may be seen how much I have been honored by the scientific societies and universities of Italy.'

This is not the place, nor has the present writer any pretension, to offer an estimate of the scientific value of Mrs. Somerville's works. Just forty years ago, in the 99th number of the Quarterly Review,' appeared a long and careful analysis of her Mechanism of the Heavens,' by the man best able to measure its importanceSir John Herschel. In this notice (reprinted in his Essays,' 1857) he makes the following remarks, pp. 41-42:

6

'Mrs. Somerville is already advantageously known to the philosophical world by her experiments on the magnetising influence of the violet rays of the solar spectrum, a delicate and difficult subject of physical inquiry, which the rarity of opportunities for its prosecution, arising from the nature of our climate, will allow no one to study in this country, except at a manifest disadvantage. It is not surprising, therefore, that the feeble, although unequivocal, indication of magnetism which she undoubtedly obtained should have been regarded by many as insufficient to decide the question at issue. To us their evidence appears of considerable weight, but it is more to our immediate purpose to notice here the simple and rational manner in which the experiments were conducted, and the perfect freedom from all pretension or affected embarrassment in their statement. The same simplicity of character and conduct, the same entire absence of anything like vanity or affectation, pervades the present work. In the pursuit of her object, and in the commendable wish to embody her acquired knowledge in a useful and instructive form for others, she seems entirely to nave lost sight of herself; and although in the perfect consciousness of the possession of powers fully adequate to meet every exigency of her arduous undertaking, it never appears to have suggested itself to her mind that the possession of such powers by a person of her sex is in itself extra ordinary or remarkable. We find, accordingly, nothing in the present work, beyond the name in the title-page, to remind us of its coming from a

female hand.

We are neither called on to make allowances, nor do we find any to make. On the contrary, we know not the geometer in this country who might not congratulate himself We have, indeed, no hesitation in saying that we consider it by far the best condensed view of the Newtonian philosophy which has appeared.'

on the execution of such a work.

Of Mrs. Somerville's other works numberless reviews have from time to time appeared, all, so far as we are aware, more or less laudatory. The Connexion of the Sciences' and Physical Geography,' obtained the more important testimony of being very widely adopted as text-books in a great number of public colleges (we believe, Sandhurst amongst others), and the latter has been quite recently placed among the

class-books of the Government schools in Bengal. It is, however, the inevitable destiny of all scientific works to pass gradually from the rank of expositions of the latest results of living knowledge into that of historical monuments of the science of the past-lines of fossil shell-beach, telling of seas now thundering far away. Some such works, like Mrs. Somerville's 'Geography' and Sir Charles Lyell's admirable Elements of Geology,' are, by their plan, susceptible of receiving almost indefinitely additions and modifications through successive editions, and thus naturally continue for a whole generation to hold their place in the foremost files of time.' Others, like the ' Connexion,' are less suited for modification, or would require it on too many points to make anything less than a complete recast suitable for the purpose of a fresh edition after a quarter of a century. We believe, indeed, that the ground plan of this latter work is in itself in some degree defective, belonging rather to the older and superficial, than to the newer and more organic, method of classification of the sciences. Being addressed to all classes of readers, it is also necessarily imperfectly suited to the use of either the advanced student or the beginner. The result of solitary study, and consequent ignorance of the different grades of minds whom she addressed, was that Mrs. Somerville's writings, while always sound in science, were alternately easy enough for a schoolboy's comprehension and sufficiently difficult to cause first-rate mathematicians, like Dr. Whewell, to complain laughingly, that when ladies wrote stiff books they had no pity on people's stupidity; Mrs. Somerville's works were so hard!' Looking back on them as a whole, we feel that her life's labors, though unfortunately not directed (after her first book) in the channel wherein her powers would have attained their maximum of utility, must yet have done vast service by opening the wonders of the universe to the minds of thousands of readers. Her own idea of the aim of study was surely fulfilled, through her writings, to many who without them had never risen into such upper air.

