In loving fellowship farewel! A Opie. 3rd Mo 24th 1841.

MEMORIALS

OF THE

LIFE OF AMELIA OPIE,

SELECTED AND ARRANGED

BY

CECILIA LUCY BRIGHTWELL.

NORWICH:

FLETCHER AND ALEXANDER;

LONDON: LONGMAN, BROWN, & Co.

MDCCCLIV.

PREFACE.

In the preparation of these Memoirs for publication, the principal part of the labour has been undertaken by my daughter; the pressure of other engagements having only permitted me to undertake the general direction and supervision of the whole.

As the Executor of Mrs. Opie, her papers and letters came into my hands; and it devolved on me to decide in what way to dispose of them. There had been, (I believe,) a general impression among her friends, that she would herself prepare an account of her Life; but although she seems to have made some efforts at commencing the task, and the subject was often affectionately recommended, and even urged upon her, she has left it a matter of regret to her friends, (and especially so to the compilers of these memoirs,) that no “Autobiography” was found among her papers. Nor did Mrs. Opie ever distinctly give any directions as to the publication of her MSS. or any Memoir of her Life; but we have, we think, strong presumptive evidence, that she anticipated, if not desired, that it should be done.

Not long before she died, she said, that her Executor would have no light task with her papers; and a few days before she breathed her last, when she could no longer hold a pen, she called her attendant to her, and dictated a most touching and affectionate farewell address, to me and my daughter, directing the delivery of various small articles as remembrances to a few most intimate friends, and requesting us to complete what she had left undone; adding, that she had confidence in our judgment, and believed that we should “do everything for the best.”

It has been with an earnest desire to justify this trust, and to perfect, as far as in our power, that which she had, in fact commenced, but left incomplete, that these pages have been put to the press.

It will be seen, in the course of these Memoirs, that the materials from which they are compiled, are principally Papers, Letters, and Diaries, of Mrs. Opie’s own writing; a few Letters preserved by her, and judged to be of general interest, and bearing upon her history, we have thought it well to give. It would have been no difficult task, to have greatly extended these Memoirs, had it been deemed expedient to make a free use of the Letters received by her, and of which a very large number were found among her papers; but we have not felt ourselves at liberty to adopt such a course, and we trust there will be found in this Volume few (may we say we hope no) violations of private and confidential communications.

My acquaintance with the subject of these Memoirs, commenced nearly forty years ago; and well do I remember the first impressions made on me by her frank and open manner, the charm of her fine and animated countenance, her artless cheerfulness and benevolence, and the extraordinary powers of her conversation. But it was not till the time of Dr. Alderson’s last illness, that my acquaintance with Mrs. Opie ripened into confidential friendship. From that period to the time of her decease, I had the happiness to enjoy much of her society, and to hear her recollections of her earlier days, and her graphic descriptions of the scenes and characters, which had been subjects of interest to her during the course of her long life; and she subsequently often read me a large portion of the correspondence she continued to maintain.

Gifted with an extraordinary memory, a reverence for truth, extending even to the minutest details, a disposition to look at the best side of everything and everybody, and with almost dramatic power in the exhibition of character and manners; Mrs. Opie when she entered into any details of her former life, painted the whole scene with such truthfulness and power, as to make it live before her hearers, and fix it in their memory.

As an Author, her works have undergone the ordeal of public criticism, and some additional testimony is afforded by these Memoirs, to the favourable impression they made. It will be seen that Sir Walter Scott, Dr. Chalmers, Southey, and other men of note, alike agreed in paying their tribute of admiration to her power of touching the heart, and awakening the softer passions.

The great leading feature of Mrs. Opie’s character was pure, christian benevolence; charity in its highest sense. None that knew her could fail to observe this. Unwearied in her efforts to relieve the distresses of others, and limited in her own means, she was almost ingenious in some of the methods she devised for doing so, and made it matter of duty to avail herself of her influence with her wealthier friends to induce them to assist her endeavours. Her patience in dealing with the incessant importunities of persons who applied for her aid, was almost more than exemplary: but she found a blessing in doing good; and, in her parting address, before alluded to, she has not failed to urge “the remembrance of the poor, so as to be blessed by them.”

Of her religion, the latter part of this Memoir will best speak, and especially the short extracts from her private Journals. These, speaking from the depths of her own heart, shew how holily and humbly she walked before her God; how strictly she called herself to account day by day; and how firmly she relied on the atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ as her hope in life and support in death.

Mrs. Opie had no liking for religious controversy, and seemed to me always desirous of avoiding it. I believe she disliked dogmatic theology altogether. Her religion was the “shewing out of a good conversation her works, with meekness of wisdom.”

She ever deemed her union with “the Friends” the happiest event of her life; and she did honour to her profession of their principles, by shewing that they were not incompatible with good manners and refined taste. She met with some among them who have always appeared to me to come the nearest to the standard of christian perfection; these were her dearest friends on earth, and she is now, with them, numbered among the blessed dead who have died in the Lord, who have ceased from their labours, and whose works do follow them.

THOMAS BRIGHTWELL.

Norwich, May, 1854.

A Second Edition of this work having been speedily called for, the Author has found but little opportunity for making additions to it, and the present is, therefore, excepting some trifling omissions, and the introduction of a few additional lines, simply a reprint of the former volume.

C. L. BRIGHTWELL.

Norwich, July, 1854.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.

Birth and Parentage; her Father; her Mother’s Family; her Mother; Sonnet to her Mother’s Memory; Early Reminiscences; Early Terrors and their Cure; the Black Man; Crazy Women; Bedlam; Visits to the Inmates; Early Training; the Female Sailor; Abrupt Conclusion [1]

CHAPTER II.

First Sorrow; the Assizes; Sir Henry Gould; the Usury Cause; “Christian;” Mr. Bruckner; Girlish Days; her Friendship with Mrs. Taylor; Mrs. T.’s Memoir of her [22]

CHAPTER III.

Norfolk and Norwich, and their Inhabitants; Young Love; the Drama; Song writing and Cromer; Politics; Visit to London; Letters from thence; the Old Bailey Trials [34]

CHAPTER IV.

French Emigrants; Letter to Mrs. Taylor; Letter of the Duke d’Aiguillon; Visit to London and Letter from thence; London again; Letter from Mrs. Wollstonecroft; First introduction to Mr. Opie; Mr. Opie’s early history; Return to Norwich; Preparations for Marriage [51]

CHAPTER V.

Marriage; Early Ménage; Authorship; Lay on portrait of Mrs. Twiss; Letter to Mrs. Taylor; Visit to Norwich; Letter from Mr. Opie; Mrs. Opie to Mrs. Taylor; Mr. Opie’s Mother [68]

CHAPTER VI.

“The Father and Daughter;” Critique in the Edinburgh; three Letters to Mrs. Taylor; volume of “Poems;” “Go, youth beloved;” Letter from Sir J. Mackintosh; S. Smith’s Lecture [79]

CHAPTER VII.

The Trials of Genius; Domestic Troubles; Letters to Mrs. Taylor; Journey to France; Arrival at Paris; the Louvre; the First Consul; Charles James Fox; The Soirée; Kosciusko [91]

CHAPTER VIII.

The Review and Buonaparte; “Fesch;” General Massena; Return to England; Letter to Mrs. Colombine Visit to Norwich; “Adeline Mowbray;” Letter to Mrs. Taylor; Mr. Erskine [108]

CHAPTER IX.

Prosperity; “Simple Tales;” Visit to Southill; Lady Roslyn; Mr. Opie’s “Lectures;” his Illness; his Death [125]

CHAPTER X.

Return to Norwich; “Poems;” Memoir of her Husband; Letter from Lady Charleville; from Mrs. Inchbald; Visit to London; Party at Lady E. Whitbread’s; Visit to Cromer; “Temper;” “Tales of Real Life;” Soirée at Madame de Staël’s [135]

CHAPTER XI.

Letters of Mrs. Opie to Dr. Alderson, written during her visit in London in the year 1814 [146]

CHAPTER XII.

Friendship with the Gurney family; two Letters from Mr. J. J. Gurney; Death of his Brother; Mrs. Opie’s Return from London; Early Religious Opinions; Mrs. Roberts; Recollections of Sir W. Scott; Visit to Edinburgh; “Valentine’s Eve;” Visit to Mr. Hayley; “Tales of the Heart;” Letter to Mr. Hayley; Letter from Mrs. Inchbald; her death [167]

CHAPTER XIII.

Illness of Dr. Alderson; His Daughter’s anxiety; Priscilla Gurney; Bible and Anti-Slavery Meetings; “Madeline;” Letter from Southey; “Lying;” Letters to Mrs. Fry; Mrs. Opie joins the Society of Friends; Dr. Alderson’s Decline and Death [183]

CHAPTER XIV.

Consolation in Sorrow; Letter to a Friend; Journal for the year 1827 [197]

CHAPTER XV.

Yearly Meetings; Letter from London; Letters from Ladies Cork and Charleville; “Detraction Displayed;” Letter from Archdeacon Wrangham; Cromer; Diary for 1829 [212]

CHAPTER XVI.

Visit to Paris; Journal during her Stay there; Letter from thence; Return to England; Letter from Lafayette; Sonnet “on seeing the Tricolor;” Southey's “Colloquies;” Letter from Mrs. Fry; “Nursing Sisters” [229]

CHAPTER XVII.

Revolution of “the Three Days;” Mrs. Opie goes to Paris again; her Journal there [245]

CHAPTER XVIII.

Letter on the Distribution of Prizes at the Catholic Schools; Continuation of Journal; Letter giving an Account of her Visit to the French Court [264]

CHAPTER XIX.

Influence of Christian Fellowship; Mrs. Opie Returns to England; gives up Housekeeping; Journey into Cornwall; Letters and Journal during her Residence there [284]

CHAPTER XX.

Return to Norwich; Extracts from her Diary; Dr. Chalmers and Mrs. Opie at Earlham; Lines addressed by Mrs. Opie to Dr. Chalmers; “Lays for the Dead;” Visit to London; Journey to Scotland; her Journal there; The Highlands; her Visit to Abbotsford [302]

CHAPTER XXI.

Journey to Belgium; Visit to Ghent; Journal of her Travels; Letter from the Rhine Falls; Homeward Journey; Arrival at Calais [317]

CHAPTER XXII.

Mrs. Opie’s Removal to Lady’s Lane; Letters, Visitors, and Writing; Spring Assizes of 1838; Memoirs of Sir W. Scott; Visits to London and Northrepps; Death of Friends; Anti-Slavery Convention; Winter and Spring of 1840-41; Visits to Town and Letters from thence in 1842-43; Illness; Close of 1843; Letter of Reminiscences of Thomas Hogg [333]

CHAPTER XXIII.

Death of Mr. Briggs; Summer Assizes, 1844; “Reminiscences of Judges Courts;” “Reminiscences of George Canning” [353]

CHAPTER XXIV.

The Seventy-fifth year; Notes and Incidents in the years 1845-46; Deaths of Mr. J. J. Gurney and of Dr. Chalmers; Letter from Cromer; Death of Mrs. E. Alderson; Mrs. Opie’s Visit to London in the Spring of 1848; Letter from thence [366]

CHAPTER XXV.

The Castle Meadow house; Indisposition; Increase of Crime; Rush’s Trial; Summer Assizes of 1849; Death of Bishop Stanley; Summer and Autumn of 1850; Farewell Visit to London; the Great Exhibition; Summer of 1852; Rheumatic Gout; Notes; last Visit to Cromer; the Spring and Summer of 1853; Sudden Illness, October 23rd; Patience and Cheerfulness; Increasing Sickness; Leave Taking; Death [382]

Conclusion [404]

MEMORIALS

OF THE

LIFE OF AMELIA OPIE.

CHAPTER I.

BIRTH AND PARENTAGE; HER FATHER; HER MOTHER’S FAMILY; HER MOTHER; SONNET TO HER MOTHER’S MEMORY; EARLY REMINISCENCES; EARLY TERRORS AND THEIR CURE; THE BLACK MAN; CRAZY WOMEN; BEDLAM; VISITS TO THE INMATES; EARLY TRAINING; THE FEMALE SAILOR; ABRUPT CONCLUSION.

Amelia Opie, the only child of James Alderson, M.D., and of Amelia, his wife, was born the 12th of November, 1769, in the parish of St. George, Norwich; she was baptized by the Rev. Samuel Bourn, then the Presbyterian Minister of the Octagon chapel, in that city. Her father was one of a numerous family, the children of the Rev. Mr. Alderson, of Lowestoft, of whom some account is given in Gillingwater’s History of that “ancient town.” From this we gather that “Mr. Alderson was a very worthy, well-disposed man, of an exceeding affable and peaceable disposition, much esteemed by the whole circle of his acquaintance, and, as he lived much respected, so he died universally lamented.” His death happened in 1760. In a note the following account of his family is added: “Four sons and two daughters survive him; the sons are all distinguished for their industry and ability, and are eminent in their several professions; James, an eminent surgeon, at Norwich; John, a physician, at Hull, Thomas, a merchant, at Newcastle; and Robert, a barrister, at Norwich. Of the two daughters, Judith is married to Mr. Woodhouse, and Elizabeth unmarried.”

This was written in 1790. Were the historian now to add a supplementary notice, with how much satisfaction would he record, that, in the third generation, this family numbered among its descendants, Amelia Opie and Sir E. H. Alderson; the former the child of the eldest brother, the latter the son of the youngest.

The tender attachment borne by Mrs. Opie to her father was perhaps her most prominent characteristic. They were companions and friends through life; and when, at length, in a good old age, he was taken from her, she wept with a sorrow which no time could obliterate, and for which there was no solace but in the hope of rejoining him in a better world. Deeply touching are the evidences of the love which prompted her pen in its most successful efforts, influenced her in all the steps she took throughout her career, and rendered her indefatigable in cheering and soothing him through the long years of his declining age. Best of all, she was enabled to direct his mind towards those great truths of the gospel, which she had learned to love, and in which she found her support, when the arm of her earthly friend was about to relax its hold, and leave her alone to pursue in solitude the remainder of her pilgrimage.

Probably the early loss of the wife and mother was one cause which drew more close the bond of union between the “Father and Daughter.” It naturally followed that when, at the age of fifteen, she took the head of her father’s table, and the management of his domestic arrangements, she should endeavour, as much as possible, to supply the place which had been left vacant, and that her young affections should cling more fondly around her remaining parent. There was also much in the father calculated to draw to him the love of his child. He was of fine person and attractive manners, and to these external advantages was joined something better and more enduring—a kind-hearted and generous sympathy for the sufferers whom his skill relieved, and a charity to the poor, which induced him freely to give them his valuable advice and assistance. His daughter says, “He prescribed for about four or five hundred persons at his house every week. The forms in our large hall in a morning were so full from half-past eight till eleven, that I could scarcely pass; and this he did till the end of the year 1820, or rather perhaps to the beginning of 1821, when, unable to go down-stairs, he received the people, at my earnest desire, in my little drawing-room, till he said he could receive no one again. Oh! it was the most bitter trial he or I ever experienced, when he was forced to give up this truly Christian duty; and I was obliged to tell the afflicted poor people that their kind physician was no longer well enough to open his house to receive them, and try to heal their diseases again. He wept, and so did I; and they were bitter tears, for I feared he would not long survive the loss of his usefulness.” Those acts of kindness are not yet forgotten in his native city; an aged woman, being told the other day of the death of Mrs. Opie, recalled to mind the days of her father, “the doctor,” and the time when he was “very good to the poor folks, that is, he gaw’n ’em his advice for nothing; and that was a true charity, lady.”

Mrs. Opie’s mother, Amelia, was the daughter of Joseph Briggs, of Cossambaza, up the Ganges, (eldest son of Dr. Henry Briggs, rector of Holt, Norfolk, and Grace, his wife,) and of Mary, daughter of Captain Worrell, of St. Helena. In an old pocket book, Mrs. Opie has entered the following memoranda concerning this branch of her maternal ancestors.

Account of my great, great, great grandfather, Augustine Briggs, M.P., for Norwich. (From the pedigree of the Briggs’ in Blomefield’s “History of Norfolk.”) An ancient family of Salle, in Norfolk, who before the reign of Edward the First assumed the surname of De Ponte, or Pontibus, i.e. at Brigge or Brigges; as the ancient family of the Fountaines of the same place assumed theirs, of De Fonte or Fontibus, much about the same time, one we presume dwelling by the bridge or bridges, the other by the springs or fountains’ heads. The eldest branch of both families continued in Salle till they united in one. William Atte Brigge, of Salle, called in some deeds W. de Fonte de Salle, was living at Salle in 1334. John Atte Brigge, his second son, was alive in 1385. Thomas Brigge, of Holt, the fourth brother, was alive in 1400; and, in 1392, went to the Holy Sepulchre of our Lord, an account of which pilgrimage written by himself is still extant, in a manuscript in Caius College Library. Augustine Briggs, mayor, alderman, and member for Norwich in four Parliaments, was turned out of the Corporation by the rebels, and restored at the king’s restoration. He joined the Earl of Newcastle’s forces at the siege of Lynn, in 1643. There is a long sword in the family, with a label in Augustine Briggs’ own hand writing tied to it. “This I wore at the siege of Linn, in the servis of the royal martyr, K. Charles ye First, A. Briggs.” He lies buried in a vault in the church of St. Peter’s Mancroft, built by himself, but he alone of the family lies there. It has been since appropriated by the Dean and Chapter to another family, as it was supposed no one was alive to claim it; but I, A. Opie, am the lineal descendant and representative of this excellent man, and the vault was my property. The following is a translation of part of the Latin inscription on his mural monument in St. Peter’s church:—“He was indeed highly loyal to his king, and yet a studious preserver of the ancient privileges of his country; was also firm and resolute for upholding the Church of England, and assiduous and punctual in all the important trusts committed to him, whether in the august assembly of Parliament, his honourable commands in the militia, or his justiciary affairs on the bench: gaining the affections of the people by his hospitality and repeated acts of kindness, which he continued beyond his death, leaving the following charities by his will, as a more certain remembrance to posterity, than this perishing monument erected by his friends, which his posterity endeavours by this plate to continue to further ages.” He died in 1684, aged 67. He lived in the Briggs’ Lane, called after him, which lane is now (1839) widening, and is to be called D’Oyley Street, a proper tribute of respect to the public spirited individual who subscribed £1600 to further this improvement.[^[1]]

Augustine Briggs was also a public benefactor to this, his native city, for he left “estates and monies to increase the revenue of the Boys’ and Girls’ Hospital, and for putting out two poor boys to trades every year, as can read and write, and have neither father nor mother to put them forth to such trades.” My cousin, Henry Perronet Briggs, R.A.,[^[2]] his male representative, has a very fine picture of him, a half-length, in his military dress, painted, he believes, by a pupil of Vandyke. I have a tolerably good three-quarter picture of him,[^[3]]—Amelia Opie. I have also a portrait of his daughter-in-law, Hannah Hobart, heiress of Edmund Hobart, son of the Lord Chief Justice Hobart, afterwards ennobled, and wife of Dr. W. Briggs, M.D., of the University of Cambridge, a man of great science and learning, and an eminent physician.

* * * * * *

Of the mother of Mrs. Opie but few memorials remain. She was of a delicate constitution, and appears to have cherished the habits of retirement, so naturally preferred by an invalid. Her early death bereaved her daughter of a mother’s care and guidance at the most critical period of woman’s life; and we may perhaps trace some features of Mrs. Opie’s character to this event. From the occasional glimpses we catch of the mother in her daughter’s short record of her own early days, it is evident that she was possessed of firm purpose and high principle; a true-hearted woman, and somewhat of a disciplinarian. Her steady hand would have curbed the high spirit of her child, and softened those ebullitions of youthful glee, which made the young Amelia such an impetuous, mirthful creature: she would have been more demure and decorous had her mother lived, but perhaps less charming and attractive. Speedily as the mother’s influence was withdrawn, it left, notwithstanding, some indelible traces in the memory of her daughter, who frequently referred to her, even in her latter days, and usually with reference to some bad habit from which she had warned her, or some good one which she had inculcated. Mrs. Alderson died on the 31st of December, 1784, in the 39th year of her age.

A series of Letters referring to the death of Mr. Joseph Briggs and his wife, and the transfer of their little orphan daughter to England, still exist. They are principally written by Mr. William Briggs, the second son of Dr. Henry Briggs, who having died in 1748, (just about the time of his eldest son’s decease in India,) the family affairs were committed to the care of his next surviving son. He writes thus:—

Several years ago my elder brother, Joseph Briggs, went over to Bengal as a writer in the Company’s service; he married Miss Mary Worrell; he died in May, 1747, and his widow in the December following; leaving behind one child, Amelia. Captain James Irwin, out of friendship to my brother, took care of his little daughter after the death of her mamma. The latter end of May, 1749, the child arrived here in England, and is now in perfect health.

To this kind friend of the orphan, Captain Irwin, the grateful uncle writes:—

London, August 23rd, 1749.

Worthy sir, your letter of December 24th, 1748, and my very dear niece, Amelia Briggs, came safe to England the latter end of May last, praised be God! My honoured father dying in May 1748, yours to him came to me with one directed for myself, in both which you give very uncommon proofs of real friendship. Friendship in prosperity is common; but in adversity none are true friends but the pious.

Your great care of my niece has given very sensible pleasure to all her relations, and all unite with me to return you sincere and hearty thanks; at present we can only express our gratitude in words, but should you ever be pleased to give us an opportunity, I doubt not but you will find us ready to testify our thanks by useful deeds. I believe you will meet with a reward more substantial and durable from our gracious God.

My very great affection for my dear brother Joseph naturally leads me to love and care for the little orphan as if it was my own. She will never want whilst I have it in my power to assist her. She will be a burden to none of her relations; for, before she will have any occasion for it, she will be in possession of a very handsome annuity. At present she is with my mother in Norfolk, one hundred miles from London. She is a charming child, and the country agrees very well with her. The black girl, her nurse, is not reconciled to England; and, thinking she never shall be so, she is determined to return to Bengal by the Christmas ships. As my mother will give her entire liberty to be at her own disposal, I believe her design is to enter into service, as other free women do. If it be in your power, you are very much desired by all my niece’s friends to prevent Savannah’s being bought or sold as a negro.

May the God of all grace and consolation keep and bless you, dear sir, and all your family, with everything necessary to make your short passage easy and agreeable through time into a happy eternity, is the sincere wish and prayer of,

Dear Sir,

Your most obliged humble servant,

W. B.

Seven years after her mother’s death, (1791,) she addressed to her memory the following sonnet.

ON VISITING CROMER FOR THE FIRST TIME SINCE THE DEATH

OF MY MOTHER, WITH WHOM I USED FREQUENTLY TO VISIT IT.

Scenes of my childhood, where, to grief unknown,

And, led by Gaiety, I joy’d to rove,

’Ere in my breast Care fix’d her ebon throne,

And her pale rue, with Fancy’s roses wove.

No more, alas! your wonted charms I view,

Ye speak of comforts I can know no more;

The faded tints of Memory ye renew,

And wake of fond regret the tearful power.

But would ye bid me still the beauties prize

That on your cliff-crowned shores in state abide,

Bid, aim’d in awful pomp, yon billows rise

And seek the realms where Night and Death reside;

Unusual empire bid them there assume,

And force departed goodness from the tomb!

Many years after, among her “Lays for the Dead,” appeared some further lines dedicated to her mother, and, as they have several references to the recollections she retained of her, and are in themselves very sweet and full of earnest tenderness of regret, they are reprinted here:—

IN MEMORY OF MY MOTHER.

An orphan’d babe, from India’s plain

She came, a faithful slave her guide!

Then, after years of patient pain,

That tender wife and mother died.

Where gothic windows dimly throw

O’er the long aisles a dubious day,

Within the time-worn vaults below

Her relics join their kindred clay—

And I, in long departed days,

Those dear though solemn precincts sought,

When evening shed her parting rays,

And twilight lengthening shadows brought—

There long I knelt beside the stone

Which veils thy clay, lamented shade!

While memory, years for ever gone,

And all the distant past pourtray’d!

I saw thy glance of tender love!

Thy check of suffering’s sickly hue!

Thine eye, where gentle sweetness strove

To look the ease it rarely knew.

I heard thee speak in accents kind,

And promptly praise, or firmly chide;

Again admir’d that vigorous mind

Of power to charm, reprove, and guide.

Hark! clearer still thy voice I hear!

Again reproof, in accents mild,

Seems whispering in my conscious ear,

And pains, yet soothes, thy kneeling child!

Then, while my eyes I weeping raise,

Again thy shadowy form appears;

I see the smile of other days,

The frown that melted soon in tears!

Again I’m exiled from thy sight,

Alone my rebel will to mourn;

Again I feel the dear delight

When told I may to thee return!

But oh! too soon the vision fled,

With all of grief and joy it brought;

And as I slowly left the dead,

And gayer scenes, still musing sought,

Oh! how I mourn’d my heedless youth

Thy watchful care repaid so ill,

Yet joy’d to think some words of truth

Sunk in my soul, and teach me still;

Like lamps along life’s fearful way

To me, at times, those truths have shone,

And oft, when snares around me lay,

That light has made the danger known.

Then, how thy grateful child has blest

Each wise reproof thy accents bore!

And now she longs, in worlds of rest,

To dwell with thee for evermore!

* * * * * *

Mrs. Opie evidently designed, at one time, to write a record of the most interesting events of her life; she commenced the task, but abruptly broke off when she reached the age of early youth. This interesting fragment was clearly written at a late period of her life, it commences thus:—

“Ce n’est que le premier pas qui coûte,” says the proverb, and when I have once begun to put down my recollections of days that are gone, with a view to their meeting other eyes besides my own, the difficulty of the task will, I trust, gradually disappear.

But I should be afraid that my garrulities, as I may call them, would not be so interesting to others as I have thought they might be, had I not observed such a hunger and thirst in the world in general for anecdotes, whether biographical or otherwise, and had I not experienced, and seen others evince, such interest and amusement while reading of persons and things; and I am thus encouraged to record my recollections of those distinguished persons with whom I have had the privilege of associating, from my youth upwards, to the present day. Therefore, without further delay or apology, I mean to relate a few “passages” in my very early days, in order to make my readers acquainted with the preparation for my future life and occupations, which these days so evidently afforded.

One of my earliest recollections is of gazing on the bright blue sky as I lay in my little bed, before my hour of rising came, and listening with delighted attention to the ringing of a peal of bells. I had heard that heaven was beyond those blue skies, and I had been taught that there was the home of the good, and I fancied that those sweet bells were ringing in heaven. What a happy error! Neither illusion nor reality, at any subsequent period of my life, ever gave me such a sensation of pure, heartfelt delight, as I experienced when morning after morning I looked on that blue sky, and listened to those bells, and fancied that I heard the music of the home of the blest, pealing from the dwelling of the most high. Well do I remember the excessive mortification I felt when I was told the truth, and had the nature of bells explained to me; and, though I have since had to awake often from illusions that were dear to my heart, I am sure that I never woke from one with more pain than I experienced when forced to forego this sweet illusion of my imaginative childhood.

I believe I was naturally a fearful child, perhaps more so than other children; but I was not allowed to remain so. Well do I remember the fears, which I used to indulge and prove by tears and screams, whenever I saw the objects that called forth my alarm. The first was terror of black beetles, the second of frogs, the third of skeletons, the fourth of a black man, and the fifth of madmen.

My mother, who was as firm from principle, as she was gentle in disposition, in order to cure me of my first fear, made me take a beetle in my hand, and so convince myself it would not hurt me. As her word was law, I obeyed her, though with a shrinking frame; but the point was carried, and when, as frequently happened, I was told to take up a beetle and put it out of the way of being trodden upon, I learnt to forget even my former fear.

She pursued the same course in order to cure me of screaming at sight of a frog; I was forced to hold one in my hand, and thence I became, perhaps, proud of my courage to handle what my playfellows dared not touch.

The skeleton of which I was afraid was that of a girl, black, probably, from the preparation it had undergone; be that as it may, I was induced to take it on my lap and examine it, and at last, calling it my black doll, I used to exhibit it to my wondering and alarmed companions. Here was vanity again perhaps.

The African of whom I was so terribly afraid was the footman of a rich merchant from Rotterdam, who lived opposite our house; and, as he was fond of children, Aboar (as he was called) used to come up to speak to little missey as I stood at the door in my nurse’s arms, a civility which I received with screams, and tears, and kicks. But as soon as my parents heard of this ill behaviour, they resolved to put a stop to it, and missey was forced to shake hands with the black the next time he approached her, and thenceforward we were very good friends. Nor did they fail to make me acquainted with negro history; as soon as I was able to understand, I was shewn on the map where their native country was situated; I was told the sad tale of negro wrongs and negro slavery; and I believe that my early and ever-increasing zeal in the cause of emancipation was founded and fostered by the kindly emotions which I was encouraged to feel for my friend Aboar and all his race.

The fifth terror was excited by two poor women who lived near us, and were both deranged though in different degree. The one was called Cousin Betty, a common name for female lunatics; the other, who had been dismissed from bedlam as incurable, called herself “Old Happiness,” and went by that name. These poor women lived near us, and passed by our door every day; consequently I often saw them when I went out with my nurse, and whether it was that I had been told by her, when naughty, that the mad woman should get me, I know not; but certain it is, that these poor visited creatures were to me objects of such terror, that when I saw them coming (followed usually by hooting boys) I used to run away to hide myself. But as soon as my mother was aware of this terror she resolved to conquer it, and I was led by her to the door the next time one of these women was in sight; nor was I allowed to stir till I had heard her kindly converse with the poor afflicted one, and then I was commissioned to put a piece of money into her hand. I had to undergo the same process with the other woman; but she tried my nerves more than the preceding one, for she insisted on shaking hands with me, a contact not very pleasing to me: however, the fear was in a measure conquered, and a feeling of deep interest, not unmixed with awe, was excited in my mind, not only towards these women, but towards insane persons in general; a feeling that has never left me, and which, in very early life, I gratified in the following manner:—

When able to walk in the street with my beloved parents, they sometimes passed the city asylum for lunatics, called the bedlam, and we used to stop before the iron gates, and see the inmates very often at the windows, who would occasionally ask us to throw halfpence over the wall to buy snuff. Not long after I had discovered the existence of this interesting receptacle, I found my way to it alone, and took care to shew a penny in my fingers, that I might be asked for it, and told where to throw it. A customer soon appeared at one of the windows, in the person of a man named Goodings, and he begged me to throw it over the door of the wall of the ground in which they walked, and he would come to catch it. Eagerly did I run to that door, but never can I forget the terror and the trembling which seized my whole frame, when, as I stood listening for my mad friend at the door, I heard the clanking of his chain! nay, such was my alarm, that, though a strong door was between us, I felt inclined to run away; but better feelings got the mastery, and I threw the money over the door, scarcely staying to hear him say he had found the penny, and that he blessed the giver. I fully believe that I felt myself raised in the scale of existence by this action, and some of my happiest moments were those when I visited the gates of bedlam; and so often did I go, that I became well known to its inmates, and I have heard them say, “Oh! there is the little girl from St. George’s” (the parish in which I then lived.) At this time my mother used to send me to shops to purchase trifling articles, and chiefly at a shop at some distance from the bedlam, which was as far again from my home. But, when my mother used to ask me where I had been, that I had been gone so long, the reply was, “I only went round by bedlam, mamma.”

But I did not confine my gifts to pence. Much of my weekly allowance was spent in buying pinks and other flowers for my friend Goodings, who happened to admire a nosegay which he saw me wear; and as my parents were not inclined to rebuke me for spending my money on others, rather than on myself, I was allowed for some time to indulge in this way the interests which early circumstances, those circumstances which always give the bias to the character through life, had led me to feel in beings whom it had pleased the Almighty to deprive of their reason. At this period, and when my attachment to this species of human woe was at its height, a friend of ours hired a house which looked into the ground named before, and my father asked the gentleman to allow me to stand at one of the windows, and see the lunatics walk. Leave was granted and I hastened to my post, and as the window was open I could talk with Goodings and the others; but my feelings were soon more forcibly interested by an unseen lunatic, who had, they told me, been crossed in love, and who, in the cell opposite my window, sang song after song in a voice which I thought very charming.

But I do not remember to have been allowed the indulgence of standing at this window more than twice. I believe my parents thought the excitement was an unsafe one, as I was constantly talking of what I had said to the mad folks, and they to me; and it was so evident that I was proud of their acquaintance, and of my own attachment to them, that I was admonished not to go so often to the gates of the bedlam; and dancing and French school soon gave another turn to my thoughts, and excited in me other views and feelings. Still, the sight of a lunatic gave me a fearful pleasure, which nothing else excited; and when, as youth advanced, I knew that loss of reason accompanied distressed circumstances, I know that I was doubly eager to administer to the pecuniary wants of those who were awaiting their appointed time in madness as well as poverty. Yet, notwithstanding, I could not divest myself entirely of fear of these objects of my pity; and it was with a beating heart that, after some hesitation, I consented to accompany two gentlemen, dear friends of mine, on a visit to the interior of the bedlam. One of my companions was a man of warm feelings and lively fancy, and he had pictured to himself the unfortunate beings, whom we were going to visit, as victims of their sensibility, and as likely to express by their countenances and words the fatal sorrows of their hearts; and I was young enough to share in his anticipations, having, as yet, considered madness not as occasioned by some physical derangement, but as the result, in most cases, of moral causes. But our romance was sadly disappointed, for we beheld no “eye in a fine phrensy rolling,” no interesting expression of sentimental woe, sufficient to raise its victims above the lowly walk of life in which they had always moved; and I, though I knew that the servant of a friend of mine was in the bedlam who had been “crazed by hopeless love,” yet could not find out, amongst the many figures that glided by me, or bent over the winter fire, a single woman who looked like the victim of the tender passion.

The only woman, who had aught interesting about her, was a poor girl, just arrived, whose hair was not yet cut off, and who, seated on the bed in her new cell, had torn off her cap, and had let the dark tresses fall over her shoulders in picturesque confusion! This pleased me; and I was still more convinced I had found what I sought, when, on being told to lie down and sleep, she put her hand to her evidently aching head, as she exclaimed, in a mournful voice, “Sleep! oh, I cannot sleep!” The wish to question this poor sufferer being repressed by respectful pity, we hastened away to other cells, in which were patients confined in their beds; with one of these women I conversed a little while, and then continued our mournful visits. “But where (said I to the keeper) is the servant of a friend of mine (naming the patient) who is here because she was deserted by her lover?” “You have just left her,” said the man. “Indeed,” replied I, and hastened eagerly back to the cell I had quitted. I immediately began to talk to her of her mistress and the children, and called her by her name, but she would not reply. I then asked her if she would like money to buy snuff? “Thank you,” she replied. “Then give me your hand.” “No, you must lay the money on my pillow.” Accordingly I drew near, when, just as I reached her, she uttered a screaming laugh, so loud, so horrible, so unearthly, that I dropped the pence, and rushing from the cell, never stopped till I found myself with my friends, who had themselves been startled by the noise, and were coming in search of me. I was now eager to leave the place; but I had seen, and lingered behind still, to gaze upon a man whom I had observed from the open door at which I stood, pacing up and down the wintry walk, but who at length saw me earnestly beholding him! He started, fixed his eyes on me with a look full of mournful expression, and never removed them till I, reluctantly I own, had followed my companions. What a world of woe was, as I fancied, in that look! Perhaps I resembled some one dear to him! Perhaps—but it were idle to give all the perhapses of romantic sixteen—resolved to find in bedlam what she thought ought to be there of the sentimental, if it were not. However, that poor man and his expression never left my memory; and I thought of him when, at a later period, I attempted to paint the feelings I imputed to him in the “Father and Daughter.”

On the whole, we came away disappointed, from having formed false ideas of the nature of the infliction which we had gone to contemplate. I have since then seen madness in many different asylums, but I was never disappointed again.

Faithful to the views with which I began this little sketch of my childhood and my early youth, I will here relate a circumstance which was romantic enough to add fresh fuel to whatever I had already of romance in my composition; and therefore is another proof that, from the earliest circumstances with which human beings are surrounded, the character takes its colouring through life. Phrenologists watch certain bumps on the head, indicative, they say, of certain propensities, and assert that parents have a power to counteract, by cultivation, the bad propensities, and to increase the good. This may be a surer way of going to work; but, as yet, the truth of their theory is not generally acknowledged. In the meanwhile, I would impress on others what I am fully sensible of myself; namely, that the attention of parents and instructors should be incessantly directed to watching over the very earliest dispositions and tastes of their children or pupils, because, as far as depends on mere human teaching, whatever they are in disposition and pursuit in the earliest dawn of existence, they will probably be in its meridian and its decline.

