A Cyclopaedia of Female Biography/Hall, Louisa Jane
HALL, LOUISA JANE,
Is the daughter of Dr. James Park, of Newburyport, Massachusetts, where she was born in 1802. Dr. Park removed to Boston, and in 1811, opened a school for ladies, (one of the first institutions of this kind under the care of a man, a mode of female education since become popular in Boston,) where his daughter was carefully educated. She began to write very early, but did not publish until 1832.
In 1840, she married the Rev. Edward B. Hall, a Unitarian clergyman of Providence, Rhode Island, where she has since resided. Her principal works are, "Miriam, a Drama;" "Joanna of Naples, an Historical Tale;" and "A Biography of Elizabeth Carter;" besides several poems published in periodicals. Of her most remarkable work, R. W. Griswold, in his "Female Poets of America," writes, "'Miriam' was published In 1837. It received the best approval of contemporary criticism, and a second edition, with such revision as the condition of the author's eyes had previously forbidden, (she having been, for four or five years, afflicted with partial blindness,) appeared in the following year. Mrs. Hall had not proposed to herself to write a tragedy, but a dramatic poem, and the result was an instance of the successful accomplishment of a design, in which failure would have been but a repetition of the experience of genius. The subject is one of the finest in the annals of the human race, but one which has never been treated with a more just appreciation of its nature and capacities. It is the first great conflict of the Master's kingdom, after its full establishment, with the kingdoms of this world. It is Christianity struggling with the first persecution of power, philosophy, and the interests of society. Milman had attempted its illustration in his brilliant and stately tragedy of 'The Martyr of Antioch;' Bulwer has laid upon it his familiar hands in 'The Last Days of Pompeii;' and since, our own countryman, William Ware, has exhibited it with power and splendour in his masterly romance of 'The Fall of Rome;' but no one has yet approached more nearly its just delineation and analysis than Mrs. Hall in this beautiful poem."
The prose works of Mrs. Hall evince a cultivated mind and refined caste; the style is carefully finished, and the delineations of character satisfy the judgment of the reader, if they fail to awaken any deep interest in the fate' of the queen or the pursuits of the learned lady. There is something in the genius of Mrs. Hall which seems statue-like; we feel that this repose is a part of the beauty, and yet one would wish to see it disturbed if only to prove the power which the inspired artist possesses.