Part 8 (1/2)
BALLARD.
Daughter of Thomas, Lord Coventry, Keeper of the Great Seal, and wife of Sir John Pakington, was well known to, and celebrated by, the best and most learned divines of her time. Yet hardly my pen will be thought capable of adding to the reputation her own has procured to her, if it shall appear that she was the author of a work which is not more an honour to the writer than a universal benefit to mankind.
The work I mean is, ”The Whole Duty of Man;” her t.i.tle to which has been so well ascertained, that the general concealment it has lain under will only reflect a l.u.s.tre upon all her other excellences by showing that she had no honour in view but that of her Creator, which, I suppose, she might think best promoted by this concealment. [The claims of other authors are not difficult to be disposed of.] If I were a Roman Catholic, I would summon tradition as an evidence for me upon this occasion, which has constantly attributed this performance to a lady.
And a late celebrated writer observes, that ”there are many probable arguments in 'The Whole Duty of Man' to back a current report that it was written by a lady.” And any one who reads ”The Lady's Calling,” may observe a great number of pa.s.sages which clearly indicate a female hand.
That vulgar prejudice of the supposed incapacity of the female s.e.x, is what these memoirs in general may possibly remove. And as I have had frequent occasion to take notice of it, I should not now enter again upon that subject, had not this been made use of as an argument to invalidate Lady Pakington's t.i.tle to those performances. It may not be amiss, therefore, to transcribe two or three pa.s.sages from the treatise I have just now mentioned. ”But waiving these reflections, I shall fix only on the personal accomplishments of the s.e.x, and peculiarly that which is the most princ.i.p.al endowment of the rational nature--I mean the understanding--where it will be a little hard to p.r.o.nounce that they are naturally inferior to men, when it is considered how much of intrinsic weight is put in the balance to turn it to the men's side. Men have their parts cultivated and improved by education, refined and subtilised by learning and arts; are like a piece of a common, which, by industry and husbandry, becomes a different thing from the rest, though the natural turf owned no such inequality. We may therefore conclude, that whatever vicious impotence women are under, it is acquired, not natural; nor derived from any illiberality of G.o.d's, but from the ill managery of His bounty. Let them not charge G.o.d foolishly, or think that by making them women He necessitated them to be proud or wanton, vain or peevish; since it is manifest He made them to better purpose, was not partial to the other s.e.x; but that having, as the prophet speaks, 'abundance of spirit,' He equally dispensed it, and gave the feeblest woman as large and capacious a soul as that of the greatest hero. Nay, give me leave to say farther, that, as to an eternal well-being, He seems to have placed them in more advantageous circ.u.mstances than He has done men. He has implanted in them some native propensions which do much facilitate the operations of grace upon them.”
And having made good this a.s.sertion, she interrogates thus: ”How many women do we read of in the gospel, who in all the duties of a.s.siduous attendance on Christ, liberalities of love and respect, nay, even in zeal and courage, surpa.s.sed even the apostles themselves? We find His cross surrounded, His pa.s.sion celebrated by the avowed tears and lamentations of devout women, when the most sanguine of His disciples had denied, yea, forswore, and all had forsaken Him. Nay, even death itself could not extinguish their love. We find the devout Maries designing a laborious, chargeable, and perhaps hazardous respect to His corpse, and, accordingly, it is a memorable attestation Christ gives to their piety by making them the first witnesses of His resurrection, the prime evangelists to proclaim those glad tidings, and, as a learned man speaks, apostles to the apostles.”
There are many works of this lady, besides ”The Whole Duty of Man,”
enumerated in her biographies.
NOOR MAHAL.
[1512.]
JAMES MILL.
One of the circ.u.mstances which had the greatest influence on the events and character of the reign of Jehangire, was his marriage with the wife of one of the omrahs of his empire, whose a.s.sa.s.sination, like that of Uriah, cleared the way for the gratification of the monarch. The history of this female is dressed in romantic colours by the writers of the East. Khaja Aia.s.s, her father, was a Tartar, who left poverty and his native country to seek the gifts of fortune in Hindustan. The inadequate provision he could make for so great a journey failed him before its conclusion. To add to his trials, his wife, advanced in pregnancy, was seized with the pains of labour in the desert, and delivered of a daughter. All hope of conducting the child alive to any place of relief forsook the exhausted parents, and they agreed to leave her. So long as the tree, at the foot of which the infant had been deposited, remained in view, the mother supported her resolution; but when the tree vanished from sight, she sank upon the ground, and refused to proceed without her. The father returned, but what he beheld was a huge black snake convolved about the body of the infant, and extending his dreadful jaws to devour her. A shriek of anguish burst from the father's breast; and the snake, being alarmed, hastily unwound himself from the body of the infant, and glided away to his retreat. The miracle animated the parents to maintain the struggle; and before their strength entirely failed, they were joined by other travellers, who relieved their necessities.
Aia.s.s, having arrived in Hindustan, was taken into the service of an omrah of the court; attracted after a time the notice of Akbar himself; and, by his abilities and prudence, rose to be treasurer of the empire.
