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We kunnen u niet vertellen wat u in uw geval met een bepaald boek mag doen. Neem niet zomaar aan dat u een boek overal ter wereld op allerlei manieren kunt gebruiken, wanneer het eenmaal in Zoeken naar boeken met Google staat. De wettelijke aansprakelijkheid voor auteursrechten is behoorlijk streng. About Google Book Search Google's mission is to organize the world's information and to make it universally accessible and useful. Google Book Search helps readers discover the world's books while helping authors and publishers reach new audiences. You can search through the full text of this book on the web at http : / /books . qooqle . com/ ifibratgnf priua-hm HuitnTaitn. Digitized by Google Digitized by Google Digitized by Google BIOGRAPHIES OF GOOD WOMEN. Digitized by Google Digitized by Google 'MORE PRECIOUS THAN RUBIES: BIOGRAPHIES OF GOOD WOMEN, CHIEFLY BY CONTRIBUTORS TO < THE MONTHLY PACKET/ EDITED BY THE AUTHOR OF 'THE HEIR OF REDCLYFFE.' . SECOND SERIES. LONDON: J. AND C. MOZLEY, 6, PATERNOSTER ROW; MASTERS AND SON, 78, NEW BOND STREET. 1865. Digitized by Google } Digitized by Google CONTENTS. Page •^VlTTORIA C<XLONNA 1 By Ellen Millington. Margaret More 36 By F. C. D. Madame Duplessis Mornay . . . .67 By E. T. La Mere Angelique 105 By M. L. C. Madame Guyon 167 By M. L. C. Madame de la Garaye 242 By E. T. Meta Klopstock 255 By the Author of < Magdalen Stafford.' Mrs. Trimmer 268 C£ By the Author of 4 The Heir of Kedclyffe.' ' Jr o :*y ^ • ^ O ( i » U )igili2edby Googk vi CONTENTS. Page Hannah More 290 By the Author of ' The Heir of Redclyffe.' Elisabeth of France 326 By E. T. The Five Sisters op Noailles . . . .351 By the Author of ' The Heir of RedclynV Mrs. Siddons 428 By E. T. Mrs. Lyde Browne 465 By D. R. Mrs. Leadbeater . . ... . 480 By D. R. Harriet M. Bowdler 505 By D. R. Dorothy Wordsworth .... 510 By the Author of ' Magdalen Stafford.' Sarah Martin 542 By the Author of ' The Heir of Redclyffe.' Eugenie de Guerin 557 By E. T. Digitized by Google INTRODUCTION. After drawing up our first collection of Lives of Good Women, we could not but feel that we had omitted many whose lives were known to us in sufficient detail to serve as a most interesting study, and bright example. Therefore, almost ever since our former volume appeared, we have been gathering together materials to serve for the second series, which we now place before our readers, hoping that they will be impressed, as we are, with the one spirit of duty and love that led so many varying characters, through so many various paths, all towards the same goal. We should like to think that our biographies might be taken as reflecting the different forms of excellence, called forth by various circumstances of time, station, and country, in the course of those last three hundred years, during which memorials of womankind have become plentiful enough to give us a knowledge of their inner life. Digitized by Google VIU INTRODUCTION. Indeed, we should like our young readers to use these two series, not as Volumes I. and II., but to read the biographies of the first collection in the order of chronology with those in the second. Thus they would see the manner in which the Reformation affected four women of very different fate and character — two of whom retained their hold of the Church, though profiting by the greater life and spirituality awakened in the world ; while two others, seeking the whole truth and the piety that had been choked up from them by the corruptions of their Church, threw themselves beyond her pale, and suffered exile, want, and danger, for conscience sake. On the other hand, viewed in their domestic life, Olimpia Morata was a devoted wife, making her high gifts of learning and talent serve to brighten her weary lot of exile and poverty ; Vittoria Colonna, a constant-hearted widow, shining as a pure light in a dark and evil world, and above all, serving as a bright beacon to the loftiest genius it contained; and Margaret Roper, with learning and talent of the same order as these two much- admired Italians, lives in our minds as the true and faithful companion-daughter of one of the noblest of our statesmen. Madame Duplessis Mornay, Huguenot Confessor as she was, seems Digitized by Google INTRODUCTION. ix to fall into the same class with those loving wives who were made heroines for their husband's sake in religious wars ; like Mrs. Hutchinson and Lady Fanshawe, or later, Rachel Russell and Grisell Baillie. All were women who in quiet times would have left no name beyond their own generation, though in the time of trouble, their patience, courage, and high-minded love, came forth like stars in the night. • Our present volume gives two of the many instances of the work of the renewed life and vigour that was infused into the Roman Catholic Church in the reaction after the Reformation. That greatest of nuns, La Mere Ang&ique, shows all that a holy mind and resolute spirit can work out of a monastic life; and on the other hand, we fear that poor Madame Guyon is but a specimen of the harm that even a devout woman may do when her conscience is ill regulated, and wayward sentiment is taken for inspiration. Per- haps the work of Madame