Bluestockings: Women of Reason from Enlightenment to Romanticism

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Bluestockings Women of Reason from Enlightenment to Romanticism

Elizabeth Eger

Palgrave Studies in the Enlightenment, Romanticism and Cultures of Print

Editorial Board: Isobel Armstrong, Birkbeck; John Bender, Stanford; Alan Bewell, Toronto; Peter de Bolla, Cambridge; Robert Miles, Stirling; Claudia L. Johnson, Princeton; Saree Makdisi, UCLA; Felicity Nussbaum, UCLA; Mary Poovey, NYU; Janet Todd, Glasgow Palgrave Studies in the Enlightenment, Romanticism and Cultures of Print will feature work that does not fit comfortably within established boundaries – whether between periods or between disciplines. Uniquely, it will combine efforts to engage the power and materiality of print with explorations of gender, race and class. By attending as well to intersections of literature with the visual arts, medicine, law and science, the series will enable a large-scale rethinking of the origins of modernity. Titles include: Scott Black OF ESSAYS AND READING IN EARLY MODERN BRITAIN Claire Brock THE FEMINIZATION OF FAME, 1750–1830 Brycchan Carey BRITISH ABOLITIONISM AND THE RHETORIC OF SENSIBILITY Writing, Sentiment, and Slavery, 1760–1807 E. J. Clery THE FEMINIZATION DEBATE IN 18th-CENTURY ENGLAND Literature, Commerce and Luxury Adriana Craciun BRITISH WOMEN WRITERS AND THE FRENCH REVOLUTION Citizens of the World Peter de Bolla, Nigel Leask and David Simpson (editors) LAND, NATION AND CULTURE, 1740–1840 Thinking the Republic of Taste Elizabeth Eger BLUESTOCKINGS Women of Reason from Enlightenment to Romanticism Ina Ferris and Paul Keen (editors) BOOKISH HISTORIES Books, Literature, and Commercial Modernity, 1700–1900 Ian Haywood BLOODY ROMANTICISM Spectacular Violence and the Politics of Representation, 1776–1832 Anthony S. Jarrells BRITAIN’S BLOODLESS REVOLUTIONS 1688 and the Romantic Reform of Literature

10.1057/9780230250505 - Bluestockings, Elizabeth Eger

Copyright material from www.palgraveconnect.com - licensed to Universitetsbiblioteket i Tromso - PalgraveConnect - 2011-03-14

General Editors: Professor Anne K. Mellor and Professor Clifford Siskin

Michelle Levy FAMILY AUTHORSHIP AND ROMANTIC PRINT CULTURE

Tom Mole BYRON’S ROMANTIC CELEBRITY Industrial Culture and the Hermeneutic of Intimacy Nicola Parsons READING GOSSIP IN EARLY EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY ENGLAND Erik Simpson LITERARY MINSTRELSY, 1770–1830 Minstrels and Improvisers in British, Irish and American Literature Mary Waters BRITISH WOMEN WRITERS AND THE PROFESSION OF LITERARY CRITICISM, 1789–1832 Esther Wohlgemut ROMANTIC COSMOPOLITANISM David Worrall THE POLITICS OF ROMANTIC THEATRICALITY, 1787–1832 The Road to the Stage

Palgrave Studies in the Enlightenment, Romanticism and Cultures of Print Series Standing Order ISBN 978–1–4039–3408–6 hardback 978–1–4039–3409–3 paperback (outside North America only) You can receive future titles in this series as they are published by placing a standing order. Please contact your bookseller or, in case of difficulty, write to us at the address below with your name and address, the title of the series and the ISBN quoted above. Customer Services Department, Macmillan Distribution Ltd, Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS, England



Robert Miles ROMANTIC MISFITS

Bluestockings Copyright material from www.palgraveconnect.com - licensed to Universitetsbiblioteket i Tromso - PalgraveConnect - 2011-03-14

Women of Reason from Enlightenment to Romanticism Elizabeth Eger


© Elizabeth Eger 2010

No portion of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, Saffron House, 6-10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The author has asserted her right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2010 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Palgrave Macmillan in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan in the US is a division of St Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN-13: 978–0–230–20533–8 hardback This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 Printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Antony Rowe, Chippenham and Eastbourne



All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission.

List of Plates

vi

Acknowledgements

ix

List of Abbreviations

xi

Textual Note on Elizabeth Montagu’s Correspondence Introduction: The Nine Living Muses of Great Britain

xii 1

1 Living Muses: the Female Icon

32

2 The Bluestocking Salon: Patronage, Correspondence and Conversation

59

3 ‘Female Champions’: Women Critics of Shakespeare

121

4 The Bluestocking Legacy in the Romantic Era

163

Conclusion

203

Notes

211

Bibliography

245

Index

270

v



Contents

1 Richard Samuel, The Nine Living Muses of Great Britain c National (c. 1778), oil on canvas, 132.1cm × 154.9cm Portrait Gallery, London (NPG 4905) 2 Page (after Richard Samuel), The Nine Living Muses of Great c British Museum Britain (1777), engraving, 12.5cm × 10cm 3 Angelica Kauffman, ‘Design’ (c. 1778–80), oil on canvas, 130cm × 150.3cm. One of four ceiling decorations for the entrance hall of the Royal Academy of Arts: ‘Invention’, ‘Composition’, ‘Design’ and ‘Colour’, the Royal Academy of Arts, London 4 Catherine Read, Elizabeth Carter (c. 1765), oil on canvas, 72cm × 59cm. Dr Johnson’s House Trust, Gough Square, London 5 Sir Joshua Reynolds, Mrs. Sheridan as St. Cecilia (1775). Exhibited at the Royal Academy, 1775. Oil on canvas, 50cm × 31.5cm. Waddesdon, The Rothschild Collection (The National Trust). Photo: Mike Fear 6 J.F. Moore, Catharine Macaulay as ‘History’ (1778), marble statue, height 200cm. Now standing outside the public library in Warrington. Warrington Borough Council: Libraries, Heritage and Learning 7 John Raphael Smith, after Joshua Reynolds, Mrs Montagu c British Museum (1776), mezzotint, 50cm × 35.5cm 8 Frontispiece for Elizabeth Griffith, ed., Novellettes, selected for the use of Young Ladies and Gentlemen (London, 1780), 12cm × 19cm. Bodleian Library, Oxford 9 Bartalozzi, engraving of Charlotte Lennox after a portrait by Joshua Reynolds. Reproduced in Sylvester and Edward Harding, printers, Shakespeare illustrated by an assemblage of portraits and views, appropriated to the whole suite of our author’s historical dramas; to which are added, portraits of actors, c National editors, &c (London, 1793), 19cm × 13.8cm Portrait Gallery London (NPG D13802) 10 Frances Reynolds, Hannah More (1780), oil on canvas, 88.3cm × 75.6cm. Bristol’s Museums, Galleries and Archives 11 William Say (after the portrait by Sir Joshua Reynolds, 1777–79), Members of the Society of the Dilettanti (1812–16), c British Museum mezzotint, 57.9cm × 41.6cm vi


2 4

6

8

10

12 14

16

18 19

24


List of Plates

12 Frontispiece to Thomas Heywood, The Generall History of Women, Containing the Lives of the most Holy and Prophane, the most Famous and Infamous in all ages, exactly described not only from Poeticall Fictions, but from the most Ancient, Modern, and Admired Historians to Our Times (London, 1657), 13cm × 21cm. Reproduced by kind permission of the Syndics of Cambridge University Library 13 Page (after Richard Samuel), The Nine Living Muses of Great Britain, Engraving (1777), 12.5cm × 10cm, from The Ladies New and Polite Pocket-Memorandum Book 1778 published by Joseph Johnson. Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington, DC 14 Derry Moore, 12th Earl of Drogheda, Modern Muses of Great Britain (1996), digital C-type colour print, 105mm × 470mm. Country Life 15 James Barry, The Society of the Encouragement of Arts &c in the distribution of the Premiums to the Society of Arts (1791), etching, c National Portrait Gallery, London. This 420mm × 505mm engraving was made by Barry to record his much larger mural, 15 2 × 11 10 painted for his grand series The Progress of Human Knowledge and Culture and now restored and possible to view at the Royal Society of Arts 16 Richard Earlom (after Johann Zoffany), The Academicians of the Royal Academy (1773), mezzotint, 506mm × 721mm. c British Museum Published by Robert Sayer 17 Charles Bestland (after Henry Singleton, 1795), Assembly of the Royal Academicians (1802), stipple engraving, c National Portrait Gallery, London 645mm × 805mm 18 Angelica Kauffman, The Artist Hesitating Between the Arts of Music and Painting (1791 or 1794), oil on canvas, 1473mm × 2159mm. Nostell Priory, the St Oswald Collection (acquired by the National Trust with the help of the Heritage Lottery Fund c NTPL/John Hammond in 2002) 19 Simon Gribelin (after Paolo de Matthaeis), The Judgement of Hercules (1713), in Anthony Ashley Cooper, Earl of Shaftesbury, Characteristicks of men, manners, Opinions, Times, 3rd edition, 17cm × 10.8cm. The Syndics of the Cambridge University Library 20 Angelica Kauffman, Self-Portrait in the Character of Painting Embraced by Poetry (1782), oil on canvas, 61 cm, tondo. The Iveagh Bequest, Kenwood 21 G.S. and I.G. Facius (after Angelica Kauffman), Sappho Inspired by Love, stipple engraving, 357mm × 265mm. Published by c The British Museum Boydell, 1778


vii

37

39

44

45

48

50

52

53

54

55


List of Plates

viii List of Plates


64 65

66

82

84

86

102

124

204


22 Portrait medallion of Mrs Montagu, jasper ware (stoneware) oval cameo; white relief bust, profile to right, moulded and applied to pale blue ground with gilt metal frame, c The British Museum 42mm × 35mm × 4mm 23 Allan Ramsay, Elizabeth Montagu (1762), oil on canvas, 1257mm × 1003mm. Private Collection 24 Abelard and Eloisa (c. 1775–78), hand-coloured mezzotint, c British 350mm × 245mm. Published by Bowles and Carver Museum 25 J. Taylor Jr, Miss More Presenting the Bristol Milkwoman to Mrs Montagu (published 1785), engraving, 105mm × 130 mm. Private Collection 26 Joseph Grozer (after Sarah Shiells), Ann Yearsley (1787), c National Portrait Gallery, mezzotint, 447mm × 332mm London 27 Mrs Montagu and Mrs Barbauld in the Westminster Magazine, June 1776. Line engraving after Thomas Holloway, 159mm × c National Portrait Gallery, London 98mm 28 James Basire (after Giovanni Battista Cipriani), Catharine Macaulay as Libertas (1765), line engraving, 301mm × 235mm c National Portrait Gallery, London 29 Caroline Watson (after Robert Edge Pine), David Garrick with Statue of William Shakespeare (1783), stipple engraving, 447mm × 620mm. The inscription reads: ‘To Mrs Montagu, c British Museum this Plate is most respectfully inscribed’ 30 Thomas Rowlandson, Breaking up of the Bluestocking Club c British (1815), hand-coloured etching, 246mm × 349mm Museum

I would like to thank all those who have helped me with this project. Marilyn Butler, Peter de Bolla and the late Mary Macrae were inspirational teachers at critical points and I am extremely grateful for their encouragement. In particular I want to thank Annie Janowitz for her generosity and guidance in all that matters. I would also like to thank many colleagues and friends for their advice and help: Danielle Allen, Maxine Berg, Clare Brant, Susan Carlile, Kate Chisholm, Norma Clarke, Emma Clery, Markman Ellis, Emma Francis, Heather Glen, Charlotte Grant, Judith Hawley, Gary Kelly, Larry Klein, Devoney Looser, Jo McDonagh, Jon Mee, Anne Mellor, Marilyn Morris, Felicity Nussbaum, Karen O’Brien, Lucy Peltz, Barbara Placido, Nicole Pohl, Leah Price, Kate Retford, Betty Schellenberg, Lydia Syson, Neil Vickers and Sue Wiseman. I would like to thank my PhD examiners Isobel Armstrong and Simon Jarvis, and the anonymous readers of the manuscript for Palgrave, for all their invaluable suggestions in improving the text. Many thanks are due to the editorial team at Palgrave: Paula Kennedy, Steven Hall and Barbara Slater. I am very grateful to King’s College Cambridge, who funded my graduate research (from which this book derives). Later I was extremely fortunate to have research fellowships at the University of Warwick, working on ‘The Luxury Project’, and at the University of Liverpool. I would like to thank all my present colleagues in the English department at King’s College London for their support. Fittingly enough for a book about bluestockings, I have been sustained by various intellectual networks, including the Cambridge Conference Collective (Charlotte Grant, Clíona Ó Gallchoir and Penny Warburton); the Feminism and Enlightenment Project, run by Barbara Taylor and Sarah Knott; the Enlightenment and Romanticism Reading Group in the Institute of English Studies, Senate House; and my students, particularly Clare Barlow and Fiona Ritchie. I am very grateful to Maggie Powell of the Walpole Library, University of Yale, and to Roy Ritchie of the Huntington Library, California, who granted me two fellowships that were crucial to my research, and to the staff of the British Library, the London Library, and the Maughan Library at King’s College London. Celia Joicey at the National Portrait Gallery helped me with pictures, and I’d like to express my thanks to all at the NPG, where Lucy Peltz and I worked on the exhibition, ‘Brilliant Women: 18th Century Bluestockings’, March–June 2008. ix



Acknowledgements

Acknowledgements

Parts of this book have appeared, in earlier versions, in Women, Writing, and the Public Sphere, 1700–1830, eds Elizabeth Eger, Charlotte Grant, Clíona Ó Gallchoir and Penny Warburton (Cambridge, 2000), Reconsidering the Bluestockings, eds Nicole Pohl and Betty Schellenberg (San Marino, California: Huntington Library, 2003) and Women, Gender and Enlightenment, eds Sarah Knott and Barbara Taylor (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005). I am grateful to the relevant editors for their critical input and for permission to include the material here. I would also like to thank the Huntington Library for permission to quote extensively from the manuscript collection of Elizabeth Montagu’s correspondence. My greatest debt is to the love, friendship and conversation of my family. My parents, Selina and John, inspired my sister, Helen, and me with a love of books and paintings from early on. More recently, my children, Emily and James, have provided happy distraction. Nick has always found time to listen, read and encourage. I could not have completed this book without him.



x

MO MMEM

Clim

Blunt

From manuscript collection of Montagu’s letters at the Huntington Library, San Marino, California, USA Matthew Montagu, ed., The Letters of Elizabeth Montagu, with Some of the Letters of her Correspondents, 4 vols (London: Printed for T. Cadell and W. Davies, 1809–1813) Emily Climenson, Elizabeth Montagu, The Queen of the Bluestockings: Her Correspondence from 1720 to 1761, 2 vols (London: John Murray, 1906) Blunt, Reginald, ed., Mrs Montagu, ‘Queen of the Blues’: Her Letters and Friendships from 1762 to 1800, 2 vols (London: Constable, 1923)

xi



List of Abbreviations

My book draws widely upon the substantial body of surviving correspondence between Elizabeth Montagu and her circle, held by the Huntington Library in California.1 The collection consists of nearly seven thousand letters to and from Montagu, and provides an invaluable record of the social and intellectual relationships between men and women in this period. The Montagu Collection is unlike most preserved archives in that it often contains both sides of a correspondence, allowing the reader to eavesdrop on literary conversations or witness business transactions in full detail. While over half the letters are written by Montagu herself, the collection also contains those written to her by her wider circle of friends, providing a fascinating cross-section of English literary, social and political life. In addition to Montagu’s letters to her sister Sarah Scott, her husband Edward Montagu and her closest friend Elizabeth Carter, there are several to and from Margaret Bentinck, Duchess of Portland, Frances Boscawen, George, Lord Lyttelton, Messenger Monsey, William Pulteney, Earl of Bath, Elizabeth Vesey, Gilbert West and William Wilberforce. There are also single or few pieces penned by other prominent figures in her world: Edmund Burke, Hester Chapone, Thomas Clarkson, David Garrick, Samuel Johnson, Hannah More, Hester Thrale Piozzi, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Laurence Sterne, James Stuart and Horace Walpole. The correspondence is wide-ranging and provides evidence for several veins of enquiry into eighteenth-century cultural life, encompassing the broad fields of literary, political and social history but also addressing such specific matters as foreign travel, medicine, and the management of Montagu’s country estate, coal mines and town houses. The collection contains several letters either by or concerning Montagu’s servants and objects of patronage, individuals such as James Woodhouse (Montagu’s steward at her Berkshire estate) and the milkwoman Anne Yearsley, both aspiring poets from the labouring classes. Following her death in 1800, Montagu’s executor and nephew Matthew Montagu decided to solicit the return of her letters from many of their recipients (or their descendants) and published a selection of her correspondence written between 1734 and 1761: The Letters of Mrs. Elizabeth Montagu, with Some of the Letters of her Correspondents (London, 1809 and 1813). However, his editorial standards were very much of their time and his selections guided by a different moral climate. Comparison between his selection and the original manuscripts reveals his editorial policy to be cautious in the face of his aunt’s more passionate epistles to Elizabeth Carter, for example, xii



Textual Note on Elizabeth Montagu’s Correspondence

xiii

and he also omits details regarding her income and her relationship to her husband which might be of interest to today’s reader. However, he does convey a strong sense of his aunt’s childhood in Cambridgeshire, where she spent a great deal of her time with Conyers Middleton, her maternal step-grandfather, a Cambridge don and author of a life of Cicero. Matthew Montagu’s edition of his aunt’s letters was revised and supplemented by his granddaughter Emily J. Climenson, in 1906. Climenson was somewhat in love with her great-great-aunt’s reputation, if overwhelmed by the task of selecting individual examples from such a vast collection. She left the editing of the later letters to her friend, Reginald Blunt, who admitted initial reluctance to take on the task. However, he was eventually won over by the sheer variety and vivacity of his subject. Both he and Climenson offer a useful view into the social world Montagu inhabited, concentrating on her connections with the worlds of fashion, politics and nobility. However, their tendency to cut the letters randomly and often brutally prevents the reader from appreciating Montagu’s more measured tone of thought and her literary self-consciousness in addressing her chosen correspondents. In my own selection of her letters included in this book I preserve their integrity, spelling and punctuation as far as possible in order to present a clearer picture of Montagu’s epistolary style and to suggest the diversity of her responsibilities.

Note 1. For a succint overview of the history and provenance of the collection, see Mary L. Robertson, ‘The Elizabeth Robinson Montagu Collection at the Huntington Library’, Huntington Library Quarterly, 65(1 & 2) (2002): 21–3.



Textual Note on Elizabeth Montagu’s Correspondence



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The Nine Living Muses of Great Britain, painted by Richard Samuel and exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1779, forms the central motif of this book, which considers the cultural history and group identity of women’s literary and intellectual activity between 1750 and 1812. Samuel’s ‘muses’ were Elizabeth Montagu, Elizabeth Griffith, Elizabeth Carter, Charlotte Lennox, Elizabeth Linley, Angelica Kauffman, Catharine Macaulay, Anna Barbauld and Hannah More (see Plate 1). Together they formed an important network of intellectuals who were involved in a diverse range of cultural activities, from writing poetry, political pamphlets, educational and moral philosophy, legal essays, novels, plays and Shakespeare criticism to performing arias and exhibiting paintings. Their portrait celebrates the relationship between the arts along the lines of the classical humanist model of a harmonious society, capturing the moment when English women as a group first gained acceptance as powerful contributors to the artistic world. Exhibited at a transitional moment in history, poised between Enlightenment and Romantic aesthetics, Samuel’s painting brings together two literary generations, ‘living muses’, while also placing them in the timeless realm of mythological representation. The painting joins the real and symbolic figures of women to form a model of civilization for the public consumer of art. It is arguable that such a convergence occurs only at historical moments when women’s cultural achievement has flourished in the public realm. This study will explore the links between learning and imagination forged by women in the public sphere of letters. In doing so, it will inevitably revisit some of the dichotomies commonly used in forming a historical understanding of eighteenth-century culture: the public and private; reason and feeling; masculine and feminine; local and national; the domestic and the civic; Enlightenment and Romanticism. Feminist scholarship of the last few decades has not only enlarged and invigorated existing maps of the past but has also required a reassessment of familiar contours and reference points. The reappraisal and reinterpretation of canonical works of history and philosophy has been fuelled to a 1



Introduction: The Nine Living Muses of Great Britain

Plate 1 Richard Samuel, The Nine Living Muses of Great Britain (c. 1778), oil on canvas, c National Portrait Gallery, London (NPG 4905). Left to right, 132.1cm × 154.9cm standing: Elizabeth Carter, Anna Barbauld, Elizabeth Sheridan (née Linley), Hannah More and Charlotte Lennox. Left to right, seated: Angelica Kauffman, Catharine Macaulay, Elizabeth Montagu and Elizabeth Griffith



2

large extent by the research of social and literary historians in rediscovering the large number of women who participated in the various spheres of early modern culture.1 History is being rewritten from all angles, to include the stories of women, to make them visible once more. Scholars today appear to be involved in a double inquiry, to correct previous blindnesses and to open eyes to new methods of research which acknowledge women as a distinct social category. As this type of research progresses, a historiography of feminist writing is beginning to be formed, in which the ‘woman question’ is acknowledged to have its own long and varied history. There is a mutual relationship between writing about women and writing by women, representations of and by women, which the allegorical figures of the muses embody. In the process of exploring such interconnections through the model provided by Samuel’s painting of ‘living muses’, we encounter an active and powerful sense of the way in which women’s real and symbolic presence converges in their contemporary culture. The novelist Maria Edgeworth observed in her argument for the ‘female right to literature’ in 1795, ‘Women of literature are much more numerous of late than they were a few years ago. They make a class in society, they fill the public eye, and have acquired a degree of consequence and appropriate character.’2 Women writers assumed a strong public identity during the second half of the eighteenth century and were frequently evaluated as a distinct body, judged apart from their male contemporaries. The question of whether or not women’s writing should form a separate category within literary culture remains a vexed one. The Orange Prize for Fiction, awarded annually to a woman novelist by an all-female panel of judges, was established in 1995 to redress a perceived neglect of women novelists by the major British literary award committees. While the Times Literary Supplement has accused the prize of being ‘segregationist’, others perceive it as a necessary institution in a publishing world that is still not fair to women. Women’s identity within (and contribution to) literary history was a question of debate from the moment they first made significant and shaping contributions to an emerging literary public sphere. As each of my chapters – on salon culture, Shakespeare criticism and poetry by the ‘living muses’ – will show, women were influential in forging the idea of a national literature. They were inevitably aware of their public presence as ‘bluestockings’, creating supportive networks of female friendship on the one hand but perhaps feeling ambivalent, on the other, about having their sex always taken into account in reactions to their work. Samuel’s painting invites comparison to various eighteenth-century portraits but remains a unique example of a group portrait of women united by their professional status. In choosing to paint living muses, Samuel paid tribute to his female contemporaries, a community of artists who personified the aims of a civilized society. He both brought an allegory down to earth and elevated his peers to a higher plane. Samuel’s painting was exhibited at the Royal Academy’s summer exhibition in 1779 but the image, unusually, had



Introduction: The Nine Living Muses of Great Britain 3

Plate 2 Page (after Richard Samuel), The Nine Living Muses of Great Britain (1777), c British Museum engraving, 12.5cm × 10cm



4

already reached a wider audience in the form of a popular print (taken from an engraving of the original painting) in the Ladies New and Polite Pocket Memorandum-Book for 1778, published by Joseph Johnson at the end of 1777 (see Plate 2). Pocket books were issued in large numbers in this period and often directed at specific audiences, from attorneys and anglers to travellers and traders. Small, leather-bound books, they served principally as engagement diaries and could contain decorative prints of current fashions, as well as songs, poetry and riddles. The print of the nine muses (which is discussed in more detail in Chapter 1) is inscribed with the names of Samuel’s sitters, and accompanied a short article that enumerated the achivements of each woman in turn, opening with the following claim: ‘Among the many distinguishing excellencies which this age and country boast, the great figure which many women make in the polite arts, as well as in different branches of learning, may be considered as one of the choicest acquisitions.’3 While Samuel’s painting can be interpreted on a number of levels, it remains primarily a testament to the achievement of women in the eighteenth century as cultural standard-bearers of considerable influence.4 In the course of this study I refer to various individuals and groups within The Nine Living Muses to illustrate my argument, building up a series of interconnected and overlapping networks of significance. My interest in women’s contribution to the formation of a national literature has caused me to highlight the work of particular individuals and groups within Samuel’s ‘nine’ muses, and my main focus will be upon the work of Elizabeth Montagu, Elizabeth Carter, Charlotte Lennox, Elizabeth Griffith, Hannah More and Anna Barbauld. The sheer breadth and diversity of cultural work by the nine muses has the capacity to inspire numerous different critical approaches and it would be impossible to offer a comprehensive survey. Rather, throughout I will aim to explore the distinctive nature of the relationship between community and individual genius for women writers. Before addressing my chosen themes in more detail, I will briefly introduce all nine women, offering a summary of each of their lives and works in an attempt to stress both the differences and connections between individuals, as well as to counter the regimented effect of Samuel’s unifying, even coercive, image. ∗

∗

∗

Richard Samuel chose the artist Angelica Kauffman (1741–1807) to represent his own vocation. She is posed at her easel, to the left of the composition, as if in the act of portaying the scene before her (see Plate 1). Born in Switzerland and trained as an artist in Italy, Kauffman moved to England in 1766, where she had a successful career as a decorative, neoclassical and history painter.5 She is looking across the foreground of the painting towards her opposite muse, Elizabeth Montagu, resting her chin on one hand, who used Kauffman’s decorative patterns for wall paintings in her mansion in Portman Square during the 1780s. Samuel’s portrait was exhibited in the




Bluestockings

year that the Academy had moved to new quarters in Somerset House in the Strand. One of only two female founders of the Academy, Kauffman was vital to its early definition.6 Joshua Reynolds, head of the Academy, developed plans to install a programme of allegorical ceiling paintings to represent the theoretical basis of the fine arts. Kauffman was assigned four oval paintings of allegorical images to represent the four parts of painting – Invention, Composition, Design and Colour. She chose female figures, based on Ripa’s Iconologia, to characterize the theory of art as represented in Reynold’s Discourses, which were delivered in the Academy’s council chamber before they were published (see Plate 3).7 Originally set into the ceiling of the council chamber, around a central painting by Benjamin West that represented Nature, the Three Graces and the Four Elements, Kauffman’s paintings can now be seen on the ceiling of the entrance hall to Burlington House, the current home of the Royal Academy. In traditional iconography there exists no muse of painting and in Samuel’s composition Kauffman stands in for

Plate 3 Angelica Kauffman, ‘Design’ (c. 1778–80), oil on canvas, 130 cm × 150.3 cm. One of four ceiling decorations for the entrance hall of the Royal Academy of Arts: ‘Invention’, ‘Composition’, ‘Design’ and ‘Colour’, the Royal Academy of Arts, London



6

Urania, the muse of comprehensive vision. He has chosen to portray his female contemporary at least in part to make an argument for the status of his profession. Her position in the composition draws the viewer into the bluestocking circle. We cannot see what she is painting on her canvas and are therefore enticed to imagine her line of sight, to view her fellow muses from another angle. Samuel’s act of representation is doubled and complicated by her position in the painting. Behind Kauffman, to the left, stands Elizabeth Carter (1717–1806), poet, scholar and letter writer. She first published some verses in The Gentleman’s Magazine when she was seventeen. Edward Cave, editor of the magazine and family friend, published her Poems on Particular Occasions, which are uniformly accomplished but markedly restrained, in 1738. ‘Ode to Wisdom’, originally circulated in manuscript, was included in Clarissa, unattributed, for which Richardson later apologised.8 Further editions of her Poems (1762 and 1776) added comic and emotional work to the solemn and classical. She was mistress of several languages, including Arabic and Portuguese; her first translation was of Crousaz’s Examination of Mr Pope’s Essay on Man (1738), followed the next year by Algarotti’s Italian handbook, Sir Isaac Newton’s Philosophy Explain’d for the Use of the Ladies. Her major work of translation, Epictetus, All the Works, was printed by Richardson in 1758, and remained the standard scholarly text until the beginning of the twentieth century, passing through several editions and earning her £1,000 in her lifetime. Its stoic advocation of the conquest of passion through self-command is developed in the writings of her more politically radical successors, including Anna Barbauld and Mary Wollstonecraft. There survives an individual portrait of Carter, painted in 1765 by the Scottish artist Catherine Read, at Dr Johnson’s house in Gough Square, London (see Plate 4).9 Read has painted Carter in classical robes with quill in hand, arm resting on a copy of her translation of Epictetus. Carter’s close friend Elizabeth Montagu commissioned the portrait, which was possibly one in a series of female images of national ‘muses’. However, Montagu would not be painted in similar style, considering herself unworthy of being represented as an intellectual. As Harriet Guest has pointed out, Montagu saw herself more as a wealthy patron than an individual literary figure.10 Carter, however, cherished her independence. She preferred reading women writers and was proud of her unmarried state, conducting a long friendship with fellow bluestocking Catherine Talbot. Their correspondence (1741–70) was published in 1808 with her letters to Mrs Vesey.11 A tireless scholar, famous for taking snuff to stay awake for long hours of study, she was revered by the literary luminaries of her day. Towards the end of her life she encouraged the younger writers Hannah More and Joanna Baillie. Standing to the right of Carter is Anna Barbauld (née Aikin, 1743–1825), who used an extract from Carter’s Epictetus as starting point for one of her most interesting moral essays, ‘Against Inconsistency in Our Expectations’.12 A poet, critic and pioneering educationalist, at the time that Samuel’s




Bluestockings

Plate 4 Catherine Read, Elizabeth Carter (c. 1765), oil on canvas, 72cm × 59cm. Dr Johnson’s House Trust, Gough Square, London

painting was first exhibited her Lessons for Children had just been published: this was a groundbreaking work in the history of children’s literature that used simple dialogue to instruct and delight. However, it was foremost on the merits of her first work, her Poems, published by Joseph Johnson in 1773, that her reputation was founded.13 The volume was a popular and critical success, reaching five editions by 1777 (with another in 1792) and winning the adulation of the Monthly Review: ‘a justness of thought, and vigour of



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imagination, inferior only to the works of Milton and Shakespeare’.14 She attracted an admiring body of female readers, including the poet Mary Scott, who wrote in The Female Advocate (1774): ‘We feel thy feelings, glow with all thy fires, / Adopt thy thoughts, and pant with thy desires’.15 Following her early success as a poet, Barbauld continued to develop as a writer in several genres. She published important political pamphlets in the 1790s, attacking the government for their conservative policies regarding slavery and dissenters. She also worked as a literary editor, compiling a major edition of The British Novelists (50 volumes), published in 1810, which made strong arguments for the historical importance of the novel to a sense of national identity. Barbauld believed the novel to be a didactic and philosophical medium that was all the more powerful for giving pleasure to its readers. She was also an industrious editor in other genres, editing Richardson’s Correspondence (6 volumes), with a biographical account of Richardson, in 1804, followed soon after by her popular Selections from the Spectator, Tatler, Guardian and Freeholder, with a Preliminary Essay in 1805. Her critical editions of Akenside’s Pleasures of the Imagination and Collins’s Odes were popular in schools for many years. While Barbauld’s political, critical and educational writing was widely admired, many felt that the promise of her youthful volume of poetry was never really fulfilled. She failed to publish a substantial poetic work until nearly forty years later, when her ambitious anti-war poem, Eighteen Hundred and Eleven, shocked contemporary literary circles. The poem received universally harsh criticism for its indictment of Britain’s moral complacency in the face of the long war against France, which was considered unpatriotic and presumptuous from a mere ‘lady author’. Her niece Lucy Aikin, the poet and author of the epic Epistles on Women (1810), edited her works for publication on her death in 1825. Barbauld is looking at Carter and gesturing towards Elizabeth Sheridan (née Linley, 1754–92), well-known singer and wife of the playwright Richard Brinsley Sheridan with whom she eloped in 1772.16 She came from an established musical family and was painted countless times throughout the brief course of her life, most famously by Gainsborough in The Linley Sisters, exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1772 and now in the collection of the Dulwich Picture Gallery. The story of her elopement from Bath with Sheridan, who cut short her promising career by refusing to let her perform in public, became a staple topic of sentimental engraving and painting. Joshua Reynolds exhibited an individual portrait, Mrs Sheridan as St Cecilia, which showed Elizabeth in the guise of the patron saint of music, in 1775 (see Plate 5). The painting evokes vague associations of ‘saintliness’, indicative of female virtue, as well as referring to her early professional success as a concert singer of superlative talent.17 In Samuel’s group portrait she takes central position, as if poised for performance or on the point of invocation. She looks up to Apollo, god of music and poetry and, like her, carrying a lyre, a mute and marble figure amidst the muses’ colourful silks.




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Plate 5 Sir Joshua Reynolds, Mrs. Sheridan as St. Cecilia (1775). Exhibited at the Royal Academy, 1775. Oil on canvas, 50cm × 31.5cm. Waddesdon, The Rothschild Collection (The National Trust). Photo: Mike Fear

To the right of Apollo, head turned towards Elizabeth Montagu, is seated the Whig historian and writer on education, Catharine Macaulay (1731–91), who is holding Clio’s scroll of history. Her eight-volume history of England in the seventeenth century was an important influence on English radicalism and also helped to shape revolutionary politics in America and France.18



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Among Macaulay’s American friends and correspondents were Mercy Otis Warren, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin and George Washington. The French translated her work, many welcoming her arguments as an effective response to the counter-revolutionary influence of Hume’s history. She is unlikely to have attended Montagu’s salon, although Carter and Montagu did express admiration for her early work in their correspondence and Carter wrote a short piece on her, which is included in the collected edition of her works.19 Her several philosophical and political pamphlets include responses to Hobbes and Burke and A Modest Plea for the Property of Copyright, 1774. Towards the end of her life she was concerned foremost with the necessity of a moral and rational education for both sexes. Her Letters on Education with Observations on Religious and Metaphysical Subjects, 1790, was a direct influence on Mary Wollstonecraft, who wrote in her Vindication of the Rights of Woman: ‘The word respect brings Mrs Macaulay to my remembrance. The woman of the greatest abilities, undoubtedly, that this country has ever produced. – And yet this woman has been suffered to die without sufficient respect being paid to her memory.’20 Her late marriage to a much younger man caused a scandal from which her reputation never recovered. Both Macaulay and Wollstonecraft were condemned by their contemporaries for their rejection of expected female roles, especially in their unconventional sexual lives, but nonetheless, Macaulay was fêted during her lifetime, and even immortalised in stone; a statue by J.F. Moore, of Macaulay as ‘History’ was commissioned by her friend the Revd Thomas Wilson, a founder member of the Society for the Supporters for the Bill of Rights, to stand in the chancel of his church, St Stephen Walbrook, in London (see Plate 6). A contemporary newspaper report described Macaulay’s statue ‘in the character of History, in a singular and pleasing antique style, and judged to be a good likeness; she has a pen in her right hand apparently as if she had just finished some lines written on a scroll she holds in her left on which arm she leans on her five volumes of the History of England.’ The lines engraved on the base of the statue ran: ‘Government is a Power delegated for the Happiness of Mankind, when conducted by Wisdom, Justice and Mercy’. Its erection caused a good deal of controversy but the statue still survives, now standing in the entrance hall to the public library at Warrington.21 As a politically minded woman who was actively engaged with the public and philosophical issues of her day, she was subject to both great reverence and ridicule. Elizabeth Montagu (1718–1800) is seated in the centre of the right-hand group, her hand held to her chin in pensive attitude. Dubbed ‘Queen of the Blues’ by Samuel Johnson, she was famous as a literary patron and for cultivating the art of conversation at her assemblies in Hill Street, and later Portman Square. The term ‘bluestocking’, originally used to abuse the Puritans of Cromwell’s ‘Little Parliament’ in 1653, was revived in 1756 when the eccentric scholar Benjamin Stillingfleet appeared at one of Montagu’s assemblies wearing blue worsted stockings, normally the garb of working





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Plate 6 J.F. Moore, Catharine Macaulay as ‘History’ (1778), marble statue, height 200cm. Now standing outside the public library in Warrington. Warrington Borough Council: Libraries, Heritage and Learning


men.22 The term came to be applied more generally to all Montagu’s visitors, who included Dr Johnson, James Boswell, Edmund Burke, David Garrick, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Horace Walpole, Catharine Macaulay, Lord Lyttleton, the Earl of Bath and later Frances Burney and Hannah More.23 The fact that Samuel has trained the viewer’s line of sight to rest on Montagu is appropriate to her central role in fostering the female ‘life of the mind’ during the eighteenth century. By the 1770s ‘bluestocking’ had begun to refer specifically to intellectual women, testament to Montagu’s achievement. Her cultivation of ‘bluestocking philosophy’ might be seen as the social expression of an Enlightenment belief in freedom of enquiry. Montagu also concentrated on a Christian attention to practical virtue and social benevolence, which emphasised the importance of friendship and a rational adherence to duty.24 Her most profound legacy was to forge a public identity for the female intellectual and socially useful individual, both through her own scholarship and her encouragement of other women. She granted an annuity to Elizabeth Carter, who wrote, ‘I may make my fortune very prettily as Mrs Montagu’s owl.’ The two women travelled together on the continent, Carter’s fluency in several languages being something of a curiosity at European courts and spa towns. As a literary hostess and patron, Montagu’s favour was solicited by ambitious men of high society as well as by poverty-stricken authors. Her privilege as a wealthy woman ensured her a role as something of a cultural and political ambassador. While initially famous for her distribution of cultural wealth through pensions and public projects made possible by her shrewd management of her husband’s coal mines, she earned literary recognition with her Essay on Shakespeare, first published in 1769.25 A defence of Shakespeare against Voltaire’s notorious criticisms, Montagu’s Essay was an immediate success, running through four editions by 1785. She emphasised the potential for teaching morality through Shakespeare’s plays, arguing that what they lacked in terms of formal and classical unity they made up for in their natural simplicity and truth of expression. Education and morality were central to the bluestocking project; both were seen to be paramount in the pursuit of feminine virtue. The strength of Montagu’s social standing can be gauged by the fact that she was painted by two of the most fashionable portrait painters of her day, Allan Ramsay and Joshua Reynolds. I will discuss Ramsay’s remarkable painting of 1762 in Chapter 2, in the context of the culture of her salon. Reynolds’s portrait was more contemporary with Samuel’s ‘muses’, commissioned in 1775 by Montagu’s cousin, Richard Robinson, Archbishop of Armagh, who was close friend of the artist. The painting was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1776. While the original portrait has been lost, the mezzotint by John Raphael Smith survives and suggests the original painting’s grandeur (see Plate 7). As Harriet Guest has suggested, the viewer is struck most by the sitter’s evident wealth, patience and benevolence in this





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Plate 7 John Raphael Smith, after Joshua Reynolds, Mrs Montagu (1776), mezzotint, c British Museum 50cm × 35.5cm


image, which lacks any direct allusion to Montagu’s intellectual character or attainments.26 Montagu’s substantial wealth set her apart from the other figures in Samuel’s painting, each of whom wrote, sang or painted for money at various points in her life – often as a means of earning a livelihood. To the right of Montagu, her head bent studiously over a writing pad, is seated Elizabeth Griffith (1727–93), who achieved literary fame through the publication of her courtship letters in her native Dublin in 1757.27 She came to London soon afterwards, where she worked for Garrick’s theatre company as an actress and playwright. She was later inspired by Montagu’s success as a critic to publish her own volume of commentary, The Morality of Shakespeare’s Drama Illustrated, in 1775. ‘Shakespeare is not only my Poet, but my Philosopher also’ she declared, extending Johnson’s concern with Shakespeare’s ‘purely ethic’ morals to highlight his ‘general oeconomy of life, [. . .] domestic ties, offices and obligations’, showing particular interest in his heroines.28 Griffith believed that literature was a useful moral tool. Her dramatic works reveal a didactic streak that she pursued in other genres. Her epistolary novels, The Delicate Distress (1769), The History of Lady Barton (1771) and The Story of Lady Juliana Harley (1776), can be seen to extend the themes of her earlier courtship letters but develop a greater psychological insight into female suffering. In all three of these complex yet artful plots, Griffith’s heroines are shown to be morally superior after enduring unreasonable amounts of mental and physical torment. In the preface to The History of Lady Barton, Griffith confessed to having drawn her characters from ‘the living drama’ rather than the ‘mimic scene’, having had ‘a good deal of acquaintance with the world’ (p. x). She declared that she would be happy if she could ‘contribute towards forming, or informing, the young and innocent’ (p. xi). Griffith was interested in her female predecessors in this genre, editing A Collection of Novels (1777) by Aphra Behn, Penelope Aubin and Eliza Haywood. Here she argued that ‘good Romances’ formed ‘silent Instructors’, more capable of moral instruction than ‘the most able philosophers’ (p. 4, editor’s preface).29 This was an unusual attempt to reassess novelists who were at that time frequently perceived to be synonymous with sexual immorality. One of Griffith’s most intriguing publications was a collection of short stories, Novellettes, selected for the use of Young Ladies and Gentlemen, Written by Dr. Goldsmith, Mrs Griffith &c (London, 1780). The first edition included an impressive frontispiece of Griffith, surrounded by her works and in the pose of a confident, even proud author (see Plate 8). Fourteen of the seventeen tales are by Griffith and the preface, written by herself, contains a glowing account of her success as an instructor of the young and, moreover, an example to her sex: Mrs. GRIFFITH, the ornament and pride of her country, has strove to open the flood-gate of Literature to her own Sex, and purifying the stream





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Plate 8 Frontispiece for Elizabeth Griffith, ed., Novellettes, selected for the use of Young Ladies and Gentlemen (London, 1780), 12cm × 19cm. Bodleian Library, Oxford



One cannot help wondering whether her recent appearance in Samuel’s painting had given Griffith the confidence to arrange her self-presentation in such assertive terms. In the same year as Novellettes was published, the return of a wealthy son from India removed the need to write. Griffith retired from the literary profession in favour of a quiet retirement in Ireland. Above Griffith, holding a musical instrument, is the actress and playwright Charlotte Lennox (née Ramsay, 1730–1804). The daughter of an army officer, Charlotte Ramsay spent some of her early years in the colony of New York, an experience she used in her first and last novels, The Life of Harriot Stuart (1750) and Euphemia (1790), which both include scenes involving native Americans.30 A precocious child, she was sent to England in 1742, where she soon published Poems on Several Occasions ‘by a Young Lady’ (1747). Her marriage to Alexander Lennox, who worked for the publisher William Strahan, provided access to London’s literary market. Her husband’s inability to earn any money turned Lennox into a determined professional. Both Johnson and Richardson strongly encouraged her in writing her most celebrated novel, The Female Quixote (1752). Arabella, the novel’s heroine, is an avid reader of romances, the contents of which she embraces rather too literally. While the novel acted as a satirical warning against the immoral effects of romance, it also revealed in a subtle and sophisticated light the paradoxical effects of reading. Lennox was also the first person to research the sources for Shakespeare’s plays, which she anthologised with critical remarks in her Shakespear Illustrated in 1753, highlighting the important role of romances in the construction of his plots. She translated several works from the French, including The Greek Theatre, Translated from the French of Pierre Brumoy (1759), and the Memoirs for the history of Mme de Maintenon (1757). As editor of the periodical, The Lady’s Museum (1760–61), similar to an educational anthology, Lennox included a revised version of her first novel. Towards the end of her life she separated from her husband and relied upon the support of friends, including the painter Frances Reynolds.31 Charlotte Lennox survived on a small grant from the Royal Literary Fund. She was painted by Joshua Reynolds but the image only survives in the form of an engraving by Bartalozzi (see Plate 9). To the left of Lennox is the writer Hannah More (1745–1833), gazing heavenwards. The cup she holds is an iconographical emblem of Melpomene, the muse of tragedy. When Samuel’s painting first appeared, More was enjoying the novelty of literary success and the glamorous literary society of Montagu’s salon. Frances Reynolds painted More in 1780 as a literary



from the filth with which it was impregnated to make it guide [sic] with meandering invitation through the vallies of Britain. She is one of the many examples in the present day, that have served to explode the illiberal assertion that Female genius is inferior to Male. (Preface, pp. ii–iii)

Plate 9 Bartalozzi, engraving of Charlotte Lennox after a portrait by Joshua Reynolds. Reproduced in Sylvester and Edward Harding, printers, Shakespeare illustrated by an assemblage of portraits and views, appropriated to the whole suite of our author’s historical dramas; to which are added, portraits of actors, editors, &c (London, 1793), c National Portrait Gallery London (NPG D13802) 19cm × 13.8cm



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Plate 10 Frances Reynolds, Hannah More (1780), oil on canvas, 88.3cm × 75.6cm. Bristol’s Museums, Galleries and Archives

celebrity, shown in the classic pose of contemplation, pausing for a moment from the act of writing (see Plate 10). She was a close friend of both Samuel Johnson and David Garrick. After Garrick’s death however, she retired from the London literary scene, partly in protest at its fashionable superficialities. She later achieved a huge readership amongst the educated with her Strictures on the Modern System of Female Education (1799) and




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amongst the poor with her Cheap Repository Tracts – orthodox political and religious propaganda. Her teachings were morally restrictive and politically reactionary, confronting the arguments of radicals and feminists alike. However, her commitment to establishing a nationwide network of Sunday schools was instrumental in increasing literacy levels in her lifetime – so while reactionary in intent, the ‘tracts’ were arguably radical in effect.32 More’s long poem The Bas Bleu, published in 1786, conveyed the social world of the bluestockings with sprightly wit. She made clear the high ideals that she and her contemporaries attached to conversation: Our intellectual ore must shine, Not slumber, idly in the mine. Let Education’s moral mint The noblest images imprint; Let taste her curious touchstone hold, To try if standard be the gold; But ’tis thy commerce, Conversation, Must give it use by circulation; That noblest commerce of mankind, Whose precious merchandise is MIND!33 More described a literary community in which the highest value was placed upon the exchange of thoughts between equals. Mental and moral profit was central to the model of literary community upheld by the bluestocking circle. Samuel’s painting formed a visual expression of More’s ‘noblest commerce of mankind’. The poses of his figures suggest a sense of naturalism despite the formal surroundings. He has incorporated the gestures of conversation – extended hands and knowing glances. The links between commerce and conversation extend beyond merely literary analogy in the eighteenth century. As will be demonstrated in Chapter 1, Samuel’s painting can be read in the context of a widespread concern to justify the growth of the arts in an increasingly commercial and imperialistic context. The combined artistic output of Samuel’s subjects represents a substantial source of cultural wealth. However, the ‘living muses’ were not merely ornamental icons of patriotic pride but women of independence and confidence, who intervened influentially in the major cultural debates of their times. With the exception of Montagu, who was a famous patron of the arts, all the writers portrayed were professionals who earned a living from their work, keeping strict account of their income. They valued rational excellence in their pursuit as writers and educationalists, philosophers and poets. The Nine Living Muses of Great Britain represents an Enlightenment ‘republic of letters’ in which women’s intellect was cultivated as a moral duty. While Samuel’s subjects came from divergent backgrounds and differed in their political allegiances,



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they represent a community of cultural endeavour to be celebrated. In the history of feminism, the ‘living muses’ stand as inspiring pioneers. ∗

∗

The sheer breadth and diversity of these nine women’s combined achievement is perhaps remarkable to the twentieth-first century reader. While feminist scholarship has transformed the traditional map of academic culture in recent years, it has made less of an impression upon the general reading public, which largely remains surprised to learn of the celebrity, productivity and cultural impact of eighteenth-century women writers. While popular history and biography nurture a fascination with individual lives – from the Duchess of Devonshire to Emma Hamilton – the identity of women as a class within eighteenth-century culture remains relatively unknown. Samuel’s portrait conveyed the combination of public respect and commercial popularity that the ‘living muses’ enjoyed, confirming women’s presence as a group that could not be ignored. One of the purposes of this book is to explore the relationship between women’s collective and individual literary identity in the transition from Enlightenment to Romantic cultural worlds, and to explore the nature of the relationship between community and individual genius for women writers. Moira Ferguson has described the rate of increase in publication by women in English between 1660 and 1800 as ‘a major cultural phenomenon’.34 Groundbreaking academic studies of the 1980s showed that women writers were not only increasingly present but that they participated in shaping the major literary genres of their day; sometimes leading the way, as Stuart Curran argued in his exploration of the poet Charlotte Smith’s role in reviving the sonnet.35 Roger Lonsdale’s Oxford Book of Eighteenth-Century Women’s Poetry (1989) acted as a catalyst in inspiring scholars to explore the full diversity of women’s poetry in the period. Since then, a wide range of anthologies has brought to light the extent of talent previously obscured from view. Andrew Ashfield, in the preface to his Romantic Women Poets, pointed out that between 1770 and 1832, 1,402 first editions by women were published.36 Similarly, Jane Spencer, in The Rise of the Woman Novelist, proved that women were in many cases the dominant forces in the literary marketplace, as both readers and writers.37 Nancy Armstrong, Janet Todd and Catherine Gallagher, amongst others, have built upon Spencer’s work in elaborating the critical sophistication, commercial strength and professional identity of the female novelist.38 The strong critical association of women and the novel – and increasingly women and poetry – in the long eighteenth century has tended to obscure female activity in other genres. Recent anthologies and editions have started to move beyond a focus on novels and poetry. Gary Kelly’s major edition of bluestocking writings, Bluestocking Feminism: Writings of the Bluestocking Circle, 1738–1790, has provided an invaluable resource for readers interested



∗

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in the full range of bluestocking writings, which he interprets as essentially transformative and an important part of a much broader cultural revolution.39 Moreover, vibrant new work on the connections between the theatre and the novel has emphasized the permeability between cultural spheres, and suggests that literary history can no longer be neatly divided into separate categories of enquiry.40 As I have suggested, one of the aims of this book is to focus upon the broader context of women’s writing in, and often across, a wide range of genres; not only in order to complicate our understanding of literary history but also to increase our historical knowledge of the richness and complexity of women’s lives. The enormous rise in women’s writing represents a radical historical shift that inevitably affected the conditions of women’s existence to some extent, even if it did not lead to legal reform. Mary Wollstonecraft’s Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792) drew upon the arguments of her immediate female predecessors, including the educational works of Catharine Macaulay, Anna Barbauld and Hester Chapone.41 She addressed an audience aware of a female literary tradition. For a long time after her death, Wollstonecraft’s work was represented as a historical anomaly. Feminist activists and historians of the 1960s, for example, sensed that they were rediscovering a neglected pioneer, a woman who had been ‘ahead of her time’. Only more recently have scholars brought to light the complexity, ambition and policial seriousness of Wollstonecraft’s life and work in relation to the broader intellectual context in which she worked. The biographers Claire Tomalin, Janet Todd and Lyndall Gordon have developed a far deeper understanding of the personal and political connections made and lived by their subject. The work of intellectual historians Virginia Sapiro, Sylvana Tomaselli and Barbara Taylor has similarly ensured that Wollstonecraft’s cultural context is more profoundly understood. While this book does not treat Wollstonecraft’s work directly, it is hoped that by addressing her immediate predecessors’ lives and works, it will contribute to a fuller understanding of her connection of public and personal virtue, civic and domestic worlds. I am deeply indebted in this book to the groundbreaking work of the late Sylvia Myers, whose important study of the bluestocking circle has influenced and inspired all subsequent work on the theme.42 Myers drew attention to the crucial role of family and friendship networks in establishing the bluestockings’ identity as an intellectual circle, arguing for the interdependent relationship between learning, virtue and the life of the mind for eighteenth-century women. This book builds upon Myers’s argument, expanding her focus on a series of individual case studies to treat women’s collective identity in more depth but also in more breadth, across a number of different cultural contexts, including those of emerging debates about the moral implications of luxury and the national significance of the fine arts. While Samuel’s painting, The Nine Living Muses of Great Britain, has been used by feminist critics to convey women’s cultural presence, few have attempted to locate it specifically in the context of its first appearance, or



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to consider the particular nature of its vision of community and professional identity.43 It represents an important moment in the history of both a national literature and women’s writing, forming a public statement of women’s contribution to Britain’s cultural identity. In contrast to several images of male sociability and intellect, for example Reynolds’s portrait of Members of the Society of the Dilettanti (1777–79; see Plate 11) where the men are depicted in lively pose, drinking and joking, Samuel’s portrait conveys a sense of virtue in repose. As several critics have noted, the public reputation of the female author, from being associated with the figures of actresses and prostitutes during the seventeenth century, became more virtuous and respectable as the eighteenth century progressed.44 From the 1750s, a movement to recover the talents of British women writers emphasised the positive moral qualities of the female sex. Colman and Thornton’s Poems by Eminent Ladies, first published in 1755, included large selections from poets such as Aphra Behn and Anne Finch, presented as ‘standing proof that genius glows with equal warmth, and perhaps more delicacy, in the breast of a female’.45 The explosion of female biographies and dictionaries of ‘worthies’ in the mid-eighteenth century has been seen as partly responsible for fixing the definition of the successful woman writer as one who is middle-class, well-read, pious and charitable. Margaret Ezell has described the effect of George Ballard’s Memoirs of Several Ladies of Great Britain (1752) as ‘marginalizing or even erasing women writers who did not fit within his criteria’.46 However, while the advent of the public ‘woman of virtue’ allowed her to pursue a professional writing life, it inevitably constrained the nature of her expression. Critics such as Nancy Armstrong and Jane Spencer who have worked extensively on women novelists are concerned with the connections between literature and the history of sexuality. Both have stressed that the new cultural power of women beginning in the mid-eighteenth century was part of the consolidation of middle-class hegemony. Although women writers gained acceptance and prestige, becoming the spokeswomen for cultural change, these critics argue that they did so only by constructing a discourse that ‘reformed’ women by locking them into a ‘disciplinary’ domestic sphere. Catherine Gallagher has summarised this approach best: ‘Armstrong identifies a discursive break prior to the 1740s: on the “before” side is the aristocratic model of woman, political, embodied, superficial, and amoral; on the “after” side is the middle class model, domestic, dis-embodied, equipped with a deep interiority and ethical subjectivity.’47 While Gallagher is perhaps over-simplifying the arguments of Spencer and Armstrong, whose work has changed the map of fiction in this period, there is a widespread tendency to classify successful women writers as belonging to a domestic sphere and advocating a correspondingly conventional morality. The definition of the domestic woman writer is extended into the Romantic period by Anne Mellor, who argues that figures as diverse as Barbauld, Hemans and Mary Shelley exhibit an ‘ethics of care’ in their writings.48




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Plate 11 William Say (after the portrait by Sir Joshua Reynolds, 1777–79), Members of c British Museum the Society of the Dilettanti (1812–16), mezzotint, 57.9cm × 41.6cm

However, as a number of critics have recently stressed, eighteenth-century women writers were highly aware of the need to promote the notion of domestic virtue (or virtue in distress) in order to achieve commercial success and public respect. The majority of eighteenth-century women writers



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managed their own careers, conscious of their ability to manipulate public opinion. Sarah Prescott’s recent study of women, authorship and literary culture between 1690 and 1740 has provided a more nuanced landscape against which to consider the activity of Samuel’s ‘living muses’ and their embodiment of professionalism, public virtue and commercial prosperity. In her timely reassessment of literary professionalism, Prescott argues for the importance of cultural networks and coteries in establishing the identity of women writers in both metroplitan and provincial contexts. She also sees the early emergence of a highly public yet respectable woman writer, in the form of Elizabeth Singer Rowe or Mary Astell for example, as absolutely necessary for the remarkable success of female writers later in the century.49 Betty Schellenberg, in her history of the ‘professionalization’ of women writers in the period, has also challenged oversimplified assumptions of women’s cultural role, using personal correspondence and original research into contemporary print culture to focus on those women writers who have been most obscured by subsequent literary history, whether traditional or feminist.50 The dual meanings of commerce and exchange were of political importance to women in the literary market place. Harriet Guest has shown that women were both consumers and commodities in relation to a model of labour that dominated conceptions of commercial culture in the period. She has argued persuasively that professionalization of their talents offered women the opportunity to reclaim respectability for the notion of virtuous femininity, which had been tainted by the odour of corruption in the vogue for consuming the novels and fashions of the culture of sensibility.51 Guest’s work suggests that it is important to imagine a more complex set of relations between women, in which they are granted greater autonomy and can be acknowledged as subjects within an increasingly vibrant and multifarious print culture. While the law denied women property rights and treated them as property within marriage, one thing they could own was their writing. Catharine Macaulay’s pamphlet, A Modest Plea for the Property of Copyright (1774), provides an apt example of women’s stake in the print culture of their time. At the time of her writing there were four chief methods by which authors published their works: subscription, fee for limited copyright, profit-sharing and publishing on commission (whereby the author assumed responsibility for repaying the capital if the book did not make a profit).52 She argued for perpetual copyright partly on the grounds that otherwise ‘independent men not born to estates will be prevented from using their talents for the benefit of mankind’ and none would write except ‘men in opulence, and men in dependence’.53 She provided a condensed summary of the copyright debates as reported in contemporary newspapers and urged the reader to support the right of authors to perpetual ownership of their works as a vital means of subsistence: ‘If a man is deprived of the necessary lucrative advantage by




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the right of property in his own writings, is he to starve, or live in penury, whilst he is exerting, perhaps, vain endeavours to serve a people who do not desire his services?’54 She ended by appealing to Lord Camden to ‘settle the lucrative advantage of authors for their writings on a permanent footing; and thus to encourage useful literature, by rendering it convenient to the circumstances of men of independent tempers to employ their literary abilities in the service of their country’.55 Macaulay herself appears to have made a substantial profit from her own works. She was also a woman of ‘independent temper’. Her ‘Modest Plea’ is the most overt statement by a woman on an issue that was of profound importance to female independence. However, she never makes that link herself in the text, preferring to use the case of the working man of industry rather than admit women’s professional interest. Nonetheless, it is indisputable that for women, a copyright law which privileged the individual author would provide a measure of financial independence in a society which denied them property or voting rights.56 Wollstonecraft’s Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792) was one of the few contemporary educational works to raise the issue of women’s professional life: How many women thus waste life away the prey of discontent, who might have practised as physicians, regulated a farm, managed a shop, and stood erect, supported by their own industry, instead of hanging their heads surcharged with the dew of sensibility. [. . . I] have seldom seen much compassion excited by the helplessness of females, unless they were fair. [. . .]How much more respectable is the woman who earns her own bread by fulfilling any duty, than the most accomplished beauty!57 Those in the middling classes had few choices open to them if they desired to remain respectable or ‘genteel’. It would be a long time before women as a class could practise as physicians. However, as historians Fergus and Thaddeus have observed, one option that was relatively accessible to women was that of writing: Of the few professions open to women, acting was the most lucrative, but it was self-promoting and flamboyant – and hence morally suspect. Writing alone offered the promise of decent wages without demanding a lengthy apprenticeship or even a remarkable genius – and a writer’s gentility might survive relatively undamaged.58 For women of the middling and lower orders who sought professional occupation, teaching also offered respectable employment. The role of the governess, however, while taken up by such formidable characters as Elizabeth Elstob and Mary Wollstonecraft, involved a level of dependency and an indeterminate social status that deterred many. Elizabeth Montagu’s



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Mrs Carter was extremely attached to her little habitation at Deal. It is probable this attachment was strengthened by its being a purchase made by herself, with the money produced by her translation of Epictetus. Its situation was also particularly calculated to give her, from the windows of the apartment where she constantly sat, a full enjoyment of the sublime and beautiful in nature, in which she delighted with the truest sensibility. A window to the east afforded her all the magnificence of marine scenery, animated by variety of shipping, continually passing through, or lying at anchor in the Downs.59 Carter’s literary independence allowed her to command a view of the world; the reader has a sense of her private enjoyment of the busy comings and goings of trade and commerce, the passing of ships and changing of tides. Her place of retirement is self-determined and chosen with affection. The practical connection between intellectual and material independence, between real and imaginary female spaces, was famously consolidated in Virginia Woolf’s classic modernist text, A Room of One’s Own (1929) – a work that is concerned to find a place for the woman writer, not just as an individual in society but also in the longer narratives of intellectual, political and social history. While publication was arguably the most direct route to financial independence for women, several were also active in the trades related to a rising professional literary (and literate) class: Anne Yearsley, the ‘milkwoman poet’, set up a circulating library; Susanna Duncombe, daughter of the artist Joseph Highmore and a close friend of Elizabeth Carter and Hester Chapone, was an engraver and book illustrator;60 others were involved in the book trade as printers and publishers.61 While several influential cultural and historical studies have emphasised the links between virtue, commerce and the arts in the eighteenth century, the majority have consigned women to obscurity or held them in opposition to their neat exposition of ‘masculine’ theories.62 The assumption that women do not figure in the major developments of their culture is anachronistic. Feminist theorists have tended to cast the Enlightenment as a monolithic, patriarchal movement, responsible for suppressing feminine creative power.63 This notion seems simplistic in its failure to acknowledge women’s complex role in the evolving print culture of their time. The concept of the public sphere, as defined by Habermas and others, has played an important part in redefining women’s role in eighteenth-century culture.64 As several historians have recently reminded us, the Enlightenment was not



correspondence reveals Elizabeth Carter’s pride in refusing several offers of teaching posts from aristocratic families impressed by her reputation for learning. Carter’s income from her literary work allowed her to buy her own house in Deal, a far more satisfactory independence, as the following memoir, written by one of Carter’s close friends, conveys:

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only an intellectual configuration but a living world whose ideas varied according to existing social, national and economic conditions.65 Roy Porter has observed that ‘the world of the writer and audience in Georgian England has little stomach for synthetic philosophy . . . The real intelligentsia was not chairbound but worked in the marketplace. Ideas were a trade, producing for a wide popular readership.’66 Such a demotic and diffuse Enlightenment, which incorporated journalists, Johnsonian coffee-house philosophers, writers of the bluestocking circle, Unitarian ministers, collectors and connoisseurs, scientists and educators, as well as moral philosophers such as Shaftesbury, Hume and Adam Smith, was a world in which women, along with intellectual iconoclasts of all sorts, could participate and even flourish. Their presence provoked interest in itself, the ‘woman question’ occupying pens in all sectors of contemporary culture, from political and aesthetic treatises to new encyclopaedias and journals. Samuel’s ‘living muses’ formed a dynamic community of thought. Their history offers invaluable insight into the ‘feminist’ dimension of Enlightenment culture. In this context, the ‘living muses’ offer a series of case studies whose very diversity and individuality paradoxically suggest that they were also more typical than commonplace perceptions of the eighteenth century and of women’s writing would suggest. ∗

∗

∗

This book considers the ‘living muses’ as both symbol and allegory and as an actual historical phenomenon. Chapter 1, ‘Living Muses: the Female Icon’, looks at the relation between the symbolic representations and real figures of women as a historical component of feminist thought. Twentieth-century conceptions of the muses tend to figure passive, sexualised women who provide men with poetic inspiration. A brief history of the allegory of the muses in Western culture reveals such notions to be anything but timeless. Retrieving the more active muses of ancient myth allows reflection on the powerful model of female creativity that they presented to society, and prompts us to ask why it was particularly in the eighteenth century that the question of whether they were real women or not came to the fore. The symbolic and imaginary figures of women have often been considered to exist outside the realm of culture, belonging to the realm of the natural. Social historians have argued that at the level of the real, women partake in and shape culture. Samuel’s painting brings the real and symbolic figures of women together to form a model of civilisation for the public consumer of art. In the final part of Chapter 1, I move from a consideration of contemporary representations of female writers and artists by men, to women’s own articulation of their sense of community and connection to each other (and their forebears). Angelica Kauffman’s powerful history paintings and self-portraits illustrate the strategic and resourceful use of myth and tradition by women artists and writers in the public eye.



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Modernity, most fundamentally, is the consciousness of oneself as selfcreating. It requires very specific intellectual skills and highly developed systems of communication. None is more critical than writing, which enables us to separate ourselves from our ideas, to take possession of them, and to exchange them with others across space and time. It creates a durable space of self-reflexivity unattainable in transitory oral forms of expression.67 Hesse interprets women’s publication as a form of resistence and empowerment that overcame prejudices and obstacles against other forms of expression. While her argument is seductive, it perhaps places too much emphasis on print culture at the expense of other forms of expression. This book engages directly with women’s publication in a number of formal literary genres – most notably Shakespeare criticism and poetry – but it will also argue for the importance of other more transitory and ephemeral forms of communication to bluestocking identity, such as letters and conversation, both of which were crucial conduits of critical opinion. It is in order to explore such questions that this book draws upon the substantial body of unpublished correspondence between Montagu and her circle, held at the Huntington library in California.68 Chapter 2, ‘The Bluestocking Salon: Patronage, Correspondence and Conversation’, explores the means by which the bluestockings formed intellectual and social bonds in order to establish their own sense of community. Elizabeth Montagu’s role as cultural patron and leader of the bluestocking circle was vital to the promotion of female intellect in the public sphere of letters. Her salon was renowned for its atmosphere of sociability and sympathy, values promoted by philosophers David Hume and Adam Smith as central to the progress of the new commercial society. Extracts from Montagu’s voluminous correspondence evoke the social space of her assemblies at Hill Street and later Portman Square, emphasising her definition of the female intellectual as a public figure and her cultivation of what she termed ‘bluestocking philosophy’. This chapter also examines Montagu’s friendship with Elizabeth Carter, which was sustained through a vivid and demanding correspondence, both intimate and intellectual. Their relationship in letters forms an ‘epistolary philosophy’ which must be viewed in connection with the wider sphere of women’s writing in the period. Finally, I compare Montagu’s central social role in bringing women writers together with the message conveyed by her sister Sarah Scott’s Millenium Hall [sic], a novel which creates a utopian vision of a female community seen through the eyes of a male dandy. Scott’s novel celebrates reason and virtue as the tenets of a female community that lives by bluestocking ideals.



In her study of French Enlightenment women, Carla Hesse directly equates publication with entering the public sphere and becoming modern:

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While the first part of the book constructs a sense of the symbolic, real and utopian spaces which the ‘living muses’ occupied in the public imagination, the second part of the book focuses on their written legacy. Critical attention to writing by the nine muses reveals that issues of literary value, gender and representation were present in the earliest arguments for defining a national canon of literature. Their work provides a material challenge to contemporary versions of these arguments. Chapter 3, ‘ “Female Champions”: Women Critics of Shakespeare’ offers an exploration of the strategies (sometimes subversive) that women writers adopted to address the interests of female readers. The promotion of Shakespeare as a hero of the vernacular literary tradition who lacked a classical education was particularly attractive to women, who became associated with early revivals of his plays at the beginning of the century. While Elizabeth Montagu and Elizabeth Griffith promoted Shakespeare as England’s national poet, Charlotte Lennox was more critical. However, all three critics can be said to share a preoccupation with the moral teachings of his plays. They laid an important foundation for women writers in the nineteenth century who promoted the teaching of Shakespeare in schools, and used his heroines in their arguments for equality of the sexes. The fourth chapter, ‘The Bluestocking Legacy in the Romantic Era’, explores the ways in which women used poetry as a form in which to express their political ideas, also suggesting the importance of the original bluestocking example for a more international and radical group of writers working at the end of the century. The relevance of rational philosophy to both radical and reactionary women writers of the late eighteenth century is still under-acknowledged. Its role in underpinning women’s imaginative writings provides a useful means of undoing the Enlightenment/Romantic category division that has become an institutional commonplace. Histories of feminism have linked its emergence to revolutions in political ideas which evolved in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.69 The Enlightenment assumption of equal distribution of intellectual capacity was understood, by some at least, to include women. After all, Descartes’s Discourse on Method was written in the vernacular, and available to women as well as men. Once mind was separated from body and elevated, nothing could be argued from physiology; women’s reproductive capacity could no longer be held against them if all minds were created equal and rationality was the cardinal virtue. Locke’s work on rational thought and his writings on education, which emphasise the social virtues of kindness, generosity and civility as well as the more individual-oriented properties of industriousness and prudence, were influential in promoting new ideas of female education.70 Locke argued against a divinely instituted patriarchal power traceable back to Adam as the model for political and familial relations, placing a new emphasis on contract in both these spheres. As several recent political theorists have suggested, the emergence of a secular ideology of female rationality during the eighteenth century provided an important argument



30

for female education.71 Locke’s Essay Concerning Human Understanding was recommended by several educational writers as suitable reading for young women at the end of the eighteenth century.72 Hannah More included the Essay among other ‘works of reasoning’ as part of a diet designed to increase ‘intellectual stamina’.73 She advocated the ‘solid pursuit of vigorous thinking’ in her plan of ‘Female Studies’; a similar vocabulary can be found in Chapone’s Letters on the Improvement of the Mind and Macaulay’s Letters on Education. The philosophical shift towards rational thought was only partly responsible, of course, for the unprecedented interest in female education in the eighteenth century. As several historians have argued, the increased standard of living in the middling classes and the emergence of a ‘polite culture’ allowed women increased opportunities for self-improvement.74 These social changes influenced the range and quantity of publications for women, and bibliographical historians have noted sharp increases in the number of educational and conduct books published over the course of the century, particularly after 1750; as Barbara Schnorrenberg has argued, ‘the changing and increasing importance of women in eighteenth-century society sheds light on the vital, if often unnoticed, aspects of a society in transition’.75 Recent anthologies of eighteenth-century women’s writing have presented a useful selection from all sides of the education debate, making clear the importance of education as an ideological apparatus with strong links to the ‘woman question’. As Vivien Jones writes, ‘Arguments about whether, and how, women should be educated are always part of wider political debates, and in terms of sexual politics they raise the fundamental issue of difference itself.’76 Chapter 4 concludes with an examination of the importance of rational thought and political argument in the poetry of Anna Barbauld and Lucy Aikin. Anna Barbauld’s early poems convey the central importance of the idea of ‘freedom of the mind’ to her artistic endeavour, a reflection of the values of the dissenting and scientific communities in which she grew up. During the 1790s Barbauld and her circle became associated with the French Revolution, their demands for educational equality being conflated with the general disruption of notions of social order caused by political events across the channel. Women’s attempts to extend the relevance of their rational ideals into the Romantic period has often been overlooked or assumed to have been a failure, such has been the cultural hegemony afforded to the six most famous Romantic male poets. Anna Barbauld’s Eighteen Hundred and Eleven (1812) and Lucy Aikin’s Epistles on Women (1810) are both public poems of considerable depth and ambition. They might be argued to represent the end of an era in radically different tones. A comparative reading of these poems will demonstrate the ways in which they can be read as experimental reflections on (or projections of) the female community represented in Samuel’s painting.




