Excellent Women Part 17

When, at college, he and his brother, with their young companions, owing to their living by rule, first won the name of "Methodists," amid sneers and persecutions, his mother cheered him on. At that juncture, subsequently, when he was in a state of hesitancy as to entering the holy ministry, and his father had encouraged the idea of delay, his mother said, "The sooner you are a deacon the better"--and broke the spell of what might have been a fatal backwardness. On that evening, at Aldersgate Street, 24th May, 1738, so memorable in the spiritual history of Methodism, when John Wesley stood up in his newly-found fulness of the a.s.surance of grace, and encountered much sharp rebuke on the spot, he had been well fortified beforehand with his mother's sympathy, saying, "She was glad he had got into such a just way of thinking." She also saw eye to eye with him in his position in the controversy between Calvinism and Arminianism.

The beginning of lay-preaching dates, as we have seen, from her support of Thomas Maxfield, and the leading features of the mode of preaching which John Wesley recommended to his followers may be found, long before, in his mother's counsels to himself--"to avoid nice distinctions in public a.s.semblies"--to exalt Christ and the work of the Spirit. "Here you may give free scope to your souls," and "discourse without reserve, as His Spirit gives you utterance." Well does her son call her "in her measure and degree a preacher of righteousness."

So shines the bright light of Susanna Wesley all along the upbuilding of that great Christian society which bears the name of her sons. Her example must surely also be of special value at the present day, when, alike in the Church and in the world, the place of woman rises in importance, and the demand is for further opportunity of usefulness. For the life of this gifted and saintly woman is characterised by a modesty that is above criticism, and, at the same time, shows no lack of the greatness of power and achievement in the work of the Lord.

JAMES CUNNINGHAM, M.A.

MRS. HEMANS.

Mrs. Hemans is fully ent.i.tled to a place in the ranks of Excellent Women, not only on account of her personal character, but also on account of the work she did--a work removed from the "stunning tide,"

but not the less effectual.

There is no doubt that Mrs. Hemans exerted a distinct influence and made a distinct impression on the national character. She left the world unmistakably better for her having lived in it. Many do not realise what great abiding results flowed from her work. And one chief way in which she was productive of so much good to her race was this: she raised the standard of popular poetry, raised it at a time when it sadly needed raising, to a higher level and tone. "Though she wrote so much and in an age when Byron was the favourite poet of Englishmen, not a line left her pen that indicated anything but a spotless and habitually lofty mind."

It was no mean achievement to establish the popularity of a poetry which was by its purity a rebuke to much that had hitherto pa.s.sed current and received applause.

How well she succeeded in accomplishing the ends which, as we learn in that beautiful piece of hers, "A Poet's Dying Hymn," she had set before herself and others who gave expression to their thoughts in verse!

"And if Thy Spirit on Thy child hath shed The gift, the vision of the unsealed eye, To pierce the mist o'er life's deep meanings spread, To reach the hidden fountain-urns that lie Far in man's heart--if I have kept it free And pure, a consecration unto Thee, I bless Thee, O my G.o.d!

Not for the brightness of a mortal wreath, Not for a place 'midst kingly minstrels dead, But that, perchance, a faint gale of Thy breath, A still small whisper, in my song hath led One struggling spirit upwards to Thy throne, Or but one hope, one prayer--for this alone I bless Thee, O my G.o.d!"

Many a straggler in life's perplexities found sympathy and help in the sweet verses of this poetess. They felt that there was one struggling by their side, one who could rest on G.o.d's promises, and could almost insensibly "weave links for intercourse with G.o.d."

I.

EARLY DAYS.

Felicia Dorothea Browne was born in Duke Street, Liverpool, on the 25th of September, 1793. She was the second daughter and the fourth child of a family of three sons and three daughters. Her father, who was a native of Ireland, was a merchant of good position. Her mother, whose maiden name was Wagner, was the daughter of the Venetian consul in Liverpool.

