Letters on the Improvement of the Mind, Addressed to a Lady Part 1

Letters on the Improvement of the Mind.

by Hester Chapone.

TO

_MRS. MONTAGU_.

MADAM,

I BELIEVE you are persuaded that I never entertained a thought of appearing in public, when the desire of being useful to one dear child, in whom I take the tenderest interest, induced me to write the following Letters:--perhaps it was the partiality of friendship, which so far bia.s.sed your judgment as to make you think them capable of being more extensively useful, and warmly to recommend the publication of them.

Though this partiality could alone prevent your judgment from being considered as decisive in favour of the work, it is more flattering to the writer than any literary fame; if, however, you will allow me to add, that some strokes of your elegant pen have corrected these Letters, I may hope, they will be received with an attention, which will insure a candid judgment from the reader, and perhaps will enable them to make some useful impressions on those, to whom they are now particularly offered.

They only, who know how your hours are employed, and of what important value they are to the good and happiness of individuals, as well as to the delight and improvement of the public, can justly estimate my obligation to you for the time and consideration you have bestowed on this little work. As _you_ have drawn it forth, I may claim a sort of right to the ornament and protection of your name, and to the privilege of publicly professing myself, with the highest esteem,

MADAM,

Your much obliged friend, and most obedient humble servant,

HESTER CHAPONE.

LIFE OF _HESTER CHAPONE_.

Among the ill.u.s.trious women whose literary productions adorned and improved the age in which they appeared, and are likely to be transmitted with reputation to posterity, Mrs. Chapone is ent.i.tled to distinguished consideration. However, incited by the persuasions and encouraged by the applauses of Richardson, she had many prejudices to encounter, many impediments to overcome. Female writers, always severely scrutinized, and often condemned, had not then obtained the estimation they have since commanded.

Hester Mulso, better known as Chapone, was the daughter of Thomas Mulso, Esq. of Twywell, in Northamptonshire; who, in the year 1719, married the posthumous daughter of Colonel Thomas, of the Guards. She lived long enough to see the last props of an ancient and towering family fall to the dust.

Of the immediate connections of Mr. Mulso, his elder sister, Anne, was married to the Rev. Dr. Donne, formerly Prebendary of Canterbury; and the younger, Susanna, to the brother of his own wife, the Rev. Dr. John Thomas, who was preceptor to his Majesty King George III., and who successively held the bishoprics of Peterborough, Salisbury, and Winchester. Mr. Mulso had himself several children; but of these only five lived to grow up, and even of the five, Charles, his third son, who was an officer in the navy, died, in the Mediterranean, at the age of twenty-one.

Thomas, the eldest of Mr. Mulso's sons, was bred to the law; and, for some years, he went the Oxford circuit. He declined legal practice on coming to the possession of his paternal inheritance; but was afterwards made Registrar of Peterborough, and a Commissioner of Bankrupts. He published, in 1768, 'Calistus, or the Man of Fashion;' and 'Sophronius, or the Country Gentleman.' Thomas was the elect brother of Mrs. Chapone.

He died early in February, 1799; and, as his death was not thought near, she lost, in him, the tie that bound her to life.

John, the second of Mr. Mulso's sons, became Prebendary of the cathedrals of Winchester and Salisbury, and held two valuable benefices in Hampshire. It was at the houses of this brother that Mrs. Chapone spent much of her time; and to one of his children, her beloved niece, the world owes her best work. He died at the prebendal residence at Winchester, in 1791, having survived his wife one year.

Edward, the youngest son, was in the Excise Office. He was skilled in music, and for many years President of the Anacreonic Society. Of this brother, the life of her youth, Mrs. Chapone was also fond; and, as his death was sudden and quick, his loss seriously affected her. He died during the April of 1782.