1

If any one should start a query, why the ancients, who reasoned so deeply, should, in their personifications of the sovereign wisdom, have chosen Minerva a female; why the Muses, who preside over the several subordinate modes of intelligence, &c. are all females; and why the conversation of the serpent was held with Eve, in order that her influence might be employed in persuading Adam; such queries could have been well and pertinently answered by the eloquent, generous, amiable sensibility of the celebrated and longto-be-lamented Mary Wolstonecraft [sic], and would interweave very gratefully with another edition of her Rights of Women [sic]. Her honest heart, so estranged from all selfishness, and which could take so deep and generous an interest in whatever had relation to truth and justice, however remote as to time or place, would find some matter for consolation, in discovering that the ancient nations of the world entertained a very different opinion of female capabilities, from those modern Mohomaten, tyrannical, and absurd degrading notions of female nature, at which her indignation was so justly raised.1 In his Letter to the Dilettanti Society, first published in 1798, the painter James Barry reflected on a culture that transmitted its highest aesthetic values to the world through the symbolic figures of women. Pondering the question of why women had been chosen by the ancients to personify wisdom, knowledge and intelligence, he thought immediately of his contemporary, Mary Wollstonecraft, a prolific writer and a woman of significant cultural standing. Barry was writing in the year after her death, at a point when her reputation was most controversial.2 He refers to her as the upholder of truth and justice, qualities traditionally portrayed as iconic female virtues, imagining her relish in recognising the elevated position of women in ancient myth.3 In imagining the muses, those ambiguous mythological figures, through the eyes of a real and public woman Barry conceives them afresh, as symbolising 32



Living Muses: the Female Icon

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a possible world in which women’s capabilities are fulfilled and recognized. His reflections convey the ongoing tension between real and symbolic female figures as depicted in literature, the visual arts and philosophy, raising questions relating to women’s extensive involvement in all aspects of culture during the eighteenth century.4 There is a mutual relationship between writing about women and writing by women, representations of and by women, that the allegorical figures of the muses embody. This chapter will consider the ways in which eighteenth-century writers and artists represented female intellect in the public sphere, exploring the discursive tensions that informed not only Samuel’s painting but also the broader visual and literary language of the time. James Barry’s work as a writer and painter conveyed the sense in which the figures of women were inextricably involved in a wider quest to create and define a public sense of national culture. The purpose of Barry’s Letter to the Dilettanti Society, as summarised by William Pressly, was to establish that the Royal Academy of Arts was ‘no longer capable of accomplishing its original intention of improving public taste’ and that therefore Barry ‘was appealing to another society, the Dilettanti, to undertake this patriotic duty in its place’.5 Barry’s concern to find a justification for his art can be seen in the context of an emerging discourse surrounding the public purpose and commercial utility of British culture. His letter is both a specific complaint and a more general reflection on the place of art in society; it was also followed by his expulsion in 1799 from the Royal Academy. His desire to find a method of defining and representing the civic virtues of the arts was often expressed through female figures, to which he referred constantly in visual and literary terms. Cultural historians have tended to characterise the development of the fine arts in Britain as the expression of inherently masculine and classical theories of the place of art in a just society, focusing on the public man of virtue to the exclusion of his female counterpart.6 As John Barrell has shown in his invaluable discussion of British theories of painting in the period, the discourse of civic humanism became increasingly complicated over the course of the eighteenth century. The constitution of the ‘Body of the Public’ was shifting according to social and political changes which were closely related to the discussion of the aesthetic and social fabric of the nation. Barrell has characterised the development of this discourse as inherently masculine. He argues that history painting was a genre that addressed the public man of virtue through the portrayal of heroic actions carefully selected from the past. The less prestigious genres of portrait painting and nature drawings were considered appropriate for women, both as consumers and producers of art. Similarly, the softening effects of luxury and commerce were characterised as dangerously weak and effeminate. Barrell’s thesis draws too neat a distinction between aesthetic categories in relation to gender, neglecting models of society that proposed the advancement of women and promoted their civilising influence. Recent




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historians of the Scottish Enlightenment have pointed out that philosophers, in particular, placed a new emphasis on the morally superior nature of woman in accounts of the progress of man. Henry Home, Lord Kames’s Sketches of the History of Man (1774), for example, included a chapter on ‘The Progress of the Female Sex’, during the writing of which he solicited the advice of Elizabeth Montagu.7 As Barry’s reflections on Minerva and the muses suggest, women were present in the minds of writers and artists as more than abstract figures or passive consumers – many felt the need to represent real heroines who might provide models of behaviour for contemporary women (and perhaps even men). There is much evidence to suggest that the hierarchical divisions in the fine arts were far less rigid than is often implied, and that women were involved in the development of aesthetic theory both in terms of promoting it as a subject for debate and as initiators of critical discussion and artistic representation.8 Recent research into the exhibition catalogues of the Royal Academy has revealed that many women artists exhibited regularly,9 their work including history painting as well as portraits and depictions of flowers. Enlightenment discussions of the fine arts (and their public) not only acknowledged the contributions of both sexes to a model of social progress but also promoted the cultural achievements and moral virtues of women as integral to its future definition and development. As Barry’s reflections suggest, to acknowledge women’s cultural and intellectual standing was a mark of an advanced civilisation. His belief that the symbolic role of women in their culture might relate to their real capabilities and potential was shared by several advocates of female education during the period. Barry raised questions relating to the inclusion, visibility and agency of women in culture. Richard Samuel’s ‘Nine Living Muses’ have their feet firmly on the ground, demanding respect and provoking curiosity. In this they contrast with earlier paintings of the muses of ancient myth who were often depicted as ethereal figures symbolic of abstract qualities, as lofty bearers of culture who dwell on the slopes of Mount Parnassus. Versions by Raphael and Poussin, for example, occupy unreal, golden worlds. Raphael’s Parnassus gave pride of place to Apollo, playing the fiddle and surrounded by the muses. In this painting, historical and classical figures are united in a single space, as the painter has included a group of poets at the base of the mural.10 However, as with the allegorical figures, these are not clearly individuated or labelled, with the single exception of Sappho. A huge and impressive figure, she wears an expression that could be interpreted as defiance, which is perhaps not inappropriate given that she is the only female historical figure in the entire series of Raphael’s four Vatican murals. Poussin’s Apollo and the Muses on Parnassus, painted just over a century later, was obviously inspired by Raphael’s work, adopting a similar, crescent-shaped composition. Sappho is not present however, and the only female figures depicted are the allegorical muses, who occupy the background of the painting, decorative ornaments to the cluster



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of active male poets who dominate the foreground of the picture, and the naked nymph of the Castillian springs, who is sprawled languorously across the centre of the composition. Apollo is seen to be inspiring one of the poets, while the muses look on.11 Samuel may have modelled his own painting on Anton Raphael Mengs’s Parnassus (1760–61), painted for the Villa Albani in Rome and hailed as a manifesto of the new style of neoclassicism, while itself clearly indebted to the work of Raphael and Poussin. A replica engraving of the painting, by Raphael Morghen, was widely circulated. Here one can see a strikingly androgynous Apollo, surrounded by the classical figures of the muses and painted in an idealised mythological register.12 References to a lost and glorious past, these paintings have a symbolic power that is not related to the position of contemporary women but rather celebrates an aesthetic ideal, an Arcadian idyll. Today, the muses are still evocative of the ‘timeless value’ of culture to society. Few critics have considered the implications of the fact that the muses, a resonant image of cultural harmony, are female. As Marina Warner has argued in her study of the allegory of female form, their symbolic power is so universal that it seems that we are not meant to associate them with real women, let alone women artists.13 We have indeed, for the most part lost a sense of the individual characters and functions of the muses, let alone the possibility that they might refer to real women. The muses inhabit an allegorical sphere of ideas in which the personification of abstract aesthetic categories is the primary device; they do not reflect any kind of historical or political allegory in which figures represent historical personages in real or symbolic terms.14 They provide a means of picturing artistic knowledge in painting and prose, and historically have been used in connection with metaphors of literary community or to make more general public statements about cultural refinement. Academies of learning are often adorned with statues or friezes of the muses or of Minerva, the goddess of wisdom. The muses symbolise ideals and aspirations to knowledge, as well as their attainment. In many eighteenth-century portraits the muse appears as a figure of inspiration, external to another, inspired subject, and separate from, rather than identified with, the poet or artist portrayed.15 Samuel, by contrast, has painted his peers – living women who practised the arts they represent. Visitors to the Royal Academy’s exhibition would have been familiar with their recent literary, visual and dramatic achievements. The Nine Living Muses of Great Britain formed a contemporary model of excellence, embodying the neoclassical ideal of the sister arts.16 Richard Samuel and James Barry shared a willingness to link the classical figures of myth with their real, contemporary counterparts. The idea that it is possible to consider the relation between the real and symbolic forms of woman in a positive sense runs counter to the instincts of modern feminism. The twentieth century idea of muse or muses has tended to conform to the notion of passive and silent figures of inspiration rather




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than vivid practitioners of the arts. As Germaine Greer and Margaret Homans have shown, certain male poets, Robert Graves for one, have been responsible for perpetrating the myth of the muse as an eternally feminine and passive figure of inspiration.17 The Romantic and modernist concentration on the individual act of literary creation has tended to focus on the poet’s communication with the muse as an intimate and often highly sexualised relationship, obscuring the classical tradition of representing the muses as a group of independent, active, wilful and manipulative practitioners of the arts. In classical literature the muses’ judgement was absolute and they represented the standard by which artistic achievement might be measured. In Ovid’s Metamorphoses, for example, the nine daughters of Pierus, who are presumptuous enough to challenge the muses for their position, are turned into crows as punishment for their failure in a singing contest.18 Thus the comparison between real women and muses can be seen as an assertion of women’s artistic endeavour rather than as a portrayal of women as the passive enablers of art. The possibility that the allegorical figures of the muses referred to real historical figures was often raised in discussions of women’s education during the Renaissance and the eighteenth century. The examples of learned women of the past became a standard and popular means of providing evidence of the potential benefits to society of educating women. Thomas Heywood, in the Preface to his Generall History of Women, published in 1657, noted that ‘the invention of all good Arts and Disciplines has been ascribed to the Muses’. The frontispiece to this work is based on that in his first work, Nine Books of History concerninge Women (1624), and is a decorative engraving of the muses in their iconological postures and clearly labelled according to their function (see Plate 12). Just as men were incited to virtue by examples of great men, he wrote ‘what properer object can there be of woman’s emulation than the deeds of other famous women’.19 Heywood’s work is the first in a long catalogue of dictionaries and encyclopaedias of women that flourished in the eighteenth century.20 Whether or not the muses represented real women, women identified and were identified with them. Londa Schiebinger has suggested that the social contexts in which interest in these feminine icons flourished, the Renaissance court and the eighteenth-century salon, were conducive to women’s intellectual advancement.21 It is certainly true that in the eighteenth century, as more and more women participated in the creation and cultivation of polite and professional culture, the means to represent their achievement and authority tended to be found in classical myths and histories of civilisation. Wetenhall Wilkes, in his Essay on the Pleasure and Advantages of Female Literature, published in London in 1741, asked ‘If it were intended by Nature, that Man should Monopolize all Learning to himself, why were the Muses Female, who . . . were the Mistresses of all the Sciences, and the Presidents of Music and Poetry?’22 His question precedes Barry’s comment on the injustice of contemporary society towards learned



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Plate 12 Frontispiece to Thomas Heywood, The Generall History of Women, Containing the Lives of the most Holy and Prophane, the most Famous and Infamous in all ages, exactly described not only from Poeticall Fictions, but from the most Ancient, Modern, and Admired Historians to Our Times (London, 1657), 13cm × 21cm. Reproduced by kind permission of the Syndics of Cambridge University Library


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The Muses have in all ages been the sanctuary of virtue, and the patronesses of a virtuous and honourable behaviour. May not also the fair sex with great justice thus plead with the men? ‘What right have you to forbid us the study of the sciences, the finer arts? Have not our devotees to literature succeeded therin, and distinguished themselves as well in the sublime as the agreeable? And could the poetical performances of certain ladies plead the merit of antiquity, you would read them with the same admiration you do the works of the antients which you cannot help doing justice to.’23 Women frequently drew links between their mythical and real historical predecessors. Mary Hays, for example, combines consideration of her contemporaries, including Catharine Macaulay and Mary Leapor, with real and mythical heroines of the past, such as Abassa, Heloise and Lucretia in her Dictionary of Female Biography, published in 1803.24 Thus Samuel’s painting can be read as belonging to a tradition that celebrated the feminine icon as a powerful example of what women might be and do. Although Samuel was a member of the Royal Academy, little is known about his life and it is assumed that he died young.25 It is difficult to date precisely the execution of his painting. As noted in the Introduction, the image first appeared in the form of a print circulated in Johnson’s Ladies New and Polite Pocket Memorandum-Book for 1778, published by Joseph Johnson in 1777, and was advertised in the London Chronicle for 8–11 November 1777 and in other issues (see Plate 13). The print was introduced with patriotic enthusiasm: Among the many distinguishing excellencies which this age and country boast, the great figure which many women make in the polite arts, as well as in different branches of learning, may be considered as one of the choicest acquisitions. In order to pay a just tribute of praise to such truly estimable characters, we have engaged a very able artist to execute a masterly drawing, in which the most eminent of the female sex are represented as, The NINE LIVING MUSES of GREAT BRITAIN In this temple of contemporary worthies Apollo is represented on a pedestal crowning Britannia with a wreath of laurel. The ladies who compose this group are as follows, viz. Miss Carter, Mrs. Barbauld, Mrs. Montague, Mrs. Angelica Kauffman, Mrs. Macaulay, Miss More, Mrs. Lenox, Mrs. Griffiths, and Mrs. Sheridan.



women. The Marchioness de Lambert, an educational writer popular with the bluestocking writers in Samuel’s portrait, reflected:

39



Plate 13 Page (after Richard Samuel), The Nine Living Muses of Great Britain, Engraving (1777), 12.5cm × 10cm, from The Ladies New and Polite Pocket-Memorandum Book 1778 published by Joseph Johnson. Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington, DC

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The following short article enumerated the various achievements of Samuel’s subjects in glowing terms, particularly relishing the combination of domestic and intellectual talents that were united harmoniously within their individual biographies and as a group.26 The importance of the muses’ literary and artistic work to a sense of national identity can be seen most clearly in the print, in which Apollo is about to crown the female figure of Britannia. She is the central and most important figure in the composition, resplendent in a traditional chariot, her laurel crown hovering above her head like a halo.27 The print of the engraving (made by an engraver called Page), taken from Samuel’s painting, became extremely popular, which may have spurred Samuel to exhibit the original painting at the Royal Academy. It was unusual for a print to be published before the exhibition of a painting but it did sometimes occur and was intended to solicit interest in the painting from patrons and the broader public. Samuel was working at a time when the commercial success of the print trade was itself starting to be seen as indicative of Britain’s cultural wealth.28 His subjects form an impressive gathering, inviting comparison with various eighteenth-century portraits but remaining a unique example of a group portrait of women united by their professional status. In Samuel’s painting, Apollo stands in place of Britannia, a mute and marble figure amidst the muses’ colourful silks. The painted portrait offers an interesting inversion of Zoffany’s The Tribuna of the Uffizi (1772–78), his famous depiction of male connoisseurs ogling women in the archetypal forms of Venus and the Virgin (the Venus de Medici, Titian’s Venus of Urbino and a Raphael Madonna).29 Here the masculine figure of perfection is subject to the female gaze. In choosing to paint living muses, Samuel paid tribute to his female contemporaries, a community of artists who personified the aims of a civilised society. He both brought an allegory down to earth and raised his contemporaries to a higher plane. While Samuel’s painting can be interpreted on a number of levels, it remains primarily a testament to the achievement of women in the eighteenth century as cultural standard-bearers of considerable influence. The Nine Living Muses of Great Britain should be seen in the context of contemporary aesthetic debate, providing an interesting example of eighteenth-century efforts to advocate the importance of female involvement in social and cultural progress. The only evidence we have of Samuel’s artistic aims and achievements is that provided in a lecture he gave in 1786 to the Society of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce. Here he established his concern with the commercial and cultural status of the nation and the promotion of the teaching of drawing as a tool of social progress: Independent of the gratitude I feel for the honour conferred, by your twice adjudging me the premium of your Gold Pallet, for the best original



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Historical Drawings, I cannot think an Essay on the utility of Drawing and Painting can be anywhere so properly addressed as to your truly respectable Society; who, sensible of how necessary a fine taste in the Polite Arts is to a commercial Nation, early promoted the practice of Drawing and Painting, by appropriating a considerable part of your funds to the rewarding of such Artists as excelled in the various branches of the Polite Arts: thus stimulated they aim’d at that excellence which has raised the English school to its present eminence.30 Samuel’s lecture praised the potential of visual art to transcend language barriers in a commercial and moral project of expansion beyond the borders of England. He had been awarded a prize from the Society of Arts in 1773, for an improvement in the method of laying mezzotint grounds, and was particularly committed to finding new inventions to improve artistic methods.31 He urged that travellers to foreign countries should acquire an accurate skill in drawing in order to bring home useful knowledge: ‘To such skill were we indebted to for the introduction of the curious Italian machine, first invented in Derby, for throwing of silk, for which the parliament gave a reward of fourteen thousand pounds; and there are still in Europe, machines and improvements which may become equally valuable.’32 The silks worn by Samuel’s nine muses, while classical in inspiration, are perhaps Derby patterns. Women were important patrons of the burgeoning new decorative industries.33 Samuel’s manifesto presented the development of the fine arts as the privileged distinction of a civilised society. He quoted Lord Kames: ‘A just taste in the fine arts, derived from rational principles, is a fine preparation for acting in the social state with dignity and propriety.’34 In such a society, the social and cultural position of women was an important indicator of the level of civilisation acquired. Their role as the producers and consumers of fine art and literature was important to the definition of Britain’s status as a culturally sophisticated nation. In this spirit, George Ballard boasted, ‘it is pretty certain, that England hath produced more women famous for literary accomplishments, than any other nation in Europe’.35 The close affinity between commerce and the arts during the eighteenth century is perhaps charted most clearly in Hume’s Essays, Moral, Political and Literary. In two essays, ‘Of Commerce’ and ‘Of Refinement in the Arts’ (originally entitled ‘Of Luxury’), he maintained the importance of the mutual relation between private and public prosperity. He argued that the refinement of the arts and the industries associated with luxury goods was necessary to the general advancement and happiness of mankind, and that a taste for refinement in the arts and a thirst for knowledge was inherent in progress towards the creation of a community of cultural consumers: The more these refined arts advance, the more sociable men become; nor is it possible, that, when enriched with science, and possessed of a fund




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of conversation, they should be contented to remain in solitude, or live with their fellow-citizens in that manner, which is peculiar to ancient and barbarous nations. They flock into cities; love to receive and communicate knowledge; to show their wit or their breeding; their taste in conversation or living, in clothes or furniture. Curiosity allures the wise; vanity the foolish; and pleasure both. Particular clubs and societies are everywhere formed: Both sexes meet in an easy and sociable manner; and the tempers of men, as well as their behaviour, refine apace.36 Hume emphasised the role of both sexes in creating his model of sociable commerce. Women were integral to the public good, and the private and the public were mutually interdependent: But industry, knowledge and humanity, are not advantageous in private life alone: They diffuse their beneficial influence on the public, and render the government as great and flourishing as they make individuals happy and prosperous. The increase and consumption of all the commodities, which serve to the ornament and pleasure of life, are advantageous to society; because at the same time that they multiply those innocent gratifications to individuals, they are a kind of storehouse of labour, which, in the exigencies of state, may be turned to public service. In a nation where there is no demand for such superfluities, men sink into indolence, lose all the enjoyment of life, and are useless to the public, which cannot maintain or support its fleets and armies from the industry of such slothful members.37 Thus the more traditionally conceived effeminate characteristics of luxury were translated into a useful source of industry rather than remaining a wasting influence, with associations of greed and vice. The domestic sphere became an important element in the national economy, creating a demand that must be supplied.38 Returning to Samuel’s painting in the light of Hume’s essay, we can see The Nine Living Muses as a model of productivity and industry. Samuel linked Britain’s moral and social progress directly to its cultural and economic status. Each implied the other in a mutually beneficial relationship, which he aimed to elucidate to his receptive audience: If the art of painting was considered either as an object of elegant speculation, or the means of polishing and softening our manners, we could not esteem it too highly; but the utility is far more extensive. To painting we are indebted for the pleasing enlargement of our minds, by which we look back to ages past, view the customs, manners, and even the persons of the ancients; which by painting become as familiar to us as if they were still living.39



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In The Nine Living Muses of Great Britain, Samuel realised his belief in the didactic potential of painting as a medium for communicating ‘the pleasing enlargement of the mind’. The classical figures of the muses were made familiar in the living forms of Samuel’s renowned female contemporaries. On first glancing at Samuel’s painting one receives an abstract sense of female unity and achievement. Reading more closely we can realise the more complex nature of its message. Samuel was representing culture to the cultured. His work was exhibited in the recently founded Royal Academy, at the first exhibition to be held in the larger and grander Somerset House designed by William Chambers, architect to George III. In merging reality and myth through the living bodies of his contemporaries, he performed an exercise in flattery and advertisement that also complied with the theoretical standards of high art as espoused by the Academy’s first President, Joshua Reynolds. The Nine Living Muses was emblematic of Britain’s cultural status and also suggestive of the emergence of a new female and feminine republic of letters. Samuel’s painting can be interpreted as a representation of women’s achievement in the context of Hume’s ‘storehouse of labour’. The centrality and high status of the muses’ combined artistic output illustrated the power of Britain as Europe’s most highly cultured, proto-imperial power.40 Women become the symbolic flags of a country’s pride, a practice still common today. Only recently were the ‘Muses for a Modern Britain unveiled’ on the front page of a national broadsheet; an updated version of Samuel’s painting illustrating the fact that ‘Britain excels at modern art, auctioneering, exploring and theatre – London’s West End has twice the number of theatres of Broadway; the armed forces and inventions – Britain has won 61 Nobel prizes compared to Japan’s four; gardens, the City, broadcasting, field sports and public education’ (see Plate 14).41 The impulse to celebrate women as emblematic of national pride might remain, but in other respects this updated image is significantly different, particularly in the absence of a single professional writer. While the use of women’s achievement to boost national morale may seem crude today, in an eighteenth-century context it can be seen to illustrate a more profound development in contemporary theories of the progress of civil society. It is also arguable that the blurring and merging of the real and symbolic more broadly reflected the transitional nature of women’s cultural status. Like Hume and Richard Samuel, James Barry incorporated women in his vision of the public. He represented both contemporary and mythical images of the female form in his paintings and writings, including Minerva, Elizabeth Montagu, Pandora and Anna Barbauld. One of Barry’s major projects was a series of murals depicting the Progress of Human Knowledge and Culture, painted at his own suggestion during 1777 for the Society of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce, and adjusted and improved until 1801 (see Plate 15). His account of these paintings was published in 1783.42 The murals were didactic in purpose and relied on Barry’s supporting text, which




Plate 14 Derry Moore, 12th Earl of Drogheda, Modern Muses of Great Britain (1996), digital C-type colour print, 105mm ×470mm. Country Life



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Plate 15 James Barry, The Society of the Encouragement of Arts &c in the distribution c National of the Premiums to the Society of Arts (1791), etching, 420mm × 505mm Portrait Gallery, London. This engraving was made by Barry to record his much larger mural, 15 2 × 11 10 painted for his grand series The Progress of Human Knowledge and Culture and now restored and possible to view at the Royal Society of Arts



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The distribution of the Premiums in a Society, founded for the patriotic and truly noble purposes of raising up and perfecting those useful and ingenious arts in their own country, for which in many instances they were formerly obliged to have recourse to foreign nations, forms an idea picturesque and ethical in itself, and makes a limb of my general subject, not ill-suited to the other parts.43 Elizabeth Montagu is given a central position as a benevolent enabler of artistic progress. She had enrolled as a member of the society in 1758, although scholars have been unable to deduce much about the level of her involvement in the society beyond the fact that it was almost certain that she acted as a patron.44 There also survives an example of her own sketches in ink.45 Barry’s explanatory notes emphasised the exemplary moral virtue of Montagu as ‘a distinguished example of female excellence, who is earnestly recommending the ingenuity and industry of a young female’.46 Behind Montagu, surrounded by duchesses of the realm, stands the ‘venerable sage, Dr. Samuel Johnson, who is pointing out this example of Mrs Montagu, as a matter well worthy their graces most serious attention and imitation’.47 In the background of the painting is a statue of ‘the Grecian mother dying, and attentive only to the safety of her child, putting it back from her breast after which it is striving’.48 Barry brings together a statue and the real figure of a woman in a crowded and disturbing space of bustle and competition. Woman’s sacrifice is presented as a powerful resource for an advancing society, which in a double sense proceeds at her expense. His portrayal of both female figures verges on the propagandist in emphasising their role in forging a moral and virtuous society in which the arts, agriculture, manufactures and commerce are appreciated as public benefits. Barry’s model of a busy and productive society ever aspiring towards progress includes men and women – and men paying tribute to women. The Society of Arts admitted women from its foundation and bestowed premiums on female artists. His painting was conceived as a very public statement of a vision that diverged from the more staid agenda of the Royal Academy, where he saw artistic excellence pursued in too narrow a fashion. His purpose was patriotic and he aimed to present England’s produce in all its variety, from ‘white tough-iron, maps, charts, madder, cochineal, a gun-harpoon for striking whales with more certainty and less danger, English carpets, and large paper of a loose and spongey quality’, to ‘history, painting, and sculpture’.49 In one of several diversions from his description of the painting,



draws on an eclectic selection of stories from history and myth in order to form a contemporary aesthetic and moral manifesto. In the fifth painting from the set, the Distribution of Premiums in the Society of Arts, he aims to make visible a community of social purpose, which, in an extensive commercial society might otherwise be invisible. He introduced the painting thus:


47

What an acquisition has knowledge and literature lately received from those great luminaries that have blazed out in Scotland. Even our women, what encomiast could exceed in speaking of the perfections of many of them. I hope it will be excused me if I just point at one, who, to the shame and loss of the public, is buried in a retirement . . . actually making two-penny books for children; but the appearances may deceive us; some epic or other great work is, I trust, in hand, as the solace of retirement . . . Leisure will, I hope be found; the world of imagination lies still before her, and there is no region of it which Mrs Barbault’s [sic] muse may not appropriate to itself.50 Barry died before Barbauld published her magisterial Eighteen Hundred and Eleven. His admiration for Montagu’s fellow ‘living muse’ is further proof of the substantial power held by women in the public imagination. Barbauld’s muse is depicted as a figure that must draw power to itself before it inspires others. Barry lamented the fact that her talents were employed in providing the ‘virtuous culture of a few children’ when ‘talents, like her’s, belong to the country at large and to the age, and cannot, in justice, be monopolized, or converted into a private property’.51 Women constituted an important part of a new consumer society, freshly aware of the improving force of culture. They played a vital role in Barry’s argument for broadening the terms on which taste was decided, for expanding the narrow standards of the Academy.52 The nature of Barry’s move away from the Royal Academy is exemplified through the visual contrast between his Distribution of the Premiums, in which women participate in the model of artistic production, and Zoffany’s painting of The Academicians of the Royal Academy, exhibited at the Academy in 1772 and reproduced as a mezzotint in the following year (see Plate 16). In Zoffany’s composition, the absent female academicians (Mary Moser and Angelica Kauffman – both founding members) are represented in oval portraits on the walls of the room in which the men are engaged in a life-drawing class, from which women were excluded on grounds of propriety. The men are shown in active pursuit of their ideals, in animated poses which suggest discussion and deliberation. The women are no more than static and shadowy presences – sedate onlookers situated outside a conversation which they are not permitted to enter. As Rozsika Parker and Griselda Pollock suggest, Zoffany’s painting is, like Samuel’s Living Muses, simultaneously a portrait of real people and an idealised depiction: ‘it is about eighteenth-century notions of the nature of the artist and the manner in which art should be pursued and practised’.53 Zoffany’s academiciansconvey the intellectual vitality of an aspiring and male-dominated profession. In contrast, Samuel’s muses seem static and even rigidly portrayed, their poses in some sense analogous, perhaps, to society’s view of professional women,



he referred to the contemporary high standard of ‘criticism and philological knowledge’:



48 Plate 16 Richard Earlom (after Johann Zoffany), The Academicians of the Royal Academy (1773), mezzotint, 506mm × 721mm. Published c British Museum by Robert Sayer

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who were expected to be morally irreproachable. Samuel’s portrait is also, of course, a much cruder image – not only because it lacks Zoffany’s extraordinary painterly skill but also because it places patriotic pride above any attempt to individuate its subjects. Henry Singleton’s Assembly of the Royal Academicians (1795) stands out in offering a rare naturalistic portrayal of Kauffman and Moser, assured and at ease among their male contemporaries and set by the painter at the apex of the arrangement of figures (see Plate 17). However, women were not only emblematic of national pride. They were involved, at least to some extent, in the processes of definition taking place in new cultural institutions.54 Samuel chose the painter Angelica Kauffman to represent his own art. In his composition, she replaces the figure of Urania, Muse of Universal Vision, thus giving a particularly high status to painting.55 In his lecture, Samuel makes large claims for painting and drawing as superseding the power of language as a means of communication: ‘Painting has an infinite advantage; for applying immediately through the medium of nature, it becomes a universal language; it is perfectly understood by the Briton, the German, the Turk or the Chinese.’56 Kauffman’s fame rested primarily on her success in the genre of history painting, which had traditionally been conceived of as a male activity, as contemporary reviews of her work frequently remarked. The London Chronicle of May 1777 reported on her painting of Calypso Mournful after the Departure of Ulysses, exhibited at the Royal Academy annual exhibition: Miss Kauffman still maintains her character as one of the first historypainters of the age; and so strong is the turn of her genius to that sublime branch of art, that while most of the male pencils in the kingdom are employed in portraits, landscapes &c. she gives us, every succeeding year, fresh proofs of the vigour of her mind by producing something excellent in the historical way.57 Here we find a direct inversion of twentieth-century received wisdom in relation to the sexual division of labour in the eighteenth-century art world. Kauffman’s historical works were extremely popular and received a number of glowing reviews extolling her ‘masculine and daring spirit’ in choosing such heroic subjects, comparing this phenomenon with the idea of a woman poet writing epic and heroic verses as opposed to sonnets and epigrams.58 She exhibited numerous portraits and history paintings during her years in London and even after her return to Italy in 1781. In 1771 the artist Mrs Delany wrote: ‘This morning we have been to see Mr West’s and Mrs Angelica’s paintings . . . My partiality leans to my sister painter. She certainly has a great deal of merit, but I like her history still better than her portraits.’59 Recent historical research into the life and work of Kauffman resulted in a major retrospective exhibition of her paintings, engravings and porcelain designs, which stressed the professionalism and diversity of her oeuvre.60




Plate 17 Charles Bestland (after Henry Singleton, 1795), Assembly of the Royal Acac National Portrait Gallery, demicians (1802), stipple engraving, 645mm × 805mm London



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Here I will briefly address her self-portraits and portraits of women, considering her work as an important example of how women artists represented themselves in the cultural context of the later eighteenth century. Her Self Portrait: Hesitating between the Arts of Music and Painting (1791/94) provides a fascinating comparison with Samuel’s painting (see Plate 18). As Angela Rosenthal has argued in her superlative study of the painter, Kauffman’s self-portrait possesses the dimensions (more than two metres wide) and ambitions of a history painting and must be understood as an act of ‘rhetorical self-representation’.61 The artist is poised between two versions of herself, two muses. She has placed herself in the position usually occupied by the hero in ‘The Judgement of Hercules’, a popular subject of the time, in which he makes the choice between vice and virtue.62 Comparison with Paolo de Matthaeis’s version of this painting reveals the provocative nature of Kauffman’s adoption of Hercules’ powerful position of choice (see Plate 19). Kauffman is asserting herself in the public sphere of painting at the Royal Academy with a direct and forceful sense of purpose. James Barry, an ambitious history painter himself, praised her ability to dramatise and record a moment of decision with such force: ‘Some may say, that this is great, since is was executed by a female; but I say, that whoever produced such a picture, in whatever age or whatever country, it is great, it is noble, it is sublime.’63 In her Self-Portrait in the Character of Painting Embraced by Poetry (1782) Kauffman portrayed herself with portfolio and brush in the personification of Painting embraced by Poetry, her sister art, who is identified by the standard attributes of laurel wreath, winged temples and a lyre (see Plate 20). This image expresses her allegiance to the ideal of ut pictura poesis (as is painting, so is poetry) expressed in Horace’s Ars Poetica. Both arts require learning to create images in words or pictures that will instruct as well as delight the mind and eye. An individual response to the issue of professional selfhood, Kauffman’s self-portrait reveals her awareness of the doubleness involved in being a woman painter in the traditionally masculine sphere of classical history painting. By placing herself as the artist she both broke with the traditional image of the male artist being inspired by a female muse and ensured her status as a practitioner of high art. She occupies a position that is more like that of the muse of antiquity – an active, creative female. Kauffman’s powerful portrait, Sappho, painted and exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1775, created a striking vision of the female poet, her left hand pointing at the scroll upon which she writes with her right. The original painting, a richly coloured work in oils, was engraved by the Facius brothers for Boydell in 1778 (see Plate 21).64 Peter Tomeroy has argued that the painting was probably intended as a veiled self-portrait.65 Gill Perry supports this view, arguing that Kauffman’s borrowed identity as Sappho allowed her to work within a conventional academic system of symbolic or allegorical personifications of women: ‘When the “academic” female artist was both subject and object of representation she was enabled to speak largely through the careful manipulation of forms of symbolic representation.’66 As Perry






52 Plate 18 Angelica Kauffman, The Artist Hesitating Between the Arts of Music and Painting (1791 or 1794), oil on canvas, 1473mm × 2159mm. Nostell Priory, the St Oswald Collection (acquired by the National Trust with the help of the Heritage Lottery Fund in 2002) c NTPL/John Hammond

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Plate 19 Simon Gribelin (after Paolo de Matthaeis), The Judgement of Hercules (1713), in Anthony Ashley Cooper, Earl of Shaftesbury, Characteristicks of men, manners, Opinions, Times, 3rd edition, 17cm × 10.8cm. The Syndics of the Cambridge University Library

points out, Kauffman’s Sappho formed an allegorical image of inspiration which broke with the symbolic codes established, for example, in Poussin’s Inspiration of the Epic Poet, in which Apollo inspired a young poet to write while a languorous muse looked on.67 Kauffman perhaps intended to paint herself as an image of inspiration for other women. She certainly offered generous financial and moral support to younger female artists, among them her cousin Rosa Florini and Maria Cosway. She also encouraged the talent of Georgiana Keate, the daughter of her friend the poet George Keate, who wrote an enthusiastic encomium to Kauffman, in which he described how ‘The historic muse unfurls her scroll.’68 Her bold self-portraits formed an engaging demonstration of her participation in the higher genres of academic art. As Rosenthal has pointed out, Kauffman was aware of working within the context of a creative sisterhood and she created a series of ‘exceptionally beautiful portraits’ which record ‘the inspirational exchange with and the creative achievements of other living women artists’.69 Sappho’s role as a contemporary model of inspiration can be further illustrated in the several translations and impersonations of her work by women




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Plate 20 Angelica Kauffman, Self-Portrait in the Character of Painting Embraced by Poetry (1782), oil on canvas, 61 cm, tondo. The Iveagh Bequest, Kenwood

writers.70 Mary Robinson’s Preface to her translation, Poems from Sappho to Phaon (1796), argued for recognition of her generation of female authors, whom she viewed as advancing into the light of reason and freed from the shackles of slavery: It is in the interest of the ignorant and powerful, to suppress the effusions of enlightened minds: when only monks could write, and nobles read, authority rose triumphant over right; and the slave, spell-bound in ignorance, hugged his fetters without repining. It was then that the best powers of reason lay buried in the dark mine; by a slow and tedious process they have been drawn forth, and must, ere long, diffuse an universal lustre: for that era is rapidly advancing, when talents will tower like an unperishable column, while the globe will be strewn with the wrecks of superstition . . . I cannot conclude these opinions without



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Plate 21 G.S. and I.G. Facius (after Angelica Kauffman), Sappho Inspired by Love, c The British stipple engraving, 357mm x 265mm. Published by Boydell, 1778 Museum


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Here Robinson acknowledged the power of her female contemporaries as a growing body of professionals. In her later essay, A Letter to the Women of England, on the Injustice of Mental Subordination (1799), published under the pseudonym Ann Randall, she listed over two dozen prominent female literary critics, most notably Anna Barbauld and Clara Reeve, as well as essayists, historians, biographers, translators and classical scholars. She concluded that the best novels since those of Smollett, Richardson and Fielding had been produced by women: ‘and their pages have not only been embellished with interesting events of domestic life, portrayed with all the elegance of phraseology, and all the refinement of sentiment, but with forcible and eloquent, political, theological and philosophical reasoning’.72 Women writers were inevitably aware of and often enjoyed their sense of belonging to an age in which their fame was in the ascendant. As I will argue in the following chapter, women expressed a sense of their relation to each other, and to existing models of literary tradition, in the pages of their correspondence and through the creation of an intellectual ‘salon culture’ in which conversation and patronage played equally decisive roles.73 Authors such as Mary Robinson wrote against a backdrop of contemporary critical discussion in which women writers, whether praised or condemned, were treated as a separate group, within or outside the mainstream of literary tradition. The subsequent occlusion of women from the annals of literary history has obscured the phenomenal interest in their growing activity during the eighteenth century itself. This substantial increase in women writers coincided with a growth of interest in their character and condition in different ages and nations.74 Women’s achievements were often celebrated in the context of a triumphalist history of civilisation. Thomas Seward, in his poem ‘The Female Right to Literature’, contrasted the happy position of women in England with their sisters who were oppressed by the backward ways of ‘Eastern tyrants.’ He called for a more advanced education for women, for the need to overturn custom: But say, Britannia, do thy sons, who claim A birth-right liberty, dispense the same In equal scales? Why then does Custom bind In chains of ignorance the female mind?75 John Duncombe pursued the theme in his longer poem, ‘The Feminiead, or Female Genius’, published in 1757, which catalogued the achievements of several seventeenth-century women writers. He also praised his contemporaries, including Elizabeth Carter and the labouring poet, Mary



paying tribute to the talent of my illustrious country-women; who, unpatronized by courts, and unprotected by the powerful, persevere in the paths of literature, and ennoble themselves by the unperishable lustre of MENTAL PRE-EMINENCE!71


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Shall lordly Man, the Theme of every Lay, Usurp the Muses’ tributary Bay; In Kingly state on Pindus’ Summit sit, Tyrant of Verse, & Arbiter of Wit? By Salic Law the Female Right deny, And view their Genius with Regardless Eye? Justice forbid! and every Muse inspire To sing the glories of a Sister-Choir! His vision of ‘British Nymphs’ roving through ‘Wisdom’s sacred Grove’ becomes more Arcadian as the poem proceeds. As seen in the preceding discussion of visual representations of the female sex, the blurring of the real and iconic status of ‘woman’ appears to be inherent in the act of recognising women’s cultural achievements: Ev’n now fond Fancy in our polish’d Land Assembled shows a blooming studious Band With various Arts our Rev’rence they engage, Some turn the tuneful, some the moral Page, These, led by contemplation, soar on high, And range the Heavens with philosophic Eye; While those, surrounded by a vocal Choir, The canvas tinge, or touch the warbling Lyre. Duncombe’s zealous conclusion has a remarkable affinity with Samuel’s painting, as he imagines that a great artist, such as Lely or Kneller, might immortalize their forms for future ages, just as his own verse, he tells his female contemporaries, ‘shall save / Your darling Names from dark Oblivion’s Grave’.76 While the chivalry of gentlemen critics could lapse into rather fawning tributes, women were quick to form their own more robust paeans to the ‘sister-choir’. Mary Scott introduced her poem ‘The Female Advocate’ (1774) thus: It may perhaps be objected that it was unnecessary to write on this subject, as the sentiments of all men of sense relative to female education are now more enlarged than they formerly were. I allow that they are so; but yet those of the generality . . . are still very contracted. How much has been said, even by writers of distinguished reputation, of the distinction of sexes in souls, of the studies, and even of the virtues proper for women? If they have allowed us to study the imitative arts, have they not prohibited us from cultivating an acquaintance with the sciences?77



Leapor, who is singled out for her ‘perpetual pursuit after Knowledge’. His plea for recognition of these women contained an implicit reference to the injustice of their legal position:

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I flatter myself that a time may come, when men will be as much ashamed to avow their narrow prejudices in regard to the abilities of our sex, as they are now fond to glory in them. A few such changes I have already seen; for facts have a powerful tendency to convince the understanding, and of late, Female Authors, have appeared with honour, in almost every walk of literature. Several have started up since the writing of this little piece; the public favour has attested the merit of Mrs Chapone’s ‘Letters on the Improvement of the Mind;’ and of Miss More’s elegant Pastoral Drama, intituled, ‘A Search After Happiness.’ ‘Poems by Phillis Wheateley, a Negro Servant to Mr. Wheateley of Boston;’ and ‘Poems by a Lady,’ printed for G. ROBINSON in Pater-noster-row, lately published, also possess considerable merit.78 All in all, women writers and artists could not fail to be conscious of their growing reputation at the time at which Samuel painted The Nine Living Muses of Great Britain. Their intervention in literary and artistic tradition was inevitably self-conscious, involving a sense of group identity and a commitment to women’s education – and in the words of Mary Hays, an interest in ‘their advancement in the grand scale of rational and social existence’.79 The future of critical reason appeared to belong to both sexes. Samuel’s depiction of nine ‘living muses’ can be seen as a metonym for women’s involvement in the cultural world of their time, conveying at once the centrality and diversity of their public role. The painting provides evidence of the status granted to ‘literary women’ as a collective class, and the following chapter expands the exploration of female group identity in this period by addressing the networks formed by women’s acts of correspondence, patronage and conversation. Women were not merely passive objects of representation but frequently participated in creating their own image.80 Here I have suggested that the various attempts to forge a new female tradition tended to create a lively dialogue between mythical and real models of achievement. Contrary to the views of several later critics and historians, women identified with existing models of tradition in a strategic, pragmatic fashion rather than choosing to situate themselves outside such models altogether. By following the trail started by James Barry’s reflections, we have become aware of the sense in which eighteenth-century women, as the vivid practitioners of culture’s most highly valued arts, honoured the model of the active muse first celebrated in classical myth.



Her suggested reforms in female education were more ambitious than those of most male writers on the subject. She emphasised the need to consider the social context of ‘improving women’s minds in knowledge’, using the recent expansion in numbers of women writers as ammunition in a wider argument about women’s rationality:

The Bluestocking Salon: Patronage, Correspondence and Conversation

When Elizabeth Montagu spotted the printed version of Samuel’s Nine Living Muses of Great Britain in Johnson’s Ladies New and Polite Pocket MemorandumBook for 1778 (see Plate 13), she immediately wrote to her closest friend, Elizabeth Carter: Pray do you know, that Mr Johnson, the editor of a most useful pocket book, has done my Prose head the honour to putt it into a print with yours, & seven other celebrated heads, & to call us the nine Muses. He also says some very handsome things, & it is charming to think how our praises will ride about the World in every bodies pocket. Unless we could all be put into a popular ballad, set to a favourite old English tune, I do not see how we could become more universally celebrated. We might have lived in an age in which we should never have had ye pleasure of seeing our features, or characters, in Pocket books, Magazines, Museums, litterary & monthly reviews, Annual Registers, &c &c &c. You, who may look to future & posthumous fame, may despise the weekly, monthly, or annual registers, but for a poor Grisette of a Commentator, who only aspired to brush off a little dust & some Cobwebs with which time & filthy spiders had disgraced the Bays of a great Poet, I think it extraordinary felicity even to enjoy a little brief celebrity, & contracted fame.1 Montagu is proud of her fame, recognising her popular, and possibly fleeting, appeal. She seems to revel in the rapidly expanding print culture of her age, with its ‘Pocket books, magazines, Museums, litterary & monthly reviews, Annual Registers, &c &c &c.’ Her precise distinction between contemporary ‘celebrity’ and ‘posthumous fame’ reveals her awareness of the hierarchy governing the emerging sense of a national literary canon, in which the place of women writers was the topic of lively debate.2 Montagu’s playful humour suggests her familiarity with the professional world of letters. She is keen to enjoy the multiplicity of her representation, to become public property. A woman of independent mind and means, she 59



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was concerned to promote female learning and encouraged several women’s participation in the world of letters. During her lifetime she manipulated the market forces of the literary profession, for herself and on behalf of others. As leader of the ‘bluestocking circle’, she was responsible for creating a literary community of both sexes which forged new links between learning and virtue in the public imagination. Female friendship and professional support were vital components in establishing the bluestockings as a group who cultivated intellectual conversation about literature, history and politics.3 Women expressed a sense of their relation to each other, and to existing models of literary tradition, in the pages of their correspondence and through the creation of an intellectual ‘salon culture’. Samuel’s painting, as we have seen, can be interpreted as an expression of Britain’s cultural wealth in a European and imperial context – it celebrates the ascendancy of women in the literary and fine arts with patriotic zeal. Within the terms of this mutually beneficial relationship, in which individual and collective virtue were celebrated as definitive national characteristics, it is possible to detect signs of a distinct feminine perspective. Having established the public reputation and visibility of women writers and artists in the previous chapter, I will now shift the perspective of enquiry and attempt to view Samuel’s subjects through their own eyes. The Nine Living Muses of Great Britain is a single public and idealised image of a ‘republic of letters’ and must be considered alongside other models of female learning, particularly those formed by women themselves. Bluestockings created a community of intellectual support, often working across the traditionally conceived boundaries of private and public literary culture. Recent scholarship has revealed the importance of considering literary texts as part of the social and economic networks that support intellectual activity – particularly in the case of women writers. Critics such as Margaret Ezell, Dustin Griffin and Sarah Prescott have strengthened our historical sense of the connection between the material and intellectual cultures of authorship.4 In addressing the full range of bluestocking activity, this chapter foregrounds the various ‘circles of learning’ that established women’s intellect as a public matter. Taking Elizabeth Montagu, ‘Queen of the Blues’, as a point of focus, I delineate three spheres of activity in which relationships between women were purposefully forged: patronage, correspondence and conversation. All three of these activities took place within the context of a ‘salon’ culture, or to be more precisely British, a culture of opulent yet regulated ‘assemblies’. While they were inevitably indebted to their French predecessors and contemporaries, the bluestockings tended to define themselves against the French ‘salonnières’, pursuing a more rigorously virtuous and apolitical identity than their French sisters.5 However, both French and English women played a critical part in defining the Enlightenment values of culture, civilisation and nation as feminine. As Dena Goodman has shown in her invaluable history of the French republic of letters, in France (as in



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England) ‘women figured as the civilizing force in both history and contemporary society’.6 Goodman has argued strongly for the link between social practice (including conversation, letters and patronage) and the construction of history in giving women a particular and central role in the formation of Enlightenment society. Like the bluestocking circle, the French ‘salonnières’ presided over a form of woman-centred but mixed-gender sociability that was to have a significant impact upon contemporary intellectual and print culture. Moreover, both French and English women exercised powerful influences over the social spaces they inhabited. Like Goodman, I want to emphasise the links between social space and discursive practice and will argue that not only did women exert considerable control over their surroundings, but also that they were highly conscious of the relationship between the interior world of the imagination and the exterior expression of this in the worlds they moved in and shaped. As we will see in the following chapters, Samuel’s ‘living muses’ made influential contributions to formal and ‘canonical’ literary genres – most notably Shakespeare criticism, educational writing and poetry. Here, however, I concentrate on forms of intellectual exchange that are often considered peripheral or incidental by literary historians and critics. My main body of evidence in considering these relatively informal and potentially ephemeral areas of cultural production is the substantial body of surviving correspondence between Elizabeth Montagu and her circle, held by the Huntington Library in California – a collection that gives invaluable insight into the various modes of bluestocking sociability.7 Patronage, conversation and correspondence occupy a space between public and private spheres of discourse – perhaps a reason for the lack of attention they have received in traditional literary history and criticism. However, it is arguable that women perceived such areas as intensely literary and connected to the literary culture of their time. Bluestocking achievement can be seen in the context of a broader social movement in which feminine values such as sensibility, sympathy and charity became elevated as the signs of enlightened civil progress, qualities to be adopted by men as well as women. The historian Mary Catherine Moran has shown that eighteenth-century historians such as John Millar and Lord Kames valued women’s ability to create ‘an intermediary social sphere that was thought to guarantee both civic and domestic virtue’.8 In contrast to the political realm described by civic humanism, the notion of the public sphere described by writers on taste, such as Addison, Hogarth, Hume and Kames was constituted by public spaces, locations of polite assembly, commerce and leisure. Women played a formative role in establishing the codes of sociability practised within these spaces. Bluestocking assemblies created a unique blend of domestic, political and intellectual culture that managed to transcend the traditional dichotomies of social organisation. As Lawrence Klein has argued, ‘what people in the eighteenth century most often meant by “public” was sociable as opposed




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to solitary (which was “private”) . . . people at home, both men and women, were not necessarily private’.9 As I will argue, bluestocking women built upon the ‘public’ aspects of their particular brand of sociability to permeate the broader public sphere of print culture, as defined so influentially by Habermas. Harriet Guest has argued that Montagu was valued by her contemporaries for managing to transcend political factionalism while nevertheless achieving political ends in that she removed men from their political context, ‘reconfirming their identities as what Habermas calls “human beings pure and simple,” as private men who participate in the literary public sphere’.10 Of equal importance, I would argue, was the fact that she propelled several women into print, including some who might not otherwise have considered publication. As Carla Hesse has argued of the bluestockings’ French peers, publication of women’s writing was crucial to their social recognition as modern individuals in the public world.11 This chapter investigates the ‘circles of learning’ that supported and made possible such acts of publication. However, it does not aim to privilege publication at the expense of its supporting structures – rather to recognise the integral value of various intellectual networks in forming a broader culture of enquiry. Patronage, conversation and correspondence are forms of connection that both elevate private concerns to the level of public significance and incorporate public spirit into the home. In exploring these discrete yet interconnected discourses I wish both to complicate and enrich our understanding of women’s cultural agency at a moment of historical transformation. Before addressing bluestocking ‘circles of learning’ in detail, it is vital to acknowledge the importance of the physical space in which they took place. Montagu’s London houses were carefully planned projects, built with particular ends in mind and central to the spirit of the salon. As a woman who worked enormously hard to increase her wealth, she was ever conscious of the links between material and intellectual culture. She made concrete her vision of enlightened society in a number of ways but perhaps nowhere more so than in her two London mansions, first at Hill Street, scene of the original, more intimate bluestocking parties, and later in Portman Square, a grander and arguably more impersonal stage for social intercourse.

‘Queen of the Blues’: Elizabeth Montagu in her salon At the age of sixty-one, Elizabeth Montagu reflected on her experience of metropolitan society in a letter to Elizabeth Vesey, her friend and fellow bluestocking hostess: You and I have many peculiar reasons not to suffer it with us to fall into dejection, or even languor. The Loves and the Graces, and les jeux and les ris, have indeed forsaken us, but do not the Muses keep a kind of correspondence with us by means of all their favourite sons? After supping



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on Helicon with the nine do they not often condescend to drink tea in Bolton Street or Hill Street? We have lived with the wisest, the best, and the most celebrated men of our Times, and with some of the best, most accomplished, most learned Women of any times. These things I consider not merely as pleasures transient, but as permanent blessings; by such Guides and Companions we are set above the low temptations of Vice and folly, and while they were the instructors of our minds they were the Guardians of our Virtue.12

Montagu connects learning, virtue and sociability in a hymn to her own achievement in cultivating the ‘most learned Women of any times’. She characterises bluestocking society as one of ‘permanent blessings’ rather than ‘pleasures transient’, articulating a certain awareness of her significance in transforming the way in which men and women communicate with each other, and the way in which women are valued by their peers. By this point in her life she enjoyed a place at the heart of London’s literary culture. While she had published little – a few ‘Dialogues of the dead’ and her more famous Essay on Shakespeare, which made her reputation as a critic – her social role as inimitable salon ‘hostess’ and her support of younger and aspiring authors made her a potent symbol of female learning. Montagu’s fame ensured that she was represented in a myriad of different forms during her lifetime. She appeared as ‘a distinguished example of female excellence’ in James Barry’s painting The Distribution of the Premiums in his grand series of murals, The Progress of Human Knowledge and Culture (see Chapter 1). She was also painted by Frances and Joshua Reynolds and cast in a medallion by Wedgwood (see Plate 22).13 Allan Ramsay’s remarkable portrait of Montagu from 1762, is the perfect embodiment of ease, elegance and learning (see Plate 23). Her sparkling black eyes and raised eyebrows lend spirit to a calm and dignified pose. He painted her in contemplative mode and her elbow rests upon the recently published third volume of Hume’s History of England, elegantly aligning her with the intellectual force of the Scottish Enlightenment. Ramsay’s style echoes Nattier’s stunning depiction of French salonnières, portraying Montagu as the epitome of intellectual refinement and feminine grace.14 Such positive visual images of Montagu celebrate her as an exceptional and resplendent individual. Unsurprisingly, she was also the butt of literary and visual satire. She appeared in a caricature of Abelard and Eloise together with the simpering William Mason, an aspiring clergyman-poet, who had every reason to wish for favour (see Plate 24). The title would have brought to the contemporary mind Pope’s Eloisa to Abelard (1717) and Rousseau’s La Nouvelle Héloise (1761). Montagu, of course, was not Mason’s pupil and Mason was far from being a brilliant theologian like the original Abelard. The following extract from an essay by Richard Cumberland, who visited




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Plate 22 Portrait medallion of Mrs Montagu, jasper ware (stoneware) oval cameo; white relief bust, profile to right, moulded and applied to pale blue ground with gilt c The British Museum metal frame, 42mm x 35mm x 4mm

Montagu’s drawing room on frequent occasions, suggests the breadth of her influence: Vanessa in the centre of her own circle sits like a statue of the Athenian Minerva, incensed with the breath of philosophers, poets, painters,



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Plate 23 Allan Ramsay, Elizabeth Montagu (1762), oil on canvas, 1257mm x 1003mm. Private Collection



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Plate 24 Abelard and Eloisa (c. 1775–78), hand-coloured mezzotint, 350mm x c British Museum 245mm. Published by Bowles and Carver



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Cumberland poked fun at Montagu’s efficient and mechanical attitude toward literary talent, implying that she lacked the true connoisseurship of the gentleman. He also conveyed a certain disdain, and perhaps even anxiety, regarding the varied social status of the individuals that Montagu attracted to her salon, from young ladies to Birmingham hardware manufacturers. While originally aristocratic in formation, the bluestockings admitted members into their circle on merit alone; and although Montagu was not radical in her plans for educational improvement, at her London assemblies she did encourage a new sense of openness, a re-situation of knowledge that made participation in literary life more accessible to a greater number of individuals. Whether ‘Queen of the Blues’, ‘Vanessa’, ‘Minerva’, ‘Madonna’, or ‘Lady Blue-bottle’, Elizabeth Montagu became an exemplar of female intellect, heralded in an obituary as ‘an ornament to her sex and country’.16 Montagu’s salon was famous amongst the men and women of her day for its seemingly perfect balance between culture and commerce, intellect and pleasure. For Montagu, these spheres were to a certain extent physically demarcated by the contrasting nature and functions of her properties. She divided her time between winters in her London home, the setting for her assemblies; spring and autumn at Denton near Newcastle, where she managed her collieries; and summers at her country estate at Sandleford in Berkshire, where she retreated from the glare of society and the arduous work of running her mines. She also travelled to Bath, Tunbridge Wells and the country seats of her noble friends. Known as ‘fidget’ in her youth, she had unstinting energy for entertaining, whether as a matter of intellectual delight or social duty. Even at Sandleford, her country seat, she described herself as ‘an ambitious farmer’ and became minutely involved in the vagaries of the potato trade. As she wrote to her sister on 26 December 1767, Montagu considered herself ‘a Critick, a Coal Owner, a Land Steward, a sociable creature’.17 Her behaviour in all these spheres was integral to her definition of what she termed ‘bluestocking philosophy’, which might be interpreted as a form of charity, combining literary and cultural patronage with a sense of social duty. Montagu’s shrewd management of her coal-mines in Newcastle allowed her the financial freedom to become an influential cultural patron.18 By the end of her lifetime, ‘Montagu Main’ was the second most popular coal on the market and her bank account at Hoare & Co. was transferred to the category reserved for institutions such as Eton College and the richest members of



orators, and every votarist of art, science or fine speaking. It is in her academy young noviciates try their wit and practise panegyric; no one like Vanessa can break in a young lady to the poetics, and teach her Pegasus to carry a side-saddle: She can make a mathematician quote Pindar, a master in Chancery write novels, or a Birmingham hardware-man stamp rhimes as fast as buttons.15

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the aristocracy. It was unusual for a woman to control one of these accounts, especially an untitled woman. The extent of her income can be gauged from the following extract from a letter to her brother, written soon after she became a widow: ‘I propose that the course of my expenses should keep so far behind my income that my friends need no more to scruple to take the overflowings of my purse than any waste water, for if they do not accept of it, it shall flow into the great ocean of human society.’19 Despite the superabundance of her wealth, Montagu had clear ideas about how she wanted to spend her money, regulating her time and focusing her attention towards various different sorts of patronage – charitable, literary and architectural. Her talent for ‘ornament’ and display was frequently praised and while her enthusiasm for exuberant interior decoration appears now to border on unreasonable excess, she seems largely to have escaped the disdain reserved for the fashionable folly of several of her female contemporaries. She maintained a reputation for moral virtue, despite her conspicuous talent for spending money. Montagu’s first important London home and site of the early bluestocking assemblies was 23 Hill Street, to the west of Berkeley Square, where she lived from 1744.20 After her husband’s death in 1775 she embarked on the more ambitious work of building Montagu House a grand mansion in Portman Square, which she moved to in 1781. Hill Street was an elegant but modest building in comparison to the stately grandeur of Montagu House, but it included a dramatic series of decorative interiors that reflected the style of the homes of the original French salonnières in spirit and inventiveness.21 As Rosemary Baird has argued, its more intimate and lively design embodied the nature of its function as scene of the original bluestocking meetings, which were formed by a more tight-knit and informal gathering of friends than the large crowds that flocked to Montagu House in the 1780s and 1790s. Among the survivals in the Hill Street house is Stuart’s wonderful ‘Zephyr’ ceiling, described by Mrs Delany in 1773 as ‘Mrs M’s room of Cupidons’, which had only recently been opened: with an assembly for all the foreigners, the literati, and the macaronis of the present age. Many and sly are the observations how such a genius at her age, and so circumstanced, could think of painting the walls of her dressing-room with bowers of roses and jessamines entirely inhabited by little Cupids in all their little wanton ways, unless she looks upon herself as the wife of old Vulcan, and mother to all these little loves!22 Not content to confine herself to classical motifs, Montagu was one of the first women to create a complete Chinese scheme for her dressing room at Hill Street, including not only wallpapers and fabrics but also porcelain and furniture. As Baird notes, this room was used for entertaining on an intimate scale but could also be opened up to become part of the rest of the adjoining



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apartment and ‘Great room’, which was decorated according to a classical scheme. Montagu’s guests were to concentrate on improving their minds against a backdrop of pagodas, nodding mandarins, cushions of Japan satin and curtains decorated by Chinese painting on gauze. She created a curious blend of classical and oriental decoration at Hill Street, keen in part to experiment in the latest fashions but also, and perhaps more importantly, to orchestrate a compelling backdrop for her assemblies. In a letter of January 1750, Elizabeth told her sister Sarah: ‘It is like the temple of some Indian God.’23 On Christmas Eve 1752, she described how the previous evening ‘the Chinese-room was filled by a succession of people from eleven in the morning till eleven at night’.24 The following spring she told her husband: ‘I had rather more than an hundred visitants last night, but the apartment held them with ease, and the highest compliments were paid to the house and elegance of the apartments.’25 When her Chinese room needed refining and redecorating fifteen years later, Montagu persuaded Robert Adam, who was deeply committed to a style of simple, classical elegance, to undertake the rare exercise of working in the Chinese style.26 Montagu wrote ‘from our palace in Hill Street’ to her sister Sarah in January 1767: ‘My Dressing Room is really wonderfully pretty. Mr Adam has done his best; he has exerted much genius on the doors in emulation of his rival Stewart. I assure you the dressing room is now just the female of the great room, for sweet attractive grace, for winning softness, for le je ne sais quoi it is incomparable.’27 It was typical of Montagu’s spirit as a trailblazer that she incorporated the work of two of the most successful and competitive contemporary architects within the walls of her home – a provocative move that was surely intended to inspire debate. In fact, her juxtaposition of classical and Chinese taste can arguably be interpreted as a response to the gendered characteristics of contemporary aesthetics. Her reference to her dressing room as ‘the female of the great room’ suggests her awareness of counterpoint in conceiving a space for mixed bluestocking meetings. As David Porter has suggested, a study of chinoiserie can reveal ‘the elaborate networks of social ritual and private fantasy through which material objects participate in the construction of cultural meaning’.28 He argues that while the craze for chinoiserie has been accounted for in terms of fashion and the romance of empire, few have acknowledged the sense in which it might be seen as signalling ‘a new form of aesthetic subjectivity’.29 Porter’s original analysis of the relationship between material and intellectual history provides a useful model for thinking about the nature of bluestocking cultural activity. Montagu’s choice of chinoiserie could be seen as a form of resistance to the predominantly masculine sociability associated with classical taste. Furthermore, her wish to combine classical and oriental aesthetics is suggestive of the broader sense in which she aimed to balance mental rigour with sensual pleasure, moral integrity with exterior delight.30




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Montagu’s passion for ostentatious display was extraordinarily well managed. For her contemporaries, she seemed to embody a particular kind of virtuous magnificence. In 1758, Edward Wilson described Montagu as a ‘highly instructive accomplished Woman possessed of great affluence, who indulges herself in a chaste display of fashionable as well as literary Elegance, makes her Drawing Room the Lyceum of the day, maintains a luxurious hospitality for the Votaries of that science which she loves, and patronizes learning which she has herself adorned’.31 The aspiring author Nathaniel Wraxall, who visited the bluestocking assemblies regularly during the 1760s, described the ‘“Gens de Lettres,” or “Blue Stockings,”’ as ‘a very numerous, powerful, compact Phalanx, in the midst of London’.32 Like Wilson, he was fascinated by Montagu’s ability to harmonise opposing qualities. He complained of the brightness of Montagu’s diamonds thus: I used to think these glittering appendages of opulence, sometimes helped to dazzle the disputants, whom her arguments might not always convince, or her literary reputation intimidate. Notwithstanding the defects and weaknesses I have mentioned, she possessed a masculine understanding, enlightened, cultivated, and expanded by the acquaintance of men, as well as of books. [. . .] She was constantly surrounded by all that was distinguished for attainments or talents, male or female, English or foreign; and it would be almost ungrateful in me not to acknowledge the gratification, derived from the conversation and intercourse of such society.33 The gaudiness of Montagu’s earrings was apparently redeemed by her ‘masculine understanding’. Wraxall was reluctantly impressed by the conjunction of material and intellectual brilliance to be found at Hill Street and could not deny Montagu’s standing as a leading cultural figure: Mrs Montagu was then the Madame du Deffand of the English Capital; and her house constituted the central point of union, for all those persons who were known, or who emulated to become known, by their talents and productions. Her supremacy, like that of Madame du Deffand, was, indeed, established on more solid foundations than those of intellect, and rested on more tangible materials than any with which Shakespear himself could furnish her. Though she had not as yet begun to construct the splendid Mansion, in which she afterwards resided, near Portman Square, she lived in a very elegant house in Hill Street.34 Wraxall’s comment on the ‘solid foundations’ of Montagu’s wealth was snide or even envious. However, other contemporary commentators interpreted her building projects in a more positive light – recognising the importance of her houses as monuments to bluestocking philosophy. Towards the end



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of her life, for example, her friend Sir William Pepys was struck by Montagu’s achievement in solidifying her virtue: ‘. . . while I was surveying the grandeur of the Apartments, and the Exquisite workmanship of the Ornaments my mind could not help dwelling upon the whole as a Monument of that judicious Charity for which you have always been so distinguished’.35 Here Pepys refers to Montagu House, a building that formed a material monument to the ephemeral culture of bluestocking philosophy – a philosophy that took the form of letters, wit and conversation, constantly circulating but never caught. Montagu referred to her mansion, which took some twenty years to complete, as a ‘Temple of virtue and friendship’ and ‘a palace of chaste elegance’.36 Soon after her husband’s death in 1775, Montagu purchased from the Portman family a ninety-nine years’ lease of the land at the northwest corner of Portman Square on which her great house was to be built. She decided to employ James ‘Athenian’ Stuart once more, despite his wayward practice in working on her Hill Street house.37 She reported, with particular pride, that she had paid its costs week by week out of her income: ‘between Janry. 1777 and Dec 1777 I paid for my service of plate, and my house [Portman Square] together £4,321 10s out of my income and had not then a bill of £20 on my tradesmen’s books’. Unlike several of the leading aristocrats of her day, Montagu never went into debt. She took pride in remaining in credit throughout her life, something she considered a feminine virtue: ‘writing Eliz Montagu to bond or Mortgage would appear to me a masculine action, rather like swearing such an oath as Ventre blue, or odbodskins; no real harm, but merely an indecorum’.38 The construction of Montagu House became a public event. By 1780 the building supervisor had to issue tickets to limit visitors to a number that would not hamper the workmen or damage the paint. Among the several artists and craftsmen Montagu employed were Angelica Kauffman, Giovanni Battista Cipriani (1727–85) and Biagio Rebecca (1735–1808). She herself was deeply involved in the design of the house, from the commissioning of individual items to its overall plan.39 While generally using the finest construction materials, she also experimented with new decorative techniques that were designed to imitate the most expensive metals, such as ormolu, an alloy that was applied to bronze objects to give the appearance of gold. Montagu’s network of patronage extended further than ever, as she sought out the best workers in bronze, marble, glass, wood-carving and gilding. James Harris, one of the many writers to whom Montagu was patron at this time, wrote to her in 1780:

I am to inform you I have seen an Edifice, which for the time made me imagine I was at Athens, in a House of Pericles, built by Phidias. Where my reverie ended, I felt a more solid satisfaction of reflecting, that, in my




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One of the most dazzling sights in Montagu House was an ambitious series of feather screens, built in the decade between 1781 and 1791. Montagu’s friends were asked for contributions of feathers to apply to large, canvas mounted frames in order to form decorative collages of landscapes that included flowers, birds and beasts of every variety and shade.41 Betty Tull, Montagu’s forewoman at Sandleford, her country estate, was in charge of creating the screens, which attracted enormous admiration while they were being made. Montagu wrote to Elizabeth Carter in 1781, ‘From ye gaudy peacock to ye solemn Raven, we collect whatever we can.’42 She described Betty Tull’s talent in glowing terms: ‘Maccoas she has transformed into Tulips, Kings fishers into blue bells by her so potent art.’43 William Cowper’s poem, ‘On Mrs Montagu’s Feather Hangings’, for the Gentleman’s Magazine conveys the exuberance of the feather-screens, their joyful ostentation: The Birds put off their ev’ry hue To dress a room for Montagu, The Peacock sends his heav’nly dyes, His rainbows and his starry eyes; The Pheasant, plumes which now infold His mantling neck with downy gold; The Cock his arch’d tail’s azure show, And, river blanch’d, the Swan, his snow. All tribes beside of Indian name, That glossy shine, or vivid flame Where rises and where sets the day, Whate’er they boast of rich and gay, Contribute to the gorgeous plan, Proud to advance it all it they can.44 Cowper wrote his poem in the hope of attracting ‘Minerva’s’ attention. His flattery paid off when Montagu supported the publication of his translation of the Iliad, adding her name to the list of subscribers and sending the poet a warm letter of encouragement. James Barrington wrote to Montagu in a similar spirit of gallantry, ‘I will collect all the Peacocks feathers, as well as others for Mrs Montagu; it is the only comfort I have at the death of a beautiful bird, to think that their plumage will have the honour of shining as a Constellation in the exalted situation of Mrs Montagu’s Palace at Portman Square.’45 Montagu received the ultimate accolade in June 1791 when Queen Charlotte and the royal princesses came to do honour to the



own Country, the Genius of Phidias, could still produce an Architect, and the Genius of Pericles still produce a Patroness.40

