Elizabeth Hamilton

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Character and Writings of Mrs. Elizabeth Hamilton

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SOURCE: Edgeworth, Maria. “Character and Writings of Mrs. Elizabeth Hamilton.” The Gentleman's Magazine Supplement 86, no. 2 (December 1816): 623-24.

[In the following obituary, Edgeworth, a literary contemporary of Hamilton's, reflects on the deceased author's major works and comments on her legacy.]

The following account of the late Mrs. Elizabeth Hamilton, is understood to have been written by Miss Edgeworth:

She was born at Belfast, in Ireland, and the affection for her Country which she constantly expressed proved that she had a true Irish heart. This lady is well known to the publick as the author of The Cottagers of Glenburnie, The Modern Philosophers,Letters on Female Education, and various other works. She has obtained in different departments of literature just celebrity, and has established a reputation that will strengthen and consolidate from the operation of time, that destroyer of all that is false or superficial.

The most popular of her lesser works is The Cottagers of Glenburnie, a lively, humourous picture of the slovenly habits, the indolent winna-be-fashed temper, the baneful content which prevails among some of the lower class of the people in parts of Scotland. It is a proof of the great merit of this book, that it has, in spite of the Scottish dialect with which it abounds, been universally read in England and Ireland, as well as in Scotland. It is a faithful representation of human nature in general, as well as of local manners and customs: the maxims of economy and industry, the principles of truth, justice, and family affection and religion, which it inculcates by striking examples, and by exquisite strokes of pathos, mixed with humour, are independent of all local peculiarity of manner or language, and operate upon the feelings of every class of readers in all countries. In Ireland, in particular, the history of the Cottagers of Glenburnie has been read with peculiar avidity, and it has probably done as much good to the Irish as to the Scotch. While the Irish have seized and enjoyed the opportunity it afforded of a good-humoured laugh at their Scotch neighbours, they have secretly seen, through shades of difference, a resemblance to themselves; and are conscious that, changing the names, the tale might be told of them. In this tale, the difference and the resemblance between Scottish and Hibernian faults or foibles are both advantageous to its popularity in Ireland. The difference is sufficient to give an air of novelty that wakens curiosity, while the resemblance fixes attention, and creates a new species of interest. Besides this, the self-love of the Hibernian reader being happily relieved from all apprehension that the lesson was intended for him, his good sense takes and profits by the advice that is offered to another. The humour in this book is peculiarly suited to the Irish, because it is, in every sense of the word, good humour. The satire, if satire it can be called, is benevolent—its object is to mend, not wound the heart. Even the Scotch themselves, however national they are supposed to be, can bear the Cottagers of Glenburnie. Nations, like individuals, can with decent patience bear to be told of their faults, if those faults, instead of being represented as forming their established unchangeable character, are considered as arising, as in fact they usually do arise, from those passing circumstances which characterize rather a certain period of civilization, than any particular people. If our national faults are pointed out as foul indelible stains, inherent in the texture of the character, from which it cannot by art or time be bleached or purified, we are justly provoked and offended; but if a friend warns us of some little accidental spots which we had perhaps overlooked, and which we can at a moment's notice efface, we smile, and are grateful.

In The Modern Philosophers, where the spirit of system and party interfered with the design of the work, it was difficult to preserve throughout the tone of good-humoured raillery and candour: this could scarcely have been accomplished by any talents or prudence, had not the habitual temper and real disposition of the writer been candid and benevolent. In this work, though it is a professed satire upon a system, yet it avoids all satire of individuals, and it shews none of that cynical contempt of the human race which some satirists seem to feel or affect, in order to give poignancy to their wit. Our author has none of that misanthropy which derides the infirmities of human nature, and which laughs while it canterizes. There appears always some adequate object for any pain that she inflicts; it is done with a steady view to future good, and with a humane and tender, as well as with a skilful and courageous hand. The object of The Modern Philosophers was to expose those whose theory and practice differ; to point out the difficulty of applying high-flown principles to the ordinary but necessary concerns of human life; and to show the danger of bringing every man to become his own moralist and logician. When this novel first appeared, it was perhaps more read and admired than any of Mrs. Hamilton's works; the name, the character of Bridgetina Botheram passed into every company, and became a standing jest, a proverbial point in conversation. The ridicule answered its purpose; it reduced to measure and reason those who, in the novelty and zeal of system, had overleaped the bounds of common sense.

