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ST SIMON.

Born in a prison of America, whither her father had gone as a needy adventurer, and where he died, Francis d'Aubign? returned to France a poor orphan. At Rochelle, where she landed, she was taken pity upon by Madame de Nuillant, an old miser, who degraded the friendless girl by making her keep the key of the granary, and deal out the corn to the horses. Going afterwards to Paris, her beauty, wit, and propriety of conduct procured her friends, and subsequently she married the famous poet Scarron, then a deformed old man. It was the custom for people who loved letters, among whom were many courtiers, to repair to Scarron's house, where they tasted of that wit and fancy which may be discovered in his works. In all this Madame Scarron participated, making many acquaintances, whose friendship, after Scarron's death, did not save her from being a burden on the parish. She afterwards found her way into the Hotel d'Albret, and that of Richelieu, where she acted as a kind of upper servant, calling the other domestics, and reporting when such a one's carriage had arrived. From one thing to another she changed, till she succeeded in so charming King Louis the Fourteenth's mistress, Madame de Montespan, that she engaged her to take the charge of her children. In this office she was in the habit of often meeting the king, who soon saw how much she excelled, in learning and good sense the other women who had been devoted to his pleasure. Finally she was privately married to him.

A woman of strong understanding, Madame Maintenon had learnt, from the various conditions in which she had been, the art of pleasing, insinuation, complaisance, and the use of intrigue; an incomparable grace, an air of perfect ease and self-possession, accompanied by a reservation and show of respect, which was the consequence of her humble birth, and so far natural to her, wrought in unison with a soft speech, the choice of appropriate words, and a species of eloquence kept within bounds. The prior times in which she had lived were those of precision and affectation, qualities which she retained, and in some degree elevated, by an air of dignity and importance, and which, being favourable to devotion, first inspired in her that feeling, and were latterly submerged in it.

Yet, withal, the real character of her mind was that of ambition. She aspired continually after new acquaintances and friends, as well as new modes of amusement, excepting only some old confidantes whom time had rendered necessary to her. This inequality in her temper produced many evils. Easily elevated, she rose to an excess of feeling; as easily depressed, she relapsed into satiety and even disgust, without being able to render a reason for the change even to herself. After overcoming the difficulty of getting into her presence, one had to experience a volubility resulting from something which happened to please her, and presently a relapse into indifference, or something worse, so that it was a task for the visitor to know whether he was in grace or disgrace. She possessed also the weakness to be regulated by confidences and confessions, and to submit to be made the dupe of religious societies. The time absorbed by her visits to convents was incredible. She believed herself to be a kind of universal abbess, and concerned herself with the endless details of numerous convents. She even figured herself to be the mother of the Church, weighing and estimating the merits or demerits of ecclesiastical officials, not less than those of the female heads of convents. She was thus plunged in a sea of occupations, frivolous, deceitful, and painful; of letters and answers to letters, directions to choice friends, and all sorts of puerilities, which resulted ordinarily in nothing.

COUNTESS DE GRAMMONT.

COUNT A. HAMILTON.

Her mind was a proper companion for such a form. She did not endeavour to shine in conversation by those sprightly sallies which only puzzle, and, with still greater care, she avoided that affected solemnity in her discourse which produces stupidity; but, without any eagerness to talk, she just said what she ought and no more. She had an admirable discernment in distinguishing between solid and false wit; and, far from making an ostentatious display of her abilities, she was reserved, though very just, in her decisions. Her sentiments were always noble, and even lofty to the highest extent, when there was occasion; nevertheless, she was less prepossessed with her own merit than is usually the case with those who have so much. Formed as we have described, she could not fail of commanding love; but so far was she from courting it, that she was scrupulously nice with respect to those whose merit might enable them to cherish any pretensions to her.

MADEMOISELLE DE LA VALLIERE.

DAVENPORT ADAMS.

