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BY
PRINTED BY
RICHARD TAYLOR AND CO.,
SHOE LANE, LONDON.
TO Mrs. CHARLES ROCHEMONT AIKIN, THE FOLLOWING EPISTLES, ORIGINALLY ADDRESSED TO HER BY THE SOLE APPELLATION OF FRIEND, ARE NOW INSCRIBED, TOGETHER WITH THE REMAINING CONTENTS OF THIS VOLUME, BY HER AFFECTIONATE FRIEND AND SISTER LUCY AIKIN.
The poetical epistles occupying the principal part of this volume are presented to the public with all the diffidence and anxiety of a literary novice conscious of a bold and arduous undertaking. As I am not, however, aware of any circumstances in my own case which peculiarly appeal to the indulgence of the reader, I shall decline any further exposure of feelings purely personal, and proceed to the proper business of this introduction,....to offer such preliminary remarks on the plan of the work as may be necessary to prevent misapprehension.
Let me in the first place disclaim entirely the absurd idea that the two sexes ever can be, or ever ought to be, placed in all respects on a footing of equality. Man when he abuses his power may justly be considered as a tyrant; but his power itself is no tyranny, being founded not on usurpation, but on certain unalterable necessities;....sanctioned, not by prescription alone, but by the fundamental laws of human nature. As long as the bodily constitution of the species shall remain the same, man must in general assume those public and active offices of life which confer authority, whilst to woman will usually be allotted such domestic and private ones as imply a certain degree of subordination. Nothing therefore could, in my opinion, be more foolish than the attempt to engage our sex in a struggle for stations
that they are physically unable properly to fill; for power of which they must always want the means to possess themselves. No! instead of aspiring to be inferior men, let us content ourselves with becoming noble women:....but let not sex be carried into every thing. Let the impartial voice of History testify for us, that, when permitted, we have been the worthy associates of the best efforts of the best of men; let the daily observation of mankind bear witness, that no talent, no virtue, is masculine alone; no fault or folly exclusively feminine;....that there is not an endowment, or propensity, or mental quality of any kind, which may not be derived from her father to the daughter, to the son from his mother. These positions once established, and carried into their consequences, will do every thing for woman. Perceiving that any shaft aimed at her, must strike in its recoil upon some vulnerable part of common human nature, the Juvenals and Popes of future ages will abstain from making her the butt of scorn or malice. Feeling with gratitude of what her heart and mind are capable, the scholars, the sages, and the patriots of coming days will treat her as a sister and a friend.
The politic father will not then leave as a "legacy" to his daughters the injunction to conceal their wit, their learning, and even their good sense, in deference to the "natural malignity " with which most men regard every woman of a sound understanding and cultivated mind; nor will even the reputation of our great Milton himself secure him from the charge of a blasphemous presumption in making his Eve
address to Adam the acknowledgement, "God is thy head, thou mine;" and in the assertion that the first human pair were formed, "He for God only, she for God in him."
To mark the effect of various codes, institutions, and states of manners, on the virtue and happiness of man, and the concomitant and proportional elevation or depression of woman in the scale of existence, is the general plan of this work. The historical and biographical authorities from which its facts and many of its sentiments are derived, will easily be recognised by the literary reader, who will know how to estimate my correctness and fidelity: for the use of other readers a few notes are subjoined.
With respect to arrangement, I may remark, that as a strictly chronological one was incompatible with the design of tracing the progress of human society not in one country alone, but in many, I have judged it most advisable to form to myself such an one as seemed best adapted to my own peculiar purposes, moral and poetical. We have no records of any early people in a ruder state than some savage tribes of the present day; and it would be in vain to seek amongst the ancient writers for such distinct and accurate delineations of the customs of Lotophagi and Troglodytes as we now possess of the life and manners of New Hollanders, American Indians and Hottentots. From these latter, therefore, my first descriptions have been borrowed. Of the tribes of ancient Germany, indeed, we possess an unrivaled portraiture; but in the age of Tacitus most of them had already risen far above the lowest stage of human society; and the progeni-
tors of the noblest nations of modern Europe ought not to be classed with families of men whose name has perished from the earth, or wandering hordes of which we do not yet know whether or not they contain a living seed of future greatness.
In the way of explanation I have little more to add. I make no specific claims for my sex. Convinced that it is rather to the policy, or the generosity, of man, than to his justice that we ought to appeal, I have simply endeavoured to point out, that between the two partners of human life, not only the strongest family likeness, but the most complete identity of interest subsists: so that it is impossible for man to degrade his companion without degrading himself, or to elevate her without receiving a proportional accession of dignity and happiness. This is the chief "moral of my song;" on this point all my examples are brought to bear. I regard it as the Great Truth to the support of which my pen has devoted itself; and whoever shall rise from the perusal of these epistles deeply impressed with its importance, will afford me the success dearest to my heart,....the hope of having served, in some small degree, the best interests of the human race.
With respect to the Miscellaneous Poems, I have only to announce, that they comprise such pieces of mine contained in The Athenæum, and the earlier volumes of The Monthly Magazine, as appeared to me in any respect worthy of preservation; and that to these two others have been added.
Subject proposed--the fame of man extended over every period of life--that of woman transient as the beauty on which it is founded--Man renders her a trifler, then despises her, and makes war upon the sex with Juvenal and Pope. A more impartial view of the subject to be attempted. Weakness of woman, and her consequent subserviency. General view of various states of society undertaken. Birth of Eve--Angels prophesy the doom of the sex--description of Adam before he sees her--a joyless, hopeless, indolent creature. Meeting of Adam and Eve--Change produced in both--their mutual happiness and primary equality. Reflections. Conclusion.
HEAR, O my friend, my Anna, nor disdain
E'en while the youth, in love and rapture warm,
Well pleased she hears, vain triumph lights her eyes;
With steadier hand the pencil's task to guide,
No Amazon, in frowns and terror drest,
In vain we pout or argue, rail or chide,
Ah! what is human life? a narrow span
Yet will I dare its varying modes to trace
When slumbering Adam pressed the lonely earth,....
