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Autobiographic Sketches

T >> Thomas de Quincey >> Autobiographic Sketches





FOOTNOTES

[1] "_Echo augury_."--The daughter of a voice meant an echo, the original
sound being viewed as the mother, and the reverberation, or secondary
sound, as the daughter. Analogically, therefore, the direct and original
meaning of any word, or sentence, or counsel, was the mother meaning but
the secondary, or mystical meaning, created by the peculiar circumstances
for one separate and peculiar ear, the daughter meaning, or echo meaning.
This mode of augury, through secondary interpretations of chance words,
is not, as some readers may fancy, an old, obsolete, or merely Jewish
form of seeking the divine pleasure. About a century ago, a man so
famous, and by repute so unsuperstitious, as Dr. Doddridge, was guided in
a primary act of choice, influencing his whole after life, by a few
chance words from a child reading aloud to his mother. With the other
mode of augury viz., that noticed by Herbert, where not the ear but the
eye presides, catching at some word that chance has thrown upon the eye
in some book left open by negligence, or opened at random by one's self,
Cowper, the poet, and his friend Newton, with scores of others that could
be mentioned, were made acquainted through practical results and personal
experiences that in _their_ belief were memorably important.

[2] "_Sortes Virgilianae_."--Upon what principle could it have been that
Virgil was adopted as the oracular fountain in such a case? An author so
limited even as to bulk, and much more limited as regards compass of
thought and variety or situation or character, was about the worst that
pagan literature offered. But I myself once threw out a suggestion, which
(if it is sound) exposes a motive in behalf of such a choice that would
be likely to overrule the strong motives against it. That motive was,
unless my whole speculation is groundless, the very same which led Dante,
in an age of ignorance, to select Virgil as his guide in Hades. The
seventh son of a seventh son has always traditionally been honored as the
depositary of magical and other supernatural gifts. And the same
traditional privilege attached to any man whose maternal grandfather was
a sorcerer. Now, it happened that Virgil's maternal grandfather bore the
name of _Magus_. This, by the ignorant multitude in Naples, &c., who had
been taught to reverence his tomb, was translated from its true acception
as a proper name, to a false one as an appellative: it was supposed to
indicate, not the name, but the profession of the old gentleman. And
thus, according to the belief of the _lazzaroni_, that excellent
Christian, P. Virgilius Maro, had stepped by mere succession and right of
inheritance into his wicked old grandpapa's infernal powers and
knowledge, both of which he exercised, doubtless, for centuries without
blame, and for the benefit of the faithful.

[3] "_Strange_," &c.--Yet I remember that, in "The Pursuits of
Literature,"--a satirical poem once universally famous,--the lines about
Mnemosyne and her daughters, the Pierides, are cited as exhibiting
matchless sublimity. Perhaps, therefore, if carefully searched, this
writer may contain other jewels not yet appreciated.

[4] "_Very nearly forgotten_."--Not quite however. It must be hard upon
eighty or eighty-five years since she first commenced authorship--a
period which allows time for a great deal of forgetting; and yet, in the
very week when I am revising this passage, I observe advertised a new
edition, attractively illustrated, of the "Evenings at Home"--a joint
work of Mrs. Barbauld's and her brother's, (the elder Dr. Aikin.) Mrs.
Barbauld was exceedingly clever. Her mimicry of Dr. Johnson's style was
the best of all that exist. Her blank verse "Washing Day," descriptive of
the discomforts attending a mistimed visit to a rustic friend, under the
affliction of a family washing, is picturesquely circumstantiated. And
her prose hymns for children have left upon my childish recollection a
deep impression of solemn beauty and simplicity. Coleridge, who scattered
his sneering compliments very liberally up and down the world, used to
call the elder Dr. Aikin (allusively to Pope's well-known line--

"No craving void left aching in the breast")

_an aching void_; and the nephew, Dr. Arthur Aikin, by way of variety, _a
void aching_; whilst Mrs. Barbault he designated as _that pleonasm of
nakedness_; since, as if it were not enough to be _bare_, she was also
_bald_.

