Hannah More (British edition 1888)/Chapter 6
CHAPTER VI.
THE BAS BLEU AND THE BAS BLANC.
Miss More had not long been at Hampton for her next annual visit to Mrs. Garrick before she heard of the death of her father in the January of 1783. It is a pity her biographers have so entirely left out all record of this good man. The only mention of him, after his daughter's early childhood, is when he sent her a copy of original verses long after he was eighty years old. We are not even told when he lost his wife, when he gave up his school, or whether he lived with his daughters; and the absence of all such references gives an air of indifference to family ties which Hannah could not have deserved, as is plain from the perfect affection subsisting between her and her sisters. He died almost suddenly; and Hannah did not return home, but for three weeks never went out of doors, even to walk round the garden; though when, in March, Mrs. Garrick went to her house at the Adelphi, she seems to have gone out as usual. Meeting Johnson, "our conversation ran very much on religious opinions, particularly those of the Roman Catholics. He took the part of the Jesuits, and I declared myself a Jansenist. He was very angry because I quoted Boileau's bon mot upon the Jesuits that they had lengthened the Creed and shortened the Decalogue; but I continued sturdily to vindicate my old friends of Port Royal."
Johnson was much better at this time. He dined at Mrs. Garrick's, and there met, besides Hannah, Fanny Burney and Mrs. Elizabeth Carter. "Three such women," he afterwards said to Boswell, "are not to be found."
A notable acquaintance made at this time was with Sir William Jones, who was chiefly interesting to her as about to marry the daughter of the Bishop of St. Asaph, but of whom she pronounces—"He is a very amiable as well as learned man, and possesses more languages, perhaps, than any man in Europe."
It was at this time that Hannah was shocked by hearing "a dignified ecclesiastic propound in a charity sermon that the rich and great should be extremely liberal in their charities, because they were happily exempted from the severer virtues."
"What do you think Polycarp or Ignatius would say to this?" she observes. "A visitor is just gone, quite chagrined that I am such a rigid Methodist that I cannot come to her assembly on Sunday, though she protests, with great piety, that she never has cards, and that it is quite savage in me to think there can be any harm in a little agreeable music."
Whether from religious scruples, or from her sentiment for Garrick's memory, Hannah would not go to the theatre to see Mrs. Siddons, or other contemporary celebrities. The future Egalité was cherishing his Anglo-mania. "But," she writes, "as I do not go to Ranelagh, nor the opera, nor sup at Charles Fox's, nor play at Brookes', nor bet at Newmarket, I have not seen that worthy branch of the House of Bourbon, the Duke de Chartres. I never heard of such a low, vulgar, vicious fellow. His character is
Poltron sur mer,
Escroc sur terre,
Et vaurien partout!"
Nothing shows more what Hannah, in spite of her lively playfulness, must have been than the fact that she was indispensable to her friends in time of sorrow. She had not long returned to Bristol before she was summoned to Oxford to aid Mrs. Kennicott in attending on her husband in a fatal illness at Christchurch. Indeed, Hannah was actually present during the last moments, having forced the wife from the room. Very touching is the next sentence in the letter announcing the event to the sisters. "The Dean of Christchurch has just been in to say that in a quarter of a hour the great bell is to toll. I have told her (the wife) of it, and she is now looking out a book for me to read during that time."
Thirty years of Dr. Kennicott's life had been spent in collating the Hebrew Bible, and he had only finished a year before his death. When he presented his work to the King, George III. asked him what, on the whole, had been the result of his laborious and learned investigations. His reply was "that he had found some grammatical errors, and many variations in the different texts, but not one which, in the smallest degree, affected any article of faith or practice."
After helping the widow in the preparations for her removal from her home at Christchurch, Hannah returned to Bristol. There she occupied herself with writing a poetical description of that delightful society over which Mrs. Vesey and Mrs. Montagu were, in a manner, the presidents. It had come to be known as the Bas Bleu, or Blue Stocking Club, because it was said Dr. Stillingfleet used to come to these parties in blue ribbed hose; and as the salon bleu of the Hotel Rambouillet had in some manner already associated the colour with feminine learning, the name was not unwillingly adopted, though just as the Précieuses of the divine Arthénice became in time ridicules, so "Blue Stocking" arrived at being an opprobrious epithet. Hannah was rather hard on the French original salon, as she speaks of the conversation of her friends,—
Oh! how unlike the wit that fell,
Rambouillet, at thy quaint hotel,
Where point, and turn, and equivoque,
Distorted every word they spoke,
All so intolerably bright,
Plain common-sense was put to flight,
Each speaker so ingenious ever,
'Twas tiresome to be so clever.