More copious tears from Pity's briny springs,
"Too well thy daughters shall our strain believe;
Prophetic spirits! that with ken sublime
See where the world's new master roams along,
Those sullen lips no mother's lips have prest,
But see!....they meet,....they gaze,....the new-born pair;....
His crags and caves the bursting sunbeams light,
Now rose complete the mighty Maker's plan,
Kindled by Hope, by gentle Love refined,
The subject resumed. Sketch of savage life in general--The sex oppressed by slaves and barbarians, but held in honour by the good and the brave.--New Holland--brutality of the inhabitants--their courtship. North American Indians--one of their women describes her wretched condition and destroys her female infant. Hardening effect of want on the human mind. Transition to Otaheite--Licentious manners of those islanders--Infanticide. Address to maternal affection--exemplified in the hind--fawns destroyed by the stag. Coast of Guinea--a native sells his
son for a slave--agony of the mother--her speech. Pastoral life--Chaldee astronomers--King David. Tartars--removal of a Tartar camp--their gaiety and happy mediocrity of condition relative to the gifts of nature--yet no refined affection between the sexes--female captives and women sent in tribute preferred to the natives--No perfect Arcadia to be found on earth--Caffres and Hottentots sprightly and harmless--but all pastoral and hunting tribes deficient in mental cultivation--hence the weaker sex held by all in some kind of subjection.
ONCE more my Muse uplifts her drooping eye,
Woo the young soul its blossoms to unfold,
No;....rude of hand, with bolder lines I trace
Come then, my friend; my devious way pursue;
Stretch wide and wider yet thy liberal mind,
With daring keel attend yon convict train
While shouts triumphant wake the orgies dire,
E'en such is Savage Man, of beasts the worst,
Whose sterile brink no buds of fragrance cheer
What wonder then, the Western wilds among
"Swift, swift," she cries, "receive thy last release;
Whilst thou, infirm, the sheltering hut must seek,
Want hardens man; by fierce extremes the smart
Not such his mind where Nature, partial queen,
Lost Otaheite!....Breathe one parting sigh,
Thrice holy Power, whose fostering, bland embrace
(Whether in Otaheitan groves accurst,
Hark to that shriek! from Afric's palmy shore
Grovelling in dust the frantic mother lies;....
Ah fruitless agony! ah slighted prayer!
For toys, for drams, their kindred blood is sold,
Shrinkst thou, my startled friend, with feeling tear,
Where cloudless heavens o'erarch Chaldea's plain,
Thence learn'd, Astronomy, thy studious eye,
Free are these tribes and blest; a churlish soil
Their lot, with sober kindness, gives to share
No!....vain the search,....of warm poetic birth,
The sprightly Caffre o'er the moonlight meads
Dawn of civilization, freedom, and the virtues. Troy taken--captives--Andromache. Spartans--character of their women--remarks. Athens--Phryne--Aspasia--degradation of the married women. Rome--present degraded state of both sexes--women in a condition approaching freedom, follow and imitate the course of the men with whom they are connected, as his shadow, the traveller. Ancient Rome--its female deities--Sabine women--mother and wife of Coriolanus. Cornelia. Portia. Arria. Corruption of manners in Rome--its conquest by the barbarians. Another scene of virtue and glory unfolded by the promulgation of christianity--its favourable effect on the condition of women--their zeal in its defence equal to that of men--Female martyrs. Marriage rendered indissoluble--belief of a reunion in a future state. Rise of superstition--monastic institutions. Convent. Saints Theresa, Clara, and Catharine of Siena. Conclusion.
YE heaven-taught bards, who first for human woe
And smiling round, the daughter, mother, wife,
Bright as the welcome orb that wakes to chase
Mark the last hour of Ilium,....work divine!
Slaughter has done his work: the manly brave
Destined to whirl with pain the slavish mill;
These were the days, while yet the scourge and chain
By turns they caught, they lit, the hero-flame,
Graced by the sword, the chisel, and the pen,
Receive my homage! Hark! what shouts arise
Cease, headlong Muse! resign the dangerous theme,
Mark where seven hills uprear yon stately scene,
Nor honour's law nor nuptial faith can bind,
Led by the sage, with pausing foot she roves
The indignant Muse from yon polluted ground
Dian and Vesta, powers of awful mien,
I see her rise, the chaste polluted fair,
Rome's Saviour wakes4
...."By that ennobled shade,
And who are they that lead yon suppliant train?
Hail! who thy sons to Glory's altar led,
Lift thy proud head, and proudly tell their tale;
See there the ghost of noble Portia glide,
Wild in the frighted rear the crowds recoil,
Is frighted Virtue then for ever fled
Now fresh and strong in renovated rays
From Juda's rocks the sacred light expands,
On to the death in joy....for Jesus' sake
Now comrades, equals, in the toilsome strife,
O faith, O hope divine! ordained to flow
Hence, as thy baleful spells in misty gloom
But ne'er could cloister rule or midnight bell,
Her fearful nuns see dark-browed Clara school,
Hail, lofty Catharine, visionary maid !
But cease! of amorous worship, bigot pride,
Recurrence to the subject--many varieties of female condition still unnoticed--ancient German women--inhabitants of the Haram--Hindoo
widow--fascinating French woman--English mother. Survey of a Turkish haram--mean and childish character of the women, haughty yet contemptible one of the men--fatal effects of polygamy--Man cannot degrade the female sex without degrading the whole race. Ancient Germans--their women free and honoured--hence the valour of the men,
the virtue of both sexes, the success of their resistance to Rome. Chivalry personified and depicted--his valour--his devotion to the ladies, his pure and romantic love--his lady described as endowed with all virtues and graces, but found to be a visionary being, only existing in the Fairy land of Spenser--contrasted by the giddy and unprincipled women introduced into the French court by Francis I. Gallantry, the parasite and treacherous corruptor of the sex--Man always suffers by degrading woman--public freedom dependent on domestic virtue. Switzerland virtuous when first made free--virtuous still, though opprest by France--Swiss women died fighting for their country. France not pure enough for freedom, yet had some heroines--Cordé--Roland. Transition to England--address to the author's female companions--survey of its female characters from the earliest times. Boadicea--Ethelfleda. Revival of letters gives consequence to women--Sir Thomas More and his daughter--Lady Jane Grey--Queen Elizabeth--Mrs. Hutchinson--Lady Russell. Enumeration concluded--Exhortation to Englishmen to look with favour on the mental improvement of females--to English women to improve and principle their minds, and by their merit induce the men to treat them as friends. Valediction.