[5] "_Murderous_;" for it was his intention to leave Aladdin immurred in
the subterraneous chambers.

[6] The reader will not understand me as attributing to the Arabian
originator of Aladdin all the sentiment of the case as I have endeavored
to disentangle it. He spoke what he did not understand; for, as to
sentiment of any kind, all Orientals are obtuse and impassive. There are
other sublimities (some, at least) in the "Arabian Nights," which first
become such--a gas that first kindles--when entering into combination
with new elements in a Christian atmosphere.




CHAPTER IV.

THE FEMALE INFIDEL.


At the time of my father's death, I was nearly seven years old. In the
next four years, during which we continued to live at Greenhay, nothing
memorable occurred, except, indeed, that troubled parenthesis in my
life which connected me with my brother William,--this certainly was
memorable to myself,--and, secondly, the visit of a most eccentric
young woman, who, about nine years later, drew the eyes of all England
upon herself by her unprincipled conduct in an affair affecting the
life of two Oxonian undergraduates. She was the daughter of Lord Le
Despencer, (known previously as Sir Francis Dashwood;) and at this
time (meaning the time of her visit to Greenhay) she was about
twenty-two years old, with a face and a figure classically beautiful,
and with the reputation of extraordinary accomplishments; these
accomplishments being not only eminent in their degree, but rare and
interesting in their kind. In particular, she astonished every person
by her _impromptu_ performances on the organ, and by her powers of
disputation. These last she applied entirely to attacks upon
Christianity; for she openly professed infidelity in the most audacious
form; and at my mother's table she certainly proved more than a match
for all the clergymen of the neighboring towns, some of whom (as the
most intellectual persons of that neighborhood) were daily invited to
meet her. It was a mere accident which had introduced her to my mother's
house. Happening to hear from my sister Mary's governess [1] that she and
her pupil were going on a visit to an old Catholic family in the county
of Durham, (the family of Mr. Swinburne, who was known advantageously
to the public by his "Travels in Spain and Sicily," &c.,) Mrs. Lee,
whose education in a French convent, aided by her father's influence,
had introduced her extensively to the knowledge of Catholic families
in England land, and who had herself an invitation to the same house
at the same time, wrote to offer the use of her carriage to convey all
three--_i.e._, herself, my sister, and her governess--to Mr. Swinburne's.
This naturally drew forth from my mother an invitation to Greenhay; and
to Greenhay she came. On the imperial of her carriage, and else-where,
she described herself as the _Hon._ Antonina Dashwood Lee. But, in fact,
being only the illegitimate daughter of Lord Le Despencer, she was not
entitled to that designation. She had, however, received a bequest even
more enviable from her father, viz., not less than forty-five thousand
pounds. At a very early age, she had married a young Oxonian,
distinguished for nothing but a very splendid person, which had procured
him the distinguishing title of _Handsome Lee;_ and from him she had
speedily separated, on the agreement of dividing the fortune.

