University of Virginia Library

MRS. HEMANS.

We have heard much of late regarding the rights and
sphere of woman. The topic has become trite. One
branch of the discussion, however, is worthy of careful
notice—the true theory of cultivated and liberal men on the
subject. This has been greatly misunderstood. The
idea has been often suggested that man is jealous of his
alleged intellectual superiority, while little has been advanced
in illustration of his genuine reverence for female
character. Because the other sex cannot always find erudition
so attractive as grace in woman, and strong mental
traits so captivating as a beautiful disposition, it is
absurdly argued that mind and learning are only honored
in masculine attire. The truth is, men of feeling instinctively
recognize something higher than intellect.
They feel that a noble and true soul is greater and more
delightful than mere reason, however powerful; and
they know that to this, extensive knowledge and active logical
powers are not essential. It is not the attainments,
or the literary talent, that they would have women abjure.
They only pray that through and above these may appear

the woman. They desire that the harmony of nature may
not be disturbed; that the essential foundations of love
may not be invaded; that the sensibility, delicacy and
quiet enthusiasm of the female heart may continue to awaken
in man the tender reverence, which is one of the most
elevating of his sentiments.

Portia is highly intellectual; but even while arrayed
in male costume and enacting the public advocate, the
essential and captivating characteristics of her true sex
inspire her mien and language. Vittoria Colonna was
one of the most gifted spirits of her age—the favorite
companion of Michael Angelo, but her life and works
were but the eloquent development of exalted womanhood.
Madame Roland displayed a strength of character singularly
heroic, but her brave dignity was perfectly feminine.
Isabella of Spain gave evidence of a mind remarkably
comprehensive, and a rare degree of judgment; yet in
perusing her history, we are never beguiled from the feeling
of her queenly character. There is an essential quality
of sex, to be felt rather than described, and it is when this
is marred, that a feeling of disappointment is the consequence.
It is as if we should find violets growing on a
tall tree. The triumphs of mind always command respect,
but their style and trophies have diverse complexions in
the two sexes. It is only when these distinctions are
lost, that they fail to interest. It matters not how erudite
or mentally gifted a woman may be, so that she remains
in manner and feeling a woman. Such is the idea that
man loves to see realized; and in cherishing it, he gives
the highest proof of his estimation of woman. He delights

to witness the exercise of her noblest prerogative.
He is charmed to behold her in the most effective attitude.
He appreciates too truly the beauty and power of her nature
to wish to see it arrayed in any but a becoming dress.
There is such a thing as female science, philosophy and
poetry, as there is female physiognomy and taste; not
that their absolute qualities differ in the two sexes, but
their relative aspect is distinct. Their sphere is as large
and high, and infinitely more delicate and deep than that
of man, though not so obvious. When they overstep their
appropriate domain, much of their mentul influence is lost.
Freely and purely exerted, it is at once recognized and
loved. Man delights to meet woman in the field of letters
as well as in the arena of social life. There also is
she his better angel. With exquisite satisfaction he learns
at her feet the lessons of mental refinement and moral
sensibility. From her teachings he catches a grace and
sentiment unwritten by his own sex. Especially in
poetry, beams, with starlike beauty, the light of her soul.
There he reads the records of a woman's heart. He hears
from her own lips how the charms of nature and the
mysteries of life have wrought in her bosom. Of such
women, Mrs. Hemans is the most cherished of our day.

Life is the prime source of literature, and especially of
its most effective and universal departments. Poetry
should therefore be the offspring of deep experience.
Otherwise it is superficial and temporary. What phase
of existence is chiefly revealed to woman? Which domain
of experience is she best fitted by her nature and
position to illustrate? Undoubtedly, the influence and

