Lady Louisa Stuart
Lady Louisa Stuart (* August 12, 1757; † August 4, 1851 in London) was a British writer.
Life
Louisa Stuart was the youngest and one of eleven children - six daughters and five sons - John Stuart, 3rd Earl of Bute ( 1713-1792 ), who at the time of their birth one of the future King George III 's closest friend. had. Her mother was Mary (1718-1794), a daughter of writer Mary Wortley Montagu. Although Bute was a Scot, but spent most of his time in his London town house in Berkeley Square. In 1762 he bought a mansion in Luton Hoo, Bedfordshire. From 1762 to 1763 Bute was Prime Minister, but had to resign after sharp criticism, went to live in his family home and devoted himself to botany.
At the age of ten years, Louisa Stuart began to follow in the footsteps of her grandmother writer ends. She feared her siblings who set out for their learning fun of them. Although they later visited with her mother social occasions of London society, but also followed attentively the current literature events and corresponded with friends. From childhood on she had a great talent for observation and contributed their observations in notebooks, which have been preserved.
When Lady Louisa was 13 years old, she fell in love with her cousin William Medows ( 1738-1813 ), who was at that time 41 years old. Louisa's father felt this connection as inappropriate and finished it. Louisa Stuart was deeply disappointed. Later in the same year married Medows another woman.
Obviously, Louisa Stuart never fell for it, but she had at least two admirers, Henry Dundas (1742-1811) and John Charles Villiers ( 1757-1838 ). Villiers overwhelm Louisa Stuart almost with admiration, and her family would have liked it if she had married him, but she decided that a " love relationship without love nothing more than a bad matter is " and remained lifetime unmarried.
Later, there were apparently false rumors, Louisa had a love affair with the much older widower William Wentworth, 2nd Earl of Strafford. In the 1790s, she became friends with Walter Scott, who regularly forwarded it to her his manuscript and asked them for their opinion, which he valued highly. This friendship lasted until Scott's death in 1832.
Louisa Stuart was not as pretty, but Fanny Burney wrote about it in 1786: " Some of Lady Louisa Stuart her mother is very similar, but with a demeanor and appearance that is infinitely more enjoyable; Although it is far from to be beautiful, but it proves that the union of understanding and vitality can occasionally take the place of the lack of beauty. "
For 20 years Louisa Stuart was able to accompany its mother at social gatherings go. After her death in 1794 she purchased a house in Marylebone ind London, from which they could walk in Regent's Park. At home, she sat over their books and led a rather hermit life, but was occasionally sociable. It destroyed many of her manuscripts, but continued to write many letters, held meetings and visited mansions. A few months before her death, she was painted by George Hayter. She died in her London home a few days before her 94th birthday. She survived all her brothers and sisters, the last sister about 30 years.
Work
For fear of damaging its reputation as a lady of high society, Louisa Stuart did not want their written works were published under her name, and in fact they were the first in 1895, over 40 years after her death. John Gibson Lockhart's book Life of Sir Walter Scott from the years 1837/38 contains a number of letters from Scott to Louisa Stuart. In a letter to his publisher Scott wrote: "I hope you have received the printed pages of Lady Louisa Stuart, but not mention about the price of your life her name. "
Much of what Stuart wrote, is still only in the form of unpublished memoirs and letters before, most of them addressed to women, but the interest in her as a contemporary witness grew in the late 19th century. From 1895 to 1898 Mrs. Godfrey Clark were three volumes of writings Stuarts out Gleanings from an Old Portfolio ( Correspondence of Lady Louisa Stuart ) and 1899 followed by Lady Louisa Stuart: Selections from her Manuscripts, edited by James A. Home. 1901 and 1903 were published in two volumes Edinburgh Letters of Lady Louisa Stuart to Miss Louisa Clinton.
1827 Louisa Stuart wrote the life story of Lady Mary Coke, wife of Edward Coke, Viscount Coke. She described Lady Mary as a virtuous woman, who suffered from a brutal husband, but also as a tragic figure with paranoia. Your essay Biographical Anecdotes of Lady MW Montagu (Anonymous published in the 1837 edition of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu's Letters and Works ) dealt mainly with the political work of Lady Mary's husband Edward Wortley Montagu, by moving their own views on the former politician Montagu, Robert Walpole, Robert Harley, 1st Earl of Oxford and Mortimer, George Savile, 1st Marquess of Halifax, explain the Whigs and the Tories and express their loyalty to the Tories. Inspired by the poetry of Scott, Alexander Pope and Samuel Johnson wrote Louisa Stuart poems and fables and ballads.
Louisa Stuart was not a " bluestocking " and although their works have touches of black humor, there was no mutual affection. As a well-bred lady she cherished silent contempt for Elizabeth Montagu's habit of introducing people into society who were born outside of the higher circles. She was also funny about " University of geniuses who have nothing but a book in her pocket ." She wrote: " The only bluestocking meeting, which I myself ever attended were those of Mrs. Walsingham and Mrs. Montagu. The latter visit, however, was like scooping from a source [ ... ]. "
Professor Karl Miller pays tribute to Louisa Stuart's work in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography as " great," but also appeals to their inconsistency. She had been both for and against female emancipation, and while on the one hand preferred the old social order and had an aversion to the common people, they admired the other " simple human value ." Miller speaks of Stuart as " the least known, but, without doubt, one of the good writers of her time. " Literary scholar Jill Rubinstein describes them as " Tory to the bone, who had never forgotten the pain caused by the defamatory personal had been causing attacks of Wilkes others on her father " and compares their political setting of the Walter Scott ". A principled and consistent conservatism "
Writings
- Biographical Anecdotes. Anonymous printed. In: Lady Mary Wortley Montagu 's Letters and Works
- Gleanings from an Old Portfolio. Correspondence of Lady Louisa Stuart. Edited by Mrs Godfrey Clark. 3 volumes, privately printed. 1895-1898
- Lady Louisa Stuart: Selections from her Manuscripts. Edited by the Hon James A. Home. New York & London. Harper Brothers 1899
- Letters of Lady Louisa Stuart to Miss Louisa Clinton. Edited by the Hon James A. Home. Edinburgh. D. Douglas. 2 vols. 1901 and 1903
- The Letters of Lady Louisa Stuart, selected and with an Introduction by R. Brimley Johnson. London. John Lane The Bodley Head. 1926