FAIN would I greet my gentle friend again;
I turn, and meet the animated glance
A glorious task! were mine the godlike power,
But to that
shade fond fancy would supply
Come, pierce with me the Haram's jealous walls:
Yet turn not from the view; deign first to scan
Farewell each finer art, each softer grace,
Mark the bold contrast! hail, my friend, with me
But this he knew; to woman's feeling heart
Marked his large limbs to bracing hardship bared,
From Elbe and Weser, or some unknown North
O who may think by pedant rules to try
Courts, tourneys, camps, high dames, a dazzling train,
Where steadfast, pure, Love burned a sacred flame;
My sober lyre and moralizing strain!
I sing the Fate of Woman:....Man to man
Adds praise, and glory lights his mortal span;
Creation's lord, he shines from youth to age,
The blooming warrior or the bearded sage;
But she, frail offspring of an April morn,
Poor helpless passenger from love to scorn,
While dimpled youth her sprightly cheek adorns
Blooms a sweet rose, a rose amid the thorns;
A few short hours, with faded charms to earth
She sinks, and leaves no vestige of her birth.
Page 4
Sighs as he hangs upon her beauteous form,
Careless and cold he views the beauteous mind,
For virtue, bliss, eternity designed.
"Banish, my fair," he cries, "those studious looks;
Oh ! what should beauty learn from crabbed books?
Sweetly to speak and sweetly smile be thine;
Beware, nor change that dimple to a line !"
Well pleased, in prattle and in smiles complies;
But eyes, alas! grow dim, and roses fade,
And man contemns the trifler he has made.
The glass reversed by magic power of Spleen,
A wrinkled idiot now the fair is seen;
Then with the sex his headlong rage must cope,
And stab with Juvenal, or sting with Pope.
Be mine, while Truth with calm and artless grace
Lifts her clear mirror to the female face,
Page 5
And win a blush from Man's relenting pride.
I poise the spear, or nod the threatening crest,
Defy the law, arraign the social plan,
Throw down the gauntlet in the face of man,
And, rashly bold, divided empire claim,
Unborrowed honours, and an equal's name:
No, Heaven forbid! I touch no sacred thing,
But bow to Right Divine in man and king;
Nature endows him with superior force,
Superior wisdom then I grant, of course;
For who gainsays the despot in his might,
Or when was ever weakness in the right ?
With passive reverence too I hail the law,
Formed to secure the strong, the weak to awe,.
Impartial guardian of unerring sway,
Set up by man for woman to obey.
Page 6
He mocks our idle wrath and checks our pride;
Resign we then the club and lion's skin,
And be our sex content to knit and spin;
To bow inglorious to a master's rule,
And good and bad obey, and wise and fool;
Here a meek drudge, a listless captive there,
For gold now bartered, now as cheap as air;
Prize of the coward rich or lawless brave,
Scorned and caressed, a plaything and a slave,
Yet taught with spaniel soul to kiss the rod,
And worship man as delegate of God.
Eked out with cares and pains to us and man;
A bloody scroll that vice and folly stain,
That blushing Nature blots with tears in vain,
That frowning Wisdom reads with tone severe,
While Pity shudders with averted ear.
Page 7
Through many a distant tribe and vanisht race;
The sketch perchance shall touch the ingenuous heart,
And hint its moral with a pleasing art.
Aid me, Historic Muse! unfold thy store
Of rich, of various, never-cloying lore;
Thence Fancy flies with new-born visions fraught,
There old Experience lends his hoards to Thought.
Unconscious parent of a wondrous birth,....
As forth to light the infant-woman sprung,
By pitying angels thus her doom was sung:
"Ah! fairest creature! born to changeful skies,
To bliss and agony, to smiles and sighs:
Beauty's frail child, to thee, though doomed to bear
By far the heavier half of human care,
Deceitful Nature's stepdame-love assigned
A form more fragile, and a tenderer mind;
Page 8
And, trembling Sympathy! thy finest strings:
While ruder man she prompts, in pride of power,
To bruise, to slay, to ravage, to devour;
On prostrate weakness turn his gory steel,
And point the wounds not all thy tears can heal.
Poor victim! stern the mandate of thy birth,
Ah dote not, smile not, on the things of earth!
Subdue thyself; those rapturous flutterings still!
Armed with meek courage and a patient will,
With thoughtful eye pursue thy destined way,
Adore thy God, and hope a brighter day!"
In solemn notes thus flowed the prescient strain,....
But flowed on Eve's unpractised ear in vain;
In smiling wonder fixt, the new-born bride[In original work, this and the following two lines connected by large right brace not represented here.]
Drank the sweet gale, the glowing landscape eyed,
And murmured untried sounds, and gazed on every side.
With look benign the boding angels view
The fearless innocent, and wave adieu:
Page 9
Too short thy dream of bliss, ill-fated Eve."
Sweep the long windings of the flood of time,
Joyless and stern, your deep-toned numbers dwell
On rocks, on whirlpools, and the foaming swell,
But pass unmarked the skiffs that gaily glide
With songs and streamers down the dimpling tide:
Else rapturous notes had floated on the wind,
And hailed the stranger born to bless her kind,
To bear from heaven to earth the golden ties,
Bind willing man, and draw him to the skies.
Vainly intelligent and idly strong;
Mark his long listless step and torpid air,
His brow of densest gloom and fixt infantile stare!
Page 10
Nor drawn, sweet labour! at her kindly breast;
No mother's voice has touched that slumbering ear,
Nor glistening eye beguiled him of a tear;
Love nursed not him with sweet endearing wiles,
Nor woman taught the sympathy of smiles;
Vacant and sad his rayless glances roll,
Nor hope nor joy illumes his darkling soul;
Ah! hapless world that such a wretch obeys!
Ah! joyless Adam, though a world he sways!
