Part 2

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 Saturday,' 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. B. then dropped a hint of the additional pleasure it would give the Bishop if he could see the Princes. "_That_," said the King, "requires contrivance; but, if I can manage it, we will _all_ go".' ... Monday morning, a little after eleven o'clock, 'came the King and Queen in their phaeton, three coaches and six, and one coach and four, with a large retinue of servants. They were all conducted into the great drawing-room, by Mr. and Mrs. Buller, where, after paying their compliments to the Bishop and Mrs. Thomas, those of the first column remained there to breakfast; those of the second column left the room, and were led by Mrs. T. to the dressing-room, where Mrs. T. and I were, and where I made tea for them. After our breakfast was over, as well as that of the upper house, the royal guests[9] came to visit me in the dressing-room. The King sent the Princes in to pay their compliments to _Mrs. Chapone_: himself, he said, was an old acquaintance. Whilst the Princes were speaking to me, Mr. Arnold, sub-preceptor, said, "These gentlemen are well acquainted with a certain Ode[10] prefixed to Mrs. Carter's Epictetus, if you know any thing of it." Afterwards the King came and spoke to us; and the Queen led the Princess Royal to me, saying, "This is a young lady, who, I hope, has profited much by your instructions[11]. She has read them more than once, and will read them oftener;" and the Princess assented to the praise which followed, with a very modest air. She has a sweet countenance, and simple unaffected manners. I was pleased with all the Princes, but particularly with Prince William, who is little of his age, but so sensible and engaging, that he won the Bishop's heart; to whom he particularly attached himself, and would stay with him while all the rest ran about the house. His conversation was surprisingly manly and clever for his age: yet with the young Bullers he was quite the boy; and said to John Buller, by way of encouraging him to talk, "Come, we are both boys, you know." All of them showed affectionate respect to the Bishop; the Prince of Wales pressed his hand so hard that he hurt it. Mrs. B----'s two girls were here, and the eldest son, and great notice was taken of them all. The youngest girl, a comical natural little creature between eight and nine, says she thinks it hard that Princes may not marry whom they please; and seems not without hopes, that, if it were not for this restriction, the Prince of Wales might prove a lover of hers.'

Dr. Thomas, to whom these royal honours were thus paid, died in May 1781, at the age of eighty-six years.

Several months of the year 1766 were passed by Mrs. Chapone at the parsonage of her second brother, John, at Thornhill, near Wakefield, in Yorkshire. It was then she conceived that partiality for her niece, his eldest daughter, to which society is indebted for her 'Letters on the Improvement of the Mind.'

Having become acquainted with Mrs. Montagu some time in 1762, she about eight years after joined her in her tour into Scotland; a tour from which she derived both information and amusement, and which her pen has described with fidelity and interest. 'I am grown as bold as a lion with Mrs. Montagu,' asserts Mrs. Chapone, two years before their tour, to Mrs. Carter, 'and fly in her face whenever I have a mind: in short, I enjoy her society with the most perfect _gout_; and find my love for her takes off my fear and awe, though my respect for her character continually increases.' Mrs. Montagu's great friendship was found eminently conducive to the welfare of Mrs. Chapone. It added to her sources of intellectual gratification, extended the old circle of her acquaintance, and emboldened and encouraged her to submit her writings to the world.

We are now to consider Mrs. Chapone's literary performances; which, following the order of publication, consist of

Letters on the Improvement of the Mind; 1773.

Miscellanies, in Prose and Verse; 1775.

Posthumous Works; two volumes, 1804.

These latter volumes contain Mrs. Chapone's Correspondence with Mr. Richardson, on Filial Obedience; a Matrimonial Creed, sent by her to him; Letters to her friends; some Fugitive Poetry; and 'An Account of her _Life and Character_, drawn up _by her own Family_.' Dismissing the consideration of its partiality, this account, justly so called, has no claim to the character of biography.

Her 'Letters on the Improvement of the Mind' owed much of their early success to the talents and kindness of Mrs. Montagu. 'The bookseller,' writes their Author, July the 20th, 1773, 'is preparing the second edition with all haste, the whole of the first being gone out of his hands; which, considering that he printed off fifteen hundred at first, is an extraordinary quick sale. _I attribute this success principally to Mrs. Montagu's name, and patronage_,' &c. More of this is told in the Dedication of the work to her. 'I believe you (Mrs. Montagu) are persuaded that I (Mrs. Chapone) 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[12], induced me to write the following letters: perhaps it was the partiality of friendship which so far biassed your judgment as to make you think them capable of being more extensively useful, and warmly to recommend the publication of them. If,' proceeds the author, '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.'

