In the last two chapters we have been considering the literary works of Newcastle. We must now face those of his Duchess—a very much more serious matter. The quantity of her written stuff was prodigious. The following list of her books, drawn up by Langbaine, is enough to cause the stoutest heart to quail. He says:—[169]

“She has published six and twenty plays, besides several loose scenes”—loose they are indeed—“nineteen of which are bound, and printed in one volume in Fol. 1662, the others in Folio, Lond., 1668, under the title of Plays never before printed. I know there are some that have but a mean opinion of her plays; but, if it be considered that both the language and plots of them are all her own, I think she ought to be preferred to others of her sex, which have built their fame on other people’s foundations.”

Then he enumerates:—

“Plays.

The other seven he does not name; but he says that to her play “Presence” are added twenty-nine single scenes which the Duchess designed to have inserted into this play, but finding it would too much lengthen it, she printed them separately. Of her other works he mentions:—

“The life of the Duke of Newcastle in English. Folio. London 1667.

“The same in Latin. Folio. London 1668.

“Nature’s Picture drawn by Fancy’s Pencil to the life. Folio. London 1656, at the end of which she has writ her own life.

“Philosophical Fancies. Folio. London 1653.

“Philosophical & Physical Opinions. Folio. London 1655.

“Philosophical Letters. Folio. London 1664.

“Two Hundred and Eleven Sociable Letters. Folio. London 1664.

“Orations. Folio. 1662.

“Poems. Folio. 1653.”

The reader need not be afraid that much of all this is to be inflicted upon him; we have already seen a good deal of her writings; but a few fresh examples must needs be given. One reason for the prodigious number of her works was that she always kept secretaries at hand to write at dictation whatever happened to come into her head, a second seems to have been that she considered whatever came into her head to have been worthy of publication. Cibber says of her:—[170]

“Being now restored to the sunshine of prosperity, she dedicated her time to writing poems, philosophical discourses, orations and plays. She was of a generous turn of mind, and kept a great many young ladies about her person, who occasionally wrote what she dictated. Some of them slept in a room contiguous to that in which her Grace lay, and were ready, at the call of her bell, to rise any hour of the night, to write down her conceptions, lest they should escape her memory. The young ladies, no doubt, often dreaded her Grace’s conceptions, which were frequent, but all of the poetical or philosophical kind.”

She herself gives the following long-winded description of the speed at which her mighty brain kept turning out matter for “copy,” and what is given here is a mere fragment of a sentence of miraculous length.

“... the brain being quicker in creating than the hand in writing, or the memory in retaining, many fancies are lost, by reason they ofttimes outrun the pen; where I, to keep speed in the Race, write so fast as I stay not so long as to write my letters plain, insomuch as some have taken my hand-writing for some strange character, and being accustomed so to do, I cannot now write very plain, when I strive to write my best; indeed, my ordinary hand-writing is so bad as few can read it, so as to write it fair for the Press, but however, that little wit I have, it delights me to scribble it out, and disperse it about, for I being addicted from my childhood to contemplation rather than conversation, to solitariness rather than society, to melancholy rather than mirth, to write with the pen than to work with a needle, passing my time with harmeless fancies, their company being pleasing, their conversation innocent, in which I take such pleasure, as I neglect my health, for it is as great a grief to leave their society, as a joy to be in their company, my only trouble is, lest my brain should grow barren, or that the root of my fancies should become insipid, withering into a dull stupidity for want of maturing subjects to write on,” and so on, and so on!

The account given above by Cibber of the young ladies who “slept in a room contiguous to that in which her Grace lay, ready, at the call of her bell, to rise any hour of the night, to write down her conceptions, lest they should escape her memory,” arouses our deepest sympathy. Imagine what it would be to be awakened by her Grace’s bell from a deep slumber to write down one or other of the following platitudinous “conceptions” taken at hazard from one of her books:—

“I have observed, That many instead of great Actions, make onely a great Noise, and like shallow Fords, or empty Bladders, sound most when there is least in them.”