The original name was Veniero, but as the result of German alliances it had a.s.sumed this German form. Three members of the family had risen to the dignity of Doge. The first six years of Felicia's life were spent in Liverpool. Then commercial losses compelled her father to break up his establishment in that city and remove to Wales. The next nine years of her life were spent at Gwyrch, near Abergele, in North Wales. The house was a s.p.a.cious old mansion, close to the seash.o.r.e, and shut in on the land side by lofty hills. Surely a fit place for the early residence of a poetess of Nature. Besides this advantage of situation, she had the privilege of access to the treasures of a large library. The records of her early days show her to have been a child of extreme beauty, with a brilliant complexion and long, curling, golden hair. But her personal beauty was not the only thing that arrested attention. Her talents and sweetness of disposition retained the notice which her attractiveness had obtained. The old gardener used to say that "Miss Felicia could 'tice him to do whatever she pleased." And he was not the only one who fell under her gentle constraint. She was a general favourite.

This girl of many hopes had no regular education. She was never at school. Her mother's teaching and her own avidity for information were almost her only means of instruction. Mrs. Browne was a woman of high acquirements, both intellectual and moral, eminently adapted for the training of so sensitive a mind. For a time the child was taught French, English grammar, and the rudiments of Latin by a gentleman who used to regret that she was not a man, to have borne away the highest honours at college! A remarkable memory was of great benefit to her. Her sister states that she could repeat pages of poetry from her favourite authors after having read them over but once. On one occasion, to satisfy the incredulity of one of her brothers, she learned by heart the whole of Heber's poem of "Europe," containing four hundred and twenty-four lines, in an hour and twenty minutes. She repeated it without a single mistake or a moment's hesitation. Long pieces of both prose and poetry she would often recite after having twice glanced over them. This power of memory stood her in good stead in her later life, when physical weakness prevented her from writing down what she had composed. Her thoughts had to be retained in her mind, and then dictated.

When Felicia Browne was about eleven years old she spent the winter in London with her father and mother. But this visit had not the charm for her that it has for most young people. She saw nothing in the metropolis to compensate for the loss of the country. The sights and scenes of the busy throng were not so congenial as the sights and scenes of the quiet little Welsh home. "She longed to rejoin her younger brother and sister in their favourite rural haunts and amus.e.m.e.nts--the nutting wood, the beloved apple-tree, the old arbour, with its swing, the post-office tree, in whose trunk a daily interchange of letters was established, the pool where fairy-ships were launched (generally painted and decorated by herself), and, dearer still, the fresh, free ramble on the seash.o.r.e, or the mountain 'expedition' to the Signal Station, or the Roman Encampment." Town parties and town conventionalities had little in them to gain favour in the eyes of this bonnie free country la.s.s. Not that she did not sometimes derive pleasure from the sights she was taken to.

Especially was she impressed by her visits to some of the great works of art. On entering a gallery of sculpture, she involuntarily exclaimed, "Oh, hush:--don't speak!"

II.

FIRST POEMS.

The first appearance in print! What an event in life is this! What a new world it seems to open out to the writer! Felicia Browne was fourteen years old when a collection of her poems was published. The earliest of these early compositions was written when she was only eight years of age.

The volume of poems appeared in 1808. Perhaps it would have been a more judicious course on the part of her friends if they had prevented them from appearing. The young girl of fourteen years was by her youth ill-fitted to face the criticisms of the literary world.

At this time there came across her path the person whose name she was afterwards to bear--Captain Hemans, of the King's Own Regiment. He was on a visit in the neighbourhood of Gwyrch, and soon became an intimate friend in the family which contained Felicia amongst its members. Before he was called upon to embark with his regiment for Spain, an impression had been created which three years' absence did not efface on either side. The friends of both parties hoped that it might be otherwise, and that nothing would come of this attachment. But their hopes were not to be realised.

III.

MARRIAGE.

In 1809 the Browne family removed to Bronwylfa, near St. Asaph. Her self-education and her literary work went on side by side.

Captain Hemans returned to Wales in 1811, and in the following year he was married to Miss Browne. His appointment as adjutant to the Northamptonshire Militia caused them to take up their residence at Daventry, a neighbourhood by its tameness strangely contrasting with her "own mountain-land." But she was not to be long away from her old home.

The next year, on the reduction of the corps, a return was made to Bronwylfa. Mrs. Hemans was never again, until death parted them, to leave her mother, "by whose unwearied spirit of love and hope she was encouraged to bear on through all the obstacles which beset her path." A period of domestic privacy in a.s.sociation with literary occupation and study followed. Five children, all sons, were given to her. One can easily understand how many calls there were now on her, as, her marriage being not altogether a happy one, she had to arrange the education of her children. How well she trained them, not only in temporal wisdom, but in the highest of all wisdom, many evidences show. We may antic.i.p.ate and insert an anecdote of one of her boys at the age of eleven. She had been reading to him Lord Byron's magnificent address to the sea:--

"Roll on, thou deep and dark-blue ocean, roll."

