy, and the disciple of John Wesley pro- 
 ceeded, arm in arm, to the door of Mrs. Jor- 
 dan's dwelling. At parting, the preacher shook 
 hands with her, saying : 
 
 " Fare thee well, sister. I know not what 
 the principles of thy calling may be. Thou 
 art the first I ever conversed with ; but if their 
 benevolent practices equal thine, I hope and 
 trust, at the great day, the Almighty God will 
 say to each, ' Thy sins are forgiven thee*" 
 
 Somewhere about the year 1740, there lived 
 at Stourbridge a respectable family of the So- 
 ciety of Friends, of the name of WINTER. 
 They occupied a house contiguous to the prin- 
 cipal inn of the town, and their windows over- 
 looked the yard. Mrs. Winter was a clever, 
 amiable woman, and the lady at the inn gene- 
 rally consulted her in any case of domestic dif- 
 ficulty. It happened that there was a number 
 of soldiers quartered in the town, and the
 
 254 HKPRESENTATIVE WOMEN. 
 
 officers'* head quarters was at this inn. One of 
 these officers was given to hahits of intem- 
 perance ; and sometimes, after hard drinking, 
 he became quarrelsome and irrational, ap- 
 proaching even to madness. One afternoon, 
 having sat long over the bottle, a difference 
 arose between him and a brother officer, when 
 he became so furious, through intoxication, 
 that he drew his sword, and dared his oppo- 
 nent to single combat, at the same time rush- 
 ing into the yard ready for the bloody purpose. 
 There he continued raving and reeling for 
 some time, with his naked sword flourishing 
 about, making very ludicrous gesticulations, 
 and shouting forth most amusing pot-valiant 
 defiances, when a number of thoughtless peo- 
 ple gathered around him to enjoy the fun. At 
 this juncture, the landlady observing the scene, 
 concluded that murder would most assuredly 
 follow, and that for which her husband, who 
 was then absent, might be seriously brought 
 into trouble ; and she was so affected at the 
 sight that she fainted. In this dilemma Mrs. 
 Winter was hastily applied to for advice and 
 assistance ; and having surveyed the ground, 
 she immediately perceived the danger the peo- 
 ple were in of being wounded or killed, through 
 some eccentric lounge of the drunken warrior ; 
 and she paused a few moments to consider if 
 she could do anything to avert such a catas- 
 trophe. Confiding in the purity of her mo- 
 tives, she now put on her bonnet and proceeded 
 to the scene of action. Having quietly made 
 her way through the crowd, she placed herself 
 directly before the vaunting soldier, at the
 
 MRS. WINTER. Z-J t > 
 
 same time looking him placidly in the face. 
 His countenance quickly fell, and he ceased 
 his boasting, gazing on his unexpected visitant 
 with awe and reverence, as though she had 
 been an angel. Mrs. Winter now very gently 
 put her hand on the hilt of his sword, when he 
 unconsciously relaxed his grasp, and she drew 
 it away from him. 
 
 Having secured the dangerous weapon, she 
 carried it home to her own apartment, to the 
 no small amusement of those who witnessed 
 the hazardous deed. The drunken man having 
 stared vacantly about him for some time, stag- 
 gered off to his quarters, and slept away the 
 fumes of his potations. On awakening a few 
 hours afterwards, his recollection returned, and 
 he inquired anxiously for his sword, as his ap- 
 pearance without it on parade next morning 
 might lead to. some very awkward inquiries. 
 He, therefore, sent his servant, with Major 
 
 "s compliments to Mrs. Winter, and 
 
 begged that she would return the weapon. 
 Her answer was, that she had it safely locked 
 up in her closet, and if he himself would call 
 in the morning, she would deliver it to him. 
 These were hard terms for a British officer to 
 submit to, but he very prudently considered, 
 under present circumstances, it was the best 
 policy to yield. 
 
 In the morning the major arose, fully sen- 
 sible of the folly he had been guilty of, and the 
 dilemma in which he had placed himself. He, 
 however, determined now to pursue the only 
 right course before him, (mortifying as it was 
 to his feelings,) and he accordingly sought an*
 
 256 REPRESENTATIVE WOMEN*. 
 
 interview with Mrs. Winter, to whom he apo- 
 logized very amply, and acknowledged himself 
 under the greatest obligation for her kind and 
 timely interference. Mrs. Winter then restored 
 his sword, desiring him to replace it in the 
 scabbard ; after which she delivered him a 
 short lecture on the benefits arising from tem- 
 perance and peace. Promising to be more cir- 
 cumspect in his future conduct, and again 
 thanking her for her kindness, he departed, let 
 us hope, a somewhat wiser and better man. 
 
 The annals of 1780 record a remarkable case 
 where a long course of robbery was brought to 
 light, and a frightful murder prevented in the 
 very act, by a woman's courage. Abraham 
 Danford, the chief criminal in the transaction, 
 himself detailed with minute accuracy his 
 course from the first act of dishonesty to the 
 ferocious outrage which cost him his life. The 
 skill and tact requisite for carrying out his 
 first plans hardly prepare us for the more 
 ruffianly atrocity which concludes his career. 
 
