31 JANUARY 1874, Page 14

BOOKS.

MARY SOMERVILLE.*

is scarcely possible to exaggerate the interest of this delightful volume. Mrs. Somerville's acquirements have made her name familiar to all her countrymen, but in spite of the popularity of the Physical Geography, many of them know her only by name. The Recollections will serve to make this admirable woman honoured in every household, and the example .of her virtues, of her extraordinary perseverance, of her cheerfulness, of her ardent love of knowledge, as strong at ninety as in early youth, can- not fail to be of service. Mrs. Somerville worked out her own career, and she did it nobly, without losing a single trait of her womanly nature, or neglecting any of her duties as a wife and mother. Unconquerable energy is one of the marks of genius, and this energy, which conquers difficulties that might well be deemed insurmountable, was perhaps the most striking feature in Mrs. Somerville's character. It led her on from one mental victory to another, until men of high scientific attainments were proud to acknowledge her as an equal. At the same time, She was not deficient in the acquirements and in the tastes which are regarded as peculiarly feminine. She was fond of music ; she painted from nature, and gave much time to the pursuit, taking lessons from Nasmyth, who said that the cleverest young lady he ever taught was Miss Mary Fairfax ; she loved society, liked a dance and a ball, exhibited keen delight in the opera and the theatre, was a hearty lover of flowers and of birds and animals, about which many anecdotes are told in the Recol- lections, and was " a remarkably neat and skilful needlewoman." Some women take to severe study to recompense themselves, as it were, for personal deficiencies. If nature has not been kind to them, they are resolved to show that they can afford to despise her neglect ; if they cannot gain admiration, they will at least win honour. Mary Fairfax—for this was her maiden name—needed no spur of this kind. She was beautiful and accomplished, and nothing but a genuine love of knowledge (she lacked even the en- couragement of friends) stimulated her iu the pursuit of it.

Some of her early memories as a Scottish maiden living in rather etraitened circumstances at Burntisland recall customs and manners long since passed away, and some are of special interest as ex- hibiting the youthful character of the writer. Upon the death of any of the townspeople, she observes that a crier was sent about

• Personal Recollections, from Early Life to Old Aye, of Mary Somerville, with Selec- tions from her Correspondence. By her Daughter, Martha Somerville. London: John

Murky. 1873. ringing a bell at the doors of the friends of the dead person, and after calling out "Oyez!" three times, he announced the death

that had occurred. Men and old women of the lower classes smoked tobacco in short pipes, and many took snuff ; " even young: ladies," says the writer, "must have done so, for I have a very pretty and quaint gold snuff-box which was given to my grand- mother as a marriage present." Licensed beggars of the Edie- Ochiltree type were common, and there was another species of beggar of still higher antiquity. " If a man were a cripple and poor, his relations put him in a hand-barrow and wheeled him to• their next neighbour's door, and left him there. Some one came out, gave him oat-cake or pease-meal bannock, and then wheeled'

him to the next door, and in this way going from house to house he obtained a fair livelihood." She remembers her brothers buying oysters of the fish-wives, the bargain being a dozen

oysters for a halfpenny and a kiss for the thirteenth. The child's, mother was much afraid of a thunder-storm, and prepared for it by taking out the steel pins which fastened her cap on. She then sat on a sofa at a distance from the fire-place, and read different- parts of the Bible, especially the sublime descriptions of storms in the Psalms, which made the girl still more afraid. Then the- shutters were closed, but the good lady, though she could not see

to read, still kept the Bible on her knee for protection. Mary grew up " a wild creature," and her child-life was lonely, for she had no one to play with, so she took a great fancy to birds, watching their flight and habits. " The quantity of singing-birds- was very great, for the farmers and gardeners were less cruel and- avaricious than they are now, though poorer. They allowed our pretty songsters to share in the bounties of Providence. The

short-sighted cruelty, which is too prevalent now, brings its own

punishment, for owing to the reckless destruction of birds, the- equilibrium of nature is disturbed, insects increase to such an extent as materially to affect every description of crop," and the writer states in another place that thanks to an unexpected growth of thistles and groundsel on the grass-plot before the house,

she has seen there in the early mornings as many as sixty to eighty goldfinches. At length, the child was sent to a boarding-school at Musselburgh, where she was utterly wretched, and where, to quote from the Recollections, "a few days after my arrival, although perfectly straight and well-made, I was enclosed in stiff stays, with- a steel busk in front, while, above my frock, bands drew my shoulders back till the shoulder-blades met. Then a steel rod,

with a semicircle which went under the chin, was clasped to the steel busk in my stays. In this constrained state, I, and most of

the younger girls, had to prepare our lessons." In a year, and at the age of eleven, she regained her freedom, unimproved by school discipline, and henceforth, with the exception of some music lessons and writing lessons, all the education she gained was achieved by voluntary effort. She taught herself Latin, and going on a visit to Jedburgh, met for the first time in her uncle, Dr..