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feather-work – an event she referred to ecstatically in a letter to Elizabeth Carter, adding, rather grandly, ‘The news papers wd tell you all that is worth hearing about my breakfast on Monday.’46 Horace Walpole, in one his letters, quoted from the account of the visit in the St James’s Chronicle, which described the room as ‘wholly covered with feathers, artfully sewed together, and forming beautiful festoons of flowers and other fanciful decoration. The most brilliant colours, the produce of all climates, have wonderful effects on a feather ground of dazzling whiteness.’47 Montagu appeared to have created a sensation – one that can be seen as a visual metaphor for her social ability to blend a variety of individuals into a bold display of harmony. As Lady Louisa Stuart wrote, Montagu attracted an extraordinary diversity of people: ‘authors, critics, artists, orators, lawyers and clergy of high reputation; she graciously received and protected all their minor brethren, who paid court to her; she attracted all tourists and travellers; she made entertainment for all ambassadors, especially men of letters.’48 Describing the overall grandeur of Montagu’s ‘Great room’, the St James’s Chronicle declared, ‘the whole is an assemblage of art and magnificence which we have never witnessed in a private room’.49 Montagu’s social ambitions blurred the boundaries between public and private life. Whereas the original bluestocking meetings at Hill Street had created a uniquely informal space, the grandeur of Montagu House subdued and overawed its visitors. Hannah More lamented this change in character: ‘The old little parties are not [to] be had in the usual style of comfort. Everything is great and vast and late and magnificent and dull.’50 By 1790 we find Montagu writing to her sister of a ‘little assembly’ she plans: ‘it will be composed of Persons of so many different Nations, that if each should speak his Mother Tongue, it wd resemble the company at ye building the Tower of Babel’.51 Here one can perhaps feel a sense of tension created by the threat of chaos. However, it important to understand that in some way Montagu viewed the magnificent scale of her new house as an example of how to invest riches with moral weight. Describing a visit to Castle Howard in 1781, she wrote to Elizabeth Carter, ‘a Man of great rank and fortune, who from his income constructs such a family seat is far preferable to him, who squanders that income in base and sensual pleasures and enjoyments’.52 In an age marked by an ostentatiously reckless aristocracy who gambled away fortunes on a regular basis, Montagu’s cultural investment seemed virtuous, even abstemious. In fact, Montagu articulated the sense in which she wanted her house to embody the perfect mean between excess and abstinence in a revealing letter to her friend William Pepys: I consider my new House as a Palais de la vieillesse, I have endeavoured to give it a sort of splendid comfortableness, which should render it pleasing to visitants while it is convenient to the inhabitant. Young people delight,




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and are delighted, everywhere; I am arrived at an age at which it is no easy matter perhaps to avoid the contempt of the World, and ones own inward dissatisfaction. A certain dignity of appearance to the publick, and elegant accommodations for ones private enjoyment may in some degree avert these evils; and while there are many publick buildings dedicated to diversions and pleasure, many private Houses where every species of luxury and intemperance spread their snares and offer luscious bates to the young and unwary, it is right that Virtue, prudence and Temperance, should sometimes keep open House, and shew there is a golden mean between churlish severity of manners and lean and sallow abstinence in diet; and indecent gayety of behaviour, and that swinish gluttony which ne’er looks to Heav’n midst its gorgeous feast but crams and blasphemes its feeder. Montagu reveals her pride in the fact that her new house allows her to make an exhibition of her ‘Virtue, prudence and Temperance’. In fact, she sees this as a duty of her old age: One of the best rewards which a blameless conduct gives in this World is that in time it establishes a sort of credit with mankind, so that in old age whoever has arrived at that period with such character, may consider his House as a kind of place of protection to young persons entering into the World especially if he is careful in the selection of the company he admits. That so few people understand the duties & offices of old age is often a matter of wonder for me. In building so large a House I had a view to the period of my life, & the style & character of ye times. My great room is entirely adapted to the modern folly of assembling great numbers together, I shall however be free from the modern sin of stifling ye company assembled. I believe it will be some time before the great Room will be finished as it is rather popular & magnificent than dedicated to comfort & friendship, & ye best Household Deities.53 To Montagu, her mansion appeared to be a logical extension of the original bluestocking project. Here she attempted to overcome the potential evils of contemporary social life by offering an ‘open house’ that was public enough yet retained a private aspect – a dignity that depended upon individual conduct. However, as Deborah Heller has argued, such a formal vision of domestic space would soon become utterly outdated, giving way to the world of Humphry Repton’s ‘modern living-room’, where scattered guests ‘their different plans pursue’.54 The bluestocking salons valued the harmonious interaction of individuals but did not cultivate individual expression for its own sake. Montagu’s creation of such an opulent stage for her social gatherings can be seen in the context of Werner Sombart’s study of luxury and capitalism,



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in which he defined the eighteenth century as a significant turning point in the history of luxury, a moment of objectification: ‘It was woman who was the guiding spirit in the movement towards objectification, as I wish to term this process. She could derive only scant satisfaction from the display of a resplendent retinue. Rich dresses, comfortable houses, precious jewels were more tangible. This change is exceedingly significant economically.’55 He characterized the social refinement of this period as signalling the triumph of the female, who deliberately used her gender to secure a dominant role. Sombart linked women’s tendency to sensualise luxury to the greater refinement of individual objects, which implied a greater expenditure of human labour on a specific object. The result was a widening of the scope of capitalist industry and, because of the necessity of securing rare materials from foreign countries, also of capitalist commerce. Montagu was aware of her power as a consumer of foreign luxury. In July 1790 she wrote to her sister Sarah Scott: ‘I am going to the city end of the town this morning to bespeak 280 yards of white Sattin for the window curtains of my great house, and about 200 for the hangings. I think this order will make me very popular in Spittal Fields.’56 From the correspondence surrounding the building of the Portman Square house, it appears that Montagu kept several hundred people in work over a period of about 15 years.57 While Sombart was right to link women’s new economic power to an increase in their social status, it is not clear that this was a positive relationship in the long term. Intellectual historians have recently emphasised the extent to which women came to be used as an index of increasing social refinement or civility, or condemned as the cause of national decline.58 E.J. Clery has termed this debate about progress the ‘feminization debate’, exploring the ways in which men used women in the public eye – articulate, talented and educated women such as Montagu and Carter – to serve as emblems of this process of ‘feminization’. Clery explores the various ways in which literary women reacted to an often insidious linking of commercial progress with the progress of their sex, concluding: Women had been promoted as an emblem of improvement and to an extent it benefited them: most notably by countering misogyny in the literary public sphere. But it was also a trap, locking women into an association with economic innovation, including new and extreme forms of social injustice. The break with feminization gave women writers the freedom to forge new alliances, and freed feminism as well to develop in critical relation to the capitalist status quo.59 Clery’s perceptive articulation of the ambivalent role of ‘feminization’ in shaping women’s public destiny is pertinent in relation to any evaluation of Montagu’s role as a cultural, literary and charitable patron. It is also relevant in thinking about the relationship between the two generations of




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women portrayed in Samuel’s portrait of ‘living muses’ and their respective experiences of professional literary life. Hume, in his essay ‘Of the Refinement of the Arts’, originally entitled ‘Of Luxury’, argued that the taste for refinement in the arts created a community of cultural consumers, of both sexes, who ‘flock into cities, love to receive and communicate knowledge; to show their wit or their breeding; their taste in conversation or living, in clothes or furniture’. He emphasised that ‘Particular clubs and societies are everywhere formed, . . . where both sexes meet in an easy and sociable manner.’60 Like Hume, Montagu fostered communication between the sexes, writing that ‘no society is completely agreeable if entirely male or female. The masculinisms of men, and the feminalistics of the women, if the first prevail they make conversation too rough, and austere, if the latter, too soft and weak. Discourse led entirely by men is generally pedantick or political.’61 She was particularly impressed by the level of conversation between the sexes in Paris, where she visited the leading salons in 1776, revelling in the controversy caused by her denunciation of Voltaire in her Essay on Shakespeare: I am much pleased with the Conversation one finds here, it is equally free from pedantry and ignorance. All the hours I have pass’d in mix’d company I have spent agreeably. The men of letters are well bred and easy, and by their vivacity and politeness shew they have been used to converse with women. The ladies by being well inform’d, and full of those graces we neglect when with each other, shew they have been used to converse with Men.62 As Hume observed in his description of mixed urban sociability, there is an inevitably self-confirming pleasure that arises from shared conversation in a suitably tasteful setting, in which people consciously receive pleasure from the process of self-improvement they are enacting: besides the improvements which they receive from knowledge and the liberal arts, it is impossible but they must feel an encrease of humanity, and from the very habit of conversing together, and contributing to each other’s pleasure and entertainment. Thus industry, knowledge, and humanity, are linked together in an indissoluble chain, and are found, from experience as well as reason, to be peculiar to the more polished, and what are commonly denominated, the more luxurious ages.63

Industry and charity Montagu practised Hume’s precepts of industry, knowledge and humanity with equal zeal. She was profoundly conscious of the relationship between her material wealth and her interest in the fine arts, especially as she



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was closely involved in managing and increasing her sizeable income. Her experience of industry was perhaps more practical than Hume’s intended meaning here. William Weller Pepys, Master of Chancery and a close ally of Montagu, wrote to her in 1780, ‘That you should have more Wit, more knowledge, & more Sense than myself, I willingly submit to; but that you should possess in so superior a degree the faculty of transacting Business without ever suffering to it to harass your Mind, is what I cannot bear: I envy you that Power of Mind beyond any other of your extraordinary endowments.’64 Montagu’s interest in her coal-mines was energetic and ambitious. She matched her attention to technological innovation with a concern for the welfare of her workers, holding regular feasts for her ‘black workers’.65 She reformed the living conditions of her miners at Denton Colliery, taking a consistent interest in their children’s health and education, providing a school for the young boys until they were of an age to go down the mines. As the money from her colliery increased she planned to establish a school for girls on her estate, where they would be taught ‘spinning, knitting and sewing’, qualifications that would be suitable to their rank and might improve their situation.66 In 1775 she wrote to her brother, from Denton, ‘to impart good is enlarging the sphere of enjoyment & I love to think many through my means & on my possessions are made happy. I looked on my happy Tennants with as much pleasure as on the lands they cultivate.’67 Montagu was similarly concerned for the welfare of her neighbours at Sandleford, as she wrote to her sister in 1772, ‘If rich people do not check their wanton extravagance to enable them to assist the poor I know not what must become of ye labouring people.’68 Montagu was not politically radical, preferring to concentrate on the improvement of life within what she perceived to be its divinely ordained stations. She wrote to her husband in 1764, ‘it is the duty of the rich to justify the ways of God to Man, by importing to unendowed merit some of their abundance’.69 In a letter to her sister, from 1766, she described the ritualistic ceremony to celebrate the discovery of new coal on her estate: You must know this is a matter of great rejoycing to the Pittmen & owners of mines [the discovery of new coal] , & is observed with wonderfull ceremony, & followd by a great feast . . . I had sent often meat & broth to the poorer Pittmens families, & done kindness to the sick when I appear’d in the field where they were assembled for ye feast many of ye poor Women fell on their knees, & they assured me there was never no such Woman in Northumberland.70 Here we can detect Montagu’s enjoyment of her power as a local landowner. She often wrote of her coal-mines with a literary self-consciousness or flourish, particularly when conveying her power in masculine terms. A good deal of her satisfaction came from the fact that she knew her achievements were




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remarkable for a woman. In a later letter to Elizabeth Carter, in which she discussed the inadvisable nature of second marriages, she recounted with pride that in five years, with the help of certain lawyers, masons and architects, she has laid out £36,000 in the purchase of land, built a palace in Portman Square and embellished her Sandleford estate ‘as successfully as if I was Esquire instead of Madame; few gentleman in the neighbourhood have done more . . . so I really believe we shall escape the matrimonial influenza’.71 In fact, as Elizabeth Child has observed, she and her correspondents frequently invoke the masculine figures of benevolent capitalism to describe Montagu’s role.72 Her sister Sarah Scott, for example, compared Elizabeth to the hero of Scott’s novel Sir George Ellison, a plantation owner who is reformed through his contact with an idealised vision of female community: To make them [the colliers] in some measure sharer in your good fortune is politic as well as human; they will learn to look on your success with an eye of self-interest, & we know that principle is no small spur to industry. Having on some occasions a sort of enthusiastic warmth in my nature, I can fancy that I see you among the Colliers what I made Sir George Ellison among his Blacks; your Subjects are little inferior either in untowardness or gloominess of complexion.73 While firmly rooted in traditional hierarchies of class and race, Montagu’s acts of benevolence did allow her, to some extent, to transcend the traditional boundaries laid out for her sex. The historian Edith Sedgwick Larson has described Montagu as ‘a practical, assertive, humanistic, but financially oriented woman who skilfully wielded considerable power when female dependence was the norm’.74 It is apparent from these remarks that Montagu perceived her acts of charity and assistance to the lower classes as a social duty, and perhaps also, more pragmatically, as a matter of good management. Moreover, there is a sense in which her charitable ambitions were inextricably linked to her act of self-fashioning as a woman of society, a bluestocking hostess with cultural and financial capital. Her benevolence was often extremely public, as can be seen in Fanny Burney’s description of her gift of an ‘annual breakfast in front of her new mansion, of roast beef and plum pudding, to all the chimney sweepers of the Metropolis’: Not all the lyrics of all the rhymsters, nor all the spring-feathered choristers, could hail the opening smiles of May, like the fragrance of that roasted beef, and the pulpy softness of those puddings of plums, with which Mrs Montagu yearly renovated those sooty little agents to the safety of our most blessing luxury. Taken for all in all, Mrs Montagu was rare in her attainments; splendid in her conduct; open to the calls of charity; forward to precede those of



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Montagu’s annual feasts for chimney-sweeps were held on the front lawn of her mansion in Portman Square, clearly visible to passers-by. This ostentatious celebration of charity, as Burney suggests, was intended to encourage loyalty from her social inferiors as well as to advertise her own virtue. The thread of self-interest running through altruism had been laid bare by Mandeville, of course, earlier in the century in his notorious Essay on Charity and Charity Schools. By the mid-century however, this link was embraced more positively and often recognised as a vital element of the national economy. As Adam Smith wrote in his chapter ‘Of Licentious Systems’: It is the great fallacy of Dr. Mandeville’s book to represent every passion as wholly vicious, which is so in any degree and in any direction. It is thus that he treats every thing as vanity which has any reference, either to what are, or to what ought to be the sentiments of others: and it is by means of this sophistry, that he establishes his favourite conclusion, that private vices are public benefits. If the love of magnificence, a taste for the elegant arts and improvements of human life, for whatever is agreeable in dress, furniture, or equipage, for architecture, statuary and painting, and music, is to be regarded as luxury, sensuality, and ostentation, even in those whose situation allows, without any inconveniency, the indulgence of those passions, it is certain that luxury, sensuality, and ostentation are public benefits: since without the qualities upon which he thinks proper to bestow such opprobrious names, the arts of refinement could never find encouragement, and must languish for want of employment.76 One of the most popular and cogent defences of luxury came to lie in the increasing refinement and flourishing vitality of British culture. Adam Smith’s work on rhetoric and belles-lettres emphasises the civilising effect of culture on the individual, linking intellectual and moral sympathy in his definition of good taste. These virtues were to be cultivated in both sexes, and relied on the interaction between men and women in cementing the civilising process. It is precisely Smith’s vocabulary of encouragement, refinement and employment that Elizabeth Montagu made use of throughout her life. Like Smith, women writers of the bluestocking circle frequently acknowledged the explicit link between wealth, charity and the arts.77 Montagu’s friend, Catherine Talbot, exhorted the wealthy to realise their responsibility towards society in her ‘Essay on the Importance of Riches’: ‘Up and employ yourselves, you who are lolling in easy chairs, amusing away your lives over



indigent genius; and unchangeably just and firm in the application of her interest, her principles, and her fortune, to the encouragement of loyalty, and the support of virtue.75

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French novels, wasting your time in fruitless theory, or your fortunes in riotous excesses. Remember, you have an important part to act.’78 The part that Montagu preferred to act above all others was that of patron of literature. Her correspondence suggests that she was constantly keeping an eye on the progress of her coal on the stock markets in order to gauge how much money she could redistribute to writers and poets. As she wrote to the poet James Beattie: Consider me always in the best light in which you can put me, as the banker of the distressed; and at any time call upon me for such objects; and in all senses of the word, I will honour your bill. Vulgar wretchedness one relieves, because it is one’s duty to do so; and one has a certain degree of pleasure in it; but to assist merit in distress is an Epicurean feast; and indulge this luxury of taste in me, when any remarkable object offers itself to your acquaintance.79 Here Montagu contrasts the different types of charity she exercised, expressing the greater pleasure she receives in helping a particular kind of ‘merit’, one based on talent rather than need. Montagu was strongly aware of the injustices of women’s position in the world of learning. She believed that the pursuit of reading could substantially improve women’s quality of life. In a letter to her father, she thanked him for her privileged education: In this situation I owe much of my pleasures to the education you kindly bestow’d upon me, a habit of reading, so early commenced that the love of it is become a passion, makes me never at a loss, how to fill my time . . . As Men are designed for active & publick life, I think a love of reading is hardly so necessary for them as for Women, to whom retirement is always safe, & sometimes necessary. As they are not to chuse where & how they will live, it is happy to have a taste that may be gratified in any situation or any circumstances. To be a rational creature, & to have had the advantages of a liberal education, to be raised above the misery of want, & the evils of dependence or slavery, are great felicities.80 The time that women necessarily spend alone, she felt, could be used to strengthen the mind, to acquire the independence of a ‘rational creature’. While she particularly appreciated the private enjoyment of literature, considering reading to be a suitable and pleasurable pursuit for women, she was also aware of the broader social implications of a growth in literacy. She made the discussion of reading a matter of public concern at her salon. In a letter to her husband, she remarked on the development of a wider reading audience and increased number of authors. Her description conveys



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Of all arts it seems to me the most valuable is the art of printing . . . Before printing, books must have been so dear, they were rather a part of the equipage of the rich, than the possession of the studious. Now, at a small price, all the works of Sages, historians & Poets of great fame may be purchased. And tho’ life is short, & our travels are very bounded, we may acquaint ourselves with the rise & fall of many empires, the nature of many climates, & the curious productions of many regions. It is true indeed, that books increase in a greater degree than learning. The facility of being an author, now so much can be borrow’d from former writers, encourages where genius does not impell, nor any addition to the former stock of knowledge encourage the undertaker, but still these will sink in the Ocean of Years, & those books only will swim down the tyde of time & reach posterity, in which there is something new or better methodized than before. Many of the lesser paths of learning are more cleared & open, errors are weeded up, & our knowledge, in those things in which it is not extended farther is yet more rounded & compleat than in former times and that profound ignorance which is the friend of those destructive & terrible monsters, superstition and Tyranny, hardly exists.81 Montagu realised that her involvement in the literary public sphere was significant, and unusual for a woman. She perceived that her duty to do good might extend into the emerging professional literary arena, and made it her business to encourage women writers in particular. She took pleasure in clearing and opening the path to learning for others, often taking practical measures to help aspiring authors from impoverished backgrounds.

‘The female Maecenas of Hill Street’82 Montagu relished her role as literary patron, considering it a luxury to be indulged. She did not forget her business skills in the literary world, negotiating with booksellers and publishers on behalf of herself and other aspiring writers. James Beattie, the Scottish poet, was an early protégé of Montagu. Having met her in the summer of 1766, he remained under her influence and patronage for the rest of his life, submitting his work to her for comment before publication. Montagu brought Beattie’s poem The Minstrel to the attention of an impressive network of contacts, including Lord Chatham and Lord Lyttelton, thus securing his reputation. She advised him how best to advertise the poem, as appealing ‘to all people of taste’ and wrote to her London bookseller with instructions to recommend the work.83 Such practical and financial matters were taken up with zeal by Montagu. In addition to her particularly close relationship with Beattie’s career, she also



the sense in which women could vicariously enjoy the experience of others through their reading:

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granted annuities to fellow female authors after her husband’s death in 1775, including Elizabeth Carter, Hester Chapone and Sarah Fielding. James Barry’s depiction of Montagu giving alms to young artists, in his mural of the Distribution of the Premiums at the Society for Arts, Crafts and Manufactures, which was discussed in the previous chapter, conveys her public, charitable identity (see Plate 15). A popular engraved illustration of Miss More presenting the Bristol Milkwoman to Mrs Montagu evokes her more intimate role as patron of individual impoverished women writers (see Plate 25). Anne Yearsley (1752–1806) came from a humble background, following her mother in selling milk from door to door in her home town of Bristol. Hannah More discovered that she was a poet through her cook, from whom Yearsley was in the habit of collecting pig-swill. As More reported to Montagu in August 1784, ‘tho’ she never allowed herself to look into a book till her work was done and her children asleep, yet in those moments she found that reading and writing cou’d allay hunger and subdue calamity’.84 Both More and Montagu were attracted by the idea of bringing her genius

Plate 25 J. Taylor Jr, Miss More Presenting the Bristol Milkwoman to Mrs Montagu (published 1785), engraving, 105mm x 130 mm. Private Collection



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to public attention through their role as patrons. Montagu expressed her enthusiasm for Yearsley’s poetry in glowing terms: ‘Indeed she is one of nature’s miracles. 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 Mt. Parnassus, given her a glass of the best Helicon, and ordered the nine muses to attend her call.’85 With Montagu’s help, Hannah More organised the publication of her poems by subscription. By June 1785, when her Poems on Several Occasions were published, over a thousand subscribers had been found, including several members of the aristocracy and a number of bishops, as well as Reynolds, Burney, Walpole and a number of prominent bluestockings. However, the huge success of Yearsley’s work caused More and Montagu anxiety rather than pleasure – they were unwilling to see her raised above her station and tempted into the full career of an author. The episode ended in scandal when Yearsley accused More of defrauding her by retaining control of the profits gained by her literary success.86 Montagu advised More to retract all interest in the case as soon as the story broke in the press.87 While the relationship ended in bitterness, Yearsley was grateful to her patrons at first. She paid tribute to Montagu in a poem addressed to her. The ‘Queen of the Blues’ is painted as an inspiring and compelling force, a ‘bright Moralist’ who has opened ‘the glories of the mental world’, rescuing the poet’s ‘innate spark which lay immersed, Thick-clogged, and almost quenched in total night’.88 Her forceful poetic style was influenced by her early readings of Milton and Edward Young and has an unusual and original energy. After her break from her patrons, Yearsley continued to publish, encouraged by favourable reactions to her poetic boldness. The intriguing mezzotint of Yearsley, after a painting by the untraced artist Sarah Shiells, depicts the poet in confident, even defiant pose (see Plate 26). She looks up from her writing with a knowing stare, as if aware that she confounds contemporary assumptions and proud of the fact. By 1793 she had opened a circulating library at Bristol Hot Wells. Her last collection of verse, The Rural Lyre, published in 1796, contained a frontispiece by her son, whom she had apprenticed to an engraver in 1790. Montagu and More had been wrong to doubt her ability to manage her success without neglecting her familial responsibilities.89 This episode reveals Montagu’s need to exercise control, suggesting that her attitude to social station remained relatively rigid in important respects and could not be overcome by aesthetic merit alone, despite her intention to create such an environment in her salon. However, Montagu did help propel Yearsley into the literary public sphere, where she made a commercial profit with which to support her family. Montagu’s encouragement of women to publish work that might otherwise have remained privately circulated did give them a sense of independence and cultural authority. Hester Chapone originally wrote her Letters on the





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Plate 26 Joseph Grozer (after Sarah Shiells), Ann Yearsley (1787), mezzotint, 447mm x c National Portrait Gallery, London 332mm



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. . . it is more flattering to the writer than any literary fame; if, however, you allow me to add, that some strokes of your elegant pen have corrected these Letters . . . They only, who know how your hours are employed, and of what important value they are to the good and happiness of the individual, as well as to the delight and improvement of the public, can justly estimate my obligation to you for the time and consideration you have bestowed on this little work. – As you have drawn it forth, I may claim a sort of right to the ornament and protection of your name, and to the privilege of publickly professing myself, with the highest esteem, madam, your much obliged friend, and most obedient servant, the author. (Emphasis in original.) Chapone had sold the copyright of the Letters for £50 when they were first published in 1773, unfortunately relinquishing a substantial fortune to the bookseller. The success of the volume was immediate and enduring – it was reprinted at least sixteen times by 1800. A further twelve editions appeared between 1800 and 1829, when the Letters were translated into French. One of the most influential and popular educational books for women, Chapone’s work was intended to help her niece cultivate rational understanding through her reading of the Bible, history and literature.90 In her otherwise scathing survey of educational writings, Wollstonecraft later singled out the work for praise: ‘Mrs Chapone’s Letters are written with such good sense, and unaffected humility, and contain so many useful observations, that I only mention them to pay the worthy writer this tribute of respect.’91 Many less successful authors, about whom little is known today, felt indebted to Montagu, who appeared in several contemporary dedications as a beacon of female learning.92 She became a powerful model of the female author in the public imagination. When Anna Barbauld’s poems were reprinted in 1776 the Westminster Magazine ran an article comparing the two women, including a striking illustration (see Plate 27). Montagu wrote to Mrs Vesey: Do you know that you may buy Mrs Barbaulds head & mine for six pence if you send for ye Westminster Magazine of last June surely our heads cannot be dear at that price? I ask Mrs Barbaulds heads pardon for valuing them in the lump. You will also find our characters with our heads. The writer has done her justice & shown favour to your humble servant.93 Through her interest in the general advancement of women writers, Montagu fostered a network of individuals with mutual interests. I have concentrated on Montagu’s advancement of others here, but in turn she was also



Improvement of the Mind for her fifteen-year-old niece. Once published, the work was a popular success. She dedicated the third edition to Montagu:


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Plate 27 Mrs Montagu and Mrs Barbauld in the Westminster Magazine, June 1776. c National Portrait Gallery, Line engraving after Thomas Holloway, 159mm x 98mm London


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helped by her friends. Elizabeth Vesey, for example, organised and funded a printing of Montagu’s Essay on Shakespeare in Dublin in 1769.94 The flurry of dedications to the Queen of the Blues could only increase contemporary interest in her writings. Montagu regarded her charitable work at her collieries as an investment: ‘the reciprocal benefits flowing from the colliery to me, & from me to the colliery . . . make a very pleasant commerce’.95 It would seem that her acts of patronage were similarly rewarding, reflecting well on herself and adding lustre to the broader constituency of female authors. Montagu’s cultural investment had ramifications beyond the walls of her salon.

Female culture and correspondence Women commented on the novelty of their shared professional success in the world of letters in a variety of contexts and with differing degrees of enthusiasm. Montagu’s description of the printed version of The Nine Living Muses of Great Britain, with which I began this chapter, elicited the following reply from Elizabeth Carter: O dear, O dear, how pretty we look, and what brave things has Mr Johnson said of us! Indeed, my dear friend, I am just as sensible to present fame as you can be. Your Virgils, and your Horaces may talk what they will of posterity, but I think it is much better to be celebrated by the men, women and children, among whom one is actually living and looking. One thing is particularly agreeable to my vanity, to say nothing about my heart, together, and that from the classical poet, the water drinking rhymes, to the highest dispenser of human fame, Mr. Johnson’s pocket book, it is perfectly well understood, that we are to make our appearance in the same piece.96 Carter’s response conveys a mixture of pleasure, amusement and common sense which is typical of her attitude to the literary world. She expresses her preference for contemporary life, her desire to be celebrated by ‘those among whom one is actually living and looking’. The long correspondence between Montagu and Carter provides an invaluable source for the historian of literary critical opinion in the eighteenth century. Both women were voracious readers and enjoyed sharing their opinions. They often planned to read the same book at the same time, ‘for the pleasure of communicating our observations, & keeping up a daily intercourse, by the means of a third person the author we were reading’.97 Having considered the links made between women through the practice of patronage, I will now explore the important function of correspondence in forming networks of literary exchange and contributing to a new sense of ‘female literature’.




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I send you back Mrs Carters letter, and am greatly rejoyced to find by it, that she proposes to pass great parts of the winter with you. For your own sakes, & that both you may be exceedingly happy, I cannot object to your being frequently together; but for the good of the world, and the benefit of mankind, I own I wish you very often separated, & apart from each other, that mankind hereafter may be benefited by such a Correspondence.98 Several of Montagu’s contemporaries urged her to publish a selection of her letters. Shortly after her death, an early biographer praised her epistolary style, ‘the inimitable excellence, by which she carried on an intercourse with a large portion of the literati of her time’. He described her contemporaries’ wish to see the letters in print: Lord Lyttelton, and Lord Bath, in particular, her favourite friends, repeatedly urged it, as considering that they exhibit the fertility and versatility of her powers of understanding, and the excellency of her disposition, in a more complete manner than any other species of composition. The same request was made by Dr Young, Mr Gilbert West, Lord Chatham, Mr Garrick, Mr Stillingfleet, Lord Kaimes, Dr Beattie, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Mr Burke, Mrs Carter, and Mrs Vesey.99 It is possible that Montagu herself had plans to publish her correspondence. A letter to Mrs Vesey suggests that she was not averse to distributing them: As you are so indulgent to the pictures of my mind I propose to order some copies of my old letters to various correspondents to be delivered to you as soon as they can be written out. When you have read them you shall deliver them to my sister. You must not let anyone see them but Mr Vesey & Mrs Handcock. Mr Burke Sr George MaCarteney & Mr C: Fox call’d in ye other day while Sir Josh was doing my picture. We talked of you & I believe my portrait will wear a softer smile for it.100 Published selections of both women’s correspondence were made at the beginning of the nineteenth century by literary-minded descendants.101 Carter’s letters, first published in 1807, were extremely popular, going through four editions by 1825. Her letters to the bluestockings Catherine Talbot and Mrs Vesey were also published.102 On the evidence of the large



The tone of Carter and Montagu’s exchange was frequently intimate, but sometimes more formal and studied, as if written for a wider readership. Indeed, Montagu did show Carter’s letters to her friends. Lord Bath, for example, wrote to Montagu:

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body of surviving manuscript material, however, it appears that both editors, Matthew Montagu and Montagu Pennington, excised much material of interest, including the more intensely intimate exchanges between their subjects. Elizabeth Montagu’s correspondence provides an invaluable record of her critical, religious and political opinions as well as access to her more intimate doubts, pleasures and griefs; they also convey a measure of the vivacity and wit for which her conversation was renowned. To a large extent, eighteenth-century culture transmitted itself through the letter, bearer of knowledge, instruction and pleasure. Letters lie somewhere between the public and private realms of literary discourse – and in this sense they are akin, if not analogous, to the art of conversation and of reading. In her invaluable and comprehensive ‘cultural poetics’ of eighteenth-century letter-writing, Clare Brant has written perceptively of the limitations of the Habermasian terminology of public and private spheres when considering the letter as a genre: The varied and often unpredictable circulation of letters confounds simple distinctions between public and private and the social origins and destinations of letters are too broad to be restricted to an idealised bourgeois class. In the context of letter-writing, ‘personal’ is useful in that it recognises the significance of letters to individuals and to relationships. It is preferable to ‘private’, a term that is simply inaccurate for many eighteenth-century familiar letters, which were composed in company, voluntarily circulated beyond the addressee and frequently found their way into print . . . Moreover ‘personal’ is not a term of seclusion, like ‘private’. It helps to break down that binary of ‘private’ versus ‘public’ which has encouraged a view of the past as more segregated than it really was.103 It is also important to recognise the sense in which letters cross the traditional boundaries of genre, finding a place in a variety of different literary publications, from newspapers, periodicals, travel accounts and histories to novels, educational tracts, philosophical treatises and religious instruction manuals. Samuel’s ‘living muses’ were variously involved with the letter as a form of literary expression and their contrasting publications reveal a cross-section of authorial personae invoked for different occasions.104 Literary critics have tended to focus most often upon the role of letters as the vital structural element of early novels. The first compelling psychological portraits of heroines in the novels of Defoe and Richardson relied on the letter to convey qualities of spontaneity, immediacy and authenticity. Elizabeth Griffith, who spent her early career on the Dublin stage, made her literary debut with her husband by publishing their courtship letters under fictional names. A Series of Genuine Letters between Henry and Frances appeared in 1757, causing an immediate literary sensation. Frances, the heroine, civilises her suitor through the persuasive power




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of her prose style. As a model example of sentimental romance blended with witty exchange and moral bite, the letters established the fame but not the fortune of their authors. In 1769 they published a follow-up, Two Novels in Letters by the authors of Henry and Frances (‘Frances’s’ The Delicate Distress and ‘Henry’s’ Gordian Knot) in which they included prefaces under their pen-names, extending their unusual literary conceit whereby the boundaries between fact and fiction were blurred. While other novelists had aimed to deceive their readers as to the authenticity of their epistolary fictions, few had used real letters to weave a sentimental narrative. Elizabeth Griffith’s epistolary style has the immediacy of dialogue and draws upon her experience on the stage in developing the psychology of her female narrator through a series of letters that frequently have the intimate progression of a dramatic soliloquy – essays in self-revelation that are intended to be overheard.105 Clare Brant has suggested that Griffith’s work might be contextualised in relation to contemporary debates about female education, the professionalisation of women writers and the higher value granted to women’s intelligence in the companionate marriage. She draws attention to the productive use of the relationship between Eloise and Abelard by Elizabeth and Richard Griffith, as personae that allow them to reflect upon their reversible roles as pupil and tutor.106 Elizabeth Montagu was certainly impressed by the conversion of ‘Henry’ by the tender ‘Frances’, writing to the Earl of Bath: I dare say the generality of men admire Frances’s letter as the virtuousi do a spider web, surprized that any animal can spin so fine a thread, & fancying some blundering, buzzing, great flesh fly will break through this very delicate texture. But you will find sentiment and delicacy triumph at last, & Mr. Henry becomes very platonick. I think her letters extreamly pretty, more tender than the pride of the Fair Sex perhaps will allow, but where virtue receives no injury true dignity can never be hurt.107 The ‘tender’ quality of Frances’s language of love appealed to contemporary notions of sensibility but was matched by a tough sincerity lacking in much contemporary literature of sensibility, particularly in relation to the question of female virtue. In The Delicate Distress, Griffith’s character Lucy Strasson is open to the reality of experience: I am not such an Amazon in ethics, as to consider a breach of chastity, as the highest crime, that a woman can be guilty of; though it is, certainly, the most unpardonable folly; and I believe there are many women, who have erred, in that point, who may have more real virtue, aye, and delicacy too, than half the sainted dames, who value themselves on the preservation of chastity; which in all probability, has never been assailed. She alone, who has withstood the solicitations of a man she fondly loves,



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The authenticity of the letters became a major topic of discussion in contemporary reviews. Griffith herself was surprised by their success and proceeded to experiment in other literary genres, later advertising her wish to emulate Elizabeth Montagu’s Essay on Shakespeare in the preface to her Morality of Shakespeare Illustrated.109 The blurring between life and fiction that takes place in these letters, which appeal on one level as romantic entertainment and on another as a discussion of the institution of marriage, provides an important model for later Romantic and philosophical texts by women. Mary Hays’s Memoirs of Emma Courtney, first published in 1796, used the epistolary form to express the inner turmoil of her suffering heroine, who longs to escape the tyranny of passion in order to live by reason. Hays made use of her own correspondence with William Godwin and William Frend in her fictional text.110 While in many ways far apart, the ‘novels’ of Griffith and Hays share a basic foundation in the exploration of women’s lives and choices as debated in their correspondence. The tension between reason and feeling, history and romance, forms an enduring current through eighteenth-century writing by women. The idea of authors’ letters as constituting a rewarding literary genre of interest to a wider reading audience than their original addressees first emerged during the eighteenth century. Anna Barbauld edited the correspondence of Samuel Richardson. Her six-volume edition provides a fascinating record of the opinions, writing and reading practices of the author and his large circle of female friends.111 She included a sketch of his life in the first volume, in which she commented on his attitudes to ‘female literature’: Mr Richardson was a friend to mental improvement in women, though under all those restrictions which modesty and decorum have imposed upon the sex. Indeed, his sentiments seem to have been more favourable to female literature, before than after his intercourse with the fashionable world; for Clarissa has been taught Latin, but Miss Byron is made to say, that she does not even know which are meant by the learned languages, and to declare, that a woman who knows them is an owl among the birds. The prejudice against any appearance of extraordinary cultivation in women, was, at that period, very strong. It will scarcely be believed, by this generation, that Mrs. Delany, the accomplished Mrs. Delany, objects to the words intellect and ethics, in one of the conversation pieces, in Grandison, as too scholastic to proceed from the mouth of a female.112 What could some of these critics have said, could they have heard young ladies talking of gases, and nitrous oxyd, and stimuli, and excitability,



may boast her virtue; and I will venture to say, that such an heroine will be more inclined to pity, than to despise, the unhappy victims of their own weakness.108

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and all the terms of modern science. The restraint of former times was painful and humiliating; what can be more humiliating than the necessity of affecting ignorance? and yet, perhaps, it is not undesirable that female genius should have something to overcome; so much, as to render it probable, before a woman steps out of the common walks of life, that her acquirements are solid, and her love of literature decided and irresistible. These obstacles did not prevent the Epictetus of Mrs. Carter, nor the volumes of Mrs. Chapone from being written and given to the world.113 Here Barbauld makes no distinction, it would seem, between fictional and actual letters as evidence of historical shifts in opinion. Writing at the beginning of the nineteenth century, her reflections form an apt summary of the change that had taken place in attitudes towards learned women. While she believes there has been a substantial improvement in women’s general level of knowledge, she suggests that they lack the rigour of a Carter or Chapone. Her apparent ambivalence at the relative ease with which women could become writers suggests an anxiety over the increase in their number. However, for many women, including Montagu and Carter, this represented progress – and the letter had proved an instrumental genre in allowing such progress. Reviewing Helen Maria Williams’s Letters written in France, in the Summer, 1790, to a friend in England; containing various Anecdotes relative to the French Revolution soon after their publication, Mary Wollstonecraft referred to the tradition of letter-writing and suggested that, through circumstance, women occupied a privileged position in regard to the genre: Women have been allowed to possess, by a kind of prescription, the knack of epistolary writing; the talent of chatting on paper in that easy immethodical manner, which render letters dear to friends, and amusing to strangers. Who that has read Madame Sévigné’s and Pope’s letters, with an unprejudiced eye, can avoid giving preference to the artless elegance of the former; interested by the eloquence of her heart, and the unstudied sallies of her imagination; whilst the florid periods of the latter appear, like state robes, grand and cumbersome, and his tenderness vapid vanity.114 Sévigné’s loving and introspective letters to her daughter, first translated into English in 1727, were extremely popular amongst the bluestockings. Her example was important to them in validating their intimate and open letters.115 As ever, Wollstonecraft is alert to the role of social constructs in forming ideas of femininity – the ‘natural’ talent of the female letter-writer has always been ‘a kind of prescription’. Nonetheless, it is one that women writers have turned to their advantage, either employing ‘artlessness’ with



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an ironic precision and parodic wit, or developing such ‘artlessness’ into an authenticity of feeling denied the male sex. Whether in fiction, travel writing, conduct books, educational treatises or moral philosophy, the letter formed an adaptable and suitable form for women writers wishing to explore a range and play of voices denied by other genres. Maria Edgeworth’s Letters for Literary Ladies, first published in 1795, combine satirical and didactic messages, irony and authenticity, with playful wit. The subtle transgressions of her arguments are embedded in a form that is familiar and unthreatening to the reader. Claire Connolly has written persuasively of Edgeworth’s plan to create a rational and clear literary space for women in these letters, which she terms ‘epistolary philosophy’.116 Elizabeth Montagu and her circle played a major role in forming and circulating critical opinion from the 1750s onwards, in creating just such an ‘epistolary philosophy’. The bluestocking correspondence formed a network of rational exchange between women (and men), which provides an important historical precursor to the more radical experiments of their successors during the Romantic period, such as Helen Maria Williams, Mary Wollstonecraft and Mary Shelley. How did the ‘epistolary philosophy’ of Montagu’s circle address questions of female community, writing and education? We have seen Montagu’s attitudes to women’s education and her place in literary culture expressed in letters to her father and her husband. I will now turn to her friendship with Carter, perhaps the defining relationship of her life. The correspondence between Carter and Montagu can be seen in terms of a supplement or a counterpart to the highly-valued ideals of conversation and community that were cultivated by the bluestocking circle. Writing was an integral part of Montagu’s existence, fundamental to her identity. She wrote to her sister, ‘Seeing my Shakespear & my Colliery both call on me beside ye daily duty of letters & billets, (not billets doux for which ye season certainly is as much over for me as ye month of july for primroses) indeed I don’t see how a sociable Being can live without writing.’117 In the intimate literary space of their correspondence, Carter and Montagu celebrated a friendship of profound spiritual and intellectual importance, which fed into, and helped define, their broader sense of female literary community.

Carter and Montagu: a friendship in letters You are very good with your thanks, but it seems to me as if my left hand was to thank my right for making a pair of gloves. Tho you have your Greek, & your Muse, & many other things in your particular, our welfare is so join’d, so individual, I defy the splitters of a hair, & the dividers of polypes to disunite them.118




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Amongst her wide correspondence Montagu took greatest pleasure in writing to Carter. As a young girl, Montagu had spent much time at her mother’s property near Hythe, where she became acquainted with Carter, whose father was the curate at nearby Deal. She later sought to renew their friendship after admiring Carter’s edition of Epictetus. Montagu’s first mention of her friend appears to be in a letter to her sister of 1758: ‘Miss Carter is to dine with me tomorrow; she is a most amiable, modest, gentle creature, not hérissée de grec, nor blown up with self-opinion.’119 Montagu was attracted to and impressed by Carter’s intellect and moral stature. Biographers have suggested that she was slightly envious of her capacity for learning.120 Montagu often referred to her own thirst for knowledge, confiding in Carter, ‘I have an appetite for reading which my modes of life hinder me from satisfying.’121 When she was preparing her Essay on Shakespeare, she relied on Carter to send her summaries and translations of the Greek plays. Montagu’s passion for learning was in some sense satisfied by her close association with such an intimidating scholar. Carter had entered the literary world at a young age, contributing verse to Edward Cave’s Gentleman’s Magazine when she was only seventeen.122 Her edition of Epictetus appeared in April 1758, and was received with wide acclaim.123 Her Christian preface to the work is a model of clarity and steeped in the fruits of her wide research on Stoic philosophy. Carter’s need to associate ancient philosophy with the tenets of Christianity was central to her justification for embarking on the project, and she makes strong links between Stoic and Christian virtues. In her summary of the history of Stoicism she distances herself from its creed: That the End of man is to live conformably to Nature, was universally agreed on amongst all the Philosophers: but in what that Conformity to Nature consists, was the Point in Dispute. The Epicureans maintained, that it consisted in Pleasure; of which they constituted Sense the Judge. The Stoics, on the contrary, placed it in an absolute Perfection of the Soul. Neither of them seems to have understood Man in his mixed Capacity; but while the first debased him to a mere Animal, the last exalted him to a pure Intelligence; and both considered him as independent, uncorrupted, and sufficient, either by Height of Virtue, or by well-regulated Indulgence, to his own Happiness.124 The understanding of man ‘in his mixed capacity’ could be seen as a defining goal of the bluestocking circle, who believed learning to be both pleasurable and virtuous. As the historian Susannah Riordan has argued, the latitudinarian Anglicanism of the bluestocking circle gave its members an extraordinarily sure hope of salvation: ‘Bluestockings concentrated on the perfection of earthly attributes, the absence of earthly sorrows and the continuance of earthly delights.’125 The following extract from a letter from



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If the attainment of virtue and happiness is the end of our being, how should it be that the inhabitants of Otaheite [Tahiti – visited by James Cook in 1769] have no consciousness of evil, in the most detestable and pernicious practices? These are things that cannot but excite my wonder, but I think that they will never shake my belief in an over-ruling Providence, which is not merely speculative, but a sentiment that I seem to feel irresistibly.126 Carter’s writings on Epictetus and her later commentaries on the Bible convey a deep concern with the range and diversity of human existence, which led to a belief in charity and benevolence and a commitment to a vision of a humane society.127 This aspect of Carter’s work naturally attracted Montagu, who sought to justify her way of life as a wealthy individual who thrived in mixed society. Carter remained unmarried, partly through choice, as she was unwilling to threaten her life of scholarship. Betty Rizzo has suggested that the companionate relationship between women was often figured as a pleasing alternative to marriage, while not necessarily implying a sexual element.128 Montagu and Carter always attended to the balance of equality in the arrangements of their friendship, Carter unwilling to accept unnecessary or excessive generosity. When in London, she insisted on taking simple, separate lodgings in order to retain her independence and a quiet space in which to study. Some years after her husband’s death, Montagu wrote to Carter to discuss the impending marriage of a middle-aged mutual friend: We are not so perfectly of ye rib of Man as Woman ought to be. We can think for ourselves, & also act for ourselves. When a Wife, I was obedient because it was my duty, & being married to a Man of sense and integrity, obedience was not painful or irksome, and in early Youth a director perhaps is necessary if the sphere of action is extensive; but it seems to me that a new Master, & new Lessons, after ones opinions & habits were form’d, must be a little awkward, & with all due respect to ye superior Sex, I do not see how they can be necessary to a Woman unless she were to defend her Lands & Tenements by sword or gun.129 Montagu betrays the ease of moneyed independence in assuming ‘Woman’ to own ‘lands & Tenements’. However, her comments also reveal the sense in which both friends valued the importance of an independent sphere of activity, in which they supported themselves as far as possible. Both believed in the necessity of useful occupation for the female sex and both were



Hester Chapone to Carter conveys the instinctive confidence of their belief in natural virtue:

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incessantly active. Reading and scholarship were seen as integral to the pursuit of a useful and virtuous life. In addition to pursuing her own studies, Carter educated her younger brother for university and was renowned for the good running of her father’s house. Dr Johnson made the notorious tribute, ‘Mrs Carter can bake a pudding as well as translate Epictetus, and work a handkerchief as well as compose a poem.’130 As we have seen, Montagu believed it her duty to support and encourage younger writers and to match her individual love of scholarship with the promotion of more social forms of intellect in her salon. Friendship between the two women was forged by their sense of mutual interest and respect. The value of such a relationship was acknowledged by Wollstonecraft in her Vindication of the Rights of Woman, in which she wrote, ‘Friendship is a serious affection; the most sublime of all affections, because it is founded on principle, and cemented by time. The very reverse may be said of love.’131 Montagu and Carter shared an active interest in literature by women. In his memoir of his aunt, Pennington explained Carter’s preference for female writers as one of the reasons for her lack of enthusiasm for ‘the society of men of letters in general’: She had an extreme partiality for writers of her own sex. She was much inclined to believe, that women had not their proper station in society, and that their mental powers were not rated sufficiently high . . . [S]he thought that men exercised too arbitrary a power over them [women], and considered them as too inferior to themselves. Hence she had a decided bias in favour of female writers, and always read their works with a mind prepared to be pleased, if the principles contained in them were good and the personal characters of the authors amiable.132 The two women were proud of each other’s work as authors. When Montagu published her Essay on Shakespeare, at first anonymously, Carter’s brother was amongst those, who, trying to guess the author, assumed it to be a man. Carter wrote to Montagu, describing her brother’s reaction to the book: Pray applaud the fortitude of my virtue, which held out against all the commendations which he bestowed on it, without giving the least intimation of the author; whom I suffered to be characterised by he and him, with a most exemplary acquiescence, while I was inwardly wild to oppose such an injury.133 She and Carter were well aware of the general prejudice against women’s talents. Here Montagu explains why she has not yet started her proposed biography of Elizabeth I:



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As to what the Men say of Elizabeth’s being assisted by a fortunate concurrence of circumstance, & by that means her Government was the best & her Reign ye happiest of any of our Princes, they mean no more than that as a Woman cannot be as Wise as a Man, it was not owing to her, but to incidents that she appears the Wisest of our Sovereigns. For the same reason, were I capable of doing justice to her character, & setting it in a true light, the Lords of the Creation wd only say, that I had got a good goose quill, had good paper, & sat in a Bow window; by which means I had both ye morning & evening Sun to give me ye assistance of good light, so I leave their high Mightinesses to write about it, & about it.134 As the authors of moral philosophy and Shakespeare criticism, Carter and Montagu shared the experience of making successful incursions into spheres still dominated by men, and they relied on each other’s support and friendship in a world still largely hostile to learned women. Montagu wrote to the Earl of Bath: Distinguish’d talents expose Women to a great deal of envy, & seldom assist them in making their fortunes. It is hard to say whether Women remarkable for their understanding suffer most from the envy of their own sex or the malice of the other, but their life is one continual warfare.135 Montagu relied on Carter’s support in this ‘continual warfare’, seeking her opinion, unwilling to send anything to press without her approval. In the following letter, in which she refers to her recently published Dialogues of the Dead, which appeared anonymously at the end of Lord Lyttelton’s work of that title, she suggests that she could not contemplate the responsibilities of authorship without the encouragement of her friend:136 ‘I have just received my Dear Miss Carters letter, & am very happy in her approbation of ye dialogues. With her encouragement I do not know but at last I may become an author in form. It enlarges ye sphere of action, & lengthens ye short period of human life.’137 Carter’s critical judgement and encouragement were vital to Montagu in enduring the hard labour required to write her Essay on Shakespeare: I have been revising & I hope mending my poor little work & this day I began the Critique of Julius Caesar to which I applyd myself till I swelled my face however I shall not delay writing to my Dear friend for such a small matter . . . I wish I may be able to find some means to convey my work to you before it goes into ye Press. I dont care to publish any thing you have not seen, & yet it should be printing very soon. Are any of yr Relations to go from London to Deal & to return again? or if I send




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In return for Carter’s help and advice, Montagu would often send parcels of books to her in Deal, accompanied by detailed reports of the latest literary news and gossip in London. The previously published editions of their correspondence contain much of the scholarly exchange between Carter and Montagu. However, the editors have not included their more intimate communications. Carter and Montagu developed an emotional relationship of rare intensity, a sort of rational or platonic love for each other which was grounded in their shared Christian principles. After spending time together, Montagu felt her separation from Carter acutely: It is but little more than four & twenty hours since I could instantly & immediately breathe every thought into the ear of my Dear Miss Carter, catch from her the living spirit of virtue, supply by her all my deficiencies in mind or heart, & by my union with her feel the most perfect creature in the universe in virtue & happiness, & now I am reduced to my native wants & poverty, feel more naked than if I had been scalp’d, more distress’d than if I had been robbed of all I am worth. I am out of spirits & out of humour, could moralize out of spite, philosophize out of peevishness, & retire from the World in a pett. We had such roads & such weather as usually make a pleasant journey. When my fellow traveller fell asleep I had recourse to my Virgil which I read with a divided attention, the donor stealing my thought from the Author.139 Montagu could, however, concentrate on her classics when she so desired. Her early letters to Carter contain long, reflective discussions of ancient literature, comparing, for example, the merits of Suetonius and Tacitus as historians.140 The following extract from a long letter from Montagu to Carter was left out of the published volume edited by her nephew: Whenever you suffer I am in pain, I want to keep you in this World, & yet to have you happier than this World can make you, I want a little Island for you which would be suitable to you should read upon violets be fanned by zephyrs & shaded by woodbine & roses in a moral sense, your mind seems too pure to live in fogs, too gentle for the North Wind, our moral atmosphere our material World is not worthy of you but if you must lead ye usual life come to Clarges street My heart rejoices at ye thought & echo’s come to Clarges streets . . . If I was to prescribe a temperate regimen for my mind I should never come to the luxurious feast of your conversation. You have made me nice & dainty so look that you do not leave me to starve. Pray come to Clarges . . . I can say nothing



ye manuscript by my brother Charles (mind he is not to know what he brings) can you return it to me?138


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Montagu’s passionate desire for ‘the luxurious feast’ of Carter’s conversation gives her letter a bolder rhythm and force than her more weighty excursions on learned themes. This celebration of passionate female friendship is an early example of a literary topos that can be seen more recently in Elizabeth Bishop’s remarkable poem, ‘Invitation to Miss Marianne Moore’.142 Carter’s writings on friendship are more reserved and religious in tone. When her close friend Catherine Talbot died, she consoled herself with the belief that friendships were renewed after death.143 However, something of the measured, philosophic calm Carter enjoyed in her friend’s company can be seen in a poem she addressed to Montagu: How smil’d each object, when by friendship led, Thro’ flow’ry paths we wander’d unconfin’d; Enjoy’d each airy hill, or solemn shade, And left the bustling empty world behind. With philosophic, social sense survey’d The noon-day sky in brighter colours shone: And softer o’er the dewy landscape play’d The peaceful radiance of the silent moon. 144 Montagu later quoted this back to Carter, lamenting that she has been reduced ‘to weep over this fine monument of our departed pleasures’, now that she is unable to receive Carter’s thoughts ‘fresh from your imagination’.145 For the twenty-first century reader perhaps one of the most striking elements of the correspondence is the immediacy of their dialogue, the sense in which it tries to emulate conversation. The speed of delivery and frequency of writing between the two women allowed them to sustain their relationship in letters. Montagu conveys a vivid sense of the bridging and yet intermediary space created by their correspondence, which she compares to dusk, an in-between state, ‘which tho it has not the warmth & lustre of the noonday yet it is a kind of interfusion between it & the gloom of night’: You left London only this morning & I am writing to you tonight, does it not seem unreasonable? I hope not, as you must know there are habits which it is hard to break, & alas I was in the habitude of conversing with you every day. I feel like a traveller, who by the chearfull light of the sun has pleasantly persued his days journey but seeing it below the horizon enjoys & woud fain prolong the twilight which tho it has not the warmth & lustre of the noonday yet it is a kind of interfusion between it & the



that appears to have any sense in it but pray come to Clarges Street. Adieu! My Dear friend believe me that no one can esteem & love you more than I do, esteem me for that esteem & love me for that love.141

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Montagu and Carter’s ‘talent for chatting on paper’ was matched by a strong commitment to the more vivid discursive practice of conversation itself. In the concluding pages of this chapter I will show how the ‘epistolary philosophy’ so conducive and particular to women writers was carried through into speech. While their male contemporaries were trained in oratorical skills, women taught each other the virtues of conversation as a rewarding and educational pursuit with wide ramifications. For Hester Chapone, conversation formed a ‘sphere of action’ which was instrumental to women’s education and to fostering a sense of female community. The spheres of correspondence and conversation also influenced women’s choice of genre in their critical writings. Clara Reeve’s Progress of Romance, for example, takes the form of a series of dialogues between Euphrasia and Hortensius.147 Conversation will be considered as a social practice and tool for education, a learned and virtuous pursuit, as well as the inspiration for literary works by Hannah More and Sarah Scott. One of the challenges of writing about conversation is that as a discursive mode it resists representation and reproduction. I am concerned to establish the links between conversation and writing, which have not yet been fully explored in the British context.148 The bluestocking circle developed the art of conversation as a form of rational exchange that was particularly valuable to women, not only as leading participants in the mixed society of metropolitan culture, but also as writers and educators. The link between speech and writing arguably had more urgent implications for female than for male intellectuals of the period.

Conversation: ‘The noblest commerce of mankind’149 To return to the image of community evoked by Samuel’s Nine Living Muses after hearing the voices of his subjects is to experience disappointment; perhaps in the bland and static harmony of its composition. Both print and painting erase the substantial differences between his subjects in character and appearance. Carter commented in her letter to Montagu: ‘I am mortified . . . that we do not in this last display of our person and talents stand in the same corner. As I am told we do not, for to say truth, by the mere testimony of my own eyes, I cannot very exactly tell which is you, and which is I, and which is any body else.’150 Samuel did not paint from life, which doubtless explains the portrait’s major weakness, a uniformity of figures. However, it is not inconceivable that his subjects might have been together in the same room at some point



gloom of night: This faint & distant conversation by letter keeps up an intercourse, & I fancy I am not quite separated form my Dear friend while I am thus corresponding with her. I came to Ealing this morning, imagining I should hear your tones better from the nightingale than in the din & chatter of London conversation.146

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in time. If so, the conversation would have been lively, as the political viewpoints and social backgrounds of the ‘muses’ were far from uniform. Samuel’s portrait resembles, to some extent, contemporary examples of ‘conversation pieces’ of family groups or friends, in which a sense of cultivated ease is conveyed by a well-chosen arrangement of figures.151 His figures appear to strike attitudes of conversation and meditative thought, exchanging glances and making gestures of agreement. However, the large scale and mythological theme of the painting is far closer, in generic terms, to the realm of historical portraiture.152 The classical composition and colourful draperies also suggest public paintings on grander themes: Raphael’s School of Athens comes to mind, the fresco commissioned by Pope Julius II to suggest a continuity between ancient Platonic philosophy and the Christian church. Jenny Uglow has interpreted Samuel’s classicising gesture as one of tact, contrasting it with the more naturalistic portraits of Johnson and his Literary Club, in which men are represented sitting round a table, at ease, wine in hand. If women were represented as literary in a direct and realistic fashion, she argues, it would threaten contemporary views of decorum.153 It is certainly useful to contrast male and female portraiture in this way. As noted in the Introduction, the ribald and vivacious portraits of the Dilettanti Society by Reynolds, for example, could not be more different from the formal discipline of Samuel’s portrait (see Plate 11). The contrast suggests the restraint placed upon women’s modes of sociability. However, the urge to allude to classical models can also be found among women themselves. Catherine Read’s individual portraits of Elizabeth Carter and Catharine Macaulay are in the classical style, as are several of Angelica Kauffman’s self-portraits.154 It is arguable that such conscious links with ancient civilisation reflected women’s concern to convey a serious moral message by their actions. The male narrator of Sarah Scott’s Millenium Hall describes his first sight of its female inhabitants as resembling ‘an Attick school’, thereby making explicit reference to the group of philosophers at Athens led by Plato and Aristotle. Hannah More’s poem, The Bas Bleu; or Conversation, opens with reference to the ‘rare Symposium’ of Athens and pronounces Aspasia of Miletus, a woman reputed to have conversed with Socrates, to be ‘the first Bas-bleu at Athens known’.155 The frontispiece to Volume III of Catharine Macaulay’s History was an imposing medallion portrait that linked the author with the Roman goddess of liberty. ‘Catherina Macaulay as Libertas’ was an engraving by Cipriani in Roman style, encircled by a laurel wreath and including the outline of a coin labelled ‘Brutus’ (see Plate 28). These comparisons with classical Athens, and in the case of Macaulay, more specifically Republican Rome, illustrate that women writers were aware of, and even encouraged, their public image to be philosophical, rigorous and morally strong.156 As the correspondence between Carter and Montagu shows, the ideals of rational virtue and good sense, cemented by the bonds of friendship, were




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Plate 28 James Basire (after Giovanni Battista Cipriani), Catharine Macaulay as Liberc National Portrait Gallery, London tas (1765), line engraving, 301mm x 235mm

held to be paramount in creating the bluestocking community. Women viewed conversation as an improving art, and in promoting this they also referred to the classical, Socratic model. Montagu’s assemblies formed a serious attempt to provide a context in which women felt free to exercise opinion and exchange ideas. Chauncey Tinker’s 1915 study of the English salon – still the only such study to have been published – emphasises the feminine quality of sociability over women’s capacity for active literary work. He praises woman’s instinct for society in glowing terms: The one unfailing characteristic of the salon, in all ages and in all countries, is the dominant position which it gives to woman. It is woman who



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Though he provides an informative history of the salon, which he interprets as a replacement for court culture, acting as an ‘informal academy’ and providing financial support for authors – as ‘at bottom, a system of patronage’ – Tinker concludes in a rather literalistic fashion by arguing that women made literature more like themselves: approachable, sympathetic, soft and sentimental.158 While Tinker offers some interesting accounts of early Englishwomen who cultivated literary communities, such as the Countess of Pembroke, whose house at Wilton was referred to by contemporaries as a ‘college’ or ‘school’, he tends to be rather overawed by the wit and grace of his subjects. He describes the French hostesses, Madame de Tencin, Madame Geoffrin and Madame du Deffand as being ‘like Cleopatra and Elizabeth, types of their sex and a revelation of its power. They are the very symbols of the century, “the abstract and brief chronicles of the time”.’159 He recognises the important aspect of the salons as arenas which fostered critical opinion, anticipating the modern press in judging literary merit and mediating between the author and the public. However, his final emphasis remains on women’s feminising role, their ability to civilise and socialise literature as an institution, rather than to become writers themselves. This role is left to the men: The whole prophetic side of literature, the vision of the poet, the glory and the folly of the ideal, priest and lyricist, Wordsworth and Shelley – these are all beyond the ken of salons. But they had their office. It was their function to teach the observation of life, to lend clearness and vivacity to style, and so to add a charm to learning, to win the ignorant and to elevate the frivolous by showing that dullness could be overcome with wit and pedantry with grace.160 As long as women merely add wit and grace to life without disturbing the ‘prophetic side of literature’, they remain in an incidental, even extraneous relation to histories of literature. Few historians have acknowledged the pioneering nature of Montagu’s project in encouraging women from a diversity of backgrounds to sharpen their intellects and to participate in the literary public sphere. In eighteenthcentury society, as Evelyn Bodek has argued, the salon was perhaps ‘the only place within which a woman was encouraged to sharpen her wits and gather around herself other educated women and men’. Bodek sees the salon as ‘an informal university for women – a place where they could exchange ideas’.161 Over the course of Montagu’s life, her assemblies became



creates the peculiar atmosphere and the peculiar influence of salons; it is she, with her instinct for society and for literature, who is most likely to succeed in the attempt to fuse two ideals of life apparently opposed, the social and the literary.157

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associated with the promotion of women’s education, even sought out as a place where women supported each other’s literary endeavours. Women’s efforts to be taken seriously as writers and thinkers should be seen in the context of a society which in general remained highly suspicious of intellectual women. The letter, in this sense, provided both a more protected and potentially more transgressive literary space than the public meeting place. From the end of the seventeenth century various attempts to promote conversation between the sexes were made in the pages of the periodical press and contemporary educational and conduct literature.162 Sylvia Harcstarck Myers describes contemporary discussions about women’s potential entry to Oxford and Cambridge in the pages of the Westminster Magazine during the 1770s.163 However, in broad social terms women were expected to confine themselves to a narrow and superficial range of issues specific to their sex and were frowned upon if thought to be too eager to engage in rational conversation. Conduct books advised women to conceal their learning if they desired to attract a husband, recommending a model of passive virtue based on sublimation, silence and submission.164 The severity of restrictions imposed on most females can be ascertained from the following extract from a novel by Sarah Maese, published in 1766, which praises older women who talk about learned subjects in mixed company: Those who do so are of service to their sex, as they will in time emancipate us from the fetters laid on our conversation; and by rendering such subjects more common in mixed company, will make discourse more rational, and prevent the charge of pedantry from being so liberally applied to any young woman, who ventures to stray from the trifling topics generally assigned to us; but my young friends, I would have you wait till this change is effected, before you indulge yourselves in the most moderate display of your reading; for more than the most moderate, even custom could not sanctify.165 Here the public ‘display’ of reading is considered dangerous and female speech is ‘fettered’. Maese offers a vivid picture of the claustrophobic restrictions placed upon women in the culture of the drawing room. A sense of injustice to women in the realm of conversation was still strong at the end of the century. In the concluding chapter of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, Wollstonecraft referred to the long tradition of excluding women from intelligent conversation: When men meet they converse about business, politics, or literature; but, says Swift, ‘how naturally do women apply their hands to each others lappets and ruffles.’ And very natural is it – for they have not any business to interest them, have not a taste for literature, and they find politics dry, because they have not acquired a love for mankind by turning their



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Earlier in the text she advocated the use of the Socratic method to teach the elements of ‘religion, history, the history of man, and politics’, to young boys and girls.167 She suggested particular topics for women in the ‘middle rank of life’: ‘Gardening, experimental philosophy, and literature, would afford them subjects to think of and matter for conversation that in some degree would exercise their understandings.’168 The existing inequality in contemporary social life was commented on wryly by Carter, in a letter to Montagu: As if the two sexes had been in a state of war, the gentlemen ranged themselves on one side of the room, where they talked their own talk, and left us poor ladies to twirl our shuttles, and amuse each other, by conversing as we could. By what little I could overhear, our opposites were discoursing on the old English poets, and this subject did not seem so much beyond a female capacity, but that we might have been indulged with a share of it.169 Indeed, the discussion of ‘old English poets’ was arguably particularly suited to women, who were important contributors to a new sense of national literary identity (see Chapter 3). Elizabeth Carter was famous for having defied standard assumptions of ‘female capacity’ by making her living as a classical scholar. Her translation of Epictetus remained the standard English version until the beginning of the twentieth century. Conversant as she was in several languages, including Portuguese and Arabic, a little light discourse on the English poets would hardly have presented a challenge. In drawing attention to existing social boundaries, Carter, Wollstonecraft and Maese nevertheless suggest the possibility of their dissolution – Maese in particular looks forward to a time of greater freedom. As we have seen, the bluestocking circle’s correspondence is often characterised by a similar urge towards emancipation. In 1769 Montagu wrote to Carter: My imagination without wing or broomstick oft mounts aloft, rises into the Regions of pure space, & without lett or impediment bears me to your fireside, where you set me in your easy chair, & we talk & reason, as Angel Host & guest Aetherial should do, of high & important matters. We will not deign to say a word of Mobs or Ministers; of fashions or the fashionable; of the Great who are without Greatness, or the little who are less than their littleness. Pray say you don’t let us talk nonsense! no my dear friend, nor will we talk sense, for that is worse. We shall say what has not been said before, or if the substance be old, the mode & figure shall be new.170



thoughts to the grand pursuits that exalt the human race, and promote general happiness.166

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With its powerful evocation of space and freedom, and its utopian impulse, this intimate passage is perhaps exemplary of bluestocking ideas of conversation. Here the reader can sense Montagu’s self-conscious attitude to writing, and to conversation, and her effort to carve out a space in which the ‘mode and figure shall be new’. Furthermore, both Montagu and Carter’s sense of being bluestockings, of doing something new, of enlarging what they termed their ‘sphere of action’, existed within an equally self-conscious sense of community. Their feeling of the expansive possibilities of self was inseparable from their sense of belonging to a group providing mutual support, identity and friendship. It was within the mixed company of the bluestocking circle, however, that serious attention to conversation as an educational tool for women in particular, a means of exercising the female understanding, was first discussed, practised and dispersed more widely by the writers it had fostered. This community existed in the ephemeral and imaginative realm of private correspondence but also took more precise physical shape in the salons, or assemblies, of the chief bluestocking hostesses, Elizabeth Montagu and her friend Mrs Vesey, known as ‘the Sylph’.171 I have already discussed the splendour of Montagu’s houses in the context of patronage and emphasised the extent to which she expressed herself through her houses as a cultural beacon of society. Here I will focus more precisely on her role as intellectual, revealing her innovative modes of encouraging new models of conversation as a social and educational tool. Montagu promoted the value of literature as instructive, as can be seen in the following letter she wrote to Mrs Vesey, in which she criticises Horace Walpole’s latest work for its purely recreational tone: Mr Montagu passed ye Xmas at Sandleford, I with the Bluestocking Philosophers. I had parties of them to dine with me continually, & had my Sylph been of those partys nothing had been wanting. I have a new blue stocking for you, with whom I am much pleased, a Mr Percy who publish’d ye Reliques of ye ancient Poetry, he is a very ingenious man, has many anecdotes of ancient days, historical as well as Poetical. Mr Walpole’s Historick doubts came out yesterday. I have read about half the book, & have not yet either learnt or unlearnt anything. I think this work appears plainly rather of ye growth of Strawberry Hill than of the Forked Hill. I do not mean that ye work is not amusing. By the Courtesy of modern Parnassus one is just soothd & pleased without being delighted or instructed.172 Strawberry Hill, home to Walpole and his own printing press, may court pleasure and cultivate humour, but is fails to delight and instruct, a mission sought by Montagu at Hill Street and later Portman Square. According to Montagu, through the improvement of women’s rational life, they could



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acquire dignity in all spheres: ‘I pity no one for the dedication of their hands to their support, if the mind has its native liberty, it will keep its native dignity.’173 In the terms of bluestocking philosophy, learning could be pleasurable only if virtuous and beneficial to others. This reforming attitude to literature and sociability should be understood in the context of pleas for better education for women. Ironically, it was Horace Walpole, whose levity Montagu so disapproved of, who urged Hannah More to publish Bas Bleu; or Conversation. More’s long poem provides a distilled description of the social practice and moral beliefs of the bluestocking circle. Dr Johnson is reported to have considered the work to be ‘in my Opinion a Very Great performance, and there is no name in poetry, that might not be glad to own it’.174 First published in 1786, it was probably written earlier in the decade.175 In a letter of 1775, written after arriving in London from the West Country, More wrote to her sister of her excitement at meeting Sir Joshua Reynolds and Johnson, Mrs Barbauld and Mrs Carter at Montagu’s salon: a party that would not have disgraced the table of Laelius, or of Atticus. Mrs Montagu received me with the most encouraging kindness; she is not only the finest genius, but the finest lady I ever saw: she lives in the highest style of magnificence; her apartments and table are in the most splendid taste; but what baubles are these when speaking of a Montagu! Her form (for she has no body) is delicate even to fragility; her countenance the most animated in the world; the sprightly vivacity of fifteen, with the judgement and experience of a Nestor.176 More gives us a vivid picture of Montagu’s assembly, with its ‘diversity of opinions and ‘argument and reasoning’. She enjoyed meeting her fellow female writers, and was attracted to those admitted, like herself, for talent rather than rank.177 Bas Bleu emphasises the importance of intellect over social standing. Taste and feeling are nothing to a woman if she cannot discuss them fully, understand their implications. The most impressive sort of display is that of intellect, not dress or jewels. Here she makes clear the high ideals that she and her contemporaries attached to conversation: If none behold, ah! wherefore fair? Ah! wherefore wise, if none must hear? Our intellectual ore must shine, Not slumber, idly in the mine. Let Education’s moral mint The noblest images imprint; Let taste her curious touchstone hold,




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(240–51) More describes a literary community in which the highest value is placed on the exchange of thoughts between equals. Her poem celebrates these ideals as the basis of civic virtue in a liberal society, conveying an effervescent enthusiasm for Enlightenment as a practice rather than an abstract philosophy. Learning is a value to be displayed and exchanged through conversation, which forms the ‘bliss of life’ and the ‘balm of care’. The title of the poem itself conveys the inextricable relationship between conversation and bluestocking culture, insofar as they are presented as equivalents.178 As critics have noted, the bluestocking emphasis on conversation between the sexes was not radical but rather aimed to build upon and consolidate new ways of thinking about the relation between private and public life, responding, in particular, to notions of civic virtue explored in the work of Addison, Shaftesbury and Hume.179 Addison’s famous statement of intent in the Spectator is relevant: ‘It was said of Socrates, that he brought Philosophy down from heaven, to inhabit among Men; and I shall be ambitious to have it said of me, that I have brought Philosophy out of Closets and Libraries, Schools and Colleges, to dwell in Clubs and Assemblies, at TeaTables, and in Coffee-Houses.’180 Deborah Heller has recently pointed out in her discussion of salons and the public sphere that while the bluestockings were certainly inspired by Shaftesbury’s model their mode of interaction was significantly different. While Shaftesbury limited his definition of ‘free conversation’ to a select group of aristocratic men, gentlemen of the club, bluestockings insisted on a far greater degree of social diversity.181 One of the most significant ways in which the bluestockings encouraged polite social diversity was through their reorganisation of social space. At Montagu’s tea-table and at her grander assemblies women actively formed, if they did not monopolise, ‘bluestocking philosophy’. She understood the spatial politics of knowledge: ‘If I sit with my Shakespeare and my Brumoy in Publick, I may appear in the light of Miss Biddy Tipkin to any visitors not so used to see ye pen as ye needle in the hands of a Woman. But why should I ever despise our friends not to be in the study when I am there?’182 Miss Biddy Tipkin was the heroine of Steele’s play, The Tender Husband (1705), whose excessive reading guides all her actions and perceptions. Biddy’s performance of private readings in public places made visible contemporary anxieties about the effects of reading on women, the relationship between text and reading subject. Montagu wants to share her reading experience, to naturalise and socialise the act of scholarship.183 Her famous



To try if standard be the gold; But ’tis thy commerce, Conversation, Must give it use by circulation; That noblest commerce of mankind, Whose precious merchandise is MIND!