Mark now the wakening youth, the wondering fair:
Sure a new soul that moping idiot warms,
Dilates his stature, and his mien informs!
A brighter crimson tints his glowing cheek;
His broad eye kindles, and his glances speak.
So roll the clouds from some vast mountain's head,
Melt into mist, and down the valleys spread;
Page 11
And burn and blaze upon his topmost height;
Broad in full day he lifts his towering crest,
And fire celestial sparkles from his breast.
Eve too, how changed!....No more with baby grace
The smile runs dimpling o'er her trackless face,
As painted meads invite her roving glance,
Or birds with liquid trill her ear intrance:
With downcast look she stands, abasht and meek,
Now pale, now rosy red, her varying cheek;
Now first her fluttering bosom heaves a sigh,
Now first a tear stands trembling in her eye;
For hark! the youth, as love and nature teach,
Breathes his full bosom, and breaks forth in speech;
His quivering lips the winged accents part,
And pierce, how swift! to Eve's unguarded heart.
And Eden opened in the heart of Man;
Page 12
Sweet converse cheered him, and a kindred mind;
Nor deem that He, beneficent and just,
In woman's hand who lodged this sacred trust,
For man alone her conscious soul informed,
For man alone her tenderer bosom warmed;
Denied to her the cup of joy to sip,
But bade her raise it to his greedy lip,
Poor instrument of bliss, and tool of ease,
Born but to serve, existing but to please:....
No;....hand in hand the happy creatures trod,
Alike the children of no partial God;
Equal
they trod till want and guilt arose,
Till Savage blood was spilt, and man had foes:
Ah! days of happiness,....with tearful eye
I see you gleam, and fade, and hurry by:
Why should my strain the darkening theme pursue ?
Be husht, my plaintive lyre! my listening friend, adieu!
Page [13]
EPISTLES
ON THE
CHARACTER AND CONDITION OF WOMEN,
IN
VARIOUS AGES AND NATIONS.EPISTLE II.
Page [14]
ARGUMENT OF EPISTLE II.
Page [15]
EPISTLE II.
Checks the weak murmur and restrains the sigh;
Once more, my friend, incline thy candid ear,
And grace my numbers with a smile and tear.
Not mine the art in solemn garb to dress
The shadowy forms of delicate distress;
With baleful charms to call from Fancy's bower
Vain shapes of dread to haunt the lonely hour;
In feverish dreams to feed the pampered thought
With heavenly bliss....on earth how vainly sought!
Fan with rash breath the passions' smouldering fire,
Whet the keen wish, the thrilling hope inspire,
Page 16
Then leave it chilled with more than wintry cold.
The rugged features of a coarser race :
Fierce on thy view the savage world shall glare,
And all the ills of wretched woman there;
Unknown to her fond love's romantic glow,
The graceful throbs of sentimental woe,
The play of passions and the feelings' strife
That weave the web of finely-chequered life.
But thou possest, unspoiled by tyrant art,
Of the large empire of a generous heart,
Thou wilt not scorn plain nature's rudest strain,
Nor homely
misery claim thy sighs in vain.
Pierce every clime, and search all ages through;
Page 17
And grasp the sisterhood of womankind:
With mingling anger mark, and conscious pride,
The sex by whom exalted or decried;
Crusht by the savage, fettered by the slave,
But served, but honoured, by the good and brave.
To new-found deserts of the Southern Main;
Beasts of strange gait there roam the trackless earth,
And monstrous compounds struggle into birth;
A younger world it seems, abortive, crude,
Where untaught Nature sports her fancies rude,
By slow gradations rears her infant plan,
And shows, half-humanized, the monster-man.
Mark the grim ruffian roll his crafty glance,
And crouching, slow, his tiger-step advance,
With brandisht club surprise his human prey,
And drag the bleeding victim bride away,
Page 18
And Rage and Terror trim the nuptial fire. 1
In want, in guilt, in lawless rapine nurst.
To the dumb tribes that plod their even life
Unbruised by tyranny, unvext by strife,
Instincts and appetites kind Nature gave,
These just supplying what the others crave;
The human brute the headlong passions rule,
While infant Reason flies the moody fool,
Hope, Fear, and Memory play their busy part
And mingle all their chaos in his heart;
Hence Vengeance fires, hence Envy's stings infest,
Hence Superstition goads his timorous breast.
O! not for him life's healthful current flows;
An equal stream that murmurs as it goes;
As rage and torpor hold alternate rule,
It roars a flood, or stagnates in a pool,
Page 19
By love or pity nurtured with a tear.
Where the red Indian's hunter-bow is strung,
(Nature's tough son, whose adamantine frame
No pleasures soften and no tortures tame)
If, fiercely pondering in her gloomy mind
The desperate ills that scowl on womankind,
The maddening mother gripes the infant slave,
And forces back the worthless life she gave?2
Die, little wretch; die once and be at peace!
Why shouldst thou live, in toil, and pain, and strife,
To curse the names of mother and of wife?
To see at large thy lordly master roam,
The beasts his portion and the woods his home,
Page 20
Poorly dependent, timorously weak,
There hush thy babe, with patient love carest,
And tearful clasp him to thy milkless breast
Hungry and faint, while feasting on his way
Thy reckless hunter wastes the jocund day?
Or, harder task, his rapid courses share,
With patient back the galling burden bear,
While he treads light, and smacks the knotted thong,
And goads with taunts his staggering troop along?
Enough;....'tis love, dear babe, that stops thy breath;
'Tis mercy lulls thee to the sleep of death:
Ah! would for me, by like indulgent doom,
A mother's hand had raised the early tomb!
O'er these poor bones the moons had rolled in vain,
And brought nor stripes nor famine, toil nor pain;
I had not sought in agony the wild,
Nor, wretched, frantic mother! killed my child."
Page 21
Inflames and chills and indurates his heart,
Arms his relentless hand with brutal force,
And drives o'er female necks his furious course.
With lavish plenty heaps the bounteous scene;
In laughing isles with broad bananas crowned,
Where tufted cocoas shade the flowery ground;
Here, here at least, where dancing seasons shed
Unfading garlands on his sleeping head,
Love melts to love, and man's ingenuous mind
Feels nature's kindness prompt him to be kind;
He acts no tyranny, he knows no strife,
One harmless holiday his easy life.