My mother little guessed what sort of person it was whom she had asked
into her family. So much, however, she had understood from Miss
Wesley--that Mrs. Lee was a bold thinker; and that, for a woman, she
had an astonishing command of theological learning. This it was that
suggested the clerical invitations, as in such a case likely to furnish
the most appropriate society. But this led to a painful result. It
might easily have happened that a very learned clergyman should not
specially have qualified himself for the service of a theological
tournament; and my mother's range of acquaintance was not very extensive
amongst the clerical body. But of these the two leaders, as regarded
public consideration, were Mr. H----, my guardian, and Mr. Clowes, who
for more than fifty years officiated as rector of St. John's Church
in Manchester. In fact, the _golden_ [2] jubilee of his pastoral
connection with St. John's was celebrated many years after with much
demonstrative expression of public sympathy on the part of universal
Manchester--the most important city in the island next after London. No
men could have been found who were less fitted to act as champions in a
duel on behalf of Christianity. Mr. H---- was dreadfully commonplace;
dull, dreadfully dull; and, by the necessity of his nature, incapable of
being in deadly earnest, which his splendid antagonist at all times was.
His encounter, therefore, with Mrs. Lee presented the distressing
spectacle of an old, toothless, mumbling mastiff, fighting for the
household to which he owed allegiance against a young leopardess fresh
from the forests. Every touch from _her_, every velvety pat, drew blood.
And something comic mingled with what my mother felt to be paramount
tragedy. Far different was Mr. Clowes: holy, visionary, apostolic, he
could not be treated disrespectfully. No man could deny him a qualified
homage. But for any polemic service he wanted the taste, the training,
and the particular sort of erudition required. Neither would such
advantages, if he had happened to possess them, have at all availed him
in a case like this. Horror, blank horror, seized him upon seeing a
woman, a young woman, a woman of captivating beauty, whom God had adorned
so eminently with gifts of person and of mind, breathing sentiments that
to him seemed fresh from the mintage of hell. He could have apostrophized
her (as long afterwards he himself told me) in the words of Shakspeare's
Juliet--

"Beautiful tyrant! fiend angelical!"

for he was one of those who never think of Christianity as the subject
of defence. Could sunshine, could light, could the glories of the dawn
call for defence? Not as a thing to be defended, but as a thing to be
interpreted, as a thing to be illuminated, did Christianity exist for
_him_. He, therefore, was even more unserviceable as a champion against
the deliberate impeacher of Christian evidences than my reverend
guardian.

Thus it was that he himself explained his own position in after days,
when I had reached my sixteenth year, and visited him upon terms of
friendship as close as can ever have existed between a boy and a man
already gray headed. Him and his noiseless parsonage, the pensive abode
for sixty years of religious revery and anchoritish self-denial, I
have described farther on. In some limited sense he belongs to our
literature, for he was, in fact, the introducer of Swedenborg to this
country; as being himself partially the translator of Swedenborg; and
still more as organizing a patronage to other people's translations;
and also, I believe, as republishing the original Latin works of
Swedenborg. To say _that_ of Mr. Clowes, was, until lately, but another
way of describing him as a delirious dreamer. At present, (1853,) I
presume the reader to be aware that Cambridge has, within the last few
years, unsettled and even revolutionized our estimates of Swedenborg
as a philosopher. That man, indeed, whom Emerson ranks as one amongst
his inner consistory of intellectual potentates cannot be the absolute
trifler that Kant, (who knew him only by the most trivial of his
pretensions,) eighty years ago, supposed him. Assuredly, Mr. Clowes
was no trifler, but lived habitually a life of power, though in a world
of religious mysticism and of apocalyptic visions. To him, being such
a man by nature and by habit, it was in effect the lofty Lady Geraldine
from Coleridge's "Christabel" that stood before him in this infidel
lady. A magnificent witch she was, like the Lady Geraldine; having the
same superb beauty; the same power of throwing spells over the ordinary
gazer; and yet at intervals unmasking to some solitary, unfascinated
spectator the same dull blink of a snaky eye; and revealing, through
the most fugitive of gleams, a traitress couchant beneath what else
to all others seemed the form of a lady, armed with incomparable
pretensions--one that was

"Beautiful exceedingly,
Like a lady from a far countrie."