The Modern Philosophers, The Cottagers of Glenburnie, and the letters of the Hindoo Rajah, the first book we believe that our author published, have all been highly and steadily approved by the publick. These works, alike in principle and in benevolence of design, yet with each a different grace of style and invention, have established Mrs. Hamilton's character as an original, agreeable, and successful writer of fiction. But her claims to literary reputation as a philosophic, moral, and religious author, are of a higher sort, and rest upon works of a more solid and durable nature—upon her works on education, especially her Letters on Female Education. In these, she not only shews that she has studied the history of the human mind, and that she has made herself acquainted with all that has been written on this subject by the best moral and metaphysical writers, but she adds new value to their knowledge by rendering it practically useful. She has thrown open to all classes of readers those metaphysical discoveries or observations which had been confined chiefly to the learned. To a sort of knowledge which had been considered rather as a matter of curiosity than of use, she has given real value and actual currency. She has shewn how the knowledge of metaphysicks can be made serviceable to the art of education. She has shewn, for instance, how the doctrine of the association of ideas may be applied in early education to the formation of the habits, of temper, and of the principles of taste and of morals—she has considered how all that metaphysicians know of sensation, abstraction, &c. can be applied to the cultivation of the attention, the judgment, and the imaginations of children. No matter how little is actually ascertained on these subjects, she has done much in wakening the attention of parents, of mothers especially, to future inquiry—she has done much, by directing their inquiries rightly—much by exciting them to reflect upon their own minds, and to observe what passes in the minds of their children. She has opened a new field of investigation to women—a field fitted to their domestic habits, to their duties as mothers, and to their business as preceptors of youth, to whom it belongs to give the minds of children those first impressions and ideas which remain the longest, and which influence them often the most powerfully through the whole course of life. In recommending to her own sex the study of metaphysicks, as far as it relates to education, Mrs. Hamilton has been judiciously careful to avoid all that can lead to that species of “vain debate” of which there is no end. She, knowing the limits of the human understanding, does not attempt to go beyond them, into that which can be at best but a dispute about terms; she does not aim at making women expert in the “wordy war,” nor does she teach them to astonish the unlearned by their acquaintance with the various vocabulary of metaphysical system-makers—such jugglers' tricks she despised: but she has not, on the other hand, been deceived or overawed by those who would represent the study of the human mind as one that bends to no practical purpose, and that is unfit and unsafe for her sex. Had Mrs. Hamilton set ladies on metaphysic ground merely to shew their paces, she would have made herself and them ridiculous and troublesome; but she has shewn how they may, by slow and certain steps, advance to an useful object. The dark, intricate, and dangerous labyrinth she has converted into a clear, straight, practicable road—a road not only practicable, but pleasant; and not only pleasant, but what is of far more consequence to women, safe.

Mrs. Elizabeth Hamilton is well known to be not only a moral, but a pious writer; and in all her writings, as in all her conversation, religion appears in the most engaging point of view: her religion was sincere, cheerful, and tolerant, joining in the happiest manner faith, hope, and charity. All who had the happiness to know this amiable woman will, with one accord, bear testimony to the truth of that feeling of affection which her benevolence, kindness, and cheerfulness of temper inspired. She thought so little of herself, so much of others, that it was impossible she could, superior as she was, excite envy—she put every body at ease in her company, in good humour and good spirits with themselves. So far from being a restraint on the young and lively, she encouraged, by her sympathy, their openness and gaiety; she never flattered, but she always formed the most favourable opinion that truth and good sense would permit, of every individual who came near her; therefore, all, instead of fearing and shunning her penetration, loved and courted her society. Her loss will be long regretted by her private friends—her memory will long live in public estimation. Much as Mrs. Elizabeth Hamilton has served and honoured the cause of female literature by her writings, she has done still higher and more essential benefit to that cause by her life, by setting the example, through the whole, of that uniform propriety of conduct, and of all those domestic virtues, which ought to characterize her sex, which form the charm and happiness of domestic life, and which in her united gracefully with that superiority of talents and knowledge that commanded the admiration of the publick.

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