The Curious Case of the Infant Sappho
In 1840, three-year old Louisa Vinning, “the Infant Sappho,” narrowly avoided death during her debut at London’s Royal Polytechnic Institution. As she stood atop a piano singing, two chandeliers came crashing to the stage, missing her by inches. Despite the noise and unfolding chaos, however, the little girl did not flinch. She was asleep.
What made Vinning so unique was not just her obliviousness to the falling chandeliers, the beauty of her singing voice, or the speed with which she learned music by ear, but her practice of composing songs while she slept. Her spectacular public performances sparked new scientific studies of brain development in child prodigies and, in turn, helped to correct older metaphysical associations of somnambulism (sleepwalking) with demonic possession by appealing to middle-class tastes and aesthetic sensibilities.
The curious case of the Infant Sappho highlights the entanglement of theatrical entertainment and scientific lecturing in early 19th-century London and exemplifies the role such prodigal cases had in the production of scientific knowledge.
Most accounts of Vinning’s early life emphasize her almost immediate attraction to music and her ability to imitate musical phrases with surprising accuracy and precision. In June 1839, her mother was surprised to find two-year old Louisa asleep and singing a song that appeared “perfectly new.” Captivated by the beautiful melody, her father took the “opportunity of writing it down.” When the child awoke the next day, she recalled her dream to her mother: “I have seen such beautiful Angels in my sleep, all gold – beautiful gold.”
Not long after transcribing his daughter’s first composition, John Vinning arranged for its publication as “The Infant’s Dream,” with lyrics and accompaniments by John Blockley:
Slumber baby dear, Hush’d is all around,
List’ning to thy melody, That comes from fairy ground
So soft it glides like a bark o’er the moonlit sea
Gently borne by Zephyrs, Dearest babe to thee
Gently borne by Zephyrs, Dearest babe to thee
Blockley’s lyrics imagine the girl caught halfway between fairyland and Heaven, an otherworldly “child of song” protected by guardian Angels. Blockley draws heavily on natural imagery as well. The sleeping child is a spiritual being, the epitome of innocence.
Sheet music cover for “The Infant’s Dream, The Melody Sung by Louisa Vinning, In Her Sleep,” Sheet music covers featuring theater and circus illustrations and portraits. Harvard Theatre Collection, Houghton Library.
Even though it is unclear when Vinning was first called the “Infant Sappho,” or by whom, the use of this nickname firmly places her in the company of other famous “Infant” performers of the era: The Infant Roscius (Master Betty), the Infant Billington (Miss Lee Sugg), and Charles Dickens’s Infant Phenomenon, among them, though she was among the first to be celebrated as a somnambulist. As with these other Infants, the name “Infant Sappho'' invited positive comparisons between the precocious child and her classical namesake. As cultural historian Yopie Prins observes, “in the course of the nineteenth century, the reconstruction of ancient Greek fragments attributed to Sappho of Lesbos contributed to the construction of Sappho herself as the first woman poet, singing at the origin of a Western lyric tradition.” Sappho’s privileged place in the Victorian cultural imaginary and her association with music, lyricism, and creativity made her the ideal model for Vinning and her beautiful music.
Despite the poetic appeal of this spiritual imagery, Vinning’s celebrity also coincided with shifts in Victorian perceptions of somnambulism, as it was more commonly known. Before the 19th century, sleepwalking was often understood as a sign of insanity, a disease associated with “either demoniac or divine possession.” This view began to change in the early 19th century as medical practitioners turned away from metaphysical explanations and towards scientific theories supported by advances in anatomy and physiology. In 1835, the English doctor James Prichard emphasized how individuals in a somnambulistic state were capable of “seeing, feeling, or otherwise discovering those particular objects of which he is in pursuit,” or, in the case of Vinning, singing.
Scientific accounts of somnambulism inspired numerous stories, poems, and theatrical pieces in the late 18th and early 19th century, marking yet another example of the intermingling of art and science. Vincenzo Bellini’s opera La Somnambula (1831), inspired by the 1819 play La Somnambule by Eugene Scribe, centers on a sleepwalking maiden named Amina whose fiancé Elvino rejects her when she is discovered asleep in the bed of a mysterious stranger. All is resolved when the stranger explains that he had encountered Amina in a somnambulist state and that, rather than disturb her sleep, he had offered her the comfort of his bed in an inn. This somnambulistic tale attests to the Victorian preoccupation with dreams and the supernatural, not to mention anxieties about unmarried women brought under the influence of mysterious (male) forces.