The scene, as I heard it sketched long years afterwards by more than
one of those who had witnessed it, was painful in excess. And the shock
given to my mother was memorable. For the first and the last time in
her long and healthy life, she suffered an alarming nervous attack.
Partly this arose from the conflict between herself in the character
of hostess, and herself as a loyal daughter of Christian faith; she
shuddered, in a degree almost incontrollable and beyond her power to
dissemble, at the unfeminine intrepidity with which "the leopardess"
conducted her assaults upon the sheepfolds of orthodoxy; and partly,
also, this internal conflict arose from concern on behalf of her own
servants, who waited at dinner, and were inevitably liable to
impressions from what they heard. My mother, by original choice, and
by early training under a very aristocratic father, recoiled as
austerely from all direct communication with her servants as the Pythia
at Delphi from the attendants that swept out the temple. But not the
less her conscience, in all stages of her life, having or _not_ having
any special knowledge of religion, acknowledged a pathetic weight of
obligation to remove from her household all confessedly corrupting
influences. And here was one which she could not remove. What chiefly
she feared, on behalf of her servants, was either, 1st, the danger
from the simple _fact_, now suddenly made known to them, that it was
possible for a person unusually gifted to deny Christianity; such a
denial and haughty abjuration could not but carry itself more profoundly
into the reflective mind, even of servants, when the arrow came winged
and made buoyant by the gay feathering of so many splendid
accomplishments. This general fact was appreciable by those who would
forget, and never could have understood, the particular arguments of
the infidel. Yet, even as regarded these particular arguments, 2dly,
my mother feared that some one--brief, telling, and rememberable--might
be singled out from the rest, might transplant itself to the servants'
hall, and take root for life in some mind sufficiently thoughtful to
invest it with interest, and yet far removed from any opportunities,
through books or society, for disarming the argument of its sting.
Such a danger was quickened by the character and pretensions of Mrs.
Lee's footman, who was a daily witness, whilst standing behind his
mistress's chair at dinner, to the confusion which she carried into
the hostile camp, and might be supposed to renew such discussions in
the servants' hall with singular advantages for a favorable attention.
For he was a showy and most audacious Londoner, and what is _technically_
known in the language of servants' hiring offices as "a man of figure."
He might, therefore, be considered as one dangerously armed for shaking
religious principles, especially amongst the female servants. Here,
however, I believe that my mother was mistaken. Women of humble station,
less than any other class, have any tendency to sympathize with boldness
that manifests itself in throwing off the yoke of religion. Perhaps a
natural instinct tells them that levity of that nature will pretty surely
extend itself contagiously to other modes of conscientious obligation; at
any rate, my own experience would warrant me in doubting whether any
instance were ever known of a woman, in the rank of servant, regarding
infidelity or irreligion as something brilliant, or interesting, or in
any way as favorably distinguishing a man. Meantime, this conscientious
apprehension on account of the servants applied to contingencies that
were remote. But the pity on account of the poor lady herself applied to
a danger that seemed imminent and deadly. This beautiful and splendid
young creature, as my mother knew, was floating, without anchor or
knowledge of any anchoring grounds, upon the unfathomable ocean of a
London world, which, for _her_, was wrapped in darkness as regarded its
dangers, and thus for _her_ the chances of shipwreck were seven times