Ah cheated hopes!....see Lawless Love invade
The withering scene, and poison every shade;
Embruted nations couch beneath his yoke,
And infant gore on his dire altars smoke!
Page 22
Then swift, my friend, we turn the bashful eye.3
Shields the frail scions of each transient race,
To whom fair Nature trusts the teeming birth
That fills the air, that crowds the peopled earth,
Maternal Love! thy watchful glances roll
From zone to zone, from pole to distant pole;
Cheer the long patience of the brooding hen,
Soothe the she-fox that trembles in her den,
'Mid Greenland ice-caves warm the female bear,
And rouse the tigress from her sultry lair.
At thy command, what zeal, what ardour, fires
The softer sex! a mightier soul inspires:....
Lost to themselves, our melting eyes behold
Prudent, the simple, and the timid, bold.
All own thy sway, save where, on Simoom wing
Triumphant sailing o'er the blasted spring,
Page 23
Or Europe's polisht scenes the fiend be nurst)
Unhallowed Love bids Nature's self depart,
And makes a desert of the female heart.
But O! how oft, their tender bosoms torn
By countless shafts, thy noblest votaries mourn!
See the soft hind forsake the dewy lawns
To shroud in thicket-shades her tender fawns;
Fearless for them confront the growling foe,
And aim with hoof and head the desperate blow
Freely for them with new-born courage face
The howling horrors of the deathful chase:
Ah! fond in vain, see fired by furious heat
The jealous stag invade her soft retreat,
Wanton in rage her pleading anguish scorn,
And gore his offspring with relentless horn.
The yell rolls mingling with the billows' roar:
Page 24
"My son, my son, O spare my son!" she cries:
"Sell not thy child ! Yon dreary ocean crost,
To thee, to me, to all forever lost,
The white man's slave, no swift-returning oar
Shall homeward urge the wretched captive more,
No tidings reach:....Who then with kindly care
Shall tend our age, and leafy beds prepare?
Who climb for us the cocoa's scaly side,
Or drain the juicy palm?....who skim the tide,
Or bold in woods with pointed javelin roam,
And bear to us the savoury booty home?
Save thine own flesh!....we must not, will not part....
O save this bleeding, bursting, mother's heart!"
That bids the husband and the father, spare!
On to the mart the sable tyrant drives
His flocks of children and his herds of wives:
Page 25
And broken female hearts are paid with gold;
Exulting Avarice gripes his struggling prize,
The savage tenders, and the christian....buys
. 4
From tints too lively, numbers too sincere?
Swift wouldst thou fly to some unspotted scene
Where love and nature rule the blue serene?
Hail, Pastoral Life; to thy calm scenes belong
The lore of sages and the poet's song;
Nurse of rude man, in whose soft lap reclined,[In original work, this and following two lines connected by large right brace not represented here.]
Art, science, dawn upon his wakening mind,
And passion's tender strains, and sentiment refined!
Stretched by his nightly flock, the vacant swain,
His upturned gaze as sportful fancy warmed,
With ready crook the sand-drawn monsters formed;
Page 26
To track yon orbs, to sweep yon pathless sky.
While still young David roamed the pastoral wild,
The harp, the song, his ardent soul beguiled,
And now to heaven upsoared the ethereal flame,
Now blazed some humble charmer's rustic fame.
E'en now, by Freedom led, see gay Content
Stoop from above, to shepherd-wanderers sent;
See o'er the green expanse of pathless plain
The sunburnt Tartars urge the tented wain;
How gay the living prospect! far and wide
Spread flocks and herds, and shouting herdsmen ride;
And hark! from youths and maids, a mingled throng,
How full, how joyous, bursts the choral song!
They till not, bowed by tyranny and toil;
Nor troll the deep for life's precarious stay;
Nor, beastlike, roam the tangled woods for prey;
Page 27
Labour with plenty, and with freedom, care:
Yet seek not here the boon, all boons above,
The generous intercourse of equal love;
A homely drudge, the Tartar matron knows
No eye that kindles and no heart that glows;
For foreign charms the faithless husband burns,
And clasps in loathed embrace, which fear returns,
The captive wife or tributary maid
By conquest snatched, or lawless terror paid. 5
Arcadian blossoms scorn the fields of earth;
No lovelorn swains, to tender griefs a prey,
Sigh, sing, and languish through the livelong day;
No rapturous husband and enamoured wife,
To live and love their only care in life,
With crook and scrip on flowery banks reclined
Breathe the warm heart and share the answering mind:
Page 28
In jovial dance his dusky partner leads,
And vacant Hottentots, short labour done,
Toy, pipe, and carol, in the evening sun;
But the high promptings of the conscious soul
The weak that elevate, the strong control,
Respect, decorum, friendship, ties that bind
To woman's form the homage of the mind,
Heaven's nobler gifts, to riper ages lent,
Disdain the hunter's cave, the shepherd's tent,
And lawless
man, or cold, or fierce, or rude,
Proves every mode of female servitude.
Page [29]
EPISTLES
ON THE
CHARACTER AND CONDITION OF WOMEN,
IN
VARIOUS AGES AND NATIONS.EPISTLE III.
Page [30]
ARGUMENT OF EPISTLE III.
Page [31]
EPISTLE III.
Bade human tears to melting numbers flow;
Ye godlike sages, who with plastic hand
Moulded rude man, and arts and cities planned;
Ye holy patriots, whose protecting name[In original work, this and following two lines connected by large right brace not represented here.]
Still lives, and issuing from the trump of fame
Fans sacred Freedom's everlasting flame,
All hail!....by you sublimed, the expanding heart
First learned the bliss its blessings to impart;
The fierce barbarian checked his headlong course,
And bent to Wisdom's hand his yielded force;
Each loftier Virtue bowed to meet the brave,
And clasped, a freeman, whom she scorned, a slave;
Page 32
Fed the dear charities of social life.
The polar Night from Earth's reviving face....