Somerville, with a friend who approved of her thirst for know- ledge. The introduction to the great study of her life was,

strange to say, found in a magazine of fashions. At the end of a. page she read what appeared to be simply an arithmetical question,

but on turning the page she was surprised to see strange-looking lines mixed with letters, chiefly x's and y's, and asking what they

meant was told it is a kind of arithmetic called algebra. This set the lonely girl thinking and studying. None of her friends knew anything of science, and if they had, she would not have had the courage to ask them questions, for fear of being laughed at for her pains. Meanwhile she taught herself Greek, painted several

hours a day, and at length having the good-fortune to obtain a Euclid, she sat up very late studying the problems, to the great waste of candles. This delightful evening pursuit was therefore

put a stop to :—

" I had, however, already gone through the first six books of Euclid,. and now I was thrown on my memory, which I exercised by beginning at the first book and demonstrating in my mind a certain number of problems every night till I could nearly go through the whole. My father came home for a short time, and somehow or other finding out what I was about, said to my mother, 'Peg, we must put a stop to this, or we shall have Mary in a strait-jacket one of these days. Thera- was —, who went raving mad about the longitude:"

The girl was at this time quite young, and enjoyed the amuse- ments of youth with as much zest as her studies. She records her first appearance at a ball, and observes that she used to go alone in a sedan-chair to concerts and balls in the public assembly-rooms at Edinburgh. " My mother knew that the Highlanders who carried me could be trusted. I was fond of dancing, and never without partners, and often came home in bright daylight." Like other girls, she did not dislike a little flir- tation, and the " Rose of Jedwood," with her rare beauty of face and figure, must have had plenty of admirers. No amusement, however, was permitted to interfere with the prosecution of her studies. " So I painted at Nasmyth's, played the usual number of hours on the piano, worked and conversed with my mother in the evening, and, as we kept early hours, I rose at daybreak, and after dressing, I wrapped myself in a blanket from my bed on no- -count of the excessive cold—having no fire at that hour—and read algebra or the classics till breakfast-time."

At the age of twenty-four Miss Fairfax married her cousin, Mr. Samuel Greig, a gentleman of whom she says but little, and that little not favourable. She met, we are told, with no sympathy from him in her studies, as he had a very low opinion of the capacity of women and cared nothing for science. Three years of married life were spent in London, and then she returned to her father's house a widow with two little boys. In 1812 she married William Somerville, another cousin, and this event proved a singularly happy one. Dr. Somerville, a man of intelligence and of considerable culture, was appointed head of the Army Medical Department in Scotland, and settled in Edinburgh. With his secretary, Mrs. Somerville read Greek for an hour every morning before breakfast, and with this gentleman's brother, who after- wards filled the post, she devoted some time daily to botany, although she was nursing a baby at the time. With her husband she studied mineralogy and formed a cabinet of minerals. Indeed this extraordinary woman had a mind eager to embrace every variety of knowledge, as well as a considerable taste for art, and when a fresh appointment carried Dr. Somerville to London, she once more took lessons in landscape-painting. Her master was a Mr. Glover, whom she liked on account of his kindness to animals, especially to birds, " which he tamed so that they flew before him when he walked, or else sat on the trees and returned to him when he whistled."

By degrees Mrs. Somerville's vast acquirements gained for her a reputation abroad as well as at home. In France, La Place, Biot, Arago, and other distinguished savants were among her -friends, and at home almost every man of scientific eminence became an acquaintance, a correspondent, or an intimate associate. Her account of this close intercourse with men of note is one of the most attractive features of the autobiography, and it is curious to observe that in spite of this almost daily intercourse with great men and of habits which were far from those of a recluse, she writes of being startled at the sound of her own voice in society, "from the shyness which has haunted me through life, and starts up like a ghost in my old age." Some of the anecdotes related by Mrs. Somerville are characteristic or entertaining, and a few of them may be transferred to our columns. Here is one about Ugo Foscolo :— " At some house where we were dining in London, I forget with whom, Ugo Foscolo, the poet, was one of the party. Ho was extremely excitable and irritable, and when some one spoke of a translation of Dante as being perfect, 'Impossible 1' shouted Foscolo, starting up in great excitement, at the same time tossing his cup full of coffee into the air, cup and all, regardless of the china and the ladies' dresses."

A visit to the Marquise de la Place is thus described :— "It was past five o'clock ; we were shown into a beautiful drawing- room, and the man-servant, without knocking at the door, went into the room which was adjacent, and we heard her call out, 'Y'irai la voir j'irai la voir ' and when the man-servant came out, he said, 4 Madame est ddsolde, male elle est on chemise.' " Here is an anecdote about Chantrey :— " At one of the battues at Beechwood Chantrey killed two woodcocks at one shot. Mr. Hudson Gurney, some time after, saw a brace of woodcocks carved in marble in Chantroy's studio; Chantrey told him 'of his shot, and the difficulty of finding a suitable inscription, and that it had been tried in Latin, and even Greek, without success. Mr. Gurney said it should be very simple, such as,—

Driven from the North, where winter starved them, Chantrey first shot, and then he carved them.' "

Mrs. Somerville more than once expresses her disgust at the cruel experiments made on animals for purposes of science. On this account she detested Dr. Majendie, whose manners were very coarse, and his conversation " horridly professional "

:- "A German professor of physiology at Florence roused public indig- nation by his barbarous vivisections, and there was a canvas for a memorial against his cruel practice. Miss Cobbe took a leading part in this movement, and I heartily joined, and wrote to all my acquaint- ances requesting their votes; among others, to a certain Marchese, who had published something on agriculture. Ho refused his vote, saying, Perhaps I was not aware that the present state of science was one of induction.' Then he wont on explaining to mo what induction meant, etc., &c., which amused mo not a little."