“I observe, That as it would be a grief to covetous and miserable persons, to be rewarded with Honour, rather than with Wealth, because they love Wealth, before Honour and Fame; so on the other side, Noble, Heroick and Meritorious Persons, prefer Honour and Fame before Wealth.”

“It is not every ambitious and aspiring spirit that can do brave and noble actions.”

The world would not have been very seriously poorer if the Duchess had omitted to ring her bell, and if these sage “conceptions” had “escaped her memory” in the morning.

Her best work, at any rate her most valuable contribution to the history of her times, is the story of her husband’s life, into which we have already dipped, perhaps too often and too deeply. In spite of her pardonably exaggerated praise of Newcastle and all his works, the narrative, if not always accurate, is pretty fairly rendered; and if Nature ever intended that she should scribble at all, it may have been as a war-correspondent to a daily newspaper, in which case she was born a little before her time.

It would be easy to sneer at her poetry; but, at its best, it is not so very bad, although it always contains some weak lines. Let us look at one or two of her most successful efforts.

In her description of the Queen of the Fairies, she writes:—

In her poem, “Mirth and Melancholy,” both Mirth and Melancholy try to attract the poetess. Mirth promises her amusement and sneers at her rival, Melancholy, in these lines:—

Melancholy, on the other hand, states that her life and surroundings, if subdued and retired, are tranquil and beautiful. It may be remembered that a few pages back the Duchess said that she herself was always addicted to “melancholy rather than mirth”.

One of the greatest admirers of the Duchess of Newcastle’s literary labours was Charles Lamb, who calls her, in The Essays of Elia,[171] “that princely woman, the thrice noble Margaret Newcastle,” whose writings contain:—

In another of the Essays[172] he writes about “the intellectuals of a dear favourite of mine, of the last century but one—the thrice noble, chaste, and virtuous, but again somewhat fantastical and original brained, generous Margaret Newcastle”.

And of her Life of her husband he says: “No casket is rich enough, no casing sufficiently durable, to honour and keep such a jewel”. Lamb had a special admiration also for the Duchess’s “Two Hundred and Eleven Sociable Letters,” platitudinous epistles, any extracts from which the reader shall be spared.

A favourable, but more moderate criticism of her abilities is that of D’Israeli, who, in his Curiosities of Literature, says: “Her labours have been ridiculed by some wits; but had her studies been regulated, she would have displayed no ordinary genius. Her verses have been imitated by Milton.”

The latter is an amazing assertion; but D’Israeli is a literary authority of high standing, and, as a rule, he was careful in his statements.

The same idea is implied in The Connoisseur:[173] “As I fell asleep my fancy presented to me the following dream. I was transported, I know not how, to the regions of Parnassus.... Pegasus was brought out of the stable and the Muses furnished him with a side-saddle.... A lady advanced, who, though she had something rather extravagant in her air and deportment, yet she had a noble presence that commanded at once awe and admiration. She was dressed in an old-fashioned habit, very fantastic, and trimmed with bugles and points, such as was worn in the time of King Charles the First. This lady, I was informed, was the Duchess of Newcastle. When she came to mount, she sprang into the saddle with amazing agility; and giving an entire loose to the reins, Pegasus directly set out at a gallop, and ran with her out of sight.”

On her return she repeated, at request, her lines on Melancholy: “Her voice is low and gives a hollow sound, etc.” quoted above: whereupon Milton, who, with Shakespeare, had helped her to dismount, “seemed very much chagrined, and it was whispered by some that he was obliged for many of the thoughts in his ‘L’Allegro’ and ‘Il Penseroso’ to this lady’s dialogue between Mirth and Melancholy”.

Well! Who knows? But what a contrast to the blinking lamps, tapers small, and shadows against the wall, of the Duchess, is Milton’s—

Or, again, the Duchess’s summers hot, fresh green grass, and music the buzzing of a fly, to Milton’s—

An apology is due for this very facile criticism, but D’Israeli and The Connoisseur rendered it irresistible.