Whereas, at the parties under the patronage of Mrs. Montagu or Mrs. Vesey,—
Chaste wits, and critics void of spleen,
Physicians, fraught with real science,
And Whigs and Tories in alliance,
Poets, fulfilling Christian duties,
Just lawyers, reasonable beauties,
Bishops who preach, and peers who pay,
And countesses who seldom play,
Learned antiquaries, who, from college,
Reject the rust and bring the knowledge,
And hear it, Age, believe it, youth,
Polemics really seeking truth,
And travellers of that rare tribe,
Who've seen the countries they describe,
Who studied there, so strange their plan,
Not plants, or herbs alone, but man,
While travellers of other notions,
Scale mountain tops and traverse oceans,
As if, so much these themes engross,
The study of mankind was—moss.
Ladies who paint, nor think me partial,
An epigram as well as Martial,
Yet in all female worth succeed
As well as those that cannot read.
Hannah here betrays her entire lack of interest in natural science, antiquities, or scenery, as, indeed, she had no word for the architecture and special charms of Oxford. When shown round Strawberry Hill by Horace Walpole she could only regret her want of interest in natural science or antiquarianism. The frequenters of the Bas Bleu were described, after the fashion of the time, under Latin names, and the satire was couched in the form of a letter to Mrs. Vesey.
To Mr. Pepys, who had there figured as Lælius, she writes:—
"I have been filling up the vacant hours of my convalescence in scribbling a parcel of idle verses, with which I hope to divert my dear Mrs. Vesey in her banishment from London; but as I wish to puzzle her (and right easy is the task), I would not send them directly from here, as the post-mark would be a coup de lumière."
Half was therefore sent in a frank to Mr. Pepys, half in one to another friend. The two parts were to be put together and the whole sent off to Mrs. Vesey without the smallest intimation whence it came. Mr. Pepys thoroughly entered into the spirit of the thing, said it was full of the best-humoured wit and a most elegant compliment, and made his wife transcribe it that the handwriting might not betray the authorship.
How far the lady was mystified we are not told, probably very little, for in a week or two it was needful to forbid the giving away of copies; and when the authoress went to Hampton for her autumn visit and saw Dr. Johnson, she tells her sisters:—
"As to the Bas Bleu, all the flattery I ever received from everybody together would not make up the sum. He said (but I seriously insist you do not tell anybody, for I am ashamed of writing it even to you)—he said there was no name in poetry that might not be glad to own it. You cannot imagine how I stared at this from Johnson, that parsimonious praiser. I told him that I was delighted at his approbation. He answered, quite characteristically, 'And so you may, for I give you the opinion of a man who does not praise easily.'"
However, great men in their old age are easily biassed in favour of the doings of a person who has won their regard. Johnson's admiration was genuine, for he wrote at this time to Mrs. Thrale:—
"Miss More has written a poem called the Bas Bleu, which, in my opinion, is a very great performance. It wanders about in manuscript, and surely will soon find its way to Bath."
On the whole, however, modern taste prefers the letter sent by Miss More at this time to Mrs. Pepys, with a pair of stockings knitted for one of the children, a cleverer thing in its way than the Bas Bleu:—
"The 'Bas Blanc.'
"Dear Madam,
I beg to dedicate the enclosed work, the fruit of a few days' leisure at St. Albans, to either of your little children of whose capacity of receiving it you will be the best judge upon trial, for there is a certain fitness without which the best works are of little value. Though it is so far of a moral cast that its chief end is utility, yet I hope that the child will be able to run through it with pleasure. I may say, without vanity, that it is founded upon the precepts of the great masters of the Epopæa, with but few exceptions. The subject is simple, but it has a beginning, middle, and end. The exordium is the natural introduction by which you are let into the whole work. The middle, I trust, is free from any unnatural tumour or inflation, and the end from any disproportionate littleness. I have avoided bringing about the catastrophe too suddenly, as I know that would hurt him at whose feet I lay it. For the same reason, I took care to shun too pointed a conclusion, still reserving my greatest acuteness for this part of my subject. I had materials for a much longer work, but the art to stop has always appeared to me no less the great secret of a poet than the art to blot; and whoever peruses this work will see that I could not have added another line without such an unravelling as would have greatly perplexed the conclusion. My chief care has been to unite the two great essentials of composition, ease and strength. I do not pretend to have paid any great attention to the passions, and yet I hope my work will not be found deficient either in warmth or softness, but these will be better felt than expressed. Now and then, partly from negligence and partly from temerity, I have broken the thread of my narration, but have pieced it so happily that none but the eye of a professor, which looks into the interior, will detect it; and the initiated are generally candid because they are in the secret. What little ornament there is I have bestowed, not injudiciously, I trow, on the slenderest part. You will find but one episode, and even that does not obstruct the progress of the main subject; and for parallels, I will be bold to say Plutarch does not furnish one so perfect. The rare felicity of this species of composition is the bold attempt to unite poetry with mechanics, for which see the clockwork in the third section. As all innovation is a proof of a false taste or a fantastic vanity, I was content to use the old machinery in working up the piece. I have taken care not to overlay the severe simplicity of the Ancients (my great precursors in this walk) with any finery of my own invention, and, like other moderns, you will find I have failed only in proportion as I have neglected my model. After all, I wish the work may not be thought too long; but of this he to whose use it is dedicated will be the best judge. His feelings must determine, and that is a decision from which there lies no appeal; for in this case, as in most others, le tact is a surer standard than the rules. I beg your pardon for so tedious a preface to so slight a performance; but the subject has been near my heart as often as I have had the work in hand, and as I expect it will long survive all my other productions, I am desirous to place it in the Pepysian collection, humbly hoping that, though neither defaced nor mutilated, it may be found as useful as many a black-letter manuscript of more recondite learning.