Hester Mulso, the main subject of this sketch, was born on the 27th of October, 1727; and was the only daughter whom her father had the pleasure of seeing arrive to mature years. How soon Miss Mulso accustomed herself to investigate what she read, and how well, may be inferred from a pa.s.sage in her published 'Miscellanies;' where, she says, that when fifteen years old, being charmed with many of the doctrines of the mystics, she then began to canva.s.s them deeply; and that, as reason grew, she was able to detect and to reject the fanciful theology with which they were fraught. Even at nine years of age she was an author. Accustomed to read the old romance, which suited her then childish taste, she wrote 'The Loves of Amorat and Melissa,' which, however defective, gave promise of the genius that distinguished her maturer compositions. Her mind could not, however, long dwell on such works. 'I make no scruple,' declares Miss Mulso, writing to Miss Carter, from Peterborough, July, 1750, 'to call romances the worst of all the species of writing: unnatural representations of the pa.s.sions, false sentiments, false precepts, false wit, false honour, and false modesty, with a strange heap of improbable unnatural incidents, mixed up with true history, and fastened upon some of the great names of antiquity, make up the composition of a romance--at least of such as I have read, which have been mostly French ones. Then the prolixity and poverty of the style is unsupportable. I have (and yet I am still alive) drudged through Le Grand Cyrus in twelve large volumes, Cleopatra in eight or ten, Polexander, Ibrahim, Clelie, and some others, whose names, as well as all the rest of them, I have forgotten; but this was in the days when I did not choose my own books, for there was no part of my life in which I loved romances.' This censure of romances, ancient or modern, is not more severe than it is just. With scarcely an exception, the business of romances is to make good bad, and bad good; to misplace and misstate events, falsify characters, and mislead readers. They are full of grave lies, well told, to an ill end. These are the Will o' Wisps of the mind.

Something of importance is stated, where Miss Mulso says, that she read romances, volume upon volume, in the days when she did not choose her own books; and when, therefore, she could not avoid this infantile course of reading. She was not then permitted to go in her own way.

Superadded to the disadvantages then attending female education, she struggled under domestic discouragements. Maternal vanity set itself against her advances in literature; and it was not till the death of her mother took place, that Miss Mulso, liberated from all impediments, felt herself free to pursue the cultivation of her own understanding. 'I believe,' she writes, referring to her new situation, early in 1750, 'there are few people who are better pleased and contented with their lot than I; for I am qualified to feel my present happiness; by having early experienced very different sensations.'

Here then is one marked era in the life of Miss Mulso. Being now mistress of herself, as to the disposal of her time, she rapidly compa.s.sed the circle of intellectual improvement. Notwithstanding that she was self-instructed, she soon became mistress of the French and Italian languages, and made some proficiency even in the Latin. Attached thus to literature, she was also careful to select her acquaintance from among persons who were likely to improve her own taste. It was in this way that she cultivated an intimacy with the celebrated Richardson; and that, in 1750, when she was twenty-three years of age, she ventured to controvert his opinions on 'Filial Obedience.'[1]

Richardson delighted to stimulate female talents to honourable and persevering exertions. Perhaps his partiality for epistolary intercourse, in which he successively engaged his fair friends, eventually decided Mrs. Chapone as to the mode of communicating her instructions to a beloved niece.

About this time, 1749 to 1752, she wrote some poems. Her 'Ode to Peace,'

and that to Miss Carter, prefixed to Epictetus, were the first fruits of her muse. Her verse comes up to what she thought of verse, and this seems as much as can with truth be said of it. 'As fond as I am of the works of fancy,' says she, 'of the bold imagery of a Shakspeare, or a Milton, and the delicate landscapes of Thomson, I receive much greater and more solid pleasure from their poetry, as it is the dress and ornament of wisdom and morality, than all the flowers of fancy, and the charms of harmonious numbers, can give

'When gay description holds the place of sense.'

Pursuing the satisfactions of literature, Miss Mulso now produced the 'Story of Fidelia.' Although this tale was written for the 'Adventurer,'

she is represented as hesitating to give it to the world; and as publishing it only in compliance with the wishes of friendship. Little is to be said in praise of this story. Designed, as it was, to expose the miseries of freethinking in women, its reasoning tends rather to stagger the unlettered moralist than to confute intellectual scepticism.

It is affected as to its style, and problematical as to its end.

While Miss Mulso was hesitating as to what should be Fidelia's fate, 'to print or not to print,' Miss Carter, to whom she was now known, decided her for the press. Miss Mulso idolized Miss Carter. Astonished at her acquirements, humbled by her talents, she approaches to her as to one of superior existence[2]. Miss Carter accepts the homage of Miss Mulso; and seems, throughout her deportment, to view it as due to herself. Such friends as they were, for their friendship was not mutual in kind, so they lasted for more than fifty years. Letters were the chief cement of their long friendship.

Nearly at the same time that Miss Mulso commenced acquaintance with Miss Carter, it was her lot to meet with Mr. Chapone, to whom she was at last married. This gentleman, who was practising the law, was introduced to Richardson's friends, at North-End, near Hammersmith, and fully admitted among them in the year 1750. 'Most heartily do I thank good Mrs. Dewes,'

writes Richardson, August 20, 1750, 'for her recommendation of Mr.

Chapone to my acquaintance and friendship. I am greatly taken with him.