 At that period, money was chiefly sent by 
 parcel, and an ingenious plan occurred to him 
 by which he could, with little risk, put himself 
 in possession of any parcel which struck him 
 as likely to be of particular value, while it vet 
 lay in the carrier's office previous to delivery. 
 " The method (says his confession) which I 
 chiefly put in practice, was forging the post- 
 marks of the different towns, which I put on 
 a piece of paper, made up as a letter, and then 
 went to the inns where the coaches came, and 
 heard the parcels called over ; then went to a 
 public-house near, and wrote the direction of
 
 MRS. BOUCHIER. 2-57 
 
 the letter the same as was on the parcel I had 
 fixed on. The book-keeper seeing the direction 
 the same, and the post mark on it, they usually 
 gave me what I asked for, on paying their 
 demand.'' 
 
 The addresses on the parcels would give him 
 some idea of their value, and of six of these 
 thefts that he records, five contained consider- 
 able sums of money. Among his first experi- 
 ments, was one on Messrs. Smith, Wright, 
 and Grey, bankers, by which he got a parcel 
 with 500 enclosed. Having gone on a con- 
 siderable time with impunity, and become an 
 adept at forging, he now practised upon the 
 same house in another way, by forging an ac- 
 cepted bill, which he lodged in the bank till it 
 became due. This pretended bill he directed 
 to an empty house in Water-lane, Blackfriarp, 
 and some days before it was due, he hired tkis 
 house, and with an impudent show of haste 
 and anxiety, requested the key, under the pre- 
 tence of getting it aired before he entered 
 upon it. The owner of the house being made 
 acquainted with the haste of his new tenant, 
 and not much liking his appearance, now went 
 to one MRS. BOUCHIER, the landlady of a public- 
 house opposite, of whose good sense he had had 
 reason to form a high opinion, and requested 
 her to keep watch upon the man's proceedings, 
 which she promised to do. 
 
 For some time, nothing remarkable hap- 
 pened, but on the day on which the bill be- 
 came due, Messrs. Smith, Wright, and Grey, 
 despatched one of their clerks, VVilliam Waits, 
 a Quaker, to pay the money to the person in-
 
 258 REPRESENTATIVE WOMEN. 
 
 dicated in the bill. It is not quite certain 
 whether Danford meditated violence before- 
 hand ; it may be that the man's subdued and 
 defenceless appearance suggested the attack at 
 the moment; but the presence of an accom- 
 plice, prepared for any atrocity, leads rather 
 to the supposition that the crime was premedi- 
 tated ; and that taking for granted that a clerk 
 calling to discount a bill might have other 
 errands of the same kind before him, and, 
 therefore, much money on his person, they 
 had planned, in cold blood, to rob and murder 
 him. 
 
 Mrs. Bouchier, who, after the instructions 
 she had received, was on the watch, observed 
 on that day two men enter the house, and 
 open the parlour window. Some time after, 
 a third person, a Quaker, came up, knocked at 
 the door, was admitted, and the door closed 
 and fastened behind him. Something in the 
 circumstances and the appearance of the first 
 men excited her suspicion, and she kept her 
 eye and her attention fixed upon the house. 
 Presently she thought she heard a strange noise 
 proceed from it, not loud, but which she could 
 not account for. She crossed over the street, 
 and listening attentively, soon heard the word 
 " murder" pronounced in a Hoarse, faint voice, 
 succeeded by a kind of groaning, which very 
 much alarmed her : and looking through the 
 key-hole of the bouse door, she saw two men 
 dragging the unfortunate Quaker down the 
 cellar stairs. On this, she screamed out to the 
 passers-by, that they were murdering a man 
 within the house, and while she knocked
 
 MRS. BoucniuR. 259 
 
 violently at the door, called upon the people in 
 the street to break it open ; but with that 
 apathy which is sometimes met with in such a 
 crisis, no one would stir, or regard her exclam- 
 ations. Enraged at their stupidity, she broke 
 open the parlour window herself, and as she 
 was forcing her way through, one of the villains 
 who had been interrupted and alarmed by the 
 knocking, opened the door, and was running off 
 at full speed. At the sight of him, however, the 
 lookers-on roused themselves, set up a cry of 
 " Stop thief," and presently made him their 
 prisoner. The other ruffian Mrs. Bouchier her- 
 self seized by the throat, and dragged him 
 across the street to her own house. It ap- 
 peared that the villains had first robbed the 
 poor man of his pocket-book, and then, to stop 
 Lis cries, had nearly throttled him, while they 
 were hurrying him down the back-cellar stairs, 
 thereto complete their crime by his murder; 
 a design which would certainly have been 
 carried out, but for this woman's fortitude and 
 presence of mind, thus providentially interfering 
 for his protection. 
 
 When the two prisoners were brought before 
 the Lord Mayor for examination, William 
 Waits, as a Quaker, refused to give evidence 
 upon oath of the assault that had been made 
 upon him. Arguments were used in vain, 
 and it was much feared that the villains would 
 escape for want of sufficient evidence against 
 them. In the end, however, Mrs. Bouchier's 
 testimony, and that of her assistants, was 
 deemed conclusive. The prisoners were con- 
 demned and executed, with several others, at
 
 2GO REPRESENTATIVE WOMEN 
 
 Tyburn, having previously made great profes- 
 sions of penitence and contrition. 
 