When I was scarcely yet in my teens, a highly respected friend of mine, a member of the Society of Friends, informed me that she had a curious story to relate to me and her niece, my favourite friend and companion; she told us that her husband had received a letter from a friend at Lynn, recommending to his kindness a young man, named William Henry Renny, who was a sailor, just come on shore from a distant part, and wanted some assistance on his way (I think) to London. My friend, who was ever ready to lend his aid when needed, and was sure his correspondent would not have required it for one unworthy, received the young man kindly, and ordered him refreshments in the servants’ hall; and, as I believe, prepared for him a bed in his own house. But before the evening came, my friend had observed something in the young man’s manner which he did not like; he was too familiar towards the servants, and certainly did not seem a proper inmate for the family of a Friend. At length, in consequence of hints given him by some one in the family, he called the stranger into his study, and expressed his vexation at learning that his conduct had not been quite correct. The young man listened respectfully to the deserved rebuke, but with great agitation and considerable excitement, occasioned perhaps, as my candid friend thought, by better meals than he had been used to, and which was therefore a sort of excuse for his behaviour; but little was my friend prepared for the disclosure that awaited him. Falling on his knees, the young man, with clasped hands, conjured his hearer to forgive him the imposition he had practised. “Oh, sir,” cried he, “I am an impostor, my name is not William Henry R. but Anna Maria Real, I am not a man, but a woman!” Such a confession would have astounded any one; judge then how it must have affected the correct man whom she addressed! who certainly did not let the woman remain in her abject position, but desired immediately to hear a true account of who and what she was. She said, that her lover, when very young, had left her to go to sea, and that she resolved to follow him to Russia, whither he was bound; that she did follow him, disguised as a sailor, and had worked out her passage undetected. She found her lover dead, but she liked a sailor’s life so well, that she had continued in the service up to that time, when (for some reason which I have forgotten) she left the ship, and came ashore at Lynn, not meaning to return to it, but to resume the garb of her sex. On this latter condition, my friend and his wife were willing to assist her, and endeavour to effect a reformation in her. The first step was to procure her a lodging that evening, and to prevent her being seen, as much as they could, before she had put on woman’s clothes. Accordingly, she was sent to lodgings, and inquiries into the truth of her story were instituted at Lynn and elsewhere.

But what an interesting tale was this for me, a Miss just entered into her teens! Of a female soldier’s adventures I had some years previously heard, and once had seen Hannah Snelling, a native of Norfolk, who had followed her lover to the wars. Here was a female sailor added to my experience. Every opportunity of hearing any subsequent detail was eagerly seized. What a romantic incident! The romance of real life too! How I wanted to see the heroine; and I was rather mortified that my sober-minded friend would not describe her features to me. Might I (I asked) be at last allowed to see her? and as my parents gave leave, I, accompanied by a young friend, called at the adventurer’s lodgings, who was at home! Yes,—she was at home, and to our great consternation we found her in men’s clothes still, and working at a trade which she had acquired on board ship, the trade of a tailor! Nor did she leave off though we were her guests, but went on stitching and pulling with most ugly diligence, though ever and anon casting her large, dark, and really beautiful, though fierce eyes, over our disturbed and wondering countenances, silently awaiting to hear why we came. We found it difficult to give a reason, as her appearance and employment so totally extinguished any thing like sentiment in our young hearts, upon this occasion. However, we broke the ice at last, and she told us something of her story: which, however touching in the beginning, as that of a disguise and an enterprize prompted by youthful love, became utterly offensive when persisted in after the original motives for it had ceased. Her manner too was not pleasant: I wore a gold watch in my girdle, with a smart chain and seals, and the coveting eye with which she gazed, and at length clapped her hand upon them, begging to see them near, gave me a feeling of distaste; and, as I watched her almost terrible eyes, I fancied that they indicated a deranged mind; therefore, hastening to give her the money which I had brought for her, I took my leave, with my friend, resolving not to visit her again. Out of respect to our friends, she went to the Friends’ meeting with them, and they were pleased to see her there in her woman’s attire; but when she walked away, with the long strides and bold seeming of a man, it was anything rather than satisfactory, to observe her.

I once saw her walk, and though this romance of real life occupied the minds of my young friend and myself, and was afterwards discussed by us, still the actress in it was becoming, justly, an object with whom we should have loathed any intercourse.

I do not recollect how long she remained under the care of my excellent friends, but I think much of her story was authenticated by the answers to the inquiries made. All that I know with certainty is, that a collection of wild beasts came to town, the showman of which turned out to be Maria Real’s husband, and with him she left Norwich!

* * * * * *

Thus abruptly does Mrs. Opie’s narrative of her early days break off. Had she turned the next leaf in that history it must have been to record her first sorrow.

CHAPTER II.

FIRST SORROW; THE ASSIZES; SIR HENRY GOULD; THE USURY CAUSE; “CHRISTIAN;” MR. BRUCKNER; GIRLISH DAYS; HER FRIENDSHIP WITH MRS. TAYLOR; MRS. T.’s MEMOIR OF HER.

In one of his letters to a friend, Southey remarks:—

“Few autobiographies proceed much beyond the stage of boyhood. So far all our recollections of childhood and adolescence, though they call up tender thoughts, excite none of the deeper feeling with which we look back upon the time of life when wounds heal slowly, and losses are irreparable. This is, no doubt, the reason why so many persons who have begun to write their own lives have stopped short when they got through the chapter of their youth.”

The poet elsewhere observes, that the wounded spirit, which shrinks from such a record of past griefs, finds solace in breathing out its regret in the tender strains of verse. And so it was in the present instance. The loss of her mother was deplored in pathetic numbers; and no other record of this event is given.

Another passage in the history of her earlier days is found in her note book, a few pages after the former, shewing how early she manifested a predilection, in the gratification of which she found so much enjoyment in after life. It should be mentioned before we proceed further, that the house in which Mrs. Opie was born was situated in Calvert Street, immediately opposite a handsome mansion, once the residence of an individual of note in his day, and after whom the street was named. This house Dr. Alderson afterwards inhabited for some years; but in the interim, he removed from the one in which his daughter was born, to another, opposite St. George’s church, and in which they were living at the time referred to in the following pages:—

To a girl fond of excitement it will easily be believed that the time of Assizes was one of great interest. As soon as I was old enough to enjoy a procession, I was taken to see the judges come in; and, as youthful pages in pretty dresses ran, at that time of day, by the side of the high sheriff’s carriage in which the judges sat, while the coaches drove slowly, and with a solemnity becoming the high and awful office of those whom they contained, it was a sight which I, the older I grew, delighted more and more to witness: with reverence ever did I behold the judges’ wigs, the scarlet robes they wore, and even the white wand of the sheriff had an imposing effect on me.

As years advanced, I began to wish to enter the assize court; and as soon as I found that ladies were allowed to attend trials, or causes, I was not satisfied till I had obtained leave to enjoy this indulgence. Accordingly some one kindly undertook to go with me, and I set off for court: it was to the nisi prius court that I bent my way, for I could not bear the thoughts of hearing prisoners tried, as the punishment of death was then in all its force; but I was glad to find myself hearing counsel plead and judges speak where I had no reason to apprehend any fearful consequences to the defendants. By some lucky chance I also soon found myself on the bench, by the side of the judge. Although I could not divest myself of a degree of awful respect when I had reached such a vicinity, it was so advantageous a position for hearing and seeing, that I was soon reconciled to it, especially as the good old man, who sat then as judge, seemed to regard my fixed attention to what was going forward with some complacency.

Sir Henry Gould was the judge then presiding, and he was already on the verge of eighty; but the fire of his fine eye was not quenched by age, nor had his intellect as yet bowed before it; on the contrary, he is said while in Norwich to have delivered a charge to the jury, after a trial that had lasted far into the night, in a manner that would have done credit to the youngest judge on the bench.

This handsome and venerable old man, surprised probably at seeing so young a listener by his side, was so kind at last as to enter into conversation with me. Never, I think, had my vanity been so gratified, and when, on my being forced to leave the court, by the arrival of my dinner hour, he said he hoped I was sufficiently pleased to come again, I went home much raised in my own estimation, and fully resolved to go into court again next day. As I was obliged to go alone, I took care to wear the same dress as I wore the preceding day, in hopes that if the judge saw me he would cause way to be made for me. But being obliged to go in at a door where the crowd was very great, I had little hopes of being seen, though the door fronted the judge; at last I was pushed forward by the crowd, and gradually got nearer to the table. While thus struggling with obstacles, a man, not quite in the grade of a gentleman, pushed me back rather rudely, and said, “there miss, go home—you had better go away, what business have you here? this is no place for you; be advised—there go, I tell you!” But miss was obstinate and stood her ground, turning as she did so towards the judge, who now perceived and recognized her, and instantly ordered one of the servants of the court to make way for that young lady; accordingly way was made, and at his desire I took my place again by the judge’s side. It was not in nature, at least not in my weak nature, to resist casting a triumphant glance on my impertinent reprover, and I had the satisfaction of seeing that he looked rather foolish. I do not remember that on either of these days I heard any very interesting causes tried, but I had acquaintances amongst the barristers, and I liked to hear them plead, and I also liked to hear the judge sum up: in short, all was new, exciting, and interesting. But I disliked to hear the witnesses sworn. I was shocked at the very irreverent manner in which the oath was administered and repeated; and evidently the Great Name was spoken with as much levity as if it had been merely that of a brother mortal, not the name of the great King of kings. This was the drawback to my pleasure, but not a sufficient one to keep me from my now accustomed post, and a third time, but early enough to have my choice of places, I repaired to court, and seated myself near the extremity of the bench, hoping to be called to my accustomed seat when my venerable friend arrived. It was expected that the court would be that day crowded to excess, for the cause coming on was one of the deepest interest. One of our richest and oldest aldermen was going to be proceeded against for usury, and the principal witness against him was a gentleman who owed him considerable obligation. The prosecutor was unknown to me; the witness named above I knew sufficiently to bow to him as he passed our house, which he did every day; and he was reckoned a worthy and honourable man. These circumstances gave me an eager desire to be a witness of the proceedings, and I was gratified at being able to answer some questions which the judge asked me when, as before, he had beckoned me to sit by him.

The cause at length began, and it was so interesting that I listened with almost breathless attention, feeling, for the first time, what deep and agitating interest a court of justice can sometimes excite, and what a fearful picture it can hold up to the young of human depravity; for, as this cause went on, the witness for the accused, and the witness for the accuser, both swore in direct opposition to each other! One of them therefore was undoubtedly perjured! and I had witnessed the commission of this awful crime!

Never shall I forget that moment; as it seemed very soon to be the general conclusion, that my acquaintance was the person perjured. I felt a pain wholly unknown before, and though I rejoiced that my friend, the accused, was declared wholly innocent of the charge brought against him, I was indeed sorry that I should never be able to salute my old acquaintance with such cordiality in future, when he passed my window, as this stain rested on his reputation; but that window he was never to pass again!

The next morning before I was up, (for beginning influenza confined me to my bed,) the servant ran into the room to inform me that poor —— had been found dead in his bed, with strong suspicions of suicide by poison!

Instantly I dressed myself, forgetting my illness, and went in search of more information. Well do I remember the ghastly expression of the wretched man’s countenance as he left the court. I saw his bright grey eye lifted up in a sort of agony to heaven, with, as I supposed, the conviction that he was retiring in disgrace, and I had been told what his lips uttered, while his eyes so spoke. “What! are you going,” said a friend to him. “Yes; why not? What should I stay for now?” and his tone and manner bore such strong evidence of a desponding mind, that these words were repeated as confirming the belief that he had destroyed himself.

I never can forget with what painful feelings I went back to my chamber, the sensation of illness forgotten, by the sufferings of my mind!

What would I not have given to hear that the poor man who had thus rushed unbidden into the presence of his heavenly judge, urged by the convictions of having been condemned in the presence of an earthly one, was innocent of this second crime! It had been terrible to believe him guilty of the first.

My mind was so painfully full of this subject, that it was always uppermost with me; and, to increase my suffering, the unhappy man’s grave was dug immediately opposite our windows; and although I drew down the blinds all day long, I heard the murmuring voices of the people talking over the event, some saying he was an injured man, and venting curses on the heads of those who had brought him to that pass. The verdict having been that “he was found dead in his bed,” the interment took place in the usual manner; and it did so early in the morning. I took care to avoid the front of the house till all was over; and when the hour in the following morning arrived, at which I used to go to the window, and receive the bow and smile of our neighbour, I remembered with bitter regret that I should see him no more, as he lay beneath the wall before me.

Even while I am writing, the whole scene in the court, and the frightful results, live before me with all the vividness of early impressions; and I can scarcely assert, that, at any future stage of life, I ever experienced emotions more keen or more enduring.

Judge Gould came to Norwich again the next year, and as I heard he had inquired for me, I was not long in going to court. One of his first questions was concerning the result of the Usury cause, which he had found so interesting, and he heard with much feeling what I had to impart. I thought my kind friend seemed full a year older; and when I took leave of him I did not expect to see him again. Perhaps the invitation which he gave me, was a proof of a decay of faculties; for he said that if ever I came to London, he lived in such a square, (I forget the place,) and should be pleased to introduce me to his daughter Lady Cavan. I did go to London before he died, but I had not courage enough to call on Sir Henry Gould; I felt it was likely that he had forgotten me, and that he was unlikely to exclaim, like my friends at the bedlam, “Oh! here’s the young girl from St. George’s!”

It may be remembered that in the short memorial of her earlier days, given in the preceding chapter, Mrs. Opie says that her attention was drawn away from an interest that was becoming too absorbing in the unhappy inmates of the bedlam, by new sources of occupation and interest. “Dancing and French school,” she says, “soon gave another turn to my thoughts, and excited in me other views and feelings.” The master who first instructed her to thread the gay mazes of the dance was one, “Christian,” a man well skilled in his art, and who attained such celebrity in it, that the room in which he taught is still called after him, “Christian’s room.” Here the young Amelia received her first lessons in dancing; and in after years she was wont to refer to those days, and would close her recollections of the worthy Christian, by telling how on one occasion, when she and her husband were in Norwich, they accompanied a friend to see the Dutch Church. “The two gentlemen were engaged in looking around and making their observations; and I, finding myself somewhat cold, began to hop and dance upon the spot where I stood. Suddenly, my eyes chanced to fall upon the pavement below, and I started at beholding the well-known name of ‘Christian,’ graved upon the slab; I stopped in dismay, shocked to find that I had actually been dancing upon the grave of my old master—he who first taught me to dance!”

The gentleman who gave her instruction in the French language was a remarkable man, and one for whom she entertained an affectionate respect which continued during the remainder of his life. As he is frequently referred to in her letters and elsewhere, it may not be irrelevant here to give some particulars respecting him, which are principally gathered from an article in “the Monthly Magazine,” written by the late Mr. Wm. Taylor. It appears that in 1752, Mr. Colombine, one of a French refugee family, then residing in Norwich, was entrusted by the members of the Walloon church, in that city, on occasion of his going over to Holland, to seek out for them a suitable pastor. In the execution of this commission, he applied to Mr. Bruckner, then holding a pastorship at Leyden. This gentleman, who had been educated for the theological profession, was of eminent literary acquirements; he read the Hebrew and the Greek, composed correctly, and was able to preach in four languages: Latin, Dutch, French, and English. He listened favourably to the invitation of the Norwich church; and in 1753 settled amongst them, and continued to officiate during 51 years with increasing satisfaction: about the year 1766, Mr. B. also undertook the charge of the Dutch church, of which the duties had become almost nominal, in consequence of the diminished numbers of Dutch families, and the gradual disuse of that language.

The French was Mr. Bruckner’s favourite tongue; and in it he gave lessons, both public and private, to the young people of his adopted city, for many years: he also cultivated music, and delighted in practising upon the organ. He was, besides, an author, and published a work entitled “Théorie du Systême Animal,” and, under an assumed name, a pamphlet entitled “Criticisms on the Diversions of Purley.” His death took place in the month of May, 1804; at his house in St. Benedict’s street. Mr. Opie painted an admirable likeness of him, which appeared in the London Exhibition of 1800. This picture was in the possession of Mrs. Opie at the time of her death, and is the subject of one of her “Lays.” There was a very singular expression in the eyes, and on one occasion a visitor who was calling upon her, gazing on the picture, remarked, that he was painfully affected by this look, as he remembered to have seen the same strange appearance in the countenance of a person who committed suicide. This remark forcibly struck Mrs. Opie, and no wonder, as it was the fact that her poor master died by his own hands! A gradual failure of spirits overtook him in his old age; sleep forsook his eyelids, and the fatal stroke terminated his existence, to the regret of all who had known him; for he was much beloved for his kindliness and affability, and his society was courted to the last, as his conversation shewed good sense, humour, and information. A small piece of paper, written in her delicate and minute characters, and found among her letters, proves that his friend and pupil continued to think of him after the lapse of more than half a century.

Lines, addressed to me by my dear friend and French master, John Bruckner, a Flemish Clergyman, on my requesting him to let my husband paint a portrait of him for me.

Pourquoi me demander, aimable Amélie

De ce front tout ridé, le lugubre portrait?

Pour être contemplé jamais il ne fut fait,

Assez il a déplu—Permettez qu’ on l’oublie!

John Bruckner, 1800.

Translation in prose:—

Why do you ask of me, amiable Amelia, the gloomy portrait of this wrinkled brow? It was never meant to be contemplated. It has enough displeased—Let it now be forgotten.—A. O. 1852.

To this amiable man and accomplished scholar Mrs. Opie was indebted, not only for instruction in French, but for much general information, which he was well qualified to impart.

The premature death of Mrs. Alderson occasioned (as we have seen) the introduction of her daughter into society at a very early age. Her father delighted to make her his constant companion, and introduced her to the company of the friends with whom he visited, and whom he welcomed to his house. Hence, at a time when girls are usually confined to the school room, she was presiding as mistress of his household, and mingling in the very gay society of the Norwich circles of that day. The period of which we write was shortly before the breaking out of the French revolution, and was one of great commercial prosperity, in which the merchant-manufacturers of the old town shared, in an extraordinary degree. This state of things lasted until the troubles consequent upon that event disturbed the commercial relations of the continent; when the trade declined, and a season of unparelleled depression ensued. But at the time of which we speak, it was a thriving and prosperous city, and abounded in gaiety and amusements of various sorts.

A young girl placed in such circumstances must have greatly needed the counsel and friendship of a wise female friend; and such an one Miss Alderson happily found in Mrs. John Taylor, a lady distinguished for her extensive knowledge and many excellencies. She was living at that time in Norwich, not far from Mr. Alderson’s, and an intimacy was early formed between the two ladies, which appears to have lasted uninterruptedly through life. After Mrs. Opie’s marriage, she continued to correspond with this friend of her early days, and happily many of her letters to Mrs. T. have been preserved.

Frequent mention is made of Mrs. Taylor in Sir James Mackintosh’s life, and she is spoken of as one of the principal attractions amid the circle of friends whose society he sought, when carried by his professional duties to Norwich. Mr. Montague, his companion on some of these occasions, says:—

“N. was always a haven of rest to us, from the literary society with which that city abounded. Dr. Sayers we used to visit, and the high-minded and intelligent Wm. Taylor; but our chief delight was in the society of Mrs. John Taylor, a most intelligent and excellent woman, mild and unassuming, quiet and meek, sitting amidst her large family, occupied with her needle and domestic occupations, but always assisting, by her great knowledge, the advancement of kind and dignified sentiment and conduct.

Manly wisdom and feminine gentleness were in her united with such attractive manners, that she was universally loved and respected. In ‘high thoughts and gentle deeds’ she greatly resembled the admirable Lucy Hutchinson, and in troubled times would have been equally distinguished for firmness in what she thought right. In her society we passed every moment we could rescue from the court.”[^[4]]

How dear must such a friend have been to one whom she so tenderly loved! When some years later a portrait of Mrs. Opie was brought out in “The Cabinet,” a periodical of the day, Mrs. Taylor drew up a short notice of her friend, to accompany this likeness. This paper was written about the time of Mr. Opie’s death, but it principally refers to the early part of Mrs. Opie’s life. After speaking of the circumstances of her birth, of the early death of her mother, and of the proofs she gave, even in childhood, of poetical genius and taste, the writer continues:—

“Mrs. Opie’s musical talents were early cultivated. Her first master was Mr. Michael Sharp, of Norwich, who possessed a degree of love for his profession which comparatively few, employed in the drudgery of teaching, evince. Mrs. O. never arrived at superiority as a player, but she may be said to have been unrivalled in that kind of singing in which she more particularly delighted. Those only who have heard her can conceive the effect she produced in the performance of her own ballads; of these, ‘The poor Hindoo’ was one of her chief favourites, and the expression of plaintive misery and affectionate supplication which she threw into it, we may safely say has very seldom been equalled. She may fairly be said to have created a style of singing of her own, which, though polished and improved by art and cultivation, was founded in that power, which she appears so pre-eminently to possess, of awakening the tender sympathies and pathetic feelings of the mind.”

After enumerating some further accomplishments possessed by her friend, Mrs. Taylor closes her tribute of affectionate regard, by speaking of the excellencies of a heart and mind “distinguished by frankness, probity, and the most diffusive kindness;” and appeals to the many who could bear witness from experience, to those sympathies which “made the happiness of her friends her own, and to the unremitting ardour with which she laboured to remove the miseries that came within her knowledge and influence.”

CHAPTER III.

NORFOLK AND NORWICH, AND THEIR INHABITANTS; YOUNG LOVE; THE DRAMA; SONG WRITING AND CROMER; POLITICS; VISIT TO LONDON; LETTERS FROM THENCE; THE OLD BAILEY TRIALS.

Mr. Holcroft, in his Autobiography, writes thus of East Anglia:—

“I have seen more of the county of Norfolk than of its inhabitants; of which county I remark, that, to the best of my recollection, it contains more churches, more flints, more turkeys, more turnips, more wheat, more cultivation, more commons, more cross roads, and from that token probably more inhabitants, than any county I ever visited. It has another distinguishing and paradoxical feature, if what I hear be true; it is said to be more illiterate than any other part of England, and yet, I doubt, if any county of like extent have produced an equal number of famous men.”

The praises of Norwich were written thus, in old monkish rhymes in days of yore;

“Urbs speciosa situ, nitidis pulcherrima tectis,

Grata peregrinis, deliciosa suis.”

If common fame speak true, the Inhabitants of the old City have been noted for three peculiarities—the resolute purpose and strongly marked character of her men; the fair looks of her women; and the deep-rooted attachment which is entertained for her by those born and bred within her walls. The subject of this memoir certainly shared largely in this love for the city of her birth. During the eight and twenty years of her life which preceded her marriage, with the exception of occasional visits to London and elsewhere, she remained in her native town and in her father’s house; and when, at the expiration of nine years, she became a widow, she returned to live under her father’s roof again; nor at his death did she manifest a desire to quit the place endeared to her by the recollections of so many long and happy years.

At the period to which we have arrived in her history, she possessed the advantages of a pleasing personal appearance. Her friend, Mrs. Taylor, delicately alludes to the graces of “person, mind, and manner,” so happily united in her; and Mr. Opie’s portraits fully bear testimony to the truth of these friendly representations. Her countenance was animated, bright, and beaming; her eyes soft and expressive, yet full of ardour; her hair was abundant and beautiful, of auburn hue, and waving in long tresses; her figure was well formed; her carriage fine; her hands, arms, and feet, well shaped;—and all around and about her was the spirit of youth, and joy, and love. What wonder if she early loved, and was beloved! She used to own that she had been guilty of the “girlish imprudence” of love at sixteen. From the following lines in one of her poems, it should seem that this fancy of her youth was but a day-dream destined to pass away like the rest!

I’ve gazed on the handsome, have talked with the wise,

With the witty have laugh’d, untouched by love’s power,

And tho’ long assailed by young Corydon’s eyes,

They charmed for a day, and were thought of no more!

But once, I confess, (t’was at tender sixteen,)

Love’s agents were busy indeed round my heart,

And nought but good fortune’s assistance I ween,

Could ere from my bosom have warded the dart.

Numerous admirers, indeed, seem to have paid her homage, and courted her favour in those days. Some perhaps enjoyed a short season of hope, and there were two or three, whose rapturous effusions were committed to some secret receptacle, there to await a season of leisure when their claims might be considered. But alas! none such came; they lay forgotten; and only came to light when she, whose bright young charms they told of, had closed a long life.

High spirits, uninterrupted health, a lively fancy, and poetic talent, were hers; and she fully enjoyed and exercised these natural advantages.

One of her earliest tastes was a love of the drama, and Mr. Capel Lofft, writing to her in 1808, observes, “Your uncle, the barrister, was saying yesterday evening, how struck he was, almost in your childhood, with your power of dramatic diction and recitation, and that he had never thought it equalled by any one.” This taste she cultivated; and, when not more than eighteen years of age, wrote a tragedy, entitled “Adelaide,” which is still extant. It was acted for the amusement of her friends; she herself performing the heroine’s part, while Mr. Robert Harvey played the rôle of “the old father.”

It should seem from an expression in one of her letters, that this was not a solitary effort in theatrical composition, and that she even aspired to see some of her plays performed in public. It was probably this taste which early introduced her to an acquaintance with the Kemble family; as she says, in a very early letter to her father, signing herself ‘Euridice,’ “My claim to this name was revived in my mind the other day, by Mr. Kemble coming up to me, saying, ‘Euridice, the woods, Euridice, the floods,’ &c.” She ever entertained an ardent admiration for the illustrious Mrs. Siddons; an admiration mingled with a warm sentiment of personal regard. This was manifested in a touching and natural manner after the death of that lady, when, as she was one day visiting the Soanian museum, (in company with the friend who now records the fact,) happening unexpectedly to see a cast of Mrs. Siddons’ face, taken after death, and unable to control her emotion, she burst into a passionate flood of tears!

Mrs. Taylor was probably right in her judgment when she said to Mrs. Opie, “You ought to rest your fame upon song writing.” Many of the most popular songs she published after her marriage had been early productions of her pen; and were, perhaps, not excelled by any efforts of that kind in her later years. Some of them first appeared separately in newspapers and magazines, and a few in a periodical miscellany called “The Cabinet.”

The Lay to the memory of her mother was written (as we have said) at Cromer, in the year 1791; and is the first in an old manuscript book containing her earlier poems, many of which she afterwards published. They were produced in this and the following year, and are inscribed “Verses written at Cromer.” This place seems to have been, throughout life, very dear to her; owing no doubt, in part, to the fact that she had frequently spent the summer season there with her mother in her childhood; hence it became associated in her mind with these earliest recollections.

There she indulged in fond memories and fancies, spending the long summer days roving along the shore, and weaving her thoughts into verse, grave or gay. She deplores her fate when compelled to leave

These scenes belov’d upon whose tranquil shores,

Thoughtless of ill, I breathed my earliest songs,

While childish sports and hopes—a joyous throng—

In soft enchantment bound the guiltless hours.

And concludes,

Here I would wander, from day’s earliest dawn,

Till o’er the western summit steals dark night;

And from the rugged cliff or dewy lawn,

Reluctant fades the last pale gleam of light.

Visits among her numerous friends, and excursions on business and pleasure, in which she not unfrequently accompanied her father, occasionally afforded themes for her pen, and her wanderings may often be tracked by the titles she gave to these effusions. “A sonnet written in Cumberland,” bears date 1790. Another “in a bower in Wroxham Churchyard,” August, 1792. A serio-comic poem written at Windermere, in a letter to her father, gives an account of the merry antics played by herself and a gay party of young folks with whom she made the trip, and one, which we give to the reader, was

“WRITTEN ON SEEING A BUST OF MINERVA AT FELBRIGG

HALL, THROWN INTO A CORNER AMONGST RUBBISH.”

Who should have thought in Windham’s breast

Ingratitude to find!

Who should have thought that he could prove

To his best friend unkind!

Yet sure I am, my eyes beheld

In Felbrigg hall this morn,

Unmeaning heads exalted high,

And Wisdom left forlorn!

* * * * * *

From these tranquil scenes we must make a somewhat abrupt transition, and carry the reader to the busy world of London, where we find her in 1794, and writing to her friend, Mrs. T., from thence. The allusions to political events, contained in these letters, render it necessary to say a few words respecting the opinions entertained by Dr. Alderson, and the friends with whom he associated on these subjects; as his daughter’s views were naturally to a great degree formed after those of her father and his companions.

During the later years of the last century, at the time when this country was so vehemently excited by the great changes then occurring in France, and which were regarded by many as the commencement of a new and happier era for the nations of Europe generally; party strife ran to a fearful height, and scarcely any, even of the weaker sex, remained passive spectators of the struggle.

Dr. Alderson was among those who hailed the dawn of the French revolution with pleasure; and, though he afterwards saw cause to moderate his expectations as to the results of that movement, he seems (in common with many sincere patriots) to have held his allegiance true to the original revolutionary cause. It is well known that at this time various societies were organized, in different parts of the kingdom, for the purpose of discussing the political questions then agitating the public mind, and Norwich was among the foremost in these associations. A local society was instituted, in which were canvassed reforms and changes, many of which, advocated by the most influential statesmen of our day, have since been safely yielded to the irresistible force of public opinion. Three of the leading measures contended for were the Abolition of Negro Slavery, the repeal of the Corporation and Test Acts, and the reform of the House of Commons.

The policy of the government was, however, (not without reason,) hostile to associations such as these, and severe measures were adopted to put them down, and to bring their leaders under the fearful ban of high treason.

During Miss Alderson’s stay in London, in 1794, she attended the famous trials of Horne Tooke, Holcroft, and others, for treason, at the Old Bailey; and in her letters home she gave her father a lively account of the events which transpired. It is known that Dr. Alderson, after reading these letters to his confidential friends, thought it prudent to destroy them. A few letters, to Mrs. Taylor, written previous to her marriage, have been preserved; but as that lady was in the habit of reading those addressed to Dr. Alderson by his daughter, they contain no account of the events which she described to him. The three which follow were written in 1794, during her visit to some friends who lived near London, but her letters being mostly without date, cannot always be arranged with certainty. It is evident that a fellowship in political opinions was the only bond which united her to many with whom, at this time, she associated. Her own good sense and firm rectitude of principle, happily preserved her from the follies and errors into which not a few around her were led, by their extravagant zeal for a liberty which speedily degenerated into license. She too, was enthusiastic, ardent, perhaps imprudent, at least so she seems to have judged in cooler moments; but there was too much of the pure womanly character in her, to suffer her ever to sympathize with the assertors of “woman’s rights,” (so called;) and she was not to be spoiled even though exposed to the influence of Horace Walpole’s “philosophising serpents, the Paines, the Tookes, and the Wollstonecrofts.”

Tuesday, 1794.

My dear Mrs. T.

At length I have found an opportunity of writing to you at my leisure, but now, though I have begun with the resolution of being very grave and very sentimental, I feel such an inclination to run into plain matters of fact and narration, that I shall beg leave to content myself with a recital of the events of my journey to town yesterday, requesting at the same time a recital of the events of your life, since I saw you, in return. We will leave gravity and sentiment to be the order of the evening when we resume our Wednesday tête à têtes, and rejoice in the absence of husband and father.

Mr. J. Boddington and I set off for town yesterday by way of Islington, that we might pay our first visit to Godwin, at Somers’ Town. After a most delightful ride through some of the richest country I ever beheld, we arrived at about one o’clock at the philosopher’s house, whom we found with his hair bien poudré, and in a pair of new, sharp-toed, red morocco slippers, not to mention his green coat and crimson under-waistcoat. He received me very kindly, but wondered I should think of being out of London;—could I be either amused or instructed at Southgate? How did I pass my time? What were my pursuits? and a great deal more, which frightened my protector, and tired me, till at last I told him I had not yet outlived my affections, and that they bound me to the family at Southgate. But was I to acknowledge any other dominion than that of reason?—“but are you sure that my affections in this case are not the result of reason?” He shrugged disbelief, and after debating some time, he told me I was more of the woman than when he saw me last. Rarely did we agree, and little did he gain on me by his mode of attack; but he seemed alarmed lest he should have offended me, and apologised several times, with much feeling, for the harshness of his expressions. In short, he convinced me that his theory has not yet gotten entire ascendancy over his practice. He has promised to come over to spend a day at Southgate, when I shall pit rational belief in Mr. M., against atheism in Mr. Godwin. Mr. B. was disgusted with his manner; though charmed with that of Barry, whom we called on last week. Godwin told me he had talked of me to Mrs. Inchbald, that she recollected me, and wished to see me; so I determined to call on her after I had paid my visit to Mrs. Siddons. From Godwin’s, we went to Ives Hurry’s in the City, where we left our chair and horses, and proceeded in a coach to Mrs. Betham’s, to have my profile taken, and thence we drove to Marlborough Street. I found Mrs. Siddons engaged in nursing her little baby, and as handsome and charming as ever. She played last Wednesday before her month was up, and is now confined to her room with the cold she caught behind the scenes. There too, I saw Charles Kemble, as I passed through his sister’s dressing room, and thought him so like Kemble, Mrs. Twiss, and Mrs. Siddons, that it was some time before I could recollect myself enough to know whether he was a man or a woman. Sally and Maria, tell my father, are quite well, and inquired much concerning him. The baby is all a baby can be, but Mrs. S. laughs, and says it is a wit and a beauty already in her eyes; she leaves town to-day, or she would have invited me for a longer visit. From Marlborough Street, we drove to Mrs. Inchbald’s, who is as pretty as ever, and much more easy and unreserved in her manner, than when I last saw her. With her we passed an hour, and when I took my leave, she begged I would call on her again. She is in charming lodgings, and has just received two hundred pounds from Sheridan, for a farce containing sixty pages only. From her house we drove into the city. You will wonder, perhaps, where we dined. Be it known unto you, that we never dine when we visit London. Ives Hurry, as soon as we arrive at his house, always treats us with as much ice and biscuits as we can eat; we then sally forth, and eat ice again when we want it; so we did yesterday, and Mrs. Siddons’ roast beef had no temptations for us. As we returned to I. H.’s, we went to Daniel Isaac Eaton’s shop; we had scarcely entered it, when a very genteel-looking young man came in. He examined us, and we him; and suspicion being the order of the day, I dared not talk to Mrs. Eaton till the stranger was engaged in conversation with Boddington. I then told her that curiosity led me to her shop, and that I came from that city of sedition, Norwich. Her eyes sparkled, and she asked me if I knew Charles Marsh? “You come from Norwich, (cried the stranger,) allow me to ask you some questions,” &c., &c. He put questions, I answered them, and in a short time Mr. J. B. and myself were both so charmed with his manners and conversation, that we almost fancied we had known him before. We saw that he was intimate with Mrs. E. and her sweet girl, and seemed to be as much at home in the shop as the counter itself. So we had no fears of him; at last we became so fraternized, that Mrs. E. shut the shop door and gave us chairs. I will not relate the information I heard, but I could have talked with him all night. “Well, but who was he?” Have patience and you shall hear. Finding that he was just returned from Scotland, and was au fait of all the proceedings there, and that his connexions were those of high life; I asked where Lord Daer was, and lamented that he was not one of the arrested members. He smiled, and said that Lord D. wanted nerve then, and fortitude to resist the anxieties of his mother, and sisters, the most accomplished women in England; that the very day of the arrest he had received a letter from Lord Daer, promising to be with them if possible; and in the evening another note to say Lady Selkirk was ill, and that he could not leave her. “Indeed! I thought he bailed you,” said Mrs. Eaton. “Oh! no,” replied the other. Mr. B. and I looked at each other, wondering who “you,” was; but I began to suspect, and went on questioning him. He said they dared not hurt Lord D.; that they dared not attack any man of connexions and estate in Scotland: that had he himself been condemned, or sent to Botany Bay, his connexions would have risen to a man. I ventured to say, that however amiable Lord D.’s family might be, he ought to have disregarded their influence. He replied that I was quite right, and that he himself had disregarded them;—that democratic women were rare, and that he heartily wished he could introduce me to two charming patriots at Edinburgh, who were, though women, up to circumstances—and a great deal more, that raised my curiosity to a most painful height; at last, having said that he had laid it down as a rule for his conduct, that a patriot should be without the hope of living, or the fear of dying, he took his leave, leaving our minds elevated and delighted. Mrs. E. told us it was Mr. Sinclair, Sir John’s nephew, he who was tried, and acquitted. He says Lord D. is supposed to be dying, and he himself looks in bad health, but his countenance is fine, and his manners elegant.—“What think you of Mr. Windham?” said I, “Oh! the poor creature is out of his element; he might have done very well for a college disputant or a Greek professor, perhaps, but that’s all.” “Why do the Norwich patriots espouse Mingay? what can they expect? (said he,) he might be a very good implement of resentment against Windham, but, though the friend of their necessity, not of their choice.” Is he not right? * * * *

The following letter begins quite abruptly, and is without date.

