# The Examiner/1844/Memoirs of Eminent Englishwomen - Review

Published in "The Examiner" 17 August 1844 (issue 1907)
Memoirs of Eminent Englishwomen. By Louisa Stuart Costello. Vols. III and IV. Bentley.
We are sorry to say that we cannot see the drift of this book, if it is not a most notable piece of mere book-making. Iti s quite unworthy of Miss Costello's reputation: which, as it is founded on some tasteful and graceful writings, she should be more careful of.
Miss Costello's Memoirs are but a collection of extracts from universally accessible sources, thrown together without care, and, we regret to add, without taste or knowledge. The few lines of origina1 matter in any of the memoirs might be almost counted by the mistakes that are in them. In a word, criticism would be wasted on the book.
There is a “Memoir” of the Countess of Winchelsea in some fifteen lines, followed by a quotation of the most commonplace of her compositions. Those delightful natural pictures in her verse, which Mr Wordsworth remarks as among the few new images of external nature to be found in the period of poetry between Milton and Thomson, are not even remotely referred to. There is a “Memoir” of Anne Killigrew in two pages of extract from Dryden, Wood, and Walpole, followed by six pages of Dryden's well-known ode to her memory. There is a “Memoir” of the Duchess of Newcastle made up of the opinions of Horace Walpole, who was always notorious (as Miss Costello is only too glad to admit when he interferes with a later favourite) for laughing at what he had not depth enough to understand. It opens thus:
“This singularly pedantic and self-sufficient lady, the wife of a man who figures for many years during the fatal struggles between the Stuarts and the Commonwealth, was one of those who, with some talent and no genius, contrive to bring themselves into notice by dint of resolute scribbling, and manage to attain a certain reputation by means of frequent assurances to the world that they deserve a high place in public estimation, She belonged to that class of ladies of rank who are not content to understand and patronize the works of persons of merit, but indulge the ambition of imitating them, and fondly persuade themselves that they can compete with the best authors of the day.
“The innumerable books of this persevering authoress were the nuisance of the time in which she be and, although she reaped little but ridicule by her industry, yet her vanity was such that she never perceived she was being laughed at, and lived on in a fool's paradise of letters; glorying in her fame, and pluming herself as much on the literary reputation of her husband. In almost every age there has been some such self-esteemed Phoenix, whose harmless conceit does but little injury, but is, nevertheless, a general annoyance, except to the tradesmen she employs to print and bind the countless volumes with which she delights to adorn her own library.”
Nothing could be worse said than this, or in worse taste. We hope it was written in carelessness, and so passed over. Indeed it would seem as if it had been, when the writer adds of this “singularly pedantic” lady a little further on, that “it is not a little probable that she was pedantic.”
No doubt she was. She wanted the judgment, which writers greatly inferior to her have possessed. She was fond of a kind of fantastical state, in her books and elsewhere. But she was a writer of genius, whatever Miss Costello may think: and she was an excellent, faithful, high-hearted woman.
Miss Costello writes a “Memoir” of Stella and Vanessa: in other words she compiles from Scott and others: for what earthly reason we cannot guess, unless to show that of all subjects this was the last she should have touched upon. We take about the only piece of original writing we can find in this “Memoir.” It relates to the chief matter of interest in the lives of these women: Swift’s conduct.
“From year to year he still led on his victim in the same dependence on him, and still the same unnatural state of intercourse between them both took place, for they never met alone; the constant presence of Mrs Dingley restraining, probably, the reproaches of Miss Johnson, or the explanations she might have desired. How it was possible for her to submit to this tyranny, is the question which has always puzzled the world, and no satisfactory answer can ever be given, If Swift was aware that she was indeed too closely allied to him to permit him to make her his wife, to reveal to her what he had discovered, would at once have placed both in a position which would have allowed of their intimacy for the rest of their lives as brother and sister, without the dread of scandal. If, as has been surmised, Swift was conscious that he had within him the seeds of that fearful infirmity of mind which overtook him in the end, surely it would have been natural, as he could not himself make her happy as his wife, and since his feelings were so tender on the subject, to have placed her in a situation to choose another person who was free from the dreadful malady he knew himself born to. But that this was his motive seems very unlikely, as few persons are so perfectly aware of their own condition, particularly when intellect is so firm, and powers of mind so vigorous, as his own were at the period when he induced Stella to refuse all others—to devote herself to him alone.”
From which it is quite clear that the “satisfactory solution” need never be expected from Miss Costello, And truly it would have startled us not a little, to have received it at her hands.
One of the large volumes is devoted to “Memoirs” of the Duchess of Marlborough, and Lady Mary Montagu: and we have again sorrowfully to say of both, that they are compilations as commonplace as any one able to read could have employed scissors and paste upon. There is tolerable good sense in this remark on Lady Mary’s marriage, and that is all we can say of either “Memoir.”
“She possessed so many useful virtues, had so much philanthropy and feeling, that it is impossible but that she would have made a good wife, even in spite of the danger she had run of being spoilt by indulgence and adulation, if she had met with a man of suitable mind, who could have appreciated her good qualities; but Mr Wortley was a cold, severe, unimaginative person, who, marrying her, a youthful beauty and coquette, should have known how, judiciously, to correct her errors, and brought forth the excellences which existed in her mind; instead of treating her with the sullen neglect to which, from an early period of her marriage, he condemned her.”
Surely it is too late in the day to affect any doubt as to the origin of Pope’s quarrel with Lady Mary. He made love to her and she laughed at him. But he has turned the laugh where she never dreamt that it would fall, and made it to endure for ever.
We have rarely spoken of any book with more unfeigned regret than of this: because we have been indebted to Miss Costello’s former books for much pleasure, and hope for much more to be still her debtor. If, in the volumes we now gladly close, we could have seen a single redeeming point of merit, we would have given it as an act of grateful duty.