Notwithstanding their intrinsic excellence, various circumstances co-operated to give to her Letters immediate popularity. Besides the beginning preference for books on education, epistolary composition, the style of her work, was then in very general estimation. It was the style to which the volumes of Richardson, the correspondence of Pope, the letters of Chesterfield and of Orrery, had familiarized the public mind. Nor could expectation have been indifferent to any production from the pen of one who was the friendly pupil of Samuel Richardson; in favour of whom the discerning part of readers were already prepossessed, by the commendation he had bestowed on her talents, and the assiduity with which he had cultivated her correspondence. What might not be hoped from a lady, who, when not much above twenty years of age, was considered qualified to controvert with him the subject of paternal authority and filial obedience? But, if admiration had been excited, it was only in order to be gratified. Mrs. Chapone did not disappoint the expectations entertained concerning Miss Mulso.

It is the imperishable honour of Mrs. Chapone, that the foundation of _her_ temple of education is on the rock, and not in the sands; that the superstructure is therefore not only beautiful, but lasting. On the being of a God, she fixes the tottering hopes of mere mortality: and by his Revealed Will would direct its steps, to certainty, happiness, and glory. Nor has she been unsuccessful in displaying the benevolent attributes of Deity, and in exciting the gratitude of the heart towards him. Without impeaching his justice, she has exalted his mercy; without diminishing the awe, she has increased the fervency of pious adoration; without depreciating prayer, she has insisted on a spirit of thanksgiving. Devotion, in her view, becomes attractive as well as important. We love, while we obey; while we tremble, we rejoice. Resting the ground-work of all morality on religion, _assent_ is insisted upon prior to _investigation_; not that the latter is excluded. Since, however, we are compelled to _act_ before we become qualified to _think_, it is of the utmost importance that some standard be established in the mind, for the regulation of the conduct. Religion supplies this deficiency. Its penalties and rewards are offered, at a time when we are principally governed by our hopes or fears; and are, indeed, incapable of being acted upon by abstracted considerations of right and wrong.

Of the early _historical_ parts of the Old Testament, Mrs. Chapone speaks with the commendation they will always obtain from discriminating minds. Nothing in profane history is equal to their beautiful simplicity, their affecting minuteness. They are not sufficiently studied.

On the scope of the Gospel, as delivered in the New Testament, it is justly affirmed--'The whole tenor of the Gospel is to offer us every help, direction, and motive, that can enable us to attain that degree of perfection, on which depends our eternal good.' Exception must nevertheless be taken to a few epithets, by which she endeavours to picture a future state of blessedness; as, 'the richest imagination can paint:' for, what imagination shall paint that which 'it hath not entered into the heart of man to conceive?'

Letters the Fourth and Fifth, _On the Regulation of the Heart and Affections_, display considerable knowledge of human nature, exhibit high reasoning powers on the part of the writer, and are fraught with excellent moral distinctions. The fifth, however, owing to the subjects it embraces, is particularly valuable to the sex to whom it is addressed. This encomium will apply to her sentiments _On Household Economy_, and _On Deportment towards Servants_. The course of _Studies_ and _Accomplishments_ recommended by her, perhaps, still includes all that is essential.

Unornamental, but not ungraceful, Mrs. Chapone's style, though plain, is deserving of commendation. If there be one main fault in it, one reigning vice, it is that it abounds with parentheses, which tend to obscure it.

The success of her Letters is stated by herself to have been the source of much good to her: she who, only ten years before, declared that 'this world had nothing for her but a few friends,' who owns that 'a certain weariness of life, and a sense of insignificance and insipidity,' did then 'deject' her, now feels that the success of her writings appeased 'that uneasy sense of helplessness and insignificancy which often depressed and afflicted her.' Her work gave her some tie to the world. Her intellectual existence, her new life, succeeded to her sympathetic state.

Of her next work, the 'Miscellanies,' not much need be said. Unqualified in her admiration of the author's abilities, Mrs. Barbauld seems to labour to explain the unpopularity of this publication. The toil was not worth the pains. Excepting the _Letter to a New-married Lady_, and _Three Essays_, the contents of this volume did not authorize the distinction to which friendship conceived it to be entitled.

Her long epistolary controversy with Richardson, respecting 'Filial Obedience' generally, evidences great superiority of thought. It extends to three letters; of which the first is dated October 12, and the second November 10, 1750; and the third, which is her last, bears date the 3d of January, 1750-51. Perhaps Miss Carter was not far from the fact, when, as now appears from one of Mrs. Chapone's Letters to her, she called this controversy 'an unmerciful prolixity upon a plain simple subject.' Still it is, in such hands, of much worth. Differing from Richardson in some essential particulars, Mrs. Chapone, young as she then was, magnanimously promulgated, and resolutely defended, her own sentiments. Authority seems to have been here considered by Richardson as synonymous with what most men think tyranny. Parents were to be despots, and children to live as their bond-slaves. Obligation is reciprocal. Subjection necessarily supposes protection; and paternal authority has the best claim to filial obedience, where benevolence endears dependance, and where conduct demands respect. Goldsmith told no more than truth, when, as his Essays will show, he declared that there were parents who got children for the gratification of tyrannising over them.