de Lagaraye and her husband may be classed among the fruits of the teaching that was making its way in France even in the reign of Louis XIV., and was not wholly silent even under his successor. Systematic charity was beginning everywhere to be regarded as a paramount duty; and our Digitized by Google X INTRODUCTION. own Mrs. Trimmer and Hannah More were among the first ladies who organized those regular plans on which beneficence has ever since worked. Hannah More, though in her youth one of the most brilliant of learned and witty women, became almost the foremost in that class of 6 workers ' to which belonged Mrs. Fry, Sarah Martin, and Amalie Sieveking, women who have spent them- selves for others, for pure and lofty love of God and of their neighbour. But while English women lived peaceful lives, calling forth only every-day virtues, such as we have owned in Lady Balcarres, Mrs. Carter, Miss Smith, and Mrs. Grant, and which in this volume are represented by Mrs. Lyde Browne, Miss Bowdler, Mrs. Leadbeater, and by the great Mrs. Siddons herself, whose great perfection was the grand simplicity of her unspoilt character — the Continent was trying its women i even as silver is tried.' Then many a Cross brightened on the brow which in calm days would have passed unmarked in the throng; many a cruel death became a martyrdom from the spirit in which it was met. Two of these martyrs have been here described — Madame Elisabeth, who, since the recent publications of correspondence has become a far less shadowy personage than she used to be, Digitized by Google INTRODUCTION. xi and whom we now know as woman as well as saint ; and Madame de Noailles, the eldest of that band of sisters, whose history, by the kindness of the Due de Noailles, we have been permitted to extract from the Memoires de la Marquise de Montagu. We have supplemented this beautiful biography as far as we could with gleanings from the Memoirs of La Fayette himself, being anxious to collect all that was possible respecting that ad- mirable wife, Madame de la Fayette, who may perhaps he reckoned among such wives as we spoke of above, as devoted sufferers for, and sympathizers with, their husbands ; but with this remarkable exception, that all the other wives were one in faith and hope with him they loved ; but Madame de la Fayette had the far more cruel trial of being alone in her belief, and ever fearing for her husband's soul, yet while almost adoring him, never suffering, herself to be tainted by his unbelief. Of women who unconsciously displayed their own choice gifts in their enthusiastic adoration of others, we have three choice specimens in the tender Meta Klopstock, the spirited Dorothy Wordsworth, and the pensive Eugenie de Gudrin — women who may perhaps be reckoned as pre- eminent in the power of loving sympathy. Digitized by Google Xll INTRODUCTION. Eugenie especially is remarkable for the wondrous charm of beholding the highest poetry in the most homely things of common life ; so that we are not certain whether she be not the most gifted of all the persons with whom we have endeavoured to make our readers acquainted. The diamond of perfect womanhood has many facets, and through all the light of Heaven is reflected, and given back in sparkling radiance. But the light of Heaven it must be. All the women of our biographies, however unlike their lot, whether they were learned or ignorant, active or passive, sick or healthful, students or ladies bountiful, exiles or home-keepers, were alike in this one matter — that their faith shone through all their words and deeds, and was the brightness of their lives. November 2, 1865. Digitized by Google BIOGRAPHIES OF GOOD WOMEN. VITTORIA COLONNA, MARCHESANA DI PESCARA. BORN 1490, DIED 1547. (BY ELLEN J. MILLINGTON.) 'The ladies of Ferrara, those of gay Urbino's Court, are there.' Ariosto. — Rose, Canto xlvi. ' One will I choose, and such will choose, that she All envy shall so well have overthrown, No other woman can offended be If passing others, her I praise alone ; Nor joys this one but immortality Through her sweet style, and better know I none.' Ariosto. — Hose, Canto xxxvii. The sixteenth century was a glorious period for Italy. Successful in commerce, in literature, in the arts ; en- riched by the genius of poets, painters, and sculptors — Dante, Raphael, and Michelangelo — her women also caught the inspiration, and we find recorded the names of many in whom rare gifts of intellect were united with depth and purity of feeling, and hoth influenced and guided by true and genuine ^evotion. lb Digitized by Google 2 BIOGRAPHIES OF GOOD WOMEN. We cannot point to a nobler name amongst them than that of Vittoria Colonna, Marchesana di Pescara. She was the daughter of Fabrizio Colonna, Grand Constable of the kingdom of Naples, and Agnesina di Montefeltro, daughter of Federigo Duke of Urbino, one of the most illustrious characters of his time. As Vittoria seems to have inherited from the Mon- tefeltri her talents and her love of literature; her biographer must be allowed to say a few words in introduction concerning the house from which she derived her maternal ancestry, the women of which had for several generations been specially distinguished. The little