The most romantic of Louis' attachments was that which he professed for Mademoiselle de la Valliere, born in 1664 of a noble family, which had been long established in Touraine. While yet a child, she lost her father, and was brought up at Blois, in the household of Gaston of Orleans. "Her features," as we learn from Elizabeth of Bavaria, Duchess of Orleans, "had an inexpressible attraction; her figure was beautiful, her appearance modest; she limped a little, but this did not ill become her." Her forehead was smooth and white, and on each side of it clustered abundant curls of a glossy auburn. The soft languishing eyes, the straight nose, the exquisite mouth and the dimpled chin, with a certain eloquent air of love and gentleness, made up a most fascinating countenance. All the figure was firm and plump--not one of your angular forms, that bristle with sharp points, but the shape of a Venus, rich in graceful curves, and softly rounded. There was a peculiar charm in her conversation; it so sparkled with that light, effervescing humour, which in the mouth of a pretty woman is accounted wit, while it breathed an air of refinement that indicated a graceful and accomplished mind. A sweet temper and a gentle disposition won the affection of all her companions. She was capable of a passionate love, a deep and unalterable love, devoted to its object, and utterly regardless of itself. She was not ambitious, except of being loved; and that is an ambition which a man willingly forgives to beauty. Envy and jealousy shrunk afar from her generous soul. Finally, La Valliere had all the softness if she lacked the purity of Imogen, the self-abandonment of Juliet, the passionate fidelity of Ophelia; but nature had rendered it impossible for her to play the part of a Cleopatra. She was formed to yield, to obey, to suffer in silence; and the secret of her power lay in the simplicity of her devotion.

The beautiful La Valliere is still the heroine of the people. Her story is a tale of passion, of guilt, sorrow, and penitence; it has had peculiar attractions for the popular mind; and, while it has contributed poem, romance, and history to French literature, it has not been neglected by the English writer. It certainly possesses the most striking features of romance. Consider the quality of the actors--a powerful sovereign in the flush of youthful pride, contrasted with a young and simple maid of honour. Consider the startling variety of the passions--ardent and aspiring love, triumphant possession; satiety on the one side, and sorrow on the other, remorse, and a long repentance. Consider the picturesque character of the scenes--the glittering pomp of a palace, the austere simplicity of a convent. And then there is thrown over the whole the bewildering atmosphere of splendour; nobles and pages, statesmen and beauties, priests and councillors,--music and flowers, and the glow of a thousand lights,--the fall of powerful ministers, the intrigues of subtle courtiers,--all blend in the exciting movement of this passionate and fantastic drama. And yet it is an old, old story,--the brief madness of love, the prolonged penitence of remorse. It is a fine commentary on the exultant sin,--this dreary old age of shattered hopes that closes all.

MADAME DACIER.

HALLAM.

One whom Bentley calls the most learned of women, Tanaquil Faber, thus better known than by his real name, Tanneguy le Fevre, a man learned, animated, acquired a considerable name among French critics by several editions, as well as by other writings in philology. But none of his literary productions were so celebrated as those of his daughter, Anne le Fevre, afterwards Madame Dacier.

The Daciers had to fight the battle of antiquity against a generation both ignorant and vainglorious, yet keen-sighted in the detection of blemishes, and disposed to avenge the wrongs of their fathers, who had been trampled upon by pedants, with the help of a new pedantry, that of the court and the mode. With great learning, they had a competent share of good sense, but not, perhaps, a sufficiently discerning taste or liveliness enough of style to maintain a cause that had so many prejudices of the world now enlisted against it.

LADY MASHAM.

BALLARD.

Damaris, Lady Masham, the daughter of the famous Dr Cudworth, and second wife of Sir Thomas Masham of Oates, in Essex, was born in 1658. Her father, who soon perceived the bent of her genius, took particular care in her tuition, and she applied herself with great diligence to the study of divinity and philosophy, under the direction of the celebrated Mr Locke, who was a domestic in her family for many years, and at length died in her house at Oates.