* * * How strange it is, my dear friend, that I should have suffered your kind letter to remain so long unanswered, but, as I am certain that you will not impute my silence to any diminution of affection towards you, I will not fret about my oddity, but endeavour to make amends for it, by writing as good a letter as I can, and that will be, alas! very stupid; for the state of the times and other things press upon my mind continually, and unfit me for everything but conversation. My father will have told you a great deal; he will have told you too how much we are interested and agitated by the probable event of the approaching trials. Would to God, you and your husband were equally so, for then would one of my cares be removed; as you would, like us, perhaps turn a longing eye towards America as a place of refuge; and one of the strongest ties that binds me to Norwich would be converted into an attraction to lure me to the new world. On this, at least, I hope we are at all events resolved; to emigrate, if the event of the trial be fatal; that is, provided the Morgans do not give up their present resolution, and that we can carry a little society along with us, in which we can be happy, should Philadelphia disappoint our expectations. I write to you on this subject in confidence; as we do not wish our intention to be much known at present. How changed I am! How I sicken at the recollection of past follies and past connexions, and wish from the bottom of my soul, that I had never associated but with you and others like you. But it is folly to dwell on the past; it only incapacitates one for enjoying the present; it shall now be my care to anchor on the future, and I trust in God that it will not disappoint me.

You see I am not in high spirits; but then I am the more natural; and my flighty hours are long gone by, and my time for serious exertion is, I hope, arrived; but why should I write thus? I shall perhaps infect you with this seeming gloom; for, after all, if I carefully examine my heart, it will tell me, that I am happy. My usual spirits have been lowered this morning, by hearing Mr. Boddington and Mr. Morgan mark the printed list of the jury. Every one almost is marked by them as unfit to be trusted; for almost every man is a rascal, and a contractor, and in the pay of government some way or another.

What hope is there then for these objects of ministerial rancour? Mr. B. objects even to his own uncle, whom he thinks honest, because he is so prejudiced an aristocrat, that he looks upon rigour, in such cases, to be justice only. What a pass are things come to, when even dissenters lick the hand that oppresses them! Hang these politics! how they haunt me. Would it not be better, think you, to hang the framers of them?

What is a woman made of, think you, that can sue a man for inconstancy? Truly of very coarse materials; yet I really believe Miss Mann’s trial would have attracted me more than that for sedition. It would have given me so many new ideas. * * * * I wish my father could have remained with us, but he was very good to stay so long as he did; and I have the satisfaction of knowing he was happy while he did stay. He will tell you enough about Mrs. Inchbald, for he is quite smitten with her. Nay, I rather suspect he paid her a farewell visit. Pray tell him to write to me soon.

What a pity it is that The Cabinet is dangerous. I should have enjoyed it else so much. I admire what is already written. We are going to-night, as usual, to W. Morgan’s, where I shall sing as usual, your husband’s song. How I wish he was here to sing it instead of me. Farewell. Pray write to me soon.

A. A.

Although, as we have said, the letters describing what she saw at the Old Bailey were destroyed, she has fortunately preserved an anecdote of much interest relative to them, which was recalled to her recollection many years subsequently, on occasion of a visit she paid to Madame de Staël; she says:—

With this woman of excelling genius and winning manners, I had the pleasure of being acquainted in the year 1813; when, with her daughter, then of the age of sixteen, who afterwards became Duchess de Broglie, and Mr. Rocca, to whom she was then privately married, she was residing for some months in London, when exiled by Napoleon from France. One morning I went to call on her by appointment, accompanied by a friend of mine whom she wished to see, on some particular business. Scarcely had that business been concluded, when the servant announced Lord Erskine, who came in with books in his hands, and when he saw me he cried, “I am glad to see you here, for I want you to read something for me.” He then gracefully bowed to Madame de Staël and presented the two books to her, containing, he said, his most celebrated speeches; and opening the first volume he turned to the first page, on which he had written a dedication to la Baronne de Staël in English, which he begged me to read to her. “No, no, not so,” she exclaimed eagerly, taking the book from me, “I can read it myself.” Accordingly she began; while I, myself an author, soon felt painful sympathy with poor Lord E.’s feelings; for the writing was, I dare say, difficult for her, a foreigner, to read; and the poor writer’s smooth and elegant periods were, in a great measure, deprived of their charm, by their meaning being sometimes stammered out, and, possibly, not entirely understood. However, the lady was flattered with what she did understand, and Lord E. soon recovered the steadiness of his nerves: and taking up the second volume, which contained his speeches at the Old Bailey trials in the year 1794, he read some favourite passages to her, and finished by alluding to the evident dislike which the Lord Chief Baron Eyre, who presided at them, entertained for him, and how strongly he proved it during the trial of Horne Tooke, who was the second person tried for his life, and was (like the first person, Thomas Hardy) entirely acquitted. He then related what had passed between himself and the Chief Justice, after the trial was over and the crowd dispersed, and which I, who was present, well remembered having, by accident, overheard. Liking to be near the eloquent man and to hear him speak, I had contrived to get so near as to overhear what passed, and which I thought was too loud, not to be intended to be heard. The judge had, I saw, to repeat what he said; but at length he was answered in a manner which he little expected; for the indignant speaker replied, “My lord, I am willing to give your lordship such an answer as an aggrieved man of honour like myself is willing to give to the man who has repeatedly insulted him, and I am willing and ready to meet your lordship, at any time and place that you may choose to appoint.” At this point of his story our hostess cried, “What! my lord, that was a challenge, n’est ce pas?” “Yes, ma’am.” “Well, what did he say?” “Oh! nothing to the purpose; but I assure you I was irritated into saying what I did.” “Yes, indeed,—I was behind you, Lord E. (said I,) and heard all that passed; and though such things were quite new to me, I felt sure what was said by you amounted to a challenge; but when I told the friends with whom I went home what had passed, they said I was a silly girl and that I was mistaken.” He looked at me with some surprise, and, I fear, with a doubt of my veracity; but I could affirm to the truth of my assertion. I do not wonder, however, as he did not then know me personally, and was not conscious of my proximity, or that of any one else perhaps, that he was inclined to distrust my truthfulness; but it was a fact, that the circumstance and the words he related, were, I believe, witnessed and overheard by me alone; and a curious fact or coincidence it was, that this conversation, overheard by me in the year 1794, I should be present to hear related to the Baronne de Staël by Lord E. himself in the year 1813. The circumstance and the words he has published at the end of the trial of Horne Tooke; and I could, with a safe conscience, underwrite all that he there relates. I fear that he really believed I was romancing, or he would have named this odd corroboration of his conduct, which no doubt he thought the noble daring of a man of worldly honour.

Among Mrs. Opie’s loose papers was one written within a short time of her death, containing some introductory remarks to a reminiscence she purposed to write of this eventful period. It begins—

“‘Tis pleasant from the loophole of retreat

To look on such a world,”

wrote Cowper: but these words do not exactly express my present feelings; for from my loophole of retreat I am looking with pleasure, not on the world as it is, but on the world as it was.

The occurrences of the year 1794 have lately been pressing with such power on my remembrance, demanding from me a decided confession that it was the most interesting period of my long life, (or nearly such,) that I am inclined to give an account of what made it so, and acknowledge that it was the opportunity unexpectedly afforded me of attending the trials of Hardy, Horne Tooke, and Thelwall, at the Old Bailey, for High Treason. What a prospect of entertainment was opening before me when (while on a visit at Southgate, near London) I heard that at these approaching trials, to which I hoped to obtain admission, I should not only hear the first pleaders at the bar, but behold, and probably hear examined, the first magnates of the land; and on the event depended, not a nisi prius cause, or one of petty larceny, but interests of a public nature, and most nearly affecting the safety and prosperity of the nation; aye, and much personally interesting to myself; as I knew, in the secret of my heart, that my own prospects for life might probably be changed and darkened by the result. To such a height had party-spirit reached on both sides, in my native city and elsewhere, that even innocent men were accused of treasonable intentions and practices, who talked, when excited by contradiction, the fearful things they would never have thought of acting; and I had reason to believe that if the “felons” about to be tried should not be “acquitted felons,” certain friends of mine would have emigrated to America, and my beloved father would have been induced to accompany them!

This was, indeed, an alarming idea to me, who was only beginning to taste the pleasures of London society, and who could still say, in spite of the excitement of party feeling, and my unity of opinion with the liberals of that day, “England! with all thy faults I love thee still;” and when, on the 28th of the 10th mo., the trial of Thomas Hardy began at the Sessions-house in the Old Bailey, existence acquired, in my eyes, a new but painful interest; and, with the pleasing anticipations of the unexpected enjoyment awaiting me, were mingled some apparently well-founded fears of evil to come. How vividly do I often now, in my lone and lonely portion, live over the excitements of those far distant days, in the many, many evening hours, which I pass not unwillingly alone.

“Alone! if ’tis to be alone, when mem’ry’s spells are cast

To summon phantoms from the dead, and voices from the past,

Long woven in the tangled web of the mysterious brain,

Till time and space are things of naught, and all is ours again.”[^[5]]

Yes! how often (as I said) do I recall with all these alternate emotions of pain and pleasure, of disappointment and fruition, the last days of October, and the first five days of November, 1794! * * *

Here the manuscript breaks off.

CHAPTER IV.

FRENCH EMIGRANTS; LETTER TO MRS. TAYLOR; LETTER OF THE DUKE D’AIGUILLON; VISIT TO LONDON, AND LETTER FROM THENCE; LONDON AGAIN; LETTER FROM MRS. WOLLSTONECROFT; FIRST INTRODUCTION TO MR. OPIE; MR. OPIE’S EARLY HISTORY; RETURN TO NORWICH; PREPARATIONS FOR MARRIAGE.

The sufferings endured by the upper and proscribed classes in France during the time of the French Revolution, obliged (as is well known) multitudes of them to take refuge in this country; and, in the year 1797, London and its suburbs alone were found, by an official return, to contain seven thousand and forty-one Aliens. Many of these were subjected to the extremes of want and misery; their condition exciting the compassion, as well as the indignation, of the humane. Amongst them were not a few men of high standing and repute, who were received into society, and found friends among the wealthier classes of the community. It was just at this period, that the celebrated Count de Lally Tolendal, published his “Defence of the French Emigrants;” a work well known all over Europe, as soon as it was published. To this gentleman Mrs. Opie addressed a “Quatrain,” on reading his “Defence of his Father,” which subsequently appeared among her published poems. This favour he acknowledged, in a letter dated from Cossey, (near Norwich,) accompanied by a French poem of one hundred lines, which she preserved among her papers. It was very natural that she, whose sympathies were ever so keenly alive to the sorrows of others, should become warmly interested on behalf of these unhappy exiles; and she appears to have formed many acquaintances among them, during the time she spent in London. The following letter to Mrs. Taylor gives a lively narrative of one of the soirées, at which she met a party of the emigrants, among whom was the Duc d’Aiguillon; and we have added a letter from him, received by her the following year, on the cover of which she has written, “From the Duke d’Aiguillon, the ex-minister; one of the second importation of emigrants.”

TO MRS. TAYLOR.

Sunday Morning, 1795.

It is so long, my dear friend, since I conversed with you, even through the imperfect medium of a letter, that I joyfully take advantage of the first favourable opportunity for writing you a long epistle, in hopes that I may rouse you to pay me in coin. Besides you are in a state of widowhood and require all the attention possible to console you for so forlorn a condition! What shall I tell you by way of anecdote? My father has read you, perhaps, my account of Charles Lameth; take some more particulars respecting that extraordinary man. You may suppose that I felt a new and pleasing sensation while contemplating him, as I knew him to be one of the actors in the first revolution; and as soon as my silence yielded to my curiosity, I began questioning him concerning some of the patriotic leaders. Amongst others I inquired what he thought of Legendre? He says Legendre, though misled, has some good points in his character, and is not a bad man; he then gave us the following instance of his determined spirit and resolution; “I was, at the time I mention,” said Lameth, “president of the National Convention, and had been supping at your house, (turning to the Duc d’Aiguillon,) when, at midnight, my servant came to me, and said, ‘A man muffled up is in a hackney coach at the door, and wants to see you.’ ‘Tell him to come in.’ ‘He refuses.’ ‘Go and ask his name.’ He did so, and returned saying, ‘His name is Legendre.’ Hearing this, I went into the coach to him, and demanded his business. ‘I come to you,’ replied he, ‘as president of the National Convention; I hear that an accusation is bringing forward against me, and as I shrink not from the charge, I came to surrender myself, and save you the trouble—here I am, guillotine me, if you will, I am firm and steady.’ I endeavoured to convince him the decree of accusation might be repealed, and that all that was necessary was his concealment till the danger was gone by. ‘Conceal me then in your house, my own is not safe,’ cried he; but I convinced him that mine was too public. However, I sent to a friend in whom I could confide, who concealed Legendre in his, till the decree was annulled.”

“Oh!” said Sam. Rogers to me, some time after, “I do not like the fellow’s looks, I would not have gone muffled up to his house, at midnight, and have given him leave to kill me, for fear he should have taken me at my word!” This led Mr. Rogers to give his opinion of the three émigrés then with us, and of Duport, another of considerable talents, who was prevented coming; and he defined them thus:—“Though I have often entertained Lameth at my house, I should expect he would treat me insolently, and make me feel the distance between us, even if he admitted me to his table. The Marquis would grin at me, and pass on; the Duc would be glad to see me, and do me immediately all the service and civility in his power; but Duport would open his arms to me!” Lameth entertained the gentlemen very much, by his account of the fascinating Madame de Condorcet, and of her method of acquiring votes for the members whom she wished returned. These favoured men were called “the majority of Madame de Condorcet;” and, on my innocently asking what it meant, I saw enough, from the laugh I excited, and L’s mysterious manner of answering, to know that the majority of Madame de Condorcet meant no good. “Does she live still?” said I; “Oh, yes,” cried the Duc, “she is in no danger; all parties will be her friend; she is so pretty and so accommodating; and I’m sure she’ll be the friend of all parties.” The Marquis, who was the intimate friend of the Duc de Rouchefoucault, says, though he brought Condorcet forward, fed him, lodged him, and married him, Condorcet was justly suspected of being privy to his assassination. When Lameth was forced to fly, as he was denounced in the Jacobin Club, and orders given for his detention, he sent to desire such a portmanteau to be forwarded directly to him; having received it, and wanting some of the money and papers which it contained, he opened it as soon as he was out of France, and found, to his utter surprise and dismay, that the wrong portmanteau had been sent, and instead of money, that it contained his wife’s child-bed linen! “Et les voilà encore, mesdames! (continua-t-il) car, en vérité, je n’ai pas eu encore occasion d’en faire usage.” * *

à Hambourg, chez Mr. Fortune de la Vigne,

Negociant, ce 6 février, 1796.

TO MISS AMELIA ALDERSON, MR. ALDERSON’S, NORWICH.

Mademoiselle,

Daignez agréer l’assurance bien sincère, de la vive reconnaissance que m’inspire le marque aimable, de souvenir et d’intérêt, que vous avez bien voulu me donner. Je vous dois mille remerciemens, et de la lettre donc vous avez chargé Mr. le Chevalier de Bercley, et de m’avoir procuré le plaisir de le connaitre. Je l’ai vu assez pour que le peu de séjour qu’il a fait ici, m’ai laissé beaucoup de regrets. J’ai mille excuses à vous faire d’avoir autant tardé à vous répondre; mais j’ai été, pendant plus de quinze jours, tellement malade d’un rhume mêlé de fievre, et de goutte (ma constante ennemie) que j’étois dans l’impossibilité absolue d’écrire un seul mot. Croyez, je vous prie, Mademoiselle, qu’il a fallu une raison aussi forte, pour m’empêcher de vous exprimer plutot toute ma gratitude, et le plaisir que j’ai, d’être assuré par vous, que je ne partage pas le sort ordinaire aux absens.

Recevez mes remerciemens des jolis airs que vous m’avez envoyés. Je les conserverai avec soin, et ne les donnerai quoique vous en disiez, à personne. Ils ont renouvellé mes regrets, en me rappellant ces tendres et jolies romances que vous chantiez avec l’expression de la musique et toute celle du sentiment, ce qui vaut bien mieux.

Je vous rends graces, Mademoiselle, des souhaits, vraiment pleins de bonté que vous faites en ma faveur. Je crains qu’ils ne soyent encore longtems à s’accomplir; cependant, je n’en suis pas moins sensible à vôtre obligeance. Mais vous! que desirer pour vôtre bonheur? La nature n’a-t-elle pas pourvu à tout, en vous donnant les qualités du cœur, celles de l’esprit, des graces, des talents? Je me bornerai donc à souhaiter que vous soyez toujours aussi heureuse que vous méritez de l’être, et c’est tout dire.

Il me paroit que vous avez à Norwich une Societé de Français assez agréable. Je ne connois point ceux que vous me nommez; mais j’envie leur sort, d’être aupres de vous, et de vous plaire,—à propos!—que peut fonder ce reproche d’aristocratie fait à mon ami, M. de L.? Voilà, vraisemblablement, la première fois qu’il en est accusé. Cela est assez plaisant, et le singularité du fait, l’empêche, en verité, d’être aussi affligé qu’il le seroit, d’être jugé par vous aussi sévèrement.

Adieu, Mademoiselle. Adieu! Croyez que je regarderois comme un vrai bonheur d’être instruit quelquefois de ce qui peut vous intéresser. Veuillez bien agréer l’hommage du tendre respect et de l’attachement sincère, que je vous ai voué.

D’Aiguillon.

Miss Alderson’s visit in London seems to have been protracted to a period of some months; a season full of constant occupation and variety, passed amidst a gay round of visits and amusements, which, however, did not merely serve the end of the fleeting hour’s enjoyment, but in which she studied human nature, and became acquainted with the world and its ways, to good practical purpose. There are two other letters to her friend, of this period, from which we make the following extracts:—

* * * Yesterday morning I had the unexpected pleasure of a visit from Mr. Wrangham. He did not stay long, but he has promised to call again, and is as gentle, elegant, and interesting as ever; he gained the Seatonian prize for a poem this year, which is published, and he has promised to send me one. I am much pleased with Mr. W. Taylor’s Ode to the ship that conveys Gerald. Though he would not favour me with a copy of the elegant sonnet he sent me on the morning of my departure, my memory retains every word of it; and I catch myself repeating the first and last line, whenever home and its varied associations crowd on my mind. Month follows month in this wilderness of pleasure, if I may call it so, where fruits and flowers dispute pre-eminence with weeds; and yet I cannot say, “I’ll stay here no longer,” till, as I said before, my natal soil and its comforts press on my mind, and I exclaim, “Ah! not for ever quaff at pleasure’s distant fount!” To-morrow I am going to enjoy “the feast of reason and the flow of soul,” with Mrs. Barbauld and Dr. Geddes, at Mrs. Howard’s. I wish I could wish you there. Godwin drank tea and supt here last night; a leave-taking visit, as he goes to-morrow to spend a fortnight at Dr. Parr’s. It would have entertained you highly to have seen him bid me farewell. He wished to salute me, but his courage failed him. “While oft he looked back, and was loth to depart.” “Will you give me nothing to keep for your sake, and console me during my absence,” murmured out the philosopher, “not even your slipper? I had it in my possession once, and need not have returned it!” This was true; my shoe had come off, and he had put it in his pocket for some time. You have no idea how gallant he is become; but indeed he is much more amiable than ever he was. Mrs. Inchbald says, the report of the world is, that Mr. Holcroft is in love with her, she with Mr. Godwin, Mr. Godwin with me, and I am in love with Mr. Holcroft! A pretty story indeed! This report Godwin brings to me, and he says Mrs. I. always tells him that when she praises him, I praise Holcroft. This is not fair in Mrs. I. She appears to me jealous of G.’s attention to me, so she makes him believe I prefer H. to him. She often says to me, “Now you are come, Mr. Godwin does not come near me.” Is not this very womanish? We had a most delightful conversation last night. A dispute on the merits of different poets,—Mr. G. abusing Collins, I defending him,—G. setting Gray above him, and I putting him below him; but we agreed about Churchill, who was one of my flames. How idle I am! I cannot write, and I read but little, but I shall mend. Farewell! Mr. Batty and I both wear you “in our heart’s core,” and so would Mrs. B., if she knew you. I love and admire them more every day. Love to the Barnards; my love to the Smiths. Dear love and good wishes to the boys and girls.

Yours, ——

Thursday.

My dear Mrs. Taylor,

* * * * I flatter myself with the idea that you hear most of my letters to my father; consequently that you know my movements, and can judge of the probable quantity of enjoyment I experience. I am now about to enjoy pleasant society in a pleasant country, one of the first luxuries at this season of the year; but still I sigh for home, that is, I sigh for a day or two of confidential intercourse with you and others, and to wash off the dirt of London in the sea of Cromer; to write poetry on the shore, to live over again every scene there that memory loves (and never did she love them so dearly as now;) and, having rioted in all that my awakened fancy can give, return to Norwich, and endeavour to make one of my plays, at least, fit to be offered to one of the managers of the winter theatres. Such is my plan; and in it I live, move, and have my being.

Bless me! what a busy place Norwich has been, and I not in it! but then I heard H. Tooke and Fox speak, and that’s something. To be sure I had rather have heard Buonaparte address his soldiers; but as pleasure delayed is not pleasure lost, I may still hope to hear him when the bonnet rouge has taken place of the tiara, and a switch from the tree of liberty dangles from that hand which formerly wielded the crozier. But alas! this is no laughing matter,—or rather let us laugh while we can, for I believe an hour to be approaching when salut et fraternité will be the watchwords for civil slaughter throughout Europe; and the meridian glory of the sun of Liberty, in France, will light us to courting the past dangers and horrors of the republic, in hopes of obtaining her present power and greatness. It will be an awful time; may I meet it with fortitude! But I shrink, and shrink only, from the idea of ties dear to my heart, which it will for ever break; of the friendships I must forego; of the dangers of those I love; and of friends equally dear to me, meeting in the field of strife opposed in mortal combat! I feel heart-sick at such possibilities; yet which amongst us dare assert that such possibilities may not, ere long, be probable?

Mrs. Imlay tells me, no words can describe the feelings which the scenes she witnessed in France gave birth to continually—it was a sort of indefinite terror. She was sitting alone, when Imlay came in and said, “I suppose you have not heard the sad news of to-day?” “What is it? is Brissot guillotined?” “Not only Brissot, but the one-and-twenty are.” Amongst them she immediately could conjure up the faces of some lately endeared acquaintances, and before she was conscious of the effect of the picture, she sunk lifeless on the floor: and Mrs. Imlay is not a fine lady—if any mind could be unmoved at such things hers would; but a series of horrors must have a very weakening tendency. When we meet I shall have much to tell you. Yesterday I had a letter from Catherine; she is well and happy, she says; but we’ll read her letter together.

Farewell! Mrs. Barbauld is more charming than ever; both he and she speak of you as you deserve. Love to Mrs. Beecroft, and Fanny Smith, and all the circle of home. * * *

In the spring of 1797 we find her again in town, accompanying her friend Mrs. Inchbald on the 17th April, to Westminster, to hear a sermon from Bishop Horsley. Again she extended her visit to several months; and a most eventful time it proved to be in her history, as will be gathered from her communications to Mrs. Taylor. Some unexpected changes too had occurred amongst her acquaintances, since she left them, twelve or fourteen months before. The philosophic Godwin had justified her opinion of him, and proved that his heart was not so wise as his head; he had married Mrs. Wollstonecroft, a strange incomprehensible woman, whose unhappy existence terminated shortly after this marriage. A letter from her to Miss Alderson, seems to have been written at this time, and as it is of painful interest, and curious in more respects than one, we subjoin it:—

My dear Girl,

Endeavouring, through embarrassment, to turn the conversation from myself last night, I insensibly became too severe in my strictures on the vanity of a certain lady, and my heart smote me when I raised a laugh at her expense. Pray forget it. I have now to tell you that I am very sorry I prevented you from engaging a box for Mrs. Inchbald, whose conduct, I think, has been very rude. She wrote to Mr. Godwin to-day, saying, that, taking it for granted he had forgotten it, she had spoken to another person. “She would not do so the next time he was married.” Nonsense! I have now to request you to set the matter right. Mrs. Inchbald may still get a box; I beg her pardon for misunderstanding the business, but Mr. G. led me into the error, or I will go to the pit. To have done with disagreeable subjects at once, let me allude to another. I shall be sorry to resign the acquaintance of Mrs. and Mr. F. Twiss, because I respect their characters, and feel grateful for their attention; but my conduct in life must be directed by my own judgment and moral principles: it is my wish that Mr. Godwin should visit and dine out as formerly, and I shall do the same; in short, I still mean to be independent, even to the cultivating sentiments and principles in my children’s minds, (should I have more,) which he disavows. The wound my unsuspecting heart formerly received is not healed. I found my evenings solitary; and I wished, while fulfilling the duty of a mother, to have some person with similar pursuits, bound to me by affection; and beside, I earnestly desired to resign a name which seemed to disgrace me. Since I have been unfortunately the object of observation, I have had it in my power, more than once, to marry very advantageously; and of course, should have been courted by those, who at least cannot accuse me of acting an interested part, though I have not, by dazzling their eyes, rendered them blind to my faults. I am proud perhaps, conscious of my own purity and integrity; and many circumstances in my life have contributed to excite in my bosom an indignant contempt for the forms of a world I should have bade a long good night to, had I not been a mother. Condemned then, to toil my hour out, I wish to live as rationally as I can; had fortune or splendor been my aim in life, they have been within my reach, would I have paid the price. Well, enough of the subject; I do not wish to resume it. Good night! God bless you.

Mary Wollstonecroft,

femme Godwin.

Tuesday Night.

From this letter, it is cheering to turn to the bright joyous spirit, evinced in the following, which contains the first announcement of the important event to which we alluded just now.

TO MRS. TAYLOR.

Tuesday, 1797.

Why have I not written to you? it is a question I cannot answer; you must answer it yourself, but attribute my silence, not to any diminution of affection for you * * * * Believe me, I still hear the kind fears you expressed for me when we parted, and still see the flattering tears that you shed when you bade me adieu. Indeed, I shall never forget them. I had resolved to write to you as soon as ever I had seen Richard, but it was a resolution made to be broken; like many others in this busy scene. Had I written to you as soon as I left, of all those whom I have heard talk of and praise you as you deserve, I should have ruined you in postage. Poor Mr. C. is desperately in love with you, by his own confession, and his wife admires his taste. Mr. Godwin was much gratified by your letter, and he avowed that it made him love you better than he did before, and Mrs. Godwin was not surprised at it; by the bye, he never told me whether you congratulated him on his marriage or not; but now I remember, it was written before that wonder-creating event was known. Heigho! what charming things would sublime theories be, if one could make one’s practice keep up with them; but I am convinced it is impossible, and am resolved to make the best of every-day nature.

I shall have much to tell you in a tête à tête, of the Godwins, &c.—so much that a letter could not contain or do it justice; but this will be entre nous; I love to make observations on extraordinary characters; but not to mention those observations if they be not favourable.

“Well! a whole page, and not a word yet of the state of her heart; the subject most interesting to me”—methinks I hear you exclaim; patience, friend, it will come soon, but not go away soon, were I to analyze it, and give it you in detail. Suffice, that it is in the most comical state possible; but I am not unhappy, on the contrary, I enjoy everything; and if my head be not turned by the large draughts which my vanity is daily quaffing, I shall return to Norwich much happier than I left it. Mr. Opie, has (but mum) been my declared lover, almost ever since I came. I was ingenuous with him upon principle, and I told him my situation, and the state of my heart. He said he should still persist, and would risk all consequences to his own peace, and so he did and does; and I have not resolution to forbid his visits. Is not this abominable? Nay more, were I not certain my father would disapprove such, or indeed any connexion for me, there are moments, when, ambitious of being a wife and mother, and of securing to myself a companion for life, capable of entering into all my pursuits, and of amusing me by his,—I could almost resolve to break all fetters, and relinquish too, the wide, and often aristocratic circle, in which I now move, and become the wife of a man, whose genius has raised him from obscurity, into fame and comparative affluence; but indeed my mind is on the pinnacle of its health when I thus feel; and on a pinnacle one can’t remain long! But I had forgotten to tell you the attraction Mr. O. held out, that staggered me beyond anything else; it was that, if I were averse to leaving my father, he would joyfully consent to his living with us. What a temptation to me, who am every moment sensible, that the claims of my father will always be, with me, superior to any charms that a lover can hold out! Often do I rationally and soberly state to Opie the reasons that might urge me to marry him, in time, and the reasons why I never could be happy with him, nor he with me; but it always ends in his persisting in his suit, and protesting his willingness to wait for my decision; even while I am seriously rejecting him, and telling him I have decided. * * * Mr. Holcroft too, has had a mind to me, but he has no chance. May I trouble you to tell my father that, while I was out yesterday, Hamilton called, and left a note, simply saying, “Richardson says he means to call on you, I have seen him this morning.” Before I seal this letter I hope to receive my farce from him; I will put my letter by till the boy returns from R. I have been capering about the room for joy, at having gotten my farce back! now idleness adieu, when Dicky and I have held sweet converse together! * * *

The first time Mr. Opie saw his future wife, was at an evening party, at the house of one of her early friends; among the guests assembled, were Mr. Opie, and a family, personally known to the writer of these Memoirs. Some of those present were rather eagerly expecting the arrival of Miss Alderson; but the evening was wearing away, and still she did not appear; at length the door was flung open, and she entered, bright and smiling, dressed in a robe of blue, her neck and arms bare; and on her head a small bonnet, placed in somewhat coquettish style, sideways, and surmounted by a plume of three white feathers. Her beautiful hair hung in rich waving tresses over her shoulders; her face was kindling with pleasure at sight of her old friends; and her whole appearance was animated and glowing. At the time she came in, Opie was sitting on a sofa, beside Mr. F., who had been saying, from time to time, “Amelia is coming; Amelia will surely come: why is she not here?” and whose eyes were turned in her direction. He was interrupted by his companion eagerly exclaiming “Who is that? Who is that?” and hastily rising, he pressed forward, to be introduced to the fair object whose sudden appearance had so impressed him. He was evidently smitten; charmed, at first sight, and, as she says, “almost from my first arrival Mr. Opie became my avowed lover.”

It will not be necessary for us to give more than a short reference to Mr. Opie’s career before he became acquainted with Amelia Alderson. He was born of poor and respectable parents, and early showed a remarkable strength of understanding and indomitable perseverance. His father would fain have brought him up to his own business, (that of a carpenter,) but to this the boy evinced a most decided disinclination, and even so early as his 10th year the bent of his talents was determined. In vain his father endeavoured to discourage his attempts at drawing; he persisted in covering the walls of their house with pictures of his family, his companions, and favourite animals. Accident brought him to the knowledge of Dr. Walcot, (the Peter Pindar of well-known celebrity,) who assisted and recommended him, and eventually introduced him, in his 20th year, to the notice of the artistic world in London; there he was hailed as a wonder and a genius, and immediately surrounded and employed by amateurs and many of the nobility. The street in which he lived was so crowded with carriages that, as he jokingly observed, he thought he should have to plant a cannon at his door to keep the multitude off! This popularity, however, did not last long; although he was really improving by diligent practice, and advancing towards excellence, the world began to cool upon him when he ceased to be a novelty; and soon neglected one it had perhaps at first somewhat overvalued. By a wise economy he had, even at this time, secured a considerable sum of money; and with praiseworthy diligence cultivated his mind, and in some degree supplied his early want of education.

About this time, he unhappily married a woman, wholly unworthy of him, who is reported to have possessed some property. Before long he found himself compelled to procure a divorce from her. Probably this domestic trouble had a serious effect upon his temper and manners. His address was naturally somewhat rugged and unpolished, especially before his second marriage; but those who knew him well, found that his disposition was the very reverse of unfeeling or vindictive. Mrs. Inchbald says, “the total absence of artificial manners was the most remarkable characteristic, and at the same time the adornment and the deformity of Mr. Opie.” At the time when he paid his addresses to Miss Alderson he was in his 36th year. Mr. Allen Cunningham, in the pleasing biography he has given of him in his “Lives of the Painters,” says, “in person Opie looked like an inspired peasant.”

We have no further record, reporting how he fared in his courtship; she vowed that his chances of success were but one to a thousand! But the indomitable one persevered. He knew his mind, and persuaded her at length, that he had read her heart. So she went home again to Norwich, to think of the future, and prepare for it; one last short note heralded her approach; probably the last she ever addressed to her friend, bearing the signature, “A. Alderson.”[^[6]]

Englefield Green,

Friday, August 12th, 1797.

My very dear Friend,

I cannot meet even the kindest glance of your eye, without having written a few lines, before our reunion. I must tell you, that of all the letters I have received from my friends, yours gave me the most pleasure, though I had not the grace to say so till now: when we meet I will tell you why; indeed I must put off a great many communications till that time. Suffice, that whatever you hear about me, you must disbelieve!

Here I am, on a high hill, wishing most fervently, though not warmly, for a fire, and in the middle of August too! Shall we, (I fear not,) have some hot evening walks? I shall want them by way of relaxation from my studies, (do not laugh.) Positively, I must set hard to work, as the theatre opens in September. Farewell! I must conclude, I have been writing a long time; with love to your spouse and children, believe me most affectionately yours,

A. Alderson.

The time was approaching when she was to leave her father’s house, and the home and friends of her youth, to become the wife of Mr. Opie. An ardent love letter, still in existence, tells with what intense desire he was awaiting her arrival; for it was arranged that she should go, accompanied by her father, to the house of one of their friends in London, and be married from thence; towards the close of this epistle he enters into some details respecting the preparations he was making, in his domestic arrangements, for the reception of his bride; and concludes:—

I am puzzled, dearest, to know whether you expect to hear from me to-morrow. If I think of anything particular I’ll write; else not. To love thee much better than I did, is, I think, impossible; but my heart springs forward at the thought of thy near approach. God bless thee ever, my dearest love, and guard thee up safe to thy fond, anxious, devoted,

J. O.

CHAPTER V.

MARRIAGE; EARLY MÉNAGE; AUTHORSHIP; LAY ON PORTRAIT OF MRS. TWISS; LETTER TO MRS. TAYLOR; VISIT TO NORWICH; LETTER FROM MR. OPIE; MRS. OPIE TO MRS. TAYLOR; MR. OPIE’S MOTHER.

Mr. and Mrs. Opie were married in Marylebone church on the 8th of May, 1798.

In the Memoir prefixed to her husband’s life she speaks with touching naiveté and feeling of the earlier years of their married life; “great economy and self denial were necessary,” she says, “and were strictly observed by us at that time.” The habits and tastes of Mr. Opie were, happily, very inexpensive, and so domestic in their nature, that he preferred spending his evenings at home to joining in society abroad; and liked nothing better, by way of relaxation after the labours of the day, than to spend the evening hours in converse with his wife, in reading with her books of amusement or instruction, in studying prints from the best ancient and modern masters, or in sketching designs for his pictures. His love of his profession was intense, and his unremitting industry in the pursuance of it drew from Mr. Northcote the observation, that while other artists painted to live, he lived to paint. He was incessantly engaged in his painting-room during the hours of day-light, and no society, however pleasant, could long detain him from it. It was indeed a passion to which the whole energies of his being were devoted. In one branch of his art he appears to have been much indebted to his wife, and in what way this was shewn will be best told in her own words:—

When Mr. Opie became again a husband, (she says,) he found it necessary, in order to procure indulgences for a wife whom he loved, to make himself popular as a portrait-painter, and in that productive and difficult branch of the art, female portraiture. He therefore turned his attention to those points he had long been in the habit of neglecting, and his pictures soon acquired a degree of grace and softness to which they had of late years been strangers. At the second exhibition after our marriage one of his fellow artists came up to him and complimented him on his female portraits, adding, “we never saw any thing like this in you before, Opie; this must be owing to your wife.”

Her husband related with evident delight this pleasing compliment to her who had inspired his efforts. Her modesty did not permit her to speak of another mode in which she assisted to promote his interests; but her friend Mrs. Taylor has mentioned that “in her own house, where Mr. Opie’s talents drew a constant succession of the learned, the gay, and the fashionable, she delighted all by the sweetness of her manners, and the unstudied and benevolent politeness with which she adapted herself to the taste of each individual.”

Happy it was for them both, that Mr. Opie was disposed to aid and encourage his wife in her favourite tastes, and the exercise of her literary talent. She observes:—

Knowing at the time of our marriage that my most favourite amusement was writing, he did not check my ambition to become an author; on the contrary he encouraged it, and our only quarrel on the subject was not that I wrote so much, but that I did not write more and better. Idleness was the fault that he was most violent against in both sexes; and I shall ever regret those habits of indolence which made me neglect to write while it was in my power to profit by his criticisms and advice, and when, by employing myself more regularly in that manner, I should have been sure to receive the proudest and dearest reward of woman, the approbation of a husband, at once the object of her respect and of her love.

Mr. Opie entertained a partiality for works of fiction, and not unfrequently indulged himself in reading a novel, even if it were not of the first class; and his wife remarks in defence of this taste:—

He was above the petty, yet common affectation of considering that sort of reading as beneath any persons but fools and women; and if his fondness for works of that description was a weakness, it was one which he had in common with Mr. Burke and Mr. Porson.