(Grim Power that shakes the meteor from his hair,
While shaggy prowlers in the fitful glare
Roam with rude yells along the mountains drear,
Ravening and yet undisciplined to fear)
Behold, my friend, with pleased and anxious gaze
Fair Reason's day-star light her gradual blaze;
Pant up the steepness of her high career,
And win by toil the empire of the sphere;
While with slow hand the ungenial shades withdrawn,
Vapours and tempests struggle with the dawn.
Sunk her proud towers, and sunk each holy shrine:
Page 33
Sighed as they fell, despairing of a grave.
Yet, weep not them! behold yon captive train;
Houseless and bound they strew the smoking plain;
Matrons and maids, gray sires and babes are there,
Shrill wails and frantic screams, deep groans and dumb despair.
Hark! 'tis the lost Andromache that shrieks,
Her loose locks rent, and bruised her bleeding cheeks:
Home the proud victor bears his beauteous prize;
For death, for death she sues with fruitless cries.
Ah ! might she wait that kind, that last release,
And drain the dregs of bitterness in peace!
But no;....she bears the vengeful brand of strife,
Fires the loose rover, stings the jealous wife
What scorn, what rage, the wretched captive waits,
Envied and hated for the love she hates!
The rest, a mingled, nameless, feeble throng,
The savage squadrons drive with taunts along,
Page 34
Bear ponderous logs, and sparkling goblets fill
To hostile Gods; explore the distant spring,
And faint with heat the cooling burthen bring;
In housewife tasks the midnight hours employ,
And lave those feet that spurned the dust of Troy.[*]
Quivered and clanked in wild War's demon train,
When Honour first his calm firm phalanx ranged;
Fury to Valour, men to heroes changed:
And mark! emerging from the gulf of night,
What towering phantom strikes our wondering sight?
Fierce with strange joy she stands, the battle won,
Elate and tearless o'er her slaughtered son.
"He died for Sparta, died unknown to fear,
His wounds all honest, and his shield his bier;
And shall I weep?" Stern daughters of the brave,
Thus maids and matrons hailed the Spartan's grave;
Page 35
And scorned the Woman's for the Patriot's name;
Unmoved, unconquered, bowed to fate's decree,
And taught in chains the lesson....to be free. 1
Souls of gigantic mould, they fill our gaze
With pigmy wonder and despairing praise:....
Thus when, 'mid western wilds, the delver's toil
Reared the huge mammoth from the quaking soil,
Columbia's swains in mute amazement eyed
And heaved the monstrous frame from side to side;
Saw bones on bones in mouldering ruin lie,
And owned the relics of a world gone by:....
Yet self-same clay our limbs of frailty formed,
And hearts like ours those dreadless bosoms warmed;
But war, and blood, and Danger's gorgon face,
Froze into stone the unconquerable race.
Athens! illustrious seat of far-famed men,
Page 36
As Phryne gilds the pomp of sacrifice!
To Beauty's Queen the graceful dance they twine,
Trill the warm hymn, and dress the flowery shrine;
Priestess of love she fills the eager gaze,
And fires and shares the worship that she pays.
Haste, sculptor, haste! that form, that heavenly face
Catch ere they fade, and fix the mortal grace;
Phryne in gold shall deck the sacred fane,
And Pallas' virgin image frown in vain. 2
Rise, bright Aspasia, too! thy tainted name
Sails down secure through infamy to fame;
Statesmen and bards and heroes bend the knee,
Nor blushes Socrates to learn of thee.
Thy wives, proud Athens! fettered and debased,
Listlessly duteous, negatively chaste,
O vapid summary of a slavish lot!
They sew and spin, they die and are forgot.
Page 37
Perish the glory that defies esteem!
Inspire thy trump at Virtue's call alone,
And blush to blazon whom She scorns to own.
And reedy Tiber lingering winds between:
Ah mournful view! ah check to human pride!
There Glory's ghost and Empire's phantom glide:
Shrunk art thou, mighty Rome; the ivy crawls,
The vineyard flaunts, within thy spacious walls;
Still, still, Destruction plies his iron mace,
And fanes and arches totter to their base:
Thy sons....O traitors to their fathers' fame!
O last of men, and Romans but in name!
See where they creep with still and listless tread,
While cowls, not helmets, veil the inglorious head.
If then, sad partner of her country's shame,
To nobler promptings deaf, the Latian dame
Page 38
Vagrant and light of eye, of air, of mind,....
Whom now a vile gallant's obsequious cares
Engage, now mass, processions, penance, prayers,....
Think not 'twas always thus:.... what generous view,
What noble aim that noble men pursue,
Has never woman shared? As o'er the plain
The sun-drawn shadow tracks the wandering swain,
Treads in his footsteps, counterfeits his gait,
Erect or stooping, eager or sedate;
Courses before, behind, in mimic race,
Turns as he turns, and hunts him pace by pace;....
Thus, to the sex when milder laws ordain
A lighter fetter and a longer chain,
Since freedom, fame, and lettered life began,
Has faithful woman tracked the course of man.
Strains his firm step for Glory's dazzling height,
Panting she follows with a proud delight;
Page 39
By classic fountains and religious groves;
In Pleasure's path if strays her treacherous guide,
By fate compelled, she deviates at his side,....
Yet seeks with tardier tread the downward way,
Averted eyes, and timorous, faint delay.
In mystic fable thus, together trod
The dire Bellona and the Warrior God;
The golden Archer and chaste Huntress' queen
With deaths alternate strewed the sickening scene;
And Jove-born Pallas shared the Thunderer's state,
The shield of horror and the nod of fate.
Shall chase the vampire forms that flit around;
Restore the scene with one commanding glance;
Awake old Rome, and bid her shades advance:
A sad but glorious pageant!....First are borne
Her sculptured deities, and seem to mourn;
Page 40
And in her purer garb the Paphian Queen;
Here smiles the Appeaser of the angry spouse,3
There distaffed
Pallas knits her thoughtful brows;
Imperial Juno rears her head on high,
Unspotted guardian of the nuptial tie.
See then advance with wild disordered charms
The matron Sabines....prize of lawless arms....
