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Murch, Jerom. 'Miss Harriet Lee and Miss Sophia Lee.' British Women Playwrights around 1800. 1 December 1999. 5 pars. <http://www.etang.umontreal.ca/bwp1800/essays/murch_queen.html>
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This text is excerpted from Mrs Barbauld and her Contemporaries; Sketches of Some Eminent Literary and Scientific
Englishwomen (London: Longmans, Green and co., 1877) pp. 134-8.
Copyright © Contributor, 1999-2008. This essay is protected under
the copyright laws of the United States and the Universal Copyright
Convention. Publication (print or electronic) or commercial use
of any of the copyrighted materials without direct authorization
from the copyright holder is strictly prohibited.
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| 1. |
These ladies were jointly the authors of the Canterbury Tales, a work much read
in Mrs. Barbauld's time, Harriet being the chief contributor.
They were daughters of John Lee, an actor at Covent Garden
Theatre. Soon after his death they opened a school at Belvedere
House, Bath, which they carried on many years. The school had
considerable repute, both in their own time and while it was
conducted, after their removal, by Mrs. Broadhurst, whose husband,
the Rev. Thomas Broadhurst, was well known in literary and
musical circles in Bath. Sophia first appeared as an author
in 1780, when she gave to the world "The Chapter of Accidents," a comedy which soon became popular. It was followed by "The Recess: a Tale of Other Times," remarkable as the first historical romance in the English language. The subject
is Queen Elizabeth and Mary, Queen of Scots. A sentence in
the preface is a fair specimen of the literary style of the
period. "To the hearts of both sexes nature has enriched with sensibility, and experience
with refinement, this tale is humbly offered; in the persuasion
such will find it worthy their patronage." That the tale was popular may be inferred from the circumstance that the edition
from which this is taken is the fifth; the date is 1804. Mrs.
Radcliffe, another celebrated novelist, who also resided at
Bath and knew the Miss Lees intimately, was a great admirer
of "The Recess." Though very young at the time it was published her mind probably thus received
a stimulus which led to "The Romance of the Forest" and "The Mysteries of Udolpho." Sophia Lee was likewise the author of "The Life of a Lover," and other minor works. She died at Clifton in 1824. Harriet died there in 1851,
aged 94.
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| 2. |
Of Harriet a little more may be said in connection with a remarkable offer of
marriage from a no less celebrated man than William Godwin,
after the death of his first wife, Mary Wollstonecraft. The
particulars have been lately made known,by Mr. C. Kegan Paul,
in a valuable addition to biographical literature, "William Godwin: His Friends and Contemporaries." In a chapter entitled "A Singular Courtship," we learn how Godwin visited Bath in 1798, met the authors of the "Canterbury Tales," specially admired the younger sister Harriet, and "immediately resolved to study her mind with a view to marriage. Though he only
visited her four times, he returned to his lodgings on each
occasion to make elaborate analyses of her share of the conversation
in which they had discussed various books—Rousseau's, Richardson's and others, soon making up his mind to win her if possible
for his wife. There are few more interesting chapters in modern
biographies than this which Mr. Paul has introduced. The love
letters are, as he says, unique, manifesting in a high degree
the argumentative power for which the philosopher was remarkable
combined with a manly tenderness that he might not have been
supposed to possess. "Miss Lee herself," we are told, "was not disinclined to marriage, but feared what would be thought of it by her
sister and the world." Almost persuaded to treat this objection as lightly as in reality it deserved
to be treated, there remained what was to her a grave question:
Were Godwin's own opinions such as would promise a happy marriage
with a woman who held strongly her faith in God and the divine
guidance of, the world? Throughout she certainly gave little
if any encouragement, and the more earnestly the suitor defended
his theological position, the more resolute the lady became
in her determination to say No. |
| 3. |
Two extracts will show how these authors, who gave to the world such thrilling
love stories at the close of the last and the beginning of
the present centuries closed their own correspondence.
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| 4. |
William Godwin to Miss Harriet Lee, London, June, 1798.
"But I have done. I entertain no hopes of a good effect from what I now write,
and merely give vent to the sentiments your determination was
calculated to excite. I have made no progress with you. When
you have dropped an objection it has been only afterwards to
revive it; when I have begun to entertain fairer prospects,
you have convinced me I was deluding myself My personal qualities,
good or bad, are of no account in your eyes, you are concerned
only with the articles of my creed. I am compelled to regard
the affair as concluded, and the rational prospect of happiness
to you and myself as something you conceive better than happiness.
I have now discharged my sentiments, and here ends my censure
of your mistake. If ever you be prevailed on to listen to the
addresses of any other man, may his success be decided on more
equitable principles than mine have been." |
| 5. |
Miss Harriet Lee to Mr. William Godwin, Bath, July, 1798.
"You distress me, sir, extremely by agitating a question which ought to be considered
as decided. I had full opportunity, when in Town, to hear,
and attentively to weigh your opinions concerning the point
on which we most differ: for perhaps I do not fully agree with
you in supposing our minds at unison on many others; but that
is immaterial—the matter before us is decisive. All the powers of my understanding, and the
better feelings of my heart concurred in the resolution I declared
before we parted; every subsequent reflection has but confirmed
it. With me our difference of opinion is not a mere theoretical
question. I never did, never can feel it as such, and it is
only astonishing that you should do so. It announces to me
a certain difference in—I had almost said a want in—the heart, of a thousand times more consequence than all the various shades of
intellect or opinion. My resolution then remains exactly and
firmly what it was: it gives me great pain to have disturbed
the quiet of your mind, but I cannot remedy the evil without
losing the rectitude of my own."
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Jerom Murch |
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