Encouraged by the sympathy and approval of the man to whom she had united her fortunes, she soon began to exert her powers with diligence, and ere long became (as she expresses it) “a candidate for the pleasures, the pangs, the rewards, and the penalties, of authorship.”

In one respect, indeed, they were not congenial in their tastes; she ardently loved society, to which she had been so much accustomed, and in which her talents so peculiarly fitted her to appear to advantage. On the contrary, it was with difficulty that Mr. Opie could be induced to join a numerous and mixed assemblage. He preferred to spend an evening occasionally at the theatre, or rather at the opera; for he loved music, and had so quick an ear that he would remember accurately a tune that pleased him, after having heard it once. When he sought society, he preferred select dinner parties, where he could meet persons whose friendship he valued, and from whom he might hope to learn. With honourable pride his wife observes:—

He was conscious that he aimed at no competition with the learned; while, with a manly simplicity, which neither feared contempt nor scorned applause, he has often, even in such company, made observations, originating in the native treasures of his own mind, which learning could not teach, and which learning alone could not enable the possessor to appreciate.

In the year after her marriage Mrs. Opie wrote a Lay “addressed to Mr. Opie on his having painted for me the picture of Mrs. Twiss;” it was published the same year, in the 1st volume of “The Annual Anthology,” and was (she tells us) one of her earliest; the concluding lines contain a pleasing tribute of affection to her husband:—

Within my breast contending feelings rise,

While this lov’d semblance fascinates my eyes;

Now pleas’d, I mark the painter’s skilful line,

Now joy, because the skill I mark, was thine;

And while I prize the gift by thee bestow’d,

My heart proclaims I’m of the giver proud,

Thus pride and friendship war with equal strife,

And now the friend exults, and now the wife.

A. O. 1799.

This picture was in her possession at the time of her death; it is “Portrait the Second” in her “Lays for the Dead,” which commences:—

The gift of love

That speaking picture was—of bridal love,

Now both the painter and his subject are

Where pictures come not. * * *

Mr. Opie’s ardour in the pursuit of his profession made him also unwilling to leave his home, even for a short change of scene and relaxation. In the frequent visits paid to Norwich by his wife, it was with difficulty she could prevail on him to accompany her; and whenever he was induced to do so, she says she had no chance of detaining him there, unless he found business awaiting him. In the autumn after their marriage, she turned her steps towards her early home, and rejoiced in greeting once more her father and the friends of her youth. After her return to London, we find her again resuming her pen to write to Mrs. Taylor: this letter bears date—

27th of January, 1800.

My dear Friend,

* * * * John, I suppose, informed you he called on us; he promised to come and dine with us, but has not been since; and as I have been tied by the foot ever since the day after Christmas day, from having worn a tight bound shoe, which made a hole in my heel, I do not regret his false-heartedness, as when he does come we are to go church and meeting hunting. * * * * * Àpropôs, I was very sorry to hear of your husband’s severe return of gout, but as he had a long respite before, I hope he will again. Severe illness has (I often think) on the frame, the same effect that a severe storm has on the atmosphere. I myself am much better in every respect, since my late indisposition, than I was before; and the mind is never perhaps so serene and tranquil, as when one is recovering from sickness. I enjoyed my confinement, as I was not, like your good man, in pain. My husband was so kind as to sit with me every evening, and even to introduce his company to my bedside. No less than three beaux had the honour of a sitting in my chamber. Quite Parisian you see, but I dare not own this to some women. I have led a most happy and delightful life since my return, and in the whole two months have not been out more than four times; so spouse and I had no squabbles about visiting, and that is the only thing we ever quarrel about. If I would stay at home for ever, I believe he would be merry from morning to night; and be a lover more than a husband! He had a mind to accompany me to an assembly in Nottingham place, but Mrs. Sharpe (a most amiable woman) frightened him, by declaring he should dance with her, if he did.

What the friendships of dissipated women are, Mrs. —— going to a ball, while poor H. T. was dying, sufficiently proves. I remember with satisfaction that I saw her, and shook hands with her at the November ball. Indeed she had a heart; and I can’t help recollecting that when I had the scarlet fever she called on me every day, regardless of danger, and sat at the foot of my bed. Besides, she was the friend of twenty years, and the companion of my childhood, and I feel the older I grow, the more tenderly I cling to the scenes, and recollections, and companions, of my early hours. When I now look at Mr. Bruckner’s black cap, my memory gets astride on the tassel of it, and off she gallops at a very pleasant rate; wooden desks, green bags, blotted books, inked hands, faces, and gowns, rise in array before me. I see Mrs. Beecroft (Miss Dixon I should say) with her plump good-humoured face, laughing till she loses her eyes, and shakes the whole form; but I must own, the most welcome objects that the hoofs of memory’s hobby-horse kick up, are the great B.’s, or bons, on my exercises! I do not choose to remember how often I was marked for being idle. * * So you have had riots. I am glad they are over. Mrs. Adair called on me this morning, and she tells me that Charles Harvey was terribly alarmed after he had committed Col. Montgomery. A fine idea this gives one of the state of a town, where a man is alarmed at having done his duty!

I am very much afraid my spouse will not live long; he has gotten a fit of tidyness on him; and yesterday evening and this evening, he has employed himself in putting his painting-room to rights. This confirms what I said to him the other day; that almost every man was beau and sloven, at some time of his life. Charles Fox once wore pink heels; now he has an unpowdered crop. And I expect that as my husband has been a sloven hitherto, he will be a beau in future; for he is so pleased with his handyworks, and capers about, and says, “look there! how neat! and how prettily I have disposed the things! Did you ever see the like?” Certainly I never did, where he was, before. Oh! he will certainly be a beau in time. Past ten o’clock! I must now say farewell; but let me own that I missed you terribly when I was ill. I have no female friend and neighbour; and men are not the thing on such occasions. Besides, you, on all occasions, would be the female neighbour I should choose. Love to your spouse. Write soon, and God bless you.

In the autumn of 1800 she again visited Norwich, accompanied by her husband; and on this occasion Mr. Opie painted the portrait of Dr. Sayers, an engraving from which is prefixed to the Life of that gentleman by Mr. W. Taylor; who says, “Dr. Sayers conversed much with Mr. O. on art, and listened to his native strength of talent and originality of judgment, and has happily applied to him a Greek distich in his Essay on Beauty.”

Mr. Opie seems to have returned to London after completing this picture, leaving his wife to spend some longer period with her father. His patience, however, became exhausted before she felt disposed to return to him, and he remonstrated with her in a half lover-like strain of complaint.

My dearest life, (he writes,) I cannot be sorry that you do not stay longer; though, as I said, on your father’s account, I would consent to it. Pray love forgive me, and make yourself easy, for I did not suspect, till my last letter was gone, that it might be too strong; I had been counting almost the hours till your arrival for some time, and have been unwell and unable to sleep these last three weeks, so that I could not make up my mind to the disappointment. As to coming down again, I cannot think of it; for though I could, perhaps, better spare the time at present from painting, than I could at any part of last month, I find I must now go hard to work to finish my lectures, as the law says they must be delivered the second year after the election, and though they have never acted on this law, yet there are many, perhaps, who would be glad to put it in force in the present instance. I had almost given way to the suggestions of idleness, and determined to put them off till another year; but since I have been acquainted with the above-mentioned regulation, I have shut myself up in the evenings, and, I doubt not, shall be ready with three or four of them at least. We had a thin general meeting on Monday last, and elected Calcot an associate of the R.A. Lawrence and Hoppner attended. Thompson was also there, and we were very sociable; but he has not called, nor was there any notice taken, on either side, of our long separation. Pray, love, be easy, and as (I suppose) you will not stay; come up as soon as possible, for I long to see you as much as ever I did in my life.

A very short time elapsed after her return before we find her writing again to Mrs. Taylor.

12th December, 1800.

* * * * Are you not very much obliged to me, my dear friend? I am good for nothing to-day, so I am going to write to you! But one ventures to show one’s person in dishabille at a friend’s fireside, and why not one’s mind? and so I’m resolved, though my mind is not just now smart enough for Parnassus, to exhibit it at St. George’s. Here’s weather! But you Norwich people can’t, even from recollection, I think, conceive half the horror of a London fog. At present my husband’s mind is more affected by it than my health (for it is a terrible time for a painter). I hope I shall not suffer this winter as I did last; on the contrary, I continue to grow fat, and have an excellent appetite for everything but breakfast; and alas! I still “sigh and lament me in vain” for Mrs. Lessy’s hot half-baked cakes. Fye upon her! she has made me so dainty. My visit to Harleston was a very satisfactory one; it seemed the burial of unpleasant feelings, and the resurrection of amiable ones. I left Eliza Merrick a plump image of health and content, and I found Betsey Fry yester-evening at her own house a lean image of the same. How women vary! I am surprised to see the leanness of the one, and the fatness of the other; formerly the lean one was fat, and now the fat one is lean; but now she is so very comfortably settled, no doubt she will soon grow fat again. In all Quaker houses there is a most comfortable appearance of neatness, comfort, and affluence. Betsey Fry is settled down with everything requisite to domestic happiness. Mr. Fry pleases me very much.

Richard and I have frequent meetings now. On Sunday he is to breakfast with me, squire me to the Catholic chapel in King Street, where French Bishops (and sometimes the Archbishop of Narbonne) officiate, and then eat his beef with us.

To-morrow, if Anne Plumptre returns, I shall go with her into the pit of Drury lane to see a new tragedy, the author nameless to me, (though known to others I find,) and so I wish him to continue; for I should like to form of the piece, for the first time in my life, an unprejudiced judgment. Mrs. Siddons, indeed, told me not to go, because the play was stupid; but I have since recollected, to counteract her influence, that Kemble says she knows nothing about a play. So I flatter myself I am still unprejudiced.

I shall have left Norwich a month only next Sunday, and it seems to me three, at least, so much have I done and seen since my return. Mr. Opie, too, has been constantly employed. The T.s will be here in a month; that is a great joy to me. I purposely avoid saying anything of my evening at Mrs. Siddons’ on Tuesday evening last, as I expect to fill my letter to my father with it to-morrow.

I am uneasy about Mr. Opie’s mother. She has again taken to her bed; and I fear the long struggle she had with death last winter, though she overcame him, will have weakened her too much to make it possible for her to endure another—and I did so ardently wish to see her! A committee of Academicians is to meet every Saturday till means are found to execute Mr. Opie’s plan for a Naval Pantheon; and this looks well. Just room for love to your circle, and my name,

A. Opie.

The fear expressed in this letter was, happily, not realized; Mr. Opie’s mother survived till the spring of 1805, when she died at the advanced age of ninety-two. To this parent he was most tenderly attached, and neither time nor the pressure of business, diminished his filial devotion to her. He delighted to dwell upon her early tenderness, her careful attention to his childish wants, and the encouragement which she afforded to his first attempts in the art he loved; his eye would glisten and his face kindle with affection when he spoke of her; and no sooner was it in his power to assist her, than he rejoiced in affording her the means of comfort and independence.

How cordially could his wife sympathize with him in this fervent attachment; she, who was, throughout life, so sensitively alive to the claims of relationship, even in the remotest degrees, and whose whole being was devoted with tenderest love to her parents while living, and to their memory when dead! She appears to have been permitted the gratification of her wish to see her husband’s mother, and “I believe (she says) that scarcely any one who knew her would have thought this description of her an exaggerated one.”

CHAPTER VI.

“THE FATHER AND DAUGHTER;” CRITIQUE IN THE EDINBURGH; THREE LETTERS TO MRS. TAYLOR; VOLUME OF “POEMS;” “GO, YOUTH BELOVED;” LETTER FROM SIR J. MACKINTOSH; S. SMITH’S LECTURE.

In the year 1801, Mrs. Opie gave to the world the “Father and Daughter;” her first acknowledged publication. She had, before her marriage, published an anonymous novel, entitled “the Dangers of Coquetry,” which does not appear to have attracted any attention. It will presently be seen that she refers to it in a letter to Mrs. Taylor, and it is included in the list of her works given in Watt’s Bibliotheca Britannica, although without date, and placed in order after her earlier publications. The “Father and Daughter,” in the first edition, was accompanied by a poem called “The Maid of Corinth,” and some smaller pieces. It is unnecessary to do more than remind the reader of the warmth of approval with which this tale was received by the public.[^[7]] In the preface to it Mrs. Opie modestly confesses her diffidence in appearing as an avowed author at the bar of public opinion, and disclaiming for her little book the ambitious title of a novel, says, “Its highest pretensions are to be a simple moral tale.”

In the first volume of “The Edinburgh,” there is a review of her poems,[^[8]] in which the writer thus criticises the “Father and Daughter.”

* * * “Mrs. Opie’s mind is evidently more adapted to seize situation than to combine incidents. It can represent, with powerful expression, the solitary portrait, in every attitude of gentler grief; but it cannot bring together a connected assemblage of figures, and represent each in its most striking situation, so as to give, as it were, to the glance of a moment, the feelings and events of many years. When a series of reflections is to be brought by her to our view, they must all be of that immediate relation which allows them to be introduced at any part of the poem; or we shall probably see before us a multitude, rather than a group. * * * * She has, indeed, written a novel; and it is one which excites a very high interest: but the merit of that novel does not consist in its action, nor in any varied exhibition of character. Agnes, in all the sad changes of fortune, is still the same; and the action, if we except a very few situations of the highest excitement, is the common history of every seduction in romance. Indeed, we are almost tempted to believe that the scene in the wood occurred first to the casual conception of the author; and that, in the design of fully displaying it, all the other events of the novel were afterwards imagined.”

The three following letters to Mrs. Taylor admit us behind the scenes, and allow us to see the palpitations of her heart.

Sunday Evening, 1801.

My dear Friend,

The only paper I can find consists of two half sheets, comme vous voyez. But no matter. I will not, for appearance’ sake, baulk my inclination to write to you.

* * I am very sorry that Mrs. Jordan and the Duke of Clarence have hitherto managed their matters so ill, as always to disappoint you; but the lady is now about again, though, from pecuniary disputes with the manager, probably, she is, as yet, invisible to the public. However, by the time you come, I hope she will be on the boards again. I believe you were very right in what you said to me, about the good arising from my having delayed publishing my juvenile pieces; but some of those things which have now gained me reputation are juvenile pieces, written years ago; however, I am contented that I have, till now, lived unconscious of the anxieties of an author. I wish I were launched! As usual, all the good I saw in my work, before it was printed, is now vanished from my sight, and I remember only its faults. All the authors, of both sexes, and artists too, that are not too ignorant or full of conceit to be capable of alarm, tell me they have had the same feeling when about to receive judgment from the public. Besides, whatever I read appears to me so superior to my own productions, that I am in a state of most unenviable humility. Mr. Opie has no patience with me; but he consoles me by averring that fear makes me overrate others, and underrate myself. Be so good as to tell my father that, as a subscriber to Dyer’s book, he has half a guinea to pay for the volume I have received for him, and when the other two volumes are done, he will have to pay half a guinea more! Poor man; but tell him, as some little consolation, that there are three pretty stanzas addressed to me in the first volume, the old verses lengthened and improved, but they are “To a Lady,” not to Mrs. Opie. Viganoni was with me from twelve to three to-day, alternately singing with me and talking; he has, with all his genius, a great deal of what the French call bonhommie, which makes him talkative and confiding, when he is with those he thinks his friends. I was pleased, for his sake, to hear him say he should sing only two or three years longer, as he had saved money enough to live quite at his ease in his native country. He says music is now so cultivated and courted in England, that it is at its height, and must soon fall “en décadence;” but he thinks the present taste a vicious one. “Le monde Anglais;” he says, “like nothing equal to bravura singing,” which he thinks no singing at all, and which never goes to the heart like simple sentimental singing. Indeed he never puts in a grace, but what tends to illustrate the sentiment of the words, and the style of the air; his singing is conversation, put into sweet sounds. My plaudit is of no weight, perhaps; but Viganoni has, unrivalled, that of all the oldest, most experienced, and able professors of music—men who unite theory with practice, and are the only good judges, from having, from their situations, an opportunity of comparing singers and styles—men who have learnt to hear, an art, nothing but hearing constantly the first music and performers, can teach. I long to hear Mara again. V. says she sings better than ever, though her voice is on the wane. How strange it is that Bante retains her unequalled voice, though she gets drunk every day. This extraordinary creature can’t even write her name, and knows not a note of music. V. is sometimes forced to pinch her to keep her in time, and make her leave off her vile shake, or rather no shake, at the proper point. A gentleman declared to me he saw this; but I did not believe it, till I asked V., who told me it was true. Adieu! Love to all.

1801.

My dear Friend,

I began a letter to you full a fortnight ago, but I know not what is become of the precious scrawl; it is “wasting its sweetness on the desert air,” somewhere or other, so I must begin a new one. All I remember of it is, that it began with very sensible reproaches for your having thought it necessary and becoming in you to thank me for what you were pleased to call kindnesses, from me, to you and yours; as if such words and such ceremonies were proper between you and me, and as if, in showing attention to you and Richard, I did not do myself honour by proving the sense I entertain of superior merit. Tol de rol lol!

So you are coming to the great city! but let me advise you to come in mourning, for there seems to be a rot amongst royalty, and one court mourning succeeds to another; the present one will scarcely be over before you arrive. One of our great grandmothers is dead, but which I do not know. I shall have a great deal to tell you about new people and new characters when I see you, which a letter could neither contain nor do justice to. It is a world to see! I dearly love to get a peep at it now and then; and what I do see of it only serves to endear the safety and quiet of my own home. You will be up just time enough for one of my pleasantest parties, and I expect you and I shall be two merry wives when we get together again. You will see the exhibition too; and I hope que vous y verrez briller mon Mari.

I am glad on reperusing “The Dangers of Coquetry,” that you think so highly of it. I read it at Seething soon after I married, and felt a great respect for it; and if I ever write a collection of tales, I shall correct and re-publish that, as I originally wrote it, not as it now is, in the shape of a novel, in chapters. I believe I told you that Mr. Hoare was so struck with it, as to intend writing a play from it. I wish he would. Heigho, I am very stupid to-night, so my ideas do not come coulamment; so for want of something better to say, I will tell you a characteristic anecdote of Mr. Northcote. Mr. Opie, and he, and Sir Francis Bourgeois (the landscape painter) dined at Sir William Elford’s the other day, and met there a Colonel Elford. After dinner some disputatious conversation took place, in which my husband and Mr. N. took a principal part; after some time, the Colonel said, in a low voice to Sir Francis, “Painters are queer fellows; how oddly they converse. One knows not what to make of them; how oddly these men run on!” Sir Francis assented, and consoled himself as well as he could, for being so little eminent as not to be known to be a painter himself. After tea, he took an opportunity of telling this story to Northcote; who, starting back with a face of horror, exclaimed, “Gude G—! then he took you for a gentleman!” I dare say he did not sleep that night. My husband says very truly and admirably of this queer little being, that his mind resembles an old family mansion, in which some of the apartments are furnished and in good repair, while the major part are empty or full of rubbish. * * * (Enter Mr. Northcote!) (Sunday.) I have nothing to tell you in consequence of the little man’s visit, except a fresh proof of the care he takes of his little health. I had some cheese toasted and brought up. “Gude G—! how unwholesome, one piece if you please, and no more.” Presently after, he says, “Bless me, Mrs. Opie! eating still? how much have you ventured to eat?” “Two pieces.” “Oh, then so will I, I’ll venture to eat two pieces too.” As a proof of his politeness, I will tell you that on my saying Sir Roger L’Estrange was a Norfolk man, he exclaimed, “A Norfolk man! could anything good or great come out of Norfolk?”

I am told my father certainly means to visit us this spring, but I am resolved not to expect him, as I was so disappointed last year. I am sorry you will come up too late for the Oratorios. I am going to-day to carry Mrs. Inchbald my book to read. She has promised me her opinion of it; and I long to receive it. She is a judge of the tale only; poetry is to her an undiscovered country. The ballads she already admires very highly. As this letter will not go till to-morrow, I shall leave it open.—(Sunday eve.)—I had written thus far, when your kind letter came. I repeat my advice to you to come in a black muslin; a white gown and black ribbons, or even a coloured gown, will do occasionally in a morning, to spare the other, and then you will always be either dressed or undressed; for black suits all companies; black stockings and a black petticoat you would find so useful too. All black continues fashionable, and is economical too. I am very glad you like my tale. The Hoares called to-day, and expressed themselves much pleased and affected by it, Mr. H. could not sleep all night after it, it made him so wretched. You will undoubtedly see both Coome and Mrs. Jordan. Adieu, just room to send kind love. Yours, &c.,

A. O.

Monday, 1801.

* * * I did not expect, my dear friend, that my asking one favour of you should procure me two; viz., fowls for Viganoni, and a letter for myself; but I like to take all heaven sends—and the more the better. Your question to me “what is this indescribable charm which attends the overflowings of one mind into another when it finds itself understood?”—I can’t answer; though, as you observe, the enjoyment is known to me. But this pleasure is not confined to the contemplation of well assorted minds; in everything we delight to see things fit, as we call it; even a scissors-sheath delights us when, on buying it, we find it sits flush—as the phrase is. No wonder then that, when mind fits mind, the pleasure should be so great. Yes!—as you say, July is coming; and I am coming, but late in July I doubt. I have not made out the author of the anonymous letter—I wish I had; yet, there I lie; mountains look largest and most sublime when they are shrouded partly in mist. The “British Critic” is something awful; but what is Parson Beloc? Pray tell my father that 750 are to be printed of the Tale; it will be time enough to settle the number of the other volume when it is ready for the press. At present I am so incapable of writing!

I have been giving myself a great deal of trouble to-day, and I doubt at last I shall be disappointed. Viganoni, with great readiness and great humility, granted my request that he would set the little song I wrote the other day; but to enable him to do this, I have just written it out, leaving a space between each line wide enough for him to write the cadence of the words, as if they were Italian, underneath; then at the bottom, in French prose, I have translated the song, that he may comprehend the sentiment; and I have also written it again with a literal translation of each word by a French one under it, regardless of French construction, that he may catch the proper emphasis; thus:—

New friends, new hopes, new joys, to find—

De nouveaux amis, de nouvelles espérances, de nouveaux plaisirs, à trouver.

And, after all, if he should not do it well! he says he will do son possible, but I have my fears; if he succeeds I shall be so pleased! * * What a labour it is to laugh for a continuance! I am quite sore to-day with immoderate laughter yesterday! I was irritable, and then anything sets me off. Not but what my uncle and aunt, at whose house I dined, and Mr. Biggs who dined there also, were very agreeable; but had I been quite well, and my husband not gone to Chatham I should not have been so noisy. Yet I declare I laugh now at some of the fun. I expect my husband home in half an hour. He went to please me, and after he was gone I repented of my persuading him to go, but I thought the air and exercise would do him good. Do not laugh, but though only two days absent, the house seems so strange without its master, that I have learned to excuse, nay to commend, women for marrying again! How dreadfully forlorn must be the situation of a widow! I think I shall write an essay recommending second marriages, and dedicate it to Mrs. Merrick. Well, God bless you! I think I have written nonsense enough. Love to your spouse and bairns; and believe me, ever yours,

A. Opie

“The other Volume” was the “Poems,” which appeared early in 1802, and for a critique upon which we must again refer the reader to the article in the Edinburgh Review for October, 1802. After some rather severe criticism of her deficiencies and faults, the writer observes, “It is in the smaller verse of eight syllables, which requires no pomp of sound, and in the simple tenderness, or simple grief, to which, the artlessness of such numbers is best suited, the power of Mrs. O.’s poetry consists. * * * The verses of feeling, on which she must rely for the establishment of her fame, are certainly among the best in our opuscular poetry. As a specimen we select the following song, which is scarcely surpassed by any in our language:—

Go, youth beloved, in distant glades,

New friends, new hopes, new joys to find!

Yet sometimes deign, ’midst fairer maids,

To think on her thou leav’st behind.

Thy love, thy fate, dear youth, to share,

Must never be my happy lot;

But thou may’st grant this humble prayer

Forget me not! forget me not!

Yet should the thought of my distress

Too painful to thy feelings be,

Heed not the wish I now express,

Nor ever deign to think of me!

But oh! if grief thy steps attend,

If want, if sickness be thy lot,

And thou require a soothing friend,

Forgot me not! forget me not!

Sir James Mackintosh, in a letter written to Mr. Sharpe, from India, refers to these lines in the following manner: “Tell the fair Opie that if she would address such pretty verses to me as she did to Ashburner, I think she might almost bring me back from Bombay, though she could not prevent his going thither. I beg that she will have the goodness to convey Lady M.’s kindest compliments and mine, to her friend Madame Roland, of Norwich.” (By this playful epithet Mrs. Taylor was designated, in consequence of a fancied resemblance to her portrait.) It was probably, the delivery of this message which produced the impromptu by Mrs. Opie, on being asked if she had written verses on the absence of Sir James Mackintosh, in India:—

No! think not in verse

I his absence deplore:

Who a sorrow can sing

Till that sorrow is o’er?

And when shall his loss

With such sorrow be classed?

Oh! when shall his absence

Be pain that is past?

Sir James acknowledged the compliment thus paid him by the following letter, dated,

Bombay, 30th September, 1805.

My dear Mrs. Opie,

Many thanks for all your late presents, your good cousin, your most affecting novel, and your elegant verses. Your cousin will do well, and return to you, I hope, in a few years, with a reasonable fortune, and an unbroken constitution. At present I think he looks fresher than I ever saw him in Norfolk. Of Adeline, I cannot speak with quite so much unmixed complacency; she has occasioned many painful moments, and even cost us some tears. The verses I am sure I should admire, even if they had not bribed me to do so. The first four lines in particular are so ingenious and so natural, so lively and so easy, that they resemble the light poetry of the French, in which they so much surpass all nations. Standing by themselves, they would make an admirable impromptu answer to the question which is the subject. Perhaps you will allow me to prove the sincerity of this praise, by adding that the remaining lines though excellent, are not perhaps of quite so high a cast as the first four. I have some thought of publishing these four in our Bombay Paper, in the form of which I have spoken; if I do, I bespeak pardon by anticipation.

The character of the Hindu is, in your songs, and in most European descriptions, beautiful and poetical; but on near approach it is base and odious enough. Their fine forms and graceful attitudes might indeed furnish subjects for Mr. Opie’s pencil, but their minds will seldom be worthy of your verse or your prose. I agree with you about the commencement of the third volume of Godwin’s novel. It is most masterly. There are other admirable parts; but, taken throughout, I think it the worst of his three; though far indeed above the limits of a vulgar fate. So unlettered and incurious is this place, that the copy of Fleetwood which came here, was suffered to lie on the shop counter with all the common trash of the Minerva press, undistinguished by our novel readers, to whom Godwin has no name; and might have so remained till it was devoured by the white ants, if I had not heard of it by chance, and eagerly snatched it from these animals, or from others of nobler shape, but not much nobler nature. I need scarcely say that no hostility was mixed with my eagerness; on the contrary, I expected, and I found great pleasure. I hope you are in love with Walter Scott’s “Lay of the Last Minstrel.” Nowhere else, but in “Warwick Castle,” are antique character and dignity reconciled with modern elegance and regularity. It has many charming passages, and the narrative is full of warlike and Homeric spirit; if the poem be sometimes tedious, so is Homer himself, the prince of ballad-makers, and of border minstrels. I presume that you have read Madame de Genlis’ “Duchesse de la Valière;” which, though not precisely a novel, is surely a most fascinating work. Have you ventured on the Abbé Delille’s translation of “Paradise Lost?” I presume it is a capital crime to praise it in England; and perhaps the importation of it may be prohibited; I see it is most profusely panegyrized in the Moniteur, and the only fault in the opinion of the French critics, is that the Translator has not altered Milton sufficiently. How would this sound on the banks of my beloved Thames? It would be blasphemy in England, and would be very bad taste anywhere, not to mention its glaring inconsistency with the first idea of translation. The bearer of this letter is Mrs. Stewart, a very amiable, and rather unfortunate woman, who brought here beauty and understanding fit for happier spots, and who is now going to England in search of long-lost health; any attention that you may have the goodness to show her, Lady M. and I shall consider as a great favour to us. I am confident, that when your own ingenious delicacy has gently dispelled the clouds that dejection and retirement have spread around her, you will see in herself sufficient motives for kindness to her.

I am, my Dear Madam,

Truly and faithfully yours,

James Mackintosh.

A triple crown was to be awarded to this song “Go, youth beloved.” It was selected by the Rev. Sydney Smith, in one of his “Lectures on Moral Philosophy,” delivered at the Royal Institution in 1804-5, as possessing peculiar excellence in its style; he says, “If any man were to discover the true language of nature and feeling in this little poem of Mrs. Opie’s, he would gain no credit for his metaphorical taste, because the beauties of it are too striking for a moment’s hesitation.”

The authoress was present at the time when Mr. Smith pronounced this eulogium upon her verses; and she used laughingly to tell how unexpectedly the compliment came upon her, and how she shrunk down upon her seat, in order to screen herself from the observation of those around her.

CHAPTER VII.

THE TRIALS OF GENIUS; DOMESTIC TROUBLES; LETTERS TO MRS. TAYLOR; JOURNEY TO FRANCE; ARRIVAL AT PARIS; THE LOUVRE; THE FIRST CONSUL; CHARLES JAMES FOX; THE SOIRÉE; KOSCIUSKO.

We have seen how diligently Mrs. Opie laboured during the year 1801, and with what success her efforts had been crowned. Yet this was the severest season of domestic anxiety and trouble, she was, as a wife, destined to experience. She tells us, in her Memoir of her husband, that although he had a picture in the Exhibition of 1801, which was universally admired, and purchased as soon as beheld, yet “he saw himself at the end of that year, and the beginning of the next, almost wholly without employment; and even my sanguine temper yielding to the trial, I began to fear that, small as our expenditure was, it must become still smaller. Not that I allowed myself to own that I desponded; on the contrary, I was forced to talk to him of hopes, and to bid him look forward to brighter prospects, as his temper, naturally desponding, required all the support possible. But gloomy and painful indeed were those three alarming months, and I consider them as the severest trial that I experienced during my married life. However, this despondency did not make him indolent; he continued to paint regularly as usual; and no doubt by that means increased his ability to do justice to the torrent of business which soon after set in towards him, and never ceased to flow till the day of his death.”

There is something very touching in these few and simple words. The earnest hopeful nature of the wife supporting the desponding spirits of her gifted husband. Like all men of true genius, he was subject to dark shadows and melancholy broodings. He aspired high, studied much, laboured hard, and was too painfully alive to his deficiencies, ever to rest satisfied with the point to which he had attained; the voice within cried ever, “higher!” and he must run until he fell. “During the nine years that I was his wife, (she continues,) I never saw him satisfied with any one of his productions, and often, very often, have I seen him enter my sitting room, and throwing himself in an agony of despondence on the sofa, exclaim, ‘I never, never shall be a painter, as long as I live!’”

Happily for women they have, in the little domestic cares of every day life, a source of employment and interest, which, compelling their attention, diverts their thoughts into wholesome channels, and saves them from uselessly brooding over evils they cannot avert. The domestic ménage of the painter’s household had to be governed, its mistress tells us, with a strict and watchful economy, and an observant eye must be kept upon all that went on there. But this was not all; as a mistress, the conduct of her servants appears to have occasioned her no small trouble, and to her faithful confidante she reveals her anxieties on more than one occasion; from two of these letters we find that she learned by experience, what she afterwards described with her pen; the first letter seems almost a comment upon one of her tales on “Lying,” or rather to have furnished the text for it. Both must have been written early in the year 1802, as in the month of August following, the journey to Paris took place.

My dear Friend,

Your most kind and gratifying letter, so wholly undeserved on my part, and (considering your many avocations) so generous on yours, demanded an earlier acknowledgment; but it is one of the charms of our intimacy that it is proof against neglects like mine. I know you will not cease to love me, nor think that I have ceased to love you, though even months pass without my assuring you of my unaltered regard. But at last I sit down to write to you, and you might suppose I take up my pen conscience-urged; no such matter; I write to crave your advice on a subject that weighs heavy on my mind, and one on which at present I cannot consult my husband; a difficult affair to act properly in, as I want to reconcile pity and justice. You must know, that, after having for some time past had some reason to suspect the strict honesty, in trifles, of my maid Anne, I had, last Friday, the mournful certainty of detecting her in a course of most flagrant iniquity; and what is worse, when I brought my charge against her, she was most firm in denial, and accused me of the grossest cruelty and injustice in accusing her; while a series of ready lies, abounding in contradictions, which left no doubt of her guilt on my mind, sunk her still lower in my opinion. I was easily prevailed on to keep the affair a secret from my husband for a short time, in order to avoid an éclat, which would blast the poor wretch’s character for ever; yet how, my dear friend, can I any way act as I ought, without doing this? Her cry is, “give me a character for God’s sake!” but how can I? Even if I keep her till August, can I then, however correct her future conduct, say “yes” to an enquiry concerning her honesty? If she had a heart, (but I am certain she has not,) I would keep her and conceal her fault, (for while reputation is safe, there is hope of amendment,) but of her I have no hope. Now, my dear friend, tell me how I can stand between her and the punishment of her guilt, with honour and justice to myself? A young maid-servant turned out, without the chance of a character, is in so exposed and desperate a situation, that I shudder to think of the consequences, and, as my too great confidence and my carelessness may have laid temptation in her way, I feel a degree of responsibility for her faults, which distresses me exceedingly.

I really should feel it incumbent on me to make an apology for worrying your brains with my domestic concerns, did I not know it is the honest pride of your life to be useful, and that you are always glad of an opportunity of serving me.

The string that pulls me towards Norwich begins to grow tight. To Cornwall, or even to France, we cannot afford to go; at least so Mr. Opie thinks; and that is the same thing.

My next letter (and I shall certainly answer your answer) shall contain more amusing stuff. At present I have only time to say, Kemble was arrested for a debt, kindness had made him incur, (for £200,) as he came out of the theatre on Saturday last. He is not yet in limbo, but to jail he is resolved to go on Wednesday, unless Mr. Sheridan pays the money; and never will he play again, till it is paid. Sheridan swears and protests that he will pay the debt, and that he knew not of the transaction; whereas, it is certain Sheridan went to the bailiff, and for fear of a riot, prevailed on him to put off the arrest till the play was over. We think Sheridan dares not let him go to jail, and go he will. Adieu! anxiously hoping to hear from you,

I remain,

Yours most affectionately,

A. Opie.

How well this letter illustrates some of her most strongly marked characteristics! that earnest desire “to reconcile pity with justice;” that readiness to take to herself any blame she might possibly have incurred, as an extenuation of the fault of another, and the lingering hope that the delinquent might be reclaimed. These are traits which those who knew her well will recognize as her very own.

Here is her promised answer to Mrs. T.—

Tuesday, 1802.

My dear Friend,

As opening and detaining letters to and from active partizans is the order of the day, and as the enclosed contains numbers, I write to you instead of my father, and shall get my letter directed for me. Franks are now of no use, as even Peers can’t frank, being no longer Lords of parliament; therefore, were they sacred to these licensed rogues, the one I have for to-morrow is good for nothing. Indefatigable, alias your cousin Peter, whom I saw just now at Mr. Smith’s, desired me to send Lord C.’s letter; so I obey. Be so good also, as to tell my father that his letter, franked by Mr. Smith, did not reach till Saturday; and tell him I wrote to him yesterday, enclosing the peer’s first letter.

Your kind answer to my statement of vexation gave me the greatest satisfaction, and I hope by your excellent advice and assistance to be able, with a very little trouble, to put such a degree of order in my subsequent ménage as shall prevent, in future, any gross imposition. Anne’s conduct since the detection, and what I have heard of it previously to it, takes from me all idea of my carelessness having led her into temptation. I believe her to be thoroughly bad.

Yesterday evening, at half-past five, we saw the balloon, from the painting-room window, distinctly. Suddenly it was lost in a cloud, and the feeling it gave me was a very strange one. Soon after it emerged again, considerably higher than it was before; then it entered another cloud and disappeared. It is past two, and Mr. Garnerin is not returned, but I have been to the Pantheon to inquire concerning him, and I find he landed at Colchester in an hour and forty minutes!

Of election matters what can I say? Till I read the squibs, &c. I could not, con amore, say, I wished Mr. Windham to be ousted; but now indignation has assisted principle to conquer feeling, and I will not say of the agreeable delinquent,

“If to his share some manly errors fall

Hear him converse, and you’ll forget them all,”

or, “Look in his eyes, and you’ll forget them all,”

(which you please, Mrs. Taylor.)—I was to have gone to Mr. Hiliar’s on Sunday or Monday; but, if the election is to be on Monday, I can’t leave town to be out of the way of the news on Tuesday, especially as I should not meet with sympathy in my feelings there. Adieu! I must go to see again whether Garnerin is returned. I wonder when your travellers come back.

