and agreeable people, and pleasingly vary the scene. cause she happens to furnish us, rather Such is Hampstead."-p. 277. appositely, with a female type of that Such was Hampstead; but the giant older cultivation, the cultivation of the spread of population and building has Georgian era, or rather of the pre-Waterworked a significant change within the loo era, at which in our introductory relimits of a generation. The heath, the marks we glanced. Joanna Baillie was groves, the fields, the gardens of Hamp- one of the numerous poetic nurslings stead its quaint red brick mansions of whom "Caledonia, stern and wild," had Stuart or Nassau date, its later brown the merit of fostering at the close of the and yellow edifices of Hanoverian re- last century; and though for more than spectability, its still more modern stone half her life a resident in or near Lonor plaster villas, with their well-kept don, and familiar with its best society, lawns and dainty flower-beds; the variety she never bated her national prepossesof hill and valley, the broad breezy ter- sions, nor lost the dialect of her fatherrace, the outlook to the vast city and St. land. Her earliest years were led in all Paul's dome rising mysteriously through the freedom of Scottish country life. She its everlasting smoke on the one side, and was a fresh "out-door" maiden, scramto Harrow on the Hill, with its conspic- bling barefoot over burns and heather, uous steeple, on the other; these, though loving to listen to all nature's sounds, and not untouched by mutability's "cruel to watch all nature's sights. It was not sport," may still in their general features till her eleventh year that she could learn remain as in the days when Miss Aikin to read. Then her favorite studies were tried to tempt Dr. Channing to its among the story-tellers and the poets; and heights. But where is the free village her favorite thoughts as she grew up were life? where are the retired haunts? and of the workings and emotions of the human above all, where are the familiar social heart. Her first dramas were published gatherings equal in variety or in intel- in 1798; her last nearly forty years later. lectual quality to those which certain The altered taste of the age was evident Hampstead homes could master five-and- in the different reception accorded to thirty years ago? Memory tempts us; them. De Montfort and its companions but we must not allow ourselves to dally ran out five editions within eight years. at the banquets where wits and authors It was the reviving enthusiasm for Shakof every type and degree of celebrity speare and the drama generally that were wont to cluster round the head of wafted Miss Baillie to notoriety. Her the greatest publishing house in London; pure and beautiful language, her delicate nor in the trim gardens, where noble and pathos, her great command over a few learned chiefs of the law would lounge in chords in the complex harmonies of man's rustic ease under the hospitable auspices nature, were her well-merited title to the of their brother of the bench; nor in the world's applause. Scott, who made her modest retreat, where sons of science acquaintance in 1806, at once found in her loved to assemble and hear lessons of ex- a congenial spirit, and, as time proved, perience from the greatest surgeon of the an enduring friend. His letters to her, day. Before one quiet home only we published in his Life by Lockhart, are would linger for a moment, one unpre- well known to be among the most charmtending red brick house of ancient date, ing he ever wrote. Of her genius he was on the summit of the steep hill which an ardent admirer, and was the means of lifts the visitor to the breezy table-land of first introducing her conceptions to the the heath, and where Campbell, Rogers, histrionic talent of Siddons in 1810, at Crabbe, Sotheby, Byron's wife and his Edinburgh, when he writes with delight daughter "Ada," Lord Jeffrey, John of the tears and praises called forth by Richardson, nay, the Great Magician the representation of the Family Legend. himself, were frequent guests; for Joanna But as acting pieces her plays were never Baillie, the inmate of that house, was one permanently successful, and the dramas who stand out conspicuously in Miss published in 1836, though full of real Aikin's pages as an object of her love poetic power, and favored with a good and reverence; and we are the more in- deal of laudatory criticism at the time, duced to make allusion to her here be- created none of the enthusiasm of former days in a reading public which had then turned to other fashions of literature for amusement. Miss Aikin's recollections of this gifted lady, written when she herself was old, are a very generous and pleasing tribute of friendship. "It has been my privilege," she says, "to have had more or less of personal acquaintance with almost every literary woman of celebrity who adorned English society from the latter years of the last century nearly to the present time, and there was scarcely one of the number in whose society I did not find much to interest me; but of all these, excepting of course Mrs. Barbauld from the comparison, Joanna Baillie made by far the deepest impression upon me. Her genius was surpassing, her character the most endearing and exalted. . . She