'The contemplation of the works of creation elevates the mind to the admiration of whatever study, which, in the language of Sir J. Mackinis great and noble, accomplishing the object of tosh, is "to inspire the love of truth, of wisdom,

of beauty, especially of goodness, the highest beauty," and of that Supreme and Eternal Mind which contains all truth and wisdom, all beauty and goodness. By the love or delightful contemplation of these transcendant aims, for their own sake only, the mind of man is raised from low and perishable things, and prepared for his high destiny.'*

What Mrs. Somerville might have achieved had she devoted her powers exclusively to mathematics, and especially had those power received early and regular training, it is of course impossible now to tell. As Mr. Proctor, in the generous estimate of her to which we have already referred, observes,

There is scarcely a line of her writings which does not, while showing what she was, suggest thoughts of what she might have been. It is certain that no department of mathematical research was beyond her powers, and that in any she could have done original work. In mere mental grasp, few men have probably surpassed her; but the thorough training, the scholarly discipline, which can alone give to the mind the power of advancing beyond the point up to which it has followed the guidance of others, had unfortunately been denied to her. Accordingly, while her writings show her power and her thorough mastery of the instruments of mathematical research, they are remarkable less for their actual value-though that value is great-than as indicating what, under happier auspices, she might have accomplished.'-P. 12.

But as Sir Henry Holland has said, 'Mrs. Somerville was not only a woman of science. Scotland is proud of having produced a Crichton-she may be proud also in having given birthplace to Mary

Somerville.' To the social and artistic aspects of her life we now turn, as more properly our subject in the present review

of her Recollections.'

There is a once familiar juvenile poem which sets forth all the delightful things we might have known and done if we had just been born three thousand years ago.' Some resemblance to the moral of these verses would perhaps be found in any reflections we might be tempted to make regarding the wonderful number of interesting people with whom Mrs. Somerville became acquainted in the course of her life. Had we just been born' only eight years short of a century ago, we might have

seen and known not a few able and remarkable persons.

There is however

'knowing' and 'knowing' in such acquaintance, and when Mrs. Somerville entered

*Preliminary Dissertation to the Mechanism of the Heavens.

the circle of the most brilliant minds of her day, it was to enjoy that high privilege as it was by no means vouchsafed to outsiders to do. She was at all times a very charming and suggestive companion, and her great capabilities for giving and receiving social pleasure, were by no means baulked by the chances of life. A whole galaxy of stars passed across the field of her vision during her long peaceful watch. Walter Scott, Brewster, Home, Joanna Baillie, Miss Edgeworth, Mrs. Fry, Hallam, Sismondi, Milman, Schlegel, Brougham, Lafayette, Cavour, La Place, Cuvier, Arago, Biot, Humboldt, Wollaston, Young, Faraday, Herschel, Lyell, Sedgwick, Whewell, Babbage, De Candolle, Rosse, Sabine, Tyndall, Canova, Thorwaldsen, Gibson, Moore, the Brownings, Mackintosh, Holland, the Napiers, John Stuart Mill; these formed only a portion of the names on the Golden Book' of Mrs. Somerville's memory. By all of them, we may safely say, she was liked and respected, and by many tenderly beloved; while her own feelings-especially for those who shared her scientific pursuits-were not merely free from the shadow of jealousy or rivalry (such sentiments never seem to have been comprehensible to her), but full of warm enthusiHerschel, in particular, she was profoundly asm for their achievements. To Sir John her daughter, during her last visit to Colattached. I think now,' she wrote to lingwood, as I have always done, that Sir John is by much the highest and finest

character I have ever met.' When the news of his death reached her, she records: I am deeply grieved and shaken by the have lost a dear and affectionate friend, death of Sir John Herschel. In him I whose advice was invaluable, and his solived in his house can imagine the brightciety a charm. None but those who have ness and happiness of his domestic life' (p. 362).

Even to those whose course

merely crossed her orbit accidentally, and for a brief period, Mrs. Somerville's ready is interesting now, after the lapse of fivesympathy and friendliness were open. It and-thirty years, to read the mutual reminiscences of a night journey in a coach to Scotland, recorded alike by Mrs. Somerville, in her Recollections,' and by the gentleman who has kindly permitted us to use the MS. notes of the like occurrence, entered at the time in his journal. Somerville says:—

Mrs.