Believe me, ever most affectionately yours,

A. O.

P. S. I want to come down to the election ball. What a shock poor Garnham’s death was to me!

In the autumn of this year her long cherished desire to visit France, and more especially Paris, was gratified.[^[9]] Her husband needed relaxation after the anxiety and labour of the last few months, and there was now an unexpected opportunity afforded to the painter to study those glorious chefs d’œuvre of art which the conquering arms of Napoleon had assembled at the Louvre.

They were joined in this excursion by a party of friends, of whom Mrs. Opie mentions Samuel Favell, Esq. and Mrs. Favell, and her early acquaintance, Miss Anne Plumptre. On the 14th of August, 1802, they reached Calais, and for the first time she experienced “the strangely interesting moment when one’s foot first touches a foreign land, and when one hears on every side a foreign language spoken by men, women, and children.” The first impression seems to have been one of bewilderment, for which she was not at all prepared, occasioned by the confusion of voices that greeted them. Having recovered from this perplexing sensation, she was agreeably surprised to see a well known face, that of Le Texier; he who for many years delighted the English public by his admirable French readings. The recognition was mutual, and she was welcomed by him to the land of his birth.

An amusing adventure befell our inexperienced traveller, as she seated herself at the Hôtel de Grandsire, to enjoy the delicious fare of the excellent table d’hôte, and be initiated at once into the mode of a French dinner, “so contrary to our own;”—

Opposite to me (she says) sat a gentleman, wearing what I conceived to be a foreign order; and as he was very alert in rendering me the customary table-attentions, I ventured to address him in French, but he did not reply. I therefore concluded that he was of some nation in which French was not very generally spoken; and so far I was not very wrong in my conjecture, as my opposite neighbour turned out to be an English messenger, just arrived with dispatches from our government! and the order which gave him such distinction, in my curious eyes, was nothing more than a silver greyhound, which messengers then wore! My mistake exposed me to some good humoured banter; but, perhaps, it was well for me that I made it, as it put me a little on my guard against one of my infirmities, that of forming hasty conclusions. * *

The next morning the travellers started for Paris, going a very long stage before breakfast,

The tediousness of which, (she says,) as the country had no charms to boast, was in a degree relieved to me by the occasional beauty and picturesqueness of the costume of the peasants, both men and women; but the whiteness of the caps and full sleeves, of even the young women, sometimes formed an unpleasing contrast with their dark, sunburnt, and almost parchment-looking complexions.

After many tedious delays on the road, occasioned by the voiturier’s “unreasonable care of his horses, as he would not allow them to move after seven o’clock,” and various little events of small interest, they reached Paris, and she thus describes her feelings on the occasion:—

At length we entered the suburbs of the metropolis, and saw written in chalk on the walls on both sides, and in giant letters, “L’Indivisibilité de la Republique;” but all traces of republicanism were so rapidly disappearing, that the word without the second syllable would have described it better; namely, “invisibility.” But to me every other consciousness was soon absorbed in the joyful one of being at last in Paris, that city which I had so long desired to see.

Being advised to go to the Hôtel of the Rue des Etrangers, they repaired thither, and were soon installed in commodious apartments; the street, then the best in Paris, opening at one end, on the Place de la Concorde, where “the perpetual guillotine” stood, while at the other end was the Church de la Madeleine.

By this time my restless curiosity was at its height, and I was anticipating some days of great enjoyment, when my husband, who had run off to the Louvre long before the rest of us were ready, returned with a countenance of such vexation and suffering, that I could not help asking him what calamity had occurred? “Calamity indeed!” he replied, “the Louvre is shut to-day, but then it will be open to-morrow, so that it would not much signify; but I cannot stay here—the whiteness of everything—the houses—the ground we walk upon—all dazzle and blind me; and if I stay, I shall lose my eyesight, and then I shall be a lost man.” This was uttered in such evident suffering, that for a few minutes I was overwhelmed with consternation and disappointment. I knew that go we must, if staying endangered my husband’s sight; and I still recall, with exquisite pain, the trial of that hour.

Happily they succeeded, by some means, in procuring admittance to the Louvre immediately, and she says:—

As the painter, while contemplating the wonders of the museum, ceased to feel the inconvenience which the man had thought unbearable, I had the joy of finding that we should not quit Paris that day. * * * * *

Why should I dwell on emotions which every one probably has felt on entering the Louvre gallery? My own pleasure, my ignorant pleasure, was nothing to the more scientific delight of my husband; and I recall with melancholy satisfaction, the enjoyment which he derived from this visit to the French metropolis; an enjoyment purchased and deserved by many years of the most assiduous labours in his difficult profession; and which, with the single exception of a week spent in a visit to Flanders, a few years previously, was the only relaxation to his well principled industry, in which he ever allowed himself to indulge.

On the second day after her arrival in Paris, she thus records an event which greatly delighted her.

I was in the Louvre gallery and standing alone before the picture of the Deluge, by N. Poussin, (my favourite station,) when I heard some one say that the First Consul was just going to enter his carriage, on his way to the Conservative Senate. “Oh that I could but see him!” exclaimed I aloud, and in French; on which, one of the guardians of the gallery said, “Eh bien! mademoiselle, suivez moi et vous le verrez.” Without daring to lose a moment in order to seek for my companions, I followed rapidly whither he led. He took me through a door at the extreme end of the gallery, opening into a room on the floor, and against the wall of which were several unframed pictures. Another door led us into an apartment, which looked immediately on the Place du Carousel. Ladies were sitting at the window, who, at my guide’s request that they would make room for an English stranger, kindly allowed me a seat beside them.

I arrived just in time to see the procession form. The carriage of Buonaparte, drawn by eight bays, was already at the palace gate, and was soon followed by that of the other consuls, Cambaceres and Le Brun, drawn by six black horses. Soon after, the corps d’élite, the body guard, and the troop of Mamelucs, made their appearance; and Rustan, the favourite Mameluc of Napoleon, was also at his post, awaiting his master. At length an increased noise at the door announced that he was coming, and I gazed to an almost painful degree of intensity, in order to catch one glimpse of this extraordinary man; but he sprang into his carriage with such rapidity that not one of us could see him! Rustan quickly jumped up behind, and the procession went forward. It was, I own, a striking sight; but I did not think equal in beauty and grandeur to the procession of our king to the House of Lords, when he goes to open or prorogue the Parliament.

Who knows what views of royal splendour to come, were, even then, floating before the mind of Napoleon! He was going that morning to realize and enjoy the highest present object of his “vaulting ambition.” He was going, for the first time, to open the Conservative Senate, as First Consul for life. He had taken the first step on the path to despotic power; he had ascertained the extent of his own influence; he had succeeded in his endeavours to be voted a sort of Dictator for life; and he had proved that the self-denying and noble example of Washington had been thrown away on him. But even then, at this seeming height of his proud career, I do not remember to have heard him greeted by a single shout; the evidences of a people’s love did not hail his presence; and no eager and exulting crowd hung on his carriage wheels; and when I turned from the window, as the cortège disappeared, I felt disappointed, not only because I had not seen Buonaparte, but because there was no expression heard of animating popular feeling.

Returning to join her party in the picture gallery after this adventure, Mrs. Opie found there an object of nearly equal interest to her; the “loved and distinguished patriot” of her own country, Charles James Fox, who, with his wife and party, had arrived in Paris the day before, from the Netherlands. Being introduced by a mutual acquaintance, Mr. Opie took the opportunity of presenting a letter of introduction from Mr. Coke, of Holkham, and they were presently engaged in conversation together. At this moment an officer of the court came to announce to Mr. Fox that he would be admitted, at all times, into the Louvre; adding that a room as yet closed to the public and containing some first-rate works of art, should be immediately opened to him and his party. Availing themselves of the courteous invitation given them to accompany him, the party gladly followed in his train;

But my husband, (says the proud delighted wife,) walked by his side; and as they walked along, the Jerome of Domenichino drew their attention, and they stopped before it. On some part of this celebrated picture they differed in opinion. Mr. Fox, however, instead of replying to the artist’s remarks, with proud superciliousness, as if he wondered that he should presume to disagree with him, said, “Well, to be sure, you must be a better judge of such points than I am.” And I saw by my husband’s pleased and animated countenance, as they proceeded, (though I did not hear their subsequent remarks,) that he felt conscious he was conversing with one, who was capable of appreciating the soundness of his opinions, and generous enough to respect his judgment.

Having reached the promised room, I found to my surprise, that it was the one into which I had already been, and I was rather ashamed to see that I had passed, without noticing it, the chef d’œuvre of Raphael, the far famed Transfiguration! When, however, raised up as it was by the attendants, and placed to advantage, sideways to the light of the window on the left, I, as well as the rest of the party, stood before it, lost in admiration! Some of its admirers had seen it before, but to the painter—to him who was the most capable of appreciating all its various beauties, it imparted a new and intense delight, beyond the power of words to express. How he rejoiced that we had arrived before it was hung up, as its present situation enabled him to view it to perfection! While we were still gazing on this wonder of art, some one said the First Consul was returning in state from the Conservative Senate, and that the procession could be seen from the window near us. Accordingly, all the company, myself excepted, crowded to the window; but our greatest man, I own, turned away, and resumed his station before the picture, while his wife observed to me that, considering Buonaparte was a republican, he seemed very fond of state and show. Again her distinguished husband went to the window, and again turned away. It was the first time he had ever seen aught appertaining to the consular government, and it was natural that his curiosity should be excited; but there was evidently a feeling uppermost in his mind, which struggled with his wish to indulge in it, and before the procession was out of sight, it had ceased to appear an object of interest to him.

The day after the events just mentioned, Mr. and Mrs. Opie called at the Rue Richlieu, to pay their respects to Mr. Fox, and accepted his invitation to dine with him there on an early day. The company they met on that occasion, was too numerous to admit of general conversation, and she only records one fact mentioned by their host, as illustrating the strange changes in times of revolution.—He said, “that nine-and-twenty years before, he had supped in the room in which they were then dining, with the celebrated and witty Maréchal Richlieu, whose residence the hotel then was.”

Mrs. Opie mentions, en passant, that this was the only time they saw Mr. Fox, until he came to sit to her husband, for the whole length picture which Opie painted of him, for Mr. Coke. This far-famed picture cost the painter much anxiety; and, during the progress of the work, he was greatly distracted by the conflicting opinions of friends, who crowded to watch the work; and interrupted by the impatience of the sitter, who was eager to be released from the annoyance of sitting. Mr. Fox perceived and felt for the uneasiness of Opie, and kindly whispered him, “Don’t mind what these people say, you must know better than they do.”

The picture, when completed, gave general satisfaction, and Mrs. Opie says, “I think I may without partiality say, it is worthy of the artist, the owner, and the original.”[^[10]]

The last time she ever saw Mr. Fox was when he was chaired on his return to Parliament, after he had accepted office, and alarming was the change in his appearance:—

With a heavy heart (she says) I plucked a laurel leaf from that car of triumph, which I feared that he filled for the last time; and I, indeed, saw him no more; but on his decease, I went to the house of Nollekens, to see the cast taken from his face immediately after death. It was lying on the table, by the side of that of his dear friend Georgiana Duchess of Devonshire, and of William Pitt, his powerful opponent. The two latter masks I could look at, and did look at with painful interest and serious meditation: but when I took up the other, I laid it down, and ran out of the room; I could not bear to survey the ravages which disease and death had made in that benevolent countenance; indeed the features were not recognizable, and though I often returned to gaze on the others, on that I could never look again.

Mrs. Opie next gives some pleasant recollections of the evenings she spent in the society of the most distinguished persons then in Paris, and especially in the house of Helen Maria Williams, and a beautiful Irish Countess, the friend of that lady. We select the account of her interview with Kosciusko.

One evening, at Lady ——’s, we met a party, consisting chiefly of ambassadors from different nations, and other strangers. I had not long entered the room, when our hostess led me up to the Turkish ambassador, and desired me to “make the agreeable to him.” “Can he speak French?” said I. “No, but here is a gentleman who will interpret between you.” At the same time she introduced to me a gentleman in Asiatic costume, and I readily seated myself by the Turk. He was a little elderly man, splendidly attired in the dress of his country; and I prepared to answer his questions. One of them was, “how long I had been in Paris?” and when my reply, “a few days only,” was repeated to him, he said, not very gallantly, “that he concluded so, from my complexion,” which, I was very conscious, was tanned, by the broiling heat of the sun on the recent journey, to a red brown. At last we ceased to converse through our interpreter, and substituted signs for words. For instance, he took my fan, and made me understand that he wanted to know what I called it; and I tried to make him comprehend that it was fan in English, and éventail in French. He then pronounced its name in Turkish; and I was learning to speak it after him, when I was interrupted by my husband, who, with a glowing cheek and sparkling eye, exclaimed, “Come hither, look, there is General Kosciusko!” Yes, we did see Kosciusko; “Warsaw’s last Champion!” he who had been wounded almost to death in defending his country against her merciless invaders; while (to borrow the strong expressive figure of the poet)—

“While Freedom shriek’d as Kosciusko fell!”

Instantly forgetting the ambassador, and, I fear, the proper restraints of politeness, I took my husband’s arm, and accompanied him to get a nearer view of the Polish patriot, so long the object to me of interest and admiration. I had so often contemplated a print of him in his Polish dress, which hung in my own room, that I thought I should have known him again anywhere; but whether it was owing to the difference of dress, I know not, but I saw little or no resemblance in him to the picture. He was not much above the middle height, had high cheek bones, and his features were not of a distinguished cast; with the exception of his eyes, which were fine and expressive, and he had a high healthy colour. His forehead was covered by a curled auburn wig, much to my vexation, as I should have liked to have seen its honourable scar. But his appearance was pleasing, his countenance intellectual, his carriage dignified; and we were very glad, when our obliging hostess, by introducing us, gave us an opportunity of entering into conversation with him. He spoke English as well as we did, and with an English accent. On our expressing our surprise at this unusual circumstance, he said he had learned English in America. The tone of his voice was peculiar, and not pleasing; however, it was Kosciusko who spoke, and we listened with interest and pleasure; though, at this distance of time, I am unable to say on what subject we conversed. What I am going to relate, however, it was not likely that I should forget—

During the course of the evening, while I was standing at some distance, but looking earnestly at him, and speaking to some one in his praise, contrasting, as I believe, his unspotted patriotism with the then suspected integrity of Buonaparte, he suddenly crossed the room, and coming up to me, said, “I am sure you were speaking of me, and I wish to know what you were saying.” “I dare not tell you,” replied I. “Was it so severe then?” I bade him ask my companion. And on hearing her answer he thanked me, in a tone of deep feeling. “I have a favour to beg of you,” said he, “I am told that you are a writer, pray do write some verses on me; a quatrain will be sufficient, will you oblige me?” I told him I could rarely write extempore verses, and certainly not on such a subject, as I should wish to do it all the justice possible. “Well then,” said he, “I will await your pleasure.” I saw him again only once before I returned to England; but the next time that his birthday was commemorated at Paris, I wrote some verses on the occasion, and sent them to him by a private hand.

During the rest of that memorable evening, when we had the gratification of seeing the Polish patriot and of conversing with him, I did not venture to resume the seat next the Turkish ambassador which I had so unceremoniously quitted; but I contrived to enter into conversation with the interpreter, whose handsome figure and features, added to the gracefulness of his costume, made him, next to our hostess, the most striking looking person in the assembly. He spoke French fluently, and his manner was particularly pleasing.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE REVIEW AND BUONAPARTE; “FESCH;” GENERAL MASSENA; RETURN TO ENGLAND; LETTER TO MRS. COLOMBINE; VISIT TO NORWICH; “ADELINE MOWBRAY;” LETTER TO MRS. TAYLOR; MR. ERSKINE.

At length the long desired object (a sight of Buonaparte) was attained; she thus relates her impressions of the scene:—

We had now been several days in Paris, and yet we had not seen the First Consul! I own that my impatience to see him had been abated, by the growing conviction which I felt of the possible hollowness of the idol so long exalted.

But still we were desirous of beholding him; and I was glad when we received a letter from our obliging acquaintance, Count de Lasteyrie, informing us that Buonaparte would review the troops on such a day, on the Place du Carousel, and that he had procured a window for us, whence we should be able to see it to advantage. But, on account of my short-sightedness, I was still more glad when our friend De Masquerier, (a very successful young English painter,) informed us that he had the promise of a window for my husband and myself, in an apartment on the ground-floor of the Tuilleries, whence we should be able to have a near view of Buonaparte:—our friends, therefore, profited by M. de Lasteyrie’s kindness, and we went to the palace.

As the time of seeing the First Consul drew nigh, I was pleased to feel all my original impressions in his favour return. This might be a weakness in me, but it was, I hope, excuseable; and our sense of his greatness and importance was, as my husband observed, heightened by seeing the great man of our own country,—he who was there a sight himself to many,—cross the Place du Carousel, with his wife on his arm, going, as we believed, to gaze like us, on, at least, a more fortunate man than himself—for, at that time, Charles James Fox had not seen Napoleon Buonaparte.

The door which opened into the hall of the palace was shut, but, after some persuasion, I prevailed on the attendant to open it; and he said he would keep it open till the First Consul had mounted his horse, if I would engage that we would all of us stand upon the threshold, and not once venture beyond it.

With these conditions we promised to comply; and, full of eager expectation, I stationed myself where I could command the white marble stairs of the palace; those steps once stained with the blood of the faithful Swiss guards, and on which I now expected to behold the “Pacificator,” as he was called by the people and his friends—the hero of Lodi.

Just before the review was expected to begin, we saw several officers in gorgeous uniforms ascend the stairs, one of whom, whose helmet seemed entirely of gold, was, as I was told, Eugène de Beauharnois. A few minutes afterwards there was a rush of officers down the stairs, and amongst them I saw a short pale man, with his hat in his hand, who, as I thought, resembled Lord Erskine in profile; but, though my friend said in a whisper, “C’est lui,” I did not comprehend that I beheld Buonaparte, till I saw him stand alone at the gate. In another moment he was on his horse, and rode slowly past the window; while I, with every nerve trembling with strong emotion, gazed on him intently; endeavouring to commit each expressive, sharply chiselled feature to memory; contrasting also with admiring observation, his small simple hat, adorned with nothing but a little tri-coloured cockade, and his blue coat, guiltless of gold embroidery, with the splendid head adornings and dresses of the officers who followed him.

A second time he slowly passed the window; then, setting spurs to his horse, he rode amongst the ranks, where some faint huzzas greeted him from the crowd on the opposite side of the Place du Carousel.

At length he took his station before the palace, and as we looked at him out of the window, we had a very perfect view of him for nearly three quarters of an hour. I thought, but perhaps it was fancy, that the countenance of Buonaparte was lighted up with peculiar pleasure as the corps d’élite, wearing some mark of distinction, defiled before him, bringing up the rear—that fine gallant corps, which, as we are told, he had so often led on to victory; but this might be my fancy. Once we saw him speak, as he took off his hat to remove the hair from his heated forehead, and this gave us an opportunity of seeing his front face, and his features in action. Soon after, we saw him give a sword of honour to one of the soldiers; and he received a petition which an old woman presented to him; but he gave it, unread, to some one near him. At length the review ended; too soon for me. The Consul sprang from his horse—we threw open our door again, and, as he slowly re-ascended the stairs, we saw him very near us, and in full face again, while his bright, restless, expressive, and, as we fancied, dark blue eyes, beaming from under long black eyelashes, glanced over us with a scrutinising but complacent look; and thus ended, and was completed, the pleasure of the spectacle.

I could not speak; I had worked myself up to all my former enthusiasm for Buonaparte; and my frame still shook with the excitement I had undergone.

The next day sobered me again, however, but not much, as will be soon seen.

The day after the review, our accomplished countrywoman Maria Cosway, took the president of the Royal Academy, Benjamin West, and ourselves, on a round of picture-seeing; and at length we proceeded to the residence of a gentleman, who was, I concluded, only a picture dealer, or one of the many nouveaux riches, who had fine collections; because, whenever she spoke of him, Maria Cosway called him nothing but “Fesch.” We stopped at the door of a very splendid hotel in the Chaussée d’Antin, and were met at the top of a magnificent flight of stairs, by a gentleman in the garb of an ecclesiastic. His hair was powdered, and he wore it in a full round curl behind, after the fashion of an abbé; his coat was black, but his stockings were of a bright purple; his shoe and knee buckles were of gold; round his neck he wore a glossy white silk handkerchief, from under which peeped forth a costly gold crucifix. His countenance was pleasing; his complexion uncommonly blooming; his manners courteous; and his age (as I afterwards learned) was thirty-nine.

This gentleman was the “Fesch” we came to visit, but I soon discovered that though he lived in the house, it was not his own; for Maria Cosway was summoned into an adjoining room, where I overheard her conversing with a female; and when she returned, she told us that Madame Buonaparte Mère, (as she was called to distinguish her from her daughter-in-law,) the mistress of the hotel, was very sorry that she could not see us, but that she was so unwell, she was obliged to keep her bed, and could not receive strangers. So then! we were in the house of Letitia Buonaparte, and the mother of Napoleon! and in the next room to her, but could not see her! how unfortunate! however, I was sure I had heard her voice. I now supposed that “Fesch” was her spiritual director, and believed his well studied dress, si bien soignée, was a necessary distinction, as he belonged to the mother of the First Consul.

He seemed a merry, as well as a courteous man; and once he took Maria Cosway aside, and showed her a letter that he had only just received, which, to judge from the hearty laugh of “Fesch,” and the answering smiles of the lady, gave them excessive pleasure.

By and by, however, I heard and observed many things which made me think that “Fesch” was more than I apprehended him to be. I therefore watched for an opportunity to ask the President who this obliging person was.—“What!” cried he, “do you not know that he is the Archbishop of Lyons, the uncle of Buonaparte?” I was astonished! What the person so familiarly spoken of as “Fesch,” could he be indeed “du sang” of the Buonapartes, and the First Consul’s uncle! How my respect for him increased when I heard this! How interesting became his every look and word; and how grateful I felt for his obliging attention to us!

While we were looking at the pictures, his niece, the wife of Murat, drove to the door; and I saw the top of her cap as she alighted, but no more, as she went immediately to her mother’s bedside.

After devoting to us at least two hours, the Archbishop conducted us down the noble staircase, to the beautiful hall of entrance, and courteously dismissed us. My companions instantly went away, but I lingered behind; for I had caught a view of a colossal bust of Buonaparte in a helmet, which stood on a table, and I remained gazing on it, forgetful of all but itself. Yes! there were those finely cut features, that “coupe de menton à l’Apollon!” and, though I thought the likeness a flattered one, I contemplated it with great pleasure, and was passing my hand admiringly over the salient chin, when I heard a sort of suppressed laugh, and, turning round, saw the Archbishop observing me, and instantly, covered with confusion, I ran out of the house. I found Maria Cosway explaining what the letter was which had given “Fesch” and her such evident satisfaction. It was nothing less than a letter from Rome, informing him that he would probably be put in nomination for the next cardinal’s hat.

How soon he was nominated I cannot remember, but it is now many years since the blooming ecclesiastic of 1802, exchanged his purple for scarlet stockings, his mitre for a red hat, and his title of Archbishop of Lyons, for that of Cardinal Fesch.

As the time drew near when she must bid farewell to Paris, Mrs. Opie evidently longed for an extension of a season so full of enjoyment to her; but since her wish could not be gratified, she determined to make the most of every hour that remained; and she relates several anecdotes, relative to what she saw at the places she visited; among others the atelier of David, whither she accompanied her husband, and where she was forcibly struck with one of that artist’s pictures, “Brutus returning from the tribunal after adjudging his sons to death.” The emotion of compassion awakened in her mind by this picture was so strong, that she was unable to gaze on it without pain, so real was the illusion. Another visit the party made was to the Hotel of Murat, which, being furnished in the most elegant style of French luxury, was thought worth seeing: and splendid indeed it was.

The bed of the lady of the house was too elegant, and then, too uncommon, to be forgotten; it stood in a recess which was lined with looking-glass, and at the foot of the bed were, as I think, two finely chiselled marble cupids. The draperies were of the clearest muslin, lined with rose-coloured satin; and the counterpane as well as the valance was flounced with deep point lace. The panels of the room were painted in drab and rose colour; and all the decorations of the apartment were in the most costly but tasteful style. But what pleased me most in this hotel, was a picture of General Moreau, which, unframed, stood against one of the walls. It was a whole-length, as large as life, from the pencil of Gérard, and was one of those real portraits, which resemble life so much, that we are apt to fancy, when we recall the features, that we have seen, not the portrait, but the original.

Just as they were leaving the hotel, their attention was directed to a gentleman who was talking energetically to the porter, and whom their guide informed them was General Massena. Pleased indeed, to see one of whom she had read and heard so much, she scanned him attentively, and thus describes his appearance:—

His head was one of the largest I had ever seen, his hair long and thick and curled, à la Brutus, and his features large and not fine. His eyes, however, were bright; in his ears he wore gold rings of large dimensions, (then commonly worn by French officers,) and his person was large, his height apparently nearly six feet. On the whole, however, his appearance was not prepossessing, and there was a look of coarse brutal daring, which contrasted unfavourably with the pleasing expression in the countenance of his rival in military fame, General Moreau.

Sorry as our enthusiastic traveller felt, when the hour of departure from Paris arrived, she yet greeted (she tells us) with heartfelt delight the white cliffs of her own dear native land. On the homeward journey she mentions a somewhat amusing incident; a little dog, purchased by Mr. Opie, was entrusted to her care, and made so many claims upon her time and attention, that she owns it was no matter of regret to her, that the poor brute shortly died, “which saved me (she adds) from the danger I seemed likely to incur, of becoming the slave of a pet animal.”

Some of those who accompanied Mr. and Mrs. Opie on this tour used afterwards to relate, what ardour and intense delight she manifested in all the objects of interest she beheld; and how she sat on the Boulevards and sang, with heart and voice, “Fall, tyrants fall!” At the theatre they heard Talma, as “Cain,” in the “Death of Abel;” and so deep an impression did this wonderful actor produce on her memory, that within a few years, she has been heard to refer to that occasion, dwelling on his look and manner, and the preternatural tone with which he answered the voice, “Où es tu Cain?”—“Ici, Seigneur;” the sounds, deep and sepulchral, appearing to issue from the ground beneath him.

Of the ensuing winter, and spring of the year following, we have no record from her hand; one letter alone remains, dated 25th February, 1803, addressed to her old and esteemed friend Mrs. Colombine. It is too long to be inserted entire, although of much interest, illustrating as it does her benevolence, and that kindliness of heart which was throughout life one of her most distinguishing characteristics. After expressing her friendly sympathy in the troubles that had befallen those to whom in early life she had been attached, she says:—

* * I assure you I cannot enough express how much I admire and honour the fortitude you have throughout displayed. Not to feel would be downright insensibility; but to feel so acutely as I know you do, and still to bear up so well, is a proof of strength of mind which I am proud to see in one whom I so sincerely love and esteem. But you would not, I know, exchange your feelings, for the insensibility of some mothers; for instance, of Mrs. B——, whom I almost hated for your sake, for daring so to intrude on the sacredness of recent sorrow. Do not scold me for speaking thus of her, because she is dead. I think “speak only good of the dead,” is a silly and pernicious maxim; I had rather speak ill of the dead than of the living. * * * Give my kind love to Mr. C. and tell him that he must, and ought to be, cheerful, because he has reason to be proud. Respect and esteem attend him into retirement and misfortune, and though he may be allowed to blush for others, he must respect himself. I think we Norwich people have reason to be proud of our native city! such liberality, and so well directed, makes it an honour to belong to it.[^[11]] It gives me great pleasure to see, both in you and Mrs. B. that ardent piety which can alone fortify and cheer the afflicted mind; and when I hear virtuous infidels (for there are such) declare that they do not regret either the hopes or consolations of religion, I hear with surprise and pity, and end by believing that they do not know or do not own, their real feelings.

Farewell, and believe me,

Most affectionately yours,

A. Opie.

During the summer of this year Mrs. Opie paid her usual visit to Norwich, and again her lengthened stay called forth the remonstrances of her husband. He writes, “my affection for you is even increased in point of general feeling and interest, so that if I do not admire you more, I feel you more a part of myself than I ever did at first,” and urging her speedy return, for that he “longs so very much to see her.”

In this letter he mentions that as soon as he has an opportunity he means to send her—

A letter, with a volume of poems, by Henry Kirke White, a “visionary boy,” of seventeen, who, with all becoming diffidence, presumes to lay his youthful productions at the feet of one, “who so eminently enjoys the holy impulse” as yourself. He was “struck with the resemblance of one of his poems to one of yours, though to compare the former to the latter, is like comparing O’Keefe to Shakespeare”—there! I hope this will give you pleasure. Let me hear on Wednesday how you are. The cat and parrot are both well, and the kitten[^[12]] beautiful and merry. The guns have been firing to-day, but on what account I am ignorant yet.

Adieu, my only love.

Again, probably shortly after this, her husband writes to her, enclosing a letter containing some complimentary verses on her “Elegy to the memory of the late Earl of Bedford,” and adding, by way of postscript,

This came to me in a cover on Monday, so I thought it too delicious not to be sent immediately; who is the author? Your letter is arrived; and I am very sorry to find this cursed election lasting so long, and I wish you would not appear so prominent in it. I asked Mrs. N. about the box, and she says it was not to go till I went; however, I shall now have it sent as soon as possible. I have seen nothing of Erskine or Reynolds for some time. The cloak I am afraid is lost, for Mr. Bunn wrote me that he had made every inquiry in vain. Dr. Haweis has been sitting two or three times, and makes a good head. I shall write to you to-morrow or next day, so, God bless you, yours ever. J. O.

Let me hear again, Friday or Saturday at furthest; I feel desirous enough of seeing you, but I have not much more to say at present, unless I begin scolding you about the election. What business had you to get mounted up somewhere so conspicuously? But there is no more room; I am going now to dine with Thomson, to meet little J. A Mr. Best called on Saturday, and said he meant to be or to have somebody painted, but I have heard no more.

In 1804, Mrs. O. published “Adeline Mowbray,” or “Mother and Daughter,” a Tale, in three volumes, the object of this work is to pourtray the lamentable consequences which would result from the adoption of lax principles on the subject of matrimony. “The second volume of this beautiful story is perhaps the most pathetic and the most natural in its pathos, of any fictitious narrative in the language,” says the writer of the 19th Art. in “The Edinburgh Review” of 1806.

The following letter to Mrs. Taylor was probably written about this time:—

(without date.)

My dear Friend,

* * * I am just returned from Deptford, where I have been ever since Thursday; a sad loss of time, and nothing would have made me patient under it, but the extreme pity I feel for Miss M.’s forlorn situation. But perhaps, as my company gives her comfort, I ought not to call my visit to her a loss of time. I was lamenting to Mrs. Barbauld, to whom I related this poor orphan’s story, that Miss M. did not seem to have any taste for reading. “So much the better,” was her answer, “I do not think such a taste desirable. Reading is an indolent way of passing the time”—and so she went on. I was extremely surprised, as you may think, and began to combat her assertions; but I recollected that I had heard it said that Mrs. B., like W. Taylor, often contradicted for the sake of argument, and when I feel this, as it is a proceeding which I thoroughly disapprove, I am too angry to keep up the ball.

I find that Mrs. B. admires Cowper’s letters very much. In my opinion they have been much overrated. The letters to Lady Hesketh are beautiful; but those to Hayley and J. Johnson, abounding as they do in “dearests” and “fondnesses” and “dearest of all dear Johnnies,” make me sick à la mort!

* * * * You have not ridden much in stage coaches I believe, at least not round town. O! what a pleasure I should lose were I to ride in my own carriage and forsake stages! I find egotism the prevailing characteristic of my fellow-travellers. This morning I found, when I entered the stage, one passenger only in it, and that was a little girl. “Are you going to town?” said I. “Yes, I know the gentleman, and so I came.” “What gentleman?” “The coachman, he lives by us; and so, as I wanted to go for my shoes, he said he would take me; he promised me my shoes to wear to-day, and I am going to see arter’em: I ha’ known Mr. Wheeler a long time,” &c.—and so she ran on, till I was tired of listening; and convinced me egotism is of all ages. As I went down, a fine, jolly, florid young countrywoman, a great deal fatter than I am, was complaining to a gentleman (who informed us he was just recovered from a fit of illness) that she was very unwell too; and as she had not seen her friends at Deptford for two years, she was sure they would be quite shocked at the change in her, for when she left them she was quite jolly and healthy looking. I could hardly keep in my laughter at this. Her Deptford friends must be droll persons, and great amateurs in fat indeed, to be dissatisfied with her magnitude, and regret what she had lost; I protest she might have played the goddess of health at Dr. Graham’s.

I shall see you now soon, and I hope to see you nearly well. Farewell! With kind love to Mr. Taylor and all the family, I remain, toute à vous,

A. Opie.

In 1805 she was again in Norwich, and during that visit she enjoyed the unexpected pleasure of hearing Mr. Erskine plead; happily she has given an account of this event, which is preserved among her MSS. As usual when about to relate anything connected in her mind with an earlier period, she goes back, on the present occasion, to the time when she first saw Mr. Erskine. This was in the Nisi Prius court in Norwich, whither he had come down on a special retainer in a Right-of-Way cause, which for some reason was not heard at that assizes. She says:—

Well do I remember him, as I first saw him, entering for a few minutes, and taking a hasty survey of the court. I was immediately struck with the look of intelligent inquiry which he cast over the eager, but disappointed crowd, assembled to hear him; that eye reminded me of the description of Ledyard, the eastern traveller’s eye, for it seemed “bright and restless,” and its rapid glance appeared to observe, in its brief survey, as much as other eyes in a more lengthened one; and I much regretted that the interest which his appearance excited in me was not to be increased by the well known melody of his voice.[^[13]]

Soon after, I had the privilege of becoming acquainted with him, when I was staying at the house of a dear friend near London, and in the course of conversation he informed us that he was going down special to Huntingdon, on a most interesting occasion. A young man, lately come into possession of a large fortune, had been proceeded against by the next heir as being a supposititious child; and he told us that he was counsel for the defence, and that the cause was likely to be very long and very interesting, as the defendant was universally beloved; kindly adding, that as he saw I was interested in such things, when he met me at dinner again, on his return to London, he would then give myself and my friends an account of the trial. Consequently, great was my impatience till the day of the dinner came, and the great orator arrived; but though he again talked most pleasantly, and on law subjects too, not one single allusion did he make to the Huntingdon cause. In vain did I try to take courage, and remind him of his promise; I was not then a married woman, and fancied it would be presuming to do so; but, when I heard his carriage announced, and saw him about to depart, made valiant by despair, I exclaimed “Oh! Mr. Erskine, you have not fulfilled your promise! you have not told us the particulars of the Huntingdon cause!” “True!” he replied, starting and turning back, “but you shall not be disappointed,” and leading me to the sofa, he seated himself beside me, and went through the whole of the proceedings. He gave us the evidence on both sides, told us what his opponent had said for the plaintiff, and he for the defendant; and, warming as he proceeded, he soon grew as much interested in the details as we were; and when he came to the verdict of the jury which was in favour of his client, his countenance beamed with animation, while he described the general plaudit with which the verdict was received in the court, and the shouts which were heard outside the walls from the assembled multitude!

He then hastily jumped into his carriage, leaving me exulting in having drawn from him a gratification so unusual and so complete.

But I experienced a still greater and much longer enjoyment of his eloquence in the year 1805, when he went down to Norwich, on the same Right-of-Way cause before alluded to; and I, being then on a visit to my father, had the pleasure of hearing him speak when he appeared on the side of the plaintiff.

As I was very early in court, I obtained a seat by the side of the judge, Sir Alexander Macdonald, and saw and heard everything to the greatest advantage. In that place I remained the whole day, except when, on being assured that my seat should be kept for me, I went home to tea, but soon returned to the scene of action, where I staid all night; as I could not bear to go away without hearing the great orator’s reply to the defendant’s counsel. As I was desirous that the plaintiff should gain her cause, I had been alarmed to find by the speech of the eloquent advocate for the defendant, how much could be said on both sides, and was therefore anxious to hear by what means his arguments could be rendered powerless; therefore, though listening with delighted attention and wonder to the powerful cross-examination, I wished it over: but witness, on the defendant’s side, succeeded to witness; the audience became gradually smaller and smaller, and although Lord Brougham with his usual eloquence and felicity of expression has said, “that juries declared they found it impossible to remove their looks from Mr. Erskine when he had, as it were, rivetted and fascinated them by his first glance,” I am obliged to confess that some of this Norfolk jury began visibly to nod, and it seemed likely, that, except the judge, the high sheriff, the barristers, the officers of the court, and myself, there would soon be no hearers left awake, and the beams of rising day were forcing themselves through the windows!