"I am,
"Dear Madam, &c.
"L'Amie des Enfans."
The spring passed, as usual, in sojourns with Mrs. Garrick and Mrs. Kennicott, and in the society of the Bas Bleu ladies, Bishop Porteus, Mr. Pepys, and Dr. Johnson, whose health was fast declining; but Hannah was constant to her regular habit of returning home in time for her sister's holiday, when it was their great delight to spend the day, carrying their provisions with them, on the rocks at Clifton and King's Weston, then wild and secluded places, resting from what was sometimes one of their labours, namely, teaching their governesses to read and spell.
It was in the course of this summer that the sisters learnt from their cook that the milkwoman, Anne Yearsley, who called for the kitchen refuse of their large household, was in great distress, and, moreover, was given to writing poetry. On investigation it turned out that the woman, in spite of great poverty and a large family, had read various poems, and written verses good enough to excite vehement enthusiasm in the ladies; who not only believed in her wonderful genius, but endowed her with all imaginable virtues; and, indeed, she does seem to have been a sober, patient, hard-working, religious woman, while left to herself and unspoilt.
Hannah went to work, correcting and arranging Yearsley's poems for the press, and writing letters about "Lactilla" to all her friends, who became fired with the same enthusiasm, so that Mrs. Montagu wrote, "What force of imagination! What harmony of numbers! In Pagan times, one could have supposed Apollo had fallen in love with her rosy cheek, snatched her to the top of Mount Parnassus, given her a glass of his best Helicon, and ordered the nine Muses to attend her call!" In thirteen months Hannah had written about a thousand letters on her behalf, and collected £600 for her, which was to be invested for her benefit. But notice and success had turned the poor woman's head, and, with the suspicion that at that time often characterized the peasantry, she thought herself wronged by not having the whole sum placed in her hands, and even spread a report that Miss More was purchasing an estate for herself with it. Such was the general ignorance that it is extremely probable that she really thought so; and when the Duchess of Devonshire sent her a copy of Bell's British poets, and they were kept at Cowslip Green till shelves could be found to put them on, she wrote to the Duchess that they were detained from her. The proceeds of the subscription were put into the hands of a lawyer, then of a merchant, and finally Mrs. Yearsley set up a circulating library at the Hot Wells, so that she could not have been so utterly improvident and dissipated as was imagined in the first pangs excited by her ingratitude. In fact, there was in those days much more ignorant distrust of the upper classes than there is at present; and, likewise, far less experience than there has since been, of the exceeding difficulty of fostering talent in the uneducated without exciting unreasonable expectations in excitable unbalanced temperaments. "Had she turned out well," wrote Miss More, "I should have had my reward. I have my trial. Perhaps I was too elated at my success, and in counting over the money (almost £200) might have thought, Is not this great Babylon which I have builded." In 1784 Hannah was again with her London friends, among whom she now numbered General Oglethorpe, the foster-brother of "The Old Chevalier," and said to have been the first reformer of prisons and the colonizer of Georgia; also Dr. Beattie, a Scottish minister, whose Minstrel, in Spenserian stanzas, was much admired at the time.
The most valued of all Hannah More's friends was, however, passing away—namely, Johnson. She had been with him at St. Clement's at his last Communion in church, and grieved heartily for his loss, gathering up all the anecdotes about him, and the noble sayings with which, as with a sledge-hammer, he bore down all that opposed truth or virtue. Still, it was weak of her to entreat Boswell to soften down some of Johnson's asperities in his memoirs, to which that prince of biographers replied, "He would not cut off his claws nor make a tiger a cat to please anyone."