19 April 1794

Letter 1. Eliza Gould at South Molton to John Feltham, at M^rs Blaney’s, Bedwin Row, Salisbury, Saturday (before Easter Sunday), 19 April 1794.

My good Friend

This you will say is a late acknowledgement of a letter, which reach’d me ten days since, I own it is tho neglect is not in the least connected with my silence.

I have received a letter from M^r Cooke[1] concerning his daughter, couch’d in the most friendly terms imaginable, I expect them here next week. They gave me a very pressing invitation to come to Honiton & return to Southmolton with them, but this is not in my power, tho I believe I shall meet them at Tiverton, having some business there. I guess they have an idea of our correspondence, & of course will be jocular & perhaps inquisitive, as is natural on those occasions, tho I am not at any time enclined to answer in a direct manner, those kind of interrogations. I expect soon two young ladies from Exeter, & have the prospect of a very good school. Southmolton is a neat healthy town tho I am sorry to add inhabited for the most part by a set of narrow-minded, illiberal beings as ever existed—tho some few I will except to whom the appellation does not belong). Their ideas are very contracted—Strangers to friendship, to hospitality, & benevolence, & callous to those finer feelings, which dignify & exalt human nature—Prone to scandal, they search for faults even where their professions of friendship are great; not with an idea to rectify & correct, but to publish & condemn—Prying and inquisitive to the last degree that it is the greatest difficulty to keep even your family occurrences a secret. I was warn’d of this before I came therefore, thought it necessary to bring a maid servant with me (whom I knew) from Tiverton. I have not a single female friend in the town to whom I can speak with confidence even in the most trifling affair—notwithstanding I have a large circle of acquaintances by whom I am visited with that kind of rigid formality which is to me very disgusting.

There is a worthy sensible intelligent man a near relation of my father, who lives here he has no family & both him & his wife far advancd in years. I flatter myself I have no inconsiderable share in his good graces indeed he has intimated as much to those on whose word I can rely—he is a watchmaker & silversmith & has accumulated a very handsome income—he made me a very genteel present soon after I came to Southmolton.[2]

I presume you have been busily engaged lately, tho in an affair of no very pressing nature attached to our relatives. We naturally feel and mourn their loss & it is a laudable tribute due to their memory yet if we have reason to suppose they have died the death of the righteous we sorrow not as those that have no hope.[3] Well might the end of life be dreaded if we were not supported by the Idea of future existence. We might then consider the incident that brings us to the tomb as the welcome summons to the abodes of silence & annihilation—but to the candidate for Heaven to the heir of immortality the lengthening of the shadows of the evening is but the approach of a peaceful & not unfriendly darkness as the night of the soul which from the constitution of its nature may be absolutely necessary as a season of rest, to which a happy & joyful morning will descend to those who sleep in Jesus when all shall rise renovated & improved, then will the disciples of Christ be partakers of his glory.

What is it to a being who is to live through the boundless ages of Eternity that he remains senseless and inactive, in the grave, from the time that he fell asleep, till the day of general retribution? Thousands of ages that intervene will appear to him as [a] moment and the twinkling of an Eye—the trumpet shall sound the dead shall be raised both small & great & all shall appear before the judgment seat of Christ.

I have often endeavoured to familiarize to myself those Ideas which are connected with a future state of existence may my mind be at all times suitably impress’d with those sentiments which will stand to raise me above the world & the things of it keeping eternity in view & being actually & habitually ready for the great & important change that will one day take place. How humiliating to human pride is the transient nature of all sublunary enjoyments! how mortifying to worldly greatness is the uncertainty of life!

What an intricate labyrinth is this wilderness world? So pleasing is the reflection to a serious and sensible mind that it is but a short passage to a glorious & never ending immortality let this be my comfort through life—

“This life’s a dream an empty show—

But the bright world to which we go

Has joys substantial”

Candidates for immortality let us so run that we may obtain & when the days of this weary pilgrimage is ended I trust we shall be welcomed to the blissful abodes of the Heavenly Jerusalem with the joyful appellation of “come ye blessed,” & partake of the sure reward which awaits all those whose names are written in the Book of Life.

I had a mind to ask you whether you ever read Petitpierre on future rewards & punishments[4] he asserts (or at least gives it as his opinion) that the wicked will not perish everlastingly but that the time & date of their punishment will be proportioned to the nature of their crimes.[5] He supports his arguments by saying, that it is inconsistent with the goodness & mercy of God. It is a very singular publication, & I believe he is the only author who has written on the subject—the doctrine tho necessary is dangerous, as those whose minds are uninform’d, judgment weak, & who are incapable of making right & proper distinct­ions, are liable to be misled. M^rs Clarke of Bridwell[6] who is a particular friend of mine lent it to me some time since, charging me to keep it carefully, lest it came into improper hands.

Secluded from the world, I am in a great degree ignorant how we are sit­uated in regard to public affairs seldom seeing a newspaper however I will by some means or other endeavour to procure one those who have the papers here are limited to read them in a certain space of time & they are immediately dispatched in the country—at this critical period I cannot help feeling myself interested, tho the adjustment of political affairs, & the arrangement of nations, to the politician would I wholly relinquish & solacing amid the scenes which the social virtues display, I would meet upon a pleasing level, every congenial soul. I am only sorry that such divisions already exist. I am obliged to break off abruptly, it is ten o’clock and the post will go out in a few minutes.

adieu believe me sincerely your Friend

Eliza

Southmolton April the 19 1794

Notes

Text: Timothy Whelan, ed., Politics, Religion, and Romance: The Letters of Benjamin Flower and Eliza Gould, 1794-1808 (Aberystywth: National Library of Wales, 2008), pp. 1-3.

[1] Joseph Cooke, Esq., of Honiton (Universal British Directory 3. 391).

[2] George Gould, freeman and watchmaker (UBD 4.432), was apprenticed in 1755 to Christopher Day, a clockmaker in South Molton. According to the Parish Register, he was buried at South Molton on 12 June 1809 (Ponsford 224). He served as mayor of South Molton in 1768, 1777, and 1788; at other times he was a member of the Town Council. At his death in 1801 he willed £10 to the Mayor and Burgesses, directing the interest to be distributed in bread every Sunday “for ever.” See Cock 57-58, 167, 245; Exeter Flying Post, 7 November 1793.

[3] Feltham’s uncle had recently died.

[4] Ferdinand Oliver Petitpierre (1722-90), author of Le Plan de Dien envers les hommes (1786), reprinted as Thoughts on the divine goodness, relative to the government of moral agents, particularly displayed in future rewards and punishments (1788).

[5] Eliza is describing the doctrine of universal restoration, a major tenet of Unitarianism.

6] Mary Were Clarke (1754-1844) was the wife of Richard Hall Clarke (1750-1821) of Bridwell, near U[ffculme, Devon. He was a founding member of the Society of Unitarian Christians for the West of England in September 1792. His sister, Mary, married John Rowe, who served for many years as one of the ministers at Lewin’s Mead Unitarian Chapel in Bristol.