A sensible, and ingenious, a modest young gentleman.' Miss Mulso's friends own, that, from 'their first introduction, she entertained a distinguished esteem for Mr. Chapone. It was, with her, love at first sight; but, according to her relations, as their intimacy improved, and her attachment became rooted, she had the gratification to perceive that it was mutual.' She was certainly in love. 'Your opinion of the lordly s.e.x,' she says, writing to Miss Carter, in 1754, 'I know is not a very high one, but yet I will one day or other make you confess that a man may be capable of all the delicacy, purity, and tenderness, which distinguish our s.e.x, joined with all the best qualities that dignify his own.' Whatever were her father's original objections to her marriage, these were for some time found to be insuperable; for, having been made acquainted with her pa.s.sion, he, instead of immediately countenancing her wishes, made her promise that she would not contract any matrimonial engagement without his previous permission. Prudence forbad him to approve, we are told, what kindness would not suffer him to prohibit.

Visiting the coterie of Richardson, during the summer of 1753, Miss Mulso was gratified by an interview with Dr. Johnson, with whom she before had no personal acquaintance. Her whole account of this interview may be fitly told here. 'Mr. Johnson' (Miss Mulso is writing to Miss Carter) 'was very communicative and entertaining, and did me the honour to address most of his discourse to me. I had the a.s.surance to dispute with him on the subject of human malignity[3]; and wondered to hear a man, who by his actions shows so much benevolence, maintain that the human heart is naturally malevolent, and that all the benevolence we see, in the few who are good, is acquired by reason and religion. You may believe I entirely disagreed with him, being, as you know, fully persuaded that benevolence, or the love of our fellow-creatures, is as much a part of our nature as self-love; and that it cannot be suppressed, or extinguished, without great violence from the force of other pa.s.sions. I told him I suspected him of these bad notions from some of his Ramblers, and had accused him to you; but that you persuaded me I had mistaken his sense. To which he answered, that if he had betrayed such sentiments in his Ramblers, it was not with design; for that he believed _the doctrine of human malevolence, though a true one, is not an useful one_, and ought not to be published to the world. Is there any truth,' subjoins Miss Mulso, 'that would not be useful, or that should not be known?'

The misfortune is, that, on such topics as this, which must implicate the character of man, generally as well as personally, each one writes as each sees things, and not as things might or ought to be seen.

Establishing our individual experience as the criterion of universal opinion, we are too apt to speak of the world as we find it; and to conclude, that what happens to us must of necessity happen to others, and that uniformity of experience will terminate in similarity of decision. Perhaps truth is still clear of extremes. Man is not so bad as some state him to be; nor is man so good as some think him to be.

Miss Mulso is now to be known as Mrs. Chapone. Perceiving that her inclination to matrimony was decisive, Mr. Mulso, though he still objected to the match, consented to such arrangements, towards the close of 1760, as to admit of the union, in one day, of his eldest son, Thomas, with Miss Prescott, and of his only daughter, Hester, with Mr.

Chapone. Living with her father, who was indulgently attached to her, Miss Mulso had previously been permitted to enjoy, fairly and fully, the society of Mr. Chapone.[4]

'Give me your congratulations,' writes the now Mrs. Chapone, to Miss Carter, from town, December the 9th, 1760, 'my dear friend; but, as much for my brother and friend (Mr. Thomas Mulso and Miss Prescott) as for myself; for, in truth, I could not have enjoyed my own happiness in an union with the man of my choice, had I been forced to leave them in the same uncomfortable state of tedious and almost hopeless expectation in which they have suffered so long. I shall rejoice to hear that you are coming to town, and shall hope for many a comfortable tete-a-tete with you in my lodgings in Carey Street; for there I must reside till Mr.

Chapone can get a house that suits him, which is no easy matter, as he is so confined in point of situation,' &c. &c. Pleasing as might be the prospect of her marriage pleasures, it will soon be seen that, as Mrs.

Barbauld wrote, 'her married life was short, and,' short as it was, 'not very happy!'

Scarcely is Mrs. Chapone first settled, when _she seems to complain of being in lodgings_; and, when her husband has taken a house, _still she regrets living_ in Arundel Street, as this is '_very wide from_ Clarges Street, where' she supposes that her friend _Miss Carter's_ '_residence_ is fixed.' Even now, dissatisfied with 'a life of hurry and engagement,' she puts 'the drudgery of answering all the congratulatory letters,' heaped on them as newly married, 'upon Mr. Chapone; who, _poor man_,' says his wife, 'was _forced to humour_ me _a little at first_.'