Such as they rushed athwart the clanging fight,
Bold in their fears and strong in nature's right:
Each lifts her babe; the babe, 'mid vengeful strife,
Lisps to his grandsire for his father's life;
The vanquisht grandsire clasps the blooming boy;
Rage sinks in tears, in smiles, in shouting joy;
Peace joins their hands, Love mingles race with race,
And Woman triumphs in the wide embrace.
And claim the death of honour in despair.
Page 41
By this pure blood, and by this reeking blade,
Vengeance I swear!"....Heaven blessed the generous rage
That lit the splendours of a brightening age;
The patriot spark from dying honour springs,
And female virtue buys....the flight of Kings.
Mother and wife, when Latium's fertile plain
Fierce Volscians trod, the rebel's armed hate
They soothed, and soothing saved the tottering state:
Rome crowned the sex....a high and graceful meed....
And bade yon temple consecrate the deed.5
And boldly called her lightnings on their head:
What though they fell? the pure ethereal flame.
Touched but the life, and spared the nobler fame.
Page 42
Cornelia, mother of the Gracchi, hail!
Cato to lead, and Brutus at her side!
Souls have no sex; sublimed by Virtue's lore
Alike they scorn the earth and try to soar;
Buoyant alike on daring wing they rise
As Emulation nerves them for the skies.
See Pætus' wife, by strong affection manned,
Taste the sharp steel and give it to his hand:
But what avails? On Rome's exhausted soil
Nor patriots' fattening blood, nor heroes' toil,
One plant, one stem, of generous growth may rear
To grace the dark December of her year.
Whelmed in the flood of vice, one putrid heap,
Rank, sex, age, race, are hurried to the deep;
Low-bending sycophant and upstart knave,
Athlete and mime, loose dame and minion slave.
Page 43
Urged by the barbarous brood of war and spoil;
Nearer and nearer yet, with harpy rush
They sweep; they pounce, they violate, they crush;
Flap their triumphant wings o'er grovelling Rome,
And roost in Glory's desolated home.
Scared at the portent, see the phantom train
Veil their wreathed brows; then, rising in disdain,
With thunders borne upon the howling wind,
Leave Rome and all her infamy behind.
To veil in heaven her scorned and houseless head,
While Vice and Misery lord it here below
O'er God's waste scene of bliss and beauty? No!
Virtue, pure essence mingled with the whole,
Its subtle, viewless, all-inspiring soul,....
Virtue, the mental world's pervading fire,
Unquenched remains, or nature must expire.
Page 44
She flings on eastern hills the glorious blaze;
Now, wrapt in richer lustre, slopes her beams
Tranquil and sweet along the western streams;
Now, with faint twinkling of a single star,
She greets the guideless pilgrim from afar;
And red with anger now, a dreadful form,
She glares in lightning through the howling storm.
And beams and broadens into distant lands;
Heaven's thunder speaks, the mighty bolt is hurled;
Pride, bite the dust! and quake, thou guilty world!
But, O ye weak, beneath a master's rod
Trembling and prostrate, own a helping God!
Ardent in faith, through bonds and toil and loss
Bear the glad tidings, triumph in the cross!
Away with woman's fears! proud man shall own
As proud a mate on Virtue's loftiest throne;
Page 45
Writhed on the rack, or blackening at the stake,
Scorn the vain splendours of the world below,
And soar to bliss that only martyrs know!6
Partners of glory and coheirs of life,
See sex to sex with port sublimer turn,
And steadier flames and holier ardours burn;
At God's pure altar pledged, the nuptial band
Turns to a lifelong vow, and dreads no severing hand;
E'en death, they deem, (once sped the second blow
That social lays the sad survivor low,
Shrowds the dissolving forms in kindred gloom,
Mingles in dust and marries in the tomb,)
With stronger, purer, closer ties shall bind
The blest communion of the immortal mind,
Free the winged soul to larger bliss above,
And ope the heaven of everlasting love.
Page 46
A stream of comfort through the vales of woe!
Rise, mystic dove! explore on venturous wing
The wastes of winter and the wilds of spring;
Bear back thine olive from the emerging strand,
Restore the virtues, and redeem the land:
Rebel no more, again repentant man
Shall own, shall bless, the mighty Maker's plan;
Heaven's warmest beam salute his second birth,
And one wide Eden round the peopled earth.
Vain hope! the wretch, or slave or tyrant born,
Who looked with terror up, or down with scorn,
Untaught to hope in that all-seeing mind
Unbounded love with boundless power combined,
Self-judged, self-doomed, a timorous outcast trod,
Nor dared to claim a father in his God:
Hence, Superstition, spleenful, doting, blind,
Thy mystic horrors shake his palsied mind;
Page 47
Wrap the fair earth and dim her orient bloom,
'Wildered, the maniac eyes a fancied waste,
And starves 'mid banquets that he dares not taste.
The yawning cloister shows its living grave,
Receives the trembler, and confirms him....slave.
And thee, O woman, formed with smiling mien
To temper man, and gild the social scene,....
Bid home-born blessings, home-born virtues rise,
And light the sunbeam in a husband's eyes,....
Thy dearest bliss the sound of infant mirth,
His heart thy chief inheritance on earth,....
Thee too, as fades around heaven's blessed light,
And age to age rolls on a darker night,
With steely gripe the exulting hag invades,
And drags relentless to her sullen shades:
O hear the sighs that break the sluggish air[In original work, this and following two lines connected by large right brace not represented here.]
Mixt with the convent hymn, the convent prayer,
The languid lip-devotion of despair!
Page 48
Penance, or fast, in dank and lonesome cell,
Break the mind's spring, or stupefy to rest
The master-passion of an ardent breast.
In that dim cell the rapt Theresa lies
Ingulft and lost in speechless ecstasies;
All-powerful Love has lit the holy flame,
The fewel altered, but the fire the same.7
And tight and tighter strain her rigid rule:
Claims not the Thirst of Sway his lion's part
E'en in that pale ascetic's bloodless heart?8
Carest by princes, by a pope obeyed;
Nor blush to own, though dead to all below,
A brave ambition and a patriot glow.9
Page 49
Distorted virtue, talent misapplied,
No more:....with anxious heart and straining mind
Long have I scanned the annals of the kind;
Here let me pause, o'erwearied and opprest;
Thou, my calm friend, thou moralize the rest.