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I delight already in the prospect of the blue box in which our Sylph assembles all the heterogeneous natures in the World; and indeed in many respects resembles Paradise, for there the Lion sits down by the Lamb, the Tyger dandles the Kid; the sly scotchman and the etourdi Hibernian [scatter-brained Irishman], the Hero and the Macaroni, the vestal and the demi-rep, the Mungo of Ministry and the inflexible partisans of incorruptible Patriots, Beaux esprits and fine Gentleman, all gather together under the downy wing of the Sylph, and are soothed into good humour: were she to withdraw her influence for a moment, discord would reassume her reign and we should hear the angry clashing of swords, the angry flirting of fans, and Sr Andrew and Sr Patrick gabbling in dire confusion the different dialects of the Erse language. Methinks I see our Sylph moving in her circle, and by some unknown attraction keeping the whole system in due order. By what art does she thus satisfy the pride of Duchesses, the conceit of Authors, the arrogance of Statesmen, the vanity of beauties, and the unquiet spirits of Coquettes? For no one leaves her assembly till the Watchman has given repeated warnings to withdraw! I have as much in art of this as she, but cannot make things thus; if I should get all these contraries and contrarieties into my house every evening, five or six duels, and five or six libels would be the consequence every winter.184 Montagu emphasizes Vesey’s gift for creating social harmony. Emma Major has recently read this passage as an expression of polite patriotism, emphasising its millennial references, its union between religion and civilisation, as indicative of bluestocking public ambition.185 Vesey’s apparent artlessness was in fact a calculated attempt to define her assemblies against those of Montagu, who arranged her guests in large circles or semi-circles in order to promote unity of conversation. Vesey favoured a more random arrangement of small groups, thus hoping to erase the formal aspects of literary assemblies in favour of more relaxed company. Hannah More, who addressed Bas Bleu to her in a gesture of approval and respect, refers to her innovations in the poem: See VESEYS plastic genius make A Circle every figure take; Nay, shapes and forms which wou’d defy



conversational ‘circles’ were an attempt to formalise and make public the private experience of scholarship as well as to harmonise the perceived social differences between scholars. One of the chief aims of bluestocking conversation was to orchestrate diversity into unity. Elizabeth Montagu described Elizabeth Vesey’s talent for creating concord from discord in a revealing letter to Elizabeth Carter:

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All science of Geometry; Isoceles, and Parallel, Names hard to speak, and hard to spell! Her potent wand the Circle broke; The social Spirits hover round, And bless the liberated ground. Ask you what charms this gift dispense? ‘Tis the strong spell of Common Sense. Away fell ceremony flew, And with her bore Detraction too. (140–52) Vesey’s ‘plastic genius’ was sometimes in danger of becoming a parody of itself, as Fanny Burney observed: Her fears were so great of the horror, as it was styled, of a circle, from the ceremony and awe which it produced, that she pushed all the small sofas, as well as chairs, pell-mell about the apartments, so as not to leave even a zig-zag of communication free from impediment: and her greatest delight was to place the seats back to back, so that those who occupied them could perceive no more of their nearest neighbour than if the parties had been sent into different rooms: an arrangement that could only be eluded by such a twisting of the neck as to threaten the interlocutors with a spasmodic affection. While Burney gently mocks the absurdity of Vesey’s interventions, she ultimately emphasises the ‘zest and originality’ of her parties: But there was never any distress beyond risibility: and the company that was collected was so generally of a superior cast, that talents and conversation soon found – as when do they miss it? – their own level: and all these extraneous whims merely served to give zest and originality to the assemblage.186 Once again, conversation acts as a leveller, binding the company together. The delicate balance of fashionable and intellectual polish required by bluestocking society is conveyed in Hester Thrale’s concise description of Elizabeth Montagu: ‘Brilliant in diamonds, solid in judgment, critical in talk.’187 As I hope my discussion of Montagu’s Hill Street and Portman Square houses has shown, visual ornament was an almost overpowering aspect of bluestocking assemblies, where the impressions created by dress, furniture and paintings were an integral part of the occasion. More’s depiction of conversation as a form of currency that increases in value through circulation



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Still be thy nightly offerings paid, Libations large of Limonade! On silver Vases, loaded, rise The biscuits’ ample sacrifice! Nor be the milk-white streams forgot Of thirst-assuaging, cool orgeat; Rise, incense pure from fragrant Tea, Delicious incense, worthy Thee! (224 –31) Orgeat, a cooling syrup made from barley, almonds and orange-flower water, serves here as a synecdoche for an increasingly luxurious yet sophisticated urban lifestyle. Like tea and lemonade, it was one of the newly fashionable drinks originating from the East – exotic, yet not intoxicating. While More evokes the delicate sensual pleasures of metropolitan life, she also emphasises the moral superiority and reforming zeal of the bluestocking attitude to manners: ‘Let Education’s moral mint / The noblest images imprint’ (244–5). She contrasts the bas bleu meetings with the ‘tainted affectation and false taste’ of the Hotel de Rambouillet, the seventeenth-century Parisian salon, and also with wider society, where ‘Cosmetic powers’ and ‘polish, ton and graces’ rule the day. For More, the expression of intellect has worth that far exceeds the display of fine clothing or extravagant jewellery. The bluestockings’ zest for knowledge exceeded their thirst for liquid refreshment. Conversation is perceived as an alternative and higher form of social pursuit, which should replace more empty modes of entertainment. Hester Chapone defined its importance thus: I have always considered the universal practice of card playing as particularly pernicious in this respect, that, whilst it keeps people perpetually in company, it excludes conversation. The hours that are spent in society may be made, not only the most agreeable, but perhaps the most useful of any, provided our companions are well chosen . . . it seems almost impossible that an evening should pass in mutual endeavours to entertain each other, without something being struck out, that would in some degree enlighten the mind. If we are not instructed by what we hear, we may at least derive some advantage from the exercise of our own powers, from being obliged to recollect and produce what we know or what



is redolent of a thriving commercial society in which new goods had transformed social space. Bluestocking meetings took place in rooms rich with sensation for the eyes, ears and tongue. More describes conversation as a contemporary ‘Goddess of the social hour’ (255):

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Conversation is cast in terms of a discipline, which must be practised regularly to strengthen the mind. In her description of Montagu’s ‘Bas Bleu Societies’, ‘still famous in the annals of conversation’, Fanny Burney described her experiment in social control, in which diversity was cherished, as at the parties of Elizabeth Vesey, but hierarchy was perhaps more apparent: At Mrs Montagu’s the semi-circle that faced the fire retained during the whole evening its unbroken form, with a precision that made it seem described by a Brobdingnagian compass. The lady of the castle commonly placed herself at the upper end of the room, near the commencement of the curve, so as to be courteously visible to all her guests; having the person of the highest rank, or consequence, properly on one side, and the person the most eminent for talents, sagaciously on the other, or as near to her chair and her converse as her favouring eye and a complacent bow of the head could invite him to that distinction. Her conversational powers were of a truly superior order: strong, just, clear, and often eloquent. Her process in argument, notwithstanding an earnest solicitude for pre-eminence, was uniformly polite and candid.189 Montagu was famous for her semi-circle, in which conversation was necessarily unified and controlled. While Burney notes the presence of guests eminent in both rank and talent, she suggests that there is nevertheless a hierarchy of sorts in that people vie for Montagu’s attention, eager to receive her ‘favouring eye’. She also conveys the huge size of Montagu’s circle by referring to Swift’s fabulous region of Brobdingnag, where everything was gigantic. Hannah More also had reservations about the formality of Montagu’s drawing-room and the overwhelming size of her assemblies, regretting with Mrs Boscawen, ‘that so many suns could not possibly shine at one time; but we are to have a smaller party where, from fewer luminaries, there may emanate a clearer, steadier, and more beneficial light’.190 More’s moralising vocabulary of enlightenment suggests the active sense in which she viewed conversation as a means of radiating a particular kind of improving knowledge. Such refined aspects of spatial innovation were perhaps linked to women’s particular sensitivity to the gendered politics of social display. Women were inevitably aware of the tensions between inward and outward displays of learning, and between the solid and ephemeral signs of knowledge. They



we think on the topics which arise; and while the mind is thus kept in action, tho’ perhaps on subjects not very important, it is certainly more likely to acquire some vigour, than whilst its attention is confined to a hand of cards.188


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[. . .T]h’ astonish’d guest Back in a corner slinks, distrest; Scar’d at the many bowing round, And shock’d at her own voice’s sound, Forgot the thing she meant to say, Her words, half utter’d, die away; In sweet oblivion down she sinks, And of her ten appointments thinks. (114–21) At the bluestocking assemblies, however, there is room for expression. More stresses the importance of balancing various types of knowledge in such assemblies, which are made up of a mixed body of individuals: Here sober Duchesses are seen, 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 pray, 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 places they’ve described; Ladies who point, nor think me partial, An Epigram as well as MARTIAL; Yet in all female worth succeed, As well as those who cannot read. (168–85) In this celebration of diversity, More’s style is playful and verging on the satiric, her social observation is double-edged, mocking while it reassures



were also conscious of the uncomfortable relationship between knowledge and conventional ideas of female beauty. The physical space that provided the context of female conversation was something that women could control and manipulate to their own advantage. In More’s picture of conventional society, the female voice was stifled and lost:

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the potentially sceptical reader. The fact that she presents the female intellectual as maintaining the standard virtues of her illiterate counterpart is a measure of the contemporary prejudice against learning in women, which was associated with slipshod appearance and morals. An argument common to a number of women who wrote on female education in this period was that learning was an investment for the future that did not threaten virtue. Unlike the excesses of fashionable display encouraged in young ladies in order that they might attract husbands, a good education could only grow in worth and usefulness as the years went by. Charlotte Lennox wrote that for women, ‘the only means of charming, and of charming long, is to improve their minds; good sense gives beauties which are not subject to fade like the lilies and roses of their cheeks, but will prolong the power of an agreeable woman to the autumn of her life’. She includes history and natural philosophy as suitable pursuits in her essay, ‘Of the Studies Proper to Women’, concluding that ‘the arts are in themselves too amiable to need any recommendation to the sex: all the objects they offer to their view have some analogy with women, and are like them adorned with the brightest colours’.191 The learned female is less of a threat if she can be admired like a work of art rather than seen as the overt practitioner or connoisseur of art. Both Lennox and More betray a concern to reassure the reader that women’s influence will facilitate the existing order of things rather than overturn it. And yet in acknowledging their potential to subvert the existing order, Lennox hints at the difficulty inherent in women’s public identity as writers.

Education and the bluestocking community As in the case of patronage and correspondence, bluestocking innovations in conversation permeated the broader intellectual culture beyond the salon’s walls, contributing to the definition of contemporary literary public life. Montagu’s intellectual status, wealth and patronage undoubtedly drew writers into her circle. She also aided and encouraged little-known female writers to venture into the literary public sphere. Bluestocking hostesses were pioneers in encouraging women from a diversity of backgrounds to participate in print culture. Over the course of Elizabeth Montagu’s life her assemblies became associated with the promotion of women’s education. As we have seen, her salon formed a semi-public arena in which women could freely exercise their opinions on the most pressing topics of the day and form important connections with literary and political men in power. Montagu formed a link between salon culture and London literary life, acting as an intermediary between authors and their public. The bluestocking community itself came to represent female scholarship in the public imagination. Its members cultivated this aspect of their identity by emphasising the reforming mission of the group to provide better



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Yet not from low desire to shine Does Genius toil in Learning’s Mine; Not to indulge in idle vision, But strike new light by strong collision. O’er books, the mind inactive lies, Books, the mind’s food, not exercise Her vigorous wing she scarcely feels, ’Till use the latent strength reveals; Her slumbering energies call’d forth, She rises, conscious of her worth; And, at her new-found powers elated, Thinks them not rous’d, but new created. (264–75) In this new world, the feminine personification of ‘mind’ is proud and noble, rekindled from the ashes of contemporary neglect. More describes the complicity and recognition between the members of the bas bleu as something alchemical and later, ‘electric’: But sparks electric only strike On souls electrical alike; The flash of Intellect expires, Unless it meets congenial fires. The language to th’Elect alone Is, like the Mason’s mystery, known; In vain th’unerring sign is made To him who is not of the Trade. What lively pleasure to divine, The thought implied, the hinted line, To feel Allusion’s artful force, And trace the Image to its source! Quick Memory blends her scatter’d rays, ’Till fancy kindles at the blaze; The works of ages start to view, And ancient Wit elicits new. (286–301) More’s description bursts with the energy of ‘lively pleasure’, suggesting the sense of privilege amongst those admitted to such ‘congenial fires’. Her



education for women and to offer support for female authors. More describes their goals thus:

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allusion to Freemasonry provides a rhetorical emphasis on fraternity, equality and religious toleration, and the capacity of reason to effect political and moral regeneration, a programme that has obvious affinities with the social aims of the bluestocking sorority.192 While it is impossible to assert specific links between women writers and Freemasons in this period, one can acknowledge the analogous relationship between these groups, both of whom were committed to social change and analysis. Montagu herself made a light-hearted Masonic reference to Mrs Vesey: ‘I receive such charming letters from the Blue Stocking Lodge, that I begin to be jealous for the Original Society. You seem to imitate the Jesuits of Paraguay, who became infinitely more rich & great than the Country from whence they went out a small colony.’193 Her reference to the Jesuits is also suggestive of the bluestockings’ shared belief in rational improvement. Renowned for their powers of argument, the Jesuits formed the dominant teaching order of France until 1762. Their missionary zeal was famous and the reports they made of the countries they colonised were an important forerunner of ethnography. The society produced untold numbers of literary texts but their contribution to French writing resided more in their role as teachers.194 While Montagu’s references to the Masons and Jesuits are jocular in tone, nevertheless they suggest her awareness of the bluestockings’ specific social mission, their role in spreading ideas for educational reform through their lives and writings.195 Hester Chapone’s essay ‘On Conversation’ conveys the sense in which speech was considered a ‘sphere of action’ available to women: When we are considering what are the means of doing good entrusted to us, perhaps the sphere of conversation is seldom thought of; yet surely it gives ample scope for the exertion of that active principle of beneficence in which true virtue consists; and it is a sphere of action from which not station or circumstances can exclude us.196 Once again, conversation is defined as an active moral virtue that is particularly suited to feminine social practice. The bluestocking belief in conversation’s reforming power was linked to their investment in an idea of female community supported by charity and social compassion. Sarah Scott, Elizabeth Montagu’s sister, depicted such a community in her utopian novel, Millenium Hall. Scott’s heroines advocated the bluestocking philosophy of rational self-improvement through conversation: You will pity us perhaps because we have no cards, no assemblies, no plays, no masquerades, in this solitary place. The first we might have if we chose it, nor are they totally disclaimed by us; but while we can with



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Scott develops in fiction the earlier feminism of Mary Astell’s Serious Proposal to the Ladies, offering a utopian vision of a harmonious group of women who, secluded from the public gaze, develop a cottage industry through various arts, manufactures and acts of charity.198 In Scott’s definition of society, bonds of rational friendship are conceived as the foundation of collective happiness: However fortune may have set us above any bodily wants, the mind will still have many which would drive us into society. Reason wishes for communication and improvement; benevolence longs for objects on which to exert itself; the social comforts of friendship are so necessary to our happiness, that it would be impossible not to endeavour to enjoy them. In sickness the languor of our minds makes us wish for the amusements of conversation; in health the vivacity of our spirits leads us to desire it.199 The ‘mental enjoyments’ of the bluestocking circle relied on the free communication of thought between equals. Elizabeth Montagu wrote to her friend Elizabeth Vesey, that ‘Heaven is always represented as a society.’200 Sarah Scott envisions such a utopia in prose. Both sisters were instrumental in bestowing upon women the means by which their voices might be used in an active sense.201 From being viewed as mediating and socialising figures, the bluestockings came to be considered and represented as a literary community in the public sphere. The bluestockings’ reforming attitude to literature and sociability should be understood in the context of pleas for better education for women. The purpose of More’s Bas Bleu was above all to educate. She later wrote, in her Strictures on Female Education, ‘till the female sex are more carefully instructed, this question will always remain . . . as undecided as to the degree of difference between the understandings of men and women’.202 While the bluestocking emphasis was on duties rather than rights, by insisting on the female capacity for the right use of reason, they asserted women’s agency in contemporary culture. Women’s sense of their progress in the world of letters was closely allied to their sense of using their intellect to demonstrate the amiability of virtue in a mixed society.203 Hester Chapone summarised the all-embracing importance of conversation thus: The great and irresistible influence, which the choice of our company, as well as the mode of our own conversation, has on our habits of thinking and acting, and on the whole form and colour of our minds, is a subject too common to be much enlarged upon; it cannot, however, be



safety speak our own thoughts, and with pleasure read those of wiser persons, we are not likely to be often reduced to them.197

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While diverging from bluestocking values in many significant respects, Wollstonecraft and Barbauld might nevertheless be seen to inherit bluestocking culture’s emphasis on female advancement through dialogue. Both authors addressed the education of women as a specific social and political mission, using simple, instructional dialogues to form moral lessons in their early educational writings.205 The title of Barbauld’s Female Speaker (1811), an educational anthology of literature for young women, asserts the female voice first championed by Scott, Chapone and their bluestocking sisters.206 ∗

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The interrelated practices of patronage, correspondence and conversation played an important role in creating a sense of a female literary community. At the simplest level, letters and conversations depend upon community, asking questions, forming proposals and expecting replies. For the bluestockings, literature itself was inseparable from the question of how to lead a good and useful life. They perceived strong links between their public and private duties. In creating new spaces for the pursuit of learning and for educating women, the bluestockings were aware of contributing to the phenomenon of ‘female British literature’, and their influence can be detected in the work of many women writing at the end of the century. The novelty of this phenomenon, the sense in which a full literary life was freshly available to women, can be felt in the following passage taken from Maria Edgeworth’s Letters for Literary Ladies, in which she is defending women’s right to literature: Even if literature were of no other use to the fair sex than to supply them with employment, I should think the time dedicated to the cultivation of their minds well bestowed: they are surely better occupied when they are reading or writing than when coquetting or gaming, losing their fortunes or their characters. You despise the writings of women: – you think they might have made a better use of the pen, than to write plays, and poetry, and romances. Considering that the pen was to women a new instrument, I think they have made at least as good a use of it as learned men did of the needle some centuries ago, when they set themselves to determine how many spirits could stand upon its point, and were ready to tear one another to pieces in the discussion of this sublime question. Let the sexes mutually forgive each other their follies; or, what is much better, let them combine their talents for their general advantage.207



too deeply considered, as it seems the leading circumstance of our lives, and that which may chiefly determine our character and condition to all eternity.204

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As long as the spectre of learning in a female appeared to be threatening or remarkable, women were inevitably expected to justify their intellectual pursuits, their identity as authors. Edgeworth’s witty turning of the tables illustrates something of the ways in which men needed to be educated, to listen to women’s arguments, be they in letters, conversation or published writings. Writing, like the active sphere of benevolence and virtue advocated by Chapone’s definition of conversation, gave women a role in public life. As their writings became recognised and celebrated, the question of their agency in other spheres was inevitably raised, as was the nature of their rights, which Wollstonecraft so famously addressed. She called for reforms in female and male virtue, seeing mutual chastity as vital to the progress of equal rights. Her vindications of the rights of men and woman challenge all authority except that of reason. She perceived a direct connection between private and public virtue, arguing that manners must change if reason and morality were to triumph. The bluestocking writings on education, while not fully political in intent, by strengthening the association of reason and virtue in women’s minds, form an important precursor to Wollstonecraft’s more radical arguments. In his Essays Moral and Literary, published in 1779, Vicesimus Knox published an essay entitled ‘On Female Literature’.208 He adopted the voice of a clergyman’s daughter writing a letter to a friend, in which she describes and evaluates the course of education she has received from her father, who has taught her Latin and Greek grammar, resolving to ‘open my view to the spacious fields of Grecian literature’. The daughter describes her reading of the Greek Testament, the Cyropaedia of Xenephon, the Orations of Demosthenes, the Dialogues of Plato, and the Iliad and Odyssey of Homer: I was enabled to drink at the fountain-head while others were obliged to content themselves with the distant and polluted stream . . . I was possessed of a power of inspecting those volumes, in admiration of which the world has long agreed, but from which my sex has for the most part been unreasonably excluded. It was a noble privilege, and I valued myself upon it; but I hope and believe I did not despise those who had not partaken of it solely for want of opportunities. However, she encounters severe prejudice against her talents. Women mistrust her and will not befriend her. Men find her peculiar and are unable to fall in love with her. She is prepared nevertheless to resign herself to an isolated life, sacrificing her social sense for the pleasures to be gained from knowledge. She concludes by justifying her position thus: That learning belongs not to the female character, and that the female mind is not capable of a degree of improvement equal to that of the other sex, are narrow and unphilosophical prejudices. The present times exhibit




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Knox, like Edgeworth, emphasises the injustice of denying reason to women. His definition of ‘Female Literature’ includes the reading and writing woman, giving the specific examples of well-known authors Montagu, Chapone and Carter. Only a decade later, however, when his volume had reached its eleventh edition, the names of the bluestockings had disappeared from this passage and the essay had been re-titled: ‘On the Insensibility of the Men to the Charms of a Female Mind Cultivated with Polite and Solid Literature.’ He also included an essay entitled ‘On the Ostentatious Affectation of the Character of a Learned Lady, without sufficient Learning, and Without Judgement’, in which he presented female learning as a threat to domestic duty. Knox appeared to have erased the active sense of ‘female literature’, instead warning of the perils of too overt a display of learning in a woman. While the bluestocking circle was originally formed of both sexes and several of its male members encouraged women to develop their literary and intellectual skills, the spectacle of the learned female was not easily assimilated by society as a whole, as revealed by the shift in the meaning of ‘bluestocking’ from referring to men and women, to meaning specifically a woman. As patrons, letter writers, theorists and practitioners of conversation, the bluestockings created a strong sense of community between women. By reforming the social habits of their peers, replacing cards and polite gossip with serious intellectual conversation, they were concerned explicitly to educate women, and implicitly to change attitudes to the relationship between idleness and work, leisure and scholarship.209 In the following chapter I will consider the bluestockings’ contribution to an emerging sense of national literature, exploring their critical engagement with the work of Shakespeare.



most honourable instances of female learning and genius in a Montagu, a Chapone, and a Carter. The superior advantages of boys’ education is, perhaps, the sole reason of their subsequent superiority. Learning is equally attainable, and, I think, equally valuable, to the woman as the man. For my own part, I would not lose the little I possess, to avoid all those disagreeable consequences of which I have just now complained.

‘Female Champions’: Women Critics of Shakespeare

SOME ladies indeed have shewn a truly public Spirit in rescuing the admirable, yet almost forgotten Shakespear, from being totally sunk in oblivion: – they have generously contributed to raise a monument to his memory, and frequently honoured his works with their presence on the stage: – an action, which deserves the highest encomiums, and will be attended with an adequate reward; since, in preserving the fame of the dead bard, they add a brightness to their own, which will shine to late posterity.1

Eliza Haywood’s description of ‘some ladies’, taken from the third edition of her periodical the Female Spectator, recorded women’s influence in the early eighteenth-century theatre. In this short essay, first published in 1750, she reflected upon the moral importance of tragedy as an improving form of entertainment, regretting the current vogue for ‘masquerades, assemblies and ridottos’. She argued that serious drama was in need of revival and that women must lead the way. She looked back to the 1730s as a time when female members of the audience could act as ‘muses’ and ‘sparkle in the boxes’, influencing the poets to ‘write with double energy’ and the ‘players act with double spirit’.2 The eighteenth century witnessed a remarkable fluidity of exchange between theatrical, literary and artistic culture – a fluidity that was particularly advanced and exploited by the figure of woman, whether as actress, playwright, novelist, critic, reader or member of the audience.3 Haywood’s sense of women’s broad cultural influence was so strong that she chose to present, in this passage, the story of how a group of women could rescue a male writer from oblivion – a writer who is now the most famous of England’s history. While the previous chapter explored the semi-public, and often informal, world of the bluestocking salon as a foundation for more formal literary work, this chapter will now turn to women’s overtly public contributions to one of the most macsculine genres of their age: Shakespeare criticism.4 121



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Today Shakespeare is the staple ingredient in any proposed national curriculum, the undisputed symbol of literary excellence at the heart of the national canon of literature. It is hard to envisage a time in which his reputation needed to be formed, or to imagine that the work of a group of ladies was necessary to defend his cause. While Haywood was undoubtedly exaggerating in describing Shakespeare as on the point of sinking into oblivion, it is certain that the ‘Shakespeare Ladies’ Club’ did much to promote his work at an opportune moment in the history of his reputation. Formed in the late months of 1736, this group of women was concerned to encourage London’s theatrical managers to give Shakespeare a greater share in their repertories and may also have acted as contributing patrons of Shakespeare’s statue in Westminster Abbey.5 Haywood’s optimistic prophecy that these ladies would enjoy ‘adequate reward’ for their labours in the glow of posterity has unfortunately proved mistaken. Women’s contribution to ‘preserving the dead bard’ has largely been forgotten, despite their often pioneering role as agents of change in the history of his reputation. Only relatively recently have feminist critics started to address women writers’ responses to Shakespeare, to explore what Marianne Novy has referred to as processes of ‘re-vision’.6 As early as 1753, Arthur Murphy commented that ‘With us islanders Shakespeare is a kind of established religion in poetry.’7 By the beginning of the nineteenth century, a knowledge and love of Shakespeare was already considered integral to the English character, a definitive aspect of national identity. In Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park, Henry Crawford’s facility with Shakespeare is intended to attract the pure-hearted heroine Fanny. He refers to the bard as ‘part of an Englishman’s constitution . . . His thoughts and beauties are so spread abroad that one touches them everywhere, one is intimate with him by instinct’.8 Austen’s description, while its context is ironic, nonetheless reveals the degree to which critics and theatre managers of the previous century had been successful in cultivating a taste for Shakespeare’s ‘natural genius’ and ‘impetuous poetry’. Historians have addressed the eighteenth-century revival of Shakespeare’s reputation through reference to both the developing phenomenon of textual revision and adaptation, and the dramatic trends of the English stage.9 During the first half of the century a number of scholarly editions of Shakespeare’s works were published: Rowe’s edition (1709), Pope’s (1725), Theobald’s (1734), Johnson’s proposals (1745) and Warburton’s edition (1747). Male scholars self-consciously consolidated their cultural authority through the creation of Shakespare’s reputation. The stage witnessed a similarly vigorous concentration on Shakespeare’s works, partly in consequence of Walpole’s Licensing Act in 1737, which limited the performance of plays in London to two patent theatres (Drury Lane and Covent Garden) and required all new works of drama to be approved by the Lord Chamberlain. Actor and theatre manager David Garrick played a central role in popularising Shakespeare, often through excessive and elaborate adaptations that involved pantomime,



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music and popular entertainment. Reverence for Shakespeare reached its peak in Garrick’s ambitious pageant of 1769, ‘Shakespeare’s Jubilee’, held in Stratford-upon-Avon. Garrick wrote a poem, ‘Ode upon erecting a statue to Shakespeare’, in which he celebrated his hero thus: ‘’Tis he! ’Tis he! / The God of our idolatry!’10 The artist Robert Edge Pine took Garrick’s act of homage as the subject of an oil painting, which was later engraved by Caroline Watson, one of the few contemporary women who maintained an independent practice as an engraver (see Plate 29). Watson signed her engraving with a dedication to Mrs Montagu, honouring her celebrated Essay on Shakespeare, that had appeared, opportunely, in the same year as Garrick’s ‘Jubilee’. Literary historians have studied this extraordinarily energetic period for the editing and performance of Shakespeare’s work in a number of fascinating and diverse ways, but have often failed to acknowledge women’s active role as Shakespeare readers and critics. Two recent studies of the creation of Shakespeare’s reputation in the eighteenth century refer only fleetingly to women’s role in spreading ‘his thoughts and beauties’.11 However, as critics, patrons and readers, women were strongly associated with Shakespeare’s works during the eighteenth century, the period in which his identity as hero of the national literary pantheon was first established.12 The seemingly ever-expansive capacity of Shakespeare’s plays to yield vastly different yet equally powerful meanings at various historical moments is often hailed as the signal of their enduring greatness. However, as Jonathan Bate has observed, ‘Shakespeare transcends his own particular history through his capacity to live in subsequent history, but at no time is he outside history.’13 In the eighteenth century Shakespeare’s reputation seems to have been revived, restored and re-appropriated with an unrivalled energy and ingenuity. In 1769, Elizabeth Montagu described the contemporary scene thus: Shakespear’s felicity has been rendered complete in this age. His genius produced works that time could not destroy: but some of the lighter characters were become illegible; these have been restored by critics, whose learning and penetration have traced back the vestiges of superannuated opinions and customs. They are now no longer in danger of being effaced, and the testimony of these learned commentators to his merit, will guard our author’s great monument of human wit from the presumptuous invasions of our rash critics, and the squibs of our witlings; so that the bays will ever flourish unwithered and inviolate round his tomb; and his very spirit seems to come forth and to animate his characters, as often as Mr Garrick, who acts with the same inspiration with which He wrote, assumes them on the stage.14 Montagu’s description conveys the vitality of Shakespeare’s cultural presence, which was welcomed on the stage and in the library, in the





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Plate 29 Caroline Watson (after Robert Edge Pine), David Garrick with Statue of William Shakespeare (1783), stipple engraving, 447mm × 620mm. The inscription c British Museum reads: ‘To Mrs Montagu, this Plate is most respectfully inscribed’



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It was this period, after all, which initiated many of the practices which modern spectators and readers of Shakespeare would generally regard as normal or natural: the performance of his female roles by women instead of men (instigated at a revival of Othello in 1660); the reproduction of his works in scholarly editions, with critical apparatus (pioneered by Rowe’s edition of 1709 and the volume of commentary appended to it by Charles Gildon the following year); the publication of critical monographs devoted entirely to the analysis of his texts (an industry founded by John Dennis’s An Essay upon the Writings and Genius of Shakespeare, 1712); the promulgation of the plays in secondary education (the earliest known instance of which is the production of Julius Caesar mounted by ‘the young gentlemen of Westminster School’), and in higher education (first carried out in the lectures on Shakespeare given by William Hawkins at Oxford in the early 1750s); the erection of monuments (initiated by Peter Scheemaker’s statue in Poets’ Corner, Westminster Abbey, unveiled in 1741); and the promotion of Stratford-upon-Avon as a site of secular pilgrimage (ratified at Garrick’s Jubilee in 1769).15 Dobson’s book pays close attention to the precise historical development of such practices and reveals how, in many cases, they signify not the ‘naturalness’ of the Enlightenment responses to Shakespeare, but ‘their irreducible otherness’. His close attention to the wholesale adaptation of Shakespeare as parallel to his full-scale canonisation is concerned to point out the relation between these two phenomena rather than merely to dismiss their coexistence as a curious paradox. In a similar spirit, this chaper will argue that women’s involvement in the Shakespeare industry is not a historical curiosity but part of the nature of its development, able to shed new light on Shakespeare’s appeal, as well as to deepen our historical understanding of women’s cultural activity in this period. Dobson’s research into the activities of the Shakespeare Ladies’ Club has uncovered important new material, including a manuscript by one of the club’s members, Mary Cowper, the daughter of William Cowper MP, and an elder cousin of William Cowper the poet. Her poem, ‘On the Revival of Shakespeare’s Plays by the Ladies in 1738’, preserved in the Cowper Family Miscellany, provides a fascinating insight into the confident cultural vision of the club.16 She celebrated their moral campaign in triumphant terms: In vain to Pope Minerva lifts her Eyes, (He yet untainted the Contagion flys)



town and in the country. Shakespeare’s reputation and enduring meaning to English cultural life was first formed and extensively celebrated in the eighteenth century. Michael Dobson, in his study, The Making of a National Poet, has written:

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To Him she gives, what Mortal can, to do, Against the many-headed Senseless Crew; Who fond of Noise & gay Impertinence, No longer listen to the Voice of Sense: At last the Goddess her own Sex inspires, Fills with her Strength, & warms with all her Fires, See Wisdom, like a Stream, whose rapid Course Has long been stopp’d, now wth redoubled Force Breaks out – the softer Sex redeems the Land And Shakespear lives again by their Command. For Fashion’s Sake the very Beaux attend And by their Smiles w’d seem to comprehend. Cowper’s poem, a vibrant celebration of women’s critical acumen, ushered in an era of optimism for the intellectual ascendancy for the female sex. Shakespeare’s female defenders are seen to be general reformers of society, voices of wisdom and sense that improve the moral state of the stage as well as rescuing his work from poor interpretation or lack of reverence: Pursue ye Gen’rous Fair! till all is done, The Task you have so gloriously begun. Nor to one Bard Alone your Aid confine, Let Each, as Merit calls, alternate, shine: Banish all Tumblers – Farce – & Harlequin – The Work’s but half Compleat while these remain, And set us free from Follys num’rous Train. Be it your Bus’ness to reform the Stage, That perfect, by Degrees, will Mend the Age; Reason and Truth so Providence decreed, Once listened to – are certain to succeed: Then shall our Youth prefer their Native Home nor after Modes to Foreign Climates roam. Cowper criticizes the fashion for embellishing Shakespeare’s work with the props of pantomime and she calls for greater attention to his work in its original form. Her tone of patriotric zeal foreshadows later works in a similar vein. Like the artist Richard Samuel, she addressed Europe and promoted Britain through the promotion of cultured women. As in Sarah Scott’s Millenium Hall, the connection between reason and virtue is stressed. Again, the final emphasis is on ‘Minds Improvement’. The triumph of reason is feminised in the final lines of the poem: And knowing Worth alone can please the Fair, Their Minds Improvement, be their only Care,



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Cowper’s description of a cultured community of women readers reaches a crescendo in the feminine figure of the nation herself, forging a strong connection between real and symbolic women. Eighteenth-century muses and Britannias frequently asserted themselves forcefully in mainstream culture. Three of Samuel’s nine ‘living muses’ made formative contributions to the emerging field of Shakespeare scholarship. Charlotte Lennox’s Shakespear Illustrated, published between 1753 and 1754, presented the sources of Shakespeare’s plays in Italian and French romances for the first time. She printed translations of the relevant plots with ‘Critical Remarks’ attached, in which she compared the plots of Shakespeare’s plays to their original sources. Lennox made a sophisticated argument for the important place of romance – often considered a suspiciously feminine genre – to the definition of a national literature. This useful and highly original text was encouraged by Samuel Johnson, who later disagreed with her critical point of view, yet still plundered the text for scholarly references for use in his edition of 1765.17 Montagu’s Essay on Shakespeare (1769) was a more straightforward celebration of the national genius, focusing on Shakespeare’s tragic powers rather than on the comedy that Johnson had valued so highly. Her section on the playwright’s ‘Praeternatural Beings’ explored the human power to imagine the supernatural. Elizabeth Griffith’s Shakespeare’s Morality Illustrated, published in 1775, was directly inspired by Montagu’s success. Griffith used her discussions of ‘the English Confucius’ to define a contemporary moral code. She incorporated her opinions on women’s social position within her critical treatment of his female characters, claiming her author to be ‘not only my Poet but my Philosopher also’. She quoted Dr Johnson’s phrase from his preface to his edition of Shakespeare, ‘he who thinks reasonably, must think morally’. This maxim becomes the basis for her sustained attention to Shakespeare’s ‘Ethic Merits’; and ‘the moral duties which are the truest source of moral bliss – domestic ties, offices and obligations’.18 While Griffith and Montagu both aimed to promote Shakespeare’s excellence as a national poet, celebrating his genius in the process of illustrating the moral values of his work, Charlotte Lennox was more unorthodox and eccentric in her critical conclusions, raising questions relating to the hierarchy of literary genres that were potentially more disruptive than the work of Montagu and Griffith. However, all three writers share a marked critical confidence in an arena that had formerly been dominated by men. While several present-day critics are concerned to add women’s writing to an existing canon of literature by men, few have considered women’s role in forming that canon at its first inception or acknowledged their active critical presence. In the eighteenth century Shakespeare became associated with women, and vice-versa.19 This mutually beneficial relationship



Good Sense shall rule to Ages yet unborn And Britain cease to be her Neighbour’s Scorn.

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deserves attention – by considering the qualities in Shakespeare’s writings that appealed to women critics (or repelled them) it is possible to learn an enormous amount about their professional literary interests and allegiances. Reading women’s different interpretations of Shakespeare’s literary value enables the formation of a richer and more nuanced picture of a period in which women’s cultural ascendancy coincided with the creation of the literary canon. This chapter will explore the relationship between gender, genre and literary authority, emphasising the intellectual tradition of women’s criticism in a European context. In her hymn to female achievement, The Female Geniad, first published in 1791, thirteen-year-old Elizabeth Ogilvie Benger grouped Montagu and Griffith together as ‘female champions’ of Shakespeare’s cause: Well might great Shakespeare crowns of triumph wear, When female champions in his cause appear; E’en nature’s bard’s indebted to their aid, They gleam’d resplendent o’er his hoary shade: And whilst they his reviving laurels wreath’d, On both the spirit of the poet breath’d: Let then their mem’ries in ne’er fading bloom, Immortal flourish on their Shakespeare’s tomb.20 Like Eliza Haywood before her, Benger celebrated the interdependent relation between ‘nature’s bard’ and his female readers. Her literary and artistic heroines included Elizabeth Carter, Anna Barbauld, Angelica Kauffman, Charlotte Smith and Charlotte Lennox. Her sense of pride in her countrywomen enabled them to be represented as united in their cultural mission, their critical differences elided. Benger’s attitude was typical of contemporary interest in female cultural activity, which tended to be allied to ideas of national identity in complex and perplexing ways, as Harriet Guest has recently revealed in her illuminating and subtle study of women, learning and patriotism between 1750 and 1810.21 National interest in Shakespeare’s genius provided female critics with an opportunity to gain a public platform not only for ‘female genius’ but also for discussing questions of gender and literary authority that related to the place and future of women in society. In considering the dialectical relationship between Shakespeare’s cultural authority and bluestocking critical authority, I will consider how women positioned themselves in relation to past and present masculine literary models. I will also suggest that bluestockings contributed to a distinctively feminine critical tradition that focused on Shakespeare’s powers of characterisation and his status as a poet of the vernacular. Here I will focus on Elizabeth Montagu’s Essay on the Writings and Genius of Shakespear, Compared with the Greek and French Dramatic Poets: With Some Remarks



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upon the Misrepresentations of Mons. de Voltaire (London, 1769), drawing comparisons with Elizabeth Griffith’s The Morality of Shakespeare’s Drama Illustrated (London, 1775). Both these works contributed to the general eighteenth-century deification of Shakespeare and can be seen to belong to a bluestocking tradition of critical scholarship that demonstrated female wit but did not intend to threaten male authority. In stark contrast, Charlotte Lennox’s Shakespear Illlustrated (which forms the focus of the final section of this chapter), offered an example of critical resistance to contemporary trends in Shakespeare scholarship. It has always been difficult to place Lennox and her work within any particular literary circle or tradition.22

Women, Shakespeare and critical authority Elizabeth Montagu’s Essay on the Writings and Genius of Shakespear was first published, anonymously, by Dodsley in 1769. The run of a thousand copies quickly sold out. The Essay formed a patriotic defence of Shakespeare and his English admirers, arguing for his originality and natural genius. Montagu’s work is unusual in being perhaps the only text to take on Voltaire’s notorious criticisms directly, and to answer his effrontery by forming a blistering critique of the French neoclassical dramatists.23 Montagu was inevitably conscious of entering a masculine literary arena. Her initial desire to remain anonymous was the result of a lack of confidence in the work’s success and a sense that she might be overstepping the bounds of female propriety by opposing Voltaire. While her decision cannot solely be interpreted as a feminine act of modesty, as it was common practice at the time for authors to publish anonymously, it is nevertheless certain that she harboured doubts about being a ‘female Author’ in a masculine field.24 When she heard that her father had discovered her authorship, she wrote to him, explaining her reasons ‘for the secresy with which I acted’: In the first place, there is in general a prejudice against female Authors especially if they invade those regions of litterature which the Men are desirous to reserve to themselves. While I was young, I should not have liked to have been class’d among authors, but at my age it is less unbecoming. If an old Woman does not bewitch her Neighbours Cows, nor make any girl in the Parish spit crooked pins, the World has not reason to take offence at her amusing herself with reading books or even writing them. Montagu was acutely aware of the substantial obstacles for any learned woman in pursuing critical ambitions, casting herself ironically as an old woman who can only cause trouble at any rate, so might as well read, ‘or even write’, if only because it would be marginally more acceptable than




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However, some circumstances in this particular case advise secresy. Mr Pope our great Poet, the Bishop of Gloucester our Great Critick, & Dr Johnson our great Scholar having already given their criticism upon Shakespear, there was a degree of presumption in pretending to meddle with a subject they had already treated tolerably well, sure to incur their envy if I succeded, their contempt if I did not. Then for a weak & unknown Champion to throw down the gauntlett of defiance in the very teeth of Voltaire appear’d too daring . . . I was obliged to enter seriously into the nature of the Dramatick purposes, & the character of the best dramatick writings, & by sometimes differing from the Code of the great Legislator in Poeticks, Aristotle, I was afraid the Learned would reject my opinions, the unlearned yawn over my pages, so that I was very doubtfull of the general success of my work.25 Montagu knew that her opinions might appear incongruous and prove unpopular to both scholars and the general reader, and her apprehensive attitude to publication confirms the pioneering nature of her project. Later in the letter she writes that she considered herself ‘very fortunate that the pert Newswriters have not sneered at the Lady Critick’. Montagu’s fears proved unnecessary. Public admiration for her heroic deed ensured that her identity as author was swiftly circulated. She received letters of flattery from several of the leading male writers of her day, including Edmund Burke, Lord Kames, Hugh Blair, James Beattie and Joshua Reynolds. The theatre manager David Garrick, who had orchestrated a series of elaborate performances and popular entertainments to celebrate ‘Shakespeare’s Jubilee’ in 1769, first at Stratford-upon-Avon and then at Drury Lane in London, was one of Montagu’s greatest admirers.26 He published a poem in her praise in St James’s Chronicle for 24–26 January 1771, in which he depicted Voltaire as ‘The Gallic God of literary War’: A Giant He, among the Sons of France And at our Shakespear pois’d his glitt’ring Lance. Out rush’d a Female to protect the Bard, Snatch’d up her Spear, and for the fight prepar’d: Attack’d the Vet’ran, pierced his Sev’n-fold Shield, And drove him wounded, fainting from the field. With Laurel crown’d, away the Goddess flew, Pallas confest then open’d to our view, Quitting her fav’rite form of Montagu.



witchcraft. She goes on to address the particular ways in which her work might be considered audacious:

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Montagu appeared as a critical Amazon, slaying her opponent with fatal precision. By the time the fourth edition of the Essay appeared in 1777, she was confident enough to print her name on the title page, a year after she had returned from a triumphant visit to Paris, where she had participated in a heated debate about the relative value of English and French literature at the Académie française (discussed below). She also added her three Dialogues of the Dead, satirical comments on modern society, to the fourth and fifth editions. In 1783, Andrew Kippis, editor of the Biographica Britannica, wrote to Montagu to tell her that her work was ‘the best Defence of Shakespeare ever written, and that it is one of the most complete pieces of poetical Criticism which any Age or Country has produced’.27 Robert Potter wrote in a similar vein, telling Montagu that ‘whoever writes for the public ought to have a proper confidence in himself and this the public authorizes you to have; you have therefore a right to feel and express a consciousness of the merit of that admirable work’.28 While the figures of the Scottish Enlightenment welcomed Montagu’s brilliance, Samuel Johnson proved harder to impress. The moral philosopher James Beattie probably gives a fairly accurate assessment of Johnson’s reaction to her work, although he was writing under her patronage and therefore inclined to flatter. His sentiments, however, were shared by Montagu’s circle of eminent literary friends: Johnson’s harsh and foolish censure of Mrs Montagu’s book does not surprise me, for I have heard him speak contemptuously of it. It is, for all that, one of the best, most original, and most elegant pieces of criticism in our language, or any other. Johnson had many of the talents of a critic; but his want of temper, his violent prejudices, and something, I am afraid, of an envious turn of mind, made him often a very unfair one. Mrs Montagu was very kind to him, but Mrs Montagu has more wit than anybody; and Johnson could not bear that any person should be thought to have wit but himself.29 Montagu’s relationship with Samuel Johnson, whose edition of Shakespeare had appeared in 1765, was inevitably competitive. As two of the most powerful figures of London literary life, they sometimes courted and flattered each other but were generally suspicious and wary.30 Montagu had begun her Essay before his edition appeared. However, she was anxious about the comparisons people would make between their work. She herself found his preface to his edition disappointing, as she wrote in no uncertain terms to her sister in 1766: I find people so dissatisfied with Mr Johnson’s performance that I can hardly displease more & indeed must do it less as he has disappointed a great expectation. While he was following the syllables of verbal criticism




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Single-minded in her views and self-consciously different from previous critics of Shakespeare, Montagu wanted to distance herself from Johnson in particular. While Johnson’s preface dealt with a number of pressing questions regarding the historiography of Shakespeare criticism, he failed, in Montagu’s view, to address ‘the peculiar excellencies of Shakespear as a Dramatick poet’. As she protested in a letter to Elizabeth Carter, ‘this point I shall labour as I think he therein excells everyone’.32 Montagu mounted a passionate defence of Shakespeare’s dramatic powers that was particularly original in its focus on his supernatural beings. Jonathan Bate’s opinion that her Essay ‘is wholeheartedly Johnsonian, often uncritically dependent on the 1765 preface’ is misleading, to say the least.33 Montagu’s correspondence with Elizabeth Carter illustrates her growing confidence as she proceeded to take on the venerable sages of dramatic criticism, past and present: I am quite of your opinion that our last Commentator of Shakespear [Johnson] found the piddling trade of verbal criticism below his genius and I am much at a loss when I would account for his persisting in it, through ye course of so many volumes. It has been lucky for my amusement, but unfortunate for the publick, that he did not consider his author in a more extensive view. I have so much veneration for our Poet, & so much zeal for the honour of our Country, & I think the Theatrical entertainments capable of conveying so much instruction, & of exciting such sentiments in the people, that if I am glad he left the task to my unable hand, I dare hardly own it to myself. Our rank in the Belles lettres depends a good deal on that degree of merit which is allow’d to Shakespeare, who is more than any other writer read by foreigners.34 Once again, Montagu identified England’s reputation with that of Shakespeare. She expressed her belief in his plays’ potential for ‘conveying instruction’ and ‘exciting sentiments in the people’. She went on to criticise Johnson’s negative attitude to previous commentators, again lamenting his inability to praise Shakespeare’s ‘dramatick genius’: . . . he should have said more or have said nothing. If he had given attention to the dramatick genius of Shakespear he might have done him justice, & I wonder he did not enter with pleasure into a task that seem’d peculiarly suited to him, he has taste & learning, therefore is a capable critick; he wants invention, he wants strength & vigour of genius to go through a long original work. I will own he gives smart correction to former commentators, but ye last Commentator deserves the



he neglected the scope of the Author, & if he has cleared some passages he has rather thrown an obscurity over the genius of the great Tragedian.31


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It is in the semi-public realm of her correspondence with a fellow female author that Montagu’s critical energy and ambition are most apparent and where she chose to address the strongest male literary voices of her age with direct and pungent criticisms. In the published version of the Essay, by contrast, Montagu was more respectful to her male forebears and peers, establishing a humble relation to the tradition of eighteenth-century scholarship: Mr Pope, in the preface to his edition of Shakespear, sets out by declaring, that, of all English poets, this tragedian offers the fullest and fairest subject for criticism. Animated by an opinion of such authority, some of the most learned and ingenious of our critics have made correct editions of his works, and enriched them with notes. The superiority of talents and learning, which I acknowledge in these editors, leaves me no room to entertain the vain presumption of attempting to correct any passages of this celebrated Author; but the whole, as corrected and elucidated by Them, lies open to a thorough enquiry into the genius of our great English classic. Unprejudiced and candid Judgment will be the surest basis of his fame.36 While she may have been competitive and aggressive in private, Montagu’s public critical demeanour was characterised by a shrewd adherence to a feminine model of literary decorum. Nevertheless, her appeal to ‘Unprejudiced and candid Judgment’ was one calculated to suggest her own particular qualification for the task in hand. She was, it appeared, happy to neglect the dry labours of masculine critical scholarship in order to assert a more naturalistic and particularly feminine understanding of Shakespeare’s genius.

Shakespeare’s feminine virtues: sympathy, character and moral philosophy One of Montagu’s chief sources of critical authority was her particular emphasis on Shakespeare’s capacity to dramatise a moral language. She wrote to George Lyttelton in 1760, ‘I must observe too that the moral reflections of Shakespeare are not the cold and formal observations of a Spectator, but come warm from the heart of an interested person.’37 Montagu saw the social potential of such an instinctive form of morality, writing to William Pulteney, ‘Dramatick writings may be of the greatest service to the Morals of the people, if written as naturally as Shakespeare writes.’38 Writing in the wake of Montagu’s success, Elizabeth Griffith dedicated her Morality of



least indulgence, as he had most opportunity of seeing the futility of the thing.35

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To the further honour of our Author, be it said, that a Lady of distinguished merit has lately appeared a champion in his cause, against this minor critic, this minute philosopher, this fly upon a pillar of St. Paul’s [Voltaire]. It was her example which has stirred up my emulation to this attempt; for I own that I am ambitious of the honour of appearing to think, at least, though I despair of the success of writing, like her.40 Griffith found Montagu’s confidence and critical combativeness worthy of emulation and both writers communicated a profound respect for their contemporary sister authors.41 Bluestocking critical writing often shared a belief in the feminine virtues that Shakespeare’s drama brought to life. While Griffith and Montagu shared a concern for the morally instructive quality of Shakespeare’s work, their style is very different. Montagu’s Essay begins with a general chapter on the quality of Shakespeare’s ‘Dramatic Poetry’ and then presents detailed discussions of his historical drama (particularly Henry IV), his ‘Preternatural Beings’ and his tragedies, concentrating on Macbeth and Julius Caesar, including an aggressive attack on Corneille’s Cinna. Her analysis has the formal sophistication of a traditional defence, following in the line of authors such as Sydney and Pope. Griffith’s work is closer in style to an educational anthology, in which she reprinted long excerpts from thirty-two of Shakespeare’s plays, interspersed with her moral commentary. She explained her purpose thus: In these remarks and observations I have not restricted myself to morals purely ethic, but have extended my observations and reflections to whatever has reference to the general oeconomy of life and manners, respecting prudence, polity, decency, and decorum; or relative to the tender affections and fond endearments of human nature; more especially regarding those moral duties which are the truest source of moral bliss – domestic ties, offices and obligations.42 Here Griffith was developing a theme suggested by Montagu, as she owns in her ‘General Postscript’ : Mrs Montagu says, very justly, that ‘We are apt to consider Shakespeare only as a poet; but he is certainly one of the greatest moral philosophers that ever lived.’ And this is true; because, in his universal scheme of doctrine, he comprehends manners, proprieties, and decorums; and whatever relates to these, to personal character, or national description, falls equally within the great line of morals. Horace prefers Homer to all the philosophers,



Shakespeare’s Drama Illustrated, published in 1775, to David Garrick.39 In her preface she referred to Montagu’s work as her inspiration:


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Qui, quid sit pulchrum, quid turpe, quid utile, quid non, Plenius et melius Chrysippo et Crantore dicit.

Griffith’s work, like that of Montagu, constituted a zealous defence of Shakespeare’s dramatic power, particularly focusing on his ability to create believable and compelling characters. Both women considered example better than precept, and they praised Shakespeare’s ability to represent virtue on stage. As Griffith wrote, ‘Plato wished that Virtue could assume a visible form. Dramatic exhibition gives one, both to Virtue and Vice.’44 What made Shakespeare’s lessons so compelling for Montagu and Griffith were his powers of imaginative sympathy and of characterisation. These, Montagu argued, gave his work a realism that was superior to that of the allegorical conceits of neoclassical drama: ‘In delineating characters he must be allowed far to surpass all dramatic writers, and even Homer himself; he gives an air of reality to everything, and in spite of many and great faults, effects, better than any one has done, the chief purpose of dramatic representation.’45 As she explained: For copying nature as he found it in the busy walks of human life, he drew from an original, with which the Literati are seldom well acquainted. They perceive his portraits are not of the Grecian or of the Roman school: after finding them unlike to the celebrated forms preserved in learned museums they do not deign to enquire whether they resemble the living persons, they were intended to represent. Among these connoisseurs, whose acquaintance with the characters of men is formed in the library, not in the street, the camp, or village, whatever is unpolished and uncouth passes for fantastic and absurd, though, in fact, it is a faithful representation of a really existing character.46 Both Griffith and Montagu praised Shakespeare’s psychological astuteness as derived not from formal training but from everyday experience and for that reason able to reach the inner depths of the human imagination.47 Montagu wrote of Julius Caesar: Great knowledge of the human heart had informed him, how easy it is to excite a sympathy with things believed real . . . He wrote to please an untaught people, guided wholly by their feelings, and to those feelings he applied, and they are often touched by circumstances that have not dignity and splendor enough to please the eye accustomed to the specious miracles of ostentatious art, and the nice selection of refined judgment.48



And surely Shakespeare plenius et melius excels him again, as much as the living scene exceeds the dead letter, as action is preferable to didaction, or representation to declamation.43

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The difference between a mind naturally prone to evil, and a frail one warped by force of temptations, is delicately distinguished in Macbeth and his wife. There are also some touches of the pencil that mark the male and female character. When they deliberate on the murder of the king, the duties of host and subject strongly plead with him against the deed. She passes over these considerations; goes to Duncan’s chamber resolved to kill him, but could not do it, because, she says, he resembles her father while he slept. There is something feminine in this, and perfectly agreeable to the nature of the sex; who, even when void of Principle, are seldom entirely divested of Sentiment; and thus the Poet, who, to use his own phrase, had overstepped the modesty of nature in the exaggerated fierceness of her character, returns back to the line and limits of humanity, and that very judiciously, by a sudden impression, which has only an instantaneous effect . . . As her character was not composed of those gentle elements out of which regular repentance could be formed, it was well judged to throw her mind into the chaos of madness; and, as she had exhibited wickedness in its highest degree of ferocity and atrociousness, she should be an example of the wildest agonies of remorse. As Shakespear could most exactly delineate the human mind in its regular state of reason, so no one ever so happily caught its varying forms in the wanderings of delirium.49 Here Montagu provides a detailed account of her admiration for Shakespeare’s powers of identification with his characters, his facility to inhabit their minds, which she described thus: ‘Shakespear seems to have had the art of the Dervise, in the Arabian tales, who could throw his soul into the body of another man, and be at once possessed of his sentiments, adopt his passions, and rise to all the functions and feelings of his situation.’50 She also provides an unusually tolerant interpretation of Lady Macbeth’s conduct, which proved notoriously unpalatable to eighteenth-century audiences. Elizabeth Griffith similarly sought to give Lady Macbeth’s actions a rational explanation. Rather than choosing to admire Shakespeare’s powerful depiction of the full spectrum of human behaviour, Griffith excused Lady Macbeth by pointing out the more prosaic fact that she had been drinking: Lady Macbeth, speaking here of Duncan’s grooms, says, That which has made them drunk, hath made me bold: What hath quenched them, hath given me fire



To Montagu and Grifith, Shakespeare’s knowledge of the ‘human heart’ made him especially successful in his characterisation of the female sex. Montagu’s assessment of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth praised Shakespeare’s sensitivity to the difference between male and female emotions:


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The reader can detect here not only the bluestocking suspicion of alcohol but also Griffith’s desire to exonerate Lady Macbeth’s crimes through reasonable argument. Her criticism again reflects the abiding bluestocking concern with an adherence, rather than a challenge, to female virtues. Shakespeare’s sympathetic portrayal of his heroines was particularly admired by female critics. Margaret Cavendish wrote ‘one would think that he had been Metamorphosed from a Man to a Woman, for who could describe Cleopatra Better than he hath done, and many other Females of his own Creating’.52 However, both Montagu and Griffith seem to highlight Shakespeare’s impressive female characters in order to emphasise his depiction of a common humanity that transcended the boundaries of gender. They praised his capacity to educate and reform both sexes in their knowledge of each other. Griffith referred to Shakespeare’s chameleon-like ability to display a range of characters thus: ‘What age, what sex, what character, escapes the touches of Shakespeare’s plastic hand!’53 Moreover, she suggested that Shakespeare’s capacity to recognise what we might now call shifting boundaries between subject positions should be seen not only in relation to individual characters but also in relation to the categories of class and gender in society as a whole: ‘Human nature is the same throughout; it is education alone that distinguishes man from man. There are, indeed, great differences often observable between the talents and intellects of the species; but this distinction is remarked in individuals, only, not in the classes of mankind.’54 Griffith arguably raises, implicity, the question of the difference between the education of men and women in her own time. The bluestocking emphasis on the morally didactic potential of Shakespeare’s plays was taken up by a number of nineteenth-century women, including Mary Lamb and Anna Jameson, whose Characteristics of Women, Moral, Poetical and Historical, first published in 1832, later became known as ‘Shakespeare’s Heroines’. ‘It appears to me’, she wrote in the introduction, ‘that the condition of women in society, as at present constituted is false in itself, and injurious to them, – that the education of women is at present founded in mistaken principles, and tends to increase fearfully the sum of misery and error in both sexes.’ Rather than write ‘essays on morality, and treatises on educations’, Jameson used Shakespeare’s heroines to illustrate the manner in which the affections would naturally display themselves in women – whether combined with high intellect, regulated by reflection, and elevated by imagination, or existing with perverted dispositions



Our sex is obliged to Shakespeare, for this passage. He seems to think that a woman could not be rendred compleatly wicked, without some degree of intoxication. It required two vices in her; one to intend, and another to perpetrate the crime. He does not give wine and wassail to Macbeth; leaving him in his natural state, to be actuated by the temptation of ambition alone.51

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or purified moral sentiments: ‘I found all these in Shakespeare . . . his characters combine history and real life; they are complete individuals, whose hearts and souls are laid open before us – all may behold and all judge for themselves.’55 Jameson was attracted to Shakespeare’s plays precisely because they appeared to invite what Montagu had termed ‘unprejudiced and candid judgement’. Bluestocking criticism can be seen, then, to foreshadow a nineteenth-century feminist interest in Shakespeare’s strength as a moral teacher and humane judge of female character. However, while it might be tempting to define Montagu and Griffith’s work in terms of a female tradition of writings on Shakespeare’s uses as a moral teacher, it is important to recognise their ambitions in a broader critical context. Both were keen to reach a general audience of both sexes and to be treated as critical equals to their male counterparts. Griffith’s work was addressed to both sexes, whom she viewed as in equal need of reform; ‘Vice is neither masculine, nor feminine; ’tis the common of the two.’56 Montagu wished to share her commitment to Shakespeare’s genius with as many of her contemporaries as possible. She followed her reviews avidly and took great satisfaction in the idea of the expanding influence of her Essay: You will be glad to hear that doughty Corporation of Criticks who call themselves ye Critical Reviewers have most graciously extoll’d a certain essay, indeed far beyond its desert, & indeed far beyond the Authors conceit of its merit. As many good people in all the towns in England regulate their opinions by this review it is lucky. The rich Grocer, the substantial Manufacturer sits & reads this litterary gazette with implicit faith, & ye Curate (who dictates in matters of learning to ye Farmers Heiress, who at boarding school learnt to read Novels) takes his opinions & derives his knowledge from ye Monthly papers.57 Montagu’s imaginings about the instructive benefits to be received from her work by ‘ye Farmers Heiress, who at boarding school learnt to read Novels’ show how she hoped to educate readers of all social ranks in Shakespeare’s genius. With this purpose in mind, she ensured that her literary style was clear and simple, accurate and accessible. In the next section I will explore women’s particular investment in the status of the English language.

Female critics and the ‘mother-tongue’ Women’s defence of Shakespeare was inevitably political in the context of eighteenth-century debates about the relative status of classical and modern languages.58 Bluestocking Shakespeare critics were conscious of following in a line of female scholars who had made serious arguments for their sex’s privileged relation to English. As the playwright Aphra Behn wrote in the



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Plays have no great room for that which is men’s great advantage over women, that is Learning; we all well know that the Immortal Shakespeare’s Plays (who was not guilty of much more than often falls to women’s share) have better pleas’d the World than Jonson’s works, though, by the way ’tis said that Benjamin was no such Rabbi neither, for I am inform’d that his Learning was but Grammar high; (sufficient indeed to rob poor Salust of his best Orations.)59 Part of Shakespeare’s attraction for his earliest female commentators and imitators, then, was his feminine quality of ‘unlearnedness’. Anxieties about the effects of scholarship on the fair sex tended to focus on the dangerous disciplines of classical learning and science, in which women’s demonstration of learning was potentially more practical and transformative. Appreciation of the national poet was ostensibly a less objectionable activity, not appearing to represent a threat to the patriarchal foundations of higher knowledge but complying with contemporary prejudices against women’s access to the classical languages. It can be no accident that some of the most powerful early defences of the native tongue were written by women, who emphasised the scholarly and learned aspect of English grammar and literary history. The Anglo-Saxonist Elizabeth Elstob was an ambitious scholar and defender of the northern vernacular languages from an early age.60 She mastered eight languages but considered Germanic studies more open to women than ‘the Greek and Latin store’. Her eventful life included a spell working as consultant to George Ballard, author of the pioneering and scholarly Memoirs of Several Ladies of Great Britain Celebrated for their Writings, published in 1752.61 Towards the end of her life she became governess to the children of the Duchess of Portland, who was a great friend of Elizabeth Montagu. Montagu’s letters are said to have passed through Elstob’s hands on occasion and it is quite possible that they met when she visited the Portland family home at Bulstrode.62 Elstob’s The Rudiments of Grammar for the English Saxon Tongue, first given in English: with an apology for the study of the Northern Antiquities. Being very useful for the study of our ancient English poets and other writers, was dedicated to the Princess of Wales in 1715, and included an explicit defence of the critical capacities of her sex on the title page: Our Earthly Possessions are truly enough called a PATRIMONY, as derived to us by the Industry of our FATHERS; but the Language that we speak is our MOTHER-TONGUE; And who so proper as play the Critticks in this as the FEMALES.



preface to her play, The Dutch Lover (London, 1673), the genre of drama provided particularly good evidence of the pleasures of plain speaking:

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Here is one of the earliest and most forthright apologies for the female critic. Elstob’s grammar was written, with women particularly in mind, in English rather than in the traditional Latin of standard scholarship. As Kathryn Sutherland has pointed out, almost half the subscribers to her earlier translation of Aelfric’s St Gregory Homily were women: ‘However unlikely it now seems, for a short time Elstob may even have been responsible for making Saxon studies the latest craze among ladies who made a fashion for scholarship.’63 In her Rudiments of Grammar, Elstob took issue with Tory classicists, such as Swift, whose Proposal for Correcting, Improving and Ascertaining the English Tongue (1712) was itself a political act, promoting the social structure as well as the linguistic excellence of the classical world. Elstob attacked his anti-Gothic stance in her brilliant prefatory ‘Apology’, a polemic directed against Swift and his fellow grammarians. She staked out her own high ground, praising the utility, even the necessity of Old English studies, and arguing that the Anglo-Saxon language was the wellspring of modern English and therefore the epitome of national identity, law and religion. In answer to Swift’s charge that monosyllabic languages were harsh and grating to the ear, Elstob marshalled counter-examples from the world’s great poets, from Homer and Virgil to Chaucer, Waller, Dryden and Swift himself. She concluded by adding ‘a few Instances from some of our Female Poets’, including extracts from the work of Katherine Philips, Anne Wharton and Anne Finch, Countess of Winchelsea.64 Swift never directly acknowledged this preface, but, according to Richard Morton, it appears to have influenced his subsequent views of language – and of women’s education.65 The two issues were linked, of course: the higher the status achieved by the native language in the world of learning, the higher the position that women could occupy within its precincts.66 Women who knew the classical languages, such as Elizabeth Carter, were considered curious exceptions. Anna Barbauld had to plead with her father to allow her to attend Latin and Greek lessons at Warrington Academy. The celebration of Shakespeare’s genius was coeval with the rise of interest in the vernacular language and its stylistic complexities, as well as coinciding with the increasing visibility of the professional woman writer. In opposition to the rigid rules of orthodox classical drama, writers increasingly invoked concepts of Shakespeare’s genius, nature and imagination. As the work of Brian Vickers has illustrated, changing concepts of genius and inspiration produced a more direct response to his poetry, and a new spirit of detailed and systematic analysis of his texts. Edward Upton’s Critical Observations of Shakespeare, for example, published in 1748, was an important critique of Shakespeare’s language and style, which argued for the musical powers of his poetic expression. These qualities were seen to be aided by his lack of learning, only ‘inferior wits’ needing formal training. Accordingly, when Elizabeth Montagu defended Shakespeare from charges of barbarism



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Great indulgence is due to the errors of original writers, who, quitting the beaten track which others have travelled, make daring incursions into unexplored regions of invention, and boldly strike into the pathless Sublime: it is no wonder if they are often bewildered, sometimes benighted; yet it is surely more eligible to partake in the pleasure and the toil of their adventures, than still to follow the cautious steps of timid Imitators through trite and common roads.67 She further defended his reputation on the grounds of his belonging to ‘the people’, an observation to be echoed by Madame de Stael.68 This accounted for his faults as well as his brilliance: If the severer muses, whose sphere is the Library and the Senate, are obliged in complaisance to this degeneracy, to trick themselves out with meretricious and frivolous ornaments, as is too apparent from the compositions of the Historians and Orators in declining empires, can we wonder that a dramatic poet, whose chief interest is to please the people, should, more than any other writer, conform himself to their humour. . .69 Bluestocking investment in Shakespeare’s use of the vernacular turned in part, then, on its accessibility. Plays in English could be understood by everyone and discussed even by those lacking classical learning. On another level, of course, the distinctive modern role of English as a national language was crystallising in this period. In this respect too, as we shall now see, the bluestocking defence of Shakespeare played its part.

