The Romance of Biography Volume II Part 16

are abused to vilest purposes:--to link together indissolubly, unworthiness with desert, truth with falsehood, brutality with gentleness; then indeed love is scared; his cage becomes a dungeon;--and either he breaks away, with plumage all impaired,--or folds up his many-coloured wings, and droops and dies.

But then it will be said, perhaps, that the splendour and the charm which poetry has thrown over some of these pictures of conjugal affection and wedded truth, are exterior and advent.i.tious, or, at best, short-lived:--the bands were at first graceful and flowery;--but sorrow dewed them with tears, or selfish pa.s.sions sullied them, or death tore them asunder, or trampled them down. It may be so; but still I will aver that what has been, _is_:--that there is a power in the human heart which survives sorrow, pa.s.sion, age, death itself.

Love I esteem more strong than age, And truth more permanent than time.

For happiness, _c'est different!_ and for that bright and pure and intoxicating happiness which we weave into our youthful visions, which is of such stuff as dreams are made of,--to complain that this does not last and wait upon us through life, is to complain that earth is _earth_, not heaven. It is to repine that the violet does not outlive the spring; that the rose dies upon the breast of June; that the grey evening shuts up the eye of day, and that old age quenches the glow of youth: for is not such the condition under which we exist? All I wished to prove was, that the sacred tie which binds the s.e.xes together, which gives to man his natural refuge in the tenderness of woman, and to woman her natural protecting stay in the right reason and stronger powers of man, so far from being a chill to the imagination, as wicked wits would tell us, has its poetical side. Let us look back for a moment on the array of bright names and beautiful verse, quoted or alluded to in the preceding chapters: what is there among the mercurial poets of Charles's days, those notorious scoffers at decency and constancy, to compare with them?--Dorset and Denham, and Sedley and Suckling, and Rochester,--"the mob of gentlemen who wrote with ease,"--with their smooth emptiness, and sparkling common-places of artificial courtship, and total want of moral sentiment, have degraded, not elevated the loves they sang. Could these gallant fops rise up from their graves, and see themselves exiled with contempt from every woman's toilet, every woman's library, every woman's memory, they would choak themselves with their own periwigs, eat their laced cravats, hang themselves in their own sword-knots!--"to be discarded thence!"

Turn thy complexion there, Thou simpering, smooth-lipp'd cherub, c.o.xcombry, Ay, there, look grim as h.e.l.l!

And such be the fate of all who dare profane the altar of beauty with adulterate incense!

For wit is like the frail luxuriant vine, Unless to virtue's prop it join; Though it with beauteous leaves and pleasant fruit be crown'd, It lies deform'd and rotting on the ground!

These lines are from Cowley,--a great name among the poets of those days; but he has sunk into a _name_. We may repeat with Pope, "Who now reads Cowley?" and this, not because he was licentious, but because, with all his elaborate wit, and brilliant and uncommon thoughts, he is as frigid as ice itself. "A little ingenuity and artifice," as Mrs.

Malaprop would say, is well enough; but Cowley, in his amatory poetry, is all artifice. He coolly sat down to write a volume of love verses, that he might, to use his own expression, "be free of his craft, as a poet;" and in his preface, he protests "that his testimony should not be taken against himself." Here was a poet, and a lover! who sets out by begging his readers, in the first place, not to believe him. This was like the weaver, in the Midsummer Night's Dream, who was so anxious to a.s.sure his audience "that Pyramus was not killed indeed, and that he, Pyramus, was not Pyramus, but Bottom the weaver." But Cowley's amatory verse disproves itself, without the help of a prologue. It is, in his own phrase, "all sophisticate." Even his sparkling chronicle of beauties,

Margaretta first possest, If I remember well, my breast, &c.

is mere fancy, and in truth it is a pity. Cowley was once in love, after his querulous melancholy fashion; but he never had the courage to avow it. The lady alluded to in the last verse of the Chronicle, as

Eleonora, first of the name, Whom G.o.d grant long to reign,

was the object of this luckless attachment. She afterwards married a brother of Dr. Spratt, Bishop of Rochester,[96] who had not probably half the poet's wit or fame, but who could love as well, and speak better; and the gentle, amiable Cowley died an old batchelor.

