Mercury shew'd Apollo, Bartas Book, They bid him hemisphear his mouldy nose, With's crackt leering glasses, for it would pose The best brains he had in's old pudding-pan, Sex weigh'd, which best, the Woman or the Man? He peer'd, and por'd, & glar'd, & said for wore, I'm even as wise now, as I was before: The Auth'ress was a right Du Bartas Girle. Let Men look to't, least Women wear the -WARD, NATHANIEL, 1650, Prefatory Lines to the Tenth Muse. Anne Bradstreet, a New-England poetess, no less in title, viz. before her Poems, printed in Old-England anno 1650; then The tenth Muse sprung up in America; the memory of which poems, consisting chiefly of Descriptions of the Four Elements, the Four Humours; the Four Ages, the Four Seasons, and the Four Monarchies, is not yet wholly extinct.-PHILLIPS, EDWARD, 1675, Theatrum Poetarum Anglicanorum. Reader, America justly admires the learned women of the other hemisphere. She has heard of those that were witnesses to the old professors of all philosophy: she hath heard of Hippatia, who formerly taught the liberal arts; and of Sarocchia, who, more lately, was very often the moderatrix in the disputations of the learned men of Rome: she has been told of the three Corinnas, which equalled, if not excelled, the most celebrated poets of their time: she has been told of the Empress Eudocia, who composed poetical paraphrases on various parts of the Bible; and of Rosnida, who wrote the lives of holy men; and of Pamphilia, who wrote other histories unto the life: the writings of the most renowned Anna Maria Schurman, have come over unto her. But she now prays that into such catalogues of authoresses as Beverovicius, Hottinger, and Voetius, have given unto the world, there may be a room now given unto Madam Ann Bradstreet, the daughter of our Governor Dudley, and the consort of our Governor Bradstreet, whose poems, divers times printed, have afforded a grateful entertainment unto the ingenious, and a monument for her memory beyond the stateliest marbles.-MATHER, COTTON, 1702, Magnalia Christi Americana. In the height of enthusiasm, good John Norton goes so far as to declare, that if Virgil could hear her works, he would condemn his own to the flames. As the Mantuan Bard is not likely to be gratified by hearing Mrs. Bradstreet's effusions, it is idle to discuss the position assumed by Norton, and argue whether