 HELEN WALKER was the daughter of a small 
 farmer of Dalwhairn, in the parish of Irongray, 
 in the county of Dumfries, where, after the 
 death of her father, she continued to reside, 
 supporting her widowed mother by her own 
 unremitting labour and privations. On the 
 death of her remaining parent she was left with 
 the charge of her sister Isabella, much younger 
 than herself, and whom she educated and 
 maintained by her own exertions. Attached 
 to her by so many ties, it is not easy to con- 
 ceive her feelings when she found this sister 
 must be tried by the laws of her country for 
 child-murder, and that she herself was called 
 upon to give evidence against her. In this 
 moment of shame and anguish she was told by 
 the counsel for the prisoner, that, if she could 
 declare that her sister had made any prepar- 
 ations, however slight, or had given her any 
 intimation on the subject, such a statement 
 would save her sister's life, as she was the 
 principal witness against her. Helen's answer 
 was : " It is impossible for me to swear to a 
 falsehood, whatever may be the consequence ; 
 I will give my oath according to my conscience." 
 
 The trial came on, and Isabella Walker was 
 found guilty and condemned. In removing 
 her from the bar she was heard to say to her 
 sister : "0 Nelly, ye have been the cause of 
 my death ;" when Helen replied " Ye ken I 
 bute speak the truth." In Scotland six weeks 
 must elapse between the sentence and the
 
 HELEN WALKER. 261 
 
 execution ; and of this precious interval Helen 
 knew how to avail herself. Whether her 
 scheme had been long and carefully considered, 
 or was the inspiration of a hold and vigorous 
 mind in the moment of its greatest anguish 
 at her sister's reproach, we cannot tell ; but 
 the very day of the condemnation she found 
 strength for exertion and for thought. Her 
 first step was to get a petition drawn up, stating 
 the peculiar circumstances of her sister's case ; 
 she then borrowed a sum of money necessary 
 for her expenses ; and that same night set out 
 on her journey, barefooted and alone, and in 
 due time reached London in safety, having 
 performed the whole distance from Dumfries 
 on foot. Arrived in London, she made her 
 way at once to John, Duke of Argyle. With- 
 out introduction or recommendation of any 
 kind, wrapped in her tartan plaid, and carrying 
 her petition in her hand, she succeeded in gain- 
 ing an audience, and presented herself before 
 him. She was heard afterwards to say, that, 
 by the Almighty's strength, she had been enabled 
 to meet the duke at a most critical moment, 
 which, if lost, would have taken away the only 
 chance for her sister's life. There must have been 
 a most convincing air of truth and sincerity 
 about her, for the duke interested himself at 
 once in her cause, and immediately procured 
 the pardon she petitioned for, with which 
 Helen returned to Dumfries on foot, just in 
 time to save her sister's life. 
 
 Isabella, or Tibby Walker, thus saved from 
 the fate wbTi'ch impended over her, was event- 
 ually married by Waugh, the man who had
 
 262 REPRESENTATIVE WOMEN. 
 
 wronged her, and lived happily for great part 
 of a century, in or near Whitehaven, uni- 
 formly acknowledging the extraordinary af- 
 fection to which she owed her preservation. 
 It may have been previous to her marriage 
 that the following incident happened : A 
 gentleman who chanced to be travelling in the 
 north of England, on coming to a small inn, 
 was shown into the parlour by a female servant, 
 who, after cautiously shutting the door, said 
 " Sir, I am Nelly Walker's sister ;" thus show- 
 ing her hope that the fame of her sister's 
 heroism had reached further than her own 
 celebrity of a far different nature ; or, perhaps, 
 removed as she was from the home and the 
 scenes of her youth, the sight of a face once 
 familiar to her may have impelled her to seek 
 the consolation of naming her sister to one 
 probably acquainted with the circumstances of 
 her history, and of that sister's share in them. 
 
 The manner in which Sir Walter Scott be- 
 came acquainted with Helen Walker's history 
 has been already alluded to. In the notes to 
 the Abbotsford edition of his novels he acknow- 
 ledges his obligation on this point to Mrs. 
 Goldie, " an amiable and ingenious lady, whose 
 wit and power of remarking and judging 
 character still survive in the memory of her 
 friends." Her communication to him was in 
 these words : 
 
 " I had taken for summer lodgings a cottage 
 near the old Abbey of Lincluden. It had 
 formerly been inhabited by a lady who had 
 pleasure in embellishing cottages, which she 
 found, perhaps, homely and poor enough ;
 
 HELEN WALKER. 263 
 
 mine possessed many marks of taste and ele- 
 gance, unusual in this species of habitation in 
 Scotland, where a cottage is literally what its 
 name declares. From my cottage door I had 
 a partial view of the old abbey before mentioned ; 
 some of the highest arches were seen over and 
 some through the trees scattered along a lane 
 which led down to the ruin, and the strange 
 and fantastic shapes of almost all those old 
 ashes accorded wonderfully well witb the 
 building they at once shaded and ornamented. 
 The abbey itself, from my door, was almost on 
 a level with the cottage : but on coming to the 
 end of the lane it was discovered to be situated 
 on a high perpendicular bank, at the foot of 
 which ran the clear waters of the Cluden, when 
 they hasten to join the sweeping Nith, 
 
 'Whose distant roaring swells and fa's.' 
 