The bluestockings and a national canon of literature Montagu opened her chapter ‘Upon the Cinna of Corneille’ with a spirited defence of the unique strengths of English blank verse. She argued that while the iambic pentameter might appear an easy poetic form for the reader in its eloquence and affinity with everyday patterns of speech, it was an extremely difficult skill for the poet to master. She accused the French neoclassicists of insensitivity to the sophistication of English verse, mocking their arrogant dismissal of its technical complexities. Before revealing the errors of Voltaire’s translations of Shakespeare, she celebrated the natural beauty of Shakespeare’s poetry, which, she argued, had an affinity with music: . . . it rises gracefully into the Sublime; it can slide happily into the Familiar; hasten its career if impelled by vehemence of passion; pause in the



raised by Voltaire, among others, she based her argument on Shakespeare’s spontaneity and originality:

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Griffith expressed an even greater pride in the beauty of the vernacular, praising Shakespeare as superior to ‘the whole collective host of Greek or Roman writers, whether ethic, epic, dramatic, didactic or historic’. She described his idiosyncratic use of words thus: . . . our Author shall measure his pen with any of the antient styles, in their most admired compound and decompound epithets, descriptive phrases, or figurative expressions. The multitudinous sea, ear-piercing fife, big war, giddy mast, sky-aspiring, heaven-kissing hill, time-honoured name, cloud-clapt towers, heavenly harnessed team, rash gunpowder, polished perturbation, gracious silence, golden care, trumpet-tongued, thought-executing fires; with a number other words, both epic and comic, are instances of it.71 In her commentary one can detect an implicit argument for the superiority of the native tongue. Her discussion of Henry IV takes a side-swipe at ‘the learned’: they deny Shakespeare to have been a classic scholar, but one would fancy that he was both a master and admirer of Ovid by the manly and puerile stile he frequently mixes together in the same passage . . . There is hardly a line in the above speech of the king, that is not worth the whole of what Sophocles makes Oedipus say to his son in the same circumstance. But I don’t expect the learned will ever give up this point to me, while one passage remains in Greek, and the other only in English.72 Griffith betrays a bitter resentment of the unnatural privilege men have in learning classical languages, access to which they appear to guard as a means of excluding women. Her commentary praised Shakespeare’s bold and instinctive use of English, for example in her comment on the use of the word ‘Sightless’: ‘Shakespeare often places the negative at the end of the adjective, instead of the beginning. This varies his phrases, and enriches his language. Modern writers are too much dictionary bound.’73 In her final defence of English tragedies she cited Montagu’s critical example with patriotic ardour. As this discussion of Griffith and Montagu’s work demonstrates, bluestocking literary activity was welcomed as an example of Britain’s achievement in



hesitation of doubt; appear lingering and languid in dejection and sorrow; is capable of varying its accent, and adapting its harmony, to the sentiment it should convey, and the passion it would excite, with all the power of musical expression. Even a person, who did not understand our language, would find himself very differently affected, by the following speeches in that metre.70

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the arts, as cultural capital to be celebrated. Montagu’s enthusiasm for the native tongue influenced the higher ranks of intellectual institutions as well as achieving popular appeal, and it is arguable that her Essay contributed to the early development of the idea of ‘English Literature’ as an object of university study. In a letter to Montagu, Hugh Blair commented on her skill in mixing pleasure and instruction, declaring that he would recommend Montagu’s Essay to his students at the University of Edinburgh: Of all the commentators on Shakespear who have hitherto appeared, you are by far the Best; you have done him more real justice, & have enter’d more into his spirit & character than any of the Writers who have attempted to delineate him. I am particularly pleased with what you have said, on the Historical Drama. I was always at a loss before what to think of these pieces of Shakespear. You have placed them in a light that is New & Just; and have defended them, entirely to my Satisfaction, on the most rational principles of Criticism. It can be no compliment to you, Madam, to say, for it is what I would say to any other person Concerning your Work, that you have enriched our language with a very Candid, Elegant & Masterly piece of Criticism. I am sure I have reaped my Self not only much entertainment but much instruction from it; and am happy to have it in my power to referr my Students to your Essay for proper ideas concerning so Capital an Author in our Language.74 Blair was a founding figure in the history of literary studies. As Alistair Fowler has recently written, ‘By the middle of the eighteenth century, instruction in vernacular literature was in demand throughout Britain. The Scottish Enlightenment . . . was generating enthusiasm for “improvement” of various sorts. And the improvers turned to history and literature as agencies for change.’75 Fowler charts the influential contribution to the birth of literary studies made by Adam Smith, Lord Kames and Blair, with all of whom Montagu corresponded, being especially close to Lord Kames, who asked her literary advice on several occasions. Blair’s enthusiasm for Montagu’s ‘masterly’ Essay as a didactic work founded on the ‘most rational principles of Criticism’ indicates her success as a literary critic whose work could be used to educate people in the stylistic subtlety and cultural supremacy of their native tongue.76 Montagu had always thought of her literary self in nationalist terms, openly pitting her authorial persona against that of Voltaire in the title of her Essay. From an early age, Montagu had admired Voltaire’s wit and nearlegendary intelligence but she was profoundly irritated by his attacks on Shakespeare’s genius. In 1755, having just read his Orphelin de Chine, she wrote to her sister that she did not care for it:




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When I compare this indifference with the interest, the admiration, the surprise with which I read what the saucy Frenchman calls les farces monstreuses of Shakespeare, I could burn him and his tragedy . . . Oh! that we were as sure our fleets and armies could drive the French out of America as that our poets and tragedians can drive them out of Parnassus. I hate to see these tame creatures, taught to pace by art, attack fancy’s sweetest child.77 Montagu’s direct equation of military and literary power reveals the profoundly nationalistic context of the European culture in which she wrote. As Haydn Mason has recently pointed out, Voltaire himself came to see Shakespeare more and more in symbolically patriotic terms, the playwright becoming increasingly connected in his mind with British success in the Seven Years War. In 1760 he attacked Shakespeare in his Appel à toutes les nations de l’Europe, which attempted to unite the whole of Europe against the Englishman.78 The opening pages of Montagu’s Essay established her antipathy to Voltaire: – Our Shakespear, whose very faults pass here unquestioned, or are perhaps consecrated through the enthusiasm of his admirers, and the veneration paid to long-established fame, is by a great wit [Voltaire], a great critic, and a great poet of a neighbouring nation, treated as the writer of monstrous Farces, called by him Tragedies; and barbarism and ignorance are attributed to the nation, by which he is admired. Yet if wits, poets, critics, could ever be charged with presumption, one might say there was some degree of it in pronouncing, that, in a country where Sophocles and Euripedes are as well understood as in any in Europe, the perfections of dramatic poetry should be as little comprehended as among the Chinese.79 While Montagu preserved a position of humility in relation to the great English Shakespeare editors, such as Pope, she confidently attacked the presumption and inaccuracy of Voltaire. She criticised his knowledge of English with a withering sense of superiority. Of his misinterpretation of the word ‘course’, she remarked drily, ‘It is very extraordinary, that a man should set up for a Translator, with so little acquaintance in the language, as not to be able to distinguish whether a word, in a certain period, signifies a race, a service of dishes, or a mode of conduct.’80 She even re-translated Voltaire’s French back into a crude form of English to try to demonstrate his faults to those who did not understand French. Her aim was to ‘deter other beaux esprits from attempting to hurt works of genius by the masked battery of an unfair translation’.81 Her piercing criticisms of Corneille’s ‘weak effeminacies’ and ‘awkwardly conducted’ drama were intended as a direct retaliatory



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gesture, and to demonstrate her scholarly and sophisticated attention to the details of the English language. No male critic dared to take on Voltaire with as much ferocity as did Montagu. In fact, Voltaire was not refuted so roundly and frankly by any other English writer during his lifetime. Thomas Lounsbury has described Johnson’s refusal to reply to his criticisms, despite the encouragement of Boswell.82 Montagu’s knowledge of French, though she spoke it badly, was seemingly finer than Voltaire’s sense of English. Her demonstration was conclusive. The ‘faithful translator stood convicted of presumption and ignorance’.83 Montagu’s work attracted a good deal of attention in Europe. It was translated into German in 1771 by Johann Eschenburg, whose translation of Shakespeare’s works appeared a few years later, forming an important influence on the German Romantic movement. It was translated into French in 1777 by an anonymous writer and into Italian in 1828. Letourneur’s translation of three plays, Othello, The Tempest and Julius Caesar, foreshadowed the first complete edition of Shakespeare’s works in France, with notes and commentaries. As Mason writes: the work clearly represented a major landmark in the reception of the English playwright beyond the Channel. In addition, the three plays were accompanied by important prefatory material: a subscription list containing over a thousand names; a dedicatory epistle to Louis XVI; an account of the Jubilee; a Life of Shakespeare; a refutation of criticisms directed at him by Marmontel; and extracts from diverse English prefaces.84 Voltaire was doubly offended by the fact that he was conspicuously absent from the edition, perceiving an obvious slight to his reputation, a calculated insult. He decided to address matters by writing a letter in response to the translation, to be read by his friend and ally, D’Alembert, at a meeting of the Académie française. He saw this as his patriotic duty, and his letter is peppered with the defensive language of a man at war: ‘Je plaide pour la France’; ‘je combats pour la nation’; ‘je ne veux point être l’esclave des Anglais’.85 When Montagu visited Paris in 1776, she was fêted by polite society. Her status as a literary and cultural ambassador, already present in her capacity as patron and salon hostess, was considerably strengthened by her appearance as a published author. She was invited to the meeting of the Académie française where Voltaire’s retaliatory letter was to be read out to the assembled members, followed by a discussion of the merits of Letournour’s translation. In a letter to her friend Mrs Vesey, Montagu reported the scene: Then rose Monsr D’Alembert to read a most blackguard abusive invective of Monsr de Voltaire’s against Shakespear the translation of whose works he apprehended wd spoil ye taste of ye French Nation. He attributed to




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Shakespear many things he never said, he gatherd together many things the rudeness of the age allowd him to say, & with a few mauvaises plaisanteries season’d ye discourse with as much mauvaise foy. He gave an account of ye Tragedy of Gorboduc, & represented it as ye taste of yea Nation in Drama though not ten people have for these hundred years read Gorboduc. This trash of Monsieur Voltaires answered the great purpose of his life, to raise a momentary laugh at things that are good, & a transient scorn of Men much superior to himself, but I must do that justice to the Academy & Audience they seemd in general displeased at ye paper read. I was askd by an Academician if I wd answer this piece of Voltaires & did not doubt but I could do it very well. I said Mr l’Abbé Arnauld had done it much better than I could , in ye praises he had give to Original genius, & ye benefits arising from the study of them, that I remembered 60 years ago in the same Academy, Old Homer had met with ye same treatment with Shakespear, that they now did justice to Homer, I did not doubt but they wd do so to Shakespear, for that great Geniuses survived those who set up to be their Criticks, or more absurdly to be their Rivals.86 While D’Alembert’s report of the meeting is more positive, he nevertheless admitted to Voltaire that the overall reaction to his letter had been mixed: ‘Je n’ai pas besoin de vous dire que les Anglois qui étoient là sont sortis mécontens, & même quelques François qui ne se contentent pas d’être battus par eux sur terre st sur mer, & qui voudroient encoire que nous le fussions sur le théâtre.’87 Montagu had become enmeshed in the centre of a controversy of national importance, provoking the interest of all the ‘beaux esprits’ in Paris. Her sense of critical superiority in this context is striking. Her letter to Vesey conveyed her self-satisfaction in rising above the demeaning squabbles of contemporary literary society and called for her audience to submit to a longer view of literary history in determining Shakespeare’s value to the literary canon. The success of Montagu’s intervention in a public and nationalist literary debate demonstrated the power of the female intellect in the public sphere of letters. Her Essay remained popular into the beginning of the nineteenth century. The sixth edition appeared in 1810, a decade after her death, and was still well known as a commanding celebration of the national poet. Maria Edgeworth referred to Montagu in her novel Patronage, published in 1814, the same year as Austen’s Mansfield Park. The French and English heroes of her novel argue about the merits of Shakespeare: ‘I have every edition of Shakespeare, that ever was printed or published, and every thing that ever was written, good, bad, or indifferent, at ClayHall. – I made this a principle, and I think every Englishman should do the same. – Your Mr Voltaire,’ added this polite Englishman, turning



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to Count Altenberg, ‘made a fine example of himself by dashing at our Shakespeare?’ ‘Undoubtedly, Voltaire showed he did not understand Shakespeare, and therefore, did not do him justice,’ replied Count Altenberg. ‘Even Voltaire had some tinge of national prejudice, as well as other men. It was reserved for the women, to set us in this instance, as in many others, an example at once of superior candor, and superior talent.’88

Edgeworth’s reference to the ‘women’ who came to Shakespeare’s aid suggests that her readers would have been familiar with the bluestocking defence of their national playwright. However, one can detect a slightly patronising tone in Count Altenberg’s admission that ‘the women’ have set ‘us’ an example. The sexes remain set apart, members of different systems of aesthetic judgement. Edgeworth gently suggests that there is more than national pride at stake in defending the future of literary reputations. Adopting a reverential attitude to Shakespeare’s work, Montagu and Griffith participated in a literary debate that remained conservative and nationalist in many respects. So while they legitimised themselves as writers, it might be argued that their work did not ultimately challenge masculine authority in the context of an emerging national literary canon; one cannot help wondering whether Montagu’s Essay would have been quite so popular had she openly criticised Johnson in the manner that she attacked Voltaire. The bluestocking defence of Shakespeare negotiated a difficult balance of gender politics in relation to the hierarchy of literary genres – and languages – that was being established as part of Britain’s cultural identity. This chapter has thus far uncovered one particular female tradition of writing that used the idea of feminine ‘candour’ and ‘talent’, and a certain ‘unlearnedness’, to lay claim to a previously masculine arena of critical judgement. While Montagu, and to a lesser extent Griffith, had bolstered their own status as female critics in contributing to the creation of Shakespeare’s reputation, in the longer term, their writings slipped from view, and out of the literary tradition, as Shakespeare’s became ever more prominent. While present-day students are familiar with the critical elaboration of Shakespeare’s powers of sympathy, characterisation and moral philosophy in the work of Coleridge, Keats and Hazlitt, and while key elements of the bluestocking defence of Shakespeare became part of subsequent critical orthodoxy, few have heard of Montagu or Griffith, whose work undoubtedly contributed to the Romantic fascination with Shakespeare’s particular genius and to the nature of his modern reputation. It was precisely the Romantic veneration of Shakespeare’s genius that came, historically, to overshadow and obliterate the idiosyncratic work of Charlotte Lennox.




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While it is possible to understand – and perhaps even to ‘reinstate’ – the work of Griffith and Montagu within the literary history of eighteenth-century Shakespeare criticism, the work of Charlotte Lennox, from the time of its first publication, has always presented a more challenging and anomalous critical voice. The young Elizabeth Benger commented upon Lennox’s talent for ‘pruning’ and ‘correcting’ Shakespeare’s plays with a cheerful enthusiasm not typical of eighteenth-century reactions to Lennox’s work: Tis Lennox; she whose penetration shines Thro’ Britain’s bard, immortal Shakespeare’s lines: Observe ingenious her impartial quill, Detect his errors, & declare his skill: Correct his fancy, prune his flowers, that need Some friendly hand to prune the spreading weed. We thank great Shakespeare for his pleasing faults! Since these employ’d a female critics’ thoughts.89 Benger was undisturbed by the idea of Shakespeare’s inadequacies, perceiving them as almost designed in the service of female criticism. She celebrated Lennox’s power to exercise judgement in a realm previously dominated by the ‘usurping pride’ of men: Long had proud man with an usurping pride, The right of judgment to our sex deny’d; But now no longer can exclude our claim; Which finds protection in a Lennox’s name Nor more presume our just demand to slight, When female genius beams such radiant light.90 Benger relished the pioneering nature of Lennox’s critical assertiveness, holding her up as an example that might silence male prejudice and inspire female emulation. After the success of Lennox’s first novels, Harriot Stuart (1751) and The Female Quixote (1752), Samuel Johnson was supportive of her research surrounding the sources of Shakespeare’s drama, arguably hoping to benefit from her labours in the writing of his own edition of Shakespeare (which appeared in 1765). While Lennox was working on her edition, Johnson wrote to encourage her and to commend her critical skills. When she had been ill and taken away from her desk, he hoped to animate her thus: I hope you take great care to observe the Doctor’s prescriptions, and take your physick regularly, for I shall soon come to enquire. I should be sorry



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Johnson describes a complex relationship with Lennox. She appears to be Johnson’s trained falcon, or critical missile – and yet he acknowledges her extraordinary power by casting her as the Bird of Jupiter – the eagle. Women writers were frequently compared to Minerva, goddess of wisdom with her attendant owl, but very rarely were they linked to a masculine figure of supreme authority such as Jupiter, who in Roman mythology governed the heavens and earth. However, Johnson ultimately asserts his own authority over Lennox by aligning himself with Jupiter. Lennox published the first two volumes of her study Shakespear Illustrated: or the Novels and Histories, on which the Plays of Shakespear Are Founded, Collected and Translated from the original authors in 1753, adding the third and final volume the following year. This was the first translation and summary of Shakespeare’s major sources in French and Italian romances, or ‘novels’.92 The publisher Andrew Millar advertised the work on its title page as being by ‘the Author of the Female Quixote’. Lennox was now sufficiently celebrated as a novelist for this to prove a likely selling point. However, those who read her work were likely to be surprised by its direct and uncompromising approach. Lennox was obviously not overawed by the power of Shakespeare’s reputation and when comparing him to his sources found him to be an author lacking in several vital qualities, including invention. Whereas Griffith and Montagu would identify with Shakespeare’s unlearnedness and his facility with the native tongue, this was precisely where Lennox lost her patience. She found him not learned enough. Lennox’s criticism of Shakespeare proved controversial for her contemporaries and has intrigued or challenged scholars ever since, precisely because of its critical, even impatient, approach to Shakespeare’s genius.93 As Margaret Anne Doody has commented, ‘her tart remarks can be refreshing after so much elaborate praise’. Moreover, as Doody goes on to argue, this tartness was part of a broader and more unusual critical strategy to defend the feminine genre of romance literature, and by extension, the increasingly feminine genre of the novel.94 In 1793, James Boswell drafted an advertisement for a second and revised edition of Shakespear Illustrated. This document provided a useful summary of Lennox’s critical achievement, conveying something of the contradictory responses provoked by her work. Boswell was promoting a reprinting of the text, but traces of his ambivalent reaction to Lennox’s argument remained: AT a very early period of the Author’s life this work was written, and published with all the vivacity and confidence of youth: Elated by discovering



to loose Criticism in her bloom. Your remarks are I think all very judicious, clearly expressed, and incontrovertibly certain. When Shakespeare is demolished your wings will be full summed and I will fly you at Milton; for you are a bird of Prey, [sic? but] the Bird of Jupiter.91

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that she had traced from whence the immortal dramatic Poet of our nation had borrowed many of his plots, and fond of displaying her critical sagacity in shewing that he made use of the old translations of CYNTHIO, BANDELLO, and ARIOSTO’S Tales and Novels, and not of the originals, of which she gives a new translation in this Work, she was thought by some to have treated SHAKESPEARE with less reverence than might have been wished. Nevertheless the Public was pleased to see so much merit in the performance, that it was received with very general favour, and was honoured by such marks of attention, as not to acknowledge would argue rather arrogance than modesty. The learned Professor GOTSCHED OF LEIPSIC translated her remarks into the German language, and the illustrious Dr. JOHNSON adopted some of them in his edition of SHAKESPEARE. He presented her book to the University of Oxford, depositing it in the Bodleian library; and quoted it as one of the authorities in his Dictionary. Now, when the fame of SHAKESPEARE has had considerable accessions by the labours of various commentators, and when, by a wide discussion of good taste, his works justly enjoy a popularity so extensive, that the world is ready to afford the most liberal patronage to correct, elegant, and splendid editions of them, she is willing to flatter herself that her friends are not mistaken in thinking that her book, entitled, SHAKESPEAR ILLUSTRATED, may now advantageously be produced in a more respectable form, and with the improvements which, at a mature age, she trusts she can give it.95 Boswell appeared to be walking a tightrope in trying to protect the reputation of both Shakespeare and Lennox. He suggested that her youthful impetuosity was responsible for her lack of ‘reverence’ for Shakespeare. The new edition would be ‘produced in a more respectable form, and with the improvements which, at a mature age, she trusts she can give it’. Her diligent scholarship and ‘critical sagacity’ are emphasised, rather than the bitingly acerbic critical remarks that follow each translation of Shakespeare’s sources. Boswell appeared to be offering excuses for Lennox’s lack of ‘reverence’. The difficult truth that Boswell (and others) found hard to swallow was that Lennox had found Shakespeare deficient in comparison to his literary models. She referred to the French and Italian romances of Boccaccio and Cinthio as ‘novels’ (eliding the emerging distinction between novel and romance) in her absolute concentration on the structure of each tale’s plot. In comparing Shakespeare’s plays to their sources she also ignored the status of his work as drama, assessing it solely in terms of its narrative logic. However, as Katherine Kickel has pointed out, it is important to consider Lennox’s critical vantage point in the light of a broader eighteenth-century theatrical culture of intensive adaptation and reappropriation of Shakespeare’s works. For Kickel, Lennox ‘wishes to attest to the multiplicity of



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interpretation that early modern readers experienced upon reading or seeing the plays and to investigate the nature and use of adaptation practice in her own writing and research’.96 The study of Shakespeare’s own practice of adaptation was surely relevant to a culture that could adapt Shakespeare’s work so relentlessly for stage and page. Nonetheless, Boswell’s advertisement suggests an uneasiness, a difficulty in placing Lennox in the literary landscape. Few of her contemporaries had the confidence, even arrogance, to address Shakespeare with such a critical eye. The critic and biographer John Boyle, fifth Earl of Cork and Orrery, seemed to be alone in respecting Lennox’s individuality. He wrote to Johnson, explaining why he had given her some important texts relating to Shakespearean criticism: ‘The papers which I sent to Mrs L. have long lain by me: were thrown aside because I would not walk into Mr. P[ope] and Mr. W[arburton]’s province, who seem to think that Shakespeare was the Sanctum Sanctorum where they were only sufficiently holy to enter . . . They are hers, and she has a right to do with them as she pleases.’97 Orrery’s tone suggests that he was not only aware of Lennox’s unusual status as a woman writing in a genre dominated by men but also, perhaps, that he anticipates that her work might be controversial. Shakespear Illustrated did provoke some ambivalent and negative reactions, and arguably damaged Lennox’s subsequent dramatic, if not her literary, career. Boswell recorded an anecdote in which Goldsmith said to Johnson at Johnson’s Literary Club98 that ‘a person has advised him to hiss Mrs Lennox’s play because she had attacked Shakespeare in Shakespear Illustrated’. Her play, The Sister, was produced in 1769, fifteen years after the publication of her study, and was indeed shut down after the audience shouted and hooted throughout the first performance.99 Unfortunately for Lennox, Boswell’s scheme to resurrect Shakespear Illustrated in 1791 proved an abortive attempt to bolster a flagging career. It failed to raise the necessary number of subscriptions and the edition never appeared. Lennox spent the final years of the century eking out a frugal existence in London, supported by a grant from the Royal Literary Fund and the hospitality of others, including the painter Frances Reynolds, sister of Joshua, with whom she maintained a close friendship until her death in 1804. During the 1750s, however, Lennox enjoyed considerable celebrity in London literary circles. Her correspondents included Alexander Boswell, James Boswell, John Boyle, Earl of Cork and Orrery, George Colman, David Garrick, John Hawkesworth, Samuel Johnson, Joshua Reynolds, William Robertson, Mary Stuart, Countess of Bute (the daughter of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu), Saunders Welch and Thomas Winstanley.100 She had achieved fame as the author of The Female Quixote, a novel that had appeared in 1752. In this spirited and original text, which is deftly satirical, Lennox exploited the clash of literary illusion and mundane reality. Her comedy overlaid a serious concern for her heroine, Arabella, an avid reader of




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romance novels who is forced to abandon the lure of the imagination for the duties of a virtuous wife. Richardson and Johnson were both admirers of Lennox’s work and encouraged her writing of The Female Quixote. The novel was a popular success, going through several editions in her lifetime. It was also translated into German (1754), French (1773) and Spanish (1801). In 1820 Anna Barbauld included Lennox’s novel in her large edition of British Novelists, which established a tradition of novelists from Richardson to Maria Edgworth, from Clarissa to Belinda in fifty volumes, including works by Fielding, Smollett and Burney. She commented in her preface that Lennox had ‘performed a useful service to English literature by translating Sully’s Memoirs, as also Brumoy’s Greek Theatre. She likewise gave to the world Shakespear Illustrated, in three volumes: being a collection of the tales and histories upon which the plays of Shakespear are founded.’ Barbauld describes The Female Quixote as ‘an agreeable and ingenious satire upon the old romances; not the more ancient ones of chivalry, but the languishing love romances of the Calprenédes and Scuderis’. She considered it to be ‘the best of the various Quixotes which have been written in imitation of the immortal Cervantes’, and argued that it: forms a fair counterpart to it, as it presents a similar extravagance, yet drawn from a later class of authors, is more adapted to female reading. It has also one advantage in common with that work, namely that the satire has now no object. Most young ladies of the present day, instead of requiring to be cured of reading those bulky romances, would acquire the first information of their manner from the work designed to ridicule them.101 However, Barbauld thought the novel worth re-reading and predicted a revival in the fashion for French romances. She acknowledged Lennox as a foremother of the ‘many more modern female writers’. While even more antiquarian in its topic for the present-day reader, The Female Quixote has never slipped entirely from view, providing a sophisticated combination of satirical wit with social comment on the position of the female reader. Lennox’s subsequent works all advertised her as ‘author of the Female Quixote’ on the title page, and her use of Cervantes as a model was commented on both favourably and unfavourably. Shakespear Illustrated appeared in 1753, only a year after her novelistic success, and while very different in style and content from the earlier work, shared with it an engagement with the status of Romance as a genre, which is particularly attentive to a community of female readers. More recent critics have written in great detail of the interesting tension between satirical and laudatory strains in Lennox’s account of the romances that Arabella devours in The Female Quixote.102 One thing, however, is certain: Lennox had an unrivalled knowledge of the literature that she burlesqued. Her point in Shakespear



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Illustrated seems to be that Shakespeare also had a full knowledge of ‘novels’. Margaret Anne Doody has argued that here Lennox pursued the controversy caused by her earlier novel in strict scholarly terms, thus elevating the terms of the argument to a new level of technical and literary ingenuity.103 Lennox learned Italian from the Italian writer and translator Giuseppe Baretti in order to translate her sources for Shakespear Illustrated and she often reflected in the course of her criticism on the importance of accuracy in this task, from which she was to earn a substantial portion of her income, as well as establish her reputation as a serious scholar. In the decade following the appearance of The Female Quixote she published translations of The Memoirs of the Duke of Sully (1756), a huge success which went through fifteen editions by 1856, The Memoirs of the Countess of Berci (1756), Memoirs for the History of Madame de Maintenon and of the Last Age (1757) and The Greek Theatre of Father Brumoy (1759). The last of these was an extensive scholarly work of dramatic theory, which incorporated an important collection of original texts of Greek tragedies and comedies. She collaborated with the Earl of Cork and Orrery on this project and he provided the first three essays in the first volume. Lennox’s professionalism provides a powerful example of the aspiring female author’s success in the public sphere of letters. Catherine Gallagher has described the diversity of her oeuvre and her general authorial initiative as ‘remarkable in its typicality’, using Lennox as a case study in her history of the development of authorial personae over the course of the century.104 Gallagher views Lennox as a pivotal figure in the transformation of the public reputation of the female author from whore to virtuous individual with the right to earn a living. There is no doubt at all that Lennox was extremely aware of the mythology surrounding her own incarnation as a successful author. She collected versions of poems and articles written about her in the popular press.105 The following contemporary description of a party given in honour of her ‘first literary child’ conveys something of the nature of her reputation: The place appointed was the Devil tavern, and there, about the hour of eight, Mrs Lenox and her husband, and a lady of her acquaintance, now living, as also the [Ivy Lane] club, and friends to the number of twenty, assembled. Our supper was elegant, and Johnson had directed that a magnificent hot apple-pye should be make a part of it, and this he would have stuck with bay-leaves, because, forsooth, Mrs Lenox was an authoress, and had written verses; and further, he had prepared for her a crown of laurel, with which, but not till he had invoked the muses by some ceremonies of his own invention, he encircled her brows.106 Sir John Hawkins’s description of this night of festivity emphasises Samuel Johnson’s pride in Lennox’s achievement and betrays a fascination with the




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novelty of the successful female author. Johnson was famed for helping fellow writers by securing them introductions to booksellers and patrons, by writing prefaces and generally furthering their advancement in literary society. Historians have agreed that it seems highly likely that Johnson encouraged Lennox to research the sources of Shakespeare’s plays – her knowledge of continental and classical languages made her an ideal candidate for the task and Johnson used much of her research in his edition of the works (often without acknowledgement), which he published twelve years later. However, he seemed anxious to distance himself from her critical argument in the ‘ghostwritten’ preface he provided to Shakespear Illustrated, which he dedicated to Lord Orrery in Lennox’s name.107 While he acknowledged the power of invention as the highest achievement of an author, he ultimately disagreed with Lennox’s wish to place it above all other criteria in judging good writing. Johnson’s praise of Shakespeare’s transcendent genius has become the accepted critical norm and those who remember Lennox’s intervention dismiss it as a mistaken attack. The argument of the preface begins by praising the power of ‘Invention’: Among the Powers that must conduce to constitute a Poet, the first and most valuable is Invention; and of all the Degrees of Invention, the highest seems to be that which is able to produce a Series of Events . . . to strike out the first hints of a new fable; hence to introduce a set of characters so diversified in their several Passions and Interests, that from the clashing of this Variety may result many necessary Incidents; to make these Incidents surprising, and yet natural, so as to delight the imagination without shocking the Judgement of a Reader; and finally, to wind up the whole pleasing Catastrophe produced by those very Means which seem most likely to oppose and prevent it, is the utmost Effort of the human Mind. (I: iv–v) This strong defence of genius, however, is modified by the following tentative and ambivalent appeal to Lennox’s patron: How much the Translation of the following Novels will add to the Reputation of Shakespear, or take away from it, You, my Lord, and Men learned and candid like You, if any such can be found, must now determine. Some danger, as I am informed, there is, lest his Admirers should think him injured by this Attempt, and clamour as the Dimunition of the Honour of that Nation, which boasts herself the Parent of so great a Poet. That no such Enemies may arise against me (though I am unwilling to believe it) I am far from being too confident, for who can fix bounds to Bigotry and Folly? My Sex, my Age, have not given me many Opportunities of mingling in the World; there may be in it many a species



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As Lennox’s translations of Shakespeare’s sources revealed, the quality of ‘Invention’, thus defined, was not Shakespeare’s strong point. His reputation appeared to be threatened by her discoveries. Johnson’s rather disingenuous reference to Lennox’s sex and age provides an indulgent excuse for her perversity. He is profoundly disturbed by the implications of her criticism and wishes to justify Shakespeare’s reliance on the plots of others by an appeal to the character of his times: But the Truth is, that a very small Part of the Reputation of this mighty Genius depends upon the naked plot, or Story of his Plays. He lived in an Age when the Books of Chivalry were yet popular, and when therefore the Minds of his Auditors were not accustomed to balance Probabilities, or to examine nicely the Proportion between Causes and Effects. It was sufficient to recommend a Story, that it was far removed from common Life, that its changes were frequent, and its Close pathetic. (I: viii–ix) The preface ends on a compensatory note, Johnson defending Shakespeare’s capacity to represent ‘a Map of Life’, something for which invention, perhaps, is less of a requirement: He had looked with great Attention on the Scenes of Nature; but his chief skill was in Human Actions, Passions, and Habits; he was therefore delighted with such Tales as afforded numerous Incidents, and exhibited many Changes of Situation. These characters are so copiously diversified, and some of them so justly pursued, that his Works may be considered as a Map of Life, a faithful Miniature of human Transactions, and he that has read Shakespear with Attention, will perhaps find little new in the crouded World. (I: ix–x) However, once the reader enters the main body of the work, Shakespeare’s strengths fade into the background, and at times disappear altogether. While Johnson does his best to frame her text with explanation and excuses, as does Boswell almost fifty years later, Lennox escapes their manipulation of her literary character through the sheer tenacity of her critical logic. Johnson may have encouraged her project at first, but he was unable to direct her critical thinking.



of Absurdity which I have never seen, and among them such Vanity as pleases itself with false Praise bestowed on another, and such Superstition as worships Idols, without supposing them to be Gods. (I: vii–viii)

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Recent critics have attempted to read Lennox on her own terms and to rehabilitate her critical reputation. If one reads closely one can detect an argument about contemporary readers, particularly female readers. As Jonathan Brody Kramnick, Margaret Doody and Susan Green have suggested, Shakespear Illustrated transpires to be a thinly veiled defence of the novel, whose roots Lennox finds in the romances that Shakespeare plundered for his drama.108 While Johnson tries to distinguish between invention of plot and representation of character, arguing that Shakespeare is original in the latter, Lennox insisted that invention was the mark of an author’s quality. By her careful comparison between the drama and original source, she revealed that originality in both invention of plot and representation of character do matter, especially in the case of Shakespeare’s transformation of women’s role in his work. Lennox was not impressed by the majority of Shakespeare’s plays, which she judged in terms of necessity and probability – values extremely important to the eighteenth-century novelist. Her comments have an abruptness of tone which might imply blind prejudice were it not for the fact that her views are the logical conclusion of her own critical terms. Lennox presents herself as a shrewd and rational critic and is impatient with the critical indulgence many have given to Shakespeare. She undertook the translations of the ‘novels’ herself, her linguistic accuracy forming an important bedrock to her argument. She was clear in her distinction between good and bad translation, having researched the texts that would have been available to Shakespeare: The story of Romeo and Juliet may be found translated in a Book, entituled [sic], Histoires Tragiques extraictes des Oeuvres de Bandel, printed in Paris, in the Year 1571, seven Years after Shakespear was born. A literal Translation of this Story, from the French, is in the second Tome of the Palace of Pleasure, printed at London in the Year 1567, which is a Collection of Novels, translated into English by William Painter, from several Greek, Latin, Spanish and Italian Authors (as the Title Page says) but some of them are taken from Translations of those Authors into French, of which Romeo and Juliet is one. Had Shakespear ever seen the original Novel in Bandello, he would have been sensible that the Translation of it is extremely bad: That he did not see it must be owing to nothing else than his not understanding Italian; for it can be supposed that having resolved to write a Tragedy upon the Subject of an Italian Story, he would rather chuse to copy from a bad Translation of that Story, than follow the Original. (I: 89–90) Lennox cannot contemplate the idea that Shakespeare knew Italian but relied on an imperfect translation: ‘This supposition would be as absurd as to imagine a Man would slake his Thirst with the muddy Waters of a polluted



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Stream, when the clear Spring, from whence it issues, is within his Reach’ (I: 90). Literary historians have been unsure as to how to interpret Lennox’s wilful attention to accuracy. Several have suggested that her approach is anachronistic, reflecting the neoclassical critical values of the late seventeenth century. Thomas Lounsbury, professor of English at Yale in 1901, remarked sarcastically that she had the ‘unhappy fate of being born at the wrong time’.109 In her own time the learned Professor Gottsched of Liepsic, a German neoclassical critic, found her ‘sharp-witted’ for pointing out Shakespeare’s faults to her countrymen.110 Such criticisms suggest a lack of understanding that the major discovery of her work is that Shakespeare read Italian and French romances in poor translations in order to find plots for his plays. As Lennox herself makes clear, the issue of whether or not Shakespeare read the classics is a sterile debate, insensitive to the conditions of his writing: It is really surprising to see the Admirers of Shakespear so solicitous to prove he was very conversant with the Antients; they all take Opportunities to find in his Writings Illusions to them; Imitations of their thoughts and Expressions and will not scruple to allow their Favourite to have been guilty of some little Thefts from their Works, provided it will make out his Claim to an Acquaintance with them. It is very much to be doubted whether or not he understood the Italian and French Languages, since we find that he made Use of Translations from both when he borrowed of their Authors; and still less probable is it that he understood and studied the Greek and the Latin Poets, when he, who was so close a Copyer had never imitated them in their chief Beauties, and seems wholly a Stranger to the Laws of dramatic Poetry, well does the Poet say of him, Shakespear, Fancy’s sweetest Child, Warble his native Wood-Notes Wild. His true Praise seems to be summ’d up in those two Lines; for wild, though harmonious, his Strains certainly are; and his Modern Admirers injure him greatly, by supposing any of those Wood-notes copied from the Antients; Milton, by calling them native, allows them to be untaught, and all his own; and in that does justice to his vast Imagination, which is robbed of great Part of its Merit by supposing it to have received any Assistance from the Antients, whom if he understood, it must be confessed he has profited very little by, since we see not the least shadow of their Exactness and Regularity in his Works. (I: 240–1) Lennox shifts the emphasis of the debate from the question of whether or not Shakespeare knew the ancients to a consideration of his own genius.




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While she can acknowledge Shakespeare’s ‘wood-notes wild’, they do not make him immune to her own system of judgement. Having discovered the real sources of his plays, in European rather than classical literature, she treats them seriously, arguing for their superiority in many cases. The format of Lennox’s volumes gives priority to Romance – she presents a translation of the original source of Shakespeare’s plays, followed by ‘Critical Remarks’ on Shakespeare’s use of the source. Today’s reader is struck by the page-turning quality of the original tales, which are gripping in their moral intensity and swift resolution. Lennox aimed her remarks at the gratification of the reader who was used to consuming novels. A good novel must have a strong plot in which all strands of the story reach a satisfying conclusion. Lennox was not awestruck by Shakespeare’s reputation into pursuing reasons for the strange quirks of what today we call his ‘problem plays’. Measure for Measure is dismissed as a ‘jumble of inconsistencies’, and Shakespeare accused of trying to ‘torture’ the original material into a comedy. The source of the play, ‘The fifth Novel of the eighth Decad of the Hecatomythi of Giraldi Cinthio’ is translated first and appears to be much neater than Measure for Measure in terms of its plot. The moral lessons of Cinthio’s tale are clear. We are certain of who repents, who marries, who tricks whom. Lennox approves much more readily of Cinthio’s heroine, Epitia, who is not shadowed by a double as Isabella is by Mariana in Measure for Measure. Epitia’s speech for justice and mercy causes the Emperor to be ‘seiz’d with Astonishment and Admiration at the Greatness of her Mind’. Lennox values mental integrity and moral clarity in her heroines and is critical of Shakespeare’s muddled ending to his play, thus her brisk conclusion: ‘This play therefore being absolutely defective in a due Distribution of Rewards and Punishments; Measure for Measure ought not to be the Title, since Justice is not the Virtue it inculcates; nor can Shakespear’s Invention in the Fable be praised; for what he has altered from Cinthio, is altered greatly for the worse’ (I: 37). Occasionally, however, Lennox felt that Shakespeare had improved upon the original tale. Writing about Othello, she admits that ‘The Fable Shakespear found already formed to His Hands, some few Alterations he has made in it, and generally for the better’ (I: 125). The main improvement on the original tale by Cinthio is Shakespeare’s creation of an Othello with whom one is sympathetic: ‘With what Judgement then has Shakespear changed the horrid Moor of Cinthio into the amiable Othello, and made the same Actions which we detest in one, excite our Compassion in the other!’ She approves of Shakespeare’s elevation of the Moor’s character: ‘In Cinthio the Moor is mentioned without any Mark of Distinction; Shakespear makes him descended from a Race of Kings, his Person is therefore made more considerable in the Play than the Novel, and the Dignity which the Venetian Senate bestows upon him is less to be wondered at.’ While her sympathy for the Moor suggests an enlightened political stance, Lennox remains adherent to the rules of probability and consistency above all else.



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The logic of her argument requires her to present herself as the most accurate of critics. Her confidence contradicts the mock apology for her age and sex which Johnson included in his preface to the work. When she charts the inconsistencies in Shakespeare’s characterisation of Emilia, Desdemona’s servant, she draws attention to her own ability to spot an inconsistency which the critic Rymer missed and further chastises Rymer for his lack of insight into the character of Desdemona: The character of Desdemona fares no better in Mr Rymer’s hands, than that of Iago; her Love for the Moor, he says, is out of Nature. Such Affections are not very common indeed; but a very few Instances of them prove that they are not impossible; and even in England we see some very handsome Women married to Blacks, where their colour is less familiar than at Venice; besides the Italian Ladies are remarkable for such sallies of irregular Passions. (I: 131) Lennox presents herself as a well-travelled woman of the world, and is concerned with the real position of women in society in forming her general opinion of literature. She reinforces her criticism of Rymer’s inaccurate and prejudiced reading of the play by exposing his ignorance of the original source in the Italian language: Mr. Rymer alledges, that Shakspear makes Desdemona a Senator’s Daughter instead of a simple Citizen; and this he imputes to him as a Fault, which is perhaps a great Instance of his Judgment. There is less Improbability in supposing a noble Lady, educated in Sentiments superior to the Vulgar, should fall in love with a Man merely for the Qualities of his Mind, than that a mean Citizen should be possessed of such exalted Ideas, as to overlook the Disparity of Years and Complexion, and be enamoured by Virtue in the Person of a Moor. However, it is not true, that Shakespear had changed a simple Citizen into a Lady of Quality, since Desdemona in the novel is mentioned as a Woman of high Birth. Cinthio calls her Cittadina, which Mr Rymer translates as simple Citizen; but the Italians by that phrase mean a Woman of Quality. If they were, for Example, to speak of a Woman of the middle Rank in Rome, they would say, Una Romana; if of a noble Lady, Una Cittadina Romana: So in Venice they call a simple Citizen Una Ventiana; but a Woman of Quality, Una Cittadina Venetiana. The Simplicity in the Manners of Desdemona, which Mr. Rymer calls Folly and Meaness of Spirit, is the Characteristic of Virtue and Innocence. (I: 132)




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Lennox often protects the heroines of both the romance tales and Shakespeare’s plays from criticism. She does so through appeals to reason rather than to sentiment. Here she clarifies the issue of Desdemona’s status with simple and irrefutable linguistic evidence. Lennox consistently emphasises the fact that, contrary to popular belief, the genre of Romance (and the novel) recognises female intelligence. Cinthio’s Othello, for example, in his affections for Desdemona, is ‘no less charmed by the Greatness of her Mind, than with the extreme beauty of her person’ (I: 101). In her ‘Observations on the Use Shakespear has made of the foregoing Novel in his Comedy of All’s Well that Ends Well’, she reflects upon the harsh disparity between Boccaccio’s and Shakespeare’s heroines: The Character of the Heroine is more exalted in the Original than in the Copy. In Bocacce we see her, after her Marriage and the Cruel Flight of her Husband, taking the Government of the Province in her own Hands, and behaving with so much Wisdom, Prudence and Magnanimity, as acquired her the love and esteem of the People, who all murmered against the Injustice of their Lord in not being sensible to so much Merit; nor does she endeavour to procure his Affection by a Stratagem, till she has given Proofs that she deserves it. Shakespear shews her oppressed with Despair at the Absence of the Count, incapable of either Advice or Consolation; giving unnecessary Pain to the Countess her Mother-in-Law (a Character entirely of his own Invention) by alarming her with a pretended Design of killing herself, and by some Means or other, which we are not acquainted with, gets the Rector of the Place, to whom she had vowed a Pilgrimage, (which by the Way she does not perform) to confirm the Report of her Death. (I: 191) Lennox’s text is the critical opposite of Dodd’s Beauties of Shakespeare (1752), a near contemporary text which argues for the unifying power of Shakespeare’s work, its moments of moral beauty and imaginative revelation. Rather than choosing to highlight Shakespeare’s ‘beauties’, Lennox focuses on his shortcomings through a rigorous dissection of the plays in terms of their narrative integrity. She creates a relentless catalogue of his faults, or ‘excrescences’: Shakespear, in his Comedy of All’s Well that Ends Well, has followed pretty exactly the Thread of the Story in the foregoing Novel. He has made Use of All the Incidents he found there, and added some of his own, which possibly may not be thought any Proof either of his Invention or Judgement, since, at the same Time that they grow out of those he found



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Her criticism is informed by an interest in the female heroines of his plays and the romances. She repeatedly opens her discussion of Shakespeare’s work by considering the plot from the point of view of a female character and repeatedly demonstrates that heroines fare far worse in Shakespeare’s hands than in their original context. For example, she finds Shakespeare’s inexplicable isolation of Mariana in Measure for Measure frustrating in the extreme: ‘But why does not the Poet acquaint us with this extraordinary Accident, which happens so conveniently for his Purpose? If he is accountable to our Eyes for what he makes us see, is he not also accountable to our Judgement for what he would have us believe?’ (I: 30–1). Her analysis is consistent throughout a discussion of twenty-three of Shakespeare’s women characters. In addition to Mariana she considers Isabella, Juliet, Desdemona, Emilia, Imogen, Helena, Viola, Olivia, Lady Macbeth, Hermione, Perdita, Ophelia, Gertrude, Silvia, Cressida, Princess Katherine (in Henry V), Queen Margaret (in Henry VI, Part I), Anne Bollen and Queen Catherine (in Henry VIII), Hero and Margaret (in Much Ado about Nothing) and finally, Cordelia. She suggests that Shakespeare renders women debased, isolated, suffering, or merely ridiculous, in comparison to their appearance in the original romances. Her strict adherence to rules of probability and her favouring of ‘Poetical Justice’ in Shakespear Illustrated is closely related to her feeling that the men in his plays escape the punishments and sufferings meted out to his heroines. Even when Shakespeare presents a hero who loves his heroine, he is deficient in the qualities necessary to convince a woman of his calibre. Consider the case of Ophelia: The accidental killing of her Father, and her Distraction, which was caused by it, is all his own Invention, and would have made a very affecting Episode if the Lady had been more modest in her Frenzy, and her Lover more uniformly afflicted for her Death; for at his first hearing it he expresses only a slight Emotion; presently he jumps into her Grave, fiercely demands to be buried with her, fights with her Brother for professing to love her, then grows calm, and never thinks of her any more. (II: 269) In the light of Lennox’s critical values, such behaviour is inexplicable. Far better is the world of romance, where strength, magnanimity and ‘Greatness of Mind’ are the virtues of a heroine, not madness, suffering and patience. Lennox’s critical work provides a uniquely oblique and challenging position from which to consider contemporary arguments about the relative



formed to Hand, yet they grow like Excrescences, and are equally useless and disagreeable. (I: 190)

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status of the novel and Shakespeare. As Kramnick and Doody have suggested, whilst undoubtedly constituting an impressive and pioneering document of Shakespeare’s sources, Shakespear Illustrated also proposed a convincing argument against the plays on behalf of the rational female reader of novels and romances. Shakespeare, in the process of being enshrined as the highest idol in the Augustan literary pantheon is shown to lack invention and to misunderstand the full complexity of romance literature. Lennox proved this through a close engagement with his corpus, performing a highly original textual analysis of his sources. There was no precedent for such scholarship in the vast editions of Pope and Theobald, and Johnson later ignored the question of Shakespeare’s sources, despite the lofty ambitions of his edition. Reading Shakespear Illustrated today, we encounter an unexpected version of the female critical voice. While Montagu and Griffith presented versions of Shakespeare that today’s reader can recognise and understand, Lennox’s Shakespeare is unfamiliar, challenging common preconceptions of both masculine and feminine literary authority.



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The Bluestocking Legacy in the Romantic Era

In 1790 the American writer Mercy Otis Warren published Poems Dramatic and Miscellaneous in Boston. This was the first of her literary works to bear her name. Warren, a radical intellectual and anti-federalist supporter of the American Revolution, had already published republican plays and political pamphlets anonymously. She was an important correspondent and adviser to some of the chief architects of the revolution, including Samuel Adams, Thomas Jefferson and George Washington, to whom her volume of poems was dedicated.1 The first two poems in the book were long, neoclassical verse tragedies, ‘The Sack of Rome’ and ‘The Ladies of Castile’. While set in Italy and Spain, the plays clearly addressed American political concerns and featured strong, virtuous and patriotic female characters. The first of the ‘Miscellaneous Poems’ was entitled ‘To Mrs. MONTAGUE, Author of “OBSERVATIONS on the GENIUS and WRITINGS of SHAKESPEARE.” ’ This striking fanfare to Montagu’s intellectual force and influence celebrated her patriotic role as Shakespeare’s defender but also asked her to extend her field of vision and look towards America: WILL Montague, whose critic pen adds praise, Ev’n to a Shakespeare’s bold exalted lays; Who points the faults in sweet Corneille’s page, Sees all the errors of the Gallic stage – Corrects Voltaire with a superior hand, Or traces genius in each distant land? Will she across the Atlantic stretch her eye, Look o’er the main, and view the western sky; And there Columbia’s infant drama see – Reflect that Britain taught us to be free; Survey with candour what she can’t approve; Let local fondness yield to gen’rous love; And, if fair truth forbids her to commend, Then let the critic soften to the friend.2 163



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Warren recognised that Montagu might not necessarily support the republican politics that divided America from Britain but asked that a sense of literary solidarity should prevail. She perceived Montagu’s patriotic fervour as something heroic. Warren’s poem went on to argue that if male poets could aspire to compete with the likes of Shakespeare, then she too had every right to enter the realm of poetry: ‘A sister’s hand may wrest a female pen, / From the bold outrage of imperious men.’ She concluded by asking for Montagu’s benediction, seeking pride in her example: If gentle Montague my chaplet raise, Critics may frown, or mild good nature praise; Secure I’ll walk, and placid move along, And heed alike their censure or their song; I’ll take my stand by fam’d Parnassus’ side, And for a moment feel a poet’s pride. Just as Montagu had found literary authority as Shakespeare’s defender, so Warren sought authority by explicitly aligning herself with Montagu while implicitly suggesting she might be considered alongside Shakespeare himself. The poem conveys the extent to which women poets seeking a muse found inspiration in each other. Mercy Otis Warren’s fiery poem is only one of many works that provide evidence of the extent of Montagu’s importance as an inspirational figure for women embarking on a literary career from the 1770s to the 1790s.3 She acted as patron, of course, to many poorer women in her immediate circle (as discussed in Chapter 2). However, she also inspired a younger generation of more radical writers, many of whom she would have disapproved of intensely in political terms. In 1784, the poet and letter-writer Helen Maria Williams dedicated her poem Peru to Montagu, describing the bluestocking social circle as a ‘shrine’ where Genius could be fostered and re-energised – a ‘liberal’ space in which ‘intellectual Powers’ are ‘cherished’. Williams paid homage to Montagu’s role as an inspiration to her female readers: ‘. . . Woman, pointing to thy finish’d Page, / Claims from imperious Man the Critic Wreathe.’4 Peru, a poem in six cantos, formed an ambitious and complex critique of Spanish colonial practices that deployed the allegorical female figures of ‘Peruvia’s Genius’ and ‘Sensibility’ as a means of assuaging the pain of political strife. Her combination of passion and reason was typical of an emerging generation of women writers who addressed the turbulent political culture of the late eighteenth century.5 Both Williams’s Peru and Warren’s Poems show how women used poetry as a form in which to express political ideas. As Anne Janowitz has written in her brilliant study of the poets Anna Barbauld and Mary Robinson, women writing in the Romantic period ‘made immense claims for the power of poetry as a way of



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both knowing and changing the world’.6 The original bluestocking example was important for a more international and radical group of writers working at the end of the century. In this final chapter I will argue that a significant female tradition of rational argument emerged from the bluestocking circle – a tradition that became increasingly concerned with questions of liberty and education. I have chosen to explore this transition from Enlightenment to Romanticism through the genre of poetry, traditionally considered the most formal and ‘highest’ literary genre, and throughout the eighteenth century dominant in the literary market, comprising 47 per cent of all literary titles.7 Enlightenment women were encouraged to express themselves through the medium of poetry, which was frequently used as evidence of ‘accomplishment’, along with needlework, music and sketching. And yet poetry also held the capacity to transcend the limits of the domestic sphere – it was a form in which, in Stuart Curran’s words, women increasingly chose to ‘inscribe the self’ afresh.8 By the end of the century, at a moment of enormous historical and political upheaval, women were exploiting their accomplishment and using poetry to make powerful political or moral arguments. Like the literary critics and letter-writers discussed in earlier chapters, women poets frequently relied upon a sense of literary community, dialogue and debate. Yet, whereas the Shakespeare critics of the last chapter could disguise their literary authority in acts of deference, patriotic defence or subversive critique, women inevitably adopted a more self-conscious stance in invoking the muse of poetry and daring to place themselves on a plane with men as independent authors. As Paula Backscheider has stressed in her pioneering study of the history and forms of eighteenth-century women’s poetry, women wrote in dialogue with contemporary poetry and culture: ‘their poetry records their ambivalences, their aspirations, their experiences, and their participation in the artistic, political and civic life of their time’.9 Historically, Romantic poetry has often been understood as the work of two generations of men who wrote in brotherhood, filial apprenticeship and Oedipal struggle. Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Southey, Keats and Byron have dominated the map as poets who abandoned reason for the realms of the imagination.10 This idea is reinforced by allusion to the eighteenthcentury emergence of the idea of individual ‘genius’, a quality assumed to be masculine and one that raised the individual above the masses.11 Jerome McGann has described how a belief in the author as a masculine, solitary yet competitive genius became central to what he has termed the ‘Romantic ideology’ – a process whereby scholars uncritically absorb ‘Romanticism’s own self-representations’.12 However, over the past few decades substantial work by historicist and cultural materialist critics has radically disturbed traditional notions of poetic tradition and inheritance. Anthologists, including Roger Lonsdale, Andrew Ashfield, Isobel Armstrong and Paula Feldman, have republished the work of a ‘lost generation’ of women poets whose work



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has changed the contours of the past, drawing into question the usefulness of the term ‘Romantic’ itself, such is the unexpected richness of this new body of poetry.13 A diversity of poetic modes and subjects is matched by an impressive expansion in the number of volumes published by female poets. As J.R. de J. Jackson has shown, between the careers of Cowper and Wordsworth the field of poetry was in fact dominated by women, many of whom were vitally aware of contributing to a female literary tradition.14 At a time of such expansion in their rank and number, women poets inevitably had a heightened sense of vocation, linking their literary work to broader arguments about their education and civil status. Mary Scott’s dedication to her poem The Female Advocate (1774) stated: ‘All I contend for is, that it is a duty absolutely incumbent on every woman whom nature hath blest with talents, of what kind soever they may be, to improve them.’15 By the end of the century, the sheer number of women poets was sometimes used as an argument for their potential equality with men. Reviewing Elizabeth Moody’s Poetic Trifles in 1798, the Monthly Review declared: The polished period in which we live may be justly denominated the Age of ingenious and learned Ladies; – who have excelled so much in the more elegant branches of literature, that we need not to hesitate in concluding that the long agitated dispute between the sexes is at length determined; and that it is no longer a question, – whether woman is or is not inferior to man in natural ability, or less capable of excelling in mental accomplishments.16 Elizabeth Moody (1737–1814) is little known today, but she was celebrated in her time for her witty poetic dialogues, including ‘The Housewife; or The Muse Learning to Ride the Great Horse Heroic’, in which she satirised the pride of masculine poetic ambition. Women’s success as authors could be used on both sides of the education debate – as an argument for or against their right to equality. As active contributors to the debate surrounding education, who were yet denied the vote in a society increasingly aware of democracy and moral responsibility to the less privileged, women were particularly sensitised to the inequality of education, in terms of both class and gender. Katherine Clinton has charted the influence of the French philosophes and English liberals in portraying examples of what women could achieve if given the opportunity, thus calling attention to ‘the disparity between the legal assumption of women’s inability to compete and the social reality in which some women had achieved a great deal’.17 Several eighteenth-century arguments for women’s status in the literary canon appeared in the form of poems that made an assertion of right, a plea for justice: Thomas Seward’s The Female Right to Literature (1748), John Duncombe’s The Feminead (1754) and Mary Scott’s The Female Advocate (1774), for example, all presented women’s literary achievement as proof of



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their potential for equality with men.18 Each of these poems used women’s intellectual status as an index of the level of civilisation acquired historically by different nations and ages. Seward and Duncombe were both Church of England clergymen, and their poems are rooted in family circles of learning and sensibility that cherished a particular vision of Anglican morality, in which social hierarchies were to be accepted as divinely ordained.19 Mary Scott, in contrast, had connections with a circle of intellectual Protestant Dissenters. She was the daughter of a linen merchant, and while little is known about her life before the publication of The Female Advocate in 1774, when she was in her early twenties, her poem was published by the radical publisher Joseph Johnson and in 1778 she married a Unitarian minister, John Taylor. Scott explicitly claimed to extend the range and diversity of women praised by her predecessors: to aspire to a more expansive political vision. Her catalogue of heroines included not only the bluestockings Catharine Talbot, Elizabeth Montagu and Elizabeth Carter, but also the slave poet Phillis Wheatley, the radical historian Catharine Macaulay and the poet and Dissenter Anna Aikin (later Barbauld). In part this was an act of updating, of course, but it was also a bold attempt to transform the traditional gesture of praising women’s achievements as integral to national identity into one that might reconstitute that identity. Scott revered Macaulay as the spokeswoman for a Whig ideal of liberty. Macaulay’s recently published History of England celebrated the principles of 1689 – civil rights, limits on monarchical power and an egalitarian order. Scott’s poem exposed the political contradictions of contemporary culture, arguing, as Moira Ferguson has noted, that ‘Britain cannot boast a positive, freedom-loving identity as long as women are denied access to knowledge.’20 By casting Macaulay and Barbauld as the bluestockings’ direct successors, moreover, Scott connected a self-conscious tradition of female writing with an emerging debate about rights. By the end of the eighteenth century women writers were increasingly associated with radical and dissenting circles involved in the debates surrounding various forms of political and legal equality.21 Mary Scott’s publisher Joseph Johnson was also behind the publication of the Ladies New and Polite Pocket Memorandum-Book 1778, in which the engraving of Samuel’s painting of the living muses first appeared. Johnson included in the pocketbook an advertisement for a legal handbook for women, which he placed immediately following the descriptions of the ‘nine muses’. While Johnson’s imagined readers might be flattered by women’s role as emblems of progress, ‘among the many distinguishing excellencies which this age and country boast’, they were also in need of more practical advice from a work that promised to address ‘The Laws respecting WOMEN, as they regard their Natural Rights, or their Connections and Conduct’, and to enumerate ‘their Interests and Duties as Daughters, Wards, Heiresses, Spinsters, Sisters, Wives, Mothers, Legatees, Executrixes, &c’.22 Here we see a graphic example of the




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competing impulses of feminist history – on the one hand, there is the desire to celebrate exceptional role models and, on the other hand, the need to address the political status of women as a class. The tension between these twin impulses forms an underlying theme in a great deal of women’s writing during the transition from Enlightenment to Romantic cultural worlds, and can be seen to form a vital aspect of the bluestocking legacy in the Romantic era. As Mary Wollstonecraft famously wrote in her Vindication of the Rights of Woman in 1792: ‘I wish to see women neither heroines nor brutes; but reasonable creatures.’23 Women’s allegiance to a rational ideal of freedom is arguably one of the most persuasive arguments for a female literary tradition in the Romantic period. Students of Romanticism have long acknowledged the importance of notions of liberty and social conscience to its canonical poets and prose writers. Few have explored the precise nature of women’s pleas for liberty and equality in the age of revolution. Women’s writing was often rooted in an intellectual idea of liberty, an appeal to reason that applied to both sexes in the cause of human progress. However, in order to explain the transition from Enlightenment to Romantic literature and thought the relationship between reason and imagination has traditionally been simplified into a dichotomy, a categorisation that has acted to exclude and suppress the achievements of women writers for whom such stark divisions are arguably neither appropriate nor relevant. However, recent feminist scholarship has been particularly aware of the need to recast the relationship between reason and imagination, or reason and feeling, calling for critics to ‘include affect under the sign of cognition’, as Isobel Armstrong has expressed it.24 Armstrong’s landmark essay ‘The Gush of the Feminine’ called for critics to recognise women’s writing as an attempt to incorporate feeling, or sentiment, in their thinking, or to think though their senses: ‘This was a way of thinking though their relationship to knowledge. A subtext of women’s poetry is the question of how far the affective is knowledge and how far it may just be affect.’25 This feminist impulse has been accompanied by a more general attention to uncovering the connections between Enlightenment and Romantic critical thought, described with eloquence in Jon Mee’s recent study of the ‘discourse on enthusiasm’.26 In this chapter I explore the complex relationship between reason and feeling, Enlightenment and Romanticism, through close readings of the poetry of Anna Barbauld and Lucy Aikin – aunt and niece, mentor and pupil – two writers vitally aware of their position as women in their culture. Both poets actively opposed a sense of patriarchal lineage that oppressed the female sex and both carried Enlightenment values into the Romantic age. Through their poetry, educational theory and practice, they urged the ‘politic’ father to impart an intellectual legacy to both sexes in order to establish a cultural climate in which women were of central moral and social importance. For both poets the concept of rational freedom, ‘freedom of the mind’, as Barbauld



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wrote, was central. In reading the poetry of Barbauld and Aikin I will contrast their expression of an individual imagination with a sense of responsibility to all women, and humankind, in the broader scheme of an Enlightenment idea of civilisation. Discussion of two very different but equally ambitious public poems – Lucy Aikin’s Epistles on Women (1810) and Barbauld’s Eighteen Hundred and Eleven (1812) – will provide a means of reflecting upon the complex relationship of women to their history. Before turning to these challenging and politically forceful poems, I will discuss Barbauld’s intellectual origins and early poetic career, paying close attention to her ambivalent relationship to the categories of liberty and education.