These writers may have merit of a different kind; they may be read by wits for the sake of their wit; but they have failed in the great object of lyric poetry: they neither create sympathy for themselves; nor interest, nor respect for their mistresses: they were not in earnest;--and what woman of sense and feeling was ever touched by a compliment which no woman ever inspired? or pleased, by being addressed with the swaggering licence of a libertine? Who cares to inquire after the originals of their Belindas and Clorindas--their Chloes, Delias, and Phillises, with their pastoral names, and loves--that were any thing but pastoral? There is not one among the flaunting coquettes, or profligate women of fashion, sung by these gay c.o.xcomb poets--

Those G.o.ddesses, so blithe, so smooth, so gay, Yet empty of all good wherein consists Woman's domestic honour and chief praise,

who has obtained an interest in our memory, or a permanent place in the history of our literature; not one, who would not be eclipsed by Bonnie Jean, or Highland Mary! It is true, that the age produced several remarkable women; a Lady Russell, that heroine of heroines! a Lady Fanshawe;[97] a Mrs. Hutchinson; who needed no poet to trumpet forth their praise: and others,--some celebrated for the possession of beauty and talents, and too many notorious for the abuse of both. But there were no poetical heroines, properly so called,--no Laura, no Geraldine, no Saccharissa. Among the temporary idols of the day, (by which name we shall distinguish those women whose beauty, rank, and patronage, procured them a sort of poetical celebrity, very different from the halo of splendour which love and genius cast round a chosen divinity,) there are one or two who deserve to be particularised.

The first of these was Maria Beatrice d'Este, the daughter of the Duke of Modena, second wife of James Duke of York, and afterwards his queen.

She was married, at the age of fifteen, to a profligate prince, as ugly as his brother Charles, (without any of his captivating graces of figure and manner,) and old enough to be her grandfather. She made the best of wives to one of the most unamiable of men. All writers of all parties are agreed, that slander itself, was disarmed by the unoffending gentleness of her character; all are agreed too, on the subject of her uncommon loveliness: she was quite an Italian beauty, with a tall, dignified, graceful figure, regular features, and dark eyes, a complexion rather pale and fair, and hair and eyebrows black as the raven's wing: so that in personal graces, as in virtues, she fairly justified the rapturous eulogies of all the poets of her time. Thus Dryden:--

What awful charms on her fair forehead sit, Dispensing what she never will admit; Pleasing yet cold--like Cynthia's silver beam, The people's wonder, and the poet's theme!

She captivated hearts almost as fast as James the Second lost them;

And Envy did but look on her and died![98]

Her fall from the throne she so adorned; her escape with her infant son, under the care of the Duc de Lauzun;[99] her conduct during her retirement at St. Germains, with a dull court, and a stupid bigoted husband; are all matters of history, and might have inspired, one would think, better verses than were ever written upon her. Lord Lansdown exclaims, with an enthusiasm which was at least disinterested--

O happy James! content thy mighty mind!

Grudge not the world, for still thy Queen is kind,-- To lie but at whose feet, more glory brings, Than 'tis to tread on sceptres and on kings![100]

Anne Killegrew, who has been immortalised by Dryden, in the ode,[101]

Thou youngest virgin-daughter of the skies!

does not seem to have possessed any talents or acquirements which would render her _very_ remarkable in these days; though in her own time she was styled "a grace for beauty and a muse for wit." Her youth, her accomplishments, her captivating person, her station at court, (as maid of honour to Maria d'Este, then d.u.c.h.ess of York,) and her premature death at the age of twenty-four, all conspired to render her interesting to her contemporaries; and Dryden has given her a fame which cannot die.