 As my kitchen and parlour were not very far 
 distant, I one day went to purchase some 
 chickens from a person I heard offering them 
 for sale. It was a little, rather stout-looking 
 woman, who seemed to be between seventy and 
 eighty years of age ; she was almost covered 
 with a tartan plaid, and her cap had over it a 
 black silk hood tied under the chin, a piece of 
 dress still much in use among elderly women 
 of that rank of life in Scotland ; her eyes were 
 dark, and remarkably lively and intelligent. I 
 entered into conversation with her,and began by 
 asking how she maintained herself, &c. She 
 said that in winter she footed stockings ; that 
 is, knit feet to country people's stockings, 
 which bears about the same relation to stock-
 
 264- REPRESENTATIVE WOMEN. 
 
 ing-knitting that cobbling does to shoe-making, 
 nnd is, of course, both less profitable and less 
 dignified ; she likewise taught a few children 
 to read ; and in summer she ' whiles reared a 
 wheen chickens.' 
 
 " I said I could venture to guess from her 
 face she had never married. She laughed 
 heartily at this, and said : ' I rnaun hae the 
 queerest face that ever was seen, that ye could 
 guess that. Now do tell me, madam, how ye 
 came to think sae T I told her it was from 
 her cheerful, disengaged countenance. She 
 said : ' Mem, have ye na far mair reason to be 
 happy than me, wi' a gude husband, and a 
 fine family o' bairns, and plenty o' everything! 
 For me, I am the puirest of a puir bodies, and 
 can hardly contrive to keep myself alive in a 1 
 the wee bits o' ways I hae tell't ye/ After 
 some more conversation, during which I was 
 more and more pleased with the old woman's 
 sensible conversation, and the naivette of her 
 remarks, she arose to go away, when I asked 
 her name. Her countenance suddenly clouded, 
 and she said gravely, rather colouring, ' My 
 name is Helen Walker; but your husband 
 kens weel about me. 11 
 
 " In the evening I related, how much I had 
 been pleased, and inquired what was extraor- 
 dinary in the history of the poor woman. Mr. 
 
 said, ' There were perhaps few more 
 
 remarkable people than Helen Walker ;' and 
 he gave the history which has already been 
 narrated here." 
 
 The writer continues : " I was so strongly 
 interested by this narrative, that I determined
 
 HELEN WALKER. 26 
 
 immediately to prosecute my acquaintance 
 with Helen Walker ; but, as I was to leave 
 the country next day, I was obliged to defer it 
 until my return in spring, when the first walk 
 I took was to Helen Walker's cottage. She 
 had died a short time before. My regret was 
 extreme ; and I endeavoured to obtain some 
 account of Helen from an old woman who 
 inhabited the other end of her cottage. I in- 
 quired if Helen ever spoke of her past history, 
 her journey to London, &c. ' Na,' the old 
 woman said, ' Helen was a wiley body, and 
 whene'er any o' the neebours asked any thing 
 about it, she aye turned the conversation. ' In 
 short, every answer I received only tended to 
 increase my regret, and raise my opinion of 
 Helen Walker, who could unite so much pru- 
 dence with so much heroic virtue." 
 
 This account was enclosed in the following 
 letter to the Author of " Waverly," without 
 date or signature : 
 
 " Sir, The occurrence just related happened 
 to me twenty-six years ago. Helen Walker 
 lies buried in the churchyard of Irongray, about 
 six miles from Dumfries. I once purposed that 
 a small monument should have been erected to 
 commemorate so remarkable a character ; but I 
 now prefer leaving it to you to perpetuate her 
 memory in a more durable manner." 
 
 Mrs. Goldie endeavoured to collect further 
 particulars of Helen Walker, particularly con- 
 cerning her journey to London ; but this she 
 found impossible, as the natural dignity of her 
 character, and a high sense of family respecta- 
 bility, had made her so indissolubly connect
 
 266 REPRESENTATIVE WOMEX. 
 
 her sister's disgrace with her own exertions, 
 that none of her neighbours durst ever question 
 her upon the subject. One old woman, a dis- 
 tant relation of Helen's, and who was living in 
 1820, says she worked in harvest with her, but 
 that she never ventured to ask her about her 
 sister's trial, or her journey to London. " He- 
 len," she said, " was a lofty body, and used a 
 high style o' language." The same old woman 
 says, " that every year that Helen received a 
 cheese from her sister, who lived at White- 
 haven, and that she always sent a liberal por- 
 tion of it to herself, or to her father's family." 
 The old person here spoken of must have been 
 a mere child to our heroine, who died in the 
 year 1 791, at the age of eighty-one or eighty- 
 two ; and this difference of age may well ac- 
 count for any reserve in speaking on such a 
 subject, making it appear natural and proper, 
 and not the result of any undue " loftiness" of 
 character. All recollections of her are con- 
 nected with her constant and devout reading 
 of the Bible. A small table, with a large open 
 Bible, invariably occupied one corner of her 
 room ; and she was constantly observed steal- 
 ing a glance, reading a text or a chapter, as 
 her avocations permitted her time ; and it was 
 her habit, when it thundered, to take her work 
 and her Bible to the front of the cottage, al- 
 leging that the Almighty could smite in the 
 city as well as the field. 
 
 An extract from a recent letter says, on the 
 subject of our heroine : " I think I neglected 
 to specify to you that Helen Walker lived in 
 one of those cottages at the Chedar Mills
 
 BETY AMBOS. 
 
 which you and your sisters so much admired ; 
 and the Mr. Walker who, as he said himself, 
 ' laid her head in the grave, 1 lived in that large 
 two-storied house standing high upon the op- 
 posite bank. He is since dead, or I might 
 have got the particulars from him that we 
 wanted : he was a respectable farmer." 
 