‘Freedom of the mind’: liberty and education in the early work of Anna Barbauld Anna Barbauld was a bold and ambitious writer in a variety of genres, equally distinguished as a poet, a defender of dissenting interests, an opponent of slavery, educational writer and editor of English classics.27 She is perhaps unique in having formed friendships with the tutors of Warrington Academy in the 1760s and 1770s, with the bluestockings of the 1770s, the radicals of the 1790s and the generation of writers after 1815. When Lucy Aikin published a memoir of her aunt in 1825 she reflected upon the diversity of social and intellectual contacts that Barbauld had enjoyed: At the splendid mansion of her early and constant admirer Mrs. Montague, Mrs Barbauld beheld in perfection the imposing union of literature and fashion; – under the humbler roof of her friend and publisher, the late worthy Joseph Johnson of St. Paul’s Church-yard, she tasted, perhaps with higher relish, ‘the feast of the reason and flow of the soul,’ in a chosen knot of lettered equals. Her own connections introduced her to leading characters among the dissenters and persons of opposition politics; – those of Mr. Barbauld led her among courtiers and supporters of the establishment. Her own candid spirit, and courteous though retiring manners, with the varied graces of her conversation, recommended her alike to all.28 In an interesting recent essay, Jon Mee has used this passage as an opening through which to explore the ambivalence that Barbauld felt towards the polite conversation of bluestocking society, arguing that she and her female contemporaries (Mary Hays, Helen Maria Williams, Maria Edgeworth) found more opportunity in the radical and ‘frictive’ dialogues of dissenting culture.29 While I agree with Mee’s warning that one should neither oversimplify nor over-celebrate a female tradition that links Barbauld to her more conservative bluestocking predecessors, I would argue that it is also important not to overestimate the potential of dissenting culture to offer




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women a voice. As I hope my readings of Barbauld’s early poetry will show, she experienced significant constraints upon her subjectivity within the dissenting community – particularly in relation to the themes of education and liberty. In the early nineteenth century, Coleridge, Lamb, the Edgeworths, Bowring, Rogers, Scott, Crabb Robinson and the Baillie sisters were all visitors at Stoke Newington, where Barbauld’s husband had been minister to the dissenting congregation. One can detect more than a hint of political prejudice in Wordsworth’s letter to Alexander Dyce of 1830, in which he claimed that her ‘higher powers of mind were spoiled as a poetess by being a Dissenter, and concerned with a Dissenting Academy’.30 Wordsworth’s strict division between education and literature was made easier by his unquestioned right to both privileges. His dismissive tone neglects the diversity and power of Barbauld’s opus over the course of her long career. I will argue that it was precisely Barbauld’s ‘higher powers of mind’ that were responsible for the diminishment of her literary career in later life when her forceful use of poetry to make political and moral comment was to prove unpalatable to her contemporaries. Although her first volume, Poems, published in 1773, had achieved instant critical acclaim, by the time that Lucy Aikin edited her work fifty years later, the tone of her memoir suggests that her aunt’s reputation, while never having entirely slipped from view, was already in need of some rehabilitation. Barbauld’s work as an educationalist provides an important context to an understanding of the profound moral values she attached to the pursuit of literature. Her Lessons for Children, first published in 1778 (4 vols, 1778–79) and intended to teach her nephew Charles to read, was an innovative text in the history of children’s education and exerted a powerful influence well into the nineteenth century.31 Barbauld’s Lessons, derived from her practical experience in running a school with her husband in Palgrave, Suffolk, were written in the form of simple, domestic conversations that instilled information about the natural and moral world, which is evoked with simple clarity and affection.32 The English countryside becomes the child’s classroom and also the animated presence of the Divinity. Teaching that ‘every painted flower has a lesson on its leaves’, Barbauld’s work seems to form a steppingstone between Enlightenment rationalism and Romanticism. She followed the Lessons with Hymns in Prose for Children (1781), a religious primer for infants that has been considered a formative influence upon Wordsworth’s poetry of childhood.33 By teaching the lower and middling classes to read in the language of domestic conversation, she proved an inspiration to authors such as Thomas Day, whose celebrated children’s book The History of Sandford and Merton (3 vols, 1783–89) aimed to illustrate the doctrine that many may be made good by instruction and an appeal to reason. The Edgeworths were also inspired by Barbauld in writing Practical Education (3 vols, 1798). Barbauld’s children’s books were reprinted hundreds of times well into the



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nineteenth century, and even adapted for use in India.34 Viewed in a wider literary context, these popular educational works arguably helped to create a mass readership for texts such as Wordsworth and Coleridge’s Lyrical Ballads. The ‘language of man speaking to men’ was indebted in no small part to the work of women.35 Barbauld was instrumental, then, in a predominantly female movement that revolutionised the course of improved literacy in England.36 She built on a strong tradition of charity and benevolence that had been gathering momentum from the beginning of the century. Social historians have charted the importance of the charity school movement in improving education for the poor.37 Barbauld’s close friend Joseph Priestley had argued for a national system of improved secular education for the poor, as had Adam Smith.38 While their work has been influential in a historical understanding of educational theory in this period, it has seldom been linked to the vast scale of teaching carried out by the Sunday School Movement, initiated in 1780 by a group of women determined to instil young citizens with a sense of civic virtue and moral improvement.39 Hannah More gave up teaching at her prestigious Bristol Academy for young ladies in 1789 to devote herself to teaching in Sunday schools, comparing her mission to a Botany Bay expedition because the children were so poor and ignorant. Her Cheap Repository Tracts, intended to counteract the propaganda of Thomas Paine, sold over two million copies between 1795 and 1796 (the population of Britain at that time was ten million).40 More’s Tracts embodied a new stylistic of vernacular simplicity, stimulating an awareness of a cohesive and unified readership. The upsurge in publication of such texts was arguably due to the founding example of Barbauld’s Lessons for Children. However, while the scope and influence of Barbauld’s educational works is impressive in its attempt to bridge social differences, her attitude to women’s education was more ambivalent and problematic. Barbauld’s response to Elizabeth Montagu’s proposal to set up ‘a kind of Literary Academy for ladies’ to rival male establishments reveals her difficult relation to the privilege of her own education: Young ladies, who ought only to have a general tincture of knowledge as to make them agreeable companions to a man of sense, and to enable them to find rational entertainment for a solitary hour, should gain these accomplishments in a quiet and unobserved manner: – subject to a regulation like that of the ancient Spartans, the thefts of knowledge in our sex are only connived at while carefully concealed, and if displayed, punished with disgrace. The best way for women to acquire knowledge is from conversation with a father, a brother or a friend, in the way of family intercourse and easy conversation, and by such a course of reading as they may recommend.41




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Barbauld’s reluctance to support the venture is surprising in view of her poetical engagement with republican politics and her own prodigious education, although her experience of education could itself be described as that of knowledge ‘connived at while carefully concealed’.42 Through sheer persistence she succeeded in pleading with her father to allow her to broach the male preserves of a classical education. One can detect from the tone of her letter that she is aware of the paradoxical nature of her objections to Montagu’s plans. Throughout her work there appears a painful sense of her need to define the limits of women’s learning in relation to their station. In a later letter to Maria Edgeworth, Barbauld explained that she could not contribute to Richard Lovell Edgeworth’s proposed ‘periodical paper written entirely by ladies’, anticipating division and difference: ‘There is no bond of union among literary women, any more than among literary men; different sentiments and different connections separate them much more than the joint interest of their sex would unite them. Mrs. Hannah More would not write along with you or me, and we should probably hesitate at joining Miss Hays, or if she were living, Mrs. Godwin.’43 Here Barbauld expressed resistance to the notion of a female literary class united by gender, preferring to align groups according to political persuasion. Conscious of the contradiction between her own status as an active author and her views on female education, she wrote: ‘I am full convinced that to have too great a fondness for books is little favourable to the happiness of a woman, especially one not in affluent circumstances. My situation has been peculiar and would be no role for others.’44 Barbauld’s experience of her talent was inevitably double-edged. Compare her uneasiness over the ‘peculiarity’ of her situation with the apprehension of the more overtly political Mary Wollstonecraft, as she contemplated her daughter’s future: ‘I feel more than a mother’s fondness and anxiety, when I reflect on the dependent and oppressed state of (my daughter’s) sex . . . I dread to unfold her mind, lest it should render her unfit for the world she is to inhabit. – Hapless woman! what a fate is thine!’45 ∗

∗

∗

As this brief discussion of Barbauld’s attitudes to education reveals, her views on the female right to knowledge were complex and often contradictory. In a period during which Wordsworth described his epic poem The Prelude as an exploration of ‘the growth of a poet’s mind’, how did a woman, to take Wollstonecraft’s phrase, ‘unfold her mind’? Throughout Barbauld’s poetry the reader has an almost material sense of her mental excursions, pressing against the obstacles imposed by her environment. Barbauld’s hesitancy in recommending too rigorous a course of education to her sex in general may now seem timid, but a reading of her poetry may indicate how complex



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a mixture of constraint and opportunity she encountered in the course of her poetic career. As William Keach has observed in his elegant readings of her poems about the Priestleys, ‘the convergence . . . of allegiance and independence, deference and authority, reflects the distinctiveness of Barbauld’s position within the Warrington milieu’.46 One of the more direct examples of such ambivalence can be found in a poem she wrote to her brother: ‘To Dr. Aikin on his Complaining that she neglected him, October 20th 1768’. During her early years Anna had succeeded in persuading her father, who taught at the Academy, that she had the same right as her brother to the privilege of a Warrington education.47 However, by the time she wrote her poem, John Aikin had completed his medical training at Edinburgh and was studying surgery at Manchester. While a teasing poem of sibling friendship and mutual love, it nonetheless registers the anguish caused by the necessary splitting of their educational paths: Those hours are now no more which smiling flew And the same studies saw us both pursue; Our path divides – to thee fair fate assign’d The nobler labour of a manly mind: While mine, more humble works, and lower cares, Less shining toils, and meaner praises shares. Yet sure in different moulds they were not cast Nor stampt with separate sentiments and taste.48 Here is a sense of deep frustration that Barbauld must accept a destiny so very different from that of her brother, despite their similar abilities. She immediately modified this protest, however, with a cry of emotional selfcensorship: But hush my heart! Nor strive to soar too high, Nor for the tree of knowledge vainly sigh; Check the fond love of science and of fame, A bright, but ah! a too devouring fame. Content remain within thy bounded sphere, For fancy blooms, the virtues flourish there.49 Barbauld appeared to fear the possibility of soaring ‘too high’, or of being ‘devoured’ by her love of knowledge. Were she permitted free reign, would she be able to stop? She must remain within her ‘bounded sphere’. She continued her poem by celebrating her brother’s medical career as a noble vocation in peace and wartime. Even in the realm of poetry, where they can compete, Barbauld’s work is presented as inferior to her brother’s:




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For both our breasts at once the Muses fir’d, With equal love, but not alike inspir’d. To thee, the flute and sounding lyre decreed, Mine, the low murmurs of the tuneful reed; Yet when fair friendship shall unloose my tongue My trembling voice shall ne’er refuse the song; Yet will I smile to see thy partial praise, With lovely error crown my worthless lays. As Barbauld’s editors point out, the ‘flute’ was associated with the public poetry of the battlefield and the ‘sounding lyre’ with lyric poetry. In contrast, the ‘tuneful reed’ would summon up the idea of the pastoral – conventionally an artless and unpretentious form. Barbauld is making an explicit comment on the gendered division of knowledge that permeates the poetic arena, in which both sexes can participate, but not on the same terms. Barbauld was aware of such distinctions both within the family and within the broader institutional context of Warrington Academy.50 In 1774, William Enfield, a Unitarian minister and Rector of Warrington Academy, published his classroom anthology, The Speaker. This work, designed for elocution practice, was reprinted many times, and the introduction to the volume alluded to a poem by Barbauld, ‘Warrington Academy’, which is situated later in the anthology, under the category of ‘Descriptive Pieces’, between Gray’s ‘Elegy written in a Country Churchyard’ and Collins’s ‘Ode to Content’. Enfield was proud of the achievements of Warrington, where he had taught, and of the successful careers of its graduates: In this Seminary . . . you have seen many respectable characters formed, who are now filling up their stations in society with reputation to themselves and advantage to the Public . . . [I]t is hoped, that the scene will be realized, which OUR POETESS has so beautifully described: When this, this little group of country calls From academic shades and learned halls, To fix her laws, her spirit to sustain, And light up glory thro’ her wide domain; Their various tastes in different arts display’d, Like temper’d harmony of light and shade, With friendly union in one mass shall blend, And this adorn the state, and that defend.51 Enfield provides a graphic example of the efforts of social groups to aspire to the elevating force of poetry, which is closely involved in the figuring of the British nation; a nation experiencing dramatic shifts in its agricultural and industrial populations, and the expansion of professional opportunity



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amongst the growing middle classes. A study of women’s poetry of the period is unavoidably linked to the tracing of poetry as a once-privileged discourse that becomes transformed into a broader expression of British culture. The figure of the female writer is held in ambivalent relation to this development, both icon and shaper of icon, muse and mistress of the pen, with all its potential political force. Despite her strong allegiance to the political ideals of her community, there was a sense in which Barbauld did not feel entirely at ease with its vocabulary of progress and social achievement. She was conscious of being an outsider within a community of outsiders. While her time at Warrington Academy may have been ‘the most brilliant portion of her existence’, it was also marked by a painful awareness of the tensions between liberty and constraint that she experienced within its walls. The poem which Enfield entitles ‘Warrington Academy’ is in fact only an extract from a longer, more self-reflexive work, ‘The Invitation’ addressed to a Miss B—, most probably Eliza Belsham, a close family friend, who appears elsewhere in Barbauld’s work as ‘Delia’. Her intimate address is reminiscent of the exchange of letters between Carter and Montagu, yet here transformed into the more public and formal genre of poetry. Barbauld invites her friend to leave the ‘mimic grandeur’ and ‘illusive light’ of the city for the ‘pleasures rural scenes inspire’.52 The eye is gradually led through a breathing, interconnected natural world of cyclical seasons and benign relations. The aerial perspective of the poem allows the landscape to become a psychological map. Warrington Academy is never in fact mentioned by name, although it is identifiable by reference to the nearby Bridgewater canal, the means by which ‘Social plenty circles round the land’.53 Her description of the Dissenters abounds in imagery of flight and transcendence, exulting in the achievement of a people now allowed progress. However, tensions are involved in the description of Warrington by a woman in a privileged yet excluded relation to its activity. Barbauld’s indignation at the previous denial of education to her male contemporaries is poignant in the light of circumstance, especially as the previously suppressed spirit of learning is personified as female: Too long had bigot rage, with malice swell’d, Crush’d her strong pinions, and her flight witheld; Too long to check her ardent progress strove: So writhes the serpent round the bird of Jove; Hangs on her flight, restrains her tow’ring wing, Twists its dark folds, and points its venom’d sting.54 Barbauld’s poetics reverberate too frequently with images of pinioned flight and frustrated transcendence for the reader not to connect her description




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Yet still, – if aught aright the Muse divine, – Her rising pride shall mock the vain design; On sounding pinions yet aloft shall soar, And thro’ the azure deep untravel’d paths explore. Where science smiles, the Muses join the train; And gentlest arts and purest manners reign. Ye generous youth who love this studious shade, How rich a field is to your hopes display’d.55 There appears a faint note of wistful irony in the last couplet. The youths of Warrington Academy are not party to the pains of the female onlooker, for whom ‘too great a fondness for literature is little favourable to happiness’.56 While the students are destined for the public world, the poet must carefully conceal her learning. Enfield presents Barbauld’s poem as ending on a triumphant note, thus avoiding the disharmony of its original conclusion: Draw the dread veil that wraps th’eternal throne, And launch our souls into the bright unknown. (here ends Enfield’s version) Here cease my song. Such arduous themes require A master’s pencil and a poet’s fire: Unequal far such bright designs to paint, Too weak her colours, and her lines too faint, My drooping Muse folds up her fluttering wing, And hides her head in the green lap of spring.57 The glories of institutions like Warrington are limited. Barbauld makes an explicit political comment on the position of the female writer who is barred from the high public realm of poetic language, denied use of the ‘master’s pencil’. She must retire to the ‘green lap of Spring’ while her male contemporaries stride the expanding empire with confidence, ‘impelled by some resistless force’. Enfield does not acknowledge that the poem he calls ‘Warrington Academy’ is in fact a significantly edited version of a longer and more introspective poem. A recent article by John Guillory in Critical Quarterly similarly fails to acknowledge this fact.58 Thus Barbauld’s poem is used in the service of arguments not related to its original conception. Guillory is concerned to chart the importance of her poem as a vernacular claim for the ‘classic’ status of Warrington as a dissenting academy. However persuasive one finds his argument, it is weakened by the fact that he does



with her own writing situation. She continues with optimistic, almost religious imagery of future progress:

not acknowledge Barbauld’s own exclusion from the academy, the fact that she is denied ‘luxury of thought’ within its walls and must experience her own education as a ‘solitary’ and ‘peculiar’ affair.59 Enfield had obvious reasons for printing the extract in the form he chose, as an encomium to his academy. Guillory’s discussion of the class politics of suppression repeats the suppression of Barbauld’s own subjectivity. The cultivation of a solitary and dislocated sensibility that became the hallmark of so many male Romantic poets was often a far more real and inescapable condition for women writers. Barbauld denies herself the ‘poet’s fire’ and is apologetic of her daring. Some form of apology, though often tinged with irony, occurs in the majority of women poets’ writing from the seventeenth century onwards, whether they were overt feminists or not, as an underlying and perhaps appeasing comment on their own speech. Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Aurora Leigh, published in 1857, recounts bitterly the prohibition against women poets. Aurora calls her years of education a kind of water torture, ‘flood succeeding flood / To drench the incapable throat’. The imposed silence is described as intersubjective, a silence whose effort is bent towards ‘comprehending husband’s talk’.60 For Barbauld, ‘The best way for women to acquire knowledge is in conversation with a father.’61 Barbauld’s later poem, ‘A Summer Evening’s Meditation’ displays the same tendency of the poetic voice to tremble on the brink of transcendence. Her vivid description of the natural passage into evening is reminiscent of Anne Finch’s ‘Nocturnal Reverie’.62 It is an unnerving piece in which the uncertainties of infinity are approached only to be retreated from (or delayed until death) (italics added): On fancy’s wild and roving wing I sail, From the green borders of the peopled earth, And the pale moon, her duteous fair attendant; From solitary Mars; from the vast orb Of Jupiter, whose huge gigantic bulk Dances in ether like the lightest leaf; To the dim verge, the suburbs of the system, . . . fearless thence I launch into the trackless deeps of space, Where, burning round, ten thousand suns appear, Of elder beam; which ask no leave to shine Of our terrestrial star, nor borrow light From the proud regent of our scanty day; Sons of the morning, first-born of creation, And only less than him who marks their track, And guides their fiery wheels. Here must I stop, Or is there aught beyond? What hand unseen




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Impels me onward thro’ the glowing orbs Of habitable nature, far remote, To the dread confines of eternal night, To solitudes of vast unpeopled space, The desarts of creation, wide and wild: Where embryo systems and unkindled suns Sleep in the womb of chaos; fancy droops, And thought astonish’d stops her bold career.63 At the height of the poet’s careering journey through the stratospheres, we are brought up with a jerk. The reader’s hesitancy between the two meanings of ‘career’, movement and profession, enacts the poet’s own limbo-like reverberation. Too bold a movement implies a breach of propriety, a wrong step. The poet resigns herself, literally brings the reader down to earth: But now my soul, unus’d to stretch her powers In flight so daring, drops her weary wing, And seeks again the known accustom’d spot, Drest up with sun, and shade, and lawns, and streams, A mansion fair, and spacious for its guest, And full replete with wonders.64 The quotidian is unsatisfactory and deflatory. Barbauld’s soul is gendered feminine, an extension of her female body. She registers discomfort in the idea of her soul’s excursion. As Susan Wolfson has shown, the word ‘soul’ has a complex gender history, exerting strong influence on the development of Romantic poetics, in which notions of transcendence were often highly sexualised. However, as she points out in her discussion of Coleridge’s theory of the androgynous imagination, male theorists of the imagination tended to incorporate ‘feminine’ characteristics but reject interventions by women. Wolfson reveals the culturally designated site for woman’s creativity as being a sentimentalised vision of ‘home’.65 Barbauld’s description of ‘the known accustomed spot’ is certainly suggestive of a restrictive domesticity to which she reluctantly returns. Her soul lands in a place where the vocabulary is as clipped as the landscape. The reader is left with an image of the poet’s stoic acceptance of death as the key to transcendence: . . . The hour will come When all these splendours bursting on my sight Shall stand unveiled, and to my ravished sense Unlock the glories of the world unknown.66



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Barbauld’s poetic voice (as well as her sense) is ravished by an awareness of the beyond. Her depiction of the astronomical atmosphere is an idiosyncratic and unusual deviation from the usual Romantic preoccupations with a nature that is encompassable, if all-encompassing. Abstraction is found beyond conventional social boundaries. However, just as imaginative projection threatens to become an end in itself, Barbauld draws back in trepidation, her work echoing with detumescent images. The visionary mode, associated so often with the Romantic period, here seems trapped in the process of its own gestation, the reader left with only a snatched glimpse of ‘vast solitudes of unpeopled space . . . Where embryo systems and unkindled suns sleep in the womb of chaos?’ Barbauld’s question mark is at once tentative and anguished. This remarkable poem provides a rare example of Barbauld’s ability to create an abstract and extended imaginative vision. In contrast, Barbauld’s imaginative energy engaged with the limits (and limitations) of her locality at Warrington, from her surreal and witty poem ‘An Inventory of the Furniture in Dr. Priestley’s Study’ to the minutely observed ‘To Mrs P[riestley], with some Drawings of Birds and Insects’. These poems provide oblique perspectives on the disciplined world of the dissenting community, whose ideals she imbibed, even if barred by her sex from achieving all its aspirations. However, she also used poetry as a medium for moral and political comment, to respond to the topical issues of the wider world. In her poem ‘Corsica’, for example, she addressed a contemporary debate about the nature of individual liberty. Such a specifically political poem by a woman, as Andrew Ashfield has noted, was unprecedented at the time of Barbauld’s writing.67 Throughout 1768 and 1769 British liberals lobbied in the press for British aid to Corsica. Failing British intervention by the government a private subscription was raised; it was for this venture that James Boswell published British Essays in favour of the Brave Corsicans.68 Barbauld’s intervention in the debate, in which she identifies herself with the force of liberty, provides an interesting example of a real woman inhabiting the feminine personifications that male poets had frequently summoned in the past. Her poem opens with a flourish: Hail generous CORSICA! unconquer’d Isle! The fort of freedom; that amidst the waves Stands like a rock of adamant, and dares The wildest fury of the beating storm.69 She conjured the material and symbolic image of liberty in its crudest form: the island. Barbauld drew on Boswell’s account of Corsica to ensure that her description would be accurate, carefully gleaning botanical and geographical information to transform into poetic form.70 The poem as a whole combines specific details of the current debate, which Barbauld researched




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meticulously, with a more broad-ranging statement of the necessity of maintaining the struggle for liberty whatever the political environment. The public state of liberty was under scrutiny in England at the time. Barbauld would have been familiar with republican arguments from her knowledge of Joseph Priestley’s course on history, government and the ‘state of liberty’, which he taught at Warrington.71 Barbauld had been influenced by James Thomson’s poem in five parts, Liberty (1735–36). His hymn to the virtues of Britannia and Liberty was conducted on an epic scale, tracing the roots of Britain’s democracy in the model of the classical republics of Rome and Greece. Barbauld’s poem, however, is far from a paean to British democracy, being critical of the British government’s failure to respond to the plight of the Corsicans: Freedom the cause and PAOLI the chief! Success to your fair hopes! a British muse, Tho’ weak and powerless, lifts her fervent voice, And breathes a prayer for your success. Oh could She scatter blessings as the morn sheds dews, To drop upon your heads!72 Barbauld clearly identifies herself as a woman poet, ‘a British Muse’. While she professed to be ‘weak and powerless’ she veered towards a fantasy of power in which she is able to bless or free the Corsican people. As comparison with Thomson’s poem reveals, the feminine personification of an abstract force can take on an almost super-mythic quality when embodied in the real historical figure of a woman. Thomson’s description of Elizabeth I endows her with all the powerful voracity of ‘Virtue’ and ‘Liberty’, the twin forces of the poem and civilisation itself: She! like the SECRET EYE That never closes on a guarded World, So sought, so mark’d, so seiz’d the Public Good, That self-supplied, without one Ally, She aw’d her inward, quell’d her circling Foes.73 Thomson’s poem keeps the real figure of the queen at a distance by swiftly enveloping her in the grander, roving form of an abstracted ‘Liberty’. When the poet is a woman, the narrative voice of such a poem is immediately more complex in its potential forms of identification. Barbauld identifies herself with the force of liberty, which she presents in a more modern sense than Thomson, remodelling his allegiances to classical republicanism and describing Boswell’s journey through the island’s rough terrain as an ‘animated form of patriot zeal’ (line 27).



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Hail to thy winding bays thy shelt’ring ports And ample harbours, which inviting stretch Their hospitable arms to every sail: Thy numerous streams, that bursting from the cliffs Down the steep channel’d rock impetuous pour With grateful murmur: on the fearful edge Of the rude precipice, thy hamlets brown And straw-roof’d cots, which form the level vale Scarce seen, amongst the craggy hanging cliffs Seem like an eagle’s nest aerial built: Thy swelling mountains, brown with solemn shade Of various trees, that wave their giant arms O’er the rough sons of freedom; lofty pines, And hardy fir, and ilex ever green, And spreading chestnut, with each humbler plant, And shrub of fragrant leaf, that clothes their sides With living verdure; whence the clust’ring bee Extracts her golden dews: the shining box, And sweet-leav’d myrtle, aromatic thyme, The prickly juniper, and the green leaf Which feeds the spinning worm; while glowing bright Beneath the various foliage, wildly spreads The arbutus, and rears his scarlet fruit Luxuriant, mantling o’er the craggy steeps; And thy own native laurel crowns the scene.74 Barbauld’s enthusiasm for freedom appears almost to have sprung from the soil she describes. Her work provided a striking alternative to the classical depiction of liberty found in the work of her predecessors, in which Britain is so frequently shown as the agent of freedom rather than the impediment to it. Barbauld’s disagreement with the imperialist approach can also be found in her criticism of William Collins in her introduction to his Odes: Beautiful as is this Ode, the Philosophic reader will find much to object to. The ideas of Liberty referring to the ancient states, are formed upon those splendid notions, which are imbibed in early youth, and are little applicable to the real and practical principles of just legislation. The practice of slavery alone completely destroys, in all those states who used it, all



Barbauld’s detailed description of the Corsican landscape strikes the reader as an attempt to give life and shape to the spirit of liberty. Her long sentences gather the momentum of the rousing force of freedom that she intends to evoke:

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pretence to the blessings of fair and equal government; and there exists no country where the stern regulations of power entered, more than at Sparta, into the every scene of private life. The parent could not there exercise the sacred and inalienable right of education; nor the husband enjoy his home. And with regard to religious liberty, so dear to every ingenuous and inquiring mind, it was not even thought of in the Grecian states.75 Barbauld’s criticisms of classical culture suggest the individuality of her own concept of liberty, illustrating a harmonious domestic scene, in which parental responsibility is paramount, as is education. She was also fiercely attached to the idea of religious toleration. In comparison to Barbauld, Collins and Thomson’s appeals to abstract ideals appear to verge on propaganda. She counteracted their inaccuracy and nostalgia with a confidence of expression: The bold swimmer joys not so To feel the proud waves under him, and beat With strong repelling arm the billowy surge; The generous courser does not so exult To toss his floating mane against the wind, And neigh amidst the thunder of the war, As virtue to oppose her swelling breast Like a firm shield against the darts of fate.76 However, just as Barbauld reached a crescendo of political fervour and poetic momentum, she withdrew from claiming that authority. She acknowledged the failure of Britain to help Corsica, which fell to the Genoese soon after Boswell’s efforts to raise a subscription were published. The final stanza of the poem conveys a form of liberty which is not a matter of topography or martial force, but a cherished and intimate ideal which has particularly strong resonance for the woman writer: Forgive the zeal That, too presumptuous, whisper’d better things And read the book of destiny amiss. Not with the purple colouring of success Is virtue best adorn’d: th’attempt is praise. There yet remains a freedom, nobler far Than kings or senates can destroy or give; Beyond the proud oppressor’s cruel grasp Seated secure; uninjur’d; undestroy’d; Worthy of Gods; The freedom of the mind.77



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Barbauld conceived of writing as an instrument of the ‘freedom of the mind’, lying beyond the crude entanglements of politics and bloodshed. ‘Corsica’ formed a powerful expression of the political ideas with which she was raised. In contrast with her other early poems it appears to succeed in transgressing the boundaries of gender, creating a convincing alternative vision of liberty as lodged in rational thought itself. As Lucy Newlyn has pointed out, Barbauld’s Corsica incorporates a vision of the wider world into the polite sociability of daily life, anticipating Wordsworth’s ‘unconquerable mind’ in his sonnet ‘To Toussaint L’Ouverture’.78 The onset of the French Revolution in 1789 intensified emerging debates about rights and duties, political representation and political virtue, as well as significantly highlighting the place of women in society, both in the present and in historical terms. In the political climate of the 1790s the question of individual liberty was at the forefront of debate. In 1791, Barbauld published her poem ‘Epistle to William Wilberforce, Esq. on the Rejection of the Bill for Abolishing the Slave Trade’, as well as several political pamphlets.79 She became associated with a generation of female radicals who were famously satirised in Richard Polwhele’s misogynistic poem ‘The Unsex’d Females’, in which he identified Barbauld, among others, as responsible for Britain’s moral decay.80 The political ferment of the French Revolution inspired women poets to address the complexities and confusions of changing notions of liberty. Helen Maria Williams’s ‘Hymn to the Alps’, Anna Seward’s ‘To France on her Present Exertions’ and Charlotte Smith’s ‘Emigrants’ were only a few of the many poems by women who found inspiration in the turbulent events of their time. This important group of writers were soon dismissed as a threat to the Establishment, ‘unsex’d females’ who had transgressed the bounds of literary taste. For example, Alexander Dyce, in his Specimens of British Poetesses (1825) omitted Barbauld’s political poems in favour of her depictions of domesticity and her love of animals. Roger Lonsdale has argued that the editors of huge new anthologies at the beginning of the nineteenth century, such as Chalmers and Andersen, systematically omitted all poetry by women, creating rigidly conservative criteria for selection in the reactionary political climate in which they worked. Lonsdale further suggests that Wordsworth’s relentlessly masculine preface to Lyrical Ballads overshadowed the contemporary influence of successful women poets, reading ‘Tintern Abbey’ as a strategic attempt to place Dorothy, representative of a generation of female writers, in the foothills rather than at the peak of the site of poetic inspiration.81 Just at the very moment that women writers achieved a powerful and critical voice in their culture, their contribution appeared to be threatened and marginalised. As Gary Kelly has argued in his perceptive discussion




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of the gendered politics of ‘history’ and ‘romanticism’ in the early nineteenth century, although women became seriously involved in the founding of a modern liberal state their contribution was nonetheless to be sidelined by a modernised Britain.82 The final section of this chapter will consider and contrast two ambitious public poems, written within a year of each other: Lucy Aikin’s Epistles on Women (1810) and Anna Barbauld’s Eighteen Hundred and Eleven (1812). Both poems were profoundly selfconscious meditations on the role and purpose of history within society and both writers draw upon – but also reshape – Enlightenment ideas about social progress and moral reform. On one level these two poems reveal the intellectual bonds between Aikin and Barbauld, niece and aunt, united as members of a family of intellectuals and both concerned to address the complex relationship between individual and collective consciousness from a female perspective but in the interests of humanity. However, comparison between the two works also illustrates the conflicts between an emerging domestic ideology and the rational inheritance of the eighteenth century – a tension which is the sometimes productive and perhaps inevitable consequence of women’s testing of the discursive limits of their society in an age that denied them full liberty.

Historic muse: Lucy Aikin’s Epistles on Women (1810) Lucy Aikin’s Epistles on Women, Exemplifying their character and condition in various ages and nations, was published by Joseph Johnson in 1810 when she was twenty-nine years old.83 This energetic, four-part poem, written in heroic couplets, paid tribute to her foremothers and traced the history of civilisation from a female perspective. Her indignant voice is reminiscent of Anna Barbauld’s political passion, if not as poetically sophisticated. She protested against a world in which women were expected to be subservient: 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. (I, 54–60) The Epistles on Women argued for sexual equality in education. Like Barbauld, Aikin communicated a passion for knowledge in her poetry. One of the most



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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. (I, 71–4). While Aikin’s work had some affinity with the poetic catalogues of female achievement cited earlier in this chapter, it is different from a work such as Mary Scott’s Female Advocate (1774) in that it intervened more selfconsciously in debates about the nature and purpose of history. Aikin wished to advance women’s cause as historians and to engage with contemporary ideas about historiography.84 However, Aikin’s early experiment with poetry as a means of telling history was not a critical success. The Critical Review claimed to sympathise with the poem’s political message but found the ideas poorly executed: ‘the most injudicious mixture of metaphors that we ever recollect to have seen’.85 It was probably wise that Aikin chose to pursue her subsequent career as a historian in prose. She was to receive far more acclaim for her future prose works, which included Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth (1818), Memoirs of the Court of James the First (1822) and Memoirs of the Court of Charles the First (1833). These volumes, each reprinted several times, were original in terms of method and genre, combining rare manuscript sources and secondary accounts within a fluent description of the manners, morals and literature of each monarch’s reign.86 Aikin evaluated the past according to her dissenting liberal values, criticising all religious persecution, for example, and conveying her suspicion of the ‘coterie’ aspects of court culture. The most innovative aspect of her approach was to focus upon the literature, customs and cultural achievements of the past, thus pioneering a kind of social history that was the inevitable product of an eighteenth-century female education. Anne Janowitz has noted Aikin’s unusual confidence in defining the purpose of the Memoirs as a genre that might capture the manners of an age, arguing that Aikin wrote her Memoirs of her father and her aunt in a similar spirit, creating a strong sense of the interdependence of family and literary models of inheritance.87 Unlike her male contemporaries, Aikin stressed the role that women had played in shaping the past. Her work inspired future historians, including the Strickland sisters, who published the highly influential The Lives of the Queens of England (1840–48). Aikin can be seen, then, as a founding exponent of a kind of social history written by women that flourished in the nineteenth century: a history that valued art, literature and culture above science and industry and



impressive aspects of the Epistles is Aikin’s vigorous enthusiasm for history itself:

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narrowed its focus upon a particular, middle or upper-class segment of society. Aikin’s Epistles on Women, however, was very different. Here she offered a longer and broader perspective on the history of civilisation. Recent critics have read Aikin’s work as one that both looked back to Enlightenment models of feminine virtue (commercial and republican) and inaugurated a new emphasis on maternal love and domestic comfort as the source of patriotic identity.88 The complex mixture of competing discourses to be found in the Epistles can arguably be read in terms of its transitional status in the movement from the Enlightenment world of Mary Scott’s Female Advocate (1774) to the Romantic context of Felicia Hemans’s Records of Woman (1828). As Kathryn Ready has argued in an illuminating essay, Aikin’s Epistles engaged with the work of male Enlightenment historians in surprising and original ways, making ‘a concerted effort to resolve some of the tensions apparent in previous accounts of the relationship between women and social progress’.89 Aikin drew upon a hybrid collection of sources, including poetry (Cowper and Spenser), the travel literature of colonial exploration and a range of historians, including Ovid and Tacitus, Edward Gibbon and William Robertson. In her introduction she explained her aim to trace ‘the progress of human society’, thus aligning herself with the political economists and historians of the Scottish Enlightenment. William Robertson, Lord Kames and John Millar had all placed a new emphasis on the progress of civilisation across the globe, contrasting different societies in a geographical and temporal sense to shape a ‘conjectural history’.90 Aikin’s sense of historical change was influenced by the ‘four stages theory’, whereby society proceeded from a primitive condition of hunting and gathering communities, to a pastoral, then an agricultural and finally, a commercial stage, in which the growth of manners and politeness is positive and favourable to women.91 In John Millar’s Origin of the Distinction of Ranks (1779), for example, he included a chapter ‘On the Rank and Condition of Women in different Ages’. Millar considered the status of women within a given society to act as an index of its progression towards greater civilisation. He concluded by suggesting that women had an important role to play in eighteenth-century British society, for which they should be properly educated.92 Aikin’s Epistles seemed to reinforce the views of conjectural history by promoting female friendship and conversation as active forces in the world, and by condemning the suffering experienced by women in savage societies. Aikin dedicated her poem to her sister-in-law, Anna Wakefield Aikin, who was married to her brother Charles (who had been adopted by their aunt, Anna Barbauld after she and her husband Rochemont failed to have children). She presented their private relationship in the public spirit of an international and trans-historical sorority: ‘Hear, O my friend, my Anna, nor disdain / My sober lyre and moralizing strain! / I sing the Fate of Woman.’ Just as Hannah More’s poem Bas Bleu, discussed in Chapter 2, argued for



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the public significance of conversation, so Aikin’s poem reached out to a larger circle in its dynamic portrayal of female friendship and conversation, at the same time placing emphasis on the importance of friendship between the sexes.93 She aimed ‘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’ (vii). She condemned the ignorant satire of ‘Popes and Juvenals’ and looked forward to a time when men would treat her as ‘a sister and a friend’: 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 interests 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. (viii) As Anne Mellor has argued, Aikin’s poem represents perhaps the most ambitious and determined ‘feminist’ manifesto of its age in its demand for ‘the initiation of a women’s movement which would overthrow the existing construction of gender and ensure the equality, perhaps even the superiority, of the female’.94 Like Mary Wollstonecraft, Aikin saw the family as the true starting point of any wider social or political change.95 Her history was motivated by a desire to change models of intellectual inheritance for the future: 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.’ (vi–vii) Aikin’s re-telling of the creation story in ‘Epistle I’ offered a bold new perspective on the relationship between Adam and Eve. She described Eve as sprung from the earth, rather than Adam’s spare rib, a chthonic goddess blessed with brief bliss: ‘When slumbering Adam pressed the lonely earth, / Unconscious parent of a wondrous birth, / As forth to light the infantwoman sprung’ (I: 75–7). Adam is portrayed as a ‘moping idiot’ (I: 132), saved only by Eve’s improving presence. Aikin described their relationship as equal, if anything giving the position of greater power to Eve, who teaches




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Adam to speak. Her celebration of this role is consolidated by several references to the benefits of maternal culture and was undoubtedly informed by her work in teaching and writing for young children, a vocation she inherited from Barbauld.96 In Aikin’s rewriting of the biblical and Miltonic myth, the fall of man is not caused by Eve’s sins, or the serpent’s temptation, but by the inability of man to contain his urge to fight: ‘Equal they trod till want and guilt arose, / Till savage blood was spilt, and man had foes’ (I: 169–70). Aikin represented man’s fall through the figures of Cain and Abel, rather than a seductive or wanton Eve, whom she transformed into an upright moral teacher. Moreover, as Anne Mellor has pointed out, Aikin portrayed Eve as morally superior to Adam because she has a mother and will become one: ‘Since Eve has imbibed sympathy directly from her “step-dame” Nature, she is capable of nurturing and thus civilizing Adam.’97 Aikin seemed to view woman’s natural moral superiority as something essential, derived from motherhood. She repeatedly contrasted maternal virtue with man’s tendency to destroy civilisation through the physical violence of war. Having opened with such a bold revision of the Christian creation story in ‘Epistle I’, Aikin appeared inspired by the more secular work of the Scottish Enlightenment in ‘Epistle II’, referring to ‘savage life’ and ‘pastoral life’. Here she described a range of primitive cultures and contrasted the manner in which women had been treated in various communities, including those of the Otaheites (Tahitians), the natives of North America, the Tartars and the Hottentots. Her description dwelt on ‘human brutes’ who mistreated women to the extent that ‘their depression is so complete’ they were forced to perform acts of infanticide ‘to deliver them from that intolerable bondage to which they knew they were doomed’ (note 2, 83–4). In all her accounts of savage life, Aikin stressed what she termed ‘the hardening effect of want on the human mind’ (II, p. 15): Want hardens man; by fierce extremes the smart Inflames and chills and indurates the heart, Arms his relentless hand with brutal force, And drives o’er female necks his furious course. (II: 99–104) Even when her account of savage society was benign, as in the case of the ‘harmless’ Hottentots, Aikin associated the lack of intellectual life with the oppression of women: But the high promptings of the conscious soul The weak that elevate, the strong control, Respect, decorum, friendship, ties that bind



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(II: 228–35) Aikin had little patience with the idea of the ‘noble savage’. In observing the hard labour done by women in domestic economies, ‘too horrid for poetical narration’, she remarked drily, ‘Certainly Rousseau did not consult the weaker sex in his preference of savage life to civilized.’ (p. 84). The second half of Aikin’s poem (Epistles III and IV), however, appeared more ambivalent, even sceptical, about the ultimate benefits of commerce and civilisation for women. She depicted man’s advancement, from the time of Homer to that of the Ottoman Empire, progressing at women’s expense. She was particularly scornful of the Athenians’ treatment of women: Thy wives, proud Athens! fettered and debased, Listlessly duteous, negatively chaste, O vapid summary of a slavish lot! They sew and spin, and are forgot. (III: 102–5) Despite the cultural riches of their city, Athenian women remained neglected and oppressed. Here Aikin appeared to reject the positive links that the Scottish Enlightenment had made between commerce, culture and civilisation. And while the Roman republic allowed women greater freedoms, Aikin argued that they remained the mere ‘shadows’ of men, trapped in a subservient relationship: 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. (III: 125–35)



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 tend, And lawless man, or cold, or fierce, or rude, Proves every mode of female servitude.

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This poignant description pointed out the stark limitations of any ameliorative measure that fell short of civil equality, thus presenting a more radical interpretation of history’s cycles of ‘progress’ than that offered by conjectural history. There are several passages in Aikin’s Epistles III and IV that appear to endorse something closer to Wollstonecraft’s republican model of female virtue and to call into question the historians of the Scottish Enlightenment. Sylvana Tomaselli has argued in her thought-provoking discussion of the relationship between civilisation, patriotism and Enlightenment histories of women that conjectural histories posed a difficult challenge for women: ‘it cannot be said that conjectural history was a very feminine enterprise’.98 Historians such as Hume, Robertson and Millar placed great emphasis on civility and manners, thus drawing attention to the notion of politeness, which was notoriously slippery as a concept: it could be taken either as an outward expression of moral strength or as a convenient means of disguising moral weakness. And while commerce could be valued for its civilising influence, it was also haunted by associations of luxury, effeminacy and moral corruption.99 Mary Wollstonecraft explained her ambivalent feelings towards the idea of the progress of civilisation thus: [t]he civilization which has taken place in Europe has been very partial, and, like every custom that an arbitrary point of honour has established, refines the manners at the expense of morals, by making sentiments and opinions current in conversation that have no root in the heart, or weight in the cooler resolves of the mind.100 Wollstonecraft valued the ideal of a clear, rational form of expression that could be shared by both sexes and establish equality between them. One can see why she would have despised the courtly language of gallantry and flattery. The originality of the Epistles can be seen to lie in part in Aikin’s ability to bring together aspects of the commercial and republican models of femininity in her plea for a better education for women. As Kathryn Ready has argued, Aikin’s mediation of these two models is especially striking.101 One can read this mediation as a strategy to rehabilitate some of Mary Wollstonecraft and Catharine Macaulay’s more radical ideas, as well as an attempt to resolve some of the tensions surrounding definitions of female virtue. ‘Epistle III’, for example, contains several examples of republican feminine virtue, in which women’s courage, bravery and ‘masculine’ fortitude are celebrated. However, within this context Aikin frequently emphasised women’s feminine powers. The Sabine women are praised thus:



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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; [. . .] Peace joins their hands, Love mingles race with race, And Woman triumphs in the wide embrace. (III: 163–71) Here the domestic affections are given national significance, as women intervene on the battlefield – not as warriors but as mothers. In ‘Epistle IV’, Aikin turned to the history of Britain and to a passionate defence of reason and education as saviours of woman. She described Boadicea with patriotic fervour. She made use of Tacitus’s Annals in charting the early history of Britain, offering her own translations of certain passages in the notes to the poem. Aikin noted, rather wistfully, ‘But few our Amazons’ (IV: 318), admitting that in general ‘Our timorous mothers, from invading strife / Wrapt in a meek monotony of life, Humbly content to pace with duteous round / Their little world, . . . the dear domestic ground’ (IV: 326–9). However, domestic life is soon alleviated by the spirit of ‘Learning’: The Lamp of Learning blazed upon the gloom, And wide around to kindling hope revealed The bloodless contests of a nobler field, And courteous Wisdom to the bashful throng Waves his pure hand, and beckoned them along. (IV: 333–8) In a patriotic hymn to the achievements of Queen Elizabeth I, Aikin celebrated the cultural power of the nation. This is reminiscent of the engraving of Samuel’s Nine Living Muses in which Apollo is shown crowning the figure of Britannia in a visual celebration of the female force that Aikin was to invoke: Yet, O Britannia! on thy glory’s car The brightest gem shall flame that Maiden Star, Queen of th’ascendant, whose propitious ray Wisdom and wit, and arts and arms obey; Blest orb, that flashed on Spenser’s dazzling sight Long meteor-streams and trails of fairy-light; Twinkled on Shakespeare’s lowly lot, and shed A smile of love on Bacon’s boyish head: Now gleams the lode-star of our northern skies And points our galaxy to distant eyes. (IV: 390–9)




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As Aikin wrote in her introductory summary of this, her final epistle, the ‘revival of letters gives consequence to women’. She praised the virtues of the Tudor writer Lucy Hutchinson, ‘high historian of the dead’ (IV: 409), who corrected the public misreading of her husband’s domestic virtues. Aikin’s catalogue of heroines included Lady Jane Grey, a model of female sacrifice, and the learned daughters of Thomas More. Aikin subtly conveyed her belief in religious toleration by celebrating heroines of both Catholic and Protestant background. It is in the final epistle that Aikin first addresses her own role as a poet, as distinct from that of historian. While she appears to summon the visionary ambitions of ‘Genius’, she goes on to reject its ‘godlike power’ (IV: 22). She compares her art to that of the Corinthian maid who unwittingly gave origin to the art of painting by tracing her lover’s outline on the wall as he slept, so that she might have a token of his presence once he left: 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! But to that shade fond fancy would supply 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. (IV: 27–35) Aikin rejected the pale comforts of imitation for the challenge of dialogue. She favoured a poetry provoked not by desire, but rational friendship: 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. (IV: 36–40) Aikin’s emphasis on conversation and friendship as the sources of creativity echoes the bluestocking culture evoked in Chapter 2. Here, however, these rational values, previously cultivated in a small circle of like-minded individuals, are explicitly figured in the spirit of an international sisterhood, in the spirit of womankind.



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Does History speak? drink in her loftiest tone, And be Cornelia’s virtues all your own. Thus self-endowed, thus armed for every state, Improve, excel, surmount, subdue, your fate! (IV: 476–9) Historical knowledge is here transformed from a mere accomplishment into a weapon of progress. The central message of the Epistles was that women should be active in their pursuit of the past, and work to question and disturb existing paradigms of historical knowledge. In her various Memoirs, Aikin went on to pioneer a new genre of history writing that proved a clear demonstration of the value and vigour of a female perspective on the past. In the Epistles she argued passionately that this kind of intervention must be a collective undertaking, involving not just a shared knowledge between women, past and present, but a dialogue between men and women. Aikin’s reforming zeal culminated in a passionate plea to the male half of the human race. She saw the enlightenment of man’s prejudice as essential to woman’s future: ‘Rise,’ shall he cry, ‘O Woman, rise! be free! My life’s associate, now partake with me: Rouse thy keen energies, expand thy soul, And see, and feel, and comprehend the whole . . .’ (IV: 487–90) Women’s wider access to knowledge depended on the education and cooperation of men. Here she echoed her rousing ‘Introduction’, in which she had urged her readers to listen to History’s ‘impartial’ voice: Let the impartial voice of History testify for us that, when permitted, we have been the worthy associates 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 utility of any kind, which may not be derived from her father to the daughter, or the son from his mother. These positions, once established, and carried into their consequences, will do everything for woman. (vi)



In conclusion, Aikin appeals to her readers, asking them to endorse her argument for women’s imaginative freedom through the power of their own example. She addresses a personified figure of ‘History’:

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Aikin’s view of history as impartial was idealistic and melioristic in spirit. She aimed to transform history into a discipline that might inspire political change and educate the men and women of the future. Almost exactly contemporary to Aikin’s Epistles, her aunt Anna Barbauld’s Eighteen Hundred and Eleven formed a stark contrast in tone. While equally ambitious and considerably more sophisticated in poetic terms, Barbauld’s poem proved unpopular in the extreme, a fact which Aikin lamented in her memoir of her aunt twenty years later.102 While Aikin’s view of the progress of civilisation was positive and sometimes triumphant, Barbauld’s was bleak and admonitory. Eighteen Hundred and Eleven was a political protest against the ongoing war with France, and it was scorned by critics as presumptuous folly. Barbauld’s poem marks a high point in the history of women’s poetic ambition; but the hostile reactions it provoked signal a turning point in the reception of women writers in the Romantic period. Eighteen Hundred and Eleven proved to be one of the last publications from a generation increasingly marginalised by a culture in retreat from the radical message of Barbauld and her sister poets.

Eighteen Hundred and Eleven By 1811 the radical politics espoused by many writers who had flourished in the 1790s had become dangerous, the government clamping down on them with increasing fear and legal force. Anna Barbauld’s response to the situation was an experiment in poetic tone and form that was vilified and misunderstood. Barbauld stuck to her politics but conveyed them through a starker medium, through an experiment in panoramic poetic style that formed a devastating critique of culture’s means of preserving itself. Like Lucy Aikin, Barbauld presented a sweeping view of the history of civilisation that is striking in its confidence and strength of vision.103 However, while Aikin aimed to mediate and conciliate in a melding of different types of history, Barbauld was bold and clear in her denunciation of optimistic theories of the linear progress of Western civilisation. In Eighteen Hundred and Eleven Anna Barbauld imagined the death of Britain. As William Keach has so forcefully argued, this remarkable poem, with a cruel stroke of irony, in turn precipitated the death of its author’s career.104 In a vigorous attack on commerce and empire provoked by the long drawn out military and economic war against France, Barbauld envisioned London laid waste, a ruined spectacle for future travellers. By choosing the date of the poem’s composition for its title, she increased the force of its admonition: this could be us, now. While her fashionable London contemporaries luxuriated in urban pleasures, she raised an angry clarion call, criticising the establishment with unrivalled confidence. The Tory Quarterly Review scoffed at her satiric pretensions: ‘We had hoped . . . that the empire



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might have been saved without the intervention of a lady-author.’105 Savage criticism from every quarter forced Barbauld to retire from the London literary stage. At a time when many poets retreated into self-constructed rural idylls, emerging only to write stiffly formal battle descriptions, Barbauld remained loyal to her radical, dissenting background. Eighteen Hundred and Eleven, a bleak jeremiad, strains with anxiety over the imminent destruction of natural social order though greed and negligence.106 She depicted the disabling effect of distant war on the life of the rural worker: The sword, not sickle, reaps the harvest now, And where the Soldier gleans the scant supply, The helpless Peasant but retires to die; No laws his hut from licensed outrage shield, And war’s least horror is the ensanguined field. (18–23) Barbauld was a great admirer of Goldsmith’s Deserted Village and her lamentation over the growth of trade is surely indebted to his poem, in which the ‘bold peasantry’ are driven to emigration by their country’s demand for luxury. Eighteen Hundred and Eleven has greater urgency, written under threat of a war that, while yet to impinge on English shores in a military sense, had already exerted grave damage. Britain is chastised for not acknowledging its guilt, and warned of the imminent economic collapse that will visit its ‘grassy turf unbruised by hostile hoof’ (44). Barbauld condemned the moral complacency of her peers, depicting a society that has been spoiled by luxury and for which the consequence is moral and financial bankruptcy: Ruin, as with an earthquake shock, is here, There, the heart-witherings of unuttered fear, And that sad death, whence most affection bleeds, Which sickness, only of the soul, precedes. Thy baseless wealth dissolves in air away, Like mists that melt before the morning ray: No more on crowded mart or busy street Friends, meeting friends, with cheerful hurry greet; Sad, on the ground thy princely merchants bend Their altered looks, and evil days portend, And fold their arms, and watch with anxious breast The tempest blackening in the distant West. (49–60)




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Economic crisis is depicted as springing from a sickness of the soul, as if it might be just punishment for the sins of greed and pride. Despite the fact that 1811 witnessed the Luddite risings and terrible food shortages, Barbauld’s readers were outraged by her prophecy. The liberal Monthly Review labelled her ‘the Cassandra of the state’– unwittingly prescient in the light of the prime minister’s assassination in parliament by a ruined merchant only a few months later.107 Barbauld declared her anguish in patriotic terms, seeking solace in the idea that British culture might travel abroad, leaving a desolate homeland for brighter prospects. Literature, science and the arts are envisioned as dispersed across the globe by British emigrants. This powerful image of the exportation of culture around the world implied the wider responsibilities of the artist: Beneath the spreading Platan’s tent-like shade, Or by Missouri’s rushing waters laid, ‘Old Father Thames’ shall be the poet’s theme, From Hagley’s woods the enamoured virgin dream, And Milton’s tones the raptured ear enthrall, Mixt with the roar of Niagara’s fall . . . (91–6)

While Barbauld lamented the current political climate she maintained an unshakeable faith in the moral power of British art. I shall return to this aspect of Barbauld’s poem in my concluding remarks but want to emphasise the extent to which the poem was making high claims for art itself and drawing attention to the power of poetry as a genre. The high literary quality of Eighteen Hundred and Eleven seemed to exacerbate Barbauld’s offence to public morals, the work considered ‘only the more dangerous on account of its poetical excellence’.108 Barbauld’s allusion to the spread of British culture seemed to hint at its potential immunity to the ravages of time but retained a warning that ‘Gothic night’ might once again descend:

Night, Gothic night, again may shade the plains Where Power is seated, and where Science reigns; England, the seat of arts, be only known By the gray ruin and the mouldering stone; That Time may tear the garland from her brow, And Europe sit in dust, as Asia now. (121–6)



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This chilling and disorientating image would bring the reader up short, dispelling any complacent belief in Britain’s cultural supremacy. While Barbauld exposed Britain’s determining role in the Napoleonic wars, she also looked beyond war’s specific horrors to consider its wider historical implications. Her exclusion from the battleground seemed to reinforce her sense of its potentially devastating reverberations. Having sketched Britain’s existing woes, she envisaged a post-apocalyptic London:

Pensive and thoughtful shall the wanderers greet Each splendid square, and still, untrodden street; Or of some crumbling turret, mined by time, The broken stairs with perilous step shall climb, Thence stretch their view the wide horizon round, By scattered hamlets trace its antient bound, And, choked no more with fleets, fair Thames survey Through reeds and sedge pursue his idle way. (169–76) Her readers would have been familiar with the pleasures of burgeoning tourism, attuned to the cultural acquisitiveness of the Grand Tour. They were perhaps less ready to consider their own capital city, from which journeys were made and colonies founded, as the future site of mere curiosity, a peripheral shadow of former achievement. Barbauld’s dramatic shift in vantage point has a serious political point to make. She de-familiarised the city for its urban sophisticates, conveying a graphic sense of shock through her detailed local descriptions. Europe’s fascination with Greece and Rome is depicted as merely one chime in a series of cultural echoes: Oft shall the strangers turn their eager feet The rich remains of antient art to greet, The pictured walls with critic eye explore, And Reynolds be what Raphael was before. On spoils from every clime their eyes shall gaze, Egyptian granites and the Etruscan vase; And when midst fallen London, they survey The stone where Alexander’s ashes lay, Shall own with humbled pride the lesson just By Time’s slow finger written in the dust. (205–14)




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Unlike Lucy Aikin’s poem, in which history is represented as a rich storehouse of moral examples and political inspiration, here Barbauld unnerves the reader by trying to disturb any traditional interpretations of the progress of civilisation. In Eighteen Hundred and Eleven, cultural progress is described not as linear but as cyclical and unpredictable. Barbauld attacked her government’s notion of supremacy by revealing its fragility. The panoramic sweep of Barbauld’s poem has the unnerving power of a Piranesi print, in which time is suspended or set in slow motion, the bystander marooned in a fantastic vision of cultural wreckage, cowed by its sheer scale: ‘Awe-struck, midst the chill sepulchral marbles breathe, / Where all above is still, as all beneath’ (181–2). The poem’s force lies not so much in its shift of historical perspective as in its capacity to entertain the possible abolition of perspective altogether. In the final part of Eighteen Hundred and Eleven, Barbauld seemed nostalgic for the raw courage of Britain’s early warrior queen, echoing Lucy Aikin’s enthusiasm for primitive female heroism: Where once Bonduca whirled the scythed car, And the fierce matrons raised the shriek of war, Light forms beneath transparent muslins float, And tutored voices swell the artful note. (289–92) There is something insubstantial and hollow about the ‘tutored voices’ of contemporary women, who are described as ornamental visions, analogous to the hothouse fruits and flowers that Barbauld goes on to describe. She depicted a world in which science and technology had started to control nature rather than accept its gifts: Light-leaved acacias and the shady plane And spreading cedar grace the woodland reign; While crystal walls the tenderer plants confine, The fragrant orange and the nectared pine; The Syrian grape there hangs her rich festoons, Nor asks for purer air, or brighter noons: Science and Art urge on the useful toil, New mould a climate and create the soil, Subdue the rigour of the northern Bear, O’er polar climes shed aromatic air, On yielding Nature urge their new demands, And ask not gifts but tribute at her hands. (293–304)



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Here Barbauld offered a subtle critique of the sinister imbalance of power between man and nature. In the light of today’s ecological disasters, it is tempting to interpret Barbauld’s prescience as extraordinary. However, as Maggie Favretti has noted, her point of view was not unique by any means and was shared by many highly regarded authors of her day, including Edward Gibbon in The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, published between 1776 and 1788.109 For Barbauld, the permanence and stability of well-known cultural monuments becomes an illusion – worse, a mask for the neglect of moral responsibility. The Empire’s cultural and commercial traffic is shown to be transient: But fairest flowers expand but to decay; The worm is in thy core, thy glories pass away; Arts, arms and wealth destroy the fruits they bring; Commerce, like beauty, knows no second spring. Crime walks thy streets, Fraud earns her unblest bread O’er want and woe thy gorgeous robe is spread . . . With grandeur’s growth the mass of misery grows. (313–20) Civilisation is tainted by individual greed, disinterested virtue has been replaced by the lure of commerce. Barbauld further condemned the gap between rich and poor. As many recent critical accounts of Eighteen Hundred and Eleven have noted, the confidence and sweep of Barbauld’s vision was interpreted by its contemporary readers as particularly audacious because of the poet’s sex.110 The misogynist sarcasm of the Anti-Jacobin Review betrayed a fear of female judgement: May we be allowed to ask, how does Mrs. Barbauld know . . .? But we ask pardon . . . Mrs. B. is a prophet; and, to prophets it is given to penetrate the veil of futurity . . . We presume that when Mrs. Barbauld wrote the line [‘Thy baseless wealth dissolves in air away’], she had just risen from a perusal of the alarming report of the Bullion Commitee!111 The angry reviewer resented Barbauld’s invasion of a male preserve and condemned her for inhabiting the grand role of prophet. As already noted, John Wilson Croker was similarly disdainful in his stinging attack in the Quarterly Review, in which he protested that he had hoped ‘that the empire might have been saved without the intervention of a ladyauthor’:




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Croker’s indignation was sparked by Barbauld’s confidence and decisiveness, qualities he found repellent, likening the author to an old woman who should have stuck to her knitting. As Favretti has neatly observed, ‘Croker’s acknowledgement of her “descent” suggests a recognition but not acceptance of the elevated vantage point she has claimed.’113 Barbauld adopted the secure tone and panoramic ambition of the eighteenth-century prospect poem (in the tradition of James Thomson) in order to expose the very fragility of such all-encompassing vision – a paradox that seems to have increased the capacity of her work to threaten male literary authority. We began this chapter with Mercy Otis Warren’s plea, in 1790, for Elizabeth Montagu to ‘across the Atlantic stretch her eye’: Look o’er the main, and view the western sky; And there Columbia’s infant drama see – Reflect that Britain taught us to be free;114 It is fitting, perhaps, that we should end with Barbauld’s decision, in the final lines of Eighteen Hundred and Eleven, to cast her own gaze across the Atlantic. America is depicted as a new land of prosperity and freedom, founded not on commerce, but on the powers of a mysterious yet benevolent ‘Genius’ of cultural expansion that Barbauld had alluded to earlier in the poem. The healing power of art might be allowed to blossom in foreign climes and among other tribes. Barbauld’s vision was not merely the romantic figment of a poet’s imagination but the record of what had happened to many of her friends. Joseph Priestley had been forced to leave England for America in 1794 after his house and work had been wrecked by a crowd of angry protesters. Barbauld’s powerful depiction of the contingency of art’s reputation and its attachment to the market forces of colonial expansion was bound to prove uncomfortable. Barbauld’s ‘Genius’ is depicted as a vigorous force of liberty that moves from East to West – starting in Asia, passing Europe and Britain by in order to move on to South America: For see, to other climes the Genius soars, He turns from Europe’s desolated shores; And lo, even now, midst mountains wrapt in storm,



we even flattered ourselves that the interests of Europe and of humanity would in some degree have swayed our public councils, without the descent of (dea ex machina) Mrs. Anna Letitia Barbauld . . . [her] confident sense of commanding talents – have induced her to dash down her shagreen spectacles and her knitting needles, and to sally forth . . .112

On Andes’ heights he shrouds his awful form; On Chimborazo’s summits treads sublime, Measuring in lofty thought the march of Time; Sudden he calls: —- ‘ ’Tis now the hour!’ he cries, Spreads his broad hand, and bids the nation rise. La Plata hears amidst her torrents’ roar, Potosi hears it, as she digs the ore: Ardent, the Genius fans the noble strife, And pours through feeble souls a higher life, Shouts to the mingled tribes from sea to sea, And swears Thy world, Columbus, shall be free. (321–34) Here Barbauld reacted to news that Venezuela had declared its independence from Spain in 1811. By referring to the newfound independence of a former Spanish colony, she placed her political vision in a global context and once again emphasised her vision of history as a story of the rise and fall of empires – a story in which cultural achievement was subject to cycles of change. She asserted her continuing allegiance to the radical vision of liberty that she had first expressed in her poem ‘Corsica’, written in 1769. The unpopularity of Barbauld’s poem was indicative of a conservative political climate and growing prejudice against women writers. She was accused, in particular, of having been ‘unpatriotic’ and for having overstepped the bounds of female propriety. However, it is precisely Barbauld’s belief in a national literature – and her commitment to the social and moral role that literature might play in building nations – that strikes today’s reader most forcefully. This commitment was expressed with typical clarity near the beginning of Eighteen Hundred and Eleven. Barbauld’s hymn to her sister author, the poet and dramatist Joanna Baillie, formed the crescendo of her description of the westward progress of Britain’s cultural riches, a ‘streaming radiance’ that might extend from ‘Ganges to the pole’. She imagined that in the future America would look back to England in the same way that England had found inspiration in the ancient civilizations of Greece and Rome. After making passing reference to Locke, Paley, Milton and Thomson, Barbauld’s roving poetic eye focuses in upon Baillie: Then, loved Joanna, to admiring eyes Thy storied groups in scenic pomp shall rise; Their high soul’d strains and Shakespear’s noble rage Shall with alternate passion shake the stage. Some youthful Basil from thy moral lay With stricter hand his fond desires shall sway; Some Ethwald, as the fleeting shadows pass,




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(101–12) Here Barbauld placed Baillie on a plane with Shakespeare, implying that she was his equal and natural successor. Baillie’s Plays on the Passions (3 vols, 1798–1812) had attracted enormous interest and widespread praise for their unflinching and analytical exploration of the workings of the passions in human action. Other writers, including Lord Byron and Walter Scott, praised Baillie as the outstanding dramatic talent of her day. But it is particularly significant that Barbauld chose to elevate her female contemporary as the flag of a national literature, imagining her name as a beacon that might travel across the Atlantic and ‘live in light’. For Barbauld it was unthinkable that any future culture could ignore Baillie’s talents. Like Elizabeth Carter and Mercy Otis Warren before her, Barbauld had always sought out the intellectual companionship of female writers and readers. Lucy Aikin recollected: no one ever better loved a ‘sister’s praises,’ even that of such sisters as might have been peculiarly regarded in the light of rivals. She was acquainted with almost all the principal female writers of her time; and there was not one of the number whom she failed frequently to mention in terms of admiration, esteem, or affection, whether in conversation, in letters to her friends, or in print.115 Barbauld was aware, in all her writing, of the indissoluble link between individual and community, and she embraced the connection between conversation, letters and print first fostered by Elizabeth Montagu. In choosing Joanna Baillie to represent the symbolic apex of the British literary tradition she implicitly acknowledged the achievement of women writers in her lifetime; where earlier women writers dared claim authority as Shakespeare’s critics, Barbauld dared imagine a woman writer as Shakespeare’s rival.



Start at his likeness in the mystic glass; The tragic Muse resume her just controul, With pity and with terror purge the soul, While wide o’er transatlantic realms thy name Shall live in light, and gather all its fame.

Thomas Rowlandson’s drawing, ‘Breaking up of the Bluestocking Club’ (see Plate 30), was published as a print in 1815, the year of Napoleon’s final defeat at the Battle of Waterloo. This frenzied scene is very different in character from the classical harmony of Richard Samuel’s The Nine Living Muses of Great Britain (see Plate 1), or the civilised society of tea and conversation promoted by the early bluestockings. A tea-tray slides perilously to the floor as two central figures, locked in combat, attempt to rip out each other’s hair, while pairs of aggressive women brawl and bite, kick and shove. Over to the left, a bluestocking pours an urn of boiling water over the face of her opponent. To the far right, a desperate figure tries to escape from a young woman who is brandishing a brass kettle-stand, her breasts flying loose from her dress and her face flushed with exertion. Three huge cats look excited, or perhaps terrified, by the general uproar. Rowlandson has chosen to emphasise the corporeality of his subjects rather than their mental accomplishments. These ‘bluestockings’ embrace a loss of control with ferocious appetite. The overturned chamber pot and ‘French cream’ suggest a heady mixture of slovenliness, vanity and immorality (French cosmetics were widely associated with female narcissism). The composition is circular, picking up on the bluestockings’ ‘circles of conversation’, but this circle is a violent vortex. Can the drawing’s visceral energy and shocking cruelty be taken to signal the end of an era? Rowlandson’s title refers, on one level, to the specific ‘breaking up’ of a bluestocking meeting, confirming a stereotypical view of what happens when female gossips are left alone. But it also suggests a more general dissolution of the bluestockings in the public imagination – or, rather, an aggressive reaction against the very strength and visibility they had achieved by the end of the eighteenth century. In the original bluestocking circle, learning and virtue were held in a carefully controlled and elegant balance. The conscious efforts of the original ‘blues’ ensured that, for a brief period, women’s rich contribution to the cultural and intellectual life of the nation was celebrated and proclaimed as superior to that of any country in Europe. 203



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204 c British Museum Plate 30 Thomas Rowlandson, Breaking up of the Bluestocking Club (1815), hand-coloured etching, 246mm × 349mm

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Women developed a strong public presence in contemporary cultural life, establishing themselves through networks of patronage, correspondence and publication. The bluestockings made their most significant impact as writers but were also involved in the ‘sister arts’ of painting and music. When Elizabeth Montagu, ‘Queen of the Bluestockings’, died in 1800 she was heralded in an obituary as ‘an ornament to her sex and country’, an icon of female intellect whose broader legacy could be discerned in the flourishing body of women working in diverse cultural spheres.1 In the same year, in a short essay, ‘Society and Manners in the Metropolis of England’ (1800), Mary Robinson, the actress, poet and journalist, combined her pride in British women writers with a celebration of the wider range of contemporary female cultural activity: ‘We have also sculptors, modellers, paintresses, and female artists of every description.’2 The sheer number of women in contemporary cultural life was sometimes used as an argument for their potential equality with men. But even if women’s mental ability was accepted as equal to that of men, they were still denied the opportunity to exercise their intellect as full citizens with legal and property rights until the beginning of the twentieth century. Many liberal thinkers of the 1790s drew attention to the disparity between the limited legal position of women and the social reality in which some of them had achieved a great deal. However, it was only Mary Wollstonecraft who made an explicit and uncompromising claim for the rights of women to full citizenship,3 and her life and writing proved too radical for many of her contemporaries, who recoiled from her notorious personal scandals and her courageous politics. As Norma Clarke has suggested, William Godwin’s memoir of his wife’s extraordinary life was motivated by an Enlightenment belief in reason, justice and truth but was tragically misjudged in exposing her to the disapproval of a conservative moral climate.4 Reason became a threat, associated with political and moral danger. A new emphasis on ‘natural’ femininity emerged. By the beginning of the nineteenth century, the combined social and intellectual prominence of such a significant number of intelligent women was being greeted with suspicion and disgust by many men. As Anne Mellor and Marlon Ross have shown, the economic success and cultural visibility of the bluestockings provoked a profoundly antagonistic reaction amongst the leading male Romantic writers.5 This hostility was exacerbated by the cultural anxiety caused by the French Revolution and its aftermath in Britain. ‘Bluestocking’ became a term of comedy and abuse, echoing earlier distrust of learned women’s ‘slipshod’ appearance and morality. Rowlandson’s women are related to the ‘fishwives’, ‘viragos’ and ‘furies of hell’ that Horace Walpole and Edmund Burke had condemned in their diatribes against radical women writers of the 1790s, or the ‘unsex’d females’ of the Reverend Richard Polwhele’s notorious poem of the same title. Here he condemned



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the ‘Gallic frenzy’ of a group of writers, including Anna Barbauld and Mary Wollstonecraft, protesting: ‘the woman who has no regard to nature, either in the decoration of her person, or the culture of her mind, will soon “walk after the flesh, in the lust of uncleanness, and despise government” ’.6 So, by 1815, when Rowlandson’s print was published, the reaction against female intellect was widespread and becoming more entrenched. The most vociferous and vitriolic attacks on bluestockings came from the leading male Romantic writers, who wished to protect the masculine strongholds of literary institutions. As Clifford Siskin has argued, there emerged a highly self-conscious attempt to narrow and redefine ‘literature’ as a category in the early nineteenth century: ‘The discipline that . . . took this newly restricted category of literature as its field of knowledge was . . . founded in an extraordinary act – in scope and in speed – of gendered exclusion and forgetting.’7 Siskin has described the exclusion of women from literary history as ‘the great forgetting’ – a ‘forgetting’ that occurred in direct reaction to the professional success of women in the literary marketplace. One can certainly find evidence of determined exclusivity in the writings of the most celebrated Romantic writers. Coleridge wrote to his friend Charlotte Brent in 1813, praising her bad spelling and explaining, ‘The longer I live, the more do I loathe in stomach, and deprecate in Judgement, all, all Bluestockingism.’8 Byron’s resentment of the blues appears in a number of literary satires but is perhaps most pronounced in his hugely successful comic epic Don Juan (1821), in which he used their example to complain about the meaninglessness of literary success: That taste is gone, that fame is but a lottery, Drawn by the blue-coat misses of a coterie.9 In the same year, the critic William Hazlitt (1778–1830) objected, ‘I have an utter aversion to Bluestockings. I do not care a fig for any woman that knows even what an author means.’10 Hazlitt’s angry prejudice provides perverse evidence of the bluestockings’ eminence. In 1823 the British Critic ranted: We heartily abjure Blue Stockings. We make no compromise with any variation of the colour, from sky-blue to Prussian blue, blue stockings are an outrage to the eternal fitness of things . . . Without being positively criminal, a Blue Stocking is the most odious character in society; . . . she sinks, wherever she is placed, like the yolk of an egg, to the bottom, and carries the filth . . . with her.11 Like Rowlandson’s cartoon, the British Critic’s anonymous author emphasises the bodily excesses of the women he depicts. Such vituperative comments



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betray a profound misogyny, suggesting a very different cultural climate from that in which the early bluestockings first met. Read in the context of such an explicitly misogynist climate, the poems discussed in Chapter 4 appear all the more impressive in the confidence and range of their ambition. Barbauld and Aikin showed remarkable tenacity in projecting the rational inheritance of the Enlightenment into the Romantic age. I would argue that this tenacity was, at least in part, a direct result of their awareness of the generation of bluestocking women who wrote before them. The bluestockings’ innovative forms of sociability (explored in Chapters 1 and 2), and their published work as literary critics (discussed in Chapter 3), provided an important demonstration of the powerful ways in which collective identity might further the cause of women as individuals in society. Radical writers of the 1790s, including Anna Barbauld but also Mary Wollstonecraft, Mary Hays and Catharine Macaulay, called for better education for women as the key to all social and political progress. As Harriet Guest has argued, ‘Bluestocking sociability may . . . have made available the fiction or fantasy of a feminine political voice – or at least may have made it possible for more explicitly political writers . . . to think about gender as a collective identity in ways that were . . . directly and explicitly political.’12 Barbauld, Aikin and their female contemporaries had a particular stake in adhering to the belief that rational argument might transform society and give women an equal voice. While many male Romantic writers retreated from political involvement in the early nineteenth century, writing deeply introspective poetry, it was more difficult for women writers to neglect their collective identity or to ignore the political context in which they worked. Women writers have consistently been faced by the experience of, in the words of Hannah More, ‘having their sex always taken into account’. More referred to this dilemma in her Strictures on the Modern System of Education (1799), in a passage intended to warn young women against aspiring to be novelists: But there is one human consideration which would perhaps more effectually tend to damp in an aspiring woman the ardours of literary vanity (I speak not of real genius, though there the remark often applies) than any which she will derive from motives of humility, or propriety, or religion; which is, that in the judgement passed on her performances, she will have to encounter the mortifying circumstance of having her sex always taken into account, and her highest exertions will probably be received with the qualified approbation, that it is really extraordinary for a woman. Men of learning, who are naturally inclined to estimate works in proportion as they appear to be the result of art, study, and institution, are apt to consider even the happier performances of the other sex as the spontaneous productions of a fruitful but shallow soil; and to give them the same sort of praise which we bestow on certain sallads, which often



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More’s incisive description of the prejudice against women who aspired to literary success conveys the dilemma faced by eighteenth-century female intellectuals. In such a climate, women who were ambitious writers could not fail to be self-conscious of inserting themselves into a tradition that had worked to exclude them. Indeed, More believed that most women were not suited for literary genius but should focus on feminine duties and leave the more ambitious ranges of intellectual production to men, including the ‘lofty Epic, the pointed Satire and the more daring and successful flights of the Tragic Muse’.14 Her allusion to the environment in which women ‘grow’ as a ‘shallow soil’ again suggests the limited and superficial education given to most young girls. Under these circumstances, the extent to which women were involved in shaping a national literary tradition – as critics and defenders of Shakespeare but also more broadly, as educators, editors, dramatists, novelists and poets – is the more remarkable. Virginia Woolf famously addressed the topic of a female literary tradition in her essay A Room of One’s Own, one of the most influential feminist essays of the twentieth century. First published in 1929, it was based upon a series of lectures Woolf gave to the students of the all-female Cambridge colleges of the day, Newnham and Girton. Her elegant satire on the all-male colleges of ‘Oxbridge’ emphasised the economic deprivation and ridicule suffered by women who dared to admit to any literary ambition or professional vocation. She viewed economic independence as absolutely essential to women’s freedom, praising the eighteenth-century bluestockings for showing that it was possible to live by the pen: The extreme activity of mind which showed itself in the later eighteenth century among women – the talking, and the meeting, the writing of essays on Shakespeare, the translating of the classics – was founded on the solid fact that women could make money by writing. Money dignifies what is frivolous if unpaid for. It might still be well to sneer at ‘blue stockings with an itch for scribbling’, but it could not be denied that they could put money in their purses. Thus, towards the end of the eighteenth century a change came about which, if I were rewriting history, I should describe more fully and think of greater importance than the Crusades or the Wars of the Roses.15 Woolf drew attention to the fact that history reflects the values of those who write it. Her essay sought a female literary tradition and asserted the importance of a female collective consciousness: ‘For masterpieces are not



draw from us a sort of wondering commendation; not indeed as being worth much in themselves, but because by the lightness of the earth, and a happy knack of the gardener, these indifferent cresses spring up in a night, and therefore one is ready to wonder they are no worse.13

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single and solitary births; they are the outcome of many years of thinking in common, of thinking by the body of the people.’ In her stirring conclusion, Woolf reflected upon the sense in which women’s experience as a class had been submerged historically and politically but had to be excavated in order to give birth to future female genius. In academic scholarship of the past two decades, the work of literary critics and historians and an ever-growing cluster of anthologies and electronic databases have brought about ‘a wholesale rethinking of British Romanticism, both as an intellectual and cultural phenomenon and as a site of literary production’.16 I hope that this book has made a fresh contribution to this project by highlighting women’s role in contributing to the formulation of a national canon of literature in the eighteenth century. An understanding of women’s role in shaping the emerging genre of Shakespeare criticism, in particular, casts new light on the Romantics’ engagement with his work. I have also considered how the cultural anxiety caused by women’s very success in the public sphere of letters caused a new generation of male Romantics to displace women from their position of power. Moreover, the bluestockings’ publications in a range of subjects and genres offer a distinctive vantage point from which to consider many of the questions that preoccupy the discipline of English in universities today: questions of value and canonicity, representation and politics. These questions, as I hope I have shown, are not ones that exist only as part of a privileged and retrospective gesture of recuperation, but were present from the moment of women’s first involvement with literature as a national institution. In general, I have argued that women’s contribution to eighteenth-century culture was more vigorous and various than is often assumed. But I am aware that any celebration of such vibrancy, which was intense but temporary, and of women’s achievements ‘as women’, is double-edged. Mary Wollstonecraft famously questioned the value of identifying heroines until women as a class gained the right to the same education as men: ‘I wish to see women neither heroines nor brutes; but reasonable creatures.’17 Samuel’s painting of the ‘living muses’, as we have seen, can be interpreted as a positive celebration of women’s advancement within the context of an Enlightenment idea of civilisation and progress. However, it could also be interpreted as a means of insulating the achievements of women, creating a separate set of standards. By starting from the model of collaboration suggested by Samuel’s ‘living muses’, I have highlighted the connections between his subjects, drawing out a network of interrelated and overlapping circles of learning. I hope I have managed, nonetheless, to maintain a sense of the differences between the bluestockings, and to suggest how men of their time were vital interlocutors, patrons, disputants and encouragers. The tensions between individual and collective identity, and between equality and difference, are perennial tensions within feminist debate and remain present within contemporary culture. Women’s literary and artistic work has been



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subject to cycles of recognition and neglect. In response to a perceived lack of role models, Virginia Woolf created the imaginary Judith Shakespeare, William’s forgotten sister, who symbolised the suppression of women’s consciousness by history.18 Woolf (like Wollstonecraft) believed that individual women’s potential would never be realised until the status of women as a class was transformed. Ironically, given Woolf’s awareness of the eighteenthcentury bluestockings, ‘Judith Shakespeare’ came to symbolise a history of women’s writing defined by oppression and absence rather than professional presence.19 A Room of One’s Own has often been read as a history of the woman writer’s marginality and lack of agency, arguably contributing to the frustrating state of affairs in which women are forever in the process of rediscovering their forebears. One of the costs of recognising the bluestockings’ success is to lose any simple sense of the history of feminism as a story of progress.