Soon after she was married, the fame of her learning, piety, and ingenuity, induced the celebrated Mr Norris to address and inscribe to her, by way of letter, his "Reflections upon the Conduct of Human Life." This began a friendship between them, which, having its foundation in religion, seemed very likely to be firm and lasting; but it seems to have been in a great measure dissolved before it had been of any long continuance, occasioned by this lady's contracting an indissoluble friendship with Mr Locke, whose divinity and philosophy is well known to have differed from that of Mr Norris. Not long after, the latter, in certain published letters, maintained the proposition, that "mankind are obliged strictly, as their duty, to love with desire nothing but God only;" and Lady Masham published, without her name, her "Discourse concerning the Love of God," wherein she applied herself to the examination of Mr Norris's scheme, which included the proposition, that every degree of love of any creature is sinful; a proposition defended by him on the ground that God, not the creature, is the efficient cause of our sensations. Mrs Masham examined this hypothesis with great accuracy and ingenuity, and represented in a strong light the evil consequences resulting from it. About the year 1700, Lady Masham also wrote a treatise, "Occasional Thoughts in reference to a Virtuous and Christian Life," the principal design of which was to improve religion and virtue; and, indeed, it is so full of excellent instruction, that, if carefully perused by both sexes, it could not fail of obtaining much of its desired end. She complains much of the too great neglect of religious duties, occasioned, as she believed, by the want of being better acquainted with the fundamentals of religion; and very justly reprehends and reproaches persons of quality for so scandalously permitting their daughters to pass that part of their youth, in which the mind is most ductile and susceptible of good impressions, in a ridiculous circle of diversions, which is generally thought the proper business of young ladies, and which so generally engrosses them that they can find no spare hours wherein to make any improvement in their understandings.

ANNE KILLIGREW.

BALLARD.

The daughter of Dr Henry Killigrew, prebendary of Westminster, became eminent in the arts of poetry and painting; and had it pleased Providence to protract her life, she might probably have excelled most of the professors in both. She was the Orinda of Mr Dryden, who seems quite lavish in her commendation; but as we are assured by a writer of great probity that she was equal to, if not superior to that praise, let him be my voucher for her skill in poetry.

"Art she had none, yet wanted none, For Nature did that want supply; So rich in treasures of her own, She might our boasted stores defy; Such noble vigour did her verse adorn, That it seemed borrowed where 'twas only born."

The great poet is pleased to attribute to her every excellence in that science; but if she has failed of some of its excellences, still should we have great reason to commend her for having avoided those faults by which some have derived a reflection on the science itself, as well as on themselves. Speaking of the purity and charity of her compositions, he bestows on them this commendation,--

"Her Arethusian stream remains unsoiled, Unmixed with foreign filth, and undefiled; Her wit was more than man, her innocence a child."

Mr Dryden's muse put on the mourning habit on this sad occasion, and lamented the death of our ingenious poetess in very moving strains, in a long ode, from whence I shall take the liberty of transcribing the eighth stanza; and the rather as it does honour to another female character.

"Now all those charms that blooming grace The well-proportioned shape and beauteous face, Shall never more be seen by mortal eyes; In earth the much-lamented virgin lies! Not wit nor poetry could fate prevent, Nor was the cruel destiny content To finish all the murder at a blow, To sweep at once her life and beauty too; But, like a hardened felon, took a pride, To work more mischievously slow, And plundered first, and then destroyed. O, double sacrifice, as things divine, To rob the relique and deface the shrine! But thus Orinda died: Heaven by the same disease did both translate; As equal were their souls, so equal was their fate."

QUEEN ANNE.

MISS STRICKLAND.

Now turn the medal, and read the reverse:--"Queen Anne had a person and appearance very graceful; something of majesty in her look. She was religious without affectation, and certainly meant to do everything that was just. She had no ambition, which appeared by her being so easy in letting King William come before her to the crown, after the king, her father, had followed such counsels as made the nation see they could not be safe in their liberty and lives without coming to the extremities they did; and she thought it more for her honour to be easy in it, than to make a dispute who should have the crown first that was taken from her father. And it was a great trouble to her to be forced to act such a part against him, even for security, which was truly the case; and she thought those that showed the least ambition had the best character. Her journey to Nottingham was purely accidental, never concerted, but occasioned by the great fright she was in when King James returned from Salisbury; upon which she said she would rather jump out of the window than stay and see her father."