 Jeanie Deans is recompensed by her biogra- 
 pher for the trials through which he leads her, 
 with a full measure of earthly comfort ; for few 
 novelists dare venture to make virtue its own 
 reward : yet the following reflection shows him 
 to have felt how little the ordinary course of 
 Providence is in accordance with man's natural 
 wishes, and his expectations of a splendid tem- 
 poral reward of goodness : u That a character 
 so distinguished for her undaunted love of vir- 
 tue lived and died in poverty, if not want, 
 serves only to show us how insignificant in the 
 sight of Heaven are our principal objects of 
 ambition upon earth." 
 
 BETY AMBOS. Mrs. Jameson, during a 
 tour in Germany, accidentally met with a young 
 woman returning home from the execution of a 
 similar errand with that of the heroine Elizabeth, 
 described so pathetically by Madame Cottin in 
 her " Exiles of Siberia." There was, however, 
 one striking difference between the two cases 
 Elizabeth was poor, while Bety Ambos, the 
 German heroine, was rich. Yet, though the 
 possession of wealth diminished some of the 
 difficulties of the undertaking, it scarcely, per- 
 haps, lessened the greatness of the moral worth, 
 since it cannot be denied that those who are
 
 268 REPRESENTATIVE WOMEN. 
 
 accustomed to poverty are less alarmed at the 
 prospect of its evils than the rich, who, reared 
 amidst comforts and luxuries, have never en- 
 countered physical evils and privations. 
 
 Mrs. Jameson describes herself, when travel- 
 ling to Frankfort, as attracted by the appear- 
 ance of a female who alighted, amongst many 
 other travellers, from a post-coach ; her dress 
 was extremely rich, her figure fine, and her 
 countenance pretty ; her age appeared to be 
 about two or three and twenty ; her manner 
 evinced innocence and modesty, mingled with 
 the ease and self-possession of one accustomed 
 to travel. She appeared to be an object of 
 great interest to the persons of the house ; and, 
 after some little time, Mrs. Jameson found that 
 she was on her way home, alone and unpro- 
 tected, from the wilds of Siberia. At a sub- 
 sequent period, they again met at Frankfort, 
 when Mrs. Jameson renewed her acquaintance 
 with her, and conveyed her in her carriage to 
 Mayence, where she learned her whole history, 
 which she gave with an apology for a failure of 
 recollection respecting some of the names, dates, 
 and circumstances, and with a promise that she 
 will not supply these defects from her own 
 imagination, adding " Of the animation of 
 voice and manner, the vivid eloquence, and the 
 grace and vivacity of gesture with which the 
 relation was made by this fine untutored child 
 of nature, I can give no idea. 1 ' 
 
 The following account is slightly altered 
 from Mrs. Jameson's narration : 
 
 " Bety Ambos was the daughter of a rich 
 brewer and wine merchant, of Deuxponts or
 
 BETY AMBOS. 269 
 
 Zweibriieken, the capital of the provinces of the 
 kingdom of Bavaria, lying on the left bank of the 
 Rhine. She was one of five children, two much 
 older and two much younger than herself. Her 
 eldest brother was called Henri. He had early 
 displayed uncommon talents, and such a de- 
 cided inclination for study, that his father de- 
 termined to give him all the advantages of a 
 learned education, and sent him to the Univer- 
 sity of Elangau, in Bavaria, whence he returned 
 to his family with the highest testimonials of 
 his talents and good conduct. His father now 
 destined him for the clerical profession, with 
 which his own wishes accorded. His sister 
 fondly dwelt upon his praises, and described 
 him as being not only the pride of his family, 
 but of his fellow-citizens, ' tall and handsome, 
 and good,' of a most benevolent enthusiastic 
 temper, and devoted to his studies. When he 
 had been at home for some time, he attracted 
 the notice of one of the princes in the north of 
 Germany, with whom he travelled in the capa- 
 city of secretary. It appeared that, through 
 the recommendation of this powerful patron, 
 he became Professor of Theology in the Uni- 
 versity of Courland, at Riga, or somewhere near 
 it. Henri was at this time aged about twenty- 
 eight. 
 
 " Here he fell deeply in love with the daugh- 
 ter of a rich Jew merchant, and endeavoured 
 to convert the object of his affection. Her re- 
 latives discovering their correspondence, the 
 Jewess was forbidden to see or to speak to her 
 lover ; they, however, met in secret, and he 
 prevailed upon her to change her faith, and to
 
 REPRESENTATIVE WOMEN. 
 
 ily with him beyond the frontiers, there to be 
 baptised, and to become his wife. Their plan 
 was frustrated. They were pursued and over- 
 taken by her relatives and the police. The 
 Jews are protected at Riga, and the affair was 
 brought before the tribunal, where Henri was 
 accused of carrying off the girl by force. He 
 defended himself by declaring that she had fled 
 with him of her own free will, that she was a 
 Christian, and his betrothed bride, as they had 
 exchanged rings, or had gone through some 
 similar ceremony. The father, on the part of 
 his daughter, denied this, and Henri desired to 
 be confronted with the lady, who was thus said 
 to have turned his accuser. Her family made 
 many objections, but by the order of the judge 
 she was obliged to appear. She was brought 
 into the court of justice, pale, trembling, and 
 supported by her father, and others of her kin- 
 dred. 
 
 " The judge demanded whether it was by her 
 own will that she had fled with Henri Ambos I 
 
 " She answered in a faint voice, ' No. 1 
 
 " ' Had, then, violence been used to carry 
 her off? 1 
 
 " ' Yes/ 
 
 " ' Was she a Christian !' 
 
