FULLER, SARAH MARGARET, MARCHIONESS OSSOLI, was born at Cambridge-Port, Maesachuaet te, United States of North America, May 23, 1810. Her father, a solicitor and a member of the Congress, perceiving her early aptitude., had her so highly educated that he was accustomed to speak of her while quite a child as "knowing more Greek and Latin than half the professors," while oho hereon says that she had nearly forgotten her native tongue from constantly reading other languages. The consequenco was that when she grew to womanhood she had an overwrought nervous system, was a somnambulist, very nearsighted, and withal what is called a strong minded, loud voiced, exoessively dogmatic, and unquestionably clever, as well as cultivated person. The sudden death of her father in Sept. tuber 1835, threw upon her domestic duties and obligations to which she resolutely and without affectation addressed herself. She became a teacher at Batton of Latin, French, German, end Italian, then ' Lady Superior' of a school at Providence, Rhode Island, after. wards united herself for awhile to that singular social or Fourieristie Society the ' Brook Farm Community,' and eventually took up her pen as a means of support. She had already become well-known as I writer in the penodicals when she in 1839 published a traosla tion of 'Eckermann's Conversations with Goethe.' Having acquired great celebrity in the literary circle. of Boston, especially among the transcendentalists of that learned city, for her conversational talents as well as her critical acumen, it was proposed to turn her powers that way to account, by forming under her guidance 'conversational classes' of the ladies of Boston. Tho Weenie, odd as it may seem, met with acceptance. Flew:end-twenty "of the most agreeable and intelligent women to be found in Boston and in its neighbourhood" mot at stated 11011111111 to converse—the ' converese tion being of course mainly on the side of the learned president— on such subjects as "the genealogy of heaven and earth ; the will (Jupiter); the celestial inspiration of genius, perception, and trans mission of divine law (Apollo)," and such other recondite themes as might be conveyed under the symbols of Venus, Bacchus, Cupid and Psyche, and so forth; with poetry, music, the pictorial arts, tho " thought that lies at the bottom of the different dances," and other more sublunary topics.
When Mr. Emerson started his 'Dial' in 1940, Miss Fuller was one of the most prominent of his band of philosophical contributors; and she wrote for it many very clever articles on the 'Fine Arta,' $te., some of which were subsequently republished in her volume of Papers.' She also published at Boston in 1814, under the title of `Summer on the Lakes,' an account of a summer tour. On the dis continuance of the Dial' she removed to New York, and was installed directress of the literary department of the ' New York Tribune.' Here she let her studies turn more directly on political and social philosophy; and she gave utterance to her impressions of the wrongs of her sex in ' Woman in the Niueteeuth Century,' a work which excited some attention in England as well as in America. She also published here the collection of her 'Papers on Literature and Art,' already referred to : both of these works were wo believe reprinted in London.
In the spring of 1846 she put in execution a cherished scheme of a prolonged European tour. She first visited England, where em stayed some time, and obtained introductions to many of the literary nota bilities, whom she describes and criticises in her letters with a most amueiug air of superiority. In Paris she also remained for some time and formed the acquaintance of Madame Dudevaut, &c. But Italy was the place she had most desired to visit, and thither she next proceeded—little dreaming to what a stran;e conclusion all her theories of woman's rights and claims and missions would there be brought. For a brief space she revelled in the cojoymeut of the scenery, the climate, and the boundless treasures of art in that sunny region ; and it must be added that a portion of her time was occupied in rendering herself conspicuous by her open and resolute, though somewhat imprudent avowal of extreme detnocratio opiiii3as, and intercourse with persons obnoxious to the authorities on accouot of their suspected liberalism. But at length she became involved in an affair of a very different though not less exciting nature. She met by accident at vespers, in St. Peter's, Rome, while separated from
her friends by the crowd, a young Italian gentleman ; he behaved with a courtesy that charmed her; an intimacy ensued, and, though he was many years her junior, so utterly uneducated that he had scarce ever looked into a book, end without any kind of intellectual pretensions, the etrong-minded worshipper of intellect with a very little wooing gave him her hand. But the young Marquis Oeaoli, though of a noble family, had a very small patrimony, and that was in the hands of trustees. Moreover his family were devoted Roman Catholics, and his elder brothers hold high appointments under the papal government ; they would of course be bitterly incensed at his worrying a lady not of that faith, and especially one who was an avowed liberal. Ho therefore urged that the marriage should be strictly concealed : and to this she submitted. They were married in December 1817, and Madame Ossoli remained in Rome, ostensibly living alone as plain Margaret Fuller; indeed it was not till more than a year after the birth of a son that even her own mother was Informed of the marriage. Tho sudden ascendancy of liberalism in Rome however altered matters. Miss Fuller had in London met Mazzini, and undertaken, as it would seam, to bear communications from him to various Italian liberals; and she had converted her husband to her own political creed. When the revolution broke out her husband threw himself heartily auto the movement; and she shrank from none of the duties which her position and her opiuions seemed to have devolved upon her. During the siege of Rome she was occupied as a nurse, having charge of one of hospitals opened by the Roman Commission for the succour of the wounded, and acted with a noble disregard of toil or danger, and with much judg ment as well as the greatest kindness in her self-imposed task. The fall of the republic compelled her to leave Rome ; and with her husband and her child she, after staying the winter at Florence, embarked at Leghorn in May 1850, ou board the Elizabeth, for America. From the first the voyage was unpropitious; the captain died soon after the ship sailed ; the weather was throughout stormy ; and though the vessel reached the American coast, it was only to be wrecked there, having struck on Fire Island Beach, Long July 16, 1850. A few of the passengers and crew were saved, but Margaret Fuller, her husband, and child were among the drowned. The body of her child came ashore, but her own tomb was the ocean.
The writings of Margaret Fuller will have no permanent value in themselves, either for their literary merits, their social opinions, or their estimates of character, of art, or of literature. But they will retain a certain value, in connection with the history of their author, as illustrative of a peculiar phase of society in America during the second quarter of the 19th century. Margaret Fuller herself was undoubtedly a woman of great ability as well as of considerable attainments, but she had thoroughly studied not a single subject, and her writings are all disfigured by dogmatism, assumption, and self reference. In them you often come upon a striking and apparently original thought, but if the thought be dwelt on for a moment, it is recognised as owing its uncommonness mainly to peculiarity of expression end sometimes these peculiarities degenerate into gro tesqueness. Had her life been scared however there can be little doubt that what was strange, and almost repulsive in her earlier works, would have disappeared, and the better and lovelier part of Int- character and intellect have revealed itself. The severe mental discipline ale had undergone in Rome had, as she said In one or more of her letters, subdued her pride ; and with humility came in all the gentler virtues and intellectual graces. Nothing could be more noble and b• autiful than her conduct as a woman, a wife, and a mother under her marriage trials, and during and after the siege of Rome ; and the letters which she wrote then are more graceful and eloquent than perhaps anything else which has fallen from her pen. She wrote an account of the Roman revolution, the progress and sup pression of which she had watched so eagerly, but the manuscript perished with her.
(Memoirs of Margaret Puller Oseoti, compiled by her friends J. F. Clarke, R. W. Emerson, and W. H. Chatinieg, 2 vols. 8vo, Boston, 1852, and 3 vole. 8vo, London, 1852.)