State of Urbino, during the short period of its glorious existence under the Montefeltri, from 1216 to 1472, was the favoured home of literature and the arts. It was beautifully situated, in the fairest part of Italy, lying close to Tuscany, Perugia, Umbria, and other places, sacred in the memory of art and genius. The situation of the present town is wonderfully fine, and has been often the theme of panegyric ; but the original capital was St. Leo, a cluster of dwellings standing on an almost inaccessible rock, and separated by a narrow valley from the even less accessible peak and fortress of Mainolo. St. Leo is thus described by Sanzi : — 4 A city yonder stands, San Leo hight, Whose crest the sky menaces ; 'gainst its strength No force has e'er prevailed ; with scathed cliffs And rocks environed, heavenward nprearing Its summit, by a single path approached, Trod singly by the citizens.' The investiture of the Countship had been granted by Frederic Barbarossa to ' Montefeltrino in 1154. Count Guido, in the ntxt century, espoused the cause of Digitized by Google V1TT0RIA COLONNA. 3 Corradino, and after his cruel death, became Captain- general of the Ghibellines in Italy. After taking the Gnelphs in their own toils at Forli, he was excommuni- cated by the Pope, but afterwards becoming reconciled with him the sentence of excommunication was with- drawn. Later still, the Count, moved by the preaching of Saint Francis, retired to the monastery of Assisi, where he assumed the habit of a Franciscan ; and his wife Costanza, although not bound by monastic vows, ended her life also in the Convent of Santa Chiara, at Urbino, where she passed eight years in the strictest and most ascetic seclusion. The name of Guido di Montefeltro is familiar to all readers of Dante. The Count's reconciliation with the Guelphs seems to have excited the fiercest indigna- tion in the breast of the Ghibelline poet; and he describes him as expiating in the place of punishment assigned to traitors his sins of treachery and cruelty, asserting that Boniface VIII., when engaged in quarrels with the Colonnas, sought out Montefeltro in his retirement at Assisi, and asked his aid against them. They had fortified themselves in their stronghold of Palestrina ; the Pope cajoled them into surrender on terms which were shamefully violated, and Dante accuses Monte- feltro of having counselled the treachery ; Villani, however, names not Guido, and it seems doubtful whether he had any share in the treason. Dante (in the Inferno, Canto xxvii.) makes Guido recount the supposed crime and its punishment to, Virgil and himself. Antonio, Count of Montefeltro and Urbino, a man of noble character and refined taste, lived in the follow- ing century. With him began the literary renown of his house; and a sonnet of his on Christ Crucified is Digitized by Google 4 BIOGRAPHIES OF GOOD WOMEN. preserved in a manuscript copy of the Divina Com- media in the Royal Library of Naples. His love of poetry was inherited by his daughter Battista, and encouraged in her by her father-in-law Malatesta, surnamed Dei Sonetti from his skill in that style of composition. Battista's was an unhappy fate. Cruelly treated, and at length deserted, by her unworthy husband, * Galeazzo Malatesta, she took the veil in a Franciscan convent at Foligno, while her widowed daughter Elisabetta, whose husband had been murdered by a jealous brother, was already an inmate of that of Santa Chiara, at Pesaro. Various poems of Battista's writing have been pre served. Amongst other compositions, a sonnet, in which she deplores her own haughty spirit, and a letter addressed to the Pope in behalf of her husband's sister, Cleofe, who had married the son of the Emperor of Constantinople, and was persecuted on account of her faith. The letter drew forth a remonstrance from the Pope. Elisabetta left no memorials of the family genius, which seems to have descended to her daughter Cos- tanza, and her grandchild Battista. Costanza became the wife of Alessandro Sforza, Lord of Pesaro, himself a poet of no mean order, as is evident from the beautiful sonnet beginning — * Io son si lasso, debilito e stanco, Sotto il gran fascio del terrestre peso, E'tutto il ciel si mortalmente ho offeso, Che tra i sospiri lacrimosi or manco.' Crescimbeni, v. 223, 224. \ Costanza died when her child was but eighteen months old ; Battista was therefore brought up at the court of Digitized by Google VICTORIA COLONNA. 5 Milan with her cousin Ippolita Maria, one of the model ladies of the age, who afterwards married Alfonso, Duke of Calabria, and heir to the kingdom of Naples. From what is recorded of Ippolita's education and acquirements, we may judge of the training bestowed on Battista, and of the sort of studies then pursued by ladies of high birth and cultivated minds; and cer- tainly the learning of the boasted nineteenth century shrinks into insignificance when compared with the acquirements of a cinque-cento Bluestocking. Latin, ancient philosophy, dogmatic theology, and scholastic disputation, were all necessary branches of study ; while the duties of house- wifery, and the skilful use of the needle, were not neglected. In addition to these, Constantine Lascaris compiled for Ippolita