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Introduction: The Nine Living Muses of Great Britain 1. See, for example Germaine Greer, The Obstacle Race: the Fortunes of Women Painters and their Work (London: Secker and Warburg, 1979); Olwen Hufton, The Prospect Before Her: a History of Women in Western Europe, Vol. I: 1500–1800 (London: Harper Collins, 1995); Janet Todd, The Sign of Angellica, Women, Writing and Fiction, 1660–1800 (London: Virago, 1989); Amanda Vickery, The Gentleman’s Daughter. Women’s Lives in Georgian England (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1998). 2. Maria Edgeworth, Letters for Literary Ladies, ed. Claire Connolly (London: Everyman, 1993), p. 7. 3. The Ladies New and Polite Pocket Memorandum-Book for 1778 (London: Joseph Johnson, 1777), pp. iv–v. 4. As Kate Davies has recently argued, ‘part of The Nine Living Muses’ force and function comes from the absorption of women’s singular achievements into the celebratory collective identity with which the image endows them’. See Kate Davies, Catharine Macaulay and Mercy Otis Warren: the Revolutionary Atlantic and the Politics of Gender (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), p. 78. See Chapter 2, ‘Out-Cornelia-izing Cornelia: Portraits, Profession and the Gendered Character of Learning’, for a fascinating discussion of Macaulay’s visual iconography. 5. See Angela Rosenthal, Angelica Kauffman: Art and Sensibility (New Haven and London: Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art and Yale University Press, 2006). See also the entry on Kauffman by Wendy Wassyng Roworth in Dictionary of Women Artists, ed. Delia Gaze, 2 vols (London and Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, 1997), I, pp. 764–70. 6. For the history of the Royal of Academy of Arts, see Holger Hoock, The King’s Artists: the Royal Academy of Arts and the Politics of British Culture 1760–1840 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2003). For a discussion of the Academy’s two female founders, Angelica Kauffman and Mary Moser, see Rozsika Parker and Griselda Pollock, Old Mistresses: Women, Art and Ideology (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1981), p. 90. 7. Wendy Wassyng Roworth, ed., Angelica Kauffman: a Continental Artist in Georgian England (Brighton and London: Reaktion Books, 1992), pp. 70–1. 8. See Alice Gaussen, A Woman of Wit and Wisdom. A Memoir of Elizabeth Carter, one of the ‘Bas Bleu’ Society (1717–1806) (London: Smith, Elder & Co., 1906). See also Judith Hawley, ed., The Works of Elizabeth Carter, Bluestocking Feminism, 6 vols, vol. 2, general editor Gary Kelly (London: Pickering and Chatto, 1999) and E.J. Clery, The Feminization Debate in Eighteenth-Century England: Literature, Commerce and Luxury (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004). 9. Lady Victoria Manners, ‘Catherine Read: “The English Rosalba” ’, Connoisseur, December (1931): 376–86. See also the chapter on Read in Mildred Archer, India and British Portraiture 1770–1825 (London: Philip Wilson Publishers for 211



Notes

10.

11.

12.

13.

14. 15. 16. 17. 18.

19.

20. 21.

Notes Sotheby Parke Bernet Publications, 1979). She quotes Fanny Burney’s observation that Read was ‘a very clever woman, and in her profession has certainly great merit’. Harriet Guest, ‘Bluestocking Feminism’, in Reconsidering the Bluestockings, eds Nicole Pohl and Betty A. Schellenberg (San Marino, California: Huntington Library), pp. 59–80; here, p. 72. A Series of Letters between Mrs. Elizabeth Carter and Miss Catherine Talbot, from the year 1741 to 1770: to which are added, Letters from Mrs. Elizabeth Carter to Mrs. Vesey, between the Years 1763 and 1787, 2 vols, ed. Montagu Pennington (London: Printed for F.C. and J. Rivington, 1808). Anna Barbauld, The Works of Anna Laetitia Barbauld with a memoir by Lucy Aikin, 2 vols (London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, Brown, and Green, 1825), II, pp. 183–95. For the best modern edition of Barbauld’s poetry, see William McCarthy and Elizabeth Kraft, The Poems of Anna Laetitia Barbauld (Athens and London: University of Georgia Press, 1994). There has been a recent flourishing in scholarship surrounding Barbauld’s poetry. See, for example, Lucy Newlyn, Reading, Writing and Romanticism: the Anxiety of Reception (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000); Anne Janowitz, Romantic Women Poets: Anna Barbauld and Mary Robinson (London: Northcote House Publishers Ltd, 2005); Daniel White, Early Romanticism and Religious Dissent (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006). It is my great regret that William McCarthy’s Anna Barbauld, Voice of the Enlightenment (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009) appeared too late for me to consult it in relation to writing this book. For a fuller discussion of Barbauld’s poetry and its criticism, see Chapter 4. William Woodfall, review of ‘Poems’, Monthly Review, vol. 48 (1773): 54–9 and 133–37. Mary Scott, The Female Advocate; a Poem (London: Joseph Johnson, 1774), p. 35. Son of the novelist and playwright Frances Sheridan, author of Memoirs of Miss Sidney Bidulph (1761) and The History of Nourjahad (1769), an Oriental tale. See Exhibition Catalogue, A Nest of Nightingales: Gainsborough’s ‘The Linley Sisters’: Paintings in their Context II (Dulwich Picture Gallery, 1988), pp. 67–9. See Bridget Hill, The Republican Virago: the Life and Times of Catharine Macaulay, Historian (Clarendon Press: Oxford, 1992) 99–102; Susan Wiseman, ‘Catharine Macaulay as Republican and Historian’, in Women and the Public Sphere, 1700– 1830, eds Elizabeth Eger, Charlotte Grant, Clíona Ó Gallchoir and Penny Warburton (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), pp. 181–99; and Kate Davies, Catharine Macaulay and Mercy Otis Warren. ‘Mrs Macaulay, Guiccardini, and Caesar’ (1764), in Memoirs of the Life of Mrs. Elizabeth Carter, with a new edition of her poems . . . To which are added, some miscellaneous essays in prose, together with her notes on the Bible, and answers to objections concerning the Christian religion, by the Rev. Montagu Pennington . . . Second edition. [With a portrait.] 2 vols (London: Rivington, 1808), II, p. 172. Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, ed. Sylvana Tomaselli (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), p. 188. Report cited in Hill, The Republican Virago, p. 99; and see Susan Wiseman, ‘Catharine Macaulay as Republican and Historian’, in Women and the Public Sphere, 1700–1830, eds Eger et al., pp. 181–99; and Kate Davies, Catharine Macaulay and Mercy Otis Warren.



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22. White silk hose was the mark of the gentry, or of a successful London tradesman; blue knitted wool was the dress of the working man. See Anne Buck, Dress in Eighteenth-Century England (New York: Homes & Meier, 1979), p. 31. 23. See Emily J. Climenson, Elizabeth Montagu ‘The Queen of the Bluestockings’: Her Correspondence from 1720 to 1761, 2 vols (London: John Murray, 1906) and Reginald Blunt, ed., Mrs Montagu, ‘Queen of the Blues’, Her Letters and Friendships from 1762– 1800, 2 vols (London: Constable and Company, 1923). See also Elizabeth Eger, Elizabeth Montagu: Essay on Shakespeare and other Writings, vol. 1 of Bluestocking Feminism, general editor Gary Kelly. For a pioneering modern overview of the bluestockings, see Sylvia Harcstarck Myers, The Bluestocking Circle: Women, Friendship, and the Life of the Mind in Eighteenth Century England (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990). For the best collection of recent bluestocking scholarship, see Nicole Pohl and Betty Schellenberg, eds, Reconsidering the Bluestockings (San Marino, California: Huntington Library, 2003). 24. See Susannah Riordan, ‘Bluestocking Philosophy: Aspects of Aristocratic Thought in Eighteenth Century England’, dissertation, University of Cambridge, 1995. 25. Elizabeth Montagu, An Essay on the writings and Genius of Shakespear, compared with the Greek and French Dramatic Poets. With Some Remarks Upon the Misrepresentations of Mons. de Voltaire (London: Printed for J. Dodsley et al., 1769). 26. Harriet Guest, ‘Bluestocking Feminism’, in Reconsidering the Bluestockings, pp. 59–80, here p. 72. 27. Letters of Henry and Frances (Dublin, 1757). Griffith and her husband adopted fictional names in order to disguise their identities and transform their letters into a novel. 28. Elizabeth Griffith, The Morality of Shakespeare’s Drama Illustrated (London, 1775), p. ix. 29. See Elizabeth Griffith The History of Lady Barton. A novel, in letters, 3 vols (London, 1771) and A Collection of Novels, selected and revised by Mrs Griffith, 3 vols (London 1777). 30. For the most recent and authorative account of Lennox’s origins, see Susan Carlile, ‘Charlotte Lennox’s Birth Date and Place’, Note and Queries, 51(4) (December 2004): 390–2. 31. Frances Reynolds painted Elizabeth Montagu’s portrait. An engraving of her portrait by Charles Townley is used as frontispiece to Volume II of Emily Climenson’s Elizabeth Montagu, ‘The Queen of the Bluestockings’: Her Correspondence from 1720 to 1761. 32. See Anne Stott, Hannah More: the First Victorian (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), Anne Mellor, Mothers of the Nation: Women’s Political Writing in England, 1780–1830 (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2000) and Kevin Gilmartin, Literary Conservatism in Britain, 1790–1832 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007). 33. Robert Hole, ed., Selected Writings of Hannah More (London: Pickering and Chatto, 1996), p. 32. 34. Moira Ferguson, ‘Women in Literature’, in The Blackwell Companion to the Enlightenment, ed. John W. Yolton (Oxford: Blackwell, 1995), pp. 294–5. See also J. Phillips Stanton, ‘Statistical Profile of Women Writing in English from 1660– 1800’, in Eighteenth Century Women and the Arts, eds F.M. Keener and S.E. Lorsch (New York: Greenwood Press, 1988), pp. 247–61.



Notes

Notes

35. Stuart Curran, Poetic Form and British Romanticism (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986) and Roger Lonsdale, ed., Eighteenth Century Women Poets: an Oxford Anthology (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1989). 36. Andrew Ashfield, ed., Romantic Women Poets (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1995). 37. See Jane Spencer, The Rise of the Woman Novelist: From Aphra Behn to Jane Austen (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1986). 38. Nancy Armstrong, Desire and Domestic Fiction: a Political History of the Novel (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987); Janet Todd, The Sign of Angellica and Catherine Gallagher Nobody’s Story: the Vanishing Acts of Women Writers in the Marketplace, 1670–1820 (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1994). 39. See Gary Kelly, general editor, Bluestocking Feminism: Writings of the Bluestocking Circle, 1738–1790, 6 vols (London: Pickering and Chatto, 1999). For a thoughtful discussion of Kelly’s work, see E.J. Clery, ‘Bluestocking “Feminism” and the Fame Game’, British Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies, 28 (2005): 273–82. 40. See Emily Anderson, Eighteenth-Century Authorship and the Play of Fiction (London: Routledge, 2009). 41. Wollstonecraft referred to Barbauld’s essays in a positive sense, as well as to the notorious example of her poem, ‘To a Lady, with some Painted Flowers’. She also included several of Barbauld’s short moral tales for children in her Female Reader (1789). 42. Sylvia Harcstarck Myers, The Bluestocking Circle: Women, Friendship, and the Life of the Mind in Eighteenth Century England (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990). 43. The painting is used to illustrate Moira Ferguson, ed., First Feminists: British Women Writers, 1578–1799 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1985) and Germaine Greer, Slip-shod Sibyls (London: Viking, Penguin, 1995). Neither author comments on the historical context of the portrait’s production and consumption. 44. See Catherine Gallagher, Nobody’s Story. 45. George Colman and Bonnell Thornton, eds, Poems by Eminent Ladies, 2 vols (London, 1755; three editions, revised in 1780). 46. Margaret Ezell, Writing Women’s Literary History (Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press), pp. 88–9. George Ballard’s Memoirs of Several Ladies of Great Britain, who have been Celebrated for their Writings or Skill in the Learned Languages, Arts and Sciences (Oxford: printed by W. Jackson, 1752). 47. Gallagher, Nobody’s Story. See Nancy Armstrong, Desire and Domesic Fiction and Jane Spencer, The Rise of the Woman Novelist. 48. Anne Mellor, Romanticism and Gender (New York and London: Routledge, 1993). 49. Prescott provides an important corrective to the idea that the early modern woman writer was inevitably a scandalous and sexualised figure. Sarah Prescott, Women, Authorship and Literary Culture, 1690–1740 (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003). 50. Betty Schellenberg, The Professionalization of Women Writers in Eighteenth-Century Britain (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005). 51. Harriet Guest, ‘The Dream of a Common Language: Hannah More and Mary Wollstonecraft’, Textual Practice, 9(2) (1995): 303–23. See also her influential study, Small Change: Women, Learning, Patriotism, 1750–1810 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000).



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52. See Terry Belanger,‘Publishers and Writers in Eighteenth-Century England’, in Books and their Readers in Eighteenth-Century England, ed. Isabel Rivers (New York: St Martin’s Press, 1982), pp. 5–25. 53. Catharine Macaulay, A Modest Plea for the Protection of Copyright (Bath: printed by R. Crutwell for Edward and Charles Dilly in the Poultry, London 1774), p. 37. 54. Macaulay, A Modest Plea, p. 40. 55. Macaulay, A Modest Plea, p. 46. 56. For a sustained and wide-ranging study of this issue, see Gallagher, Nobody’s Story. 57. Wollstonecraft, Vindication of the Rights of Woman, pp. 239–40. 58. Jan Fergus and Janice Farrar Thaddeus, ‘Women, Publishers, and Money, 1790– 1820’, Studies in Eighteenth-Century Culture 17 (1987): 191–207, here 191. 59. See Sketch of the Character of Mrs Elizabeth Carter who died in London on February 19th, 1806, in the Eighty-Ninth Year of her Age (Kelso, 1806), pp. 12–13. 60. See Delia Gaze, ed., Dictionary of Women Artists, 2 vols (London and Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, 1997). Entry on Susanna Duncombe (1725–1812) by Jacqueline Riding, vol. I, pp. 473–5. Susanna’s husband was John Duncombe, author of The Feminead, or Female Genius, A Poem, published in 1757. 61. Recent research is uncovering their extensive involvement in all areas of the literary marketplace. See, for example: Tamara L. Hunt, ‘Elizabeth Nutt: an Eighteenth-Century London Publisher’, Antiquarian Book Monthly (December 1996): 20–4; and Paula McDowell, The Women of Grub Street: Press, Politics, and Gender in the Literary Marketplace, 1678–1730 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998). 62. See, for example John Barrell, The Political Theory of Painting from Reynolds to Hazlitt: ‘The Body of the Public’ (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1986); Istvan Hont and Michael Ignatieff, eds, Wealth and Virtue: the Shaping of Political Economy in the Scottish Enlightenment (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983); and David Solkin, Painting for Money: the Visual Arts and the Public Sphere in Eighteenth-Century England (London and New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993). 63. See Pauline Johnson, ‘Feminism and the Enlightenment’, Radical Philosophy, 63 (1993): 3–13. 64. See Jürgen Habermas, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere, trans. Thomas Burger with Frederick Lawrence (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989; first published in German in 1962); and Joan B. Landes, Women and the Public Sphere in the Age of the French Revolution (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1988). 65. See Dorinda Outram, The Enlightenment (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995); Ludmilla Jordanova and Peter Hulme, eds, The Enlightenment and its Shadows (London: Routledge, 1990); and Roy Porter and M. Teich, eds, The Enlightenment in National Context (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981). 66. Roy Porter, ‘The Enlightenment in England’, in The Enlightenment in National Context, eds Roy Porter and M. Teich, p. 5. 67. Carla Hesse, The Other Enlightenment: How French Women Became Modern (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2001), p. xii. 68. See textual note at beginning of volume. 69. See Jane Rendall, The Origins of Modern Feminism (London: Macmillan, 1985); Carole Pateman, The Sexual Contract (Cambridge: Polity, 1988) and Joan B. Landes, Women and the Public Sphere.



Notes

Notes

70. John Locke, The Educational Writings, ed. James L. Axtell (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1968). 71. See Linda J. Nicholson, The Limits of Social Theory in the Age of the Family (New York: Columbia University Press, 1986); Joan B. Landes, Women and the Public Sphere. 72. See, for example, Erasmus Darwin’s A Plan for the Conduct of Female Education in Boarding Schools (Derby, 1797), p. 97. 73. Hannah More, Strictures on the Modern System of Female Education. With a view of the Principles and Conduct Prevalent among Women of Rank and Fortune, 2 vols (sixth edition, London, 1799), pp. 183–4. 74. See John Brewer’s reading of the gentlewoman Anna Larpent’s diaries in The Pleasures of the Imagination: English Culture in the Eighteenth Century (London: Harper Collins, 1997). 75. Barbara B. Schnorrenberg, ‘The Eighteenth-Century Englishwoman’, in The Women of England: Interpretative Bibliographical Essays, ed. Barbara Kanner (London: Mansell, 1980), pp. 183–227; and her earlier work, ‘Education for Women in Eighteenth Century England: an Annotated Bibiliography’, in Women and Literature, 4 (1976): 49–55. 76. Vivien Jones, Women in the Eighteenth Century: Constructions of Femininity (London: Routlege, 1990), p. 98.

1


1. James Barry, The Works of James Barry, ed. Dr Edward Fryer, 2 vols (London: Cadell and Davies, 1809) 2, p. 594. 2. William Godwin’s Memoir of the Author of the Vindication of the Rights of Woman (London: printed for J. Johnson, St Paul’s Churchyard, 1798) offered a frank account of Wollstonecraft’s sexual freedom which shocked contemporary readers. 3. For a discussion of the visual representation of ‘truth’ as a female icon, see Marina Warner, Monuments and Maidens (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1985), pp. 294–328. 4. The symbol of ‘woman’ and all it represents is inextricably linked to women’s place in society, their rights and education. See Denise Riley, ‘Am I that Name?’ Feminism and the Category of ‘Women’ (Basingstoke: Macmillan Press, 1988), pp. 96–115. 5. William J. Pressly, The Life and Art of James Barry (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1981), p. 137. 6. See, for example, John Barrell, The Political Theory of Painting from Reynolds to Hazlitt: ‘The Body of the Public’ (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1986) and David Solkin, Painting for Money: the Visual Arts and the Public Sphere (London and New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993). 7. See Sylvana Tomaselli, ‘The Enlightenment Debate on Women’, History Workshop Journal, 20 (Autumn 1985): 101–23. For more recent work on the relationship between gender and the philosophy of the Scottish Enlightenment, see essays by Mary Catherine Moran and Jane Rendall in Sarah Knott and Barbara Taylor, eds, Women, Gender and Enlightenment (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2005). 8. See, for example, Frances Reynolds, An Enquiry concerning the principles of taste, and the origin of our ideas of beauty (London, 1785). 9. Marcia Pointon, Strategies for Showing: Women, Possession, and Representation in English Visual Culture, 1665–1800 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), Chapter 4.



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10. Raphael’s murals for the papal suites of Pope Julius II at the Vatican were painted at the beginning of the sixteenth century. Raphael finished Parnassus in 1511. See James Beck, Raphael: the Stanza della Segnatura (New York: George Braziller, 1993). 11. Nicolas Poussin, Apollo and the Muses on Parnassus, c. 1630–32, 145 × 197cm, Museo del Prado, Madrid. See Richard Verdi, Nicolas Poussin 1594–1665 (London: Zwemmer, in association with the Royal Academy of Arts, 1995). Catalogue no. 22,183. 12. See the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s collection (New York) and web resource for an image of this painting: http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/poet/ho_ 28.22.36.htm (accessed 6 July 2009). 13. Marina Warner, Monuments and Maidens. 14. M.H. Abrams, A Glossary of Literary Terms (sixth edition) (Fort Worth: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich College Publishers, 1993), p. 4. 15. Desmond Shawe-Taylor, Genial Company: the Theme of Genius in Eighteenth-Century British Portraiture (Nottingham University Art Gallery and Scottish National Portrait Gallery Exhibition Catalogue, 1987). 16. Larry Silver, ‘Step-Sister of the Muses: Painting as Liberal Art and Sister Art’, in Articulate Images: the Sister Arts from Hogarth to Tennyson, ed. Richard Wendorf (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1983), pp. 36–70. 17. See Germaine Greer, Slip-Shod Sibyls (London: Viking, 1995), Chapter One, and Margaret Homans, Women Writers and Poetic Identity (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980). For a recent account of the male poet’s fascination with a feminine muse, see Joseph Brodsky, ‘The Muse is Feminine and Continuous’, Literary Half-Yearly, Mysore, India, 32(1) (January 1991): 21–3. 18. Ovid, Metamorphoses, trans. Mary Innes (London: Penguin Classics, 1955), Book 5, line 300. 19. Thomas Heywood, The Generall History of Women, Containing the Lives of the most Holy and Prophane, the most Famous and Infamous in all ages, exactly described not only from Poeticall Fictions, but from the most Ancient, Modern, and Admired Historians to Our Times (London, 1657). ‘To the reader’, A3–4. See also ‘A Discourse Concerning the Muses’, pp. 77–83. 20. See, for example: George Ballard, Memoirs of Several Ladies of Great Britain, who have been Celebrated for their Writings or Skill in the Learned Languages Arts and Sciences (Oxford: Printed by W. Jackson, 1752); Biographeum Faemineum, or Memoirs of the Most Illustrious Ladies of Great Britain (London, 1766); William Alexander, The History of Women from the Earliest Antiquity, to the Present Time; giving some Account of almost every interesting Particular concerning that Sex, among all Nations, Ancient and Modern, 2 vols (London, 1779); Mary Hays, Female Biography, 6 vols (London, 1803); Lucy Aikin, Epistles on Women (London, 1810). 21. Londa Schiebinger, ‘Feminine Icons: the Face of Modern Science’, Critical Inquiry, 1988 (Summer): 661–91. 22. Quoted in Schiebinger, ‘Feminine Icons’, p. 684. 23. The Works of the Marchioness de Lambert. A new edition from the French, 2 vols (London, 1781), I, p. 228. 24. Mary Hays, Female Biography; or, Memoirs of Illustrious and Celebrated Women, of All Ages and Countries. Alphabetically arranged (London: printed for Richard Phillips, 1803), 6 vols. 25. The Nine Living Muses of Great Britain appears to be one of Samuel’s only paintings to survive. He exhibited portraits and landscapes at the Royal Academy in



Notes

26.

27. 28.

29.

30.

31.

32. 33.

34. 35.

36. 37. 38.

39. 40.

41.

Notes 1774. See Royal Academy Exhibitions, Anderdon Catologue 1769–1775, annual exibition 1774: Portrait of a Gentleman, half length (257) & Perspective Viewtaken from the lower end of the walks of Tunbridge Wells (258). For a detailed discussion of the date of the painting see Sylvia Harcstarck Myers, The Bluestocking Circle: Women, Friendship and the Life of the Mind in EighteenthCentury England (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990), pp. 276–9. For a discussion of Britannia’s history see Marina Warner, Monuments and Maidens, pp. 45–9. See Timothy Clayton, The English Print, 1688–1802 (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1997), especially Chapter 4, ‘A Useful Branch of Luxury: Prints to Instruct and Entertain’, and Chapter 8, ‘A New Source of National Opulence’. For a fascinating discussion of this painting in relation to issues of gender see Anne Bermingham, ‘Elegant Females and Gentleman Connoisseurs: the Commerce in Culture and Self-Image in Eighteenth-Century England’, in The Consumption of Culture 1600–1800: Image, Object, Text, eds, Anne Bermingham and John Brewer (Routledge: London and New York, 1995), pp. 489–514. Richard Samuel, Remarks on the Utility of drawing and Painting. To the Society Instituted at London for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (London: printed by Thomas Wilkins, Aldmanbury, 1786). Bryan’s Dictionary of Painters and Engravers, new edition revised and enlarged under the supervision of George L. Williamson, Litt. D, 5 vols (London: George Bell & Sons, 1905), 5, p. 13. Samuel, Remarks, p. 5. See Marcia Pointon, Strategies for Showing: Women, Possession, and Representation in English Visual Culture, 1665–1800 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997). Samuel, Remarks, p. 3. George Ballard, Memoirs of Several Ladies of Great Britain, who have been Celebrated for their Writings or Skill in the Learned Languages Arts and Sciences (Oxford: Printed by W. Jackson, 1752), p. vi. David Hume, Essays, Moral, Political and Literary (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1963), p. 278. Hume, Essays, p. 279. For a collection of essays that explore the meaning of luxury for eighteenthcentury cultural and economic history, see Maxine Berg and Elizabeth Eger, eds, Luxury in the Eighteenth Century: Debates, Desires and Delectable Goods (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2001). See also Maxine Berg, Luxury and Pleasure in Eighteenth-Century Britain (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005). Samuel, Remarks, p. 4. For an interesting discussion of the arts in an imperial context, see Kathleen Wilson, ‘Empire of Virtue: the Imperial Project and Hanoverian Culture, c. 1720– 1785’, in An Imperial State at War: Britain, 1689–1815, ed. Lawrence Stone (London: Routledge, 1993). Independent, 25 October 1996. Front page. The image originally appeared in Country Life, 24 October 1996, p. 41, and depicts the educationalist Tessa Blackstone; dancer Darcey Bussell; percussionist Evelyn Glennie; interior decorator and ‘chatelaine’ Sarah Hervey-Bathurst; sportswoman Mary Elizabeth King, a three-day event rider; the soprano Emma Kirkby; the painter Emma Sergeant;



218

42.

43. 44.

45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52.

53. 54.

55. 56. 57.

58. 59. 60.

61. 62. 63.

219

the fashion designer Vivienne Westwood; and the actress and environmental campaigner Tracy Louise (Ward), Marchioness of Worcester. James Barry, An Account of a Series of Pictures, in the Great Room of the Society of Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce, at the Adelphi (London: printed for the author by William Adlard, Printer to the Society and sold by T. Cadell in the Strand, 1783). Barry, A Series of Pictures, p. 71. See Alicia C. Percival, ‘Women and the Society of Arts in its Early Days’, Journal of the Royal Society of Arts, 125 (December 1976–November 1977): 266–9, 330–3, 416–18; and Charlotte Grant, ‘The Choice of Hercules: the Polite Arts and “Female Excellence” in Eighteenth-Century London’, in Women Writing and the Public Sphere, 1700–1830, eds Elizabeth Eger, Charlotte Grant, Clíona Ó Gallchoir and Penny Warburton (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), pp. 75–103. In the private collection of David Alexander. Barry, A Series of Pictures, p. 73. Barry, A Series of Pictures, p. 74. Barry, A Series of Pictures, p. 92. Barry, A Series of Pictures, p. 91. Barry, A Series of Pictures, p. 81. Barry, A Series of Pictures, p. 82. See Marcia Pointon, Hanging the Head: Portraiture and Social Formation in Eighteenth-Century England (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1993), pp. 66–7. Roszika Parker and Griselda Pollock, Old Mistresses: Women, Art and Ideology (London and Henley: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1981), p. 87. The complex nature of women’s status in the evolving institutions of British cultural and scientific life requires further research and elaboration. While some institutions admitted women initially, such as the Royal Academy, they subsequently acted to exclude their work. In the area of science, The Royal Society refused women admission until 1923. See Angela Rosenthal, Angelica Kauffman: Art and Sensibility (London and New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006). Samuel, Remarks, p. 10. London Chronicle, 30 April–2 May 1773: 421. Consulted in the compiled catalogue of Academy exhibition reviews held at the Paul Mellon Centre, London. Unfortunately I was unable to find a single reference to Samuel’s painting, despite the fact that it appears in the exhibition catalogue for 1779. London Chronicle, 29 April–1 May 1777: 413. Mary Delany, The Autobiography and Correspondence of Mary Granville, Mrs Delany, ed. Lady Llanover, 6 vols (London: Bentley, 1861–62). See Bettina Baumgärtel, ed., Retrospektive Angelika Kauffmann (Düsseldorf: Verlag Gerd Hatje, 1999); and Verrückt nach Angelika: Porzellan und anderes Kunsthandwerk nach Angelika Kauffmann (Düsseldorf: Hetjens-Museum,1999). Rosenthal, Angelica Kauffman, p. 272. See Grant, ‘The Choice of Hercules’. James Barry, cited in Joseph Moser, ‘Memoir of the Late Angelica Kauffman, R.A.’, European Magazine and London Review, 55 (April, 1809): 252–62. Cited in Rosenthal, Angelica Kauffman, p. 274.



Notes

Notes

64. The painting, 132 × 145cm, is in the collection of the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, Florida. It is reproduced in Baumgärtel, Angelika Kauffmann, p. 245. 65. Peter Tomeroy, ‘Angelica Kauffman – “Sappho” ’, The Burlington Magazine, CXIII (1971): 275–6. 66. Gill Perry, ‘ “The British Sappho”: Borrowed Identities and the Representation of Women Artists in Late Eighteenth-Century British Art’, Oxford Art Journal, 18(1) (1995): 44–57, here 50. 67. Nicolas Poussin, The Inspiration of the Epic Poet (c. 1628–29), 182.5 × 213cm, Musée du Louvre, Département des Peintures, Paris. See Richard Verdi, Nicolas Poussin, 1594–1665 (London: Zwemmer, in association with the Royal Academy of Arts, 1995), colour plate 18. 68. See George Keate, An Epistle to Angelica Kauffman (London, 1781). 69. Rosenthal, Angelica Kauffman, p. 161. See Chapter 5, ‘Kauffman’s Helicon’, pp. 155–88, for a full discussion of Kauffman’s experience of individual and group artistic identity. 70. For a longer view of Sappho’s influence on English literature, see the following excellent anthology: Peter Jay and Caroline Lewis, eds, Sappho through English Poetry (London: Anvil Press Poetry, 1996). 71. Mary Robinson, Sappho and Phaon. In a Series of Legitimate Sonnets, with Thoughts on Poetical Subjects, and Anecdotes of the Grecian Poetess (London: Printed by S. Gosnell, 1796), pp. 15–16. 72. A Letter to the Women of England, on the Injustice of Mental Subordination (London: T.N. Longman and O. Rees, 1799), p. 95. See her ‘list of female literary characters living in the eighteenth century’, pp. 99–104. 73. The links between the two generations represented in Samuel’s portrait have seldom been explored or acknowledged. The intellectual ideas of the elder circle of bluestockings had undoubted influence on the younger generation of women writers, such as Barbauld and More. For the historical significance of the salon in relation to literature, see Chauncey Brewster Tinker, The Salon and English Letters: Chapters on the Interrelations of Literature and Society in the Age of Johnson (New York: Macmillan, 1915). 74. See, for example, William Alexander, The History of Women. 75. Thomas Seward, ‘The Female Right to Literature’, in A Collection of Poems in Several Hands (London: Printed for R. Dodsley, 1748), II, pp. 295–302. 76. John Duncombe, The Feminead, or Female Genius, A Poem, 2nd edition (London: Printed for R. and J. Dodsley, 1757). 77. Mary Scott, The Female Advocate; a poem occasioned by reading Mr Duncombe’s Feminead (London: Joseph Johnson, 1774), p. vi. 78. Scott, Female Advocate, p. vii. 79. Mary Hays, Female Biography; or, Memoirs of Illustrious and Celebrated Women, of All Ages and Countries. Alphabetically arranged, 6 vols (London: Printed for Richard Phillips, 1803). 80. See Shearer West’s discussion of Sarah Siddons for a similar view of women’s cultural work in, ‘The Public and Private Roles of Sarah Siddons’, in Sarah Siddons and her Portraitists, ed. Robyn Asleson (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 1999), pp. 1–40. ‘She was never a purely passive object of aesthetic debate but an active contributor, and the image she and others created was surprisingly enduring long after she had left the stage and the real impact of her performances was only a memory.’



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1. MO 3435, Elizabeth Montagu to Elizabeth Carter, 24 November 1777. The British Museum owns a copy of the print that appears to have been removed from the Pocket Memorandum-Book, a rare copy of which survives in the collection of the Folger Shakespeare library in Washington. 2. For a fascinating discussion of the relation between the parallel developments of ‘women’s writing’ and the national canon of literature in Britain, see Timothy Reiss, ‘Critical Quarrels and the Argument of Gender’, in The Meaning of Literature (New York: Cornell University Press, 1992), Chapter 7, pp. 192–226. 3. Sylvia Harcstarck Myers, The Bluestocking Circle: Women, Friendship, and the Life of the Mind in Eighteenth Century England (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990). Sarah Prescott has recently stressed the importance of the model of the sociable woman writer to female authorial practice in the early eighteenth century. See her Women, Authorship and Literary Culture, 1690–1740 (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003), pp. 15–38. 4. See Margaret J.M. Ezell, Social Authorship and the Advent of Print (Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999); Dustin Griffin, Literary Patronage in England, 1650–1800 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996); and Prescott, Women, Authorship and Literary Culture. 5. For historical studies of French salon culture see Helen Clergue, The Salon: a Study of French Society and Personalities in the Eighteenth Century (New York and London: The Knickerbocker Press, 1907); Edmond and Jules Goncourt, The Woman of the Eighteenth Century, trans. Jacques Le Clercq and Ralph Roeder (London: Allen and Unwin, 1928; originally published in French in 1862). 6. Dena Goodman, The Republic of Letters: a Cultural History of the French Enlightenment (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1994), p. 6. 7. For a succinct overview of the history and provenance of the collection, see Mary L. Robertson, ‘The Elizabeth Robinson Montagu Collection at the Huntington Library’, Huntington Library Quarterly, 65(1 & 2) (2002): 21–3. See also my textual note at the beginning of the volume. 8. See Mary Catherine Moran, ‘ “The Commerce of the Sexes”: Civil Society and Polite Society in Scottish Enlightenment Historiography’, in Paradoxes of Civil Society: New Perspectives on Modern German and British History, ed. Frank Trentemann (New York and Oxford: Berghann, 2000), p. 80. 9. Lawrence Klein, ‘Gender and the Public/Private Distinction in the Eighteenth Century: Some Questions about Evidence and Analytic Procedure’, EighteenthCentury Studies, 29 (1995): 97–109, here 104–5. 10. Harriet Guest, ‘Bluestocking Feminism’, in Reconsidering the Bluestockings, eds Nichole Pohl and Betty Schellenberg (San Marino, California: Huntington Library Publications, 2003), pp. 59–80 (italics Habermas’s). Guest’s article refocuses and revisits some of the central arguments of her important study, Small Change: Women, Learning, Patriotism, 1750–1830 (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2000). 11. Carla Hesse, The Other Enlightenment (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2001), p. xv. 12. MO 6566, Elizabeth Montagu to Elizabeth Vesey, 21 September 1781. See also Blunt, II, p. 7.



2 The Bluestocking Salon: Patronage, Correspondence and Conversation

Notes

13. For a copy of Townley’s engraving of Montagu, after Frances Reynolds’s portrait, see the frontispiece to Emily J. Climenson, ed., Elizabeth Montagu, The Queen of the Bluestockings: Her correspondence from 1720 to 1761, 2 vols (London: John Murray, 1906), p. 2. 14. Ramsay’s triangular composition and delicate handling of the intricacies of silk and lace is reminiscent of Nattier’s portrait of Queen Marie Leczinska (1748), echoing the quiet contemplation that this painting achieves. For further discussion of Ramsay’s portrait see Elizabeth Eger and Lucy Peltz, Brilliant Women: 18th Century Bluestockings (National Portrait Gallery Publications, 2008), pp. 50–2. 15. Richard Cumberland, The Observer: Being a Collection of Moral, Literary and Familiar Essays, Volume One (London: Printed for C. Dilly in the Poultry, 1786), Essay no. 25, pp. 233–4. 16. For a useful summary of literary satires of the bluestockings, see Myers, The Bluestocking Circle, pp. 271–303. For a study of visual satire of women during this period, see Cindy McCreery, The Satirical Gaze: Prints of Women in Late Eighteenth-Century England (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2004). 17. MO 5871, Elizabeth Montagu to Sarah Scott, 26 December 1767. 18. See Elizabeth Child, ‘Elizabeth Montagu, Bluestocking Businesswoman’, in Reconsidering the Bluestockings, eds Pohl and Schellenberg, pp. 153–74. 19. MO 4802, Elizabeth Montagu to Morris Robinson, July 1775. 20. Until recently, the Hill Street house was thought to have been destroyed but architectural historian Rosemary Baird has recently rediscovered it as the building now known as 31 Hill Street. Rosemary Baird, ‘ “The Queen of the Bluestockings”: Mrs Montagu’s House at 23 Hill Street Rediscovered’, Apollo, CLVIII(498) (n.s.) (August 2003): 43–9. See also Rosemary Baird, Mistress of the House: Great Ladies and Grand Houses 1670–1830 (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2003). 21. See Chauncey Brewster Tinker, The Salon and English Letters (New York: Macmillan, 1915), pp. 23–5. Cathérine de Vivonee, the Marquise de Rambouillet and hostess of the famous ‘Hotel de Rambouillet’, considered the original and the type of all future salons, had been renowned for her sense of architectural and decorative flair and for breaking up the vast reception-hall into a series of smaller rooms and alcoves. 22. Lady Llanlover, The Autobiography and Correspondence of Mary Granville, Mrs Delany (London, 1862), second series, I, p. 508, Mrs Delany to Mrs Port, 28 May 1773. 23. Clim, I, p. 271. 24. Clim, II, p. 203. 25. Clim, II, p. 30. 26. Adam’s preparatory drawings for the ceiling and carpet designs are held in the archive of the Sir John Soane’s Museum in London. 27. Blunt, I, p. 153. 28. David Porter, ‘Monstrous Beauty: Eighteenth-Century Fashion and the Aesthetics of the Chinese Taste’, Eighteenth-Century Studies, 35(3) (2002): 395–411, here 397. 29. Porter, ‘Monstrous Beauty’, p. 398. 30. Furthermore, women’s leading presence as consumers in the market for Chinese goods can be associated with expanding possibilities for female agency in the commercial and economic spheres: ‘Their active participation in this trade, like



222

31.

32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37.

38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47.

48. 49. 50. 51. 52. 53. 54.

55.

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the aesthetic redemption of sensual materiality that fuelled it, represented a powerful assertion of a new and disturbingly public role for women not just as followers but also as active purveyors of fashion and taste’ (Porter, ‘Monstrous Beauty’, p. 408). See also James Turner, ‘News from the New Exchange: Commodity, Erotic Fantasy, and the Female Entrepreneur’, in The Consumption of Culture 1600–1800: Image, Object, Text, eds Ann Bermingham and John Brewer (New York: Routledge, 1995), pp. 419–35. MO 6780, Dr Edward Wilson to John Pitt, 2nd Earl of Chatham, 1758. This manuscript is copied in Elizabeth Montagu’s hand and marked ‘Extract of a Letter from Doctor Wilson to Mr Pitt when 11 years old.’ Sir N. William Wraxall, Historical Memoirs of My Own Time, 2 vols (London: printed for T. Cadell & W. Davies in the Strand, 1815), I, p. 136. Wraxall, Historical Memoirs, I, p. 140. Wraxall, Historical Memoirs, I, pp. 136–8. MO 3513, Sir William Pepys to Elizabeth Montagu, 4 August 1781. MO 5019, Elizabeth Montagu to Leonard Smelt, 22 July 1778. See Kerry Bristol ‘The Painted Rooms of Athenian Stuart’, Georgian Group Journal, X (2000): 167–79, and her ‘22 Portman Square: Mrs Montagu and her “Palais de la Vieillesse” ’, British Art Journal, II(3) (2001): 72–85. Blunt, II, p. 18. See also Bristol, ‘22 Portman Square’, for her reading of Montagu’s accounts with the banker C. Hoare & Co. Bristol, ‘22 Portman Square’. MO 1133, James Harris to Elizabeth Montagu, 4 November 1780. Reprinted in Blunt, II, p. 100. See Blunt, II, p. 202. MO 3517, Elizabeth Montagu to Elizabeth Carter, 25 September 1781. MO 2975, Elizabeth Montagu to Elizabeth Charlton Montagu, 17 December 1788. Gentleman’s Magazine, 58 (June 1788): 542. MO 156, James Barrington to Elizabeth Montagu, 16 December 1790. MO 3686, Elizabeth Montagu to Elizabeth Carter, June 1791. St James’s Chronicle, 11–14 June 1791, quoted in W.S. Lewis et al., eds, Horace Walpole’s Correspondence, 48 vols (New Haven and Oxford: Yale University Press and Oxford University Press, 1937–83), 29, p. 290. R. Brimley Johnson, ed., The Letters of Lady Louisa Stuart (London: John Lane, 1926), p. 256. St James’s Chronicle, 11–14 June 1791, in Lewis et al., eds, Horace Walpole’s Correspondence, 29, p. 290. William Roberts, Memoirs of the Life and correspondence of Mrs. Hannah More, 4 vols (London: Seeley and Burnside, 1834) vol. 2, p. 225. MO 6198, Elizabeth Montagu to Sarah Scott, London, 14 January 1790. MO 3515, Elizabeth Montagu to Elizabeth Carter, Sandleford, 5 September 1781. MO 4069, Elizabeth Montagu to William Pepys, Sandleford, 14 August 1781 (emphasis in the original). Humphry Repton, Fragments on the Theory and Practice of Landscape Gardening (1816; reprint New York: Garland, 1982), p. 52. Quoted in Deborah Heller, ‘Bluestocking Salons and the Public Sphere’, Eighteenth-Century Life, 22(2) (1998): 59–82, here 78. Werner Sombart, Luxury and Capitalism, trans. Philip Siegelman (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1967), p. 94.



Notes

Notes

56. MO6199, Elizabeth Montagu to Sarah Scott, 5 July 1790. 57. Montagu liked to be intimately involved in practical and design decisions, sourcing materials and overseeing, for example, the installation of plate and crown glass in her ‘Great room’ as well as providing sketch plans for her workmen to indicate her wishes. See Bristol, ‘22 Portman Square’, p. 76. 58. See Mary Catherine Moran, ‘Between the Savage and the Civil: Dr John Gregory’s Natural History of Femininity’, pp. 8–29, Jane Rendall, ‘ “Women that would plague me with rational conversation”: Aspiring Women and Scottish Whigs, c. 1790–1830’, pp. 326–48 and John Robertson, ‘Women and Enlightenment: a Historiographical Conclusion’, pp. 692–704, in Women, Gender and Enlightenment, eds Sarah Knott and Barbara Taylor (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005). 59. E.J. Clery, The Feminization Debate in Eighteenth-Century England: Literature, Commerce and Luxury (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), p. 12. 60. David Hume, Essays Moral, Political and Literary (Edinburgh: Adam Black and Charles Tait, 1826), p. 305. 61. MO 3610, Elizabeth Montagu to Elizabeth Carter, Denton Hall, Northumberland, 2 September 1786. 62. MO 671, Elizabeth Montagu to John Burrow (her nephew’s tutor), Chaillot, 8 September 1776. See also Alice C.C. Gaussen, A Later Pepys (London, 1904). 63. Hume, ‘Of Refinement in the Arts’, in Essays Moral, Political, Literary, edited and with a foreword, notes and glossary by Eugene F. Miller (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1987), p. 271 (emphasis in the original). 64. MO 4024, William Weller Pepys to Elizabeth Montagu, May 1780. 65. See Child, ‘Elizabeth Montagu, Bluestocking Businesswoman’, pp. 153–74. 66. John Doran, A Lady of the Last Century (Mrs Elizabeth Montagu): Illustrated in her unpublished Letters; collected and arranged with a chapter on Blue Stockings (London, 1873). 67. MO 4801, Elizabeth Montagu to Morris Robinson, Denton Hall, 3 July 1775. 68. MO 5930, Elizabeth Montagu to Sarah Scott, 28 July 1772. See Edith Sedgwick Larson, ‘A Measure of Power: the Personal Charity of Elizabeth Montagu’, Studies in Eighteenth-Century Culture, 16 (1986): 197–210. 69. Blunt, I, p. 113. 70. MO 5840, Elizabeth Montagu to Sarah Scott, Denton Hall, 17 July 1766. 71. MO 3531, Elizabeth Montagu to Elizabeth Carter, Sandleford, July 1782. 72. Child, ‘Elizabeth Montagu, Bluestocking Businesswoman’, p. 171. 73. MO 5333, Sarah Scott to Elizabeth Montagu, Sandleford, 20 July 1766. Sarah Scott, The History of Sir George Ellison (London: A. Millar, 1766). 74. Sedgwick Larson, ‘A Measure of Power’. 75. Frances Burney, ed., Memoirs of Dr. Burney arranged from his own manuscripts, from family papers and from his own recollections, 3 vols (London: Moxon, 1832), II, p. 273. 76. Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, ed. D.D. Raphael and A.L. Macfie, Vol. I of the Glasgow edition of the Works and Correspondence of Adam Smith, 7 vols (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1982) I, p. 313. 77. See Penny Warburton, ‘Adam Smith and Women Writers of the Late Eighteenth Century’, unpublished dissertation, University of Cambridge, 2001. 78. Catherine Talbot, ‘Essay on the Importance of Riches’, in The Works of the Late Miss Catherine Talbot, ed. Montagu Pennington (London, 1809), pp. 116–17.



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79. Sir William Forbes, An Account of the Life and Writings of James Beattie, LL.D., 2 vols (Edinburgh, 1806), II, pp. 159–60 (emphasis in original). 80. MO 4765, Elizabeth Montagu to Matthew Robinson, Sandleford, 19 July 1768. 81. MO 2510, Elizabeth Montagu to Edward Montagu, Sandleford, 20 May 1764. 82. From a letter to her sister, in Hannah More, Selected Writings of Hannah More, ed. Robert Hole (London: Pickering & Chatto, 1996), pp. 8–9. 83. See Tinker, The Salon and English Letters, pp. 189–99. 84. Roger Lonsdale, The Oxford Book of Eighteenth Century Women Poets (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989), p. 392. 85. Tinker, The Salon and English Letters, p. 205. 86. See Madeleine Kahn, ‘Hannah More and Ann Yearsley: a Collaboration across the Class Divide’, Studies in Eighteenth Century Culture, 25: 203–23. 87. HM 31099, Elizabeth Montagu to Hannah More, 24 September 1785. ‘The degree of indignation I felt on reading the extract from the Milk Womans letter I could not express if I would, nor would not if I could; for Wrath is an ugly, fierce, hard favoured thing, & had better hide its face than expose it . . . Fierce is despair & insolent is hope & prosperity it really appears to me as unadvisable to have any further connection with her, as it wd be, if one had from pity fed a famishd Tyger, least it shd again be hungry to make it ones comparison. I do entreat you to prevail on some Person of credit to accept the trust from us on condition to resign the money in the Funds into her possession immediately; then will you be discharged from all danger & trouble. I would not on any account withdraw my trust without your permission, but shall not be at all at ease till I am set free from any connection with this Fury. I beg of you to let me hear from you immediately & I earnestly entreat to consider how disagreeable it wd be to have any contention with a milk Woman, & yet to what one is exposed if her calumnies are to pass unanswered? . . . Your distinguish’d talents render you an object of envy to you Own Sex, & of jealousy to the other. I who have several tenants who pay me Rent for Dairy Farms am more likely to be visited by envy than a Woman who milks cows herself, so that her abuse of us will be favorably received & credited. However I will be guided by you & if I find you still wish it I will write in ye manner you intimate.’ 88. ‘On Mrs Montagu’, in Lonsdale, The Oxford Book of Eighteenth Century Women Poets, pp. 395–6. 89. For a fuller discussion of this complex episode, see Donna Landry, The Muses of Resistance: Labouring-Class Women’s Poetry in Britain, 1732–1796 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990). 90. See Myers, The Bluestocking Circle, pp. 230–9. 91. Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Men and A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, ed. Sylvana Tomaselli (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), pp. 187–8. 92. See for example Mrs H. Cartwright’s Letters on Female Education dedicated to Elizabeth Montagu (London, 1777). 93. MO 6489, Elizabeth Montagu to Elizabeth Vesey, Sandleford, 27 October 1776. 94. MO 3254, Elizabeth Montagu to Elizabeth Carter, Reading, Berks, 28 July 1769. ‘I have had a letter from ye Sylph which I will not answer till we meet, because the cover may contain a line or two from you. She tells me ye Essay on Shakespear is going to be printed at Dublin. I fancy she is at ye expence of ye impression.’ 95. MO 5977, Elizabeth Montagu to Sarah Scott, Denton, 22 July 1775.



Notes

Notes

96. Elizabeth Carter, Letters from Mrs. Elizabeth Carter to Mrs. Montagu between the years 1755 and 1800. Chiefly upon Literary and Moral Subjects, ed. Montagu Pennington, 3 vols (London: Printed for F.C. and J. Rivington, 1817). 97. MO 4594, Elizabeth Montagu to William Pulteney, Earl of Bath, 28 October 1763. 98. MO 4238, William Pulteney, Earl of Bath to Elizabeth Montagu, 21 September 1761. 99. Nichols’s Literary Anecdotes of the Eighteenth Century, quoted in Original Letters with Biographical Illustration, ed. Rebecca Warner (London, 1817), pp. 228–31. 100. MO 6457, Elizabeth Montagu to Elizabeth Vesey, Hill Street, 14 October 1776. 101. Matthew Montagu, ed., The Letters of Elizabeth Montagu, with Some of her Correspondents, 4 vols (London: Printed for T. Cadell and W. Davies, 1809–13). 102. Letters from Mrs Elizabeth Carter to Mrs Montagu, ed. Pennington; A Series of Letters between Mrs Elizabeth Carter and Miss Catherine Talbot, from the year 1741 to 1770. To which are added, Letters from Mrs Elizabeth Carter to Mrs Vesey, between the years 1763 and 1787, ed. Montagu Pennington, 4 vols (London: printed for F.C. and J. Rivington, 1809). 103. Clare Brant, Eighteenth-Century Letters and British Culture (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), p. 5. 104. Compare, for example, Catharine Macaulay’s Letters on Education (1790) with Elizabeth Griffith’s Letters between Henry and Frances (1757). 105. For a discussion of the relationship between Elizabeth Griffith’s career as an actress and as a writer, see Elizabeth Eger, ‘Spectacle, Intellect and Authority: the Actress in the Eighteenth Century’, in The Cambridge Companion to the Actress, eds John Stokes and Gail Marshall (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), pp. 33–50. 106. Clare Brant, Eighteenth-Century Letters, pp. 111–124. 107. MO 4510, Elizabeth Montagu to William Pulteney, Earl of Bath, December 1761. 108. Elizabeth Griffith, The Delicate Distress (London, 1769), II, p. 112. 109. See Chapter 3. 110. See Mary Jacobus, ‘Intimate Connections: Scandalous Memoirs and Epistolary Indiscretion’, in Women and the Public Sphere, 1700–1830: Writing and Representation, eds Elizabeth Eger, Charlotte Grant, Clíona Ó Gallchoir and Penny Warburton (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000). 111. Anna Laetitia Barbauld, ed., The Correspondence of Samuel Richardson, 6 vols (London: Printed for Richard Phillips, 1804). 112. Mary Delany (1700–88). Bluestocking artist and letter writer. The British Museum has her beautiful and botanically exact ‘paper mosaick’ flower pictures, Flora Delanica, made 1772–82. George Ballard dedicated part of Memoirs of Several Ladies of Great Britain to her. Her letters to Swift were published in 1766. 113. Barbauld, ed., The Correspondence of Samuel Richardson, I, clxiii–iv. 114. Mary Wollstonecraft, The Works of Mary Wollstonecraft, eds Marilyn Butler and Janet Todd, 6 vols (London: Pickering and Chatto, 1989), VII, p. 322. For critical biographies of Madame Sévigné, see Anne Thackeray, Madame de Sévigné (Edinburgh and London: Blackwood, 1881) and Charles G.S. Williams, Madame de Sévigné (Boston: Twayner Publishers, 1981). 115. See Bruce Redford, The Converse of the Pen: Acts of Intimacy in the EighteenthCentury Familiar Letter (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1986). 116. Maria Edgeworth, Letters for Literary Ladies, ed. Claire Connolly (London: J.M Dent, 1993), pp. xxiv–vi.



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117. MO 5875, Elizabeth Montagu to Sarah Scott, 25 January 1768. 118. MO 3091, Elizabeth Montagu to Elizabeth Carter, 31 December 1762. 119. René Huchon, Mrs Montagu and her Friends (London: John Murray, 1907), pp. 50–1. 120. Huchon, Mrs Montagu, p. 51. 121. MO 3209, Elizabeth Montagu to Elizabeth Carter, Hill Street, 2 November 1767. 122. In 1734 Cave introduced her to Johnson, with whom she became firm friends. He published two of her essays in the Rambler (nos. 44 and 100). 123. See Huchon, Mrs Montagu, pp. 50–5. 124. All the Works of Epictetus, which are now Extant; Consisting of His Discourses, preserved by Arrian, in Four Books, The Enchiridion, and Fragments. Translated from the Original Greek, by Elizabeth Carter. With an Introduction, and Notes, by the Translator (London: Printed by S. Richardson, 1758), pp. i–iii. 125. Susannah Riordan, ‘Bluestocking Philosophy: Aspects of Aristocratic Thought in Eighteenth Century England’, unpublished dissertation, University of Cambridge, 1995. 126. Chapone to Carter, in The Works of Mrs. Chapone: Now first Collected. To which is prefixed, An Account of her Life and Character, drawn up by her own family, 4 vols (London: Printed for John Murray), I, p. 168. 127. This aspect of her writing can be seen in her letters to Catherine Talbot: A Series of Letters between Mrs. Elizabeth Carter and Miss Catherine Talbot, ed. Pennington. 128. Betty Rizzo, Companions without Vows: Relationships among Eighteenth-Century British Women (Athens and London: University of Georgia Press, 1994), pp. 1–25. For an alternative view, see Susan Lanser, ‘Bluestocking Sapphism and the Economies of Desire’, in Reconsidering the Bluestockings, eds Pohl and Schellenberg, pp. 257–76. 129. MO 3530, Elizabeth Montagu to Elizabeth Carter, 11 July 1782. 130. Jenny Uglow, Dr. Johnson, His Club and Other Friends (London: National Portrait Gallery Publications, 1998), p. 26. 131. Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Men and A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, p. 151. 132. Memoirs of the Life of Mrs Elizabeth Carter, with a new edition of her Poems; to which are added, some Miscellaneous Essays in Prose, together with her Notes on the Bible, ed. Montagu Pennington, 2 vols (London, 1807), I, pp. 447–8. 133. Pennington, Memoirs of the Life of Mrs Elizabeth Carter, p. 422. 134. MO 3445, Elizabeth Montagu to Elizabeth Carter, 30 April 1778. 135. MO 4547, Elizabeth Montagu to William Pulteney, Earl of Bath, Sandleford, 21 October 1762. 136. George Lyttelton, Dialogues of the Dead (London: Printed for W. Sandby, 1760). 137. MO 3034, Elizabeth Montagu to Elizabeth Carter, 1 May 1760. See also M. Montagu, Letters, IV, pp. 259–63; and Clim, II, pp. 182–3. 138. MO 3229, Elizabeth Montagu to Elizabeth Carter, Sandleford, 24 October 1768. 139. MO 3051, Elizabeth Montagu to Elizabeth Carter, 1 September 1761. 140. Letters from Mrs Elizabeth Carter to Mrs Montagu, ed. Pennington, 1, p. 1. 141. MO 3033, Elizabeth Montagu to Elizabeth Carter, 1760. See M. Montagu, Letters, IV, pp. 218–21. He has excised large portions of the original letter. 142. Elizabeth Bishop, The Complete Poems, 1927–1979 (London: The Hogarth Press, 1984), pp. 82–3. Emma Donoghue’s recent anthology of poems written by



Notes

143. 144. 145. 146. 147. 148.

149.

150.

151. 152.

153. 154.

155. 156. 157. 158. 159. 160. 161. 162. 163.

Notes women to women includes many examples from the eighteenth century, discovering a number of intriguing examples of the genre and revealing a vocabulary previously lost to us. See Emma Donoghue, ed., What Sappho Would have Said: Four Centuries of Love Poems between Women (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1997). See her short reflection ‘On the Duration of Friendship’ in Memoirs, II, p. 162. Elizabeth Carter, ‘To Mrs. Montagu’, Poems on Several Occasions, from Memoirs, II, p. 100. MO 3080, Elizabeth Montagu to Elizabeth Carter, Sandleford, 8 August 1762. MO 3042, Elizabeth Montagu to Elizabeth Carter, Ealing, 15 May 1761. Clara Reeve, The Progress of Romance through Times, Countries, and Manners (Colchester: W. Keymer, 1785). Clarissa Campbell Orr, ‘Aristocratic Feminism, the Learned Governess, and the Republic of Letters’, in Sarah Knott and Barbara Taylor, eds, Gender and Enlightenment (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2005), pp. 306–25. Orr provides a fascinating analysis of the role of dialogue as a spoken and written form in the context of aristocratic elite culture. She makes a persuasive case for the vital role of aristocratic educational literature in contributing to contemporary reforms in women’s education and ‘the new, more broadly based, cultural conversation and cultural consumption of the century’. Hannah More, ‘Bas Bleu; or Conversation. Addressed to Mrs Vesey’, in Selected Writings of Hannah More, ed. Robert Hole (London: Pickering & Chatto, 1996), p. 32, line 251. Subsequent extracts from Bas Bleu will be given in the text as line numbers. Letters from Mrs. Elizabeth Carter to Mrs. Montagu between the Years 1755 and 1800, ed. Montagu Pennington, 3 vols (London, printed for F.C. and J. Rivington, 1817), III, pp. 47–8. See Kate Retford, The Art of Domestic Life (London and New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006). See Gill Perry and Michael Rossington, Femininity and Masculinity in EighteenthCentury Art and Culture (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1994) and Marcia Pointon, Strategies for Showing: Women, Possession and Representation in English Visual Culture 1650–1800 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), Chapters 2 and 5. Uglow, Dr Johnson, p. 8. C. Read, Elizabeth Carter, Dr Johnson’s House Trust, Gough Square. ‘Catherine Macaulay’, mezzotint by J. Spilsbury, after C. Read, 1764. In Bridget Hill, The Republican Virago: the Life and Times of Catherine Macaulay, Historian, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992). More, Selected Writings, p. 25, line 10. See also Carter’s short paragraph on ‘Mrs Macaulay, Guiccardini, and Caesar’, in Pennington, Memoirs of the Life of Mrs Elizabeth Carter, II, p. 172. Tinker, The Salon and English Letters, p. 16. Tinker, The Salon and English Letters, p. 30. Tinker, The Salon and English Letters, p. 34. Tinker, The Salon and English Letters, p. 41. Evelyn Gordon Bodek, ‘Salonnières and Bluestockings: Educated Obsolescence and Germinating Feminism’, Feminist Studies, 3 (Spring–Summer 1976): 185–99. See, for example, S.C., The Art of Pleasing in Conversation (London, 1691); An Essay in Defence of the Female Sex (London, 1696). See Myers, Bluestocking Circle, pp. 270–3.



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164. For a selection of contemporary writings on female conduct, see Vivien Jones’s anthology, Women in the Eighteenth Century: Constructions of Femininity (London, 1990), pp. 14–56. 165. Sarah Maese, The School, 3 vols (London, 1766), III, p. 142. 166. Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Men and A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, pp. 285–6. 167. Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Men and A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, p. 264. 168. Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Men and A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, p. 154. 169. Letters from Mrs Elizabeth Carter to Mrs Montagu, ed. Pennington, III, p. 68. 170. MO 3258, 10 October 1769. See also volume I of Bluestocking Feminism, 6 vols, general editor Gary Kelly (London: Pickering and Chatto, 1999), p. lxii. 171. See Deborah Heller, ‘Subjectivity Unbound: Elizabeth Vesey as the Sylph in Bluestocking Correspondence’, in Reconsidering the Bluestockings, eds Pohl and Schellenberg, pp. 215–34. 172. MO 6393, Elizabeth (Robinson) Montagu to Elizabeth (Vesey) Handcock Vesey, Hill Street, 2 February 1768. See Blunt, I, pp. 168–9; II, p. 5. 173. MO 4610, Elizabeth (Robinson) Montagu to William Pulteney, Earl of Bath, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 11 December 1763. 174. Alice C.C. Gaussen, A Later Pepys: the Correspondence of Sir William Weller Pepys, 2 vols (London: The Bodley Head, 1904), p. 47. 175. I am extremely grateful to Moyra Haslett for discussing this poem with me, and for allowing me to read her unpublished paper, ‘Becoming Bluestockings: Contextualising Hannah More’s The Bas Bleu’. 176. More, Selected Writings, pp. 5–6. 177. More, Selected Writings, pp. 8–9. 178. See Kathryn J. Ready, ‘Hannah More and the Bluestocking Salons: Commerce, Virtue, Sensibility and Conversation’, in The Age of Johnson: a Scholarly Annual, eds P. Korshin and J. Lynch, vol. 15 (2004), pp. 197–222, for a fascinating contextualisation of More’s ideas of sensibility and conversation in terms of production, trade and Locke’s theory of language. 179. Lawrence Klein has explored the implications of this shift in the map of knowledge for the gendering of discursive practices and for women’s relation to discourse in society. As he acknowledges, the work of historians such as Amanda Vickery and John Brewer has shown that the traditional gendering of the private, ‘domestic’, sphere as feminine and the public sphere as masculine has obscured our view of the range of women’s cultural and political activity during the eighteenth century. See Klein, ‘Gender, Conversation and the Public Sphere in Early Eighteenth Century England’, in Textuality and Sexuality, eds Judith Still and Michael Worton (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1993), pp. 100–15. For discussions of women’s relations to the idea of a ‘public sphere’, see Amanda Vickery, ‘Golden Age to Separate Spheres? A Review of the Categories and Chronology of English Women’s History’, Historical Journal, 36(2) (1993): 383–414, and Elizabeth Eger, Charlotte Grant, Clíona Ó Gallchoir and Penny Warburton, eds, Women, Writing and the Public Sphere, 1700–1830 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001). 180. Spectator, no.10, in Donald F. Bond, ed., The Spectator, 5 vols (Oxford, 1965), I, p. 44.



Notes

Notes

181. Deborah Heller, ‘Bluestocking Salons and the Public Sphere’, Eighteenth-Century Life, 22(2) (1998): 59–82. 182. MO 5878, Elizabeth (Robinson) Montagu to Sarah (Robinson) Scott, 8 March 1768. 183. She is reading The Greek Theatre by Père Brumoy which had been translated in 1759 by Charlotte Lennox, Montagu’s fellow muse and author of The Female Quixote, in which the heroine Arabella forms a more complex successor to Biddy Tipkin. 184. MO 3304, Elizabeth Montagu to Elizabeth Carter, 4 September 1772 (emphasis in original). 185. Emma Major, ‘The Politics of Sociability: Public Dimensions of the Bluestocking Millenium’, Huntington Library Quarterly, 65(1 & 2) (2002: 175–92. 186. Burney, Memoirs of Dr. Burney, p. 276. 187. Diary and Letters of Mme D’Arblay, 1, pp. 460–1. 188. Hester Chapone, The Works of Mrs Chapone, containing Miscellanies in Prose and Verse, 2 vols (Dublin, 1775), II, Essay II, ‘On Conversation’, pp. 16–17. 189. Burney, Memoirs of Dr. Burney, II, pp. 270–2. 190. See More, Selected Writings, p. 6. 191. Charlotte Lennox, The Lady’s Museum (London, 1760), p. 14. 192. See J.M. Roberts, ‘The Origins of a Mythology: Freemasons, Protestants and the French Revolution’, Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research, 44 (1971): 78–97, and Mythology of the Secret Societies (London: Macmillan, 1972). Recently there has been much critical interest in women’s involvement with Freemasonry, especially in Amazonian rituals of citizenship, which emphasised the importance of scientific education and the upholding of arms. See Margaret Jacob, Living the Enlightenment: Freemasonry and Politics in Eighteenth-Century Europe (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991). 193. MO 6375, Elizabeth (Robinson) Montagu to Elizabeth Vesey, Hill Street, 17 February 1764. 194. See The New Oxford Companion to Literature in French, ed. Peter France (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995), pp. 412–13. 195. See Miriam Leranbaum, ‘ “Mistresses of Orthodoxy”: Education in the Lives and Writings of Late Eighteenth-Century English Women Writers’, Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 121(4) (August 1977): 281–301. 196. Hester Chapone, ‘On Conversation’, pp. 25–6. 197. Sarah Scott, A Description of Millenium Hall, ed. Gary Kelly (Ontario: Broadview Literary Texts, 1995), p. 112. 198. See Patricia Springborg, ed., Mary Astell: A Serious Proposal to the Ladies: Parts I and II (Ontario: Broadview Press, 2002). For a comparison of four eighteenthcentury utopian novels, see Ruth Perry, ‘Bluestockings in Utopia’, in History, Gender and Eighteenth-Century Literature, ed. Beth Fowkes Tobin (Athens, GA and London: University of Georgia Press, 1994). See also Mary Peace, ‘ “Epicures in Rural Pleasure”: Revolution, Desire and Sentimental Economy in Sarah Scott’s Millenium Hall’, Women’s Writing, 9(2) (2002): 305–15. 199. Scott, Millenium Hall, p. 110. 200. Quoted in Riordan, ‘Bluestocking Philosophy’, Chapter 3. 201. Millenium Hall was successful, passing through four editions by 1778 and earning Scott 40 guineas. Like her heroines, she invested her money for the good of others, running a small charitable school in Bath with her companion, Barbara



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202. 203. 204. 205. 206.

207. 208. 209.