was the only person I have ever known towards whom fifty years of close acquaintance, while they continually deepened my affection, wore away nothing of my reverence. "So little was she fitted or disposed for intellectual display, that it was seldom that her genius shone out with its full lustre in conversation; but I have seen her powerful eye kindle with all a poet's fire, her language rose for a few moments to the height of some 'great argument.' Her deep knowledge of the human heart also would at times break loose from the habitual cautiousness, and I have then thought that if she was not the most candid and benevolent, she would be one of the most formidable of observers. Nothing escaped her, and there was much humor in her quiet touches. No one would ever have taken her for a married woman. An innocent and maiden grace still hovered over her to the end of her old age. It was one of her peculiar charms, and often brought to my mind the line addressed to the vowed Isabella in Measure for Measure, I hold you for a thing enskied and saintly.' If there were ever human creature 'pure in the last recesss of the soul,' it was surely this meek, this pious, this noble-minded, and nobly-gifted woman, who, after attaining her ninetieth year,* carried with her to the grave the love, the reverence, the regrets of all who had ever enjoyed the privilege of her society."-pp. 7, 11. We re The description is a true one. member this sweet lady in her long evening of life. Her heart seemed wrapt in family affection, in household usefulness, in kindly interest for her friends, most tender always for the young and helpless. No picture of her is complete without that of her life-long companion and admiring elder sister, Agnes, the quaint, clever old "Dear Agnes, gleam'd with joy and dash'd with Two tiny imps, who scarcely stoop'd to gather And Hampstead society, five-and-thirty years ago, presents us with another point of contact for the purpose of our distant from the home of Joanna Baillie, present survey: for in a villa a few yards a not unfrequent visitor, about the year 1830, was Caroline Frances Cornwallis, +Joanna Baillie died in 1851. Agnes survived her sister many years, and was believed to be up* Rather too advanced an estimate, we believe. wards of a hundred when she died. whose name, scarcely known to the itics; that if education only made the world of authorship till the recent publi- difference, then women ought to cast cation of her Letters, stands third on our frivolity away, and be educated up to list. She was daughter of the Rev. W. the level of men. This was indeed the Cornwallis, rector of Wittersham in the cherished idea of her life; one to which county of Kent, representative of a young- she clung with all the pertinacity of an er branch of the ancient family which enthusiast. The "Rights of Women" owned the late Marquis Cornwallis as its were not thirty years ago the common head. The literary career of this lady, battle-cry that they have since become. and her expressed opinions, show in a The few who made a stir about them were striking manner the effect which the old- women of exceptional notoriety: flighty fashioned jealousy and distrust of female lecturers, like Frances Wright, or systethinkers tended to produce on one as- matic radicals, like Harriet Martineau. suredly of the most vigorous female in- Miss Cornwallis was a very different pertellects of her time; while she is herself son from either of these. She was by a'so an eminent example of the increased education and taste a conservative in depth and solidity of which a woman's politics, and though, as life went on, thought was capable. Too earnest and her opinions on most subjects assumed a profoundly sensitive to content herself very liberal complexion, she always based with merely adapting her powers to the them on a philosophic vantage-ground prevailing current of taste, too self-con- of her own, and to the last disliked the tained and retired in her circumstances, so-called reforming party in the State, and perhaps in her inclinations, to be and their political connections. How borne into public notice by the applauses strongly she felt on this subject of woof a coterie, Miss Cornwallis, in her iso- man's intellect and position the whole lated independence, read, thought, and tenor of her correspondence bespeaks. wrote, with the powers of a masculine "Nothing distressed her more," says the mind, on topics which few masculine editor of the volume before us, "than to minds could have handled with clearer be told (as of course she was told) that logic or more sound information. But she was an exception, and that her own it was her firm conviction that a fairer attainments afforded no argument in consideration would be secured for her support of the opinion she so strenously productions by presenting them to the held upon the natural equality of intelpublic on their own merits, without con- lect in the two sexes. She considered fessing the secret of her sex; and of the that women were themselves in great many who read and profited by the measure to blame for the prevalence of a clever mannuals entitled Small Books on state of opinion which cramped intellecGreat Subjects, which appeared on Pick- tual development and withheld civil ering's counters between the years 1842 rights; and hence she believed that and 1854, none, we venture to affirm, every individual woman who showed save the few chosen friends who were herself capable of handling great and behind the scenes, had a suspicion that important questions, was contributing the author of nearly the whole series was something towards the future admission a woman; and a woman, moreover, of of the right of the whole sex to higher secluded life, feeble health, and no influ- culture and greater freedom." Into the ential literary connection. It was cer- general argument on this delicate questainly not from any distrust of her own tion it is no part of our business here to powers either as an individual or as a thrust ourselves. We would merely alwoman that Miss Cornwallis shrunk from lude to one or two considerations which publicity. One main motive of her in- appear to us to have had too little weight tellectual exertions, as she always assert- in the reflections of Miss Cornwallis, and ed, was to vindicate the natural equality of others who share her views to their of her sex with the other; to prove, by full extent. Even if woman's intellect what she considered irresistible logic, could be proved, as satisfactorily as she that if woman's intellect was not natural-thought it could, equal in natural caly inferior to that of man, the same rights pacity to that of man-to the triumphant were due to her in society, law, and pol- refutation of Archbishop Whately's dic tum about the exceptionally creative genius of the Miss Thwaites who invented the soda-water-the question still remains, Would it be desirable, not on grounds of capacity-for capacity has really little to do with it; a clever woman is no doubt a better judge of most things than a stupid man-but on grounds of social harmony and expediency, that the legal fence-work between the sexes should be altogether levelled? For the distinctions upon which that fence-work rests, are not, be it remembered, arbitrary distinctions, as those between man and man; they are distinctions of nature's making, whereby the physical weakness of one sex points out its dependence on the physical strength of the other, and seems to bar the law of competition, save in exceptional cases. Again, to compare the "emancipation" of women with the emancipation of slaves, as an act of justice, is surely a fallacy in another respect. In the sphere of domestic influence women may exercise, and always have exercised, a power of their own, to which slaves can never pretend; and the more highly they cultivate their reasoning powers, and the more widely they extend their knowledge, the more effective and beneficial may that influence become, though, unhappily, history shows that it has not always depended on such creditable Nay, some might be disposed to cite against Miss Cornwallis her own favorite instance in plea of woman's enfranchisement, as proving that if she can do so much as an unobserved, irresponsible agent, there is the less need to drag her forth into the fields of public conflict. causes. "It is useless," she says, "to inquire what women have published, unless you could inquire also what they have done pricately which men have the credit of. It was a chance that told us who was the composer of Pericles' Oration. She was reproached as the author of his policy also; yet his policy was most able. She raised her second husband to eminence also as an orator and politician: and it is probable that there has been many an Aspasia that the world knows nothing of, who has enjoyed in quiet the fame of him she loved, and cared not for her own." Much of the peculiarity and independence of Miss Cornwallis's views and character is attributable to the circumstances "At the period you talk of, fifteen and sixteen, I was very miserable; a darling sister who, though much older, had been everything to me, married first, and left me lonely, and then, within the year, died; my father for six months; my mother's health was bad; broke the tendon of his leg, and was helpless myself worn with sorrow and fatigue. I learned not to weep, for it vexed my father to see it; but I have been told that the first time we, the survivors, appeared at church together, the parishioners almost wept to see us so pale, and worn, and shadow-like. What was the world to me then? of that where I should rejoin what I loved; I only thought and then I made the vow which long years afterwards I found written down, that I would forsake all the follies of my age, and be to my father all that she whom he had lost had I toiled been, for she was his right hand. when he could walk, rode with him; sought patiently over his accounts, walked with him no amusement, no dress; concealed my own grief under a gay exterior, and lived as if there had been no gaieties in the world. I plunged into books as a resource, and as a fountain whence I could draw refreshment mental suffering combined to make my youth for a weary spirit. Thus bodily and unlike other people's. I think, nevertheless, if I had been thrown a little more into society, that my mind would not have broken down my body so much, and I might have felt less of that unnatural tædium vite which at times made it a burden almost too heavy to be borne."―pp. 267, 268. The mind which, at so early an age, could brace itself to such firm resolves, was assuredly of no common order. The extent and variety of her studies, as recorded in the correspondence for several succeeding years of her life, were something amazing. But while she liked to astonish her friends by the avowal of her multifarious excursions into the realms of knowledge, she protested against too high an estimate being formed of her conquests therein, and warmly deprecated the unenviable notoriety attaching to the character of a "learned lady." "I believe," she wrote on one occasion' "you, like many more of my friends, overrate my attainments a good deal, owing to this fancy of mine for smatterings of knowledge. I think they afford more pleasure than swallowing down one great stiff science, horns and all, like the boa-constrictor, and lying choked with it for half one's life; but after all, for use they avail but little."—p. 57. The tadium vita, however, was too formidable a ghost to be laid by study. Moreover, ill health interfered with her powers of application. There is something very pathetic in the following description of her mental state: "When health is only to be preserved by drawing lines of circumvallation past which sorrow is not to be allowed to step, it is hardly worth having. The effort to exclude the enemy wearies more at last than his admission. When I was stronger, I could smother care in extreme application to study: now even that remedy fails me. But why should I pursue such subjects? Bodily pain and mental suffering will some day have an end; and so I hitch up my load again, and proceed on my way." Miss Cornwallis's devotion to learning, at an age when most girls seek the pleasures of dress and of the ball-room, did not altogether destroy her attractions for the sex of which she seemed likely to prove so formidable a rival on its own ground. It was not long after her sister's death that she received an offer of marriage from one destined afterwards to rank among the distinguished authors of his day, the historian J. C. L. Sismondi. Thirty-six years later, on occasion of his death, she thus mentions the circumstance to one of her correspondents: "This year is doomed not to be a gay one to me, for I have had the news of my dear old friend Sismondi's death-a friend more than for as long as I can remember, for I do not remember the first seeing him. Such a loss is irreparable, and as such I must feel it. He had greatness of mind to get over what few men do; for when disparity of years and other considerations led me to decline his proffered hand, he continued the same warm friend as ever, and never, to his latest hour, ceased to show me every kindness in his power. Such a friend is not easily replaced, and can never be forgotten. He is one more added to the list of those whose number makes me feel more a denizen of the next world than of this. My only comfort is the trying to make myself worthy of them, that in God's good time I may be found fit to enjoy the society of just men made perfect;' and in this hope I trudge on upon my weary pilgrimage patiently and quietly."-p. 233. A letter of the rejected suitor's on the occasion, which has been preserved, written in imperfect English, shows how highly he rated the mental excellencies of his beloved: "Tell her," he wrote to Mrs. Cornwallis, "tell her I will work incessantly till I have reached such a reputation as she may derive some vanity from my past address, while always shall I be proud of having raised my wishes to her, though unsuccessfully. Do not think the wish unreasonable, however. Those dreams are now vanished, but the more aërial was their nature, the more have they left after them a true endearment for yourself and your daughter. She can not be a foreigner to me: it was not she who has refused me, it was the war-the distance of seas and lands, the nature itself of things. She has not refused me for a friend, a halfbrother, and that I hope to remain." Disparity of years he does not himself reckon among the causes of her refusal : and seeing he was but thirteen years older than herself, this was probably a very minor consideration. But her resolute devotion to her parents at this time has already been noticed, and no doubt the idea of a foreign connection was altogether repugnant to her feelings. The friendship between Sismondi and herself was kept up by a frequent epistolary correspondence. Her own letters to the historian seem not to be extant; but many of those which he wrote to her are given, as an appendix, in the present volume. They range freely over various topics of literature and sentiment, often expressing opinions very opposite to those she entertained, yet everywhere evincing his profound respect for her character and attainments, and a spirit of tender solicitude for her welfare. In 1822 Mr. Cornwallis was compelled to leave Wittersham on account of disaffection among his parishioners, which took the shape of personal insult and illtreatment. He had spent many years of earnest self-denying labor in the parish, and his daughter had seconded his efforts for its welfare with all the zeal of her ardent nature, and had even voluntarily relinquished a considerable portion of the inheritance which would have been eventually hers, in the endowment of a school |