a Greek grammar; and her own transcript of Cicero's 'De Senectute' is preserved in the convent library of Santa Croce at Rome, together with a collection of Latin apothegms, said by Dennistown* to be 4 curiously indicative of her character and studies.' Such was the education of Battista; and it must have begun early, for at four years old she pronounced a Latin oration to grace the festivities which celebrated her uncle's installation as Duke of Milan ; and when she returned to Pesaro, she often greeted her father's illus- trious visitors with similar displays of Latin rhetoric, and was highly complimented on her eloquence and learning. When only thirteen, Battista was married to her uncle, Federigo di Montefeltro ; and her talents, doubt- less, served to increase the literary reputation already enjoyed by the court of Urbino. * Memoirs of the Dukes of Urbino. Digitized by Google 6 BIOGRAPHIES OF GOOD WOMEN. Sanzi, the rhyming chronicler of that state, speaks of her at this epoch as * A maiden With every grace and virtue rare endow'd, That Heaven at intervals on earth vouchsafes In earnest of the bliss reserved on high while Bernardo Tasso compares her to Cicero : * The first of them in equal favour held Demosthenes and Plato — reading, too, Plotinus — while in wisdom as in words Arpino's orator * she well shall match.' Battista died, deeply lamented by her husband, in 1472, leaving six daughters and an infant son. Giovanna and Agnesina were married on the same day, the former to Giovanni della Rovere, nephew of Sixtus IV., to whose descendants the duchy of Urbino finally passed. Agnesina married Fabrizio Colonna, and became the mother of Vittoria. The character of Battista well deserves a longer notice ; but I must pass from her to a few cursory remarks on the court over which she presided, and the taste for philosophy and letters which there pre- vailed, and gave a tinge of elegance and refinement to the martial character of its dukes. Under Federigo and Guidobaldo, the son of Federigo and Battista, Urbino became the very home of all literary celebrities, the centre of all that was brilliant and intellectual. Count Baldassare di Castiglione, himself one of its brightest ornaments, gives a faithful portraiture of the manners and habits of the time in a sketch entitled 4 H Corteggiano,' or, as it has been aptly translated, The Mirror of a Perfect Courtier. * Cicero was born at Arpino. Digitized by Google VITTORIA COLONNA. 7 It was written soon after the death of Guidobaldo, with intent, as the author observes, to keep up the remembrance of what his court had been, for the benefit of Francesco di Rovere, his successor, and to state 'what 1 consider the courtiership most befitting a gentleman in attendance on princes, whereby he may best be taught and enabled to perform towards them all seemly services, so as to obtain their favour and general applause ; in short, to explain what a courtier ought in all respects to be.' This work of Castiglione is regarded as a pattern of 'gentlemanly writing it was printed in 1548, having been circulated privately amongst his friends for many years; and the forty-two reprints issued during the next fifty years prove it to have been extremely popu- lar. Castiglione has indeed been called the Chester- field of Italy; and the court of Urbino being regarded as the centre of refined and literary society in Italy, all were anxious to gain some acquaintance with the habits and amusements of those who belonged to it. Some of Castiglione's anecdotes give but a poor idea of the refinement of those days, while in other instances feminine accomplishments, and a taste for classic lore, seem to have been gracefully blended. The Duchess is represented as singing to her lute the verses of the JEneid, and at other times entertained with witty games suggested by the ingenuity of the courtiers. Once Castiglione himself and Cesare Gon- zaga composed and acted a pastoral eclogue, intro- ducing choruses, and a brilliant moresque dance formed upon the model of the ancient Pyrrhic dance. Eloquence, too, was often heard there, and poetry — 4 Arts which they loved.' Digitized by Google 8 BIOGRAPHIES OF GOOD WOMEN. As the men were brave, witty, and accomplished, so the court dames were expected to be of noble bearing, but without affectation, graceful, and virtuous. Per- sonal beauty was, of course, desirable, but never to be heightened by artificial means, such as painting* and enamelling, extirpating hairs from the eyebrows or forehead, &c.; while teeth and hands were not to be too frequently displayed, and a pretty foot and ancle was to be studiously veiled by long draperies. In short, natural elegance and the absence of all artifice were then, as now, primary qualifications. In manners, a high-born lady was to be circumspect, and above suspicion ; modest and gentle ; never disposed to listen to slander, least of all of her own sex. The accomplishments and amusements of a lady were ever to be selected with feminine delicacy verging upon timidity. Her dress was to be chosen with tasteful reference to what was most becoming, but without dis- play, or apparent study. In conversation she was to be frank, affable, and lively, but modest, staid, and