A Biographical Dictionary of the Celebrated Women of Every Age and Country/Darbach
DARBACH, or KARSCH (MRS. ANNA LOUISA), Born 1722, upon the borders of Lower Silesia, at a small hamlet, called Hammer. Died about 1780.
Her father, a brewer and alehouse-keeper, was the principal of seven poor inhabitants, but died when she was not above seven years old. Her grandmother's brother, an old man of good understanding, who lived in Poland, had taken her home to his house a few months before this happened, and taught her to read and write. To this uncle she addressed a poem, which is in her printed collection. She continued with him about three years, and then returned to her mother, who, it seems, had married again. The misfortunes which constantly attended her till she was near forty began at this period. Her first employment was the care of her brothers-in-law; but she soon quitted that, in order to attend upon three cows, which were her parents' whole stock. The first signs of her natural inclination to poetry then made their appearance, by an uncommon desire to sing. She knew an hundred church hymns by heart, and sung them at her work, or whilst watching the cattle. Her inclination soon prompted her to write verses, but she did not afterwards recollect any part of that first essay of her uncultivated genius: which was accidentally assisted by a neighbouring shepherd, who, although separated by a small river, contrived to lend her a few books; Robinson Crusoe, the Asiatic Banise, a German romance, and the Arabian Nights Entertainments, composed their whole library. She read these works, perhaps as proper as any to keep alive the fire of the imagination, and to enlarge the view of fancy, with great pleasure. But this happiness was soon at an end, and she was obliged to return to her former attendance upon children, in which, and other laborious employments, she reached her 17th year. At this period, her mother provided her a husband, Darbach, a woolcomber, who obliged her to prepare all the wool which he used; besides which, she had the whole business of the house to manage, and could find no time to indulge her natural propensity to writing verses and reading, except a few hours on Sunday, when she wrote down the poems she had composed during the week. After having been married nine years, she was released from this drudgery by his death; but her mother soon engaged her to another, Karsch, who was much worse than the first. This was the most unfortunate part of her whole life, as with all the hardships of an unhappy marriage, she had still to encounter extreme poverty; but even in these circumstances nature had a surprizing influence over her genius. She saw some poems, written by a clergyman named Schonemann, who is well known at Berlin to have been at times affected, after a violent fever, with a sort of madness, during which he always spoke and preached in verse. Although the bulk of this extraordinary man's performances rather indicate a disordered imagination than the inspiration of the Muses, she found in them something which awakened her own genius.
She now became more desirous than ever to follow the natural bent of her disposition, and was at last encouraged by several persons to proceed, particularly by professor Meyer, of Halle, who was no otherwise acquainted with her than by having seen one of her poems, which were first committed to the press.
She removed to Great Glogau in 1755, with her husband and children, where she gained the liberty of access to the shop of a bookseller, and read much, but without any settled plan. The use Mrs. Darbach (as she always chose to be called) made of this privilege, appear throughout her poems.
The remarkable war which ended in 1764, and the king of Prussia's great exploits, gave new scope to her genius. The battle of Lowoschutz occasioned her first triumphal ode, and she soon after perused the military songs of a Prussian grenadier, some of Romler's odes, and Mrs. Unzer's poems. Her subsequent productions, on occasion of her sovereign's victories, plainly shew the effect they had upon her, and are proofs of a poetical genius already come to maturity.
She continued, however, still oppressed by poverty; but Providence was pleased at last to release her from a very deplorable state, under which few would be able to support themselves.
Baron Cottwitz, a Silesian nobleman, who had long been celebrated for many amiable qualifications, became acquainted with her in the year 1760, as he was travelling through Glogau. He pitied her distress, and carried her to Berlin, where she became acquainted with several men of learning who were judges of poetry; her genius then shone with the greatest lustre, and she was much caressed at the Prussian court. In an edition of her poems, from the preface of which the preceding narrative is taken, written after this happy change of fortune, are a few remarks on Madame Darbach's genius, which we shall subjoin.
"Plato, in his discourse called Io, lays it down as the character of a true poet, that he delivers his thoughts by inspiration, himself not knowing the expressions he makes use of. According to him, the harmony and turn of the verse produce in the poet an enthusiasm, which furnishes him with such thoughts and images as in a more composed hour he would have sought in vain.