He listened with breathless attention, and at the close broke out with these words--"It is very grand indeed!--but how much finer it would have been, mamma, if he had said at the close, that G.o.d had measured out all those waters with the hollow of His hand!" On another occasion she was explaining to her eight-year-old boy the meaning of the t.i.tle of a story he was reading, "The Atheist." His argument was real and ready: "Not believe in a G.o.d, mamma? Who does he expect made the world and his own body?"

IV.

WORK AND FRIENDS.

The plentiful contributions from her pen were becoming increasingly popular, and it may be added increasingly useful. There is no doubt that she was a distinct moral power for good.

As almost every one thinks that he or she can compose poetry, and that better than others, it often happens that in a prize poem compet.i.tion there is no lack of persons ready to enter the lists. So it was when a patriotic Scotchman offered a prize of 50 for the best poem on "The meeting of Wallace and Bruce." The number of compet.i.tors was astounding, and the ma.s.s of matter sent in overwhelming, one production being as long as "Paradise Lost." Quality prevailed over quant.i.ty, and the award was made to Mrs. Hemans. This was not the only occasion on which she was adjudged the prize in a compet.i.tion. In 1821 she obtained that awarded by the Royal Society of Literature for the best poem on "Dartmoor."

One of her poems, which was destined to be almost more useful than any of the others, was "The Sceptic." A reviewer's testimony to the elevating influence of the work, after complaining of the grave defect in some of the most popular writers of the day, in that "they are not sufficiently attentive to the moral dignity of the performances,"

concludes with this encomium on Mrs. Hemans' work:--"With the promise of talents not inferior to any, and far superior to most of them, the author before us is not only free from every stain, but breathes all moral beauty and loveliness; and it will be a memorable coincidence if the era of a woman's sway in literature shall become co-eval with the return of its moral purity and elevation." A more gratifying testimony to the worth of "The Sceptic" was given in a visit of a stranger to Mrs.

Hemans. It occurred many years after "The Sceptic" was published; indeed, a very short time before her death. The visitor was told that she was unable to see him, as she was only just recovering from an illness. He entreated for a few minutes' interview with such importunity that it was granted to him. On his admission he explained with the utmost feeling that the object of his visit was to acknowledge the deepest debt of obligation; "that to her he owed, in the first instance, that faith and those hopes which were now more precious to him than life itself; for that it was by reading her poem of 'The Sceptic' he had been first awakened from the miserable delusion of infidelity and induced to 'search the Scriptures.'" This was not the only time she received a comforting a.s.surance of this kind with regard to the poem.

The warm friendship of the Bishop of St. Asaph, Dr. Luxmoore, was a great boon to Mrs. Hemans. He was always ready with his advice and his support; and she found them of singular benefit in her comparatively lonely position. The bishop's palace was like a second home. There she and her children were always welcome. Of like value was the friendship of another who was also destined to have a place on the episcopal bench.

Reginald Heber was a frequent visitor at the residence of his father-in-law, the Dean of St. Asaph. He soon became deeply interested in the welfare of Mrs. Hemans. She found in him one whose counsel, especially in literary matters, was of the utmost value. His suggestions and encouragement supplied just what she wanted. Any one who reads his hints with regard to her contemplated poem "Superst.i.tion and Revelation"

will know how full and painstaking was the trouble he took to a.s.sist his friend.

The design of the poem to which reference has just been made was a grand one. It is best described in her own words: "Might not a poem of some extent and importance, if the execution were at all equal to the design, be produced, from contrasting the spirit and tenets of Paganism with those of Christianity? It would contain, of course, much cla.s.sical allusion; and all the graceful and sportive fictions of ancient Greece and Italy, as well as the superst.i.tions of more barbarous climes, might be introduced, to prove how little consolation they could convey in the hour of affliction, or hope in that of death. Many scenes from history might be portrayed in ill.u.s.tration of this idea; and the certainty of a future state, and of the immortality of the soul, which we derive from revelation, are surely subjects for poetry of the highest cla.s.s." The poem was commenced, but never completed. It was pressed out by other undertakings.

V.

THE HOME IN WALES.