self- possessed, with a nice observance of tact and decorum. Noisy hilarity^ a hoyden address, egotism, prolixity, and the unseasonable combination of serious with ludicrous topics, were considered equally objectionable, but worse than all these was affectation. To crown all this, our model lady was to be witty, capable of varied conversation on literature, music, and painting; to excel in dancing and all festive games, yet to be able to guide the house ; to be well skilled in needle-work, pious and virtuous ; a discreet wife and careful mother. * That such artificial appliances were not uncommon is shown by the very prohibition, and also by an anecdote related by Castiglione of a lady who, being desired to suggest a new game, proposed to send for a bason and towel, that each lady might wash her face, she alone being without paint. Digitized by Google VICTORIA COLONNA. 9 Ludovico Dolce, in his Institute delle Donne, re- commends the constant study of the Holy Scriptures, with the Commentaries of the Fathers, Augustine, Ambrose, and Jerome. These for religious and moral discipline. Plato, Seneca, and Cicero for sound train- ing and mental culture, for bright examples and wholesome counsels. The native tongue and Latin were to be studied, and classic historians read, but no Latin poets, except in the form of selections from Virgil and Horace. Boccaccio and his fellows were to be shunned like venomous reptiles: but Petrarch and Dante are extolled beyond measure ; the former as em- bodying the purest portraiture of honourable love, the latter of all Christian philosophy. More important still is the advice that literary occupations should never be suffered to intrude on prayer, or the domestic duties of married women. Such as these are the ideas we may presume Vittoria Colonna to have imbibed from her mother, a daughter of the House of the Montefeltri, and sister of that Duke Guidobaldo of whom Castiglione speaks, and whose court was graced with the presence of Emilia Pia, Margherita and Ippolita Gonzaga, and so many other fair and gifted women. Fabrizio Colonna, the husband of Agnesina, was a brave and honourable soldier, but we hear little of him in connection with the early life of Vittoria. She was born in 1490, at Marino, a feudal estate belonging to her mother's family, and betrothed when only four years old to Fernandino Count d'Avalos, afterwards Marchese di Pescara. Immediately after the betrothal Vittoria was removed to Ischia, where she, and her future hus- band, who was of about the same age as herself, were carefully educated by Costanza d'Avalos, Duchessa di Digitized by Google 10 BIOGRAPHIES OF GOOD WOMEN. Francavilla, the elder sister of Fernandino, and a widow. The husband of Costanza had died while she was still young; and Ferdinand of Naples (under whose auspices the betrothal of D'Avalos and Costanza took place) made the Countess Chatelaine of Ischia, a pleasant charge, to which she added that of the education of her young brother and sister-in-law. Vittoria was distinguished, even as a child, by ex- traordinary gifts of beauty and talent ; and she grew up gentle in disposition' and pure and womanly in character. Her portrait, preserved in the Colonna Gallery at Rome, shews her to have possessed beautiful features, and a noble and intellectual countenance ; and Galeazzo di Tarsia, a poet of the time, extols enthusi- astically her lovely tresses of wavy gold, her eyes, "neri, allegri, innamorati, divini, dove tutto accolto si mirava il Paradiso,' — and the sweet lips sparkling with that ineffable smile, — 'onde muove amore le ardentissime faville del gentile spirito animate.' — Vittoria occasionally visited Naples in the company of Costanza, and her rare gifts and graces attracted much notice and admiration. When only sixteen she was sought in marriage by several illustrious indi- viduals, amongst others the Dukes of Savoy and Braganza; but her heart had long since been given to her betrothed husband, D'Avalos, and neither vanity nor inconstancy ever led her to waver in her attach- ment. Of her marriage we know only that it was celebrated at Ischia, when she was seventeen years of age ; and a long list exists of the presents bestowed by Fernandino on his bride, as well as those given by Fabrizio Colonna to his son-in-law. In Ischia, where the period of her betrothal had been passed, Vittoria resided during the few happy years of Digitized by Google VITTORIA COLONNA. 11 her wedded life. Her husband was more remarkable for personal beauty and chivalric courage than for literary talents. As a child his great enjoyment had been»to collect a number of little companions whom he formed into a troop of soldiers ; making himself Commander- in-chief, and directing battles and sieges. He enjoyed the romantic Spanish ballads, but neglected his Latin. Still he loved and admired Vittoria with enthusiastic passion ; and during the first four years of their union, passed in the delicious retirement of Ischia, he seems to have imbibed her tastes, and shared her pursuits. Her love, like his, seems to have grown with her growth, and strengthened with her strength ; and in an exquisite sonnet, written probably at this period, 4 La prima volta che vide lo sposo,' Vittoria speaks