Memorials of the Life of Amelia Opie. Amelia Opie

and friends of her youth, to become the wife of Mr. Opie. An ardent love letter, still in existence, tells with what intense desire he was awaiting her arrival; for it was arranged that she should go, accompanied by her father, to the house of one of their friends in London, and be married from thence; towards the close of this epistle he enters into some details respecting the preparations he was making, in his domestic arrangements, for the reception of his bride; and concludes:—

      I am puzzled, dearest, to know whether you expect to hear from me to-morrow. If I think of anything particular I’ll write; else not. To love thee much better than I did, is, I think, impossible; but my heart springs forward at the thought of thy near approach. God bless thee ever, my dearest love, and guard thee up safe to thy fond, anxious, devoted,

      J. O.

[6]

For the benefit of our fair readers we subjoin a list found among her old letters, of what probably formed a part of the contents of her Trousseau.Blue satin bonnet russe with eight blue feathers; nine small feathers and a feather edge; three blue round feathers and two blue Scotch caps; one striped gold gauze bonnet russe; four scollop’d edged caps, à la Marie Stuart; one bead cap; one tiara; two spencers, one white, one black.2nd Box, No. 1. Two yards broad figured lace, for neck and wrists; buff satin slip; buff net gown; three muslin gowns and one skirt; three frilled handkerchiefs; one lace cap and two bands; a set of scarlet ribbon for the gown lined with blue; three lace frills; worked cambric gown and flounces; seven flat feathers and three curled ones, &c., &c., &c.

CHAPTER V.

       Table of Contents

      MARRIAGE; EARLY MÉNAGE; AUTHORSHIP; LAY ON PORTRAIT OF MRS. TWISS; LETTER TO MRS. TAYLOR; VISIT TO NORWICH; LETTER FROM MR. OPIE; MRS. OPIE TO MRS. TAYLOR; MR. OPIE’S MOTHER.

      Mr. and Mrs. Opie were married in Marylebone church on the 8th of May, 1798.

      In the Memoir prefixed to her husband’s life she speaks with touching naiveté and feeling of the earlier years of their married life; “great economy and self denial were necessary,” she says, “and were strictly observed by us at that time.” The habits and tastes of Mr. Opie were, happily, very inexpensive, and so domestic in their nature, that he preferred spending his evenings at home to joining in society abroad; and liked nothing better, by way of relaxation after the labours of the day, than to spend the evening hours in converse with his wife, in reading with her books of amusement or instruction, in studying prints from the best ancient and modern masters, or in sketching designs for his pictures. His love of his profession was intense, and his unremitting industry in the pursuance of it drew from Mr. Northcote the observation, that while other artists painted to live, he lived to paint. He was incessantly engaged in his painting-room during the hours of day-light, and no society, however pleasant, could long detain him from it. It was indeed a passion to which the whole energies of his being were devoted. In one branch of his art he appears to have been much indebted to his wife, and in what way this was shewn will be best told in her own words:—

      When Mr. Opie became again a husband, (she says,) he found it necessary, in order to procure indulgences for a wife whom he loved, to make himself popular as a portrait-painter, and in that productive and difficult branch of the art, female portraiture. He therefore turned his attention to those points he had long been in the habit of neglecting, and his pictures soon acquired a degree of grace and softness to which they had of late years been strangers. At the second exhibition after our marriage one of his fellow artists came up to him and complimented him on his female portraits, adding, “we never saw any thing like this in you before, Opie; this must be owing to your wife.”

      Her husband related with evident delight this pleasing compliment to her who had inspired his efforts. Her modesty did not permit her to speak of another mode in which she assisted to promote his interests; but her friend Mrs. Taylor has mentioned that “in her own house, where Mr. Opie’s talents drew a constant succession of the learned, the gay, and the fashionable, she delighted all by the sweetness of her manners, and the unstudied and benevolent politeness with which she adapted herself to the taste of each individual.”

      Happy it was for them both, that Mr. Opie was disposed to aid and encourage his wife in her favourite tastes, and the exercise of her literary talent. She observes:—

      Knowing at the time of our marriage that my most favourite amusement was writing, he did not check my ambition to become an author; on the contrary he encouraged it, and our only quarrel on the subject was not that I wrote so much, but that I did not write more and better. Idleness was the fault that he was most violent against in both sexes; and I shall ever regret those habits of indolence which made me neglect to write while it was in my power to profit by his criticisms and advice, and when, by employing myself more regularly in that manner, I should have been sure to receive the proudest and dearest reward of woman, the approbation of a husband, at once the object of her respect and of her love.

      Mr. Opie entertained a partiality for works of fiction, and not unfrequently indulged himself in reading a novel, even if it were not of the first class; and his wife remarks in defence of this taste:—

      He was above the petty, yet common affectation of considering that sort of reading as beneath any persons but fools and women; and if his fondness for works of that description was a weakness, it was one which he had in common with Mr. Burke and Mr. Porson.

      Encouraged by the sympathy and approval of the man to whom she had united her fortunes, she soon began to exert her powers with diligence, and ere long became (as she expresses it) “a candidate for the pleasures, the pangs, the rewards, and the penalties, of authorship.”

      In one respect, indeed, they were not congenial in their tastes; she ardently loved society, to which she had been so much accustomed, and in which her talents so peculiarly fitted her to appear to advantage. On the contrary, it was with difficulty that Mr. Opie could be induced to join a numerous and mixed assemblage. He preferred to spend an evening occasionally at the theatre, or rather at the opera; for he loved music, and had so quick an ear that he would remember accurately a tune that pleased him, after having heard it once. When he sought society, he preferred select dinner parties, where he could meet persons whose friendship he valued, and from whom he might hope to learn. With honourable pride his wife observes:—

      He was conscious that he aimed at no competition with the learned; while, with a manly simplicity, which neither feared contempt nor scorned applause, he has often, even in such company, made observations, originating in the native treasures of his own mind, which learning could not teach, and which learning alone could not enable the possessor to appreciate.

      In the year after her marriage Mrs. Opie wrote a Lay “addressed to Mr. Opie on his having painted for me the picture of Mrs. Twiss;” it was published the same year, in the 1st volume of “The Annual Anthology,” and was (she tells us) one of her earliest; the concluding lines contain a pleasing tribute of affection to her husband:—

      Within my breast contending feelings rise,

      While this lov’d semblance fascinates my eyes;

      Now pleas’d, I mark the painter’s skilful line,

      Now joy, because the skill I mark, was thine;

      And while I prize the gift by thee bestow’d,

      My heart proclaims I’m of the giver proud,

      Thus pride and friendship war with equal strife,

      And now the friend exults, and now the wife.

      A. O. 1799.

      This picture was in her possession at the time of her death; it is “Portrait the Second” in her “Lays for the Dead,” which commences:—

      The gift of love

      That speaking picture was—of bridal love,

      Now both