 " ' No.' 
 
 " * Did she regard Henri as her affianced 
 husband ! 1 
 
 " ' No.' 
 
 " On hearing these replies, so different from 
 the truth, and from all he could have antici- 
 pated, the unfortunate young man appeared for 
 a moment stupified ; then, as if seized with a
 
 BETY AM BOS. 
 
 271 
 
 sudden frenzy, he made a desperate effort to 
 rush upon the young Jewess. On being pre- 
 vented, he drew a knife from his pocket, which 
 he attempted to plunge into his own bosom, 
 but it was wrested from him ; in the scuffle he 
 was wounded in the hands and face, and the young 
 lady swooned away. The sight of his mistress 
 insensible, and his own blood flowing, restored 
 the lover to his senses. He became sullenly 
 calm, offered not another word in his own de- 
 fence, refused to answer any questions, and was 
 immediately conveyed to prison. 
 
 " These particulars came to the knowledge of 
 his family after the lapse of many months ; but 
 of his subsequent fate they could learn nothing. 
 Neither his sentence nor his punishment could 
 be ascertained ; and although one of his rela- 
 tions went to Riga for the purpose of obtaining 
 some information or redress, he returned with- 
 out having effected either of the purposes of his 
 journey. Whether Henri had died of his 
 wounds, or languished in a perpetual dungeon, 
 remained a mystery. 
 
 " Six years thus passed away. His father 
 died ; and his mother, who persisted in hoping 
 while all others despaired, lingered on in heart- 
 wearing suspense. At length, in the beginning 
 of 1833, a travelling merchant passed through 
 the city of Deuxponts, and inquired for the 
 family of Ambos. He informed them that in 
 the preceding year he had seen and spoken to a 
 man in rags, with a long beard, who was work- 
 ing in fetters with other criminals, near the for- 
 tress of Barinska, in Siberia, who described 
 himself as Henri Ambos, a pastor of the Lu-
 
 272 REPRESENTATIVE WOME\ r . 
 
 theran Church, unjustly condemned ; and who 
 besought him, with tears and the most urgent 
 supplications, to convey some tidings of him to 
 his unhappy parents, and beseech them to use 
 every means to obtain his liberation. 
 
 " The feelings which this intelligence excited 
 must be left to the reader's imagination. A 
 family council was held, and it was determined 
 that application should be made to the police 
 authorities at St. Petersburgh, to ascertain be- 
 yond a doubt the fate of poor Henri, and that 
 a petition in his favour should be presented to 
 the Emperor of Eussia; but who was to pre- 
 sent it ? The second brother offered himself, 
 but he had a wife and' two children ; the wife 
 protested that she should die if her husband 
 left her, and would not hear of his going ; be- 
 sides, he was the only remaining hope of his 
 mother's family. The sister then said that she 
 would undertake the journey, and argued that, 
 as a woman, she had more chance of success in 
 such an affair than her brother. The mother 
 acquiesced. There was, in truth, no alterna- 
 tive; and being amply furnished with the 
 means, this generous, affectionate, and strong- 
 minded girl set off alono on her long and pe- 
 rilous journey ; and receiving her mother's 
 blessing, she silently vowed that she would not 
 return alive without her brother's pardon. She 
 entertained no doubt of success, because she 
 was resolved to succeed. She had health and 
 strength, and feared nothing. She reached the 
 city of Riga without mischance. There she 
 collected the necessary documents relative to 
 her brother's character and conduct, with all
 
 BETY AMBOS. 
 
 273 
 
 the circumstances of his trial, and had them 
 properly attested. Furnished with these papers, 
 she proceeded to St. Petersburg, where she 
 arrived safely in the beginning of June, 1833. 
 She had been furnished with several letters of 
 recommendation, and particularly with one to 
 a German ecclesiastic, of whom she spoke with 
 the most grateful enthusiasm. She met with 
 the utmost difficulty in obtaining from the 
 police the official return of her brother's con- 
 demnation, place of exile, punishment, &c. ; 
 but at length, by almost incredible boldness, 
 perseverance, and address, she wag in posses- 
 sion of these, and with the assistance of her 
 good friend, the pastor, she drew up a petition 
 to the emperor. With this she waited on the 
 minister of the interior, to whom, with great 
 difficulty, and after many applications she ob- 
 tained access. He treated her with much 
 harshness, and absolutely refused to deliver the 
 petition. She threw herself on her knees, and 
 added tears to intreaties ; but he was inexor- 
 able, and added, brutally 
 
 " ' Your brother was a villain ; he ought 
 not to be pardoned ; and if I were the emperor, 
 I would not pardon him. 1 
 
 " She rose from her knees, and stretching her 
 arms towards heaven, exclaimed with fervour 
 
 u ' I call God to witness that my brother 
 was innocent ; and I thank God you are not 
 the emperor, for I can still hope. 1 
 
 " The minister, in a rage, said, ' Do you 
 dare to speak thus to me 2 Do you know who 
 I am T 
 
 " ' Yes," 1 she replied, ' you are his excellency
 
 274 REPRESENTATIVE AVOMEN. 
 
 the minister C : but Avhat of that ? You 
 
 are a cruel man ; but I put my trust in God 
 and the emperor/ 
 
 " Thus she left him, without even a curtsy, 
 though he followed her, speaking loud and 
 angrily, to the door. 
 