of the realization of bright hopes to which that early attachment had given birth. * Ah ! with what fervour, love and heaven I prayed, That hopes so sweet might be for ever mine ! But time hath brought realities more sweet.' In another too, she says, speaking of their early affection, ' Scarce had our spirits learned their perfect life, Ere my young heart all other love forbade.' Sad to say, there seems reason to doubt whether Pescara was fully worthy of this noble woman's devotion. He was a brave and victorious soldier, and early distinguished by the favour of the emperor ; but he seems to have had the conqueror's vice, ambition, and to have been tempted by that dangerous vice into crooked paths. After four years of wedded happiness Pescara was called into the field by Pope Julius H., at that time in Digitized by Google 12 BIOGRAPHIES OF GOOD WOMEN. arms against the French, whom he first invited into Italy to humble the Venetians, and then having gained his end, joined with Spain and Venice to expel. Ravenna had been given up by Venice to the Pope, a& the pledge of reconciliation. It was now besieged by Gaston de Foix, Duke of Nemours, a youthful soldier no less distinguished than Pescara; and he, with his father-in-law, Fabrizio, being summoned to its defence, offered his services to the Emperor. Vittoria attempted not to detain him, but the happy hours of their peaceful unbroken intercourse were fled to return no more ; from that moment Vittoria and her husband met but at rare intervals, till ere many years had passed away, their memory alone remained to soothe the long years of her desolate widowhood. Fabrizio with his troops offered battle to the French on Easter Day, aware perhaps, that an astrologer had declared that on that day, beneath the walls of Ravenna, Gaston should meet his death. He did die, in the moment of success, and the victory which had been his became a defeat ; but the triumph of Fabrizio brought little joy to Vittoria. She may not have been altogether one of those 4 To whom a victory speaks of his return, And a defeat means only he is lost but she loved with intense affection; and both her father and her husband were made prisoners at Ravenna. Pescara in the following year regained his liberty, and was restored for a brief period to his wife ; but, distinguished as he was above the heros of his time, Vittoria was too soon left alone amid the scenes of their once happy retirement, and there employed her time and talents in celebrating her husband's Digitized by Google vittoria colonna. 13 courage and noble deeds, and superintending the education of Alfonso dAvalos, Marchese del Vasto, a young cousin of her husband's, of a singular and difficult character. Although gifted by nature with many high endowments, he was of so wild and passion- ate a disposition that it had been thought impossible to train or subdue him. Vittoria, however, was success- ful ; and the care of his education cheered her solitude, which was also brightened by the society of many poets and learned men, all of whom celebrate with enthusiasm the charms of her conversation and her person. At this time it was that Vittoria, after the fashion of the day, adopted for her device a little Cupid, repre- sented within a circle formed by a serpent, with the motto * Quern peperit vitus prudentia, servet amorem,' words which well express the lofty truth and tenderness of her attachment. When Pescara rejoined the army, Louis XII. of France had been succeeded by Francois I., who after the victory of Marignano seized on the duchy of Milan. Julius II. had been succeeded by Leo X. ; and Charles V., the rival of Francois I., filled the imperial throne. Charles had been defeated at Mezieres by Bayard, and in consequence, entered into a league against France with Henry VIII. of England and the Pope. Lautrec, the French Governor of Milan, had made himself detested by the Milanese ; they revolted, and the Emperor sent to their assistance an army under Fabrizio Colonna and Pescara. Lautrec, deprived by the covetous Louise of Savoy of the proper means of defence, retired into the Venetian territory; and Pescara subdued fortress after fortress with unparalleled bravery and success. Lautrec was finally defeated in the Battle of Bicocca, Digitized by Google 14 BIOGRAPHIES OF GOOD WOMEN. Genoa was taken by Colonna, and only Cremona remained to the French. Leo's joy at this success brought on a fever, of which he died ; but his suc- cessor's policy was the same as his had been, and the Papal troops continued in the service of the Emperor. At length Francis I. determined to make one more effort for the recovery of Milan. Bayard was dead, slain in the defeat of Biagrassa ; Bourbon was a traitor, and, on the death of Colonna, acted with Pescara, under Lannoy, Governor of Naples and Commander- in-Chief of the Imperial forces. They had assembled troops from all quarters for the relief of Pavia, now besieged by Francis, and a battle was fought under its walls, in which Francis was defeated and taken prisoner. Pescara, the conqueror, was desperately wounded ; but the glory of the victory was his, and Vittoria looked with proud longing for her lord's return. In the meantime a change came over the selfish