The infant who had been so nearly lost in the desert was now grown a woman of exquisite beauty; and, by the attention of Aia.s.s to her education, was accomplished beyond the measure of female attainments in the East. She was seen by Sultan Selim, and kindled in his bosom the fire of love. But she was betrothed to a Turkman omrah, and Akbar forbade the contract to be infringed. When Selim mounted the throne, justice and shame were a slight protection to the man whose life was a bar to the enjoyments of the king. By some caprice, however, not unnatural to minds pampered and trained up like his, he abstained from seeing her for some years after she was placed in his seraglio, and even refused an adequate appointment for her maintenance. She turned her faculties to account; employed herself in the exquisite works of the needle and painting, in which she excelled; and her productions were disposed of in the shops and markets, and thence procured the means of adorning her apartments with all the elegancies which suited her condition and taste. The fame of her productions reached the ear and excited the curiosity of the emperor. A visit was all that was wanting to rekindle the flame in his heart; and Noor Mahal (such was the name she a.s.sumed) exercised from that moment an unbounded sway over the prince and his empire. Through the influence of the favourite sultana, the vizirit was bestowed on her father; her two brothers were raised to the first rank of omrahs, by the t.i.tles of Aetibad Khan and Asopha Jah; but their modesty and virtues reconciled all men to their sudden elevation. And though the emperor, naturally voluptuous, was now withdrawn from business by the charms of his wife, the affairs of the empire were conducted with vigilance, prudence, and success; and the administration of Khaja Aia.s.s was long remembered in India as a period of justice and prosperity.
POCAHONTAS.
[BORN 1594. DIED 1617.]
DR HUGH MURRAY.
On a signal from their leader, they, the natives of Virginia, laid down their bows and arrows, and led Captain Smith [of the Expedition, 1607]
under strict guard to their capital. He was there exhibited to the women and children, and a wild war-dance was performed round him in fantastic measures, and with frightful yells and contortions. He was then shut up in a long house, and supplied at every meal with as much bread and venison as would have dined twenty men; but receiving no other sign of kindness, he began to dread that they were fattening in order to eat him. At last he was led to Pamunkey, the residence of Powhatan, the king. It was here his doom was sealed. The chief received him in pomp, wrapped in a s.p.a.cious robe of rac.o.o.n skins, with all the tails hanging down. Behind appeared two long lines of men and women, with faces painted red, heads decked with white down, and necks quite encircled with chains of beads. A lady of rank presented water to wash his hands, another a bunch of feathers to dry them. A long deliberation was then held, and the result proved fatal. Two large stones were placed before Powhatan, and, by the united efforts of the attendants, Smith was dragged to the spot, his head laid on one of them, and the mighty club was raised, a few blows of which were to terminate his life. In this last extremity, when every hope seemed past, a very unexpected interposition took place. Pocahontas, the youthful and favourite daughter of this savage chief, was seized with those tender emotions which form the ornament of her s.e.x. Advancing to her father, she in the most earnest terms supplicated mercy for the stranger; and though all her entreaties were lost on that savage heart, her zeal only redoubled.
She ran to Smith, took his head in her arms, laid her own upon it, and declared that the first death-blow must fall upon her. The barbarian's breast was at length softened, and the life of the Englishman was spared.
Smith was afterwards liberated and sent to Jamestown, where he was installed as president. As Powhatan's favour was to be courted, there had been sent handsome presents, with materials to crown him with splendour, in the European style. With only four companions he courageously repaired to the residence of the monarch, inviting him to come and be crowned at Jamestown. The party were extremely well received, though once they heard in the adjoining wood outcries so hideous as made them flee to their arms; but Pocahontas a.s.sured them they had nothing to fear. Subsequently, Smith was repeatedly in danger; and again, on one occasion, was saved by a second interposition of Pocahontas, who, at the risk of her father's displeasure, ran through the woods on a dark night to give him warning. But the kindness of this princess was ill repaid by the English, to whom she was so much attached; for Argall, an enterprising naval commander, afterwards contrived, through an Indian who had become his sworn friend, to inveigle on board his vessel the fair Pocahontas. Regardless of her tears and entreaties he conveyed her to Jamestown, where she was well treated; but in a negotiation for her ransom, exorbitant terms were demanded, which her father indignantly rejected, and the breach seemed only widened. Happily, the chains of the princess's captivity were lightened by others of a more pleasing nature. Mr John Rolfe, a respectable young man, was smitten with her dignified demeanour, and found no difficulty in gaining her affections. They were afterwards married, and she was converted and baptised under the name of Rebecca, to which the English prefixed the t.i.tle of Lady, and her subsequent conduct is said to have adorned her profession.
Soon after, in company with her husband, she visited England; and Captain Smith wrote a letter to his majesty, recounting her good deeds, declaring that she had a great spirit though a low stature, and beseeching for her a reception corresponding to her rank and merits. She was accordingly introduced at court, and into the circles of fas.h.i.+on, where, as a novelty, she was for some time the leading object, and is said to have deported herself with suitable grace and dignity. Purchas mentions his meeting with her at the table of his patron, Dr King, Bishop of London, where she was entertained with ”festival and pomp.”