Somerville and I went to Scotland. We had travelled all night in the mail coach, and when it became light, a gentleman who was in the carriage said to Somerville, "Is not the lady opposite to me Mrs. Somerville, whose bust I saw at Chantrey's?" The gentleman was Mr. Sopwith, civil engineer at Newcastle.on-Tyne, surveyor of an extensive mineral district of argentiferous lead. He travelled faster than we did, and when we arrived at Newcastle he was waiting to take us to his house, where we were hospitably received by Mrs. Sopwith. His conversation was highly interesting, and to him I was indebted for much information while writing on Physical Geography. Many years after he and Mrs. Sopwith came to see me at Naples, which gave me much pleasure. He was unlike any other traveller I ever met with, so profound and original were his observations."* Mr. Sopwith, F.R.S., on his side, records in his journal:

'Thursday, September 14th, 1837. 'Travelling northwards from London in the Edinburgh mail, an elderly, stout gentleman, a lady, and a young gentleman, were my companions.

On

Some circumstances, chiefly a striking likeness to the bust I had so oftened admired at Chantrey's, led me to conjecture that the lady was no other than the far-famed Mary Somerville. Nothing can be more plain and unassuming than the manners and conversation of this highly gifted lady. The interest of her countenance chiefly consists in an agreeable, complacent, and highly intellectual expression. the following day Dr. and Mrs. Somerville accepted my invitation to partake of such hospitality She expressed herself as much pleased with the arrangements of my writing-cabinet, and exhibited great admiration at the application of isometrical drawing to geology and mining, and was much pleased with the isograph and projecting rulers, &c.'.

as I could offer.

Thirty-three years afterwards, Mr. Sopwith records his evening with Mrs. Somerville, at Naples :

♦ March 14th, 1870.—One of my chief objects,' he notes, in visiting Naples was to visit Mrs. Somerville, and most amply was this carried out. Very imperfect is the homage which any words of mine can express compared with the inward respect and esteem which I entertain for her.'

The conversation (as often happened when Mrs. Somerville was in the company of thoroughly congenial friends) turned on the possibilities of a future life, and after expressing her agreement with the sentiment on an Italian tomb, ' Death to the wise is the evening of a pleasant day,' she discussed with her visitor, in detail, the conception of a soul freed from the physical limitations of the body, and endowed with fresh power of perception, with speed

* Recollections,' p. 200.

quicker than light, and powers of observation of parallel rays.

Next to her profound attachment to Sir John Herschel, Mrs. Somerville's warmest friendships, outside the limits of her own family, were with her own sex; and it is pleasant to read in the letters. published in this volume, the record of the proud and tender affection with which the first women of her day regarded her and her scientific achievements. My dear Mary Somerville,' says Joanna Baillie, 'whom I am proud to call my friend, and that she so calls me. I could say much on this point, but I dare not . . . The pride I have in thinking of you as a philosopher and a woman cannot be exceeded' (p. 267). You receive great honors, my dear friend,' wrote Mrs. Marcet (p. 211), 'but that which you confer on our sex is still greater.' 'You should have had my grateful and humble thanks,' says Miss Edgeworth, 'long ago for the favor, the honor, you did me by sending me that "Preliminary Dissertation," but that I wished to read it over and over again' (p. 207). Among Italian ladies the enthusiasm she excited sometimes resulted in a fervent life-long friendship, as in the case of the Marchesa Teresa Doria (nata Durazzo) of Genoa, who spent a large part of each year near her; and, in that of the Countess Bon-Brenzoni, who, having made a pilgrimage to visit her, addressed to her a book of poetry, and wrote hoping that Ella si riccordi di me siccome di una

persona, chi sebbene lontana fisicamente, le è sempre vicina coll' animo nei sentimenti della più affetuosa venerazione' (p. 298). Everything which women achieved, the writings of her own contemporaries, Miss Edgeworth and Mrs. Marcet, the artistic success of Harriet Hosmer and Rosa Bonheur, the degrees gained in Paris. by Mdlle. Chenu, excited Mrs. Somerville's ready sympathy. She records among the last pages of her Recollections' each effort which was then making for women's advancement. abated my zeal for the emancipation of my sex from unreasonable prejudice, too prevalent in Britain, against a literary and scientific education for women. I joined in a petition to the Senate of London University, praying that degrees might be granted to women, but it was rejected. I. have also frequently signed petitions to Parliament for the female suffrage, and