multiplied. It was notorious that Mrs. Lee had no protector or guide,
natural or legal. Her marriage had, in fact, instead of imposing new
restraints, released her from old ones. For the legal separation of
Doctors' Commons--technically called a divorce simply _à mensâ et thoro_,
(from bed and board,) and not _à vinculo matrimonii_ (from the very tie
and obligation of marriage)--had removed her by law from the control of
her husband; whilst, at the same time, the matrimonial condition, of
course, enlarged that liberty of action which else is unavoidably
narrowed by the reserve and delicacy natural to a young woman, whilst
yet unmarried. Here arose one peril more; and, 2dly, arose this most
unusual aggravation of that peril--that Mrs Lee was deplorably ignorant
of English life; indeed, of life universally. Strictly speaking, she
was even yet a raw, untutored novice, turned suddenly loose from the
twilight of a monastic seclusion. Under any circumstances, such a
situation lay open to an amount of danger that was afflicting to
contemplate. But one dreadful exasperation of these fatal auguries lay
in the peculiar _temper_ of Mrs. Lee, as connected with her infidel
thinking. Her nature was too frank and bold to tolerate any disguise;
and my mother's own experience had now taught her that Mrs. Lee would
not be content, to leave to the random call of accident the avowal of
her principles. No passive or latent spirit of freethinking was
hers--headlong it was, uncompromising, almost fierce, and regarding
no restraints of place or season. Like Shelley, some few years later,
whose day she would have gloried to welcome, she looked upon her
principles not only as conferring rights, but also as imposing duties
of active proselytism. From this feature in her character it was that
my mother foresaw an _instant_ evil, which she urged Miss Wesley to
press earnestly on her attention, viz., the inevitable alienation of
all her female friends. In many parts of the continent (but too much
we are all in the habit of calling by the wide name of "the continent,"
France, Germany, Switzerland, and Belgium) my mother was aware that
the most flagrant proclamation of infidelity would not stand in the
way of a woman's favorable reception into society. But in England, at
that time, this was far otherwise. A display such as Mrs. Lee habitually
forced upon people's attention would at once have the effect of
banishing from her house all women of respectability. She would be
thrown upon the society of _men_--bold and reckless, such as either
agreed with herself, or, being careless on the whole subject of
religion, pretended to do so. Her income, though diminished now by the
partition with Mr. Lee, was still above a thousand per annum; which,
though trivial for any purpose of display in a place so costly as
London, was still important enough to gather round her unprincipled
adventurers, some of whom might be noble enough to obey no attraction
but that which lay in her marble beauty, in her Athenian grace and
eloquence, and the wild, impassioned nature of her accomplishments.
By her acting, her dancing, her conversation, her musical
improvisations, she was qualified to attract the most intellectual
men; but baser attractions would exist for baser men; and my mother
urged Miss Wesley, as one whom Mrs. Lee admitted to her confidence,
above all things to act upon her pride by forewarning her that such
men, in the midst of lip homage to her charms, would be sure to betray
its hollowness by declining to let their wives and daughters visit
her. Plead what excuses they would, Mrs. Lee might rely upon it, that
the true ground for this insulting absence of female visitors would
be found to lie in her profession of infidelity. This alienation of
female society would, it was clear, be precipitated enormously by Mrs.
Lee's frankness. A result that might by a dissembling policy have been
delayed indefinitely, would now be hurried forward to an immediate
crisis. And in this result went to wreck the very best part of Mrs.
Lee's securities against ruin.