Mrs. Somerville's humility is a beautiful trait in her character. When Lord Brougham asked her to write a popular account of the Mecanique Celeste, she was surprised beyond description, think- ing that her self-acquired knowledge was so far inferior to that

of the men who had been educated in our Universities, that it would be the height of presumption to attempt to write on such a subject. Brougham went himself to her house to urge his request, and she promised to make the attempt upon condition

of secrecy, and that if she failed, the manuscript should be put into the fire :-

"I rose early, and made such arrangements with regard to my children and family affairs, that I had time to write afterwards, not, however, without many interruptions. A man can always command his time under the plea of business, a woman is not allowed any such excuse. At Chelsea I was always supposed to be at home, and as my friends and acquaintances came so far out of their way on purpose to see me, it would have been unkind and ungenerous not to receive them. Nevertheless, I was sometimes annoyed when in the midst of a difficult problem some one would enter and say, have come to spend a few hours with you.' However I learnt by habit to leave a subject and re- sume it again at once, like putting a mark into a book I might bo read- ing; this was the more necessary, as there was no fireplace in my little room, and I had to write in the drawing-room in winter. Frequently I hid my papers as soon as the bell announced a visitor, lest any one should discover my secret."

The success of the work was complete. Mrs. Somerville received the highest praise from Sir John Herschel, her " truest and best friend." Dr. Whewell admired it extremely, and turning poet on the occasion, wrote a sonnet in its praise ; at the same time, be took steps, in conjunction with Professor Peacock, to introduce the work at Cambridge, deeming it essential to students who aspired to the highest places in the examinations. She was elected an honorary member of the Royal Astronomical Society and of several other societies, her bust was placed in the hall of the Royal Society, and she received the substantial honour of a pension from the Crown. The Connection of the Physical Sciences, Mrs. Somer- ville's next work, was written in Paris, and published on her return to England. It passed through many editions, and was translated into German and Italian. The book went also through various editions in the United States, " to the honour, but not to the profit, of the author."

Mrs. Somerville lived much in Italy, and found no place suit her so well as Rome. In Italy she wrote her Physical Geography, and in Italy, at a great age, but with the full use of her noble intellect, a happy life came to its painless close. We have already given several quotations from this fascinating volume, but one more, written by Mrs. Somerville in her eighty-ninth year, is too remarkable to be omitted :—

" The short time I have to live naturally occupies my thoughts. In the blessed hope of meeting again with my beloved children, and those who were and are dear to me on earth, I think of death with composure and perfect confidence in the mercy of God. Yet to me, who am afraid to sleep alone on a stormy night, or oven to sleep comfortably any night unless some one is near, it is a, fearful thought that my spirit must enter that new state of existence quite alone. We are told of the infinite glories of that state, and I believe in them, though it is incomprehen- sible to us ; but as I do comprehend, in some degree, at least, the exquisite loveliness of the visible world, I confess I shall be sorry to leave it. 'I shall regret the sky, the sea, with all the changes of their beautiful colouring; the earth, with its verdure and flowers ; but far more shall I grieve to leave animals who have followed our stops affec- tionately for years without knowing for certainty their ultimate fate, though I firmly believe that the living principle is never extinguished. Since the atoms of matter are indestructible, as far as wo know, it is difficult to believe that tho spark which gives to their union life, memory, affection, intelligence, and fidelity is evanescent If animals have no future, the existence of many is most wretched ; mul- titudes are starved, cruelly beaten, and loaded through life ; many die under a barbarous vivisection. I cannot believe that any creature was created for uncompensated misery, it would bo contrary to the attributes of God's mercy and justice."

Yet later, and when she had passed her ninetieth year, we find her studying the higher algebra in the morning, reading poets and the newspapers in the afternoon, receiving friends, and working with the needle without spectacles. "I also enjoy," she adds, " reading about all the new discoveries and theories in the scien- tific world, and on all branches of science," and she regrets that she will not live to know the result of the expedition to determine the currents of the ocean, the distance of the earth from the sun determined by the transits of Venus, and the source of the most

renowned of rivers, the discovery of which will immortalise the name of Dr. Livingstone. Most of all, she regrets that she will

not live to see " the suppression of the most atrocious system of slavery that ever disgraced humanity,—that made known to the world by Dr. Livingstone and by Mr. Stanley, and which Sir Bartle Frere has gone to suppress by order of the British Government." Mrs. Somerville's reputation is likely to be permanent, but it is possible that this unaffected record of a beautiful and consistent life may be of more benefit to society than even the valuable works to which she is indebted for her fame.