The stanza in this ode, in which the poet, for himself and others, pleads guilty of having "made prost.i.tute and profligate the muse,"

Whose harmony was first ordain'd above For tongues of angels and for hymns of love!

--the sudden turn in praise of the young poetess, whose verse flowed pure as her own mind and heart; and the burst of enthusiasm--

Let this thy vestal, heaven! atone for all!

are exceedingly beautiful. His description of her skill in painting both landscape and portraits, would answer for a Claude, or a t.i.tian. We are a little disappointed to find, after all this pomp and prodigality of praise, that Anne Killegrew's paintings were mediocre; and that her poetry has sunk, not undeservedly, into oblivion. She died of the small-pox in 1685.

The famous Tom Killegrew, jester (by courtesy) to Charles the Second, was her uncle.

There was also the young d.u.c.h.ess of Ormond, (Lady Mary Somerset, daughter of the Duke of Beaufort.) She married into a family which had been, for three generations, the patrons and benefactors of Dryden; and never was patronage so richly repaid. To this d.u.c.h.ess of Ormond, Dryden has dedicated the Tale of Palemon and Arcite, in an opening address full of poetry and compliment;--happily, both justified and merited by the object.

Lady Hyde, afterwards Countess of Clarendon and Rochester, was in her time a favourite theme of gay and gallant verse; but she maintained with her extreme beauty and gentleness of deportment, a dignity of conduct which disarmed scandal, and kept presumptuous wits as well as presumptuous fops at a distance. Lord Lansdown has crowned her with praise, very pointed and elegant, and seems to have contrasted her at the moment, with his coquettish Mira, Lady Newburgh.

Others, by guilty artifice and arts, And promised kindness, practise on our hearts; With expectation blow the pa.s.sion up; _She_ fans the fire without one gale of hope.[102]

Lady Hyde was the daughter of Sir William Leveson Gower, (ancestor to the Marquis of Stafford,) and mother of that Lord Cornbury, who has been celebrated by Pope and Thomson.

The second daughter of this lovely and amiable woman, lady Catherine Hyde, was Prior's famous Kitty,

Beautiful and young, And wild as colt untam'd,

the "female Phaeton," who obtained mamma's chariot for a day, to set the world on fire.

Shall I thumb holy books, confin'd With Abigails forsaken?

Kitty's for other things design'd, Or I am much mistaken.

Must Lady Jenny frisk about, And visit with her cousins?

At b.a.l.l.s must she make all this rout, And bring home hearts by dozens?

What has she better, pray, than I?

What hidden charms to boast, That all mankind for her must die, Whilst I am scarce a toast?

Dearest Mamma! for once, let me Unchain'd my fortune try: I'll have my Earl as well as she, Or know the reason why.

Fondness prevail'd, Mamma gave way: Kitty, at heart's desire, Obtain'd the chariot for a day, And set the world on fire!

Kitty not only set the world on fire, but more than accomplished her magnanimous resolution to have an Earl as well as her sister, Lady Jenny.[103] She married the Duke of Queensbury; and as _that_ d.u.c.h.ess of Queensbury, who was the friend and patroness of Gay, is still farther connected with the history of our poetical literature. Pope paid a compliment to her beauty, in a well-known couplet, which is more refined in the application than in the expression:--

If Queensbury to strip there's no compelling, 'Tis from a handmaid we must take a Helen.

She was an amiable, exemplary woman, and possessed that best and only preservative of youth and beauty,--a kind, cheerful disposition and buoyant spirits. When she walked at the coronation of George the Third, she was still so strikingly attractive, that Horace Walpole handed to her the following impromptu, written on a leaf of his pocket-book,

To many a Kitty, Love, his car, Would for a day engage; But Prior's Kitty, ever fair, Obtained it for an age!

She is also alluded to in Thomson's Seasons.

And stooping thence to Ham's embowering walks, Beneath whose shades, in spotless peace retir'd, With her the pleasing partner of his heart, The worthy Queensb'ry yet laments his Gay.--_Summer._