The observant Erskine took the hint, so palpably given, and coming up to me, he kindly said, “go home! go home! I shall not reply to-night; but you had better be here by eight in the morning,” and soon after the court adjourned to that hour.

When I reached the terrace of the castle[^[14]] my steps were arrested, and even the necessity of sleep forgotten, by the sight of the most splendid sunrise I had ever beheld! I did not pause to gaze on it alone, and I should not have paused in my narrative, in order to mention so irrelevant a circumstance, had not my companion been one whom I never again beheld; one whom I have pleasure in recalling to my memory, and of whom I have lately been agreeably reminded by Dr. Bowring’s amusing memoir of Jeremy Bentham. I allude to the late George Wilson, who for many years went the Norwich Circuit, and to whom I was made known at an early age, and by whom my love of attending courts was good humouredly encouraged. When impaired health (rather than age) obliged this amiable and intellectual man to quit the bar, he retired into Scotland, his native country, and I think he took up his abode in the delightful city of Edinburgh, where he died a few years ago, lamented and regretted by all who had the privilege of his acquaintance. It is a satisfaction to me to have had the oportunity of paying even this little tribute to his memory.

I was in court again by half-past seven, but too late to obtain a seat, and I stood many hours, in a painful position, but I was soon made unconscious of it by the eloquence of Erskine; for during those hours he spoke, and hushed a court, crowded even to suffocation, into the most perfect stillness. Never was the power of an orator over his audience more evident or more complete.

The plaintiff gained her cause, and her advocate new laurels; for I know that those best qualified to form a correct judgment on the subject, namely, his brother lawyers, who were present, declared that they had “never before heard Mr. E. so great in reply.”

Fortunate, therefore, were those who heard him that day, as never again was he heard to equal advantage. A few months afterwards he was made Lord Chancellor, and when, while talking to him at a party in London, I told him I was every day intending to go into the Court of Chancery, in hope of hearing him speak in his new capacity—his reply was, “Pray do not come! you will not hear anything worth the trouble. I am nothing now; you heard the last and best of me at Norwich last year!”

This was indeed too true; and those powers of forensic eloquence for which he was so celebrated, he could exercise no longer. His audiences, in future life, were almost wholly different from his former ones, and those attractions so peculiarly his own, were not necessary on the judgment-seat, in the Court of Chancery, and would have been in a measure thrown away in the House of Lords.

Fortunate, therefore, I repeat it, were those who heard him in the Right-of-Way cause at Norwich, and when he forcibly reminded me of the portrait of Garrick so admirably drawn by the pen of Sheridan in his unequalled monody—a portrait which might have been supposed to be that of the Honorable Thomas Erskine, for his indeed were

“The grace of action, the adapted mien,

Faithful as nature to the varied scene;

The expressive glance, whose subtle comment draws

Entranc’d attention and a mute applause;

Gesture that marks, with sense of feeling fraught,

A sense in silence, and a will in thought.

Harmonious speech, whose pure and liquid tone

Gives verse a music scarce confess’d its own:

As light from gems assumes a brighter ray,

And cloth’d with orient hues transcends the day.

Passion’s wild break, and frowns that awe the sense

And every charm of gentler eloquence.”

CHAPTER IX.

PROSPERITY; “SIMPLE TALES;” VISIT TO SOUTHILL; LADY ROSLYN; MR. OPIE’S “LECTURES;” HIS ILLNESS; HIS DEATH.

The year 1806 was, to the subject of these memoirs, prosperous, and full of joyful anticipation for the future, beyond any that had preceded it. The time so long desired seemed now at hand; Mr. Opie saw himself justly rewarded, for all his labour and perseverance amid difficulties and disappointments, by success and fame; “he was conscious (his wife says) that our circumstances were now such as would enable us to have more of the comforts and elegancies of life, and to receive our friends in a manner more suited to the esteem which we entertained for them; I was allowed to make the long projected alterations and improvements in my own apartments; and he had resolved to indulge himself in the luxury (as he called it) of keeping a horse.” But alas! when the time did come, it came too late!

Not, however, to anticipate—in the spring of this year, Mrs. Opie published her “Simple Tales,” in four volumes; tales which are characterized by the same merits, as well as defects, as are found in her other works of this description. For a critique upon them, and on Mrs. Opie’s merits as an author, we must refer the reader to the article, before alluded to, in the July number of “The Edinburgh Review,” for 1806, from which we may be allowed to quote a short extract. After alluding to the deficiencies of her style, and observing that few of her personages can be said to be original, or even uncommon, the writer says:—

“They have, however, a merit in our eyes incomparably superior; they are strictly true to general nature, and are rarely exhibited except in interesting situations; * * * there is something delightfully feminine in all Mrs. O.’s writings; an apparent artlessness in the composition of her narrative; and something which looks like want of skill or practice in writing for the public, that gives a powerful effect to the occasional beauties and successes of her genius; there is nothing like an ambitious, or even a sustained tone in her stories; we often think she is going to be tedious or silly; and immediately, without effort or apparent consciousness of improvement, she slides into some graceful and interesting dialogue, or charms us with some fine and delicate analysis of the subtler feelings, which would have done honour to the genius of Marivaux. She does not reason well; but she has, like most accomplished women, the talent of perceiving truth, without the process of reasoning, and of bringing it out with the facility and the effect of an obvious and natural sentiment. Her language is often inaccurate, but it is almost always graceful and harmonious. She can do nothing well that requires to be done with formality; and, therefore, has not succeeded in copying either the concentrated force of weighty and deliberate reason, or the severe and solemn dignity of majestic virtue. To make amends, however, she represents admirably everything that is amiable, generous, and gentle.”

The following note by Mr. Sydney Smith, was written soon after this time, when she was preparing to publish one of her subsequent works:—

Dear Mrs. Opie,

I have read your manuscripts, upon the whole, with great satisfaction; two or three I have advised you to suppress; two or three to correct and polish; and upon many I have bestowed a praise, which I hope, for your sake, is as enlightened, as it is warm and sincere. Tenderness is your forte, and carelessness your fault.

Direct me how to dispose of your MS., and believe me,

Ever yours most truly,

S. Smith.

Mrs. S. begs her kind compliments to you. You will find my remarks scrawled in pencil under each page. I have left emendations to you, merely marking where they are wanted.

In the summer of this memorable year, (when, as the phrase is, “all the talents were in,” so soon to be driven out by the death of Fox,) Mr. and Mrs. Opie went, accompanied by Mr. Wilkie, on a visit to Southill, the seat of Mr. Whitbread; “and never,” says Mrs. Opie, “did I see my husband so happy, when absent from London, as he was there; for he felt towards the host and hostess every sentiment of respect and admiration which it is pleasant to feel, and honourable to inspire. But though he was the object of the kindest and most flattering attention, he sighed to return to London and his pursuits; and when he had been at Southill only eight days, he said to me, on my expressing my unwillingness to go away, ‘Though I shall be even anxious to come hither again, remember that I have been idle eight days!’”

In a letter to her father, during this visit, she gives a pleasing account of some of the events that transpired;—

1806.

My dear Father,

I received the parcel safe, and beg you to thank Mr. Taylor for his letter, and tell him I am quite convinced of his sobriety, but not the less of my neglect. Your letter is just arrived. I had already asked about the boroughs and borough-mongers; but Mr. W. knows not where to find the latter, and nothing certainly about the price of the former; but he fancies it is £4000 for a single seat, and five, or more, for two seats. * * * *

We arrived here after a pleasant journey of forty-two miles, (not sixty, as we were told it was,) at three o’clock on Saturday. Part of the country through which we passed was pleasant, but for some miles before we approached Southill, we went through such bleak barrenness, as was scarcely cheered by the sight of a large white house seen at a distance, which we took to be Mr. Whitbread’s. In two miles more we entered the park, “and paradise seemed opened in the wild.” The entrance is near the house, which is, however, perfectly concealed by a thick shrubbery and high trees, skirting a winding gravel walk up to the house, which bursts upon you very beautifully indeed. The country is flat; but in the front of the house there is a slight inequality of ground, and the lawn is so beautiful, and the trees so fine, and the shrubs so richly diversified; in short, it is so truly a smiling scene, and at the same time so comfortably sequestered, that, for a dwelling, I would not change it for one commanding views of bolder country. On entering the house, the true use and enjoyment of unbounded opulence force themselves at once on one’s conviction. Everything is rich, but at the same time tasteful and comfortable; and the more you see, and the longer you inhabit Southill, the more you feel assured that, used as it is there, opulence is a blessing. The family, not expecting us till near six, were out when we arrived; so the groom of the chambers led us to our apartments, consisting of a large dressing-room and bed-room; and we had the pleasure to find that our room commanded the pretty view at the front of the house, of which a pond, prettily shaded, is an agreeable feature. As soon as we had had sandwiches, &c., the barouche and the family arrived, and we had the sorrow to find Lady Elizabeth very unwell, and so she had been all the time on her journey. She immediately went to lie down. Mr. Opie accompanied Mr. Whitbread, &c., in the barouche, in a drive which he was going to take, four in-hand; and Mr. Wilkie and I took a walk. At six we all met at dinner.

Wednesday. I began this yesterday before breakfast, but had no opportunity of resuming my pen till to-day, nine o’clock. Nobody down but my husband and myself. He is standing under a colonnade, going from the open window at which I am now sitting, enjoying the rolling of the thunder and the forked lightning, which, untired with its tremendous violence last night, has renewed the elemental strife to-day. It reminds me of the storm some twenty years ago, which made a tour through the whole country. Hark! it comes nearer and nearer, and the lightning flashes across my face. I doubt there has been mischief done somewhere.—But to resume my narrative.—I need not tell you our dinner was excellent, and French enough to delight me. The dessert consisted of ice, pine apple, and every variety of fruit and wine. The only guests here are Reynolds, Wilkie, ourselves, and Lady Roslyn and her children. After a pleasant evening, Lady Elizabeth being much recovered, we retired at eleven, and were summoned to meet the next morning at the breakfast table at nine, that we might get off for Woburn Abbey in good time. We got away a little before eleven, Tom Adkin and Wilkie in a gig, Lady E. W., Lady Roslyn, Miss Whitbread, her brother, Reynolds, and ourselves in the barouche and four greys, driven by Mr. Whitbread. The day was only too fine, as its extreme brightness almost made it impossible for us to gaze on the really pretty country which we passed. * * * Interrupted by the tempest, and for the first time in my life terrified and awed almost to fainting by the nearness and overpowering brilliancy of the lightning, and the loudness of the thunder; it is quite over the house, and one feels as if the vast building was rived in twain. It was quite mournful to hear the cattle lowing and the sheep bleating their fears last night. Another and another louder yet! the rain falling in torrents. The poor green parrot by me, its powers sharpened by fear, is trying to imitate the thunder; the other parrot, a grey one, seems too much alarmed to speak. I never felt so nervous before at a storm, but it quite oppresses me! * * I think it abates. How I pity those who are always afraid at such times, during the awful continuance of such a tempest as this! At eleven Lady Roslyn was to leave us; she can’t go now certainly, and I wish her departure may be delayed till to-morrow. On the stairs I met three lovely children the first day I came, and the nursemaid said, “this is Lady Janet Sinclair.” And who is that lovely boy in petticoats? “That is Lord Loughborough.” I thought I should have laughed in the child’s face, for my associations with that name are a great wig and a parrot face! The child himself, an uncommonly grand and handsome boy, of four years old, says, “my real name is James, that is what my friends call me, but my nickname is Lord Loughborough.” “And who calls you by your nickname?” “The maids in the nursery.”

The storm is greatly subsided, at least it is further off, or I could not have told you this trifling story. If I have time after breakfast, before the post goes off, I will describe our delightful day at Woburn, and our drive yesterday. To-day Lady St. John is to dine here, and with her come Mr. Peakwell and his mother. Mrs. Bouverie writes to Lady R. (her daughter) every day, the most delightful accounts of Mr. Fox’s health!

The envelope of this letter is missing.

Mrs. Opie has recorded, in her note book, some further particulars of this delightful visit; and especially in reference to Lady Roslyn, whom she had long wished to see and know.

At first (she says) I was rather disappointed in her beauty, but there was a charm in her manner and conversation which soon won upon me, and we shortly became mutually interested in each other, and visited Bedford Jail together, and two or three country houses, at one of which, belonging to our host, we remained for some time with the old dame who took care of it. Lady R. begged her to fetch us a draught of new milk, and the good woman, who was basting a leg of mutton, hastily laid down her basting-spoon and departed to fulfil her wishes. “It were a pity the good soul should suffer for her kindness,” said the lady, and immediately seizing the ladle, the graceful countess commenced operations; while I, admiring her benevolence, pleased myself with observing her, and thought that among the interesting sights of the morning, that of seeing Harriet, Countess of Roslyn, basting a leg of mutton, was not the least.

The last paragraph in the preceding letter speaks of “delightful accounts of Mr. Fox’s health;” soon to be exchanged for tidings of his lamented death, which happened on the 13th of September following.

On his return from this short period of relaxation, Mr. Opie betook himself with increasing diligence to the duties of his profession. “To the toils of the artist, during the day, (says his wife,) succeeded those of the writer, every evening; and from the month of September, 1806, to February, 1807, he allowed his mind no rest, and scarcely indulged in the relaxation of a walk, or the society of his friends.” He was engaged in completing his Lectures on Painting, to be delivered as Professor of Painting, at the Royal Academy. Each of them, as he finished it, he read to his wife, and, after the delivery of the first lecture in the Academy, “he was complimented by his brethren, escorted home by Sir William Beechey, and appeared to his wife in a flush of joy. Next morning he said he had passed a restless night, for he was so elated that he could not sleep!”[^[15]] The first of the lectures was delivered on the 16th February, 1807; the fourth and last, on the 9th of March following.

To the completion of these Lectures his life perhaps fell a sacrifice, at least so thought Mrs. Opie, and, in the bitterness of her regret, she wished they had never been thought of. When they were completed, his friend, Mr. Prince Hoare, requested of him an article for his periodical paper, called “The Artist.” “I am tired, (he replied,) tired of writing; and I mean to be a gentleman in the spring months, keep a horse, and ride out every morning.”

But it was otherwise determined. He shortly after sickened; a slow and consuming illness attacked him, and wasted his vital energies, baffling the skill of the most experienced physicians, who hastened to his bedside, and attended him during the few remaining weeks of his life, with unremitting attention. His poor wife said she had, at least, the soothing conviction, that no human means had been left untried to ward off the inevitable stroke. Her memoir concludes with a few details respecting the closing scenes, which are best given in her own words.

I cannot dwell minutely on these painful hours. Great as my misery must have been at such a moment, under any circumstances, it was, if possible, aggravated by my being deprived of the consolation and benefit of my father’s presence and advice, at this most trying period of my life; for he was attending the sick bed of his, apparently, dying mother. Yet she recovered, at the age of 85, to the perfect enjoyment of life and happiness, while Mr. Opie was cut off in the prime of his days! But let me dwell on the brighter side of the picture. Let me be thankful for the blessing I experienced in the presence of that sister, so dear to my husband, who, by sharing with me the painful, yet precious tasks of affection, enabled me to keep from his bed all hired nurses,—all attendants, but our deeply interested selves; that was indeed a consolation.

Of this sister Mrs. Opie speaks frequently with affectionate regard; and many years after, when she visited her husband’s relations in Cornwall, expressed her tender regret that she was no longer living to welcome her, and to go over with her the memories of the past.

After paying a tribute of thanks to the numerous friends who evinced their sympathy and respect, and shared, with affectionate solicitude, her anxieties, she says:—

The most soothing consciousness which I now have to look back upon, when I revert to the painful scenes of his illness, is the certainty that my husband’s last perceptions in this world were of a pleasurable nature. By the kindness of his friend and former pupil, Mr. Thompson, R. A., he was gratified in his desire to see his picture of the Duke of Gloucester, which he was most anxious should appear in the exhibition, completed, and when it was brought to the foot of his bed, he looked at it with the greatest satisfaction, and said, with a smile, “Take it away, it will do now.” This incident seemed to give the turn to the delirium which followed, for he was painting in imagination upon it, until the last hour of his existence.

When Sir Joshua was buried in St. Paul’s, Mr. Opie exclaimed to his sister, with the proud consciousness of innate power, “Aye girl! and I too shall be buried in St. Paul’s.” His prophecy was accomplished. On the 9th of April, 1807, in the 46th year of his age, he expired; and on the 20th, the remains of John Opie were interred close beside those of Sir Joshua Reynolds!

It was said of him, by one of the first painters of his day, “Others get forward by steps, but this man by strides;” and so Goethe said of his great rival Schiller, “Er hatte ein furchtbares Fortschreiten; und so ging er immer vorwärts, bis sechs und vierzig Jahre; dann war er denn, freilich, weit genug!”[^[16]]

CHAPTER X.

RETURN TO NORWICH; “POEMS;” MEMOIR OF HER HUSBAND; LETTER FROM LADY CHARLEVILLE; FROM MRS. INCHBALD; VISIT TO LONDON; PARTY AT LADY E. WHITBREAD’S; VISIT TO CROMER; “TEMPER;” “TALES OF REAL LIFE;” SOIRÉE AT MADAME DE STAËL’S.

On the death of her husband Mrs. Opie returned to the home of her youth, and to her father, for whom she now felt the more concentrated and entire affection, as he was the only object united to her by the dearest ties of nature. For, unhappily, her marriage was a childless one; the desire she cherished had been denied her, and no son was given her, to inherit the talents of his father, and be the joy of his mother’s heart.

Providence, however, had preserved to her the parent whom she had left with regret, and whose love she still so dearly prized. It was now her duty and delight to devote herself to render him happy, and she left her sad abode, where all reminded her of the loss she had sustained, and came back to her father, and like a sunbeam her presence gladdened his home; and as a guardian angel she blessed him, the delight and the ornament of his declining years.

Of the seven years that followed the death of Mr. Opie not many traces remain among her papers; some there are, and we proceed to record them. That she left London very shortly after that event, is evident from a letter written by one of her friends dated July the 11th, 1807, and addressed to her at Norwich; as well as from a note, short enough to be given at length, signed Comtesse d’Oyenhausen.[^[17]]

“Parmi les noms qui vous marquent autant d’estime que d’attachement, veuillez bien Mme. ajouter le mien, comme une preuve de n’être point oubliée. Vôtre départ trop prompt, laissé ici un vuide que tout le monde aperçoit, et très particulièrement vôtre,” &c., &c.

In 1808 she published a second volume of poetry, entitled “The Warrior’s Return, and other Poems;” in the preface to which she says, “The poems which compose this little volume were written, with two or three exceptions, several years ago, and to arrange and fit them for publication has been the amusement of many hours of retirement.”

In the spring of 1809 were published her husband’s “Lectures on Painting,” to which was prefixed the “Memoir,” from which we have so frequently quoted. This book was published by subscription, and some of her friends interested themselves in procuring names; one or two letters on the subject were found among her papers, and among them one from Lady Charleville, from which, as it contains some allusions to Mrs. Opie’s writings, and shews the impression her manners produced upon those with whom she associated, we venture to select a few passages.

Charleville Forest, August 23rd, 1809.

My dear Madam,

I did not expect that you could find leisure to write to me before your return to Norwich, and I feel more obliged by your not delaying it long after, than I can easily express. Your amiable, modest manners, joined to talents far beyond the pretensions of most women, attracted me immediately; and all I have seen of you, permit me to say, has so confirmed this first bias, that I do feel a sincere wish to continue to cultivate the acquaintance I have so happily begun. * * * I believe you enjoy gay scenes, and what is called pleasure, with somewhat yet of pristine vivacity. May it fulfil your hopes or wishes whatever they are! * *

Poor dear Lady Cork’s activity in pursuit of amusement is a pleasant proof of vivacity and spirit surviving youth. I think, however, small plays seldom succeed with an English audience; “la vache qui trotte,” is Rousseau’s simile for French music, and may be applied to John Bull’s facetious and playful humours quite as well; but he does very well at a concert, where some must be quiet, and I envied you that evening you described so well. * * *

Our best bookseller here has fallen into a state of epilepsy; his shop is closed, and we shall await the arrival of your last publication with impatience, through the common channel; but I think you should not have awaited Lady C.’s interference to mention its being published by subscription; as I should be happy to be considered as your friend. Neglect me so no more, I request, in this way; begin a good, long, Clarissa-like novel; you have principles and fancy to compose an elevating and interesting work, and a knowledge of the manners of the world, which Richardson wanted. Write now all the summer, and let there be no episodes, no under plot, but give me a character, acting and developing itself under a variety of circumstances, to interest my feelings and exert my understanding; and set her feet on English ground, and let us not have mystic notions, or Asiatic refinements, to perplex our intellects, too well braced by this northern temperature to sympathize with mysteries, embroideries, and odours, or start at every creaking hinge in an old castle. Miss Owenson, whom I saw in Dublin, tells me she is writing a Hindostan tale. Let’s keep plain English for yours; and believe me, in its full sincerity, your faithful servant,

C. L. Charleville.

The following letter from Mrs. Inchbald appears to have been written in the winter of this year (1809.) Its only date is Wednesday, 7th December.

My dear Mrs. Opie,

I thank you much for your letter, and especially for your consideration in telling me the secret of Mr. Barbauld’s death; for contemplation is my great source of entertainment, and the events of the day kindly afford me almost as much as I require.

I certainly think Buonaparte has acted, in the affairs of Spain, with less honour to his name than upon all former occasions; yet he was compelled to protect his firm ally, Charles IV., and to punish the criminal Prince who drove his parents from their throne, and imprisoned them. Still, you will say, why did he not replace Charles? The people of Spain would not have suffered his return; and, no doubt, many of the first importance invited Buonaparte to take the government. That he did so by artifice, I can only excuse, upon the supposition that he meant thus to spare the people all that calamity, which open violence must now draw upon them. No doubt his reign would have been a blessing to them, would they at first have submitted. But now the avenger is the character he must take, and we shall have to lament another nation, added to the number of those, on whom we have forced him to draw his sword.

I have not been from London yet, and I purposely did not date my letter, because I wished to have no presents this year, and had not time to explain why. My sister has been very ill again, and is in that kind of weak state, that she now never comes to see me, and I fear much that the winter may prove fatal to her. She always partook of your presents, and I had rather not be reminded of the loss I feel from the want of her occasional visits, by having any feasts during her absence.

Poor Godwin is a terrific example for all conjugal biography; but he has marked that path which may be avoided, and so is himself a sacrifice for the good of others. His name I now see added to his library advertisements. The title of Miss Owenson’s new work has something very charming in it. “Ida of Athens.”—I have not yet been able to read any of her novels. I am now reading Leo the X., by Roscoe. War, religion, laws, and elevated mankind are my delight, for among them I increase my love for politics of the present day, and find that our great enemy is less wicked than most heroes and politicians have been; at the same time a vast deal wiser than them all.

With my best respects to Dr. Alderson,

Dear Madam,

E. Inchbald.

In the spring of the following year Mrs. Opie was in London, and it seems to have been from this time her established custom to pay an annual visit to the metropolis. The spring of 1810 was a stirring one, and she, who so dearly loved (as she says) to have a peep at the busy world, has given in one of her reminiscences of this period, a short account of a dinner party at Lady Elizabeth Whitbread’s, the day after the removal of Sir F. Burdett to the Tower. The Government had been obliged to have recourse to the Speaker’s warrant, to obtain legal entrance into Sir F.’s house, which he had purposely barricaded, being determined to resist what he thought an unjust sentence.

I went (she says) to the dinner in Dover Street, full of hope that I should hear at that table some interesting conversation relative to these peculiar circumstances, for it was a time of no common excitement, as great fears of a popular tumult had gone forth, and I had myself seen, with a sensation difficult to describe, cannon planted in Hanover Square at this period, as I returned late from a party to my lodgings in Prince’s Street; and soldiers were watching by their guns. (I think I am correct in speaking in the plural number.) My expectation of hearing the subject of Sir F. B.’s arrest discussed, was increased, when I saw of whom the party assembled round the dinner table consisted; there were no ladies present but our hostess, the Countess G., her venerable mother, and myself; the gentlemen were Lord King, and I think two whig M.P.’s, members of the Lower House, and also some gentlemen not in public life.

I was, however, disappointed, and learned to believe that Members of Parliament hear too much of state matters when there, to wish to discuss them in their hours of relaxation, as the only allusion made to the event of the preceding day, was this. The master of the house found it a difficult, and, for some time, an impossible task, to open the hard rind of an immense shaddock which stood before him, and said he must give it up in despair. “He had better send for the Speaker’s warrant,” said one of the guests; but this observation was not heard, therefore it led to nothing. Amongst the evening guests came Lady Roslyn; and soon, engaged in the bloodless, but not pointless, strife of tongues, were lady R., J. W. Ward, the late Lord Dudley, W. Lyttleton, Sheridan, and the ever welcome Sydney Smith.

Sheridan did not arrive till late, and when some of the company, who yet remained, were seated at the supper tables, to which he immediately repaired. Soon after, my attention was forcibly arrested by his deep sonorous voice, exerted in questioning, as if with a view to cross-examination, a very handsome youth in a Greek dress, and who was by birth also a Greek, according to his own shewing. This young man was much in request in certain circles; and his right to be there, and to be acknowledged as what he declared himself to be, would probably not have been questioned, had he not chosen to wear this very peculiar and becoming dress. As soon as I found what was going on, I went and stood by Sheridan’s elbow, and was amused by the extraordinary questions by which he sought to discover the reality of the youth’s pretensions. I could not but feel for a youthful foreigner, exposed to such an ordeal, inflicted by such a man, but he seemed to bear it unmoved. At last Sheridan turned round to us who stood behind him, and said, “A quack, nothing but a quack.”

Two years afterwards, I saw a young Greek of the same name at another party, with whom I overheard Lord Byron talking with great fluency, in what I was told was modern Greek. The tones of Lord B.’s voice were always so fascinating, that I could not help attending to them; and when I turned round to see with whom he was conversing, I thought I saw the same face and person in an English garb, whom I had seen in 1810, set off by a beautiful turban and a crimson robe; but I was told this was a brother of that youth, and I never afterwards had an opportunity of ascertaining, with accuracy, whether it was the same person or not; yet I wished to do so, in order to establish the truth or falsehood of the charge of quackery which I had heard. If these youths were brothers, it was very unlikely that either of them was a quack; and surely the harmless vanity of wishing to appear in his own native costume, was not sufficient to authorize so severe an appellation.

Be that as it may, of all the merry combatants in the strife of tongues at the party to which I allude, Sydney Smith is the sole survivor! he is merry still, and the provoker of mirth in others; but perhaps, like me, when he feels his memory crowded with the names of departed friends and associates, an involuntary sadness comes over his mind, as it does over mine, and I weep as I remember the exquisite and incomparable lines of Moore—

“When I remember all

Once linked in love together,” &c.

Lady Roslyn expressed a wish that when I visited Edinburgh I would go to Roslyn, and that she might have the opportunity of shewing me its beauties. Alas! when I went there in 1816, she was in her grave, and I stood within the chapel on the stone which covered her remains!

The autumn of this year found Mrs. Opie once more at her favourite Cromer; and her stay appears to have been prolonged to an unusual extent; so that one of her friends, writing to her in the month of December, speaks of sending a second Ulysses in search of the truant. There is an allusion in this letter which seems to intimate that it was not faute de solicitations that she remained a widow; and it is evident that at subsequent periods she received similar addresses. Turning, however, a deaf ear to such proposals, she continued diligently to use her pen; and in the spring of 1812 published “Temper,” a tale, in which she diverged from the pathetic style of writing she had hitherto most affected, and evidently aimed more, in the character of a moralist, at practical usefulness; and happily with pleasing evidence of success. In the third volume of this work, Mrs. Opie carries her heroine to Paris, and introduces the very scenes which she records in her journal of her own Parisian trip—the visit to the Louvre—her own words on being told the First Consul was expected to pass—the scene that followed, &c.

The following extract from a letter she received after the publication of this work, affords a pleasing evidence of its beneficial influence.

November 14th, 1812.

You have, my dear Mrs. Opie, shown such clear discernment of what is good and virtuous, and exhibited reason and conscience, as triumphant over the passions, with so masterly a pen, in your late publication, that it has carried with it the suffrage of many a young and amiable mind.

My daughter may perhaps have told you what effect your book had, upon a young married lady whom she chanced to meet. “I have read,” said she, “Mrs. Opie’s ‘Temper,’ I hope to my lasting improvement; certain I am that it has shewn me many of my faults, and, I trust, has taught me to overcome them.” By the pleasure this gave me, I can judge, in some degree, my dear Madam, of the pleasure it must afford you; for I think there cannot be a greater, than to fortify the young in habits of virtue; and when you consider these volumes, you may exclaim, with more propriety than Sheridan did, “that on the review of his publications, nothing gave him such great, such inexpressible pleasure, as the thought that he had never written one word derogatory to the cause of virtue.” * * *

In the following year (1813) appeared the “Tales of Real Life;” they were published (unlike her former works) without a paragraph, introductory or dedicatory. There is, as usual, much inequality in the merits of the various stories composing the series; “Lady Anne and Lady Jane” occupies the whole of the first volume, and is, perhaps, on the whole, equal, or superior, to any tale she wrote. The one entitled, “Love and Duty,” was a favourite with herself.

In a former chapter, reference has been made to an interview Mrs. Opie had with Lord Erskine, at the house of Madame de Staël during this year; she has given another short account of an evening visit to that celebrated woman, which we subjoin:—

I had been spending the evening at a soirée, given by Madame de Staël, during the year 1813, which was particularly interesting, from its having been composed chiefly of the élite of London society. That admirable man, W. Wilberforce, had been among the dinner guests, but was gone before I arrived; there were, however, many still left, some of whom threw over the circle the spell of beauty, and others that of their high talents. Lady Crewe, Lord Dudley, William Spencer, the Mackintoshes, the Romillys, were among the brilliant group, who, witty themselves, were the cause of wit in others; and, while they grouped around her, called forth the ever-ready repartees, and almost unrivalled eloquence, of our hostess. She had recently left the court of Bernadotte, and from time to time indulged herself in descanting in his praise. At length she produced a portrait in miniature of her favourite, painted in profile; and, when it had gone round the greater part of the circle, she put it into the hand of Sir Henry Englefield, well known as a man of virtu, science, and taste for the fine arts; and, while she stood by the side of the chair on which he was indolently lounging, she evidently awaited, with much anxiety, the result of his examination. Carefully and long did he examine the painting, and then, holding it up to the light which hung near him, he observed with a slow distinct utterance, and in rather loud voice, “he is like a ferocious sheep!” on which, uttering an exclamation of justly indignant surprise, Madame de Staël snatched the miniature from him, and turned hastily away. I turned away also, for I could not help smiling because, though displeased at Sir Henry’s want of courtesy I felt the truth of the remark; for I had examined the picture, and seen, with no admiring eye, the long projecting nose, and the receding chin, so truly the profile of a sheep; the eye, too, was black, but it did not, like a sheep’s eye, resemble a blockhead when seen sideways; on the contrary, it was bright and piercing, as a friend would have said, but it was easy for an enemy of the Swedish Prince (and such I concluded Sir H. was) to have called the expression ferocious. But the incident and its effects were soon forgotten; and the circle had not lost its charm, when, reminded by a pendule of the lateness of the hour, I had placed myself near the door, and was watching an opportunity to retire unseen, as the door opened; and unannounced, and unattended, a shortish, middle-sized, and middle-aged man entered the room, and, finding himself unobserved, did not advance further than where I was. I was struck by the plainness of his dress and his unpretending appearance, altogether, yet his manner was dignified rather than otherwise; and I was wondering who he could be, when our hostess saw him, and ran up to him with a degree of delighted yet respectful welcome, which instantly proclaimed him to be somebody. In a short time he was seen by others, and he had soon a little court around him; but who he was I could not yet discover; however, I delayed my departure, and joining the circle, heard him converse with a simplicity consonant to his manner and appearance.

At length I heard him addressed “vôtre Majesté,” and I could not forbear to ask who this royal stranger was, and learned that it was the king of the Netherlands, who was awaiting, in our country, a change of things in his favour in his own. Little, probably, did he, or any of those present, imagine that change was so near; but, before the year came round, Buonaparte was at Elba! His changes of fortune, however, were not yet over: when I saw him he was King of the Netherlands; and, soon after, became their restored king; but had I seen him again in the year 1835, I should have beheld him deprived of half his dominions, and only King of Holland!

CHAPTER XI.

LETTERS OF MRS. OPIE TO DR. ALDERSON, WRITTEN DURING HER VISIT IN LONDON IN THE YEAR 1814.

“In 1814, the Emperor of Russia, the King of Prussia, and other royal and distinguished foreigners were, as everybody knows, in London,” says Mrs. Opie, in one of her reminiscences of the scenes she witnessed at that stirring time; for she was there, in the very midst of all the gaiety and whirl. Many of the letters she wrote home to her father, during her three months’ stay in London at this time, have been preserved, and we give them almost entire.

11, Orchard Street, Portman Square,

21st May, 1814.

My dear Father,

You would be sure that, so tempted, I should go to Hudson Gurney’s, and I did. The company consisted of Lady Nelson, Mrs. Forbes, her daughter, Lady James Hay, Armine and Edmund Wodehouse, M. Bland, Mr. Maltby, his wife’s nephew, just returned from the army, Mr. Hume, of the India House, Dr. Southey, and Frank Morse: I was so fortunate as to sit between the two Wodehouses. I must tell you a bon mot of Dudley North’s which was told me. “Sheridan, (said Dudley N.) I hear you are coming forward for Westminster again.” “Pho! replied he, if I were, I am sure I must be wound up again.” “And if you were wound up (returned D. N.) you would go on as usual, tick-tick-tick.”

The Prince has sunk himself in the mud, with all parties, by his endeavour to get to himself the exclusive privilege of inviting all the royalties, that he might exclude his wife, the Princess of Gloucester, and the Dukes of Sussex, Kent, and Gloucester. Lord Seyton had sent to give tickets to the Princess, and on being pressed by Lord Yarmouth to recall them, he replied, “Yarmouth, go and tell the Prince Regent that I am no dancer, but that if the Princess of Wales will do me the honour of dancing with me, I will open the ball with her.” This, Lord Montford told me, as a fact, on Thursday evening. At Boodle’s, on the Prince’s applying for the same privilege as at White’s, they voted three to one against him. Lord M. added, that if, as she is likely to do, goaded as she is, (silly woman!) she goes to White’s, and is refused admission, it is probable that the populace may take her part, and endanger the house. For my part, I see no necessary difference between the conduct proper for a royal wife and a wife in a private station; and as a public brawl between an angry wife and a brutal husband would excite just indignation in private life, I cannot do otherwise than consider the Princess as violating her duty, however great her wrongs, by exposing herself to insult, and her husband also, by persisting to do what is disagreeable to him; let her take care to fulfil her own duties, and she will meet what she deserves, the respect and pity of every one. But I believe her to be a weak vixen, or at least that she loves to teaze the Prince.

Next day, in the evening, the L. M.s came and took me to the Hamiltons’ ball. We went late, and found the rooms so crowded, that we took our station on the stairs, where Lady Montford joined us, and talking occasionally to Edward, Tom, Lord M., and two or three other men, we made ourselves amusement, till we thought Mrs. H. thought us acting fine, so then we entered the hot room, where we staid till the carriage got up, and then came away, though the H.s said they would not forgive us if we did not stay to supper; but I was more fit to be in bed, having then, and now, a crying cold, that is most trying, and makes me look like an owl. Yesterday I went out with Mrs. Gurney and left some cards. In the evening I went to Miss White’s, (having dined at home on eggs and coffee) where I found some rank, talent, and odd looking notoriety and ability. Lady Mackintosh asked me to dine there on Monday, and Mrs. Philips, to a party, on Wednesday; but business and duty take me to Mitcham on Monday for two or three days. Just as Lady M. turned away from me, a young man who had been talking to her said to me, “that odd looking man yonder is a distinguished character; that is Mr. Gallatin, the American commissioner.” “So Lady Mackintosh told me.” “I told you,” he replied, “because we all like to have lions pointed out; I shall do him the same kindness, for I shall point you out to him.” “You are very obliging,” said I, making him a low curtsey, and thinking I had never seen anything so impudent since the days of Mr. Hirst, and wondering who he could be. “For my own part,” continued he, “I am remarkable for being, what you may think is not very remarkable in this great city, namely, a very impudent fellow, in thus introducing myself to you.” I laughed, but would not ask his name of himself. I asked it of Lady M., and found him to be a Mr. Cullen, son of Dr. Cullen. Farewell! till Wednesday, and pray write and let me know all about you.

A. Opie.

Mitcham, 25th May, 1814

My dear Father,

I wonder much I have not yet heard from you; it is now ten days since I heard of or from home!