"This observation is verified in our authoress, who, without design, without art, and without instruction, is arrived at a wonderful perfection in the art, and may be placed among poets of the first class. It is from this cause she has been more successful in such pieces as were written whilst her imagination was warm, than in those which she has composed coolly, deliberately, and in leisure hours; the latter always bearing some marks of art, and betraying the absence of the muse.
"Whenever she is in a particular manner struck by any object, either in her solitary hours, or when in company, her spirits immediately catch the flame: she has no longer the command of herself, every spring of her soul is in motion; she feels an irresistible impulse to compose, with quickness commits the thoughts to paper with which she is inspired; and, like a watch just wound up, as soon as her soul is put into motion by the impression the object has made, she expresses herself in poetry, without knowing in what manner the ideas and figures arise in her mind.
"Another and more nice observation of Plato's is, that the harmony and turn of the verse keep up the inspiration. Of this truth likewise our authoress is a living instance. No sooner has she hit upon the tone, as she calls it, and the foot of the verse, but the words go on fluently, and she is never at a loss for thought or imagery. The most delicate turns of the subject and expression arise in her mind (while she is yet writing) as if they were dictated to her."
Of her extempore performances, we have an excellent specimen in that beautiful Ode, Sacred to the Memory of her deceased Uncle, the Instructor of her Infancy, written in the Year 1761, at a time when she happened to be engaged in company of the first rank at Berlin: it consists of eight stanzas of six lines each, of which the third and sixth have nine syllables, the others ten. It seems, whilst she was in this select party, she was touched, by a sudden reflection, with a keen sense of the great difference between her present condition and the early part of her life, and of the great obligation she was under to the good old man, who, by his tender care and instruction, had laid the foundation of her present happiness. Overcome with the sense of this, and with a heart replete with gratitude, she could contain herself no longer, but, before all the company, poured forth the overflowings of her soul, nearly in the following words:
"Arise from the dust, ye bones that rest in the land where I passed my infant years. Venerable sage, reanimate thy body; and ye lips that fed me with the honey of instruction, once (more) be eloquent.
"O, thou bright shade! look down upon me from the top of Olympus. Behold! I am no longer following the cattle in the fields. Observe the circle of refined mortals who surround me, they all speak of thy niece's poems. O listen to their conversation, thy praise!
"For ever flourish the broad lime, under whose shade I was wont to cling round thy neck, full of tenderness, like a child to the best of fathers, whilst thou wast reposing thyself on the mossy seat, tired as the reaper with the fatigues of a sultry day.
"Under yon green-arched roof I used to repeat to thee twenty passages in praise of God supreme, though they were much above my comprehension; and when I asked thee the meaning of many a dark sentence in the christian's sacred records.—Good man! thou didst explain them to me.
"Like a divine in sable vest, who, from the lofty pulpit, points out the way that leads to life, so didst thou inform me of the fall of man, and the covenant of grace; and I, all raptures, snatched the words from thy lips with eager kisses.
"Thou inhabitant of some celestial sphere! behold the silent tears of joy; may they often roll down my cheeks. If thou canst speak, dear shade, tell me, didst thou ever conceive any hopes of my present fortune and honour, at a time when my eyes were successively engaged in reading, every day improving?
"When at thy side on some rosy bank I sat, weaving into chaplets for thy temples the flowers my little hands had gathered, and looking up to thee, smiling filial love; Did thy soul then presage the good things that are now come to pass?
"Mayest thou be clothed with three-fold radiance, and mayest thou be refreshed with the emanations of divine complacence more than the soul of thy companions! May every drop of temporal pleasure, with which my cup of joy overflows, be rewarded unto thee with continual draughts from the ocean of eternal beatitude!"
The complimentary verses on the departure of our queen for England, are pleasing and proper for the purpose. Some written on the death of Prince Henry of Brunswick (both of which appeared in English verse, in the Annual Register for 1764), contain the following beautiful thought:
"Thus, by a skilful workman's aim,
Late tow'ring to the sky,
A cedar falls, designed to frame
An idol-deity;
Which soon the worship of mankind,
And incense, shall receive:
My hero thus in every mind
Immortaliz'd shall live."
We are sorry to see, in a later work, that Mrs. Karsch was suffered to languish afterwards in poverty and obscurity.