Age has not

have the honor now to be a member of the General Committee for Women Suffrage in London' (p. 345). Miss Somerville adds, 'She hailed the establishment of the Ladies' College at Girton as a great step in the true direction, and one which could not fail to obtain most important results. To this institution her daughters, with the generous desire to carry out her wishes, have, we are informed, presented the whole of her valuable library of scientific works, which will occupy a case apart, surmounted by the bust which forms the frontispiece of this volume.

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The vulgar prejudice which makes people expect an intellectual woman to be a slattern in her dress, and to despise such sublunary things as flowers, furniture, and a delicate table, is an amusing instance of the construction of an ideal creature out of the moral consciousness, irrespective of a single glance at nature. We are almost weary of the continual surprise expressed by Mrs. Somerville's earlier contemporaries at the fact that she was always neatly and becomingly dressed, and that her table was somewhat exceptionally well served. It would really appear as if they thought it a law of nature that habits of mental order should tend to produce bodily slovenliness, and that the feminine intellect (unlike the elephant's trunk and the British House of Commons), when able to 'rend the oak,' is necessarily incapacitated from picking up a needle. The simple truth, of course, is that, both as regards men and women, exceptional mental powers of any kind are not so many deductions from manliness or womanliness, but the surplus and crown of more complete manliness in the man and womanliness in the woman. A finely developed brain, a large and powerfully acting heart supplying it with sufficient blood for strenuous work, and sound lungs which purify such blood-these, we now know, are the physical conditions of all high and long-sustained mental labor and well-balanced intellectual powers. Is it at all less certain that the moral conditions of the same labor and powers must likewise be healthy development of the affections and tastes? Exceptions there are, of course, when the abnormal development of some particular faculty in a man seems to have drained away all the sap from the other branches of his manhood, like those phenomena of calculating boys, who are in other matters

than their special gift dull or imbecile. But force diffused with some approximation to equability, must be the rule of true genius; and even the pedestal of a 'healthy animalism' must support the grandest ideal of man. With regard to woman's intellectual powers, it is, we suspect, the frequent explanation of their failure that they lack such a basis; and the actual fact (which may be observed by any one who will take the trouble to open his eyes) is, that women who have attained any kind of eminence in literary, scientific, or artistic work, are more than usually prone to take pleasure in the beauty and order of their houses, and to love flowers and animals, and everything which the typical Eve should bring about her to 'dress and keep' the Eden of Home. We could name, in a moment, a score of female writers and artists of whom this dictum holds good, and if we desired, on the contrary, to point to an ill-kept house, where the dust lies thick on the tables and windows, and the flowers (if any there be) remain decaying in their vases, and the breakfasts and dinners attain the maximum of expense with the minimum of good eating, we should infallibly seek it in the domain of some lady who rarely reads,— and could not write-a book; and who assures all her friends that she considers woman's proper sphere' to be the Home; and that she means her daughters to be exclusively devoted to their domestic duties'-like herself. In one great household detail, indeed, there is an obvious physiological connection between the strong mental work, which, Dr. Carpenter tells us, requires higher living than any muscular labor, and the taste for wellearned food. Our hope that women will at last wipe away their standing reproach of ignorance and carelessness about this part of their natural duty is founded, not so much on the chance of an increase of forced attention, as of an improved taste.

L'esprit ne saurait jouer long-temps le per sonnage du cœur,' and so long as a woman really does not know if it be boiled mutton or roast pheasant which she puts into her mouth, it is hopeless to expect that by dint of conscientiousness she will provide a good dinner.

