CHAPTER III. AMELIA OPIE. It is only the other day that Amelia Opie left us, but she began her course in a time that few who are alive can remember, and was the friend of many celebrated men and women, who have long since committed their reputations to history or "tradition's simple tongue." She commenced life a brilliant wilful worldling, and ended it a demure Quakeress; as a girl she was the darling pet of revolutionary writers and extreme sceptics, and in her calm autumn found her chief excitement in religious meetings, and in keeping a journal of spiritual experiences. Still there was a singular unity in her career; from first to last she was a coquette, a buoyant hearted, mischief loving, but most amiable coquette; not less so at seventy years of age in the prim costume of her sect, than in girlhood when her vanity delighted in small bonnets, blue robes, satin slips, worked cambric gowns with flounces, and feathers flat and curled. She tasted love at sixteen-the date of her last attachment who shall tell? She was born in Norwich, on the 12th of November, 1769, being the only child of Dr. James Alderson, the leading physician of that city, and a grand-daughter of the Rev. Mr. Alderson of Lowestoft, Suffolk. She was also first cousin of the late Sir E. H. Alderson, the much respected judge. On her mother's side she was of good extraction, for that lady's name was Briggs. The comical adventures of a member of this family, who is one of Mr. Punch's intimate friends, render it difficult for us to associate ideas of feudal dignity with the name; but not the less was Briggs the appellation of "an ancient and honourable family of Salle, in Norfolk, who before the reign of Edward the First assumed the surname of De Ponte or Pontibus, i.e, at Brigge or Brigges; as the ancient family of Fountaines residing at the same place assumed theirs of De Fonte or Fontibus, much about the same time, one we presume dwelling by the bridge or bridges, the other by the springs or fountains' heads." At an early period Amelia Opie lost her mother, and at an age when most children are still in the nursery she was made to preside at her father's table, and be the mistress of his house. Norwich was then the centre of a brilliant and highly intellectual society, the barristers of the Norfolk circuit so highly esteeming its beautiful women, and gifted men, that they looked forward to their periodical visits to it with no ordinary pleasure. It was very gay, and very republican; it was the hot-bed of balls, card parties, and revolutionary clubs; and at no house in the city was there better dancing, or better whist playing, or more favour to liberal politics than at Dr. Alderson's. The genial physician's only daughter too added not slightly to the attractions of his establishment; she was a bewitching, ravishing little beauty, with auburn hair, soft laughing eyes, petite figure, delicate features, lucid complexion, tiny hands and arms, a thousand winning affectations, a merry heart, and a mischievous tongue. Her accomplishments would be esteemed considerable even in these days; for she was a tolerable linguist, a clever artist for a young lady, and she wrote tender and pathetic ballads, which she sung with the most exquisite feeling. She was admired, adored; and like a foolish girl formed an imprudent attachment which, like a wise one, she laid aside at the bidding of her friends. When Gibbon was ordered by his father to dismiss from his thoughts all sentimental care for the noble girl who won the poor prize of his cold affections, "after a painful struggle he yielded to his fate; he sighed as a lover, he obeyed as a son; his wound was insensibly healed by time, absence, and the habits of a new life." In a somewhat similar style of heartless propriety Mrs. Opie has versified the story of her dawn of passion. But once, I confess ('twas at tender sixteen), Love's agents were busy indeed round my heart, Could e're from my bosom have warded the dart. Having been thus climatized Miss Alderson prepared to carry out vigorously, and to a profitable conclusion, her social campaign. For years she kept the field; but though multitudes of lovers sighed, none of "the right ones" made offers, and year by year passed on without Miss Alderson being engaged, till neighbours began to display in their speeches a little of that charitable sympathy we most of us keep a store of for our very peculiar friends. In 1794, she went to London, and was present at the famous trials of Hardy, Horne Tooke, and Thelwall, and heard Erskine in the Old Bailey mutter with terrible significance into the ear of the trembling Lord Chief Baron Eyre, "My lord, I am willing to give your lordship such an answer as an aggrieved man of honour like myself is willing to give to