 " Her suit being rejected by all the ministers 
 for even those who were most gentle, and 
 who allowed the hardship of the case, still re- 
 fused to interfere, or deliver her petition she 
 resolved to do, what she had been dissuaded 
 from attempting in the first instance, to appeal 
 to the emperor in person. But it was in A T ain 
 she lavished hundreds of dollars in bribes to 
 the inferior officers ; in A T ain she beset the im- 
 perial suite at revieAvs, at the theatre, and on 
 the way to church ; invariably beaten back by 
 the guards or the attendants, she could not 
 penetrate to the emperor's presence. After 
 spending six \veeks in daily ineffectual attempts 
 of this kind, hoping every morning, and almost 
 despairing every evening threatened by the 
 police, and spurned by the officials Providence 
 raised her up a friend in one of her OAVH sex. 
 Among some ladies of rank who became inte- 
 rested in her story and invited her to their 
 houses, was a countess whose name is not re- 
 corded. This lady, perceiving the despair of 
 her young friend, proposed to lend her on the 
 next day her equipage, servants, and robes, 
 when she should drive to the palace, and, under 
 the name of the countess (who dared not pre- 
 sent the petition herself for fear of exile), ob- 
 tain an audience of the emperor. Overpowered 
 with gratitude, Bety threw herself at the feet
 
 BETY AM30S. 275 
 
 of the countess, unable to speak ; and though 
 the thought crossed her mind that the decep- 
 tion might risk the safety of her friend, she dis- 
 missed the idea, for she had resolved to obtain 
 her brother's pardon at every hazard. This 
 plan was soon arranged ; and at the time ap- 
 pointed she drove up the palace in a splendid 
 equipage, preceded by a running footman, with 
 three laced lacqueys, in full dress, mounted be- 
 hind. She was announced as the Countess 
 Elise , who supplicated a particular audi- 
 ence of his majesty. The doors flew open, and 
 in a few minutes she was in the presence of the 
 emperor, who advanced one or two steps to 
 meet her, but suddenly started back. 
 
 " Bety had, fortunately, no dread of rank or 
 povrer ; her heart did not fail her : she sprang 
 forward, and knelt at his feet, exclaiming, with 
 clasped hands ' Pardon, imperial majesty ! 
 Pardon f 
 
 " ' Who are you f said the emperor, asto- 
 nished ; ' and what can I do for you f 
 
 " He spoke gently, more gently than any of 
 his ministers ; and overcome, even by her own 
 hopas, she burst into tears, and said 
 
 " ' May it please your imperial majesty, I 
 
 am not Countess Elise ; I am only the 
 
 sister of the unfortunate Henri Ambos, who 
 has been condemned on false accusation. Oh, 
 pardon pardon ! Here are the papers the 
 proofs. Oh, imperial majesty ! pardon my poor 
 brother f 
 
 " Still kneeling, with one hand she held out 
 the petition and papers, while with the other 
 she pressed the skirt of his embroidered robe
 
 276 REPRESENTATIVE WOMEN. . 
 
 to her lips. Not heeding the emperor's com- 
 mand to rise, she still held out the papers ; at 
 last, apparently much moved, he extended one 
 hand towards her, and taking the papers with 
 the other, said' Rise, mademoiselle ; J 
 mand you to rise/ 
 
 "Kissing his hand, and weeping, she m- 
 treatad him to read the paper. He replied- 
 * I will read it.' 
 
 " Bety then rose from the ground, and, as 1 
 read the petition, eagerly watched his counte 
 nance ; it changed, and he once or twice ex- 
 claimed, l Is it possible ! This is dreadful ! 
 
 " When he had finished, he folded the paper ; 
 and without any observations on its contents, 
 said at once, ' Mademoiselle Ambos, your bro- 
 ther is pardoned. 1 
 
 " The poor girl, scarcely knowing what she 
 said, but with the words ringing in her ears, 
 again fell at the emperor's feet, and poured out 
 her gratitude and blessings. 
 
 " On her return, she received the congratula- 
 tions of her benefactress, the Countess 
 and of her good friend the pastor ; but both 
 advised her to keep her audience and the em- 
 peror's promise a secret. She was the more in- 
 clined to do this, because, after the first burst of 
 joyous emotion, her spirits sank ; but her com- 
 posure soon returned, for just five days after her 
 interview with the emperor, a lacquey, in the 
 imperial livery, came to her lodging, and put 
 a packet into her hands, with the emperor's 
 compliments to Mademoiselle Ambos. It was 
 her brother's pardon, signed and sealed by the 
 emperor. Those mean officials, who had be-
 
 BETY AM COS. 277 
 
 fore spurned her, now pressed upon her with 
 
 offers of service, and even the minister C 
 
 offered to expedite the pardon himself to Sibe- 
 ria, in order to save her trouble ; but she would 
 not suffer the precious paper out of her hands. 
 She determined to carry it herself, to be her- 
 self the bearer of the glad tidings ; she had 
 resolved that none but herself should take off 
 those fetters, the very description of which ha 
 entered her soul ; so, having made her arrange- 
 ments as quickly as possible, she set off fo 
 Moscow, where she arrived in three days. 
 