It is scarcely necessary to say, that all the evil followed which had
been predicted, and through the channels which had been predicted.
Some time was required on so vast a stage as London to publish the
facts of Mrs. Lee's free-thinking--that is, to publish it as a matter
of systematic purpose. Many persons had at first made a liberal
allowance for her, as tempted by some momentary impulse into opinions
that she had not sufficiently considered, and might forget as hastily
as she had adopted them. But no sooner was it made known as a settled
fact, that she had deliberately dedicated her energies to the interests
of an anti-Christian system, and that she hated Christianity, than the
whole body of her friends within the pale of social respectability
fell away from her, and forsook her house. To _them_ succeeded a clique
of male visitors, some of whom were doubtfully respectable, and others
(like Mr. Frend, memorable for his expulsion from Cambridge on account
of his public hostility to Trinitarianism) were distinguished by a
tone of intemperate defiance to the spirit of English society. Thrown
upon such a circle, and emancipated from all that temper of reserve
which would have been impressed upon her by habitual anxiety for the
good opinion of virtuous and high-principled women, the poor lady was
tempted into an elopement with two dissolute brothers; for what ultimate
purpose on either side, was never made clear to the public. Why a lady
should elope from her own house, and the protection of her own servants,
under whatever impulse, seemed generally unintelligible. But apparently
it was precisely this protection from her own servants which presented
itself to the brothers in the light of an obstacle to their objects.
What these objects might ultimately be, I do not _entirely_ know; and
I do not feel myself authorized, by any thing which of my own knowledge
I know, to load either of them with mercenary imputations. One of them
(the younger) was, or fancied himself, in love with Mrs. Lee. It was
impossible for him to marry her; and possibly he may have fancied that
in some rustic retirement, where the parties were unknown, it would
be easier than in London to appease the lady's scruples in respect
to the sole mode of connection which the law left open to them. The
frailty of the will in Mrs. Lee was as manifest in this stage of the
case as subsequently, when she allowed herself to be over-clamored by
Mr. Lee and his friends into a capital prosecution of the brothers.
After she had once allowed herself to be put into a post chaise, she
was persuaded to believe (and such was her ignorance of English society,
that possibly she _did_ believe) herself through the rest of the journey
liable at any moment to summary coercion in the case of attempting any
resistance. The brothers and herself left London in the evening.
Consequently, it was long after midnight when the party halted at a
town in Gloucestershire, two stages beyond Oxford. The younger gentleman
then persuaded her, but (as she alleged) under the impression on her
part that resistance was unavailing, and that the injury to her
reputation was by this time irreparable, to allow of his coming to her
bed room. This was perhaps not entirely a fraudulent representation
in Mrs. Lee. The whole circumstances of the case made it clear, that,
with any decided opening for deliverance, she would have caught at it;
and probably would again, from wavering of mind, have dallied with the
danger.

