31 OCTOBER 1885, Page 18

MRS. HUTCHINSON'S "MEMOIRS."*

THE Puritans seem destined to get very scant justice from history. Of old, the high-Tory and "jure-divino Royalists" created a scarecrow of schismatic and anarchical shreds and patches, which they called Puritanism. This overthrown, an equally fantastic and equally delusive dummy has sprung into its place—a sour, hard-featured, sectarian lay-figure, which the apostles of sweetness and light, and the worshippers of Culture seem now no less bent upon upholding as a faithful image. Such persons would again persuade the world that the Puritans were nothing but a set of harsh, dull, and pedantic fanatics, lost to all sense of beauty, or of pleasure in life, absorbed in the tedious labyrinths of hard and mechanical dogmas, and in- capable of any intellectual sympathies other than those which centred in Paulobaptism or the Battle of Armageddon. Yet in truth the scarecrow bears not the least resemblance to the real Puritanism. The great Puritan party, it is true, were deeply stirred and interested by questions of religious contro- versy, questions which, no doubt, seem dead enough to us, but in which they found the intellectual exercise men have in later times sought in scientific or in antiquarian disquisitions. The other side of human nature was not, however, left unde- veloped in the Puritans ; and their devotion to letters, to athletic exercises, to artistic accomplishments, and to music, was far more liberal than when, a century later, Lord Chesterfield told his son it was not a fit thing for a gentleman to play the fiddle. No; the mental attitude of Cromwell, of Milton, of Colonel Hutchinson, towards the development of a wider humanity in society, towards letters, art, and music, towards culture and refinement, was something very different from the Puritan bugbear Mr. Matthew Arnold is so fond of baiting. Cromwell, with his exclamation that the statutes which punished insignificant offences with death were "wicked and abominable laws;" and that "to see men lose their lives for petty matters, this is a thing God will reckon,"—Cromwell, who, though the State was in sore need for money, refused to sell the cartoons of Raphael,—Cromwell, who entertained his Parliament with that "most princely enter- taiment " of "rare music, both of voices and instruments,"— Milton, with his Comus and his Tract on Education, where the young men, after their fencing and martial games—fit exercises for the soldier-saints !—compose their spirits "with the solemn and divine harmonies of music, while the skilful organist plies his grave and fancied descant in lofty fugues,"—Colonel Hutchin- son, with his lute ; his cabinet of intalgi ; and his purchases of "a Madonna of Titian, with divers other pictures, and one naked boy of marble, very rare ;" and his lessons to his children in

• Memoirs of the Life of Colonel Hutchinson. By his Widow, Lucy Hutchinson. Revised, with additional Notes, by C. H. Firth, M.A. 2 vols. London : John C. Nimmo. 1885.

dancing and music,—these are examples of the Puritan spirit too often neglected.

Fortunately, however, as long as Mrs. Lucy Hutchinson's " Memoirs " are read, there is hope that the truer view of the Puritans will not be altogether obscured. It is with great pleasure, then, that we welcome the beautiful edition of her works which has been recently produced under the able editor- ship of Mr. Firth. No more delightful example of the Puritan life can be anywhere found than in the story of Colonel Hutchinson's courtship, which is set out with loving minuteness of detail in the "Memoirs" by his wife.