Mrs. Chapone had the gift of letter-writing. When she writes to her few friends, it is with ease, with sense, and with life. She does not then write for the press. She read much, thought more, and wrote as she thought. Many of her judgments, both of men and books, deserve to be weighed.

The last years of life, it is painful to add, were not her best years. Surviving those by whom life was to her rendered estimable, unshaken as was her religion, her mind, it is acknowledged by friends, yielded to its afflictions; 'her memory became visibly and materially impaired; and her body was so much affected by the sufferings of her mind, that she soon sank into a state of alarming debility.' She who bore with 'calmness and composure' the death of a husband, of him whom she calls 'the man of her choice,' felt that she lost on the death of a brother, 'her strongest tie to this world,' and 'sank into a state of alarming debility!' Where the treasure is, there also will the heart still be found. Sublunary happiness is at the best uncertain as unstable; and those whose plans of good are made for this earth, will see, sooner or later, that they have built on the sands instead of the rock.

Contracted in circumstances, and limited in the number of her friends, Mrs. Chapone, with her youngest niece, retired to Hadley, in the autumn of 1800; where her living near to Miss Amy Burrows[13], who had been there for some years, opened new prospects of comfort for her rapidly declining age.

It was now that Mrs. Chapone needed all that the most affectionate assiduity could do for her. 'Mrs. and Miss Burrows,' continues the short account by her family, 'were her constant visitors; and while they surveyed, with compassion and humiliation, the awful lesson to nature which the wreck of so bright an ornament to it presented, they omitted no opportunity to administer every soothing means of relief she was then capable of experiencing.' Mr. Cottrell, also, successor to the Rev. Mr. Burrows, at Hadley, and his family, with their friends, sometimes enlivened the solitary seclusion to which she was doomed; but her infirmities augmented so much, at this time, that she was not able to go down stairs more than three or four times.

Her life was near its close. October 1801, she completed her 74th year; and on the Christmas-day following, without any direct illness, having described herself as unusually well the day before, and after experiencing less distemper during the last than any of the years of her life, she fell into a doze, from which nothing could rouse her; and at the eighth hour of the night, she drew her last breath, tranquilly and imperceptibly, in the arms of her niece. Mrs. Burrows was also with her.

Mrs. Chapone is not represented as one who had pretensions to what men term beauty. If, however, any credit is due to the opinion of Richardson, who knew her in her best days, and who could judge of the sex, there was in her something of physiognomical fascination, that bright emanation of soul, illuminating the countenance, which, candid and benign, gave to the face its best charm.

Music was one of her delights. Naturally possessing a voice both mellifluous and powerful, with much true taste, and great accuracy of ear, she, without the aid of science, would often surpass the efforts of professional excellence. Aided by her brother[14] on the violin, her singing frequently astonished those who were the highest judges of that talent.[15]

Accomplished in deportment, intelligent in conversation, uniformly agreeable to society generally, her company was coveted by all who knew her, and sought for by numbers of persons with whom she never associated.

Physical infirmities were to her the source of habitual misery. Cold and wet seem to have been too much for her frame; and, by the medium of that, for her mind.

With all her faults, for some there were in her, she was still great. Her life may teach much that it will be well to learn; nor can too much be said in praise of her best work.

Mrs. Chapone holds out one bright proof of what intelligence and perseverance may in due time hope to accomplish. She cast her own lot. Herself made herself; and to the honours of her name, great as they are, those who tread in her steps may yet aspire.

Considering the high importance of her literary exertions, no task would have been more pleasing than that of bestowing unqualified approbation on her character. Her writings, already productive of good the most extensively beneficial, will stand the imperishable monument of her worth. While the sentiments which they inculcate are valued, and the language in which they are conveyed is known, while virtue is loved, or piety revered among us, the 'Letters on the Improvement of the Mind' will suffer no diminution of that reputation in which they have been so long held by the world.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] 'I am at present engaged with a most admirable young lady of little more than twenty, Miss Mulso, on the subject of Filial Obedience and Paternal Authority, &c. Miss Mulso is a charming writer, &c. Your ladyship will be charmed with her part of the subject.' _Richardson to Lady Bradshaigh, 1751._

'I have been engaged in a kind of amicable controversy with my honoured friend Mr. Richardson, which has occasioned letters of so immoderate a length between us, that I have been quite tired of pen and ink, and inexcusably negligent of all my other correspondents. Does it not sound strange, my dear Miss Carter, that a girl like me should have dared to engage in a dispute with such a man? Indeed I have often wondered at my own assurance; but the pleasure and improvement I expected from his letters were motives too strong to be resisted, and the kind encouragement he gave me got the better of my fear of exposing myself.' _Miss Mulso to Miss Carter, March 1750._

This correspondence is dated from October 1750, to January 1751.