Perhaps at this point, having already in this last paragraph shot ahead
by some nine years of the period when she visited Greenhay, allowing
myself this license in order to connect my mother's warning through
Miss Wesley with the practical sequel of the case, it may be as well
for me to pursue the arrears of the story down to its final incident.
In 1804, at the Lent Assizes for the county of Oxford, she appeared
as principal witness against two brothers, L--t G--n, and L--n G--n,
on a capital charge of having forcibly carried her off from her own
house in London, and afterwards of having, at some place in
Gloucestershire, by collusion with each other and by terror, enabled
one of the brothers to offer the last violence to her person. The
circumstantial accounts published at the time by the newspapers were
of a nature to conciliate the public sympathy altogether to the
prisoners; and the general belief accorded with what was, no doubt,
the truth--that the lady had been driven into a false accusation by
the overpowering remonstrances of her friends, joined, in this instance,
by her husband, all of whom were willing to believe, or willing to
have it believed by the public, that advantage had been taken of her
little acquaintance with English usages. I was present at the trial.
The court opened at eight o'clock in the morning; and such was the
interest in the case, that a mob, composed chiefly of gownsmen, besieged
the doors for some time before the moment of admission. On this
occasion, by the way, I witnessed a remarkable illustration of the
profound obedience which Englishmen under all circumstances pay to the
law. The constables, for what reason I do not know, were very numerous
and very violent. Such of us as happened to have gone in our academic
dress had our caps smashed in two by the constables' staves; _why_,
it might be difficult for the officers to say, as none of us were
making any tumult, nor had any motive for doing so, unless by way of
retaliation. Many of these constables were bargemen or petty tradesmen,
who in their ex-official character had often been engaged in rows with
undergraduates, and usually had had the worst of it. At present, in
the service of the blindfold goddess, these equitable men were no doubt
taking out their vengeance for past favors. But under all this wanton
display of violence, the gownsmen practised the severest forbearance.
The pressure from behind made it impossible to forbear pressing ahead;
crushed, you were obliged to crush; but, beyond that, there was no
movement or gesture on our part to give any colorable warrant to the
brutality of the officers. For nearly a whole hour, I saw this
expression of reverence to the law triumphant over all provocations.
It may be presumed, that, to prompt so much crowding, there must have
been some commensurate interest. There was so, but that interest was
not at all in Mrs. Lee. She was entirely unknown; and even by reputation
or rumor, from so vast a wilderness as London, neither her beauty nor
her intellectual pretensions had travelled down to Oxford. Possibly,
in each section of 300 men, there might be one individual whom accident
had brought acquainted, as it had myself, with her extraordinary
endowments. But the general and academic interest belonged exclusively
to the accused. They were both Oxonians--one belonging to University
College, and the other, perhaps, to Baliol; and, as they had severally
taken the degree of A. B., which implies a residence of _at least_
three years, they were pretty extensively known. But, known or not
known personally, in virtue of the _esprit de corps_, the accused
parties would have benefited in any case by a general brotherly
interest. Over and above which, there was in this case the interest
attached to an almost unintelligible accusation. A charge of personal
violence, under the roof of a respectable English posting house,
occupied always by a responsible master and mistress, and within call
at every moment of numerous servants,--what could that mean? And,
again, when it became understood that this violence was alleged to
have realized itself under a delusion, under a preoccupation of the
victim's mind, that resistance to it was hopeless, how, and under what
profound ignorance of English society, had such a preoccupation been
possible? To the accused, and to the incomprehensible accusation,
therefore, belonged the whole weight of the interest; and it was a
very secondary interest indeed, and purely as a reflex interest from
the main one, which awaited the prosecutress. And yet, though so little
curiosity "awaited" her, it happened of necessity that, within a few
moments after her first coming forward in the witness box, she had
created a separate one for herself--first, through her impressive
appearance; secondly, through the appalling coolness of her answers.
The trial began, I think, about nine o'clock in the morning; and, as
some time was spent on the examination of Mrs. Lee's servants, of
postilions, hostlers, &c., in pursuing the traces of the affair from
London to a place seventy miles north of London, it was probably about
eleven in the forenoon before the prosecutress was summoned. My heart
throbbed a little as the court lulled suddenly into the deep stillness
of expectation, when that summons was heard: "Rachael Frances Antonina
Dashwood Lee" resounded through all the passages; and immediately in
an adjoining anteroom, through which she was led by her attorney, for
the purpose of evading the mob that surrounded the public approaches,
we heard her advancing steps. Pitiable was the humiliation expressed
by her carriage, as she entered the witness box. Pitiable was the
change, the world of distance, between this faltering and dejected
accuser, and that wild leopardess that had once worked her pleasure
amongst the sheepfolds of Christianity, and had cuffed my poor guardian
so unrelentingly, right and left, front and rear, when he attempted
the feeblest of defences. However, she was not long exposed to the
searching gaze of the court and the trying embarrassments of her
situation. A single question brought the whole investigation to a
close. Mrs. Lee had been sworn. After a few questions, she was suddenly
asked by the counsel for the defence whether she believed in the
Christian religion? Her answer was brief and peremptory, without
distinction or circumlocution--_No_. Or, perhaps, not in God? Again
she replied, _No_; and again her answer was prompt and _sans phrase_.
Upon this the judge declared that he could not permit the trial to
proceed. The jury had heard what the witness said: she only could give
evidence upon the capital part of the charge; and she had openly
incapacitated herself before the whole court. The jury instantly
acquitted the prisoners. In the course of the day I left my name at
Mrs. Lee's lodgings; but her servant assured me that she was too much
agitated to see any body till the evening. At the hour assigned I
called again. It was dusk, and a mob had assembled. At the moment I
came up to the door, a lady was issuing, muffled up, and in some measure
disguised. It was Mrs. Lee. At the corner of an adjacent street a post
chaise was drawn up. Towards this, under the protection of the attorney
who had managed her case, she made her way as eagerly as possible.
Before she could reach it, however, she was detected; a savage howl
was raised, and a rush made to seize her. Fortunately, a body of
gownsmen formed round her, so as to secure her from personal assault:
they put her rapidly into the carriage; and then, joining the mob in
their hootings, sent off the horses at a gallop. Such was the mode of
her exit from Oxford.

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