When Mr. Hutchinson, son of Sir Thomas Hutchinson and Margaret, daughter of Sir John Bison, of Newstead, had finished his education at the University of Cambridge, where for his exer- cise he practised tennis, and for his diversion music, he returned for a short time to his father's house at Owthorpe ; and then going to London, began to study law at Lincoln's Inn. The harsh studies of the conveyancers, who were beginning the perfecting of that strange structure, the family settlement, were, however, little to his taste, and he thought it more profitable to exercise himself in "dancing, fencing, and music." One day Mr. Hutchinson, tired of the town, and not knowing how to dispose of himself, was wondering whether to accept the invitation of a French merchant to take a journey to France. While undecided, his music-master came in and recommended that instead he should go to the music-master's house at Richmond, at which place "there was very good company and recreations, the King's hawks being kept near the place, and several other conveniences." Mr. Hutchinson determined to accept this offer. Fortunate choice ; for had he not, Lucy Hutchinson's " Memoirs " would never have been written. But he was not to go without a warning, delightfully characteristic of his age, and prescient of what was to be his own fate. One of his friends, hearing of the intended visit, told him how fatal for love was Richmond, and how he would never return thence free. To confirm it, the friend told a tale of a gentleman who, going there to lodge, had found all the people he saw "bewailing the death of a gentlewoman that had lived there." "Hearing her so much deplored he made inquiry after her, and grew so in love with the description that no other discourse could at first please him, nor could he at last endure any other ; he grew desperately melancholy, and would go to a mount where the print of her foot was cut, and lie there pining and kissing of it all the day long, till at length death in some months' space concluded his languishment." "This story," goes on Mrs. Hutchinson, "was very true." At least it breathes the spirit of the Duke in Twelfth Night, of Philaster, of Ford's Lover's Melancholy, and shows how the dramatists chose plots of melancholy no more fantastic than the stories of every-day life. Mr. Hutchinson accordingly went to Richmond, and since he "tabled" (that is, boarded) in the house of a musician, was plunged into the element he loved most—music and singing. Not only did the king's musicians meet there to practise new airs, but "divers of the gentlemen and ladies that were affected with music came thither to hear." Amongst his new acquaintances, the handsome young gentleman made friends easily. And no wonder, unless his description belies him. His fair com- plexion, his beautiful light-brown hair, "very thick set in his youth, softer than the finest silk, and curling into loose great rings at the ends," and his grey eyes "full of life and vigour," his well-made person, his active and graceful movements, and that "most amiable countenance, which carried in it something of magnanimity and majesty mixed with sweetness," must together have made up a very pleasing person. And if we add that "he had an exact ear and judgment in music," and "often diverted himself on the viol, on which he played masterly," we shall hardly want to add the beauty and propriety of his dress, for which he was famed, to explain his popularity in a musical society ; or, as Mrs. Hutchinson says, with truly feminine candour and discernment, that, at Richmond, he was "nobly treated, with all the attractive arts that young women and their parents use to procure them lovers." How- ever, Mr. Hutchinson was not to be caught by "their fine snares ;" and, though "without any taint of incivility," reproved the pride and vanity of these young persons. His time, however, was soon to come. In the house where he boarded was also "a younger daughter of Sir Allen Apsley, late Lieu- tenant of the Tower, tabled for the practice of her lute till the return of her mother, who was gone into Wiltshire." The cause of the mother's journey into Wiltshire was one which was

by no means strange in the seventeenth century,—the accom- plishment of a treaty for marrying her elder daughter, who had gone with her mother. Now, the sister left at Richmond, though quite a child, was so excellent a musician that Mr.

Hutchinson "took pleasure in hearing her practice, and would fall in discourse with her." The acquaintance ripened. "She, having the keys of her mother's house some half a mile distant, would sometimes ask Mr. Hatchinson when she went over to walk along with her. One day when he was there, looking upon an odd shelf in her sister's closet, he found a few Latin books. Asking whose they were, he was told they were her elder sister's ; where- upon, inquiring more after her, he began first to be sorry she was gone before he had seen her, and gone upon such an account that he was not likelyto see her. Then he grew to love to hear mention of her, and the other gentlewomen who had been her com- panions used to talk much to him of her, telling him how reserved and studious she was, and other things which they esteemed no advantage." All this, however, only inflamed Mr.

Hutchinson the more, and gradually he fell in love with her very report, so fatal for love was Richmond. Every circum- stance tended to plunge him deeper. One day he heard a song which rumour gave as Mrs. Apsley's composition. This the cautious Mr. Hutchinson could not at first believe possible, for he fancied "something of rationality in the sonnet beyond the customary reach of a she-wit." The rumour, however, was shown to be true. Then, said Mr. Hutchinson, "I cannot be at rest till this lady's return, that I may be acquainted with her." The gentleman who had vouched the authorship of the song replied, "Sir, you must not expect that, for she is of a humour she will not be acquainted with any of mankind; and however this song is stolen forth, she is the nicest creature in the world for suffering her perfec- tions to be known ; she shuns the converse of men as the plague ; she only lives in the enjoyment of herself, and has not the humanity to communicate that happiness to any of our sex." "Well," said Mr. Hutchinson, "but I will be acquainted with her." It is difficult, as we read this, to imagine we are reading Puritan memoirs, so admirably is the lover's idyl told. So dramatic is the situation that it seems that the whole story must be the creation of Fletcher's muse. However, the course of true love was not to run smooth altogether. Soon after the episode of the song, as they were at dinner in the musician's house, "a footboy of my lady her mother came to young Mrs. Apsley" [Mrs. and Miss were then the same], "saying that her mother and sister would soon return." When they asked the messenger if Mrs. Apsley were married, "having been instructed to make them believe it, he smiled, and pulled out some bride- laces, and told them Mrs. Apsley bade him tell no news, but give them these tokens, and carried the matter so that all the company believed she had been married." On hearing this, poor Mr. Hutchinson "immediately turned pale as ashes, and felt a fainting to seize his spirits." With difficulty concealing his condition, he left the table. When alone, he himself began to remember the story told him, and "to believe that there was some magic in the place which enchanted men out of their right senses." Make what effort he would, "the sick heart could not be chid nor advised into health ;" and it was not till he had cross-questioned the footboy and discovered the fraud that his spirits revived. While now in better hope and waiting to see his unknown mistress, he was one day invited to "a noble treatment at Sion Garden." While there, it was announced to young Miss Apsley that her mother and sister were really come.