 " According to her description, the town in 
 Siberia to the governor of which she carried an 
 official recommendation, was nine thousand 
 versts beyond Moscow ; and the fortress to 
 which the wretched malefactors were exiled 
 was at a great distance beyond that. Mrs. 
 Jameson says, ' I could not well make out the 
 situation of either ; and, unluckily, I had no 
 map with me but a road map of Germany, and 
 it was evident that my heroine was no geogra- 
 pher.' After leaving Moscow, she travelled 
 for seven days and seven nights, sleeping in 
 the carriage. She then reposed for two days, 
 and then posted on for another seven days and 
 nights. Her sensations, as she was rapidly- 
 whirled over the wide solitary plains, were so 
 new and strange, that at times her head seemed 
 to turn (so she described it) ; she could scarcely 
 credit her own identity. 
 
 " At length, in the beginning of August, sbe 
 arrived at the end of her journey, and was 
 courteously received by the commandant of the 
 fortress. She presented the pardi-n with a
 
 273 REPRESENTATIVE WOMEN*. 
 
 hand which trembled with impatience and joy, 
 too great to be restrained, almost to be borne, 
 The officer looked very grave, and took, she 
 thought, a long time to read the paper, which 
 consisted only of six or eight lines. At last he 
 stammered out, ' 1 am sorry but the Henri 
 Ambos mentioned in this paper is dead. 1 
 
 " Poor girl ! she fell to the earth. 
 
 " She had travelled thus far to seek a brother, 
 and found but his grave. The unfortunate man 
 had died a year before. The fetters in which 
 he worked had caused an ulcer in his leg, which 
 he neglected, and, after some weeks of horrid 
 suffering, death released him. She found, on 
 inquiry, that some papers and letters which her 
 unhappy brother had drawn up by stealth, in 
 the hope of being abl at some time to convey 
 them to his friends, were in the possession of 
 one of the officers, who readily gave them up 
 to her ; and with these she returned, broken- 
 hearted, to St. Petersburg. 
 
 " Her story excited much commiseration, and 
 a very general interest and curiosity. A great 
 many persons of rank invited her to their 
 houses, and made her rich presents, among 
 which were the splendid shawls and the ring 
 which had first caught Mrs. Jameson's atten- 
 tion. The emperor expressed a wish to see 
 her, and very graciously spoke a few words of 
 condolence. He even presented her to the 
 empress. Mrs. Jameson asked 
 
 " ' What did the empress say to you T 
 
 " ' Nothing ; but (drawing herself up) she 
 looked so. 1 
 
 " She left Petersburg in October, and pro-
 
 BETY AMBOS. 
 
 279 
 
 ceeded to Riga, where those who had known 
 her brother received her with interest and 
 kindness, and sympathized in her affliction.- 
 She had resolved to see the Jewess who had 
 been the cause of all her brother's misfortunes ; 
 she felt that to say to her' Your falsehood 
 has done this,' would be a source of satisfac- 
 tion ; but her brother's friends persuaded her 
 that such an act could do Henri no good, that 
 it was wrong, that it was unchristian; she 
 yielded, and left Riga. 
 
 " Having reached the Prussian frontiers, she 
 stopped at the custom-house, where, on search- 
 ing her packages, the chief officer, observing 
 he'r address on a trunk, exclaimed- ' Made- 
 moiselle Ambos ! Are you any relation of the 
 Professor Henri Ambos f On hearing that 
 she was his sister, the officer explained that he 
 was the intimate friend of her brother, and in- 
 quired what had become of him. In learning 
 his unhappy fate, the officer, with tears, ex- 
 pressed his commiseration, and pressed upon 
 Mademoiselle Ambos offers of service and hos- 
 pitality ; but her impatience to reach home in- 
 creased hourly, and her funds were getting low. 
 The driver had heard her relate the sad story 
 to the officer ; and on stopping at the next 
 town to feed his horses, he came to the door of 
 the carriage, and informed her she had just 
 missed seeing the Jewess lady, who, with her 
 sister and her sister's husband, had passed m a 
 caleche. What followed must be read with 
 an allowance for* continental feelings and the 
 peculiar excitability of one who had gone 
 through such tremendous trials. Bety ordered
 
 ^280 REPRESENTATIVE WOMEN'. 
 
 f'J the driver to drive back as fast as possible 
 the custom-house, where she knew the parl^ 
 would be delayed. On reaching it, she saw a 
 caleche ; trembling with agitation and emotion, 
 she went up to it. Two ladies were sitting 
 within : and, addressing the most beautiful, 
 she asked : 
 
 " ' Are you Mademoiselle de S f 
 
 " Her manner was probably strange and 
 startling, for the lady addressed, replied, in 
 frightened manner : 
 
 " ' I am who are you ? and what do you 
 want with me f 
 
 " On hearing this reply, she said : 
 
 " ' I am the sister of Henri Ambos, whom 
 you murdered." 1 
 
 " The lady screamed aloud, and some men 
 ran from the house. Holding fast by the car- 
 riage door, Bety continued : 
 
 " c I am not come to hurt you ; but you are 
 the murderess of my brother, Henri Ambos. 
 He loved you, and your falsehood has killed 
 him." 
 
 " Having uttered other fearful expressions, 
 while the lady stared at her with a ghastly ex- 
 pression, she fell into a fit, and was carried 
 into the house of the custom-house officer, her 
 brother's friend, and laid on a bed. On reco- 
 vering her senses, the caleche and all were 
 gone, and she herself proceeded on her journey. 
 
 J. S. Pratt, Printer, Stokesley, Yorkshire.
 
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