On Sunday C. breakfasted with me, and we went to Bedford Chapel to hear S. Smith preach; Mrs. H. C. saw us in the aisle, and took us into her pew. We had an excellent sermon, but, entre nous, I saw C. nearly asleep several times. She said she liked the sermon exceedingly, but I am sure she did not hear some fine parts. (There’s Ella Roberts taking off a little dog howling or barking, so like nature that I have been calling her a little howling puppy; the noise a dog makes when his toe is trodden upon is most admirable. * * * * She has now exhausted herself so much with the fatigues of her canine madness, as she calls it, that she is quiet, and I stand a chance of finishing my letter in peace.)

My levée on Sunday was rather splendid, consisting of twenty-seven persons, who (men excepted) chiefly came in carriages. These carriages succeeded each other so quickly, that the servants asked my servant what was to be seen at No. 11; and when he said “a lady,” they answered, “what, is she ill?” My cousin came first, and told me his brother had been in town, and had often talked of visiting me, and when he returns I am to see him.

The next day I took a coach, and came to Mitcham! a sad arrival! But, as you may suppose, the freshness of grief was all mine, and it became my duty to conquer the expression of it as soon as possible; but I am only now in my usual spirits. * * * We are very comfortable together; there is too, here, the nicest set of children; we had them all in last night, and we played at magical music, and I made myself hoarse with singing through a comb.

Upon my word I shall be very savage if I don’t hear from you, and of the romans, alias romances or novels, in Pottergate Street and St. Helen’s. * * * Of all things in the world, truth and ingenuousness, the foundation of all virtue, are the rarest. Farewell! till Saturday.

A. Opie.

Tuesday, 31st of May, 1814.

I begin my letter to-day, my dear father, as I shall probably be hurried to-morrow. * * * On Sunday Tom went with me to hear S. Smith at Baker Street chapel; and luckily a friend of Tom’s, hearing him say I was coming, secured a place for me with a friend of his. This gentleman went home with us, and I was amused by his account of Spurzheim, the lecturer on Craniology, whom I am going to meet at Dr. Busk’s. * * * * I had a very pleasant morning, for my court, as L. M. calls it, was full and agreeable. Rollis, Busks, Mr. Blair, Hamiltons, a new acquaintance they brought, a Mr. Bainbridge, Mr. Kingston, Mrs. C. Hanbury and her daughter, &c. At dinner I met Lady Cork, Professor Spurzheim, Tenant, Dr. Rogier, or Roget, (I forget which it is) and a young surgeon who is craniology mad. Tenant talked all dinner, and in no way was the philosopher called out. I thought this very rude and English, and so did Lady Cork; therefore when the gentlemen joined us, she seated herself by Mr. Spurzheim, and began to talk to him of his art. I joined them; and he was explaining to me his ideas of the brain, when my ideas were distracted, and my brain rendered woolgathering, by the arrival, not of a very large importation of clever men and women, but of Dr. Brown, the Dr. Brown, professor and lecturer on moral philosophy, the successor of Dugald Stuart, the Edinburgh Reviewer, and the recondite reviewer of Mrs. Opie, in the first number of that celebrated work. He came with the L. M.s, and was soon presented to me. I recollected L. M.’s character of him, that he liked faire le galant, vis-à-vis des dames, better than to converse in society, therefore I expected what I found, a flattering Scotchman, and I could have broken my silly head, because I felt fluttered while talking to him; however, I recovered myself at last, and, as I told Mr. Blair I would do, I contrived to be civil in my turn, though he (Mr. Blair) assured me he thought the philosopher quite conceited enough already. I must leave off, I am grie * * * Wednesday, 1st June. Grieved for Henry Burrell I meant to say, but if I had, I should have mourned foolishly, he being yesterday alive and better: this is to me incomprehensible, unless, which I hope cannot be the case, W. Burrell himself is ill. * *

To resume my Journal. I did contrive to say civil things to Dr. Brown; but the wonder of the crowd, and the persons who sucked us all in turn into their vortex, were Professor Spurzheim and Lady M. Shepherd. Her ladyship fairly threw down the gauntlet, and was as luminous, as deep, as clever in her observations and questions, and her display of previous knowledge of Gall’s theory and Hartley’s, as any professor could have been, and convinced me, at least, that when Mr. Tierney said, of Lady Mary, she was almost the best metaphysician he ever knew, and the most logical woman, by far, he ever met with, he was probably right. The professor looked alarmed, and put on his pins; and Lady Mary began her dialogue at ten, and it was not over at a little past twelve.

Dr. Brown listened occasionally, and with an anatomizing eye, for he does not like literary women; therefore a woman, entering his own arena, must have called forth all his reviewer bitterness. L. M. had assured Dr. B. our parties were mixed ones, and nothing like science or learning displayed; and on his first introduction he meets with a scene like this!

On the 11th I dine at L. M.’s to meet Dr. Brown and Lord Erskine, &c. When S. Smith breakfasts with me I mean to ask Dr. B. also. Farewell! I must conclude.

Dr. Brown has just called on me, uninvited and self-introduced. He is gone again. Adieu!

4th June, 1814.

My dear Father,

I expect a frank from Mr. Heathcote every minute. Last Tuesday was a miserable day, for it rained hard; my sense of duty made me keep my engagement, and accompany Mrs. Parry to the speeches, at Harrow. Her other friends left her in the lurch, and Mr. P. was too unwell to go; we dined at Harrow, at the Inn; and I returned too tired, unfortunately, to dress and go to Mrs. S.’s assembly, which was, I hear, very pleasant. Friday (yesterday) evening, Lord Tamworth called on me; he arrived the day before, and is come for a month to lodgings in the next street (Somerset Street.) Mr. Rolls met Lord T. in the street and asked him to an evening party of music, &c., at his house yesterday evening; and when Lord T. arrived, we were a complete Leamington party. Lord T. called on Lady Cork yesterday to announce himself, and be ready for the dinner she promised us. But alas! she has fixed it for to-morrow, and Lord T., Lord Erskine, and I, are engaged, and cannot go! I dine to-day at Mr. Philips’, and go to Lady C’s misses and muffins in the evening; however, I must say, to Lord T.’s credit, that he is our only L. beau who looks here, even better than he did there; indeed, better, for he threw more dignity into his air last night, and all the other men looked comparatively vulgar. How I honour Lady N. Dr. O. had the officious brutality to write her a letter of four sides, disapproving Lord N.’s goings on, and telling tales of him; that is, repeating scandal concerning him; on which Lady N. said to her lord, “I dare say N. you deserve all this and much more, but it is an insult to a wife, for a man to dare abuse her husband to her, and I shall write as follows,” and she wrote thus:—“Sir, I conclude the time will come when you will repent having written such a letter to me; I return it to you, that you may have the satisfaction of burning it with your own hands!” There’s a wife for you! I brought tears into her husband’s eyes, by my praises of her.

On Monday, Doly and I walk over to dine at four, at cousin Briggs’, and I am not yet engaged in the evening. I went yesterday to pay visits; I found Lady Shepherd at home, and as friendly as ever; but she sees less of her charming husband than before, even. I found Lady Mary also at home, and she wanted me to go thither in the evening, but I was engaged. She was nervous about her display on Sunday last; but I assured her she was thought to talk well, though I could have added, but not by Dr. Brown. By the bye, I had only just sealed my letter to you when Dr. Brown came in uninvited; he apologised for his impudence in coming, we shook hands, and I found myself tête à tête with an Edinburgh reviewer, and a lecturer on moral philosophy! However, I did not die of it, as I offered to take him to Lady C.’s pink party to-night, and her blue one on the 11th, and to the latter he will probably go. Lady Mary Shepherd told me she had inquired, and the foundation of my mysterious stranger, did really happen to her father’s eldest brother, Lord Dunmany, my Lord D.; with this addition, that when Lady D.’s coffin arrived at Deal or Dover, the first husband, in a sort of frenzy, stabbed the coffin, that he might get a sight of his lost wife’s face. I find Joseph Gurney was gentleman-usher at the Meeting to the Duchess of Oldenburg. I shall like to hear his account of her. I will not seal this till the last moment. I now recollect I might have sent my letter to be franked, but then I must trust other people’s servants.

11, Orchard Street, June 14th, 1814.

My dear Father,

* * * Margaret came, just before Doly and I set off, and was glad to go to the concert, so I was easy. She eats nothing but pudding or tart, and potatoes, and drinks only water. She is a very fine creature, and has the most graceful dignified carriage possible, and I assure you I like much to have to shew her. Yesterday a party of us went to Franklin’s, the fruiterer’s, in Pall Mall, to see the Emperor, &c., arrive, and there we waited fruitlessly till near six, and to this hour we know not when the royals arrived, but sure it is we were all disappointed, high and low. While we were there, B. was called out of the room by Mr. Franklin, who went backwards and forwards into Carlton House, and he told him first that the Prince was so afraid of an attack on his palace, that he had, under a pretence of its being a guard of honour, gotten a party of blues into the palace, and next he said, that the Prince was so low and so nervous that they could not get him downstairs, and that he would not go to meet the kings, and declared he would not stir at all, or shew himself. Last Saturday he was going out at the left-hand gate, but seeing a crowd at it, he drew the string, ordered the gate to be closed, and drove to the other; but by that time the mob was there also, on which he ordered that to be closed, and went out a backway. This shews how shattered his nerves are. It seems strange that he should not have gone to meet the kings now come, in the same way as he met the king of France; and as, whatever he may be, he has at least been doing the honours of the country and of a sovereign well, I am sorry that he is deprived of the only opportunity he has or values, of appearing to advantage. Still, he has only himself to blame in the first instance; but I disapprove and dislike as much the woman and the wife, who stirs up the nation against her husband; she violates her duties, I think, et l’un vaut bien l’autre. Foolish vixen as she is! if she stirs up a flame to consume her husband, the same flame in the end must consume her; let her look to that, and for that “even-handed justice, which returns the poisoned chalice to one’s own lips.” I enjoyed my day at H. Briggs’ much; Doly and I walked thither, and back again, at night. A night dark as Erebus; and the effect of the bright city, when we reached the bridge, and St. Margaret’s bells ringing a peal of expectation of the Emperor, and the crowds of persons still gathering in hopes of his arrival, had a most striking and novel effect.

Thursday, 9th. I resolved not to finish this letter, but get a frank at Mr. W. Smith’s, as I was going to attend Mrs. S.’s levée, and I am now expecting it by the morning post. One knows not whom or what to believe; but I now find that it was the mob’s breaking in to see old Blucher that so alarmed the Prince that he sent for a guard; and an aid-de-camp to the Prince of Wurtemberg, a handsome young Prussian, told me yesterday, that the Prince did go to meet them, and that it was he that took them to London by the road, and a way by which they were not expected. “Ah!” said I, “c’est qu’il avoit peur.” “Mais oui, (repondit-il,) c’est bien vrai; c’est qu’il avoit peur.” But really of public things and people you must know more than I can tell you, by the papers. Yesterday, however, on our return from Mrs. Smith’s, we walked home by the Pulteney Hotel, and just in time to get in amongst the crowd, and on a step, whence, in due time, we saw the Emperor and his sister pass, in the Prince’s state coach. I only saw, however, his back, left arm, and curl. But the king of Prussia, who followed, I saw perfectly; and he is a most interesting looking man. But we are all Emperor mad, and from morn till eve the streets are thronged with people and carriages, waiting patiently for hours, to see him pass. Yesterday morning by ten, he was, with his sister, tête à tête, at the British Museum; and a gentleman we know saw him very near, and said he was like J. Smith.

We dined at Westmacott’s and I sent Meg home, and went to Lady Charleville’s, where I found a large circle listening to music, by Naldi, Chiodi, &c.; to my glad surprise I was kindly greeted by my old friend Lord Carysfort, whom indisposition, of a severe kind indeed, has kept out of company four years. There too I saw J. Smith, who repeated to me a poem on H. Twiss’s parodies, called “the mocking-bird,” which is admirable; he says Mr. Poole wrote the “who wants me.” When most of the company was gone, Lady C. took the seat vacated by Lady Mornington, that mother of great men, and it was next a venerable-looking blind woman, whom Lord C. had previously pointed out to me as the once celebrated beauty, Lady Sarah Lennox. She is now grey, blind, and seems both by her voice and manner to be bowed by various cares; but perhaps I fancied this.—No frank yet! Just room and time to say I have seen, from head to foot, and touched the Emperor. Other ladies touched his hand, I squeezed his wrist only. I bribed the porter and got into his hotel!!! To-morrow, from a balcony, we shall have a chance of seeing him again, and in safety. Adieu.

11th June, 1814.

My dear Father,

Lest you should have thought me mad by the conclusion of my last, I shall begin by giving you a full explanation of it. The other morning Mrs. L. M. took me and Margaret out in her carriage, and I persuaded her to drive opposite the Pulteney Hotel; but other and heavier carriages obstructed our view; so I borrowed the servant, and said, “I will try and get on the steps, and if I succeed, I will send back for you.” Accordingly, off I set, and was told by the constables I must not stand on the steps; however, the men’s hearts relenting, they told me, if I ran up and made friends with the porter, perhaps I should get into the hall. I took the hint, and opening the door, I accosted Cerberus, who told me admission was impossible, but, tout en me grondant, il avoit la bonté d’accepter une pièce de trois chelins, que je lui mis dans la main, et il me permit d’éntrer. There I found about ten ladies, one of whom, whose face I know as well as my own, came up to me and said, “I’m sure Mrs. Opie you would be welcome to be here,” and seating herself by me, proceeded to discuss divers important matters, en attendant the return of the Emperor from Carlton House. At length he arrived, and we formed a line for him to pass through. He was dressed in a scarlet uniform, (ours,) and wore our blue ribband. His head is bald, his hair light, his complexion is blond and beautiful, his eyes blue, his nose flattish, with a funny little button end to it; his mouth very small, and his lips thin. His chest and shoulders are broad, and finely formed, his manner graceful and dignified, and his countenance pleasing; and he is the Emperor of all the Russias, therefore, he is handsome, delightful, and so forth. I said that we formed a line, and I, simple soul, meant to keep it, but not so my companions; for they all closed round him, and one took one hand, one the other, and really I did not know how far they meant to presume; for my part, I dared not, for some time, even think of touching him, but “evil communications corrupt good manners,” and at last, when he was nearly past, I grasped his wrist, but the grasp would not have crushed a fly. The lady who knew me, said to me, when he was past, “what a soft hand he has.” Lord Yarmouth, who was with him, came afterwards, and talked with that lady. What a fright he is!

Now to go back to Lady Sarah, who, as I said before, is blind. * * * Lord Tullamore came to me, and said, “Now almost all the company is gone, you will sing a little ballad.” I rose, and went to Lady Charleville. “This,” said she, “is Lady S. Napier, will you sing her a ballad?” and, recollecting how ill I once used Lady C. in not answering a letter of hers for three years, and eager to make amends, I said I could not sing anything worth hearing, but I would try. “Surely,” said Lady Sarah, “that was injudicious; Mrs. Opie would rather not have had the attention of the company so loudly solicited.” “Very true,” replied Lady C., “but your ladyship is always the best-bred woman in the world, and I the worst, and I never see you without taking a lesson in manners.” * * * Well, after having beguiled my fear a little, by inquiring of Lady S. after her sister, Lady Louisa Conolly, I begun, and sung, “Nay, take it, Patty,”[^[18]] and decently, considering. By Lady Sarah, was one of her sons, who, with his brothers, was wounded in every engagement abroad, and one of them taken up for dead. I never saw a handsomer man! I could not help looking at him! He is very black, with black moustachios, that make him look like a picture of some young Venetian by Titian, and his manner was so pleasing! He has his mother’s outline, enlarged into manly beauty, and he has such fine dark eyes! Thursday I dined at the Maxwells’, and liked my day. Sir James Saumarez dined there; a Mr. Lamb, M.P., and his wife and son. Dr. Young, a Miss Caldwell, and Sir Nathaniel Conant, the magistrate. I sat at dinner between Sir Nathaniel and Mr. Lamb, and liked my companions much. I went home at eleven, undressed, and robed myself to walk to see the illuminations, with Margaret, Tom, and Mr. Barber. We did not get home till three in the morning, and were not in bed till four. Yesterday we staid at home; I had refused a dinner-party, and we kept quiet, and were in bed by half-past ten.

This morning, by a little past eight, we were at the Pulteney Hotel, and in the hall. By ten the hall was very full, so I placed my young companion on a table, and we had a good view of the Emperor and his sister, who came in arm-in-arm, and extended their hands graciously on either side; neither Margaret, however, nor I, had resolution enough to take them; but two young women pressed forward, one on her knee, and kissed his hand, which he drew back as if shocked or ashamed, and I am sure I was, for I did not recognise my country-women in such forwardness. M. touched his arm, and I tried to touch the Duchess’s hand, but had no chance of success. She is very like him, but plain; her nose plainer than his, and though as fair, she has not his colour, but a beauty would have been disguised by such dress; an immense Leghorn gipsy hat, with white feathers; but they say her manners are most captivating. Ask Joseph J. Gurney what he thinks. To-day I dine at Lady Cork’s in the evening. Adieu!

The next letter in this series formed the material for a paper which Mrs. Opie published in “Tait’s Magazine,” February, 1844; at the close of that article, she makes a few reflections, which will be of interest to the reader, as shewing the feelings with which she looked back upon those scenes of earlier days:—

I had dined (she says) that day in company with Lord Erskine, and the lamented Dr. Brown, of Edinburgh, the professor of moral philosophy, at the house of my dear and highly valued friend J. G. Lemaistre, (now, alas! no more,) and I had finished the evening in a party, more than usually marked by interesting incidents and conversation. Yet I fear I have not said much in favour of those gay and busy scenes in which I once moved, by confessing myself so highly gratified by what I have been describing; still I cannot retract my words; pleased and grateful I was—it might perhaps be a weakness in me to feel so; but I cannot be so disingenuous as not to own it to its full extent.

The original Letter bears date the 16th.

My dear Father,

I really could not write yesterday, so I got a frank, that to-day I might write a great deal; but I have seen so much, and seem to have so much to say, that I know not where to begin. On Saturday last I met at dinner Lord Erskine, Sir John Sinclair, Dr. Brown, his brother, the mayor, &c. I sat between Dr. B. and Lord E.; but the peer, by his very agreeable though incessant egotism, and tales of himself, intermingled with interesting anecdotes of the Emperor Alexander, rather seduced my attention away from the philosopher. Barely have I seen Lord E. more amusing, but Sir J. Sinclair was new to me, and I wanted to hear him. So it was really “l’embarras de richesses,” for any one of these three lions would have been enough at once. In the evening came an addition to the company, but Lord E. and I went away to Lady Cork’s; the professor was tired and would not go, though I got Lord E. to offer to take him. Had it not been for my sacred vow never to break an engagement, I should have gone to the opera to see the royalties, which was, I hear, the finest sight of the sort ever seen. At Lady C.’s I found Mrs. Harvey, (the author of many novels, and latterly of the excellent one of Amable,) James Smith, the Boddingtons, Professor Spurzheim, Monk Lewis, Horace Twiss, Lord and Lady Carysfort, Lord Limerick, Miss White, Lord Cumbermere and his betrothed, Miss Greville and her sister, Lady Caroline Lamb, just as ever, and doing her possibles to amuse this very small party, in three large rooms, thrown open for Blucher, who was expected; but the opera had spoiled the party, for Greys, Lansdownes, and Whitbreads, had intended being there. Past midnight, however, some came in from the opera, and broke up our conversation, which had been pleasant; for Lady Carysfort had been very entertaining with accounts of Berlin, and Lord Limerick very eloquent in describing the preparations for White’s ball, so vast and so elegant as to make me very curious, because I shall not see them. However, perhaps I shall escape being burnt alive, for the same decorations exposed Prince Schwartzenberg’s palace to that fire in which his wife was burnt; as the pillars are all made of fluted muslin, to represent alabaster; and the capitals of rose-coloured ditto.

But, to return—on the entrance of Miss Fox, (Lord Holland’s sister,) and Miss Vernon, a new subject of interest was started; for they brought the astonishing intelligence, that the emperor, and the king, and lastly the regent, had bowed to the princess! No, I am wrong—Some one else asserted the fact, and they said it was equivocal, or that he might be said to have bowed either to the pit or the princess. Oh! the glorious uncertainty of reports, even from eye-witnesses! Well, there we were, all on the qui vive—first one came in, then another, and the first question was—“Well what do you say? Did the prince bow to the pit, or the princess?” and, as you may suppose, no two persons gave the same statement. “See,” said I, to Lady C. Lamb, “how difficult it is to ascertain the truth!” “Aye, indeed,” she replied, “it teaches us to receive all reports doubtingly;” she added, “still the historian will describe this as it really was, and he will be overruled by the majority of voices on the subject.” “If that be the way of judging,” thought I, “then the prince did bow to the princess, for the majority were in favour of it,” but I shall insert here, though not in its turn, that the princess herself told S. Smith, who told me, that he did not bow to her, nor was there any strong ground for fancying it. To resume my narration—the company had begun to disperse, and no Blucher came, when, to keep up Lady Cork’s spirits, Lady C. L. prepared to act a proverb, but it ended in their acting a word; and she, Lady Cork, and Miss White, went out of the room, and came back digging with poker and tongs. To be brief, the word was orage: they dug for or, and they acted a passion for rage, and then they acted a storm, for the whole word, orage.

Still, the old general came not, and Lady Caroline disappeared; but, previously, Mrs. Wellesley Pole and her daughter had arrived, bringing a beautiful Prince—Prince Leopold, of Saxe Coburg; but saying she feared Blucher would not come. However, we now heard a distant, then a near, hurrah; and a violent knocking at the door. The hurrahs increased, and we all jumped up, exclaiming, “There’s Blucher at last!” and the door opened, the servant calling out, “General Blucher;” on which in strutted Lady Caroline Lamb, in a cocked hat and a great coat! In the meanwhile, Lord Hardwick had arrived from the British Gallery, where he had been in attendance on the Princess Charlotte, the Grand Duchess, &c., and to him Lady Caroline went, with clasped hands and lifted eyes, saying she was come to ask the greatest favour—it was that he would give her some money. “What for?” “Oh! to pay the servants for that pretty hurrah, they did it so well!” So poor Lord H. gave her a dollar; looking, I thought, rather silly at having his pocket so gracefully picked; and Lady C. ran downstairs delighted. So end the adventures of yesterday. Sunday I heard Mr. Moore preach, and admirably. Mrs. L. M. took me to the crowded drive; and though we did not see the kings, we saw Blucher very near. We dined with the L. M.s, and in the evening went to Miss White’s, where, after talking some time to a gentleman who knew me, though I did not know him, I found it was Sir William Dunbar, that interesting Captain Dunbar I have seen at Norwich. He is very odd, but clever. I forgot to say that I had a very crowded levée, where, again, every one told me a new story of the Prince’s bow, and all were equally positive! * * * * *

(Rest of letter lost.)

22nd of June, 1814.

My dear Father,

I have not time to write much, but I will write as it is my day; and I have to acknowledge the receipt of the parcel. Pray let me have two pairs of black boots made as soon as possible; mine are quite worn out, and the filthy weather does not allow of my wearing light ones. I can’t wait. * * Thursday, eleven o’clock. Thus far I had gotten yesterday at half past four o’clock, when Lord Tamworth, and Mrs. L. M. after him, came in and interrupted me, and I was forced to turn the latter out, that I might dress to go to Mackintosh’s to dinner, at six o’clock; but I consoled myself by the certainty of getting a frank. I will now go on to that of which my mind is most full, namely, my yesterday’s dinner; which it was almost worth coming up to town on purpose to be at. I got to M.’s at six, the hour appointed; found no fire, alas! and no one to receive me; happily soon after arrived Mr. Wishawe, horror struck at no fire, and saying in all civilized houses there must be one in such weather; but he warmed himself and me by inveighing against poor Lord Cochrane’s pillory, which all the lawyers, and all London, I hope, disapprove. How unwise too! for it leads us to forget his fault in his punishment—but this is by the by. Next arrived Dr. Brown, whom I presented to Wishawe. Then came Lady M., and then Sir James, and I found three different hours for dining had been named to the different guests; and Mr. W. and I anticipated hunger being added to cold. Next came Playfair, then Richard Payne Knight, then John William Ward, just come from Paris, and lastly, at about half past seven, the great traveller, and so forth—Baron de Humboldt; he was not presented to me, therefore I could not ask whether he, or his brother, brought my letter from Helen Williams; and to dinner we went, Ward handing me, so I sat by him, and on my other hand was Mr. Knight. I certainly never saw so many first-rate men together; but again it would have been l’embarras de richesses with me, had not each person been a whetting-stone to the wit and information of the other.

Politics, science, literature, Greek, morals, church government, infidelity, sects, philosophy, characters of the Emperor of Russia, King of Prussia, of Blucher, of Platoff, given in a clear and simple manner by the Baron, and commented on by others, formed the never flagging discourse, throughout the dinner. I did not talk much, as you may guess, for I had scarcely ears enough to listen with. Ward was more charming and more maliciously witty, more Puck-like than I had seen him for years; and what he did not choose to venture aloud, he whispered in my ear—more agreeable than polite; but once I caught myself in an argument with Mr. Knight, and I trembled at my own temerity. Talk across the table, I could not have done; but Mr. K. was my neighbour, and none but he heard my daring. I will give you one of Ward’s sarcasms; but an unusually good natured one, as it would flatter, not wound, the persons at whom it was aimed. “I hear (said I) you returned from Paris with a Cardinal.” “Yes, the Cardinal Gonsalva, and I had the great satisfaction of putting him at length under the protection of a Silesian Jew.” “Not being able (said Sir James) to find any Scotch philosophers at hand to take his place.” “But had there been any Scotch philosophers at hand to consign him to, I should still have preferred the Jew, because I know there would be some chance of his converting the Jew.” The philosophers present laughed; and this introduced a curious discussion on infidelity. * * (Enter the Baron de Humboldt to breakfast with me, and then I take him to Mrs. Siddons.) Alas! it was no Baron—so I may go on. Ward saw Lafayette at Paris; almost the only man of a revolution who has survived one, and lived to enjoy life. He owned to me he did not care to see him; for in his opinions on such a subject, he was too much of a Burkite, to relish seeing Lafayette. De Humboldt spoke highly of him, and mentioned with pleasure, as a proof of tolerance of opinion, that Lafayette has always been beloved and associated with, by persons of totally opposite opinions to his own; and has been enriched by them at their death: lately, he has acquired much by the death of Monsieur de Lusignan, whom I once knew very well. * * Here is the Baron indeed! He is very charming! So full of information, and so simple in his manner of giving it. * * *

Two o’clock. I have lived more in two or three hours to-day than I usually live in a month. I have been to Peru, to Mexico, climbing the Table Mountain, besides hearing much on all subjects, amusing, instructive, and interesting. This charming Chamberlain of Frederick William (I mean the King of Prussia) goes to-day; but I am to see his brother, who is now appointed ambassador from Prussia to France, on Sunday certainly, if not before. * * *

(Rest of letter lost.)

Thursday, July 1st, 1814.

My dear Father,

I would not write yesterday, that I might acknowledge the receipt of the parcel to-day. I had no idea they could all come together, meat and clothes. Gregory is not a Catholic. We may go in fancy dresses, but all must wear a mask; though no one is forced to assume a character. The verses I sent you were tame enough; but those I have since written, if I had not been forced to introduce the name of Wellington, with my own approbation, and at the suggestion of a very good critic, (Col. Barry,) are tolerably good, I think. Mrs. B. S. has undertaken to sing them, and, if she can’t adapt, to set them herself. Lady Cork has given me a most beautiful trimming for the bottom of a dress which I am to wear on the 4th. It is really handsome; a wreath of white satin flowers worked upon net.

Our day on Tuesday was delightful, the scene enchanting. My favourite companion there was Sir William Dunbar, more odd, but more amusing and original, than ever. Still, however pleasant the people at Fulham, M. and I enjoyed the drive to and fro, more than the day itself. James Smith went with us, and he sang funny songs, and repeated epigrams and bon mots all the way there. While waiting in the hall for the carriage, (for we wisely came away at eleven,) he gave us an extempore comedy; and, when in the carriage, on my telling him that Sir W. Dunbar had told me he was blasé with everything, and that he was a disappointed man; he said; “It is evident that he is so; I dare say there is something interesting and particular in his story; suppose I invent one for him.” So off he set, and gave us three letters of a novel in letters, and, without pausing a moment, beginning, “Sir W. Dunbar to General Evelyn.—When we last parted, my dear General, I was in the prime of life; every hope full of vigour,” &c., &c., and during the last mile or two, he relieved the monotony which was stealing over all this, by quotations from Young and Swift, well remembered and well repeated. Certainly, never did a man so completely pay, by his brains, for a seat in a carriage. I persuaded Edward to dance with Miss M., having vainly tried to persuade Sir W. D., though he owned her to be very pretty, as did Edward. We left them dancing. The baron, William de Humboldt, was forced to attend Lord Castlereagh in a conference of nine hours, yesterday; therefore he wrote me an elegant note of excuse for not going to see Mrs. Siddons with me, calling me “Mademoiselle Opie;”—no doubt from my juvenile appearance. So we walked over to tell Mrs. Siddons this, and she was somewhat mortified; but recovered herself, and was most delightful. We staid two hours and more, and we none of us knew how late it was. She said she had passed a most happy two hours, and had no regrets. M. came home raving all the way, saying she was the most beautiful, delightful, agreeable, and, I believe, even the youngest woman she ever saw; and she has put up in paper, the bud of a rose she gave her, to keep for ever. Yesterday we dined at H. G.’s, and went to the Maxwells’ in the evening. Old Albinia, of Buckinghamshire, has made me promise to go to her masquerade breakfast, and en masque. I owe her this, for her kindness to me, when I sang to the Prince. On Sunday we were to dine at the Solicitor-General’s, in Bloomsbury Square; but it is now put off to Sunday se’nnight, at Wimbledon. As I was offered a ticket for the ball to the Duke of Wellington for £4 7s., I accepted the offer, and wrote my last commands to Lord Tamworth; so I hope I did not write too late to prevent the exchange. I go full dressed, but no train, and high feathers; with a pink domino of calico, made high and long, to give me height and disguise me, thrown over all, that I may be incog., and be masked till I am tired, and then appear as myself. Mrs. P. goes with us. I have had the kindest letter from Mr. Coke! promising to do all he can for Mr. D., and entreating me to visit him in the winter, whenever I choose.[^[19]]—I have just room to insert the lines.

Why sons of Britain rush ye forth

Like torrents from the mountain’s height,

To shout, untired, for foreign worth

And glad with foreign chiefs, your sight?

Can Britain boast no chiefs renown’d,

Whose arm can crush, whose heart can spare!

No Leader who, with conquest crown’d,

Can wisely plan, and greatly dare?

Yes, Britains, yes! and now again

In shouts your myriad voices raise!

But louder, longer, be the strain

That speaks a grateful nation’s praise.

For Wellington now glads our sight,

Whose valour guards his Sovereign’s throne,

He, in untarnish’d glory bright;

And Wellington is all OUR OWN!

I allude in the sixth line to the mercy he showed at Toulouse. The Baron, Alexander de Humboldt, said to me, “This certainly was the first man in Europe!” and no doubt, when party feeling is forgotten, he will be done justice to. Farewell!

CHAPTER XII.

FRIENDSHIP WITH THE GURNEY FAMILY; TWO LETTERS FROM MR. J. J. GURNEY; DEATH OF HIS BROTHER; MRS. OPIE’S RETURN FROM LONDON; EARLY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS; MRS. ROBERTS; RECOLLECTIONS OF SIR W. SCOTT; VISIT TO EDINBURGH; “VALENTINE’S EVE;” VISIT TO MR. HAYLEY; “TALES OF THE HEART;” LETTER TO MR. HAYLEY; LETTER FROM MRS. INCHBALD; HER DEATH.

From the gay and brilliant scenes depicted in the preceding letters, Mrs. Opie was suddenly and painfully called away, by an event which excited deep feeling in her heart, and which must have been rendered more peculiarly distressing, by the contrast in which it stood with all that had been occupying her thoughts, during the months of her absence from home.

Preserved with her letters of this date, there were found two, of a very different character from her own, addressed to her by a friend who was destined, in after years, to exercise great influence over her opinions and subsequent course; we speak of Mr. J. J. Gurney, that highly honoured and admirable man, whose friendship, thus early commenced, she retained, with ever-growing satisfaction, until his deeply-lamented death.

It may be remembered that Mrs. Opie, in one of her early letters, speaks of “Elizabeth Fry,” to whom she had been paying a visit on occasion of her marriage. They had been acquaintances in youth; and, in the life of Mrs. Fry, there are occasional allusions to visits paid by Dr. Alderson to Earlham, the home of the Gurney family, when Elizabeth was a gay and lively girl.[^[20]] Shortly after Mrs. Opie’s marriage, Miss E. Gurney visited London, and in her diary she records a day spent with “Amelia Opie,” and says: “I had a pleasant time of it; I called on Mrs. Siddons, and on Dr. Batty, then on Mrs. Twiss; and, in the evening, Mr. Opie, Amelia, and I, went to the concert,” &c.

After Mrs. Fry’s marriage she was brought into the society, almost exclusively, of strict “Friends,” and there does not appear to have been much intercourse between her and her early friend; but when Mrs. Opie returned to Norwich, on the death of her husband, she resumed her former habits of intimacy with the family at Earlham; and found, among the large and happy circle there, friends whose influence had a beneficial effect upon her. The youngest sister, Priscilla, who was a most lovely creature, and who died in 1821, seems to have been especially endeared to her; and Mr. J. J. Gurney said, that her friendship with this sister and himself, appeared to be the principal means of producing that gradual change of sentiment, which eventually led to her joining the Society of Friends.

We are, however, anticipating the progress of events.—To return to the letters of which we have spoken; we find, in the first of them, allusions to the illness of Mr. Gurney’s brother, whose death, which followed a few weeks subsequently, was the cause of Mrs. Opie’s hasty return.

Norwich, 6th mo., 4th, 1814.

I have a mind, my dear friend, to write thee a letter; this is all the apology I offer for the intrusion. There are two or three things I wish to say to thee; the first is, that I remember, with true pleasure, thy affectionate conduct to us all, during the last few months of affliction. It has been like that of a sister, and has been prized by us, I trust, as it ought to be; however thou mayest be engaged in the gay whirlpool of London life, rest assured, therefore, thou art not forgotten by thy retired friends at Earlham. I thank thee for thy last note, which is an instructive inmate of my pocket-book, since it bespeaks a tender conscience. Wilt thou pardon thy friend if he tell thee, that he greatly admires this tenderness of conscience with regard to all thou sayest of others? It appears to him that thy mind is particularly alive to the duties of Christian charity; and he now wishes to express his desire that the same fear, (shall he call it “godly fear?”) may attend thee in all thy communications with the world.

To leave the third person; I will refer to two texts, “Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this—to keep one’s self unspotted from the world,” and again, “Be ye not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your minds, that he may know what is the good, acceptable, and perfect will of God.” Now, what wilt thou say to me? perhaps thou wilt say that thy countrified, drab-coated, methodistical friend, knows nothing of the “world,” misinterprets the meaning of the apostle, and is frightened by the bugbear of a name, as a child is by a ghost.

There may be some truth in these observations of thine, and I must allow that the world is not idolatrous now, as it was then; and again, that we all alike are citizens of the world, and there is no department of it which is not tinctured with evil; but I refer particularly to the “fashionable world,” of which I am apt to entertain two notions—the first, that there is much in it of real evil; the second, that there is much also in it, which, though not evil in itself, yet has a decided tendency to produce forgetfulness of God, and thus to generate evil indirectly. On the other hand, there is little in it, perhaps, which is positively good.

With regard to the apostolic precepts; perhaps they intimate that there are two spirits or dispositions, moving amongst mankind; the one celestial, leading to good; the other terrestrial, tending to evil; perhaps they are meant to warn us, not literally against the world, but against a worldly spirit. Now I will close my grave remarks, by saying, that it is my earnest desire, both for thee and myself, that we may be redeemed from a worldly spirit, and that in our communications with the world, whether fashionable, commercial, or common-place, we may be enabled simply to follow an unerring guide within us, which will assuredly inform us, if we will but wait for direction, what to touch and what to shrink from—what to follow, and what to eschew.

I returned home with Pris, last fourth day, and found my dear brother considerably more feeble than when I left him; I think this may be owing, principally, to his having fallen and hurt his knee, and to the confinement which the accident has rendered necessary. Upon the whole we are much at ease about him, and ought to be thankful whether we are so or no.

Do not be angry with me; write me a letter; and farewell, in every sense of the word.