power of the affections. In these her destiny is more
completely involved, through these her mind more exclusively
acts, than is the case with our sex. Accordingly,
her insight is greater, and her interest more extensive in
the sphere of the heart. With a quicker sympathy, and a
finer perception, will she enter into the history and results
of the affections. Accordingly, when the mantle of
song falls upon a woman, we cannot but look for new
revelations of sentiment. Not that the charms of nature
and the majesty of great events may not appropriately attract
her muse; but with and around these, if she is a
true poetess, we see ever entwined the delicate flowers
that flourish in the atmosphere of home, and are reared to
full maturity only under the training of woman. Thus
the poetic in her character finds free development. She
can here speak with authority. It is, indeed, irreverent
to dictate to genius, but the themes of female poetry are
written in the very structure of the soul. Political economy
may find devotees among the gentler sex; and so an
approach to the mental hardihood of Lady Macbeth may
appear once in the course of an age; whereas, every year
we light on the traces of a Juliet, a Cleopatra and an Isabel.
The spirit of Mrs. Hemans in all she has written,
is essentially feminine. Various as are her subjects,
they are stamped with the same image and superscription.
She has drawn her prevailing vein of feeling from one
source. She has thrown over all her effusions, not so
much the drapery of knowledge, or the light of extensive
observation, as the warm and shifting hues of the heart.
These she had at command. She knew their effects,
and felt their mystery. Hence the lavish confidence with
which she devoted them to the creations of fancy and the
illustration of truth.

From the voice of her own consciousness, Mrs. Hemans
realized what a capacity of joy and sorrow, of
strength and weakness, exists in the human heart. This
she made it her study to unfold. The Restoration of the
Works of Art to Italy is, as Byron said when it appeared,
a very good poem. It is a fine specimen of heroic verse.
The subject is treated with judgment and ability, and the
spirit which pervades the work is precisely what the occasion
demanded. Still we feel that any cultivated and
ideal mind might have produced the poem. There are no
peculiar traits, no strikingly original conceptions. The
same may be said of several of the long pieces. It is in
the Songs of the Affections and the Records of Woman
that the poetess is preëminently excellent. Here the field
is emphatically her own. She ranges it with a free step
and a queenly bearing; and everywhere rich flowers
spring up in her path, and a glowing atmosphere, like
the rosy twilight of her ancestral land, enlivens and illumines
her progress. In these mysterious ties of love,
there is to her a world of poetry. She not only celebrates
their strength and mourns their fragility, but with pensive
ardor dwells on their eternal destiny. The birth, the
growth, the decline, the sacrifices, the whole morality and
spirituality of human love, is recognized and proclaimed
by her muse. Profoundly does she feel the richness and
the sadness, the glory and the gloom, involved in the
affections. She thinks it

And reverently she declares that

Devotion continually blends with and exalts her views
of human sentiment:

Bereavement has found in Mrs. Hemans a worthy recorder
of its deep and touching poetry:

The distinguishing attribute of the poetry of Mrs. Hemans
is sentiment. She sings fervently of the King of
Arragon, musing upon his slain brother, in the midst of a
victorious festival,—of the brave boy perishing at the battle
of the Nile, at the post assigned him by his father,—
of Del Carpio, upbraiding the treacherous king:—

With how true a sympathy does she trace the prison

musings of Arabella Stuart, portray the strife of the heart
in the Greek bride, and the fidelity of woman in the wife
soothing her husband's dying agonies on the wheel!
What a pathetic charm breathes in the pleadings of the
Adopted Child, and the meeting of Tasso and his Sister.
How well she understood the hopelessness of ideal love!

Nor is it alone in mere sensibility that the poetess excels.
The loftiness and the dignity of her sex has few
nobler interpreters. What can be finer in its kind than
the Swiss wife's appeal to her husband's patriotism?
Her poems abound in the worthiest appeals to woman's
faith:

To depict the parting grief of the Hebrew mother, the
repentant tears of Cœur de Lion at his father's bier, the
home-associations of the Eastern stranger at the sight of
a palm-tree—these, and such as these, were congenial
themes to Mrs. Hemans. Joyous as is her welcome to

Spring, thoughts of the departed solemnize its beauty.
She invokes the Ocean not for its gems and buried gold,
but for the true and brave that sleep in its bosom. The
bleak arrival of the New England Pilgrims, and the evening
devotion of the Italian peasant-girl, are equally consecrated
by her muse. Where there is profound love, exalted
patriotism, or “a faith touching all things with hues
of Heaven,” there she rejoiced to expatiate. Fair as Elysium
appeared to her fancy, she celebrates its splendor
only to reproach its rejection of the lowly and the loved:

It was the opinion of Dr. Spurzheim, an accurate and
benevolent observer of life, that suffering was essential to
the rich development of female character. It is interesting
to trace the influence of disappointment and trial in
deepening and exalting the poetry of Mrs. Hemans.
From the sentimental character of her muse, results the
sameness of which some readers complain in perusing her

works. This apparent monotony only strikes us when
we attempt to read them consecutively. But such is not the
manner in which we should treat a poetess who so exclusively
addresses our feelings. Like Petrarch's sonnets,
her productions delight most when separately enjoyed.
Her careful study of poetry as an art, and her truly conscientious
care in choosing her language and forming her
verse, could not, even if it were desirable, prevent the
formation of a certain style. It is obvious, also, that
her efforts are unequal. The gems, however, are more
profusely scattered, than through the same amount of writing
by almost any other modern poet. The department
of her muse was a high and sacred one. The path she
pursued was one especially heroic, inasmuch as her efforts
imply the exertion of great enthusiasm. Such lyrics as
we admire in her pages are “fresh from the fount of feeling.”
They have stirred the blood of thousands. They
have kindled innumerable hearts on both sides of the
sea. They have strewn imperishable flowers around the
homes and graves of two nations. They lift the
thoughts, like an organ's peal, to a “better land,” and
quicken the purest sympathies of the soul into a truer life
and more poetic beauty.

The taste of Mrs. Hemans was singularly elegant.
She delighted in the gorgeous and imposing. There is
a remarkable fondness for splendid combination, warlike
pomp and knightly pageantry betrayed in her writings.
Her fancy seems bathed in a Southern atmosphere. We
trace her Italian descent in the very flow and imagery of
her verse. There is far less of Saxon boldness of design

and simplicity of outline, than of the rich coloring and
luxuriant grouping of a warmer clime. Akin to this
trait was her passion for Art. She used to say that Music
was part of her life. In fact, the mind of the poetess was
essentially romantic. Her muse was not so easily awakened
by the sight of a beautiful object, as by the records
of noble adventure. Her interest was chiefly excited by
the brave and touching in human experience. Nature attracted
her rather from its associations with God and humanity,
than on account of its abstract and absolute qualities.
This forms the great distinction between her poetry
and that of Wordsworth. In the midst of the fine
scenery of Wales, her infant faculties unfolded. There
began her acquaintance with life and books. We are told
of her great facility in acquiring languages, her relish of
Shakspeare at the age of six, and her extraordinary memory.
It is not difficult to understand how her ardent feelings
and rich imagination developed, with peculiar individuality,
under such circumstances. Knightly legends,
tales of martial enterprize—the poetry of courage and devotion,
fascinated her from the first. But when her deeper
feelings were called into play, and the latent sensibilities
of her nature sprung to conscious action, much of
this native romance was transferred to the scenes of real
life, and the struggles of the heart.

The earlier and most elaberate of her poems are, in a
great measure, experimental. It seems as if a casual
fancy for the poetic art gradually matured into a devoted
love. Mrs. Hemans drew her power less from preception
than sympathy. Enthusiasm, rather than graphic talent,

is displayed in her verse. We shall look in vain for
any remarkable pictures of the outward world. Her great
aim was not so much to describe as to move. We discover
few scenes drawn by her pen, which strike us as
wonderfully true to physical fact. She does not make us
see so much as feel. Compared with most great poets,
she saw but little of the world. The greater part of her
life was passed in retirement. Her knowledge of distant
lands was derived from books. Hence she makes little
pretension to the poetry of observation. Sketches copied
directly from the visible universe are rarely encountered
in her works. For such portraiture her mind was not
remarkably adapted. There was another process far
more congenial to her—the personation of feeling. She
loved to sing of inciting events, to contemplate her race
in an heroic attitude, to explore the depths of the soul, and
amid the shadows of despair and the tumult of passion,
point out some element of love or faith unquenched by
the storm. Her strength lay in earnestness of soul.
Her best verses glow with emotion. When once truly interested
in a subject, she cast over it such an air of feeling
that our sympathies are won at once. We cannot but
catch the same vivid impression; and if we draw from
her pages no great number of definite images, we cannot
but imbibe what is more valuable—the warmth and the
life of pure, lofty and earnest sentiment.