[2] 'I shall still find in her (Miss Mulso is writing _to_ and _of_ Miss Carter) that amiable condescension, and unreserved benevolence, which endears her conversation, and enhances the value of her understanding; which teaches her how to improve her companions without appearing to instruct them, to correct without seeming to reprove, and even to reprove without offending.' _Miss Mulso to Miss Carter, September 11, 1749._

'It is impossible not to be better, as well as happier, for an intimate acquaintance with _Miss Carter_; take her for all in all, I think, I may venture to pronounce her _the first of women_!' _Miss Mulso to Mr. Richardson, July 24, 1752._

[3] 'I think I read the 'Rambler' with great attention, yet I cannot entirely acquit him of the charge of severity in his satires on mankind. I believe him a worthy humane man; but I think I see a little of the asperity of disappointment in his writings.' _Miss Mulso to Miss Carter, October 1752._

'I am very unwilling to believe those that fright us with shocking pictures of human nature, and could almost quarrel with my very great favourite, 'The Rambler,' for his too-general censures on mankind; and for speaking of envy and malice as universal passions.' _Ibid._

[4] 'I thank God, (Canterbury, August 29, 1757,) my best soul has now the upper hand, by the assistance of medicine and cool weather, much more than of reason; and perhaps by the hope of two or three days of fancied good, in the presence of a _fancied essential_ (Mr. Chapone) to my happiness, who has promised to come down and see me some time before the middle of next month.'----'I shall now tell you something of myself, who live here (Salisbury, John, the second brother to her, being then its Prebendary) uncorrupted by grandeur, &c. &c. &c. who could prefer _a little attorney_ (Chapone) even to my Lord Feversham; had he offered to me, instead of the fair young lady he has so happily won.' _Miss Mulso to Miss Carter._

[5] 'Nothing can ever make me amends for that luxurious ease and security, in the kindness of all around me, which enables me to wrangle, abuse, and dispute, till I am black in the face,' &c. &c. _Mrs. Chapone to Mr. Burrows, 1773._

[6] 'It has always been one of my prayers, that I might never be the wife of an overgrown scholar.' _Miss Mulso to Miss Carter, 1754._

[7] Letters on the Improvement of the Mind, edit. 1801, pages 93, 94.

[8] 'I have been very near death; and, at the time he threatened me most, it was the most earnest wish of my heart to meet and embrace him. But, I bless God, I am restored not only to life, but to a sense of the great mercy indulged me in the grant of a longer tern of trial.'--'You are so obligingly solicitous about my circumstances, that I would willingly inform you of the state of them, if I had any certainty about them. But my dear Mr. Chapone's affairs were left in great confusion and perplexity by his sudden death; which happened just at the time of year in which he should have settled his accounts, and made out his bills. As these are very considerable, his estate must suffer a great loss from this circumstance. At present, things are in a very melancholy state, and my own prospects such as would probably have appeared very dreadful to me at any other time.' _Mrs. Chapone to Miss Carter, December 6, 1761._

[9] King George III. and Queen Charlotte; his present Majesty, then Prince of Wales, and sixteen years old; Prince Frederic, Duke of York, then fifteen years old; Prince William, Duke of Clarence, then thirteen years old; Princess Royal, now Queen of Wirtemberg, then about fourteen years old, and Princess Augusta, then about ten years old.

[10] Addressed by Mrs. Chapone to her friend Mrs. Carter.

[11] 'Letters on the Improvement of the Mind.' They had been published five years then.

[12] This young lady, of whom the reader must wish to know more, was the eldest daughter of Mrs. Chapone's second brother, John, who was Prebendary of the cathedrals of Winchester and Salisbury. She became attached to this niece in 1766, while on a visit at her home; wrote the Letters, to her, in 1772; and, stimulated by her literary friends, published them in 1773.--'I had great satisfaction,' writes Mrs. Chapone to Miss Carter, November 1797, 'in seeing my darling niece established in the happiest manner, at Winchester, with husband (Rev. Benjamin Jeffreys) who seems in every respect calculated to make her happy.' Mrs. Chapone passed the autumns 1797 and 1798 at the Deanery at Winchester. Here she awaited the approaching accouchement of her dearest niece, which was destined to terminate one or her fondest hopes. This last joy of her life, this child of her heart, was now torn from her, after the birth of a dead infant, in March 1799.