Madame de Staël, it was said, was welcomed wherever she travelled, preceded by her reputation and followed by her cook.' Mrs. Somerville was at no

period of her life rich enough to keep a cordon bleu in her kitchen, and probably would not have thought fit to spend her money in doing so had she possessed it. Her Recollections' tell us, however, that she learned the Fine Art of Cookery in her youth, and the reminiscences of her friends seem particularly vivid concerning the table to which she invited them in Hanover Square and at Chelsea. The 'Mechanism of the Heavens' never kept her so far above the clouds as not to see and hear, taste, smell, and feel all that was around her on earth. Birds were her unfailing pets, and on the pretty Parisian caps which surmounted the wise and venerable head, her guests often smiled to see her mountain sparrow perched in his glory. A pertinacious little white Pomeranian also had his full share of affection from the Padrona;' and, indeed, every animal with which she came in contact excited her interest. We have heard her describing a recent visit to a travelling menagerie with the enthusiasm of a child taken for the first time to the Zoological Gardens. Nor was she so far above the feminine concerns of dress as to be indifferent whether silks were rich and soft, or lace and muslins of the most delicate kinds. With regard to lace, indeed, she was herself an admirable maker and mender, and some specimens of her work might be exhibited as curiosities. A story is told of a young lady, who, while stop ping at Mrs. Somerville's house, had the misfortune to tear some particularly fine old point. Naturally, the last person in the world she would have applied to for aid was her hostess; but the Misses Somerville observed at once, 'Oh, never mind; when mamma has done what she is about she will mend it for you so that you will not see where it was torn.' So the visitor watched mamma,' who happened to be solving some terrible problem, and when that was over, needed to write a letter of thanks for some honor to the Emperor of Russia. Business done, Mrs. Somerville dropped her pen and donned her thimble (spectacles she never used or needed), and in brief time returned the lace most delicately and perfectly repaired. Another of her accomplishments was Music. As we have seen, she describes herself as 'thumping' the piano in youth; but the superfluous energy so expended ere long gave place to a very

sweet touch, and her taste was at all times excellent, and formed on the best school. As Beethoven was her Prophet in music,so were Shakespeare, Dante, and Æschylus in poetry. All her life she continued at intervals to read these great books, which most of us are contented to study once for all; nor did her mind, playful and childlike as it was, ever seem inclined to beg off the severer for the lighter verse, or ask that the reading should be

'Not from the grand old masters,
Not from the bards sublime,
Whose trampling footsteps echo
Down the corridors of time.' .

And, lastly, Mrs. Somerville was a very fair Landscape-painter, and from her youth, when good old Hugh Blair paid her his elaborate old-world compliments for having 'contributed to his entertainment' by the loan of her sketches,-till her last summer at Sorrento, she continued, whenever other occupation grew slack, to betake herself to her brush and painted original pictures in oils from the surrounding scenery. One such picture before the writer now, represents a lovely bit of Italian woodland, with a village crowning an adjacent height; just one of the scenes of peace and sweetness on which her eye and mind delighted to dwell.

In Politics Mrs. Somerville had early thrown herself-chiefly from disgust at the atrocities of the press-gang system and the inhuman severities of the criminal code— into the Liberal camp. Her friends belonged almost exclusively to the party represented in England by Lord Brougham and Lord Russell. But the Liberalism of 1813, or of 1823, is not very easily distinguishable from the Conservatism of 1873; and Mrs. Somerville's political aspirations certainly never went in the direction of that really Radical Reform which would plant the social tree with its roots uppermost. Speaking of American affairs, she wrote to a friend: 'In a Republic the uneducated, or less educated, being the most numerous, must take the lead;' and, as regarded the country of her adoption, while she took the most enthusiastic interest in the successive changes which led up to the unity of Italy, her sympathies were wholly with the Royalist and Constitutional side; the 'Reds' being, in her opinion, no less dangerous than the 'Neri.' She lent her name gladly to public movements at home and