Grainger says:[174] “We are greatly surprised that a lady of her quality should have written so much, and are little less surprised that one who loved writing so well, has writ no better”. He considers, as well he may, that certain critics were far too lavish in their praises of the Duchess’s literary efforts. He says:—

“There is a very scarce folio volume of ‘Letters and Poems’ printed in 1678. It consists of 182 pages, filled with the grossest and most fulsome panegyric on the Duke and Dutchess of Newcastle, especially her Grace. I know no flattery, ancient or modern, that is, in any degree, comparable to it, except the deification of Augustus and the erection of altars to him in his lifetime. Incense and adoration seem to have been equally acceptable to the Roman god and English goddess.”

Before proceeding to the lighter works of the Duchess, it may be well to give a specimen of her philosophy. The reader shall be left to judge for himself whether the following extract contains great truths; if it contains great truths, whether it presents them in clear language, and whether it explains them in the fewest possible words.

The extract is taken from the first chapter of a work entitled:—

Observations upon Experimental Philosophy.

“Written by The Thrice Noble, Illustrious and Excellent Princesse The Duchess of Newcastle. Printed by A. Maxwell, London 1666.”

“Reason reforms and instructs sense, in all its actions; But both the rational and sensitive knowledge and perception, being divideable as well as composeable, it causes ignorance, as well as knowledge amongst Nature’s Creatures; for though Nature is but one body and has no share or copartner, but is intire and whole in itself, as not composed of several parts or substances, and consequently has but one Infinite natural knowledge and wisdom, yet by reason she is also divideable and composeable, according to the nature of a body, we can justly and with all reason say, that as Nature is divided into infinite several parts, so each several part has a several and particular knowledge and perception both sensitive and rational, and again that each part is ignorant of the others knowledge and perception; when as otherwise, considered altogether and in general, as they make up but one infinite body of Nature, so they make also but one infinite general knowledge. And thus Nature may be called both Individual, as not having single parts subsisting without her, but all united in one body; and Divideable, by reason she is partable in her own several corporeal figurative motions, and not otherwise; for there is no Vacuum in Nature, neither can her parts start or remove from the Infinite body of Nature, so as to separate themselves from it, for there is no place to flee to but body and place are all one thing, so that the parts of Nature can only joyn and disjoyn to and from parts, but not to and from the body of Nature.”

After a careful study of the above lucid passage, it may not greatly astonish the reader to learn that Grainger says:—

“James Bristow, of Corpus Christi college in Oxford, undertook to translate a volume of her philosophical works into the same language,” i.e. into Latin; “but he was forced to desist from the undertaking. Such was the obscurity and perplexity of the subject, that he could not find words where he had no ideas.”

In writing about this book, the Duchess gives vent to the following smoothly flowing lines:—

And certainly there are unmistakably symptoms of broken brains in that work.

As we have already observed, D’Israeli has informed us that Milton imitated the verse of the Duchess; and, after reading the above extract from one of her books on philosophy, people devoid of legal knowledge may possibly be inclined to think that certain other scribes have imitated her prose, namely lawyers in drawing up deeds and wills.

At the end of one of her books, entitled Philosophical Opinions, the Duchess wrote:—

Probably few authors, after re-reading the manuscripts, correcting the proofs, and again correcting the revised proofs of their books, ever find “sweet company” in them again. In most cases the only printed things they read in connexion with them, in the future, are reviews. Nor do these invariably prove “sweet company”.

The Duchess wrote books on all sorts of subjects. Not the least curious are her Orations of Divers Sorts Accommodated to Divers Places, a work which, strange to say, went through two editions. It contains orations suited, or professing to be suited, for weddings, funerals, and battlefields, loyal speeches and seditious speeches, speeches in favour of taxation and speeches against taxation, and after-dinner speeches both for “a quarter-drunk gentleman” and for “a half-drunken gentleman”. The Duchess writes the heaviest stuff of all when she tries to be funny. She is even heavier as a Wit than as a Philosopher.