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Montagu. For Sarah Scott, who separated from her husband within weeks of marriage, writing was a form of subsistence. Her sense of literary authority was inherent to her sense of identity as a rational individual in a society that did not recognise her status. Hannah More, Strictures on Female Education, 2 vols (London, 1799), I, p. 23. See Sylvia Harcstarck Myers, ‘Learning, Virtue, and the Term “Bluestocking” ’, Studies in Eighteenth-Century Culture, 15 (1986): 279–87. Chapone, ‘On Conversation’, pp. 26–7. The first volume of Chapone’s Works is dedicated to Mrs Montagu and the second to Mrs Carter. Anna Laetitia Barbauld, Lessons for Children (London, 1779). Mary Wollstonecraft, Thoughts on the Education of Daughters (London, 1787). Catharine Macaulay’s Letters on Education (1790) similarly gave voice to women’s reason in a series of lessons articulated through letters between the fictional characters of Hortensia and Euphrasia. Maria Edgeworth, Letters for Literary Ladies, p. 25. Vicesimus Knox, Essays Moral and Literary, 2 vols, second edition (London, 1779), II, Essay xxxiii, ‘On Female Literature’, p. 334. As recent critics have demonstrated, the active presence of groups of successful women authors posed difficult questions for male Romantic writers, unsettling their sense of what it meant to be an author. See: Sonia Hofkosh, ‘A Woman’s Profession: Sexual Difference and the Romance of Authorship’, in Studies in Romanticism, 32 (Summer 1993): 245–72; and Marlon B. Ross, The Contours of Masculine Desire: Romanticism and the Rise of Women’s Poetry (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989).

‘Female Champions’: Women Critics of Shakespeare 1. Eliza Haywood, The Female Spectator, 4 vols (3rd edition, London, 1750), I, pp. 265–6. 2. Haywood, Female Spectator, I, p. 265. 3. For a discussion of this phenomenon, see my ‘Spectacle, Intellect and Authority: the Actress in the Eighteenth Century’, in The Cambridge Companion to the Actress, eds Maggie B. Gale and John Stokes (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), pp. 33–51. 4. See Simon Jarvis, Scholars and Gentlemen: Shakespearean Textual Criticism and Representations of Scholarly Labour, 1725–1765 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995). 5. Emmett L. Avery, ‘The Shakepeare Ladies Club’, Shakespeare Quarterly, 7 (1956): 153–8 and Fiona Ritchie, ‘The Influence of the Female Audience on the Shakespeare Revival of 1736–38: the Case of the Shakespeare Ladies Club’, in Shakespeare and the Eighteenth Century, eds Peter Sabor and Paul Yachnin (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2008), pp. 57–69. See also Ingrid Roscoe, ‘The Monument to the Memory of Shakespeare’, Church Monuments, IX (1994): 72–82. 6. See Marianne Novy, ed., Women’s Re-visions of Shakespeare: On the Responses of Dickinson, Woolf, Rich, H.D., George Eliot, and Others (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1990) and her Cross-Cultural Performances: Differences in Women’s Re-visions of Shakespeare (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1993); Judith Hawley, ‘Shakespearean Sensibilities: Women Writers Reading Shakespeare, 1753–1808’, Shakespearean Continuities: Essays in Honour of E.A J. Honigman, eds Joan Batchelor, Tom Cain and Claire Lamont (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1997), pp. 290–304.



Notes

Notes

7. Brian Vickers, ed., Shakespeare: the Critical Heritage, Volume 4, 1753–1765, 6 vols (London and Boston: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1976), p. 1. 8. Jane Austen, Mansfield Park (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1988), p. 335. 9. Recent studies include: Fred Parker, Johnson’s Shakespeare (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989); Magreta De Grazia, Shakespeare Verbatim: the Reproduction of Authenticity and the 1790s Apparatus (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991); and Michael Dobson, The Making of a National Poet: Shakespeare, Adaptation and Authorship, 1660–1769 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992). 10. Quoted in Martha Winburn England, Garrick and Stratford (New York: New York Public Library, 1962), p. 252. 11. Jonathan Bate, Shakespearean Constitutions: Politics, Theatre, Criticism 1730–1830 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989) and Gary Taylor, Reinventing Shakespeare: a Cultural History from the Restoration to the Present (London: The Hogarth Press, 1990). 12. See Ann Thompson and Sasha Roberts, eds, Women Reading Shakespeare 1600– 1900: an Anthology of Criticism (Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 1997) and Fiona Ritchie, ‘ “The Merciful Construction of Good Women”: Women’s Responses to Shakespeare in the Long Eighteenth Century’, PhD dissertation, University of London, 2006. 13. Jonathan Bate, Shakespearean Constitutions, p. 212. 14. Elizabeth Montagu, An Essay on the writings and Genius of Shakespear, compared with the Greek and French Dramatic Poets. With Some Remarks Upon the Misrepresentations of Mons. de Voltaire, 5th edition (London: Printed for Charles Dilly, 1785), pp. 14–15. 15. Michael Dobson, The Making of a National Poet, p. 3. 16. BM Add. MSS 28101. Bodleian Library Oxford. Cowper’s poem is on 93 and 94. 17. For recent scholarship that addresses Lennox’s work on Shakespeare see Margaret Anne Doody, ‘Shakespeare’s Novels: Charlotte Lennox Illustrated’, Studies in the Novel, 19 (1987): 296–310; Susan Green, ‘A Cultural Reading of Charlotte Lennox’s Shakespear Illustrated’, in Cultural Readings of Restoration and Eighteenth Century English Theatre, eds J. Douglas Canfield and Deborah C. Payne (Athens, GA and London: University of Georgia Press, 1995), pp. 228–57; Katherine Kickel, ‘Charlotte Lennox’s Shakespeare Illustrated (1753–4): Reading Eighteenth-Century Adaptation Practice in Measure for Measure’, Journal of the the Wooden O Symposium, 4 (2004): 53–64. See also Jonathan Brody Kramnick, Making the English Canon: Print-Capitalism and the Cultural Past, 1700–1770 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), pp. 115–29, for a fascinating discussion of Lennox’s Shakespear Illustrated in relation to Enlightenment debates about the relative literary value of the novel and Shakespeare’s drama. 18. Elizabeth Griffith, The Morality of Shakespeare’s Drama Illustrated (London, 1775), Preface, pp. ix–xii. 19. For recent critical discussions of women’s Shakespeare criticism from this period, see Elizabeth Eger ‘ “Out rushed a female to protect the Bard”: the Bluestocking Defense of Shakespeare’, Huntington Library Quarterly, 65 (2002) – Numbers 1 and 2, Special Issue, eds Nicole Pohl and Betty Schellenberg, ‘Reconsidering the Bluestockings’, pp. 153–74 and Karen Bloom Gervirtz, ‘Ladies Reading and Writing: Eighteenth-Century Women Writers and the Gendering of Critical Discourse’, Modern Language Studies, 33(1/2) (Spring–Autumn, 2003): 60–72. 20. Elizabeth Ogilvie Benger, The Female Geniad (London, 1791), Canto III, pp. 44–5.



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21. Harriet Guest, Small Change: Women, Learning, Patriotism, 1750–1810 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000). 22. For Lennox’s biography I have relied on Hugh Amory, ‘Lennox, (Barbara) Charlotte (1730/31?–1804), Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004). See also Susan Carlile, ‘Charlotte Lenox’s Birth Date and Place’, Notes and Queries, 51(4) (December 2004): 390–2. Carlile is writing an essential new biography of Lennox. The most recent biography is Miriam Rossiter Small, Charlotte Ramsay Lennox: an Eighteenth Century Lady of Letters (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1935). 23. For a history of Voltaire’s views on Shakespeare, see Thomas Lounsbury, Shakespeare and Voltaire (London, 1902) and Haydn Mason, ‘Voltaire versus Shakespeare: the Lettre à l’Académie française (1776)’, British Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies, 18(2) (1995): 173–85. 24. James Kennedy and W.A. Smith, eds, Dictionary of Anonymous and Pseudonymous English Literature (Halkett and Laing) (London and Edinburgh, 1926), Introduction, pp. xi–xxiii; and Catherine Gallagher, Nobody’s Story: the Vanishing Acts of Women Writers in the Marketplace, 1670–1820 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994). 25. MO 4767, Elizabeth Montagu to Matthew Robinson, 10 September 1769. 26. See Johanne M. Stochholm, Garrick’s Folly: the Shakespeare Jubilee of 1769 at Stratford and Drury Lane (London: Methuen, 1964). 27. MO 1211, Andrew Kippis to Elizabeth Montagu, 27 December 1783. 28. MO 4165, Robert Potter to Elizabeth Montagu, 1 July 1783. 29. Sir William Forbes, ed., Life of Beattie, 2 vols (London, 1807), II, p. 375. 30. See Norma Clarke, Dr Johnson’s Women (London: Hambledon, 2000), pp. 138–45. 31. MO 5836, Elizabeth Montagu to Sarah Scott, 11 January 1766. 32. MO 3185, Elizabeth Montagu to Elizabeth Carter, 8 October 1766. Elizabeth Eger, ed., Elizabeth Montagu, vol. 1 of Bluestocking Feminism: Writings of the Bluestocking Circle, 1738–1785, 6 vols, general editor, Gary Kelly (London: Pickering and Chatto, 1999), p. 170. 33. Bate, Shakespearean Constitutions, p. 14. 34. MO 3187, Elizabeth Montagu to Elizabeth Carter, 21 October 1766. Eger, Elizabeth Montagu, p. 173. 35. MO 3187, Elizabeth Montagu to Elizabeth Carter, 21 October 1766. Eger, Elizabeth Montagu, p. 173. 36. Montagu, Essay, pp. 1–2. Eger, Elizabeth Montagu, p. 1. 37. MO 4531, Elizabeth Montagu to George Lyttelton, 3 August 1762. See also Eger, Elizabeth Montagu, p. 160. 38. MO 3084. Elizabeth Montagu to William Pulteney, 3 October 1762. Eger, Elizabeth Montagu, p. 162. 39. For a discussion of Elizabeth Griffith’s vexed relationship with David Garrick, whom she hounded for work as a playwright, see Betty Rizzo, ‘ “Depressa Resurgam”: Elizabeth Griffith’s Playwrighting Career’, in Curtain Calls: British and American Women and the Theater, eds M.A. Schofield and C. Macheski (Ohio: Ohio University Press, 1991), pp. 120–42. 40. Elizabeth Griffith, Morality of Shakespeare, p. vii. (Emphasis in original.) 41. While Montagu was more willing to criticise her male contemporaries than Griffith, both women shared a debt to women writers and aligned themselves with their sister authors. In her discussion of the follies of love in As You Like It, Griffith mentions fellow muse, Anna Barbauld, then Anna Aikin:



Notes

Notes There is a very pretty poem of the same subject, and which seems to have taken its hint from this same passage in Shakespeare, though the instances are different and more in number, written by Miss Aikin, among a collection of her’s lately published, which I would insert here, but that I suppose every reader of taste must be in possession of the work which so well deserves a place in the most select libraries; as doing equal honour to literature, and her sex (see page 66 of her Poems). (Griffith, Morality of Shakespeare, p. 77)

42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47.

48. 49. 50.

51. 52.

53. 54. 55. 56. 57. 58. 59. 60.

Montagu regularly solicited the opinion of Elizabeth Carter in preparing for the task of writing the Essay. Carter sent her translations of Greek drama and extended essays on tragedy and comedy. They corresponded frequently during the time of the Essay’s composition and it appears that Carter checked and authorised the revisions that appear in the fifth edition of 1785. Griffith, Morality of Shakespeare, Preface, pp. xii–xiii. Griffith, Morality of Shakespeare, p. 526. Griffith, Morality of Shakespeare, p. 526. Montagu, Essay, p. 20. Eger, Elizabeth Montagu, pp. 7–8. Montagu, Essay, p. 17. Eger, Elizabeth Montagu, p. 7. Compare Griffith, Morality of Shakespeare, p. 526: ‘[The Greeks’ plays] were performed in the morning; which circumstance suffered the salutary effect to be worn out of the mind, by the business or avocation of the day. Ours are at night; the impressions accompany us to our couch, supply the matter for out latest reflections, and may sometimes furnish the subject of our very dreams.’ Montagu, Essay, pp. 272–3. Eger, Elizabeth Montagu, p. 108. Montagu, Essay, pp. 202–3. Eger, Elizabeth Montagu, p. 77. Montagu, Essay, p. 35. Eger, Elizabeth Montagu, p. 13. This phrase appears in an earlier form in a letter to Lord Lyttelton of 10 October 1760, in which Montagu compares Sophocles to Dryden, Cowley and Shakespeare. See MO 1402: ‘Shakespear; he alone, like the Dervise in the Arabian tales, can throw his soul into the body of another man; feel all his sentiments, perform his function, & fill his place . . . Every passing sentiment is caught by this great genius; every shade of passion, every gradation of thought is mark’d.’ Griffith, Morality of Shakespeare, pp. 412–13. From Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle, ‘Letter CXXIII’ in CCXI Sociable Letters (London, 1664). Quoted in Thompson and Roberts, Women Reading Shakespeare, p. 13. Griffith, Morality of Shakespeare, p. 165. Griffith, Morality of Shakespeare, p. 483. (Emphasis in original.) Quoted in Thompson and Roberts, Women Reading Shakespeare, p. 67. Griffith, Morality of Shakespeare, p. 159. (Emphasis in original.) MO 6398, Elizabeth Montagu to Elizabeth Handcock Vesey, 5 June 1769. See Joseph M. Levine, The Battle of the Books: History and Literature in the Augustan Age (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1991). Aphra Behn, Preface to The Dutch Lover, in The Works of Aphra Behn., ed. Montague Summers (London, 1915; reprinted New York, 1967), p. 224. For a fine recent overview of Elstob’s career, see Shaun F.D. Hughes, ‘Elizabeth Elstob (1683–1756) and the Limits of Women’s Agency in Early-EighteenthCentury England’, in Women Medievalists and the Academy, ed. Jane Chance (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2005), pp. 3–24. See also Richard



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61. 62.

63. 64. 65. 66. 67. 68.

69. 70. 71. 72. 73. 74. 75. 76.

77.

78. 79. 80. 81. 82. 83. 84. 85.

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Morton, ‘Elizabeth Elstob’s Rudiments of Grammar (1715): Germanic Philology for Women’, Studies in Eighteenth-Century Culture, 20 (1990): 267–87; Anna Smoll, ‘Pleasure, Progress, and the Profession: Elizabeth Elstob and Contemporary Anglo-Saxon Studies’, Studies in Medievalism, IX (1997): 80–97, special issue, Medievalism and the Academy 1, eds Leslie J. Workman, Kathleen Verduin and David D. Metzger; and Kathryn Sutherland, ‘Editing for a New Century: Elizabeth Elstob’s Ango-Saxon Manifesto and Aelfric’s St. Gregory Homily’, in The Editing of Old English: Papers from the 1990 Manchester Conference, eds D.G. Scragg and Paul E. Szarmach (London: D.S. Brewer, 1994), pp. 213–37. Ruth Perry, ‘George Ballard’s Biographies of Learned Ladies’, in Biography in the Eighteenth Century, ed. J.D. Browning (New York: Garland, 1980), pp. 85–111. See Emily J. Climenson, ed., Elizabeth Montagu, The Queen of the Bluestockings: Her Correspondence from 1720 to 1761, 2 vols (London, 1906), I, p. 133. See also Perry, ‘George Ballard’s Biographies of Learned Ladies’, pp. 85–111. Sutherland, ‘Editing for a New Century’, pp. 213–37. See The Folger Collective on Early Women Critics, ed., Women Critics 1660–1820 (Bloomington and Indianapolis: University of Indiana Press, 1995), pp. 58–66. Richard Morton, ‘Elizabeth Elstob’s Rudiments of Grammar’, pp. 267–87. See Mitzi Myers, ‘Domesticating Minerva: Bathsua Makin’s “Curious” Argument for Women’s Education’, Studies in Eighteenth-Century Culture, 14 (1985): 173–92. Montagu, Essay, p. 8. Eger, Elizabeth Montagu, p. 3. ‘In England, all classes are equally attracted by the pieces of Shakespeare. Our finest tragedies, in France, do not interest the people.’ Anne Louise Germaine de Staël (1766–1817), De L’Allemagne (1810–13), trans. as Germany (London, 1813), quoted in Jonathan Bate, ed., The Romantics on Shakespeare (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1992), p. 82. Montagu, Essay, p. 9. Eger, Elizabeth Montagu, p. 4. Montagu, Essay, p. 210. Eger, Elizabeth Montagu, p. 80. Griffith, Morality of Shakespeare, p. 525 (italics in original). Griffith, Morality of Shakespeare, pp. 221–2 (italics in original). Griffith, Morality of Shakespeare, p. 177. (Emphasis in original.) MO 483, Hugh Blair to Elizabeth Montagu, Edinburgh, 3 June 1769. Alistair Fowler, ‘Leavis of the North: the Role of Hugh Blair in the Foundation of English Literary Studies’, Times Literary Supplement, 14 August 1998: 3–4. Elizabeth Griffith also stressed the importance of a literary education in her treatment of Shakespeare’s plays, urging readers of Shakespeare’s work to perform ‘the dissection of its parts to his own judgement, taste and feeling’: Morality of Shakespeare, p. 217. Matthew Montagu, ed., The Letters of Mrs. Elizabeth Montagu, with some of the Letters of her Correspondents, 3 vols (3rd edition, London: printed for T. Cadell and W. Davies, 1810), IV, p. 7; 18 November 1755. Haydn Mason, ‘Voltaire versus Shakespeare’, British Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies, 18(2) (1995): 173–84. Montagu, Essay, pp. 2–3. Eger, Elizabeth Montagu, p. 1. Montagu, Essay, pp. 212–13. Eger, Elizabeth Montagu, p. 81. Montagu, Essay, pp. 217–18. Eger, Elizabeth Montagu, p. 83. Thomas Lounsbury, Shakespeare and Voltaire, p. 288. René Huchon, Mrs Montagu and her Friends (London: John Murray, 1907), p. 141. Mason, ‘Shakespeare versus Voltaire’, p. 175. Mason, ‘Shakespeare versus Voltaire’, p. 176.



Notes

Notes

86. MO 6486, Elizabeth Montagu to Elizabeth Vesey, 7 September 1776. 87. Voltaire: Complete Works: Correspondence and Related Documents, ed. T. Besterman (Banbury: Voltaire Foundation, 1968–77), Letter no.: D20272, D’Alembert to Voltaire, August 1776. 88. Maria Edgeworth, Patronage, ed. Dale Spender (London and New York: Pandora, 1986), p. 328. 89. Benger, canto III, p. 47. 90. Benger, canto III, p. 48. 91. Duncan Isles, ‘The Lennox Collection’, Harvard Library Bulletin, 19(1) (1971): 39. 92. Charlotte Lennox, Shakespear Illustrated (London: A Millar, 1753–4) (subsequent quotations are referenced by volume and page numbers in the text). Gerard Langbaine’s Account of English Dramatick Poets (1691) accounts for the source of a dozen plays but does not translate or reprint them as does Lennox’s larger survey. 93. See note 17. 94. Doody, ‘Shakespeare’s Novels’, pp. 296–310. 95. Houghton Library Manuscript. Draft proposal by Boswell for new edition of Lennox’s Shakespear Illustrated, with dedication in her own hand to the Royal Highness, Duchess of York and These proposals were drawn up by the late James Boswell at the bottom left-hand corner. 96. Kickel, ‘Reading Eighteenth-Century Adaptation Practice’, p. 62. 97. Duncan Isles, ‘The Lennox Collection’, Harvard Library Bulletin, 19(1) (1971): 37. 98. For a history of the ‘Club’, see James Sambrook, ‘Club (act. 1764– 1784)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, online edn, February 2009 (http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/theme/49211), accessed 15 July 2009. 99. Discussed in Karl Young, Samuel Johnson on Shakespeare: One Aspect (University of Wisconsin Studies in Language and Literature) 18, ser. no. 3, 1923 and Susan Green, ‘A Cultural Reading of Charlotte Lennox’s Shakespear Illustrated’, pp. 228–57, here 247. 100. See Duncan Isles, ‘The Lennox Collection’ for a selection of these letters, published in instalments in Harvard Library Bulletin, 18(4) (1970) and 19(1,2 and 4) (1971). 101. Anna Barbauld, ed., The British Novelists; with an Essay, and Prefaces Biographical and Critical, 50 vols (London, 1820), 24, pp. i–iii. 102. See Christine Roulston, ‘Histories of Nothing: Romance and Femininity in Charlotte Lennox’s The Female Quixote’, Women’s Writing, 2(1)(1995): 25–42. 103. Doody, ‘Shakespeare’s Novels‘, pp. 296–310. 104. Gallagher, Nobody’s Story, pp. 145–203. 105. A selection of these is held by the Houghton Library, Harvard University, in the Hyde Collection. 106. Sir John Hawkins, The Works of Samuel Johnson, quoted in Small, Charlotte Ramsay Lennox, pp. 10–11. 107. Karl Young, ‘Samuel Johnson on Shakespeare’, pp. 146–226. 108. Doody, ‘Shakespeare’s Novels‘, pp. 296–310; Susan Green, ‘A Cultural Reading of Charlotte Lennox’s Shakespear Illustrated’, p. 221; Jonathan Brody Kramnick, Making the English Canon, pp. 115–29. 109. Thomas Lounsbury, Shakespeare and Voltaire. 110. See Isles, ‘The Lennox Collection’, Harvard Library Bulletin 19(4) (1971): 423.



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1. See Kate Davies, Catharine Macaulay and Mercy Otis Warren: the Revolutionary Atlantic and the Politics of Gender (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005). 2. Mercy Otis Warren, Poems Dramatic and Miscellaneous (Boston: I. Thomas and E.T. Andrews, 1790), p. 181. 3. Mrs Hannah Cartwright’s Letters on female education (1777) were addressed to Montagu, who figured as a yardstick of female achievement in the crisp dedication: ‘Every woman is not a Montagu. Did the world abound with such exemplary characters, instruction would be needless.’ H. Cartwright, Letters on female education, addressed to married lady (London: Printed for Edward and Charles Dilly, 1777). 4. Helen Maria Williams, Peru, a poem. In six cantos (London: T. Cadell, 1784), pp. iii–vi. 5. See Adriana Craciun, British Women Writers and the French Revolution: Citizens of the World (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005). 6. Anne Janowitz, Women Romantic Poets: Anna Barbauld and Mary Robinson (Tavistock: Northcote House Publishers, 2004), p. 1. 7. See John Brewer, The Pleasures of the Imagination: English Culture in the Eighteenth Century (London: Harper Collins, 1997), p. 172. 8. Stuart Curran, ‘Romantic Women Poets: Inscribing the Self’, in Isobel Armstrong and Virginia Blain, eds, Women’s Poetry in the Enlightenment: the Making of a Canon, 1730–1820 (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 1999), pp. 145–66. 9. Paula R. Backscheider, Eighteenth-Century Women Poets and their Poetry: Inventing Agency, Inventing Genre (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005), p. xvii. 10. Harold Bloom, The Anxiety of Influence: a Theory of Poetry (New York: Oxford University Press, 1973). 11. For an excellent account of the development of ‘genius’ as a concept in the eighteenth century, see William Keach, ‘Poetry after 1740’, in The Cambridge History of Literary Criticism, vol. 4, The Eighteenth Century, eds H.B. Nisbet et al. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), pp. 117–66. 12. Jerome McGann, The Romantic Ideology (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1993), p. 1. 13. See Anne Mellor ‘Were Women Writers “Romantics”?’ Modern Language Quarterly, 62(4) (December 2001): 393–405, here 397–8. See also Margaret Ezell, Writing Women’s Literary History (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993). 14. J.R. de J. Jackson, Romantic Poetry by Women: a Bibliography, 1770–1835 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993). See also Stuart Curran, ‘Romantic Poetry: the “I” Altered’, in Romanticism and Feminism, ed. Anne Mellor (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1988), pp. 185–207. 15. Mary Scott, The Female Advocate; a poem occasioned by reading Mr Duncombe’s Feminead (London: Joseph Johnson, 1774), p. viii. 16. Monthly Review, 27 (December 1798): 422. 17. Katherine B. Clinton, ‘Femme et Philosophe: Enlightenment Origins of Feminism’, Eighteenth-Century Studies (Spring 1975): 283–99. 18. Thomas Seward, ‘The Female Right to Literature’, in A Collection of Poems in Several Hands, 3 vols (London: Printed for R. Dodsley, 1748); John Duncombe, The Feminead. A Poem (London: printed for M. Cooper, 1754); Mary Scott, The Female Advocate.



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19. The clergymen’s interest in supporting the bluestockings derived from notions of shared pastoral responsibility, charity and the improvement of children’s education. See Susan Staves, ‘Church of England Clergy and Women Writers’, in Reconsidering the Bluestockings, eds Nicole Pohl and Betty Schellenberg (California: Huntington Library Press, 2002), pp. 81–104. 20. Moira Ferguson, Eighteenth-Century Women Poets: Nation, Class and Gender (New York: SUNY Press, 1995), pp. 37–8. 21. Historians have uncovered the early feminist tradition of writers who challenged the legal construction of woman as a non-person within marriage, from Mary Astell to Mary Wollstonecraft. See Susan Staves, Married Women’s Separate Property in England, 1660–1833 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1990) and Moira Ferguson, ed., First Feminists: British Women Writers, 1578–1799 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1985). 22. See The Ladies New and Polite Pocket Memorandum-Book 1778 (London: Joseph Johnson, 1777), p. xii. When the nineteenth-century feminist Barbara Bodichon published her work on women’s legal position, A Brief Summary in Plain Language, of the Most Important Laws Concerning Women, Together with a Few Observations Thereon (London: Chapman, 1854), she was similarly aiming to equip the intelligent woman with practical and legal knowledge that might be of use in society. 23. Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Men and A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, ed. Sylvana Tomaselli (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), p. 155. 24. Isobel Armstrong, The Radical Aesthetic (Oxford: Blackwell, 2000), p. 59. 25. Isobel Armstrong, ‘The Gush of the Feminine: How Can We Read Women’s Poetry of the Romantic Period?’ in Romantic Women Writers: Voices and Countervoices, eds Paula R. Feldman and Theresa M. Kelley (Hanover and London: University Press of New England, 1995), pp. 13–33, here p. 16. 26. Jon Mee, Romanticism, Enthusiasm and Regulation: Poetics and the Policing of Culture in the Romantic Period (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003). See also Simon Swift, Romanticism, Literature and Philosophy: Expressive Rationality in Rousseau, Kant, Wollstonecraft and Contemporary Theory (London: Continuum, 2006). 27. Anna Barbauld, ed., Selections from the Spectator, Tatler, Guardian, and Freeholder; with a Preliminary Essay (London: Joseph Johnson, 1804); The Correspondence of Samuel Richardson, 6 vols (London: Printed for Richard Phillips, 1804); and The British Novelists; with an Essay, and Prefaces Biographical and Critical, 50 vols (London, 1810). For the best modern edition of Barbauld’s poetry, see William McCarthy and Elizabeth Kraft, The Poems of Anna Letitia Barbauld (Athens and London: University of Georgia Press, 1994). There has been a recent flourishing in scholarship surrounding Barbauld’s poetry. For the best recent discussion of the connections between Barbauld’s different types of writing, see Anne Janowitz, Romantic Women Poets: Anna Barbauld and Mary Robinson (London: Northcote House Publishers, 2005). Further interesting studies include Lucy Newlyn, Reading, Writing and Romanticism: the Anxiety of Reception (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000) and Daniel White, Early Romanticism and Religious Dissent (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006). It is my regret that William McCarthy’s new biography did not appear in time for me to consult: Anna Barbauld: Voice of the Enlightenment (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009).



238

239

28. Anna Laetitia Barbauld, The Works of Anna Laetitia Barbauld with a memoir by Lucy Aikin, ed. Lucy Aikin, 2 vols (London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, Brown and Green, 1825), I, pp. xxxii–xxiii. 29. Jon Mee, ‘ “Severe contentions of friendship”: Barbauld, Conversation, and Dispute’, in Repossessing the Romantic Past, eds Heather Glen and Paul Hamilton (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), pp. 21–39. 30. Grace A. Oliver, Tales, Poem and Essays by Anna Laetitia Barbauld, with a Biographical Sketch (Boston: Roberts Brothers, 1884), p. lxv. 31. See P.M. Zall, ‘Mrs. Barbauld’s Crew and the Building of a Mass Reading Class’, Wordsworth Circle, II(3) (1971): 74–9; Sarah Robbins, ‘Lessons for Children and Teaching Mothers: Mrs. Barbauld’s Primer for the Textual Construction of Middle-Class Domestic Pedagogy’, in The Lion and the Unicorn: a Critical Journal of Children’s Literature, 17(2) (December 1993): pp. 135–51; and William McCarthy, ‘Mother of All Discourses: Anna Barbauld’s Lessons for Children’, Princeton University Library Chronicle, 60 (1998–99): 196–219. 32. See also her Hymns in Prose for Children. By the Author of Lessons for Children (London: Printed for Joseph Johnson, no. 72, St. Paul’s Churchyard, 1781). 33. See P.M. Zall, ‘Wordsworth’s “Ode” and Mrs Barbauld’s Hymns’, Wordsworth Circle, 1 (1970): 177–9. 34. Hymns in prose for Children . . . With alterations adapted to India (Calcutta, 1817). 35. Wordsworth’s famous phrase comes from his Preface to the second edition of Lyrical Ballads (1802). See William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Lyrical Ballads, ed. Matthew Mason (Harlow: Longman, 2007), p. 71. See also Heather Glen, Vision and Disenchantment: Blake’s Songs and Wordsworth’s Lyrical Ballads (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983) and Alan Richardson, Literature, Education and Romanticism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994). 36. See Oliver, Tales, Poem and Essays by Anna Laetitia Barbauld, pp. viii–ix. 37. See the magisterial account of M.C. Jones, The Charity School Movement (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1938) and Donna Andrew, Philanthropy and the Police: London Charity in the Eighteenth Century (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1989). 38. Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the nature and causes of the Wealth of Nations (London, 1776) 2 vols; Joseph Priestley, Miscellaneous Observations Relative to Education, (Bath, 1778). 39. See Thomas Laquer, Religion and Respectability: Sunday Schools and Working Class Culture, 1780–1850 (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1976). 40. See Richard Altick, The English Common Reader: a Social History of the Mass Reading Public (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1957), p. 75. For recent discussion of Hannah More’s social influence, see Kevin Gilmartin, Writing against Revolution: Literary Conservatism in Britain 1790–1832 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007) and Anne Stott Hannah More: the First Victorian (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003). 41. Barbauld, Works, I, pp. xvii–xviii. The letter appears to be from 1774, as Lucy Aikin dates it from just before Barbauld’s move to Palgrave, Suffolk, where she assumed co-management, with her husband, of Palgrave School for boys. Barbauld’s resistance to all-female literature and education has often been used as evidence of her ‘antifeminism’. However, William McCarthy’s recent article reprints the original letter, which he argues was addressed to her husband Rochement Barbauld, rather than to Montagu, in its entirety (from a recently



Notes

42. 43. 44. 45. 46.

47.

48.

49. 50.

51.

52. 53. 54. 55. 56. 57. 58. 59. 60.

61. 62.

Notes discovered manuscript) in order to show that ‘her case against schools for girls is more rhetorical than theoretical: she is throwing cold water on a scheme she wants to evade, not on the principle that women should be educated’. See William McCarthy, ‘Why Anna Barbauld Refused to Head a Women’s College: New Facts, New Story’, Nineteenth-Century Contexts, 23(3) (2001): pp. 349–79, here 357. See also Daniel White, ‘Dissenting Heritage and Devotional Taste’, in Women, Gender and Enlightenment, eds Sarah Knott and Barbara Taylor (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2005), pp. 474–92. Lucy Aikin, ‘Memoir’, in Barbauld, Works, I, p. xviii. Anna Letetia Le Breton, Memoir of Mrs. Barbauld, Including Letters and Notices of Her Family and Friends (London: George Bell and Sons, 1874), pp. 86–7. Barbauld, Works, 1, p. xix. Mary Wollstonecraft, A Short Residence in Sweden, Norway and Denmark (London, 1796), Letter 6. William Keach, ‘Barbauld, Romanticism and the Survival of Dissent’, in Romanticism and Gender: Essays and Studies 1998, ed., Anne Janowitz (Woodbridge: D.S. Brewer, 1998), p. 49. See Daniel White, ‘The “Joineriana”: Anna Barbauld, the Aikin Family Circle, and the Dissenting Public Sphere’, Eighteenth-Century Studies, 32 (Summer 1999): 511–33. I have taken the text for all Barbauld’s poems from Anna Barbauld, The Poems of Anna Letitia Barbauld, eds. William McCarthy and Elizabeth Kraft (Athens, GA and London: University of Georgia Press, 1994). Barbauld, Poems, ‘To Dr. Aikin on his Complaining that she neglected him, October 20th 1768’, lines 48–53, p. 18. Poems, ‘To Dr. Aikin on his Complaining that she neglected him, October 20th 1768’, lines 56–9, p. 18. Ibid., lines 90–7. See Anne Janowitz, ‘Memoirs of a Dutiful Niece: Lucy Aikin and Literary Reputation’, in Repossessing the Romantic Past, eds Paul Hamilton and Heather Glen (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), pp. 80–97. William Enfield, The Speaker,or, miscellaneous pieces, selected from the best English writers, and disposed under proper heads, with a view to facilitate the improvement of youth in reading and speaking. To which is prefixed an essay on elocution (London: Joseph Johnson,1774), p. iv. Barbauld, Poems, ‘The Invitation’, pp. 9–15. Barbauld, Poems, ‘The Invitation’, p. 11, line 78. Barbauld, Poems, ‘The Invitation’, p. 13, 1ines 101–4. Barbauld, Poems, ‘The Invitation’, p. 13, lines 105–12. Barbauld, Works, I, p. xix. Barbauld, Poems, ‘The Invitation’, p. 15, lines 183–8. John Guillory, ‘The English Common Place: Lineages of the Topographical Genre’, Critical Quarterly, 33(4) (1992): 3–27. See Lucy Aikin’s Memoir in Barbauld, Works. Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Aurora Leigh and other Poems, ed. Cora Kaplan (London: The Women’s Press, 1978), p. 52, lines 468–9 and p. 51, line 431. See also Cora Kaplan, ed., Salt and Bitter and Good: Three Centuries of English and American Women Poets (London: Paddington Press, 1975). Barbauld, Works, I, p. xviii. Anne Finch, Countess of Winchelsea, Poems, ed. Myra Reynolds (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1903).



240

241

63. Barbauld, Poems, ‘Summer Evening’s Meditation’, pp. 82–3, lines 72–99. 64. Barbauld, Poems, ‘Summer Evening’s Meditation’, pp. 83–4, lines 111–17. 65. Susan Wolfson, ‘Gendering the Soul’, in Romantic Women Writers: Voices and Countervoices, eds Paula R. Feldman and Theresa M. Kelley (Hanover and London: University Press of New England, 1995), pp. 33–69. 66. Barbauld, Poems, ‘Summer Evening’s Meditation’, p. 84, lines 199–202. 67. Andrew Ashfield, ed., Romantic Women Poets (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1995), pp. 9–10. 68. James Boswell, ed., British Essays in favour of the Brave Corsicans (London, 1768). 69. Barbauld, Poems, ‘Corsica’, p. 21, lines 1–4. 70. James Boswell, An Account of Corsica, the Journal of a Tour to the Island, and Memoirs of Pascal Paoli (London: Printed by Charles Dilly, 1768). 71. See Barbauld, Poems, p. 232. Note on ‘Corsica’. 72. Barbauld, Poems, ‘Corsica’, p. 24, lines 131–5. 73. James Thomson, ‘Liberty Part IV. Britain’, in Liberty, The Castle of Indolence and other Poems, ed. James Sambrook (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983), pp. 117–18. 74. Barbauld, Poems, ‘Corsica’, p. 22, lines 38–62. 75. Barbauld, ed., The Poetical Works of William Collins (London: Printed for T. Cadell & W. Davies, 1797), p. xxx. 76. Barbauld, Poems, ‘Corsica’, p. 25, lines 160–7. 77. Barbauld, Poems, ‘Corsica’, p. 26, lines 184–201. 78. See Lucy Newlyn, Reading, Writing and Romanticism: the Anxiety of Reception (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), p. 142. 79. An Address to the Opposers of the Repeal of the Corporation and Test Acts; Sins of Government, Sins of the Nation; or, a Discourse on the Fast, appointed on April 19, 1793. 80. See Vivien Jones, Women in the Eighteenth Century (London: Routledge, 1990), pp. 186–9. 81. Roger Lonsdale, The Oxford Book of Eighteenth Century Women Poets (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989). 82. Gary Kelly, ‘Feminine Romanticism, Masculine History, and the Founding of the Modern Liberal State’, in Romanticism and Gender: Essays and Studies 1998, ed. Anne Janowitz (Woodbridge: D.S. Brewer, 1998), pp. 1–18. 83. See Barbara Brandon Schnorrenberg, ‘Aikin, Lucy (1781–1864)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004). Lucy Aikin, Epistles on Women, Exemplifying their character and condition in various ages and nation (London: Joseph Johnson, 1810). (All subsequent references, given either to page or line number, are taken from this edition.) 84. See Devoney Looser, British Women Writers and the Writing of History 1670–1820 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000). 85. Critical Review, 21 (August 1811): 418–26, here 423. 86. Lucy Aikin, Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth (London,1818), Memoirs of the Court of James the First (London, 1822) and Memoirs of the Court of Charles the First (London,1833). 87. Anne Janowitz, ‘Memoirs of a Dutiful Niece: Lucy Aikin and Literary Reputation’, in Repossessing the Romantic Past, eds Paul Hamilton and Heather Glen (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), pp. 80–97, here p. 91. 88. See Harriet Guest, Small Change: Women, Learning, Patriotism, 1750–1810 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000) and Anne Mellor, ‘The Female Poet



Notes

89.

90. 91.

92.

93. 94.

95.

96.

97. 98. 99. 100. 101. 102. 103.

104. 105.

Notes and the Poetess: Two Traditions of British Women’s Poetry, 1780–1830’, Studies in Romanticism, 36 (Summer 1997): 261–76. See Kathryn Ready, ‘The Enlightenment Feminist Project of Lucy Aikin’s Epistle’s on Women (1810)’, History of European Ideas, 31 (2005): 435–50, here 431. See David Spadfora, The Idea of Progress in Eighteenth-Century Britain (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990). For a full discussion of Enlightenment theories of civilisation in relation to the history of women, see Sylvana Tomaselli, ‘The Enlightenment Debate on Women’, History Workshop Journal 20 (Autumn 1985): 101–23 and ‘Civilization, Patriotism, and the Enlightened Histories of Woman’, in Women, Gender and Enlightenment, eds Sarah Knott and Barbara Taylor (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), pp. 117–35. John Millar, Origin of the Distinction of Ranks (London, 1779). For a discussion of Millar, see Michael Ignatieff, ‘John Millar and Individualism’, in Istvan Hont and Michael Igantieff, eds, Wealth and Virtue: the Shaping of Political Economy in the Scottish Enlightenment (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), pp. 317–43. It is possible that Aikin was familiar with his work, or with William Alexander’s The History of Women from the Earliest Antiquity, to the Present Time; giving some Account of almost every interesting Particular concerning that Sex, among all Nations, Ancient and Modern (London, 1779). See Stuart Curran, ‘The Dynamics of Female Friendship in the Later Eighteenth Century’, Nineteenth-Century Contexts, 23 (2001): 221–39. Anne Mellor, ‘The Female Poet and the Poetess: Two Traditions of British Women’s Poetry, 1780–1830’, Studies in Romanticism, 36 (Summer 1997): 261–76, p. 272. See Sylvana Tomaselli, ‘The Most Public Sphere of all: the Family’, in Women, Writing and the Public Sphere, 1700–1830, eds, Elizabeth Eger, Charlotte Grant, Clíona Ó Gallchoir and Penny Warburton (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), pp. 239–56. Lucy Aikin’s first publication was an educational anthology, Poetry for Children. Consisting of Short Pieces to be Committed to Memory (London: Printed for R. Phillips, No. 71, St. Paul’s Churchyard, 1803). Mellor, ‘The Female Poet and the Poetess’, p. 273 (emphasis in the original). Sylvana Tomaselli, ‘Civilization, Patriotism, and the Enlightened Histories of Woman’, p. 119. See Maxine Berg and Elizabeth Eger, Luxury in the Eighteenth Century: Debates, Desires and Delectable Goods (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2001). Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Men, in A Vindication of the Rights of Men and A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, pp. 8–9. Kathryn Ready, ‘The Enlightenment Feminist Project of Lucy Aikin’s Epistles on Women (1810)’, p. 435. Barbauld, Works. See Maggie Favretti, ‘The Politics of Vision: Anna Barbauld’s “Eighteen Hundred and Eleven” ’, in Armstrong and Blain, eds, Women’s Poetry in the Enlightenment, pp. 99–110. See William Keach, ‘A Regency Prophecy and the End of Anna Barbauld’s Career’, Studies in Romanticism, 33 (Winter 1994): 569–77. Review of Eighteen Hundred Eleven, Quarterly Review, 7 (1812): 309–13. The review has been attributed to John Wilson Croker.



242

106. 107. 108. 109. 110. 111. 112. 113. 114. 115.

243

All subsequent references are to line numbers in Barbauld, Poems, pp. 152–61. Monthly Review, 67 (1812): 428–32. Review of Eighteen Hundred Eleven, Quarterly Review, 7. Favretti, ‘The Politics of Vision: Anna Barbauld’s “Eighteen Hundred and Eleven” ’. See Keach, ‘A Regency Prophecy’ and Favretti, ‘The Politics of Vision: Anna Barbauld’s “Eighteen Hundred and Eleven” ’. The Anti-Jacobin Review, 42 (June 1812): 205. Review of Eighteen Hundred Eleven, Quarterly Review, 7, p. 309. Favretti, ‘The Politics of Vision: Anna Barbauld’s “Eighteen Hundred and Eleven” ’, p. 107. Mercy Otis Warren, Poems Dramatic and Miscellaneous, p. 181. Lucy Aikin, Memoirs, in Barbauld, Works, pp. lvii–lviii.

Conclusion 1. Quoted in Rebecca Warner, ed, Original Letters with Biographical Illustration (London, 1817), p. 231. 2. Mary Robinson, ‘Society and Manners in the Metropolis of England’, Monthly Magazine, 10 (1800), pp. 138–9. 3. Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (London, 1792). See Adriana Craciun, British Women Writers and the French Revolution: Citizens of the World (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2005). 4. See Norma Clarke, The Rise and Fall of the Woman of Letters (London: Pimlico, 2004), pp. 338–43. 5. I am very grateful to Anne Mellor for allowing me to read her unpublished paper, ‘Romantic Bluestockings: from Muses to Matrons’, delivered at the Yale Center for British Art in 2003, in which she traces the reaction against the bluestockings and the emergence of a domestic model of female intellect in the nineteenth century. See also Marlon Ross, The Contours of Masculine Desire: Romanticism and the Rise of Women’s Poetry (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989). 6. Richard Polwhele’s poem, The Unsex’d Females (London, 1798), was a diatribe against radical women writers of the 1790s. 7. Clifford Siskin, The Work of Writing: Literature and Social Change in Britain, 1700–1830 (Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998), p. 195. 8. Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Collected Letters, ed. E.L. Griggs, 6 vols (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1956–71), III, 459. 9. George Gordon, Lord Byron, Don Juan (London 1819–24), Part IV, stanza cix. 10. William Hazlitt, ‘Of Great and Little Things’ (1821), in The Complete Works, ed. P.P. Howe, 21 vols (London: J.M. Dent and Sons, 1931), VIII, p. 236. 11. The British Critic, 20 (July 1823): 50–5. 12. Harriet Guest, ‘Bluestocking Feminism’, in Reconsidering the Bluestockings, eds Nicole Pohl and Betty Schellenberg (San Marino, CA: Huntington Library Press, 2003), pp. 59–80, here p. 80. 13. Hannah More, Strictures on the Modern System of Female Education. With a view of the Principles and Conduct Prevalent among Women of Rank and Fortune, 2 vols (London, 1799), sixth edition, vol. II: ‘The practical use of Female Knowledge’, p. 13.



Notes

Notes

14. Hannah More, Essays on Various Subjects, Principally Designed for Young Ladies (London, 1777), pp. 6–7. 15. Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own and Three Guineas, ed. Hermione Lee (London: Vintage, 2001), p. 55. Woolf earlier recalls the anecdote that Gay or Pope used the phrase ‘blue-stocking with an itch for scribbling’ to belittle the poet Anne Finch, Countess of Winchelsea (1661–1720). 16. Harriet Kramer Linkin and Stephen C. Behrendt, ‘Introduction: Recovering Romanticism and Women Poets’, in Linkin and Behrendt, Romanticism and Women Poets: Opening the Doors of Reception (Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1999), p. 1. 17. Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Men and A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, ed. Sylvana Tomaselli (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), p. 155. 18. Woolf, A Room of One’s Own and Three Guineas, p. 98. For an interesting discussion of the tradition of creating feminist icons, see Barbara Taylor’s review of Elaine Showalter’s Inventing Herself: Claiming a Feminist Intellectual Heritage (London: Picador, 2001), in London Review of Books, 24(1) (3 January 2002). 19. Margaret Ezell, Writing Women’s Literary History (Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993). See Chapter 2: ‘The Myth of Judith Shakepeare: Creating the Canon of Women’s Literary History in the Twentieth Century’, pp. 39–66.



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Memoirs and correspondence Oliver, Grace A., Tales, Poem and Essays by Anna Laetitia Barbauld, with a Biographical Sketch (Boston: Roberts Brothers, 1884). Le Breton, Anna Letitia, Memoir of Mrs. Barbauld, Including Letters and Notices of her Family and Friends (London: George Bell, 1874).

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Collections The Works of Mrs Hannah More in prose and verse (Cork, 1778). The Works of Hannah More, 8 vols (London, 1801). The Works of Mrs Hannah More, 19 vols (London, 1818). Poems (London, 1829). The Works of Hannah More, 11 vols (London, 1830). Selected Writings of Hannah More, ed. Robert Hole (London: Pickering & Chatto, 1996).

Catharine Macaulay (1731–91) The History of England from the Accession of James I to that of the Brunswick Line, 8 vols (London, 1763–83). Loose Remarks on Certain Positions to be found in Mr Hobbes’s ‘Philosophical Rudiments of Government and Society’, with a Short Sketch of a Democratical Form of Government, In a Letter to Signor Paoli (London, 1767). Observations on a Pamphlet entitled ‘Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents’ (London, 1770). A Modest Plea for the Property of Copyright (Bath, 1774). An Address to the People of England, Scotland and Ireland on the Present and Important Crisis of Affairs (Bath, 1775). The History of England from the Revolution to the Present Time in a Series of Letters to a Friend [the Revd Dr Wilson] (Bath, 1778). Treatise on the Immutability of Moral Truth (London, 1783). Letters on Education. With Observations on Religious and Metaphysical Subjects (London: Printed for C. Dilly, in the Poultry, 1790). Observations on the Reflections of the Rt. Hon. Edmund Burke, on the Revolution in France (London, 1790).

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Bibliography

Abelard and Eloisa viii, 63, 66 (Plate 24) Adam, Robert 69 Addison, Joseph 108 Aikin, Anna see Barbauld, Anna Aikin, Lucy 9, 31, 168–70, 198, 202 Epistles on Women 184–94 Aikin, John 173 Alexander, William, The History of Women 217n20, 220n74 Anderson, Emily 214n40 anthologies 21, 31, 209, 252–3 Apollo 9–10, 34, 35, 38–40, 53, 83 Armstrong, Isobel 168 Ashfield, Andrew 21, 165, 179 Astell, Mary 25, 117 authorship anonymous 97, 129–30 female 96–7, 129–30 Baillie, Joanna 170, 201–2 Baillie sisters 170 Baird, Rosemary 68 Backscheider, Paula 165 Ballard, George 23, 41, 139, 217n20 Barbauld, Anna Laetitia 169–84, 194–202, 233n41 ‘Corsica’ 179–84, 201 ‘To Dr. Aikin on his Complaining that she neglected him, October 20th 1768’ 173–4 Eighteen Hundred and Eleven 194–202 ‘The Invitation’ 174–7 portraits of 2 (Plate 1), 86 (Plate 27) ‘A Summer Evening’s Meditation’ 177–9 Barrell, John 33 Barry, James 32–5, 36, 43, 45 (Plate 15), 46–7, 51, 58, 63, 82 Letter to the Dilettanti Society 32, 33 Progress of Human Knowledge and Culture 43, 44, 45, 63

Bartalozzi, Francesco vi, 17, 18 (Plate 9), 18 Basire, James 102 (Plate 28) Bate, Jonathan 123, 132 Bath, William Pulteney, Earl of xii, 88, 90, 97 Beattie, James 80, 81, 130, 131 Behn, Aphra 15, 23, 138–9 Belanger, Terry 215n52 Benger, Elizabeth Ogilvie 128, 148 Bestland, Charles, Assembly of the Royal Academicians 50 (Plate 17) Bishop, Elizabeth 99 Blair, Hugh 130, 143 bluestocking(s) backlash against 201–5 and community 29 definition of term 11–13 and feminism 22 and Mary Wollstonecraft 11–12 and salon culture 59–121 Brant, Clare 89–90 Brewer, John 216n74, 229n179 British Critic 206 Brumoy, Pierre 17, 108 Burke, Edmund xii, 11, 13, 88, 130, 205 Burney, Fanny 13, 78–9, 152, 153 on salon culture 110, 112 Byron, George Gordon, Lord 206 Don Juan 206 Campbell Orr, Clarissa 228n148 Carlile, Susan 213n30, 233n22 Carter, Elizabeth 1, 2, 5, 7–9, 11, 13, 27, 29, 38, 56, 59, 72–3, 75, 78, 82, 107, 109, 128, 132, 167, 175, 202 and classical languages 140 and classical models 101–2 on conversation 105 and correspondence 87–9, 92 and ‘female literature’ 120 on female writers 96 friendship with Montagu 93–100

270



Index

Index

Davies, Kate 211n4, 212n21 Day, Thomas 170 Delany, Mary 49, 68, 91 Dobson, Michael 125–6 Donoghue, Emma 227n142

Doody, Margaret Ann 149, 153, 156, 162, 232n17 Duncombe, John 56–7, 166–7 Duncombe, Susanna 27 Dryden, John 140, 234n50, Dyce, Alexander 170, 183 Earlom, Richard, The Academicians of the Royal Academy 48 (Plate 16) Edgeworth, Maria 3, 118, 169, 170, 172 Letters for Literary Ladies 93, 118–19 Patronage 146–7 Edgeworth, Richard 170 Practical Education 170 education 105, 114–20 sexual inequality of 120 Elizabeth I, Queen 96–7 Elstob, Elizabeth 26, 139–40, 234n60 Enfield, William 174, 176 Epictetus 7, 27, 92, 94–6, 105 Ezell, Margaret 23, 60 Facius, G.S. and I.S vii, 51, 55 (Plate 21) Fergus, Jan 26 Ferguson, Moira 21, 167, 213n34, 214n43 Freemasonry 115–16 friendship 98–9, 186–7, 192 French Revolution 183, 205 Gallagher, Catherine 21, 23, 153 Garrick, David xii, 13, 15, 19, 88, 122–3, 124 (Plate 29), 125, 130, 154 Gay, John 244n15 genius 5, 21, 69, 79, 81, 82, 115, 163, 164, 165, 192, 200–1, 207 female genius 17, 23, 56–7, 91, 120, 148, 208, 209 Kauffman’s genius 49 Montagu’s genius 72, 107 Shakespeare’s genius 122, 123, 127–8, 129, 132–3, 138, 140, 143, 146, 147, 149, 154, 155, 157 Vesey’s ‘plastic’ genius 109–10 Gibbon, Edward 199 Godwin, William 205 Goldsmith, Oliver 195 The Deserted Village 195 Goodman, Dena 60–1 Grand Tour 197



friendship with Talbot 99 portraits of 2 (Plate 1) 8 (Plate 4) Cartwright, Hannah 225n92, 237n3 Cassandra 196 Cave, Edward 7, 94 Cavendish, Margaret 137 Chapone, Hester xii, 22, 31, 58, 92, 95, 100, 117–18 on conversation 111, 116, 117–20 Letters on the Improvement of the Mind 83–5 and patronage 82 chinoiserie 69 Cipriaini, Giovanni Battista 102 (Plate 28) citizenship 205 civic humanism 61 civic virtue 33, 108, 171 collaboration, literary 233n41 Clarke, Norma 205 classical literature 36, 98, 119 classical models 101 Climenson, Emily xiii, 213n23, 222n13 Clery, E.J. 75, 211n8, 214n39, 224n59 Coleridge, Samuel Taylor 170, 206 Colman, George 23, 151 Columbus, Christopher 201 commerce 20, 25, 27, 33, 41–6, 67, 75, 87, 189–90, 194, 199–200 conversation and 100 community, literary 106, 117, 118 conversation 100–118, 192 copyright, literary 11, 25–6, 85 Corinthian maid 192 Cornelia 193 Cowper, Mary 123–7 Cowper, William 72, 125, 166, 186 Crabb Robinson, Henry 170 Croker, John Wilson 199 Cumberland, Richard 63, 67 Curran, Stuart 21, 165, 237n14, 242n93

271

Index

Grant, Charlotte 219n44, 219n62 Green, Susan 156, 232n17 Greer, Germaine 36, 211n1, 214n43, 217n17 Grey, Lady Jane 192 Gribelin, Simon, The Judgement of Hercules 53 (Plate 19) Griffith, Elizabeth 1, 5, 15, 17, 30 on Anna Barbauld 233n41 and David Garrick 233n39 and epistolary novel 89–90 portraits 2 (Plate 1), 16 (Plate 8) Shakespeare’s Morality Illustrated 127, 129, 133–8 Guest, Harriet 7, 13, 25, 62, 128, 207 Grozer, Joseph 84 (Plate 26) Habermas, Jürgen 27, 62, 89 Haslett, Moyra 229n175 Hawley, Judith 211n8, 231n6 Hays, Mary 38, 58, 91, 169, 172, 207 Haywood, Eliza 15, 121–2, 128 Hazlitt, William 206 Heller, Deborah 74, 108 Hesse, Carla 29, 62 Heywood, Thomas vi, 36, 37 (Plate 12) Hill, Bridget 212n18, 228n154 historiography 185 history, conjectural 186, 190 Hofkosh, Sonia 231n209 Hont, Istvan 215n62 Hoock, Holger 211n6 Huchon, René 227n119 Hufton, Olwen 211n1 Hulme, Peter 215n65 Hume, David 11, 28, 29, 41–3, 61, 63, 76, 108, 190 Hunt, Tamara L 215n61 Hutchinson, Lucy 192 Ignatieff, Michael 215n62 imagination 1, 9, 47, 61, 105 Anne Yearsley’s 83 gender and poetic 178 public 47, 60, 85, 114–15, 203 reason and 165–6, 168 Romantic 165 Shakespeare and 135, 140, 157

Janowitz, Anne 164–5, 185, 212n13, 237n6, 238n27, 240n50 Jesuits 116 Johnson, Joseph 167, 169 Johnson, Pauline 215n63 Johnson, Samuel xii, 7, 11, 13, 15, 17, 19, 46, 148 on Elizabeth Carter 96 on Hannah More’s Bas Bleu 107 and Shakespeare 131–2, 127, 130, 151 Jones, Vivien 31, 229n164 Jordanova, Ludmilla 215n65 Kames, Henry Home, Lord 34, 41, 61, 130, 143, 186 Kauffman, Angelica vi, vii, 1, 2 (Plate 1), 5–7, 28, 47 The Artist Hesitating Between the Arts of Painting and Music 52 (Plate 18) and decorative arts 7 ‘Design’ 6 (Plate 3) and Royal Academy 47–53 Sappho Inspired by Love 55 (Plate 21) Self-Portrait in the Character of Painting Embraced by Poetry, 54 (Plate 20) Keach, William 173, 194, 240n50 Keate, George 53 Keate, Georgiana 53 Kelly, Gary 21, 183–4 Kickel, Katherine 150–51 Kippis, Andrew 131 Klein, Lawrence 61, 229n179 Knox, Vicesimus, ‘On Female Literature’ 119–20 Kraft, Elizabeth 212n13, 238n27 Kramnick, Jonathan Brody 162, 232n17 Lamb, Charles 170 Landes, Joan 215n64 Landry, Donna 225n89 Lanser, Susan 227n128 Lennox, Charlotte 1, 2 (Plate 1), 5, 17, 30, 114 portrait 18 (Plate 9) Shakespear Illustrated 127, 129, 148–62 liberty 168



272

Linley, Elizabeth 1, 2 (Plate 1), 9 see also Sheridan, Elizabeth luxury 190 Locke, John 30, 31, 201 Lonsdale, Roger 21, 165, 183 Lyrical Ballads 171, 183 Lyttelton, George, Lord xii, 81, 88, 97, 133 Dialogues of the Dead 63, 97 Macaulay, Catharine 1, 2 (Plate 1), 10–11, 13, 22, 25–6, 31, 38, 101–2, 167, 190, 207, 211n4 and copyright law 11, 25–6 portraits 2 (Plate 1), 12 (Plate 6), 102 (Plate 28) Maese, Sarah 104–5 Major, Emma 109 Matthaeis, Paolo de vii, 51 The Judgement of Hercules 53 (Plate 19) McCarthy, William 212n13, 238n27, 239n31, 239n41, 240n48 McDowell, Paula 215n61 Mee, Jon 168, 169–70 Mellor, Anne 23, 187, 188, 205, 243n5 Montagu, Elizabeth 1, 2 (Plate 1), 5, 7, 10–13 assemblies 11, 28, 60–2: Hill Street 68–71; Portman Square 71–7 coal mines xii, 13, 67–8, 77 correspondence xii–xiii Dialogues of the Dead 97 Essay on the Writings and Genius of Shakespeare 127, 129 as patron 77, 87 portraits 2 (Plate1), 8 (Plate 4), 14 (Plate 7), 45 (Plate 15), 64 (Plate 22), 65 (Plate 23), 66 (Plate 24), 82 (Plate 25), 86 (Plate 27) Moody, Elizabeth 166 Moore, Derry, Modern Muses of Great Britain vii, 43, 44 (Plate 14), 218n41 Moore, J.F vi, 11, 12 (Plate 6) Moran, Mary Catherine 61, 224n58 More, Hannah xii, 1, 2 (Plate 1), 3, 5, 7, 17, 19 (Plate 10), 31, 171, 172, 207 and Anne Yearsley 82–3, 82 (Plate 25)

273

The Bas Bleu; or Conversation 20, 101, 107–14, 186–7 Cheap Repository Tracts 171 on ‘Montagu House’ 73 and Sunday schools 171: Strictures on the Modern System of Education 207 More, Thomas 192 Myers, Sylvia Harcstarck 22, 104, 213n23, 218n26, 222n16 muses 1–58 passim, 59–62, 76, 81, 87, 89, 121, 127, 141, 153, 174, 176 classical muses 36 modernist muse 38 see also Nine Living Muses Nattier, Jean-Marc 63 Newlyn, Lucy 182, 211n13, 237n27 Nicholson, Linda J 215n71 The Nine Living Muses of Great Britain 1–31, 32–58, 59–61, 87, 89, 100, 167, 191, 203, 209–10 see also muses Novy, Marianne 122 Orrery, John Boyle, fifth Earl of Cork and 151, 153, 154 Outram, Dorinda 215n65 Ovid 142 Page (artist and engraver) vi, vii, 4 (Plate 2), 39 (Plate 13), 40 Parker, Roszika 47 Parnassus 83, 106 Perry, Gill 51–3, 228n152 Perry, Ruth 230n198 philosophy 28–30, 104, 107 bluestocking 13, 29, 67, 70, 71, 106, 107, 108, 116 epistolary 29, 93, 100 moral 133–4, 147 natural 114 Stoic 94 Pine, Robert Edge 124 (Plate 29) poetry 163–202 and accomplishments 165 and female education 166 and political ideas 164 and Romantic genius 164–5 Pohl, Nicole 213n23



Index

Index

Pointon, Marcia 216n9, 219n51, 228n152 Polwhele, Richard 183 ‘The Unsex’d Females’ 183, 205 Pope, Alexander 63, 92, 122, 125, 130, 133, 134, 144, 162, 187, 244n15 Porter, Roy 28 Porter, David 69 Pressly, William 33 Priestley, Joseph 171 Pollock, Griselda 47 Potter, Robert 131 Poussin, Nicolas 34, 35, 53 public sphere Enlightenment 27, 29 Habermasian 27, 62, 88 literary 1, 3, 29, 62, 75, 81, 83, 114, 117, 146, 153, 209 of painting 51 and publication 29, 62 and salons 108 and taste 61 Quarterly Review

199

Ramsay, Allan viii, 13, 63, 65 (Plate 23) Raphael 34, 35, 40, 101, 197 reading 17, 89, 94 as female pursuit 80–2, 85, 96, 104, 108–9, 120, 129, 152 as vehicle for friendship 87 Read, Catherine vi, 7, 8 (Plate 4), 101 Ready, Kathryn 186, 229n178 Rendall, Jane 215n69, 216n7, 224n58 Reeve, Clara 56, 100 republic of letters 20, 43, 60–1 republicanism 101–2, 163, 172, 180, 186, 190 Reynolds, Frances 17, 19 (Plate 10), 166, 213n31, 216n8, 222n13 Reynolds, Joshua vi, vii, xii, 6, 9, 10 (Plate 5), 13, 14 (Plate 7), 17, 18 (Plate 9), 23, 24 (Plate 11), 43, 63, 83, 88, 101, 107, 130, 151, 197 Richardson, Samuel 7, 9, 17, 56, 89, 152 Riley, Denise 216n4 Riordan, Susannah 213n24 Ritchie, Fiona 231n5, 232n12

Rizzo, Betty 95, 233n39 Roberts, Sasha 232n12 Robinson, Mary 54, 56, 164, 205 Rosenthal, Angela 51, 53, 211n5, 220n69 Ross, Marlon 205 Rowlandson, Thomas 203, 204 (Plate 30), 206 Royal Academy 1, 5, 6, 9, 33–5, 38, 40, 43, 46, 47, 49–51, 211n6, 219n54 Royal Society 219n54 Royal Society of Arts 45 (Plate 15) see also Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce salon English salon 102 and female education 103, 114–15 spatial arrangements of 112–14 salonnières 60–1, 63, 68, 228n161 Samuel, Richard 1–5, 2 (Plate 1), 6–7, 9, 13, 15, 17, 20, 21–3, 25, 28, 31, 33, 34–5, 38–43, 47, 49, 51, 57, 58, 59, 60–1, 76, 89, 100–1, 126–7, 167, 191, 203, 209 Say, William 24 (Plate 11) Schellenberg, Betty 25, 213n23 Schiebinger, Londa 36, 50 Schnorrenberg, Barbara 31, 216n75 Scott, Mary 9, 57, 166–7, 185–6 Scott, Sarah xii, 75, 78, 100 Millenium Hall 29, 101, 116–18, 126 Scott, Walter 170 Sévigné, Madame de 92 Seward, Anna 183 Seward, Thomas 166 Shakespeare criticism 121–62 Shakespeare and national identity 132 Shakespeare Ladies Club 121–2 Shakespeare, William 121–62 and the vernacular 30, 128, 139–41, 142–3 see also genius Shawe-Taylor, Desmond 217n15 Sheridan, Elizabeth 2 (Plate 1), 9, 10 (Plate 5), 38 Shiells, Sarah 84 (Plate 26) Silver, Larry 217n16



274

Singleton, Henry vii, 49 Assembly of the Royal Academicians 50 (Plate 17) Siskin, Clifford 206 sister arts 35, 51, 205 sisterhood, literary and creative 53, 56–7, 134, 187, 192, 194, 201–2, 208 Smith, Adam 28, 29, 79, 143, 171 Smith, John Raphael vi, 13, 14 (Plate 7) Smith, Charlotte 183 Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce 40, 43, 45 (Plate 15), 46 Solkin, David 215n62, 216n6 Sombart, Werner 74–5 Sophocles 142, 144, 234n50 Spectator 108 Spectator, Female 121 Spencer, Jane 21, 23 Stael, Germaine de 141 Talbot, Catharine 7, 167 ‘Essay on the Importance of Riches’ 79 friendship with Carter 99 Taylor, J. (engraver) 82 (Plate 25) Thaddeus, Janice Farrar 26 Thompson, Ann 232n12 Thomson, James 180 Thornton, Bonnell 23, 151 Thrale, Hester 110 Tinker, Chauncey 102–3 Todd, Janet 21, 22, 211n1, 214n38, 226n114 Tomaselli, Sylvana 22, 190, 242n91, 242n95 translation 94, 126 Charlotte Lennox and 127, 153, 154 Elizabeth Carter and 7, 27, 94, 105 Lucy Aikin and Tacitus 191 of Sappho’s work 53, 54 of Shakespeare’s sources 127, 149–50, 155, 156–8 Voltaire and 141–2, 144–5 Uglow, Jenny

101

275

vernacular language 30, 128, 139–41, 142–3, 171, 176 Vesey, Elizabeth xii, 7, 62, 85, 87, 88, 106, 109–10, 116–17, 145, 146 Vickery, Amanda 211n1, 229n179 Voltaire 13, 76, 129, 130, 134, 141, 143–7, 163 Walpole, Horace 205 Warburton, Penny 224n77 Warner, Marina 35, 216n3, 218n27 Warren, Mercy Otis 163 Warrington Academy 173–7 Waterloo, Battle of 203 Watson, Caroline 123, 124 (Plate 29) Wedgwood, Josiah 63, 64 (Plate 22) West, Shearer 220n80 Westminster Magazine viii, 85, 86 (Plate 27), 104 Wheatley, Phillis 167 White, Daniel 212n13, 238n27, 239n41, 240n47 Williams, Helen Maria 183 and Elizabeth Montagu 164 Wiseman, Susan 212n18, 212n21 Wolfson, Susan 178 Wollstonecraft, Mary 7, 26, 32, 104, 118, 119, 168, 172, 187, 190, 205–6, 207, 209–10 on Anna Barbauld 212n41 on friendship 96 on Hester Chapone 85 on letter-writing 92–3 Vindication of the Rights of Woman, 11, 22, 26, 104–5, 168 Woolf, Virginia 27, 208–10 Wordsworth, William 170, 172, 183 Wraxall, Nathaniel 70 Yearsley, Anne xii, 27, 82–3, 225n87 portraits 82 (Plate 25), 84 (Plate 26) Zoffany, Johann vii, 40, 47–9 The Academicians of the Royal Academy 48 (Plate 16)



Index

Bluestockings: Women of Reason from Enlightenment to Romanticism

From Enlightenment to Revolution

From Misery to Enlightenment

Women, Gender and Enlightenment

Helmholtz: From Enlightenment to Neuroscience

Reason to Believe: Romanticism, Pragmatism, and the Possibility of Teaching

Fatal Women of Romanticism (Cambridge Studies in Romanticism)

Georg Lukacs - From Romanticism to Bolshevism

Introducing Children's Literature: From Romanticism to Postmodernism

Romanticism

Placing the Enlightenment: Thinking Geographically about the Age of Reason

Placing the Enlightenment: Thinking Geographically about the Age of Reason

Women and Enlightenment in Eighteenth-Century Britain

The Fate of Reason: German Philosophy from Kant to Fichte

Pope to Burney, 1714-1779: Scriblerians to Bluestockings (Transitions)

The Fate of Reason: German Philosophy from Kant to Fichte

Critique of Instrumental Reason from Weber to Habermas

In the Theatre of Romanticism: Coleridge, Nationalism, Women (Cambridge Studies in Romanticism)

Enlightenment

Enlightenment

Enlightenment

Enlightenment

A companion to European romanticism

Dialectic of Romanticism

The Emergence of Romanticism

The Ethics of Romanticism

Enlightenment

Return to Reason

Reason to Breathe

Enlightenment

The Ethics of Romanticism

Bluestockings: Women of Reason from Enlightenment to Romanticism

From Enlightenment to Revolution

From Misery to Enlightenment

Women, Gender and Enlightenment

Helmholtz: From Enlightenment to Neuroscience

Reason to Believe: Romanticism, Pragmatism, and the Possibility of Teaching

Fatal Women of Romanticism (Cambridge Studies in Romanticism)

Georg Lukacs - From Romanticism to Bolshevism

Introducing Children's Literature: From Romanticism to Postmodernism

Romanticism

Placing the Enlightenment: Thinking Geographically about the Age of Reason

Placing the Enlightenment: Thinking Geographically about the Age of Reason

Women and Enlightenment in Eighteenth-Century Britain

The Fate of Reason: German Philosophy from Kant to Fichte

Pope to Burney, 1714-1779: Scriblerians to Bluestockings (Transitions)

The Fate of Reason: German Philosophy from Kant to Fichte

Critique of Instrumental Reason from Weber to Habermas

In the Theatre of Romanticism: Coleridge, Nationalism, Women (Cambridge Studies in Romanticism)

Enlightenment

Enlightenment

Enlightenment

Enlightenment

A companion to European romanticism

Dialectic of Romanticism

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