Here is not the worst. '_I have more hours to myself_,' she adds, '_than I wish for_; for business usually allows me _very little of my husband's company_, except at meals.' Instead of 'many a comfortable tete-a-tete with' Miss Carter, whom she a.s.sures of her 'most perfect dissent' from the maxim of Johnson's school, 'that a married woman can have no friendship but with her husband,' Chapone himself, pleased with Miss Carter's old friendship, is represented as wondering why she never visits his wife. 'Surely, my dear,' he would say to her, 'if Miss Carter loved you, she would sometimes have spent a day with you; and then I should have known her better. _If ever she loved you, I fancy she left it off on your being married._' Mrs. Chapone's letters may explain the absence of Miss Carter. What friend would be in haste to run to her, who tells that she 'lived in dirt,' and in 'puddling lodgings;' and who adds, 'at last,' that she reckons herself to be but 'tolerably settled?'

Lengthened courtships too seldom conclude with happy marriages. Six years of the lives of one pair, 1754 to 1760, was by far too long to make love. Our choice may prove to be our lot, just when our lot is no more our choice.

Miss Mulso was also more than old enough for Mrs. Chapone. When women are of disputatious dispositions[5], fixed in their notions, and do not like learned husbands[6], because they may hope to rule simple ones, they should marry before the age of thirty-three.

Poverty is inimical to felicity; but marriage penury, worst of woes, is inevitably calamitous. Pecuniary difficulties long protracted the union of Miss Mulso with Mr. Chapone, who at last died in embarra.s.sing circ.u.mstances. Much may be borne; but to court long, wait for wealth, wed late, and fare ill, seem more than the griefs to which flesh is heir.

In her advice to a beloved niece, and in the letter to a new-married lady, there are pa.s.sages perhaps referable to the fate of Mrs. Chapone.

'Young women,' she observes, '_know so little_ of the world, especially _of the other s.e.x_, and _such pains are usually taken to deceive them_, that they are every way unqualified to choose for themselves, &c. Many a heart-ache shall _I_ feel for _you_, my sweet girl, if I live a few years longer[7]!' Equally impressive is her delineation of matrimonial bickerings. 'Whatever may be said of the _quarrels of lovers_, (believe _me_!) _those of married people have always dreadful consequences_, especially if they are not very short and very slight. If _they_ are suffered to _produce bitter or contemptuous expressions_, or betray _habitual dislike_ in one party _of any thing in the person or mind_ of the other, _such wounds can scarcely ever be thoroughly healed_: and though regard to principle and character lays the married couple under a necessity to make up the breach as well as they can, yet is their affiance in each other's affection so rudely shaken in such conflicts, that it can hardly ever be perfectly fixed again. _The painful recollection of what is pa.s.sed, will often intrude upon the tenderest hours_; and every trifle will awaken and renew it. You must, _even now_, (it is to a lady _newly married_ that Mrs. C. is addressing herself) be particularly on your guard against _this_ source of misery.'

Within the short s.p.a.ce of ten months after marriage, Mr. Chapone, whose health could not have been good, was seized by a fever, which, in about a week, terminated his mortal career. Though his illness was short, and thought fatal at first, Mrs. Chapone was not with him for five days before _his death_, 'as her presence was judged to be very hurtful to him!' She then heard of his death 'with _her accustomed meekness_;' and, continues Miss Burrows, writing to Miss Carter, September the 22d, 1761, 'you would hardly believe me were I to describe to you _her calmness and composure_,' &c., or, 'half _the n.o.ble things she says and does_,' &c.

'_She suffered herself_,' again writes Miss Burrows, October 5, 1761, '_to be the most consoled_, by the kindness of her friends, _I ever saw any body in her situation_.' Mrs. Chapone was yet for some time ill, on the death of Mr. Chapone; and she found some other difficulties[8]

against which to bear up. Circ.u.mstances shortly after induced her to retire into lodgings upon a small but decent income, where, cultivating her connections, she contrived to preserve her independence and respectability. Her small property was soon augmented by the death of her father, who did not survive her husband quite two years.

Mrs. Chapone now spent much of her time with friends. Dr. John Thomas, her maternal uncle, being then Bishop of Winchester, she was always welcome either at Farnham Castle, or at Winchester House. Of her various letters from Farnham Castle, the following one, relating to royalty, is sufficiently interesting to find its place here. It must be remembered, that the Bishop had been preceptor to our late and venerable King.--'Mr.

Buller went to Windsor on Sat.u.r.day,' writes Mrs. Chapone to Mr. Burrows, August 20, 1778, 'saw the King, who enquired much about the Bishop; and hearing that he would be eighty-two next Monday, "Then," said he, "I will go and wish him joy." "And I," said the Queen, "will go too." Mr.