policy of the Pope. Now that Francis was a prisoner, Clement dreaded the power of Charles in the Peninsula, as he had before feared that of Francis, and devised a plan to draw Pescara from his service. Naples was to be formed into a kingdom, and the crown offered to Pescara, while Sforza was to be confirmed in the duchy of Milan. It is sad to say that Pescara listened to the tempting offer. Vittoria was not with him, or her voice and counsel would have saved his honour. As it was, he hesitated, thinking, he tells her, how well her brow would become a crown. She, however, had no such ambition, and wrote without delay to confirm him in the path of duty, which he had indeed found hitherto to be the path of glory. Alas ! her exhortations came too late. His honour Digitized by Google VITTORIA COLONNA. 15 was already compromised, and his change of purpose was stained with a double perfidy. He revealed the plot to the Emperor in time to frustrate its accomplish- ment, but not soon enough to silence the upbraidings of conscience. The * vaulting ambition that o'erleaps itself,' had brought him very low. Anguish of mind, added to the re-opening of the wounds he had received at Pavia, or, as some think, to the effects of poison, soon laid him on a bed of suffering. Vittoria hastened to watch beside him, but it was too late. He died, when only thirty-three years of age, in the zenith of his fame, and at Viterbo, on her way to Milan, Vittoria met a courier bearing the fatal intelligence of his death. She heard it in silence. What could words avail to grief like hers ? . 'E '1 mortale dolor vincendo,'* she lived, but during the two-and-twenty years which she survived him, she was never for a moment unfaith- ful to his memory, never ceased to lament his loss. Her dignified and noble constancy was celebrated by Marc Antonio Flaminio, in a Latin sonnet, in which he contrasts her with the wife of Brutus, who, unable to support life without him, destroyed herself by swallowing burning coals. 'Vittoria,' he exclaims, * chose life rather, that she might enshrine his memory in days of perpetual regret.' J Ariosto speaks of her in * Sonnetto di V. C. in morte di F. d'Avalo. t Non vivam sine te mi Brute exterrita dixit Porcia ; et ardentes sorbuit ore faces. D' Avalo te extincto dixit Vittoria vivam Perpetuo maestos sic dolitura dies Utraque Bomana est, sed in hoc Victoria major, Nulla solere potest mortua viva dolet. Digitized by Google 16 BIOGBAPHIES OP GOOD WOMEN. like manner : ' Mid victories born, Victoria is her name — Well named ; and whom she does advance or stay Triumphs and trophies evermore proclaim, While victory heads or follows her array. Another Artemisia is the dame, Renowned for love of her Mausolus ; yea, By so much greater, as it is more brave To raise the dead, than lay them in the grave.' Canto xxxvii. sec, 18. At first Vittoria sought refuge in a cloister ; but Pope Clement warned the nuns of the Convent of San Silvestro at Rome, which she thought of entering, that, though they might do their Utmost to console the Marchesana, they were not, on pain of excommuni- cation, to suffer her to take the veil. Consequentlj she returned after a while to her solitary home ai Ischia, and to the habits of study in which she had found consolation during Pescara's prolonged absences. Possibly she was not aware of the second stain upon her husband's memory, for she loved and cherished it to the last. The hundred and thirty-four sonnets dedicated to him, although not intended, as she says, 4 Per giunger lume al mio bel sole,' are all records of his glory and her own grief. Very touching and beautiful ' they are ; and it is strange to see how much they surpass in beauty of thought and power of expression a letter in verse which Vittoria had addressed to her husband during his imprisonment, after the Battle of Ravenna. That letter is not in any way- remarkable ; but now, writing, as she herself says, 4 to vent that inward pain On which my heart doth feed itself, nor wills Aught other nourishment ;' Digitized by Google VITTORIA COLONNA. 17 it would seem as if she had been * cradled into poetry,' and * learned in suffering what she taught in song.' Her return to Ischia, in 1527, drew from her the following sonnet, in which she sadly contrasts her past and present fate. l Oh! che tranquilh mar, oh che chiare onde. 1 * On what smooth seas, on what clear waves, did sail My fresh careened bark, what costly freight Of noble merchandise adorned its state ! How pnre the breeze, how favouring the gale ! And Heaven, which now its beauteous rays doth veil, Shone then serene and shadowless. But fate For the too happy voyager lies in wait ; Oft fair beginnings in their endings fail. And now doth impious changeful fortune bare Her angry ruthless brow, whose threat'ning power . Bouses the tempest, and lets loose its war ! But though rains, winds, and lightnings, fill the air, And wild beasts seek to rend me and devour, Still shines o'er my true soul its faithful star.' Trollope's Decade. Three other sonnets, translated by Mr. Glassford, are given below, and express with touching pathos her sorrow and her consolation. SONNET I. ' Methinks the sun his wonted beam denies, Nor lends such radiance to his