I remain, thy affectionate friend,

J. J. Gurney.

The second letter (dated Earlham, 7th mo., 22nd, 1814) is much longer, and as a large part of it will be found inserted in the Life of Mr. Gurney, we shall content ourselves with a few extracts taken from it. After apologizing for “addressing something in the shape of advice, to one so much older and more experienced than himself,” he says:—

My chief desire is, that thou mayst be willing to give up everything which the light of truth may point out as inconsistent with the holy will of God. True happiness, here or hereafter, can consist in nothing, but in conformity to that will. The world has, undoubtedly, many pleasures to bestow, perhaps none so great as that of being universally liked, admired, and flattered; but it is not in the world we are to find that “peace which passeth understanding.” It is striking to observe the essential difference which exists between the pleasures of the world, and the religious happiness of the soul. The temporality of the former seems to be proved, by their all being conveyed to us through our natural senses; but “eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive the things which God hath prepared for those who love Him.” How clearly one sees, all the way through, that the one belongs to our mortal, the other, to our immortal part.

Thou wilt observe, my dear friend, that I have underscored the words, “liked, flattered, and admired.” It is because I know thou art so; and, unless thou art of a very different composition to thy friend, I am satisfied it must afford no small temptations to thee, and require, on thy part, the utmost stretch of watchfulness. I really should like to know how thy mind was affected by Lady B.’s day-masquerade. Because, I am sure, that if I could sing and converse in that way, and procured all manner of favour and applause, from innumerable lords and ladies, I should be vain as a peacock thereupon. Now, I confess, if thou art vain, thy vanity[^[21]] does not show itself; but it may be there is some lurking particle of it in the bottom of thy heart, which may put thee to some trouble. But mind, I do not want to draw thee to confession.

My dear brother has been a good deal weaker, especially in mind, during the last fortnight; but he continues full of peace, and, I think I may add, of Christian love. Again and again farewell, saith thy sincere and affectionate friend,

J. J. Gurney.

This brother, Mr. John Gurney, declined rapidly, and early in September his death took place. In the Life of Mrs. Fry this event is recorded; and she mentions in a letter dated from Earlham, whither she had gone to take her leave of him, that on the last morning of his life, Dr. Alderson had called and seen him, and that he desired his love to Amelia Opie.

The second of her Lays for the Dead is addressed to this “departed friend,” and was written (as the title to it informs us) after attending his funeral, in the Friend’s burying-ground at Norwich, having travelled all night, in order to arrive in time.

It commences thus:—

“Friend, long beloved! on thy untimely bier

I came to drop the sympathizing tear;

I came to join the long funereal train,

And heave the bitter sigh which mourns in vain.”

From this period Mrs. Opie attended the religious services of the Friends, and continued to do so until she united herself to their communion, eleven years after; and in a note written the year of Mr. Gurney’s death, to the writer of these memoirs, she says, “in 1814 I left the Unitarians.”

It does not, indeed, appear, from any record of her early days, nor from the recollections of her friends is it ascertainable, that she, at any time, was in actual communion with the Unitarian body. She was, in her youth, in the habit of attending at the Octagon chapel, where, during the ministry of Mr. Pendlebury Houghton, Dr. Sayers, and Mr. William Taylor, and others of similar opinions, attended, and highly eulogised the sermons of that eloquent, though by no means evangelical, preacher. When in London, it is evident, from her letters, that Mrs. Opie went to church, and did not act as a conscientious Unitarian would, under the circumstances, have done; and we can hardly avoid the inference, that she had no very fixed opinions on religious subjects, and that the mere circumstances of her birth and education had occasioned her connexion with the Unitarians. From the time, however, at which we have now arrived, she ceased to attend the Octagon chapel; and although she did not at once embrace the religious opinions of the Friends, nor sever herself from her former associates and pursuits, she gradually, but surely, yielded to an influence to which she had hitherto been a stranger, and experienced a progressive change in her religious views.

Mrs. Opie, shortly after this time, edited a little book, entitled “Duty,” written by her friend Mrs. Roberts, to which she prefixed a sketch of the character of the authoress. This sketch was published separately in the “Gentlemen’s Magazine,” for 1815. It is a pleasing tribute of affectionate regret, to the memory of one whose friendship, she said, would always be among the most pleasing recollections of her life, and to have lost her so soon, one of her most lasting regrets.

In the spring of the year 1816, Mrs. Opie paid her usual annual visit to London; and in her note book has recorded her “recollections of Sir W. Scott,” whom she then, for the first time, saw, or rather heard. She had seen him on two or three previous occasions—first, shortly after the publication of the “Lay of the Last Minstrel,” at the assembly of a widow lady, in London; but the crowd was so great that she caught a very imperfect glimpse of him, merely sufficient to tell her that “he wore powder and his hair tied behind.” The next time she saw the great man was at a picture gallery, somewhere in London, when, as he passed near and was pointed out to her, she observed that he was lame, but there was a freshness in his complexion and an air of robust health about his whole contour. At length, in 1816, she met him, and she says,

It was the last time I ever saw him, and I might say the first, according to the idea of him, who said on the introduction of a stranger, “speak, that I may see thee!” for certainly the face of W. Scott, when speaking and animated, and the same face in a quiescent state, were two different things. And what a seeing that was! It was at breakfast, at the house of Sir George Phillips, in Mount Street; I had been invited to meet Sir Walter, and I went with the anticipation of no common pleasure, arriving precisely at the time specified. Sir W., however, was there before me; and for some time, to my great satisfaction, we, with the master and mistress of the house, continued uninterrupted by other guests. I know not what led to the subject; but he gave us a most animated description of a cockney’s hunting in the Highlands; I think the person was a militia officer, and his terror, when he found himself going full gallop up and down crags, steeps, and declivities of which he had before no idea, was pictured with a living spirit which I cannot do justice to. This narrative was interrupted by the arrival of other guests, and Sir W., to my great joy, was desired to hand me downstairs; consequently I sat beside him; the company was too large for much general conversation, though there was also present another whose conversational powers were first-rate—Wordsworth, who came late, being one of the party. I did not, however, regret this, as I was enabled to keep the conversation of my right-hand neighbour to myself. One subject succeeded another, and the gifted man condescended to speak to me of my “Father and Daughter,” and told me he had cried over it more than he ever cried over such things. I felt emboldened to speak of his own writings, and ventured to ask him why, with such dramatic power, he had never tried the drama? he said many reasons had prevented him; amongst others, he was, he said, a proud man, and his pride would never have allowed him to dance attendance on the managers, and consult the varied tastes of actors and others—or words to that effect. But he owned that he had once serious thoughts of writing a tragedy, on the same subject as had been so ably treated by his friend, Joanna Baillie; meaning the “Family Legend”—founded, as I need not say, on a true story. Sir W. said, had he gone on with his tragedy, (I think he had begun it,) he should have had no love in it. His hero should have been the uncle of the heroine, a sort of misanthrope, with only one affection in his heart, love for his niece, like a solitary gleam of sunshine, gilding the dark tower of some ruined and lonely dwelling! Never shall I—never can I, forget the fine expression of his lifted eye, as he uttered this! The whole face became elevated in its character, and even the features acquired a dignity and grace from the power of genius! How fortunate did I consider myself in having that morning been favoured with a specimen of his two manners, if I may so express myself.

In the autumn of this year Mrs. Opie went to Edinburgh; and she has given a short account of this visit, in connexion with her reminiscences of Sir Walter Scott.

From my earliest days (she says) I was such an admirer of Scotch literature and Scotch music, and I was so prepossessed in favour of Scotland, that I have often run eagerly to the window of my own house, only to see a Scotch drover pass by, in his blue bonnet and plaid; and it was with gladness of heart that in the autumn of the year I had met Sir Walter, I found myself at liberty to visit Edinburgh! “Tell me, (said I to the postillion,) when we reach the Tweed,” and as soon as I saw its silver waters sparkling in the summer sun, I hailed it with delight, and warmly congratulated myself on being, at last, in Scotland. That day we went to Dryburgh; I had seen the Earl of Buchan at my own house, in London, when he was in England; and, having promised to return his call at the first opportunity, I went, at the end of sixteen years, to perform my promise, and was most kindly received. Before dinner was served, we went to see the grounds and the beautiful ruins of the abbey, where was pointed out to us the part of the ruin apportioned off for the place of interment of Sir W. Scott and his descendants.

During the nine days I remained in Edinburgh, Sir W. did not come thither; so that I had no opportunity of seeing him; but I had the pleasure of sitting opposite Raeburn’s picture of him every day, at the house of my kind host Constable, whose guest I was. Eagerly did I tell every body who would listen to me, of my meeting him in London, and of the impression which he made on me: but I was mortified when, on my praising the beauty of his countenance, under strong excitement, and the fire of his blue grey eye, Dr. Brown, the celebrated professor, interrupted me with, “Nay, nay, Mrs. Opie, do not go on with these flights of fancy; the face is nothing but a roast-beef and plum-pudding face, say what you will!” Whatever that face was, would I had had the happiness of seeing it again! However, the remembrance of the enjoyment which that morning at Mount street gave me, I treasure as one of the greatest which was ever afforded me, by worldly intercourse.

This year was published “Valentine’s Eve,” a tale in three volumes, interesting as shewing the state of her religious feelings at the time it was written. The lesson it inculcates is the superiority of religious principle as a rule of action, and as a support under affliction and unmerited calumny. The heroine of the story, pronouncing her conviction that “moral virtues are only durable and precious as they are derived from religious belief and the consequence of it,” says,

Some suppose that morality can stand alone without the aid of religion, and even fancy that republican firmness will enable us to bear affliction; but I feel that the only refuge in sorrow and in trial, is the Rock of Ages, and the promises of the gospel.

In 1817 Mrs. Opie made an excursion into Sussex, and among other friends, visited Mr. Hayley. In consequence, she says, of this gentleman’s flattering mention of her in the twelfth edition of his “Triumphs of Temper,” she went on a visit to his house, in the year 1814; and in his “Life,” by Dr. Johnson, there is a short sketch, from her pen, of the manner in which they passed their time, during that and subsequent visits she paid him. “In 1816,” (writes Mrs. O.) “I went to Scotland, and did not see Eartham till 1817. I then found Mr. Hayley was become fond of seeing occasional visitors; but, for the most part, our life was as unvaried as it had been in my former visits to him.” She corresponded with him after leaving him, and fulfilled the promise she had made, to send him her portrait. He acknowledged the receipt of this picture, in a letter, from which we give an extract.

* * * * I rejoice that a petty incident prevented my letter from beginning its travels yesterday; for, in the evening, the eagerly expected portrait arrived: a fine head nobly painted in the gusto grande!

After assigning to it, this early morn, its proper station, in an excellent light, your paternal hermit burst into the following extempore benedictions, in contemplating his carissima figlia.

Thy portrait, dear Amelia, in my sight,

My eyes are charmed with beauty’s blooming flower;

But when thy books my sympathy excite,

I feel thy genius, the sublimer power;

Pleased, of thy various charms to bless the whole,

I praise thy form, and idolize thy soul;

Such worship’s thine, from “threescore and eleven,”

Whose higher adoration mounts to heaven.

I can devise no better mode of expressing my gratitude to you for this delightful proof of your filial regard, than by putting into the case, which conveyed you to my cell, that sweet picture[^[22]] of Virgil’s Tomb, by my friend of Derby, which I had long intended as a legacy for you; yet some time must elapse before the picture can arrive at Norwich, because it is to halt on its transit through London, at the house of a very amiable young artist, who is to execute for me a diminutive copy of it, as a companion to another small picture. And now I must hastily say addio carissima! not to lose the post of to-day. Addio.

In October of this year Mr. Hayley wrote:—[^[23]]

“I have much enjoyed a social visit of several weeks, from our admirable Amelia Opie, who, after having kindly devoted some pleasant months to various friends, in her excursion, is just settling herself at home again, with a mind well prepared to exert its powers in several projected works, that will, I trust, in due time, afford a copious supply of pleasure and instruction to the literary world.”

In 1818 Mrs. Opie published her “Tales of the Heart,” probably one of the works alluded to in this letter. In the first volume of this series there are two, entitled, “The Odd Tempered Man,” and “White Lies.” The former of these, is an original picture of an eccentric phase of the infirmities of temper; to the latter Mrs. O. evidently refers in the following letter to Mr. Hayley:—

Norwich, 24th Jan., 1819.

My dear Friend,

You are too just to expect that the author of “White Lies,” the tale, should be guilty of “White Lies,” the fault—therefore though I can, en toute sureté de conscience say, that I was very glad to hear from you again, yet I must own that I did not feel your excuses for not having written at all satisfactory. * * * I am going to send you (perhaps to-morrow) some dried apples, apples being once more plentiful here; and the box will also contain an etching of my dear father, from a drawing by my husband: it is like, but too full about the jawbone, and my father’s hair must have been by accident rough, when my husband drew him; now it is close to his head, and his head is well shaped. However, on the whole, it is very like, and the etching does credit to the artist, a lady, the wife of Dawson Turner, and a most admirable person she is. * * * My father is now, blessed be God! quite well, in all respects; but soon after my return home in July he sprained his ancle, and was lame, unwell, dispirited, and broken down in mind and body for weeks, nay months, and I suffered much, but he now walks well, and is well, and enjoys himself. Farewell!

Believe me ever affectionately yours,

A. Opie.

William Hayley, Esq., near Chichester.

Shortly after the date of this letter, Mrs. Opie was alarmed by tidings of the severe illness of her aged friend; she says, (in the sketch given in Hayley’s life before referred to,) “I went down to Bognor, not certain that I should not arrive too late to see him; but I found him out of danger, and had the happiness of returning to London at the end of the week, leaving him recovering. But I saw him no more. He died in November of the following year.”

Another of her old friends (Mrs. Inchbald) wrote to her this year, under the pressure of a malady beneath which she speedily succumbed. She wrote again, for the last time, at the Christmas of the following year, thus:—

Kensington House, 19th Dec., 1820.

My dear Mrs. Opie,

Your kind Christmas-box arrived safe, and temptingly beautiful, yesterday evening; many thanks.

We are, even in these dark and short days, as brilliant on the high road, and in open air, as during the long and bright days of summer and autumn. I think I never saw a more gaudy, yet numerous and sober procession, (processions, I should say, for they lasted from morning till night,) than passed the house yesterday. I think myself particularly fortunate in the place of my abode, on this account. The present world is such a fine subject to excite intense reflection.

Mr. Kemble called on me, during the short time he was in England; he looked remarkably well in the face, but as he walked through the court-yard, to step into his carriage, I was astonished to perceive him bend down his person, like a man of eighty. How, I wonder, does she support her banishment from England? He has sense and taste to find “books in the running brooks, and good in everything.”

By the bye, your books are lying on the table of our drawing room most days, and I hear great praise of them; and yet I do not feel the slightest curiosity to open one of them. The reason is, there are also a hundred of Sir Walter Scott’s in the same place, and as it is impossible to read all, I have no wish to read any; for to read without judging, is to read without amusement; and how can I judge without comparing, detecting likenesses, or admiring originality? Besides, I have so many reflections concerning a future world, as well as concerning the present, and there are, on that awful subject, so many books still unread, that I think every moment lost, which impedes my gaining information from holy and learned authors.

It rains, and I fear I cannot send my letter to the post by a safe hand, till fine weather. My best compliments to Dr. Alderson, and believe me,

Yours most sincerely,

E. Inchbald.

She died in 1821. Mrs. Opie had not been aware of her illness, and wrote on the 9th of August to Mr. Phillips, thus:—

Dear Sir,

The paper of to-day contains an account of the funeral of Mrs. Inchbald, and I had heard neither of her illness, nor her death! I need not say how shocked and sorry I am; and I take the liberty of requesting that you will be so kind as to give me some account of her illness, last moments, &c.

I have not seen her this year, because I now never leave my father, and have been in Norwich almost ever since I saw her last, which was last September. Pray excuse, &c.

Yours respectfully,

A. Opie.

G. Phillips, Esq.,

Surgeon to his Majesty, Carlton Palace.

CHAPTER XIII.

ILLNESS OF DR. ALDERSON; HIS DAUGHTER’S ANXIETY; PRISCILLA GURNEY; BIBLE AND ANTI-SLAVERY MEETINGS; “MADELINE;” LETTER FROM SOUTHEY; “LYING;” LETTERS TO MRS. FRY; MRS. OPIE JOINS THE SOCIETY OF FRIENDS; DR. ALDERSON’S DECLINE AND DEATH.

Dr. Alderson became seriously ill in December, 1820, and his daughter accompanied him to London, for medical advice, on the 23rd January, 1821. On the 26th, they went to stay at the house of Mr. Hudson Gurney, by whom the following particulars were communicated to the writer;—“Davies Gilbert and a few friends dined with us; and Dr. Alderson was, apparently cheerful and pretty comfortable; but, in a day or two, he was seized with extreme depression of spirits, and went back to Norwich on the 2nd of February. He never, I believe, or hardly ever, left his house afterwards, till the time of his death. During the whole time of his illness, Mrs. Opie most assiduously attended him; she had latterly joined the Quakers; and read to him much in the Bible and other religious books, and his views, on religious subjects, appear to have undergone an entire change. Mr. J. J. Gurney was very frequently with them both.”

On their journey home from town, after this visit, an alarming accident occurred. The horses took fright, the coachman and passengers were thrown off the coach, and the leaders broke the traces; by some means the vehicle was stopped, but their lives had been endangered; and when Dr. Alderson, who was not at first aware of the peril they had incurred, was told, by his daughter, the particulars of the accident, he exclaimed, as he thanked God that they had reached Norwich in safety, “I have been mercifully spared, my dear child, and I wonder why?” His daughter, speaking of the event, said—“afterwards, when his serious impressions daily deepened, he said, ‘Oh! my dear child! I know now why I was spared.’”

From this time the continued and increasing illness of her father occupied her time, and engaged her constant thought, while numerous friends gathered around them, desirous to cheer and soothe the invalid, and to aid his daughter in her task of love. “I suffered much!” she wrote, when the first symptoms of this “sickness unto death” appeared; how much we learn, in some degree, to estimate, by the grief of after years, when the blow, she was then dreading, had fallen. But, if it be true (and every Christian will set his seal to it) that “since the day Jesus redeemed us on the cross, all that is great, powerful, and salutary, partakes of a serious nature, and that all the seeds of life and regeneration, are sown in sorrow and in death,” then we may recognise, in this afflictive visitation, the “blessing in disguise,” which was sent by her heavenly Father to wean her from the world and call her to himself.

Two prayers, written at this time, were preserved among her papers, and remain affecting testimonials of the “thoughts of her heart” within her.

A PRAYER.—25TH OF APRIL, 1821.

O gracious and long suffering God! now that those trials and infirmities are come upon me, from which I have hitherto been mercifully exempted, let me not, I beseech Thee, forget Thy past mercies, in Thy present chastisements; but rather let me consider those chastisements as greater mercies still, and as designed to draw me, in humble supplication and heartfelt thankfulness, to the foot of Thy throne, there to confess my sins and my long forgetfulness of Thee; and to acknowledge, that I have no hope of salvation, but through the merits of Jesus Christ, my Lord and my Redeemer, who died the death of a sinner, that I, and sinners like myself, might be forgiven and live.

A PRAYER.—26TH OF APRIL, 1821.

O Thou! “the God that hearest prayer,” and even amidst innumerable choirs of angels for ever glorifying Thee and hymning Thy praise, canst hearken to the softest breathings of a supplicating and contrited heart, deign Lord to let the prayers of a child, for a beloved parent, come up before Thee. In grateful return for that life which he gave me here, and which, under Thy good providence, he has tenderly watched over, and tried to render happy, enable me, O Lord! to be the humble means of leading him to Thee. O let us “thirst,” and come together “to the waters, and buy the wine and milk without money and without price;” and grant, O Lord! that before we go hence, and are no more seen of men, our united voices may ascend to Thee in praises and in blessings! grant that we may together call upon the name of Him who has redeemed us by His most precious blood, that in that blood our manifold sins may be washed away.

This year died her lovely friend, Priscilla Gurney. In the Memoirs of Mrs. Fry (vol. 1, pp. 391, 399,) a most touching account is given, of the closing scenes of her life. She must have been singularly pleasing, for, notwithstanding her early death, her memory still remains sweet to many, and she is yet spoken of with affectionate regret. Some lines (not among her “Lays”) were written by Mrs. Opie in remembrance of this dear friend; they are headed

“PRISCILLA’S GRAVE.”

There is a spot in Life’s vain scene,

Which oft, with willing feet, I tread;

It is yon still, sequester’d green,[^[24]]

Where lowly sleep the nameless dead.

There, underneath that elm’s soft shade,

Now waving in the zephyr’s breath,

Belov’d Priscilla, thou art laid,

Within thy grassy home of Death!

I would not call thee back again

To this dark world, unworthy thee,

Faith bids my heart that wish restrain,

Yet oh; how vast thy loss to me!

I miss thy soothing smile of love,

Thy voice, that could my fears control,

Thy words that bade my doubts remove,

And breath’d conviction o’er my soul.

I miss thee, while with pilgrim feet

I now my course to Zion bend;

For thou, upon her way wouldst greet,

And fondly hail, thy fainting friend.

But thou art where each promise given

Is now fulfill’d, (thine, endless day,)

Then, full of gratitude to Heaven,

I’ll breathe a prayer, and turn away.

There was much passing in the religious world at this period, calculated to engage the attention, and attract the warm sympathies, of Mrs. Opie. The spirits of many highly gifted and eminent men were aroused to do great things in the cause of religion and philanthropy. In 1811 the first Meeting of the Norwich Bible Society was held in St. Andrew’s Hall, and was noted as “a day indeed; one that might be called a mark of the times.” Then were seen, for the first time, united for one great object, in the spirit of christian union, Churchmen and Dissenters; Bishop Bathurst presided, and Clergymen and Dissenting Ministers, Lutheran, Independent, Baptist, Quaker, and Methodist, joined hand in hand. On this occasion, the Hall at Earlham was made the head-quarters of the deputation; and a numerous circle of friends gathered around, to share in the pleasures of holy intercourse and christian fellowship. These meetings were annually renewed, and year by year the honoured host at Earlham opened his mansion, and greeted his friends and fellow-workers, and cheered them with his generous hospitality. They who were wont to meet on these occasions, have often felt their hearts burn within them, as they “talked one with another” on the great things of the heavenly kingdom, whose interests had gathered them together, and united them as the heart of one man.

In 1820 the Anti-slavery Society was formed, and was brought before the friends of the cause in Norwich, at a meeting, superintended by Mr. Gurney, and largely attended. In both these Societies Mrs. Opie took a deep interest, which (to use a favourite and constantly repeated expression of her own) “grew with her growth and strengthened with her strength.”

The pressure of domestic affliction did not interrupt Mrs. Opie’s literary occupations, and perhaps she found (as many others have done) a relief in such absorbing engagements. In 1822 she published “Madeline,” the last of her Novels, (for though she commenced writing another, it was never completed.) In the following year, she contributed to the European Magazine, a series of poetical “Epistles from Mary Queen of Scots to her Uncles,” prefacing them by saying, “Ever since I have been able to compare the strength of opposing evidence, and to enter into the probable motives of human actions, I have believed Mary Queen of Scotland to be entirely innocent of the atrocious guilt of which she has been accused—adultery and murder.” There are also some Tales and a short memoir of Bishop Bathurst, from her pen, in the same volume.

She appears to have made some application to Mr. Southey, with reference to a Review of her “Madeline,” which drew from him the following letter:—

Keswick, 11th April, 1822.

My dear Madam,

Your Madeline is a great favourite here, and well deserves to be so. The tale is beautifully told, and everywhere true to nature; if there be a little of that ideal colouring, which belongs to this species of composition, as much as to poetry, it is in your hero rather than your heroine. The tragic catastrophe would, as you say, have made the story more perfect, but it would have made the book painful, instead of pleasing, in recollection. I am sure that I should not have looked at it a second time, compared one part with another, and dwelt upon particular scenes, if there had been death at the end; and this, I think, is not so much the weakness of my individual temper, as it is a natural feeling. The theatres shew it to be so, by the preference which is given to comedy; they who have borne a part in the tragedies of real life (who is there that can go through the world without?) shrink, even from the sorrow which is produced by fiction.

The Quarterly Review will be much better employed in recommending Madeline to notice, than in pointing out in the Pirate, beauties which everybody must have seen, and defects which nobody can have overlooked. The part which I bear in that journal is greatly overrated, and the influence which I possess there, quite as much so. For two years I have been vainly endeavouring to get a book by Sir Howard Douglas reviewed there, though the subject is of great importance, and national interest, as well as national credit, concerned in it. I could not do it myself, because it required scientific knowledge, which I do not possess.

To convince you, however, that your tale has really interested me, I will write to Mr. Gifford, and ask him to admit an article upon it; most likely he will consent; I cannot be quite sure of this, nor can I promise anything farther for the paper, than that it will be written in right good will. As for my prose—anybody’s prose is mistaken for mine; and what is far more strange, anybody’s opinions! The guessing at anonymous writings is almost as much a matter of haphazard, as the attempt to discover any person, by his walk and figure, at a masquerade.

Mrs. S. desires me to present her compliments. Remember me to William Taylor, when you happen to see him.

Farewell, my dear Madam,

And believe me yours truly,

Robert Southey.

Her next work was one of a widely different character; on “Lying, in all its branches,” a subject affording ample scope for the moralist, and handled in a manner at once novel and ingenious. It received the best of all sanctions, that of success; and she had the exquisite satisfaction of knowing that she attained the object at which she aimed. Some few years afterwards, when Mrs. Opie was at Paris, she was introduced to several American friends, who cordially greeted her, thanking her for this book, which they assured her was universally acknowledged to have done good in their country; and that it had found its way into the cottages in the interior, and might be seen there, well thumbed by frequent use. Shortly after the publication of this work, Mrs. Opie wrote thus to Mrs. Fry:—

Norwich, 12th mo., 6th, 1823.

My very dear Friend,

As it is possible that thou mayst have been told that a new novel from my pen, called “The Painter and his Wife,” is in the press, I wish to tell thee this is a falsehood: that my publishers advertised this only begun work, unknown to me, and that I have written to say the said work is not written, nor ever will be. I must own to thee, however, that as several hundreds of it are already ordered by the trade, I have felt the sacrifice, but I do not repent of it.[^[25]]

Joseph and Catherine are highly pleased with my new work, on “Lying, in all its branches,” (each sort of lie illustrated by a simple anecdote, or tale,) and they think it must do good. We go on as usual; my dear father I think better on the whole, in body, and, I hope, not gone back in mind. I am at times very low, but there is safety in lowness for some people, and I am one of them. I know a tortoise pace is a safe pace, but still I am dissatisfied with my slow progress. Farewell! dearest Betsy! I remember thy visit with true and grateful pleasure; with kind love to all thy circle,

I am, thy affectionate Friend,

A. Opie.

To Elizabeth Fry, Plashet, Essex.

Dr. Alderson attained the age of four-score, in the spring of this year; and his daughter thus greeted him on the return of his birthday.

TO MY FATHER.

7th April, 1823.

And thou art eighty; ’tis thy natal day!

Then oh! forgive me that I dare to pray

(Since from so dear a tie ’tis hard to part,

A tie, sole treasure of this lonely heart)

That many a year thou yet may’st with me stay,

Resign’d in pain, and cheerful in decay!

While the bright hopes redeeming love has taught,

Prompting each pious, purifying thought,

Live in thy soul, to tell of sins forgiven,

And plume its pinions for its flight to heaven.

Some years had now passed since Mrs. Opie first attended the religious services of the Friends; and it will have been apparent to the reader, that she had, during that time, been approaching more and more nearly, in her religious sentiments, to their principles. Another letter which she wrote to Mrs. Fry shortly after the above, speaks of the difficulties she felt on some points; and mentions that “many of her relations, on the mother’s side, had been united for generations past to the Wesleyan Methodists,” which consideration had sometimes disposed her to incline towards “a union with that sect of worshippers.”

It was not without considerable anxiety, and after long deliberation, that the decisive step was taken, and she applied for membership with the Society of Friends. On looking back to that period, she always rejoiced in that decision, and expressed, on her bed of death, her satisfaction in it.

Of the perplexities and anxieties of her mind at this time, her letters to Mrs. Fry give sufficient proof. In January, 1824, she again wrote to her, and, after stating the great difficulty which she experienced in adopting “the plain language,” and her earnest desire to be guided aright in this matter, she proceeds:—

* * * It is indeed true that I never feel so comforted, as when I feel humbled, and experience a deep sense of my own sinfulness; when I rise from my knees, or leave meeting with an arrow striking in my heart, as it were, I feel a sort of pleasure, which I now would not exchange for aught the world can give. I hope this will not seem to thee unreal or fantastical: but no, I think thou wilt understand it. * * * * To say the truth, much as I should like to belong to a religious society, and much as I see, or think I see, the hand of my gracious Lord in leading me, to whom have been given so many ties to a worldly life, in the various gifts bestowed on me, (I mean accomplishments, as they are called,) to communion with a sect which requires the sacrifice of them almost in toto, thereby trying my faith to the uttermost, still I feel no necessity for haste in doing so. It is by no means clear to me, that, though generally strong, I am not locally infirm. I have lately had severe colds, and coughs, and have queer feelings in my heart, which may be merely nervous, and may be not so. Be this as it may, I am never without the consciousness now, that this may be for me “no continuing city.” In the next place, should I survive my father, and be in a condition of body and mind favourable to travelling, it has long been the desire of my heart to visit foreign countries; my wishes, I own, extending even to Palestine; and it might be far better for me to travel, unfettered by any ties. * * * Meantime, I feel my reliance on my Saviour grow stronger every day, and a sort of loathing of worldly society, which I must strive against. But no one, but that wise and merciful and just Being who has tried, and is now trying me, knows, or ever will know, what I have to endure from the many unseen peculiarities of my situation. However, I take comfort and encouragement from my difficulties; I know that I am most vile, and that I ought to be for ever striving to show my gratitude to my blessed Redeemer, by devoting myself entirely to his service; and I feel a repose and peace, in spite of my conscious sins, which the world cannot give nor take away, and which I humbly hope will continue to bear me up unto the end. Above all, I am conscious of a daily increasing spirit of prayer, and a desire of constant communion with the Bestower of it. What a letter of egotism! But I know thy mind will be interested in the “dealings” with mine, and I wish thee, dearest Betsy, always to know whereabouts I am. Dear Joseph is come back well, and looking well. With kind love to you all,

I am, thy affectionate Friend,

A. Opie.

To Elizabeth Fry,

Plashet, East Ham, Essex.

In another letter, dated Norwich, 3rd mo., 2nd, 1824, addressed to Mrs. Fry, after thanking her for her reply to the former letter, she tells her that on the 14th of the preceding month, she had, after much anxious consideration and indecision, decided to act without delay, according to the dictates of her conscience; and that a gentleman, a stranger, chancing to come and call on her that morning, she spoke the “plain language” to him, and had continued to do so ever since; and she says, “Nor have I had a misgiving, but feel so calm and satisfied, that I am convinced I have done right; and I feel now utterly cast for comfort, support, and guidance, on the Searcher of hearts, and the great Shepherd, the merciful Redeemer.”

In the following year Mrs. Opie addressed this letter to the Friends of the Monthly Meeting.

Respected Friends,

Having attended your place of worship for more than eleven years, and being now fully convinced of the truth of Friends’ principles, I can no longer be easy without expressing my earnest desire to be admitted into membership with your Society. My former opinions and habits, were, I own, at variance with yours; but having, through Divine mercy, been convinced of the error of my early belief, and of the emptiness of worldly pleasures, I trust that the same mercy has led me to desire to “walk in the narrow way” that seems to lie before me, and to promise me “that peace which the world cannot give.”

I am, yours, with respect and esteem,

A. O.

As the result of this application, she was received into membership on the 11th of August, 1825.

Dr. Alderson expressed his warm approval of the step his daughter had taken. He had, during the lengthened period of his gradual decline, been much comforted and assisted by the attentions and religious counsels of Mr. J. J. Gurney, and had become attached to those friends whose society she so much esteemed. He wished also to be permitted to find his last resting-place in the Friends’ burial ground; and it was evident that he was destined soon to occupy the “abode appointed for all living.”

There exists an affecting record of the last two years of his life, in a ledger-like book, into which he entered all his medical cases, day by day. The first entry is dated January 25th, 1824, and the last, September 7th, 1825, little more than a month before his death! In this book, he has, every now and then, in the midst of his professional notes, made an entry of some personal feeling or event. Thus, under date 27th January, 1824, he writes, “Southey came—his portrait taken—his hair grey.” 4th March, 1825, “Miserere mei, Domine, precor;” and again, August 16th, “Never felt so like dying, as I have just now done; the sensation was indescribably bad.” At length, on the closing page of the book, he writes:—“I never thought I should live to finish this book. If I live till to-morrow, I shall begin a new one. My pain, at this moment, is bad, my intellects clear, and I look forward to my being saved for happiness hereafter. How much I long for my last end! but in this I act wrongly; for a man ought to wait patiently till his end comes; for I can live no longer than God pleases, let a man talk to me ever so long about curing my legs.”

On the cover of this book Dr. A. has written the following verse of Dr. Watts:—

“Let all the heathen writers join,

To form one perfect book,

Great God! when once compared with Thine,

How mean their writings look.”

During his illness, Mrs. Opie used to play on the piano, and sing the hymns and psalms of Dr. Watts to her father, at his request; he appeared to find great consolation in listening as she sung, and often called to have the hymn repeated; and that music was like a medicine that soothed him to rest, when any other might have been administered in vain.

Shortly before his death, he was visited by Mr. Gurney, and, in reply to an observation made by him, expressed, with great feeling, his humble confidence in the atoning work of the Lord Jesus Christ.

So died the father of Amelia Opie. As she gazed upon his lifeless countenance, she was able to entertain a hope that supported her soul, and preserved her from sinking under the blow. How deeply and enduringly she lamented him, and how tenderly she cherished his memory, was evident in every day of her after life. Dr. Alderson’s record was written upon his daughter’s heart. And is not Carlyle right when he says, “Oh! great, or little one, according as thou art loveable, those thou livest with will love thee?”

CHAPTER XIV.

CONSOLATION IN SORROW; LETTER TO A FRIEND; JOURNAL FOR THE YEAR 1827.

* * * * * *

In the months that followed her father’s death, Mrs. Opie, though suffering deeply, was sustained by her faith in the promises of Him whose voice she had heard and obeyed, and for whose service she had renounced the approval and the pleasures of the world. In the kindness and sympathy of her friends she found comfort, and thankfully acknowledged that there is “good in friendship, and delight in holy love,” and, in her turn, she sought to “bind up the heart that was broken,” and to minister to the consolation of others—one of the surest and best means of obtaining relief under the pressure of sorrow. It is impossible to read her journals and letters of this time, without recognizing in them a depth of piety, that could only spring from a Divine source. Her tender compassion for the afflicted, and her labours of love, in visiting the sick, the prisoner, and the necessitous, remind one of Horace Walpole’s words to Hannah More, “Your heart is always aching for others, and your head for yourself.”

The following letter is almost the only record of the year that followed Dr. Alderson’s death; it was addressed to a lady to whom she was much attached, and who afterwards came to live in Norwich. When she died, Mrs. Opie’s letters to her were returned, and some of them will be found occasionally in these pages.

Norwich, 3rd mo., 26th, 1826.

My beloved Friend,

* * * I had thought that I could never feel anything again, but thy news really affected me! I am, I own, uneasy at the idea of thy suffering; but thy present sweet, spiritual, and submitted state of mind, will, I doubt not, strew thy path with those unfading flowers, which, blown here, will blossom to all eternity, and sooth and cheer thy passage to the tomb.

For a year at least, my place of abode must be unfixed; it may be London; in that case, I should be near thee: but when we meet we will speculate on the earthly future, which is equally uncertain to us both.

What a mercy it is, dear friend, that thou wast enabled, through faith, to bear thy apparent sentence, so abruptly pronounced. In nothing are the Lord’s dealings with us so wonderful and gracious, as when he enables us to bear trials, which we should once have expected to shrink from and to sink under. How I have been permitted to experience this!

My health is quite restored, my recent journey having, I trust, been beneficial. On my way home I was alone from Scole to Norwich, with a young man apparently dying of decline, and I felt it a duty to talk on serious subjects; and found him, I trust, teachable, and I promised to send him J. J. Gurney’s Letters and others. He was so delighted! but, poor thing, he was full of hopes of recovery. I have been tolerably tranquil for some days; and to-day I visited my dear father’s grave! he hoped I would sometimes do so! I felt peace both for him and myself, while I looked on it, and looked forward with cheerfulness to sleeping beside him! H. Girdlestone comforted me much, the other day, by reminding me how often in mercy the child was summoned away soon after the parent! The idea brought closer the prospects of eternity, and the necessity, therefore, of preparation, as more urgent, that the day’s work may be done in the day. May my attention be fixed on present duty, that my remaining time may be usefully and well spent, and that I may be ready when the summons shall come to call me hence.

J. J. Gurney is on a long and distant journey; when he returns, and when we meet, which may not be for two months, if I can say ought to him for thee, command me.

Farewell, write soon, thine affectionately,