Page [50]
Page [51]
EPISTLES
ON THE
CHARACTER AND CONDITION OF WOMEN,
VARIOUS AGES AND NATIONS.EPISTLE IV.
Page [52]
ARGUMENT OF EPISTLE IV.
Page [53]
EPISTLE IV.
Yet how renew, or where conclude, the strain?
Still as I gaze what mingled throngs appear!
What varying accents rush upon my ear!
Stern, awful, chaste, in savage freedom bred,
Here, German matrons shout o'er Varus dead;
There, languid beauties, 'mid a haram's gloom,
In jealous bickerings pine away their bloom;
Here, well-dissembling, with a decent pride,
The victim-widow laves in Ganges' tide,
Clasps the loathed corse, invites the dreaded flame,
And dies in anguish, not to live with shame.
Page 54
Shot by the dames of gay seductive France;
Then melting catch the gaze, so fond, so mild,
Some English mother bends upon her child.
A thought, a look, a line, the meanest ask
To swell my growing tale, and lengthen out my task.
By Genius snatched in some propitious hour,
To bid the fleeting airy forms be still,
Or move, or change, obedient to my will;
Then fix the groupe, and pour in living light
Its vivid picture on the enraptured sight,
And bid it speak, in forceful tones and clear,
To Truth and Feeling just, to Fancy dear.
It may not be:....my fainter sketch shall glide
Like dim reflections on an evening tide;
My task like hers, the soft Corinthian maid,
To trace a tintless shadow of a shade!
Page 55
The bloom, the grace, the all-expressive eye;
Still would she gaze, till swam her cheated sight,
And the true lover blessed her wild delight.
Me such bright dreams delude not:....thoughtful, cold,
The fading lines I languidly behold;
But thou, my friend, assert the generous part,
O praise, O foster, with a partial heart!
So shall the power my happier pencil guide,
And Friendship grant me what the Muse denied.
I see, I see, the soul-degraded thralls!
With childlike smile, one glittering dame surveys
Her splendid caftan
and her diamonds' blaze;
One spreads the henna
; one with sable dye
Wakes the dim lustre of her languid eye;1
Some seek the bath:.... O life, are these thy joys ?
These all thy cares ? How the dull prospect cloys!
Page 56
That lordly thing, the Asiatic Man.
O speaking lesson! marked with grateful awe;
Self is his God, his wildest will is law;
Him Beauty serves, all emulous to bless;
Yet where his envied, dear-bought happiness?
'Tis his,....each proud, each manly virtue wreckt,
Truth, science, freedom lost in base neglect,....
A pampered slave, in lazy state to sit
Shut from the sun of reason and of wit,
By senses cloyed of sensual bliss bereft,
And a dull drug his only refuge left.
One equal sole companion, skilled to blend
In one dear name the mistress and the friend,
Was Nature's boon; but when insatiate Man
Grasps wider joys, and scorns her sacred plan,
Farewell life's loveliest charm, farewell the glow
Affection casts upon the scene below;
Page 57
All that adorns and all that lifts the race!
Woman no more, a deed-inspiring mate,
Shall fan the kindling glories of the state;
Suspicion's evil eye, with dire control,
Blights all the fairest blossoms of her soul,
And bids each rankling thorn, each poisonous weed,
A hostile crop, by righteous doom succeed.
Man, stamp the moral on thy haughty mind:
Degrade the sex, and thou degrad'st the kind!2
The generous son of German liberty:
Barbarian? Yes: To spread the winged sail
Of venturous Commerce to the speeding gale,
To urge his ploughshare o'er the conquered soil,
And earn from Culture's hand the meed of toil,
As yet he knew not; nurst amid alarms,
His care was freedom, his rude trade was arms:
Page 58
Its best its dearest tribute to impart;
Not the cheap falsehoods of a flattering strain,
Not idle gauds, vain incense to the vain;
But such high fellowship, such honoured life
As throws a glory round the exulting wife,
Seats her revered, sublime, on Virtue's throne,
Judge of his honour, guardian of her own.3
Dear was to him the birthright of the free;
More welcome death than her captivity;
And hence
his valour's rude but vigorous stroke
Stunned Rome, and snapped her vainly-fitted yoke;
(So swells Araxes foaming in his pride,
So wrecks the insulting Spanner of his tide;)4
And still he lives along the warning page
Of piercing Tacitus:...Prophetic Sage!
With awe, with envy, with a patriot dread,
He saw the Western Genius lift his head;
Page 59
His stubborn mind for worst extremes prepared;
Marked the chaste virtues of his frugal home,
And read the destinies of stooping Rome.5
Derived, what bold yet courteous form rides forth
To view? At all points armed, with lance in rest,
Gilded his spurs, and plumed his haughty crest;
One steel-clad arm uprears a silver shield,
"Such is my faith!" upon its burnisht field
The motto quaint; its fond device, a heart
That burns and bleeds with Cupid's fiery dart.
Claspt to his mailed breast he bears a glove,
Dear parting token of his lady-love:
At speed he comes; he 'lights, he bends the knee
Proud where she sits....It is, 'tis Chivalry!......
Love's gallant martyr! Honour's generous child!
Thy bright extravagance, thy darings wild,
Page 60
That owns a woman's heart, a poet's eye;
An eye by Glory's dazzling glance controled,
A coward heart that dotes upon the bold?
How dear the contrast! he, whose haughty brow
Scowls on the pride of man, nor deigns to bow;
Stung by a look, who challenges the strife
Where angry comrades stake the bauble, life;
Humble and suppliant bows her scorn to meet,
And soothes himself to meekness at her feet:
Then, at a word, again her own true knight
Tilts for her fame, or combats in her right.
A masque of glory, danced before his brain;
He lived in trance, and so the enchantment wrought
That 'mid the high illusions of his thought
Passion grew worship, and his heart a shrine
Where Beauty reigned all awful and divine;
Page 61
Long years it burned, unquenchably the same,
Fed but on looks, and fanned with suppliant breath,
To her whose smile was life, whose frown was death.
But she, his Goddess; how may fancy trace
Her bright perfections and amazing grace?
Methinks I see a sweet and holy band,