sister's car ; Methinks each planet mild, and lovely star, Has left its sweet course in the spangled skies. Fallen is the heart of noble enterprise, True glory perished, and the pride of war ; All grace and every virtue perished are, The leaf is wither'd, and the flow'ret dies. 2b Digiti&byC BIOGRAPHIES OF GOOD WOMEN. Unmoved I am, though Heaven and earth invite, Warmed by no ray, nor fanned if zephyr blow ; All offices of nature are deranged ; Since the bright sun that cheerM me vanish'd so, The courses of the world have quite been changed ; Ah no I but sorrow veils them from my sight.' n. ' If those delights which from the living well Above are dropp'd into the heart contrite Were also visible, and others might Know what great peace with love divine can dwell, Perhaps it would be then less hard to tell Why fame and fortune have been counted light, And how the wisest men, transported quite, Would take their cross, and seek the mountain cell, Finding that death sweet life ; and not alone In prospect, but now also awhile the blind And erring world from shadows will not cease. When the awakened soul to God has flown, What humble will to what He wills inclined, Then outward war to such is inward peace/ III. 4 Thanks to Thy sovereign grace, O God ! if I Am graff'd in that True Vine a living shoot, Whose arms embrace the world, and in whose root, Planted by faith, our life must hidden lie. But Thou beholdest how I fade and dry, Choked with a waste of leaf, and void of fruit, Unless Thy spring perennial shall recruit My sapless branch, still wanting fresh supply. O cleanse me, then, and make me to abide Wholly in Thee, to drink Thy Heavenly dew, And, watered daily with my tears, to grow. Digitized by Google VITTOBIA COLONNA. 19 Thou art the Troth, Thy promise is my guide ; Prepare me when Thou comest, Lord, to show Fruits answering to the stock on which I grew. After a while Vittoria left Ischia for Rome, where the Marchese del Vasto, her adopted child, was then residing ; and it seems probable that her own home was with Ascanio Colonna, her brother, and his wife, the beautiful and accomplished Giovanna d'Aragona. With these and other congenial friends Vittoria doubtless visited the classic scenes of Rome ; but, highly as she must have appreciated all that they afford of interest and beauty, her heart still pined for him whose sympathy she had lost, and she returned to Ischia, where her grief was more easily borne than amidst the bustling gaieties and distractions of the world. The memory of the dead may become in soli- tude a most blessed companionship, and the patient endurance of sorrow almost a second nature ; but when brought again into contact with strangers, amidst scenes once familiar, and the renewal of former interests, the heart shrinks into itself, and becomes more acutely sensible of the change that has passed over it. Thus Vittoria, on returning into the world, seems to have found her grief so much harder to endure, that it waked in her a passionate longing for death, which was checked only by the fear that her impatient want of resignation, if indulged, would separate her for ever from him whom she so earnestly longed to rejoin, and to which she gives expression in the following sonnet : — * Quando del suo tormento il cuor si duole* 4 When of its pangs my heart doth sore complain, So that I long to die, fear falls on me, And saith, What boots such early death to thee, If far from thy bright sun thou shouldst remain ? Digitized by Google 20 BIOGRAPHIES OF GOOD WOMEN. Then oft from this cold fear is born again A fervent boldness, which doth presently Send my sonl wings, so that mortality Strives to put off its worldly wishes vain. For this my spirit here herself enfolds, And hides from human joys ; and not for fame, Nor empty praise, nor over-blown conceit : But that she hears her sun still call her name, And still, where'er she looks, his face doth meet Who measures all her steps, and all her deeds beholds/ Trollope's Decade. Not less beautiful than these sonnets is the Canzone given below, also dedicated to the memory of Pescara, and perhaps Written about the same time. 4 Spirto gentil! che set nel terzo giro, 9 ' Ah, gentle spirit, that in highest heaven With earth's departed and beloved doth dwell, From earthly toil set free — Where bliss undying waits on all whom faith Inspired to holiest deeds — turn, turn thine eyes On me, who weep, oh ! not that thou art blest, But that I lingering live, While the wrung heart's deep-seated agony, Cruel beyond all else in this, denies The boon so oft implored of early death. Those eyes, that ever beamed with looks of love, Turn thou again on mine — Dim fountains whence the tears unceasing flow — And see how changed, how faded, all the charms Thou once wert wont to praise and call thine own. Let not the beauty that in Paradise For ever greets thy raptured heart and eye, Win all thy thoughts from me ! For thou, communing with me, once could'st spend Thy days and nights, nor think the hours too long. Digitized by Google VITTORIA COLONNA. 21 Or, if exalted to supernal bliss, No longer memory lingers with delight On what she loved below, Oh yet, in mercy spare one thought to her, Who then was ever nearest to thy heart. 