The solution of this situation, so admirably worked up by Mrs. Hutchinson, must be told in her own inimitable language,—for it would be a profanation to abridge the charm of her description of the lovers' first interview :—

" She [that is, the younger sister] would immediately have gone, but Mr. Hutchinson, pretending civility to conduct her home, made her stay till the supper was ended ; of which he ate no more, now only longing for that sight which he had with such perple:iity expected. This at length he obtained ; but hit, heart being prepossessed with his own fancy, was not free to discern how little there was in her to answer so great an expectation. She was not ugly in a careless riding-habit; she had a melancholy negligence both of herself and others, as if she neither affected to please others nor took notice of anything before her ; yet in spite of all her indifferancy, she was surprised with some unusual liking in her soul when she saw this gentleman, who had hair, eyes, shape, and countenance enough to beget love in any one at the first, and these set off with a graceful and generous mien which promised an extraordinary person. He was at that time, and, indeed, always very neatly habited, for he wore good and rich clothes, and had a variety of them, and bad them well suited and every way answerable, in that little thing showing both good judgment and great generosity, he equally

becoming them and they him, which he wore with an equal unaffectedness and such neatness as do not often meet in one. Although he had but at evening eight of her he had so long desired, and that at disadvantage enough for her, yet the prevailing sympathy of his soul made him think all his pains were paid, and this first did whet his desire to a second sight, which be had by accident the next day, and to his joy, found that she was wholly disengaged from that treaty which he so much feared had been accomplished. He found withal that, though she was modest, she was acoostable and willing to entertain his acquaintance. This soon passed into a mutual friendship between them ; and though she innocently thought nothing of love, yet was she glad to have acquired such a friend who had wisdom and virtue enough to be trusted with her councils, for she was then much perplexed in mind."

Space does not allow us to tell the rest of the courtship, or of "the opportunity of conversing with her" that was afforded to Mr. Hutchinson "in those pleasant walks, which at that sweet season of the spring invited all the neighbouring inhabi- tants to seek their joys ; where, though they were never alone, yet they had every day opportunity for converse with each other, which the rest shared not in, while every one minded their own delights." Nor can we tell the wicked machinations of the other ladies of Richmond to make mischief between the lovers, and whose "witty spite represented all her faults to him, which

chiefly terminated in the negligence of her dress and habit, and all womanish ornaments, giving herself wholly up to study and writing." We must leave the happy lovers, and the completion of their idyl. The extraordinary felicity with which this story is told in no way exhausts Mrs. Hutchinson's compass of style. In political satire, in historical narrative, in fervent disquisition, her style is at once vigorous and plastic, expanding or contracting to eloquent rhetoric or terse narration, just as she requires it. Her sketch of English history has a power of expression marvellous when compared with the ordinary historical writing of her age, not even Milton's attempts excepted. What could be more incisive than her description of Edward the Confessor as "that superstitions prince who, sainted for his ungodly chastity, left an empty throne to him that could seize it ;" or her proud boast against the wild ambition of kings and their flatterers, which "could never in any age so tread down

popular liberty but that it rose again with renewed vigour, till at length it trod on those that trampled it before P" But we must not leave Mrs. Hutchinson without again thanking Mr. Firth and his publishers for the charming way in which the reprint is produced. The introduction is workman- like and sensible, the paper and printing good and clear, and the etchings pleasing examples of that art.