Unlike the submerged eroticism of La Somnambula, the spectacle of the Infant Sappho offered a sweet, preternaturally innocent vision of somnambulism that rejected associations between somnambulism and illness or demonic possession without denying a metaphysical explanation altogether. To casual observers, her sleepwalking state could be attributed to her proximity to nature and to the divine. These competing perspectives help to explain her popularity with Victorian audiences. Indeed, Vinning’s mystical appeal, not to mention her age, whiteness, and middle-class status, made her an ideal subject for the Royal Polytechnic Institution (RPI) lecture stage.
Opening in 1838 with the goal of offering the public a practical education in “the various arts and branches of science connected with Manufactures, Mining Operations, and Rural Economy,” the RPI drew on elements of theatrical entertainment to reach a wide and diverse audience. The RPI quickly built up a strong membership among London’s middle and upper classes thanks to the inspiring lecture performances of men such as Humphry Davy and Michael Faraday. After Davy’s retirement, Faraday continued to expand the Institution’s lecture programming. Faraday understood that strong visuals, like interesting scientific equipment and illustrations, and a compelling lecture style were critical for engaging a lay audience. He wanted to inspire audiences and excite them about science’s potential; if they learned something along the way, so much the better. With his sights set on entertainment, Faraday also extended his audience outreach to children, establishing an annual Christmas lecture in 1825 that continues to this day.
“The educational locale not only positioned Vinning as a wondrous example of human achievement and intellectual complexity but also cast audiences in the respectable dual role of lay students of science and concerned observers of a child prodigy.”
Faraday’s quest to make science appealing to a large audience that included children offers one reason for the RPI’s invitation to Vinning, who as a talented singer and subject of scientific mystery, embodied both of RPI's interests. Following a command performance before Queen Victoria in August 1840, Vinning (via her parents) accepted an invitation to perform in the RPI lecture theatre three times a week. Her program included “The Infant’s Dream;” several Italian songs; demonstrations of her sight-singing ability; and her facility with other languages. This mixed bill of singing and other demonstrations, presumably performed as she slept, entertained audiences while inviting them to closely observe a somnambulist in action.
The educational locale not only positioned Vinning as a wondrous example of human achievement and intellectual complexity but also cast audiences in the respectable dual role of lay students of science and concerned observers of a child prodigy. Where middle-class audiences may have shuddered to watch a young girl perform in a theatrical setting, given long standing assumptions about the immorality of stage actors, they appear to have felt no such qualms watching Vinning sing at the RPI, where she appeared alongside other displays of scientific innovation and experimentation.
The desire to probe the source of Infant Sappho’s somnambulistic talent was especially strong among phrenologists, who maintained that an individual’s behavioral traits corresponded to the size and shape of their skull. In 1841, Richard Cull examined Vinning and published his analysis in the pages of The Phrenological Journal, commenting that her larger-than-average head “indicates a brain capable of powerful mental manifestation.” Cull further noted that the part of the brain associated with Melody was also large, an obvious (to him) explanation for her musical ability. Yet, Cull is forced to admit that there is nothing in his measurements of Vinning’s skull that explain her unique combination of skills, most notably her ability to spontaneously create music: “We know of no signs which positively indicate such a power; mere largeness of organ will not indicate it, nor will largeness, combined with great general activity, indicate it with certainty.” Ultimately, Cull concludes, phrenologists still had much to learn about “the precocious spontaneous manifestation of individual talents,” including its external signs and causes.
The flurry of activity surrounding her early performances prepared Vinning for a lengthy career. She continued to perform at various concert and lecture halls throughout the 1840s until she “aged out” of her “Infant” stage, but she continued to perform throughout England as a singer of some repute. It is unclear whether she ever returned to the RPI or if she continued to compose new music while asleep. She nevertheless remains a fascinating figure in the history of somnambulism and other sleep-related phenomena and an important example of science’s ever-evolving relationship with performance and spectacle.
As a charming, cute, and undeniably talented three-year old, the Infant Sappho challenged metaphysical associations of somnambulism with demonic possession. She invited deeper scientific inquiry into the complexities of the human mind and the relationship of precocity to somnambulism—all the while avoiding imminent death by chandelier.
Author’s note: The research in this article is supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
Further Reading
Katharina Boehm, Charles Dickens and the Sciences of Childhood: Popular Medicine, Child Health and Victorian Culture (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013).
Alison Winter, Mesmerized: Powers of Mind in Victorian Britain (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2000).
Image credit: Elements of Phrenology, George Combe, 1824 (Wellcome Collection | CC BY 4.0)