the man who has repeatedly insulted him, and I am willing and ready to meet your lordship, at any time and place that you may choose to appoint." Imagine this now-a-days! What would follow if Mr. Edwin James, Q.C., were to notify to his lordship on the bench, that it would give him the greatest possible pleasure to shoot him through the head, or run him through the body? These trials were a most agreeable source of excitement to Miss Alderson, for she was republican to the back-bone, sympathized with the French revolutionists, hated tyrants, preferred unitarianism to the rusty orthodoxy of the church of England, and meditated a flight from her native land to America with her father and a few friends, if "the accused" were not acquitted, and Britain became a home only fit for slaves! She formed the VOL. II. acquaintance of some celebrities too during this visit, and renewed her interest in several famous people she had previously been made known to. She called in Marlborough Street on Mrs. Inchbald, who had just received £200 from Sheridan for a farce of only sixty pages; she saw the lovely Siddons, handsome and charming as ever, suckling her little baby; she found good Mrs. Barbauld as delightful as ever, and formed a friendship with Mary Wollstonecraft, still retaining and clinging to her dishonoured name of Imlay; and she was introduced to Godwin at Somers Town. The philosopher was found dressed in a green coat and crimson under waistcoat, in new, sharp-toed, red morocco slippers, and with his hair bien poudré. In 1797, she made another visit to London, and added to the number of her acquaintance. Holcroft fell in love with her, and it was reported that Godwin had met with the same accident, but that could hardly be the case, for the moralist had just cemented with the marriage ceremony his extraordinary connection with Mary Wollstonecraft. That lady sent her young Norwich friend a characteristic letter, wherein she unfolded some of her views on conjugal life. "It is my wish that Mr. Godwin should visit and dine out as formerly, and I shall do the same; in short, I still mean to be independent, even to the cultivating sentiments and principles in my children's minds, (should I have more), which he disavows. The wound my unsuspecting heart formerly received is not healed. I found my evenings solitary, and I wished, while fulfilling the duty of a mother, to have some person with similar pursuits bound to me by affection, and beside, I earnestly desired to resign a name which seemed to disgrace me." But this year was an eventful one. Opie the artist saw Miss Alderson in London, at an evening party, and fell in love with her at first sight. She arrived late, after all the other guests had assembled, and ran into the room in a blue dress, made low, so as to leave the neck and arms bare, and with a tiny bonnet on her head, worn sideways, and surmounted by three white feathers. This vision of loveliness led poor Opie a captive. He made his offer almost on the spot, and was refused half-a-dozen times in as many weeks. Most probably the lady took care that her "no" should mean "yes, by and bye," or "yes, if I can get nothing better." But many considerations caused her to hesitate. The hero of the scene was in his 36th year, and ladies, though they have a weakness for old lovers, have a preference for young husbands; he was the son of a poor earpenter!-not by any means an agreeable thing to say of one's accepted in "the genteel circle" of a provincial city; he had been married before to a lady neither virtuous nor beautiful, from whom he had obtained a divorce,-bah, what a story for Norwich! Lastly, he was only a painter, and it was beyond dispute that an artist could not be a gentleman, he might make a fortune, be knighted, and blazon the seasons or any other queer device on the panels of his carriage, but still he was only " that fellow the painter."-The following story apart from its exquisite humour speaks volumes on this point. At a dinner at Sir William Elford's, where the party consisted of the host, Colonel Elford, Mr. Opie, Mr. Northcote, and Sir Francis Bourgeois, (the landscape painter), Opie and Northcote fell into a very warm and too vehemently expressed argument. "Painters," whispered Colonel Elford to Sir Francis, not knowing he addressed an artist, "are queer fellows; how oddly they converse. One knows not what to make of them; how oddly these men run on." Sir Francis assented like a well-bred man without mentioning his profession, but at tea he took an opportunity of telling the story to Northcote in an under tone. "Gude God!" exclaimed that queer little fellow with an expression of the deepest astonishment," then he took you for a gentleman." To her intimate friend, Mrs. Taylor, Miss Alderson |