Other contemporary authors have mentioned traits of Queen Anne, according to their knowledge. When all are collected and examined, certain contradictions occur; for they do not enough distinguish between the actions of Anne in her youth, as an uneducated and self-indulgent woman, and the undeniable improvement in her character. Even the awful responsibility of a reigning sovereign, whose practical duties were at that era by no means clearly defined, awoke her conscience to trembling anxiety for the welfare of her people. Much permanent good she assuredly did, and no evil, as queen-regent, notwithstanding the ill-natured sarcasms of a Whig politician, who, when mentioning her demise at an opportune juncture for the Hanoverian succession, declared that "Queen Anne died like a Roman, for the good of her country." But no sovereign was ever more deeply regretted by the people. The office of regality was, there is no doubt, a painful occupation to her; for her constant complaint was, observes Tindal, "that she was only a crowned slave," the originality of which expression savours not of the dulness generally attributed to this queen.

Her person is represented differently by those who saw her daily. "Her complexion was ruddy and sanguine; the luxuriance of her chestnut hair has already been mentioned. Her face was round and comely, her features strong and regular; and the only blemish in it was that defluxion which had fallen on her eyes in her childhood, had contracted the lids, and given a cloudiness to her countenance." Thus the frown that the Duchess of Marlborough dwells on malevolently did not arise from ill-nature, but from defect of vision. The duchess has likewise given a malignant turn to a trifling incident arising from Anne's near-sightedness, quoted in her early life. "Queen Anne was of a middle stature," observes another contemporary; "not so personable and majestic as her sister, Queen Mary. Her face was rather comely than handsome; it seemed to have a tincture of sourness in it, and, for some years before she died, was rubicund and bloated. Her bones were small, her hands extremely beautiful, her voice most melodious, and her ear for music exquisite. She was brought up in High Church principles, but changed her parties according to her interest. She was a scrupulous observer of the outward and visible forms of godliness and humility in public service; as, for instance, she reproved once the minister of Windsor Castle for offering her the Sacrament before the clergy present had communicated;" thus forgetting her position and dignity as head of the church.

ESTHER JOHNSON.

JEFFREY.

Esther Johnson, better known to the reader of Swift's works by the name of Stella, was the child of a London merchant, who died in her infancy, when she went with her mother, who was a friend of Sir William Temple's sister, to reside at Moorpark, where Swift was then domesticated. Some part of the charge of her education devolved upon him, and, though he was twenty years her senior, the interest with which he regarded her appears to have ripened into something as much like affection as could find a place in his selfish bosom. Soon after Sir William Temple's death he got his Irish livings, besides a considerable legacy; and as she had a small independence of her own, it is obvious that there was nothing to prevent their honourable and immediate union. Some cold-blooded vanity or ambition, however, or some politic anticipation of his own possible inconstancy, deterred him from this outward and open course, and led him to an arrangement which was dishonourable and absurd in the beginning, and in the end productive of the most accumulated misery.

He prevailed upon her to remove her residence from the bosom of her own family in England to his immediate neighbourhood in Ireland, where she took lodgings with an elderly companion of the name of Mrs Dingley--avowedly for the sake of his society and protection, and on a footing of intimacy so very strange and unprecedented, that, whenever he left his parsonage-house for England or Dublin, these ladies immediately took possession and occupied it till he came back. A situation so extraordinary and undefined was liable, of course, to a thousand misconstructions, and must have been felt as degrading by any woman of spirit and delicacy; and, accordingly, though the master of this Platonic seraglio seems to have used all manner of paltry and insulting practices to protect a reputation which he had no right to bring into question,--by never seeing her except in the presence of Mrs Dingley, and never sleeping under the same roof with her,--it is certain both that the connection was regarded as indecorous by persons of her own sex, and that she herself felt it to be humiliating and improper.

Accordingly, within two years after her settlement in Ireland, it appears that she encouraged the addresses of a clergyman of the name of Tisdal, between whom and Swift there was a considerable intimacy, and that she would have married him, and thus sacrificed her earliest attachment to her freedom and her honour, had she not been prevented by the private dissuasions of that false friend who did not choose to give up his own claims to her, although he had not the heart or the honour to make her lawfully his own. She was then a blooming beauty of little more than twenty, with fine black hair, delicate features, and a playful and affectionate character. It seems doubtful to us whether she originally felt for Swift anything that could properly be called love; and her willingness to marry another in the first days of their connection, seems almost decisive on the subject; but the ascendancy he had acquired over her mind, and her long habit of submitting her own judgment and inclinations to his, gave him at last an equal power over her, and moulded her pliant affections into too deep and exclusive a devotion.

Even before his appointment to the deanery of St Patrick's, it is utterly impossible to devise any apology for his not marrying her, or allowing her to marry another; the only one he ever appears to have stated himself, viz., the want of a sufficient fortune to sustain the expenses of matrimony, being palpably absurd in the mouth of a man born to nothing, and already more wealthy than nine-tenths of his order; but after he obtained that additional preferment, and was thus ranked among the well-beneficed dignitaries of the Establishment, it was plainly an insult upon common sense to pretend that it was the want of money that prevented him from fulfilling his engagement. Stella was then twenty-six, and he near forty-five, and both had hitherto lived very far within an income that was now more than doubled. That she now expected to be made his wife appears from the care he took in the Journal indirectly to destroy that expectation; and though the awe in which he continually kept her probably prevented her either from complaining or inquiring into the cause, it is now certain that a new attachment, as heartless, as unprincipled, and as fatal in its consequences as either of the others, was at the bottom of this cruel and unpardonable proceeding.

ESTHER VANHOMRIGH.

SIR WALTER SCOTT.

This unfortunate lady, when she first became acquainted with Swift, was in her twentieth year, and joined to all the attractions of youth, fashion, and elegance, the still more dangerous gifts of a lively imagination, a confiding temper, and a capacity of strong and permanent affection. Conscious of the pleasure which Swift received from her society, and of the advantages of youth and fortune which she possessed, and ignorant of the peculiar circumstances in which he stood with respect to another, naturally Miss Vanhomrigh gave way to the hope of forming a union with a man whose talents had first attracted her admiration, and whose attentions, in the course of their mutual studies, had by degrees gained her affections, and seemed to warrant his own. The friends continued to use the language of friendship, but with the assiduity and earnestness of a warmer passion, until Vanessa rent asunder the veil, by intimating to Swift the state of her affections; and in this, as she conceived, she was justified by her favourite, though dangerous maxim, of doing that which seems in itself right, without respect to the common opinion of the world. We cannot doubt that he actually felt the "shame, disappointment, guilt, surprise," expressed in his celebrated poem, though he had not courage to take the open and manly course of avowing those engagements with Stella, or other impediments which prevented him from accepting the hand and fortune of her rival. Without therefore making this painful but just confession, he answered the avowal of Vanessa's passion in raillery, and afterwards by an offer of devoted and everlasting friendship, founded on the basis of virtuous esteem. Vanessa seems neither to have been contented nor silenced by the result of her declaration, but to the very close of her life persisted in endeavouring, by entreaties and arguments, to extort a more lively return to her passion than this cold proffer was calculated to afford.

Upon Swift's return to Ireland, we may guess at the disturbed state of his feelings, wounded at once by ungratified ambition, and harrassed by his affection being divided between two objects, each worthy of his attachment, and each having great claims upon him, while neither was likely to remain contented with the limited return of friendship in exchange for love, and that friendship, too, divided by a rival. Time wore on. Mrs Vanhomrigh was now dead. Her two sons survived her but a short time; and the circumstances of the young ladies were so embarrassed by inconsiderate expenses, as gave them a handsome excuse for retiring to Ireland, where their father had left a small property near Celbridge. The arrival of Vanessa in Dublin excited the apprehensions of Swift and the jealousy of Stella. She importuned him with complaints of neglect and cruelty; and it was obvious that any decisive measure to break their correspondence would be attended with some such tragic consequence as, though late, at length concluded their story.

About the year 1717, she retired from Dublin to her house and property near Celbridge, to nurse her hopeless passion in seclusion from the world. Swift seems to have foreseen and warned her against the consequences of this step. His letters uniformly exhort her to seek general society, to take exercise, and divert as much as possible the current of her thoughts from the unfortunate subject which was preying upon her spirits. Until the year 1720, he never appears to have visited her at Celbridge; they only met when she was occasionally in Dublin. But in that year, and down to the time of her death, Swift came repeatedly to Celbridge.

MARY ASTELL.

BALLARD.

This great ornament of her sex, the daughter of a merchant in Newcastle, and born about the year 1668, was taught all the accomplishments which were usually learned by young women of her station; and although she proceeded no further in the languages at that time than the learning of the French tongue, yet she afterwards gained some knowledge of the Latin. And having a piercing wit, a solid judgment, and tenacious memory, she made herself a complete mistress of everything she attempted to learn with the greatest ease imaginable. At about twenty years of age she left Newcastle and went to London, where, and at Chelsea, she spent the remaining part of her life, and where she prosecuted her studies very assiduously, and in a little time made great acquisitions in the sciences.

The learning and knowledge which she had gained, together with her great benevolence and generosity of temper, taught her to observe and lament the loss of it in those of her own sex, the want of which, as she justly observed, was the principal cause of their plunging themselves into so many follies and inconveniences. To redress this evil as much as lay in her power, she wrote and published the two parts of her ingenious treatise, entitled, "A Serious Proposal to the Ladies." Afterwards came her "Letters, concerning the Love of God, between the author of the Proposal to the Ladies and Mr John Norris." Notwithstanding her great care to conceal herself, her name was soon discovered and made known to several learned persons, whose restless curiosity would hardly otherwise have been satisfied. These letters have been much applauded for their good sense, sublime thoughts, and fine language.

Afterwards she acquired a more complete knowledge of many classic authors,--Xenophon, Plato, Hierocles, Tully, Seneca, Epictetus, and Antoninus. In 1700 she published her "Reflections on Marriage," which was followed by her book against the sectaries, "Moderation truly Stated,"--a work of which, notwithstanding all the arts she used to conceal herself, she was soon discovered to be the author. Afterwards came her "Religion of a Church of England Woman;" and her "Enquiry into the Causes of Rebellion and Civil War."

As her notions and sentiments of religion, piety, charity, humility, friendship, and all the other graces which adorn the good Christian, were most refined and sublime, so she possessed these rare and excellent virtues in a degree which would have made her admired and distinguished in an age less degenerate and profane; and though from the very flower of her age she lived and conversed with the fashionable world, amidst all the gaiety, pomp, and pageantry of the great city, yet she well knew how to resist and shun those infatuating snares. To know God, and to be like Him, was her first and great endeavour. Though easy and affable to others, to herself she was often over-severe. In abstinence, few or none ever surpassed her; for she would live like a hermit a considerable time together, with a crust of bread and water, with a little small beer. And at the time of her highest living, she very rarely eat any dinner till night, and then it was by the strictest rules of temperance.

She seemed to enjoy an uninterrupted state of health till a few years before her death, when, having one of her breasts cut off, it so much impaired her constitution that she did not long survive it. This was occasioned by a cancer, which she had concealed from the world in such a manner that even few of her most intimate acquaintances knew anything at all of the matter. She dressed and managed it herself, till she plainly perceived there was an absolute necessity for its being cut off; and then, with the most intrepid resolution and courage, she went to the Rev. Mr Johnson, a gentleman very eminent for his skill in surgery , entreating him to take it off in the most private manner imaginable, and would hardly allow him to have persons whom necessity required to be at the operation. She seemed so regardless of the sufferings or pain she was to undergo, that she refused to have her hands held, and did not discover the least timidity or impatience, but went through the operation without the least struggling or resistance, or even so much as giving a groan or a sigh. Soon after this her health and strength declined apace; and at length, by a gradual decay of nature, being confined to bed, and finding the time of her dissolution drawing nigh, she ordered her coffin and shroud to be made and brought to her bedside, and there to remain in her view as a constant memento to her of her approaching fate, and that her mind might not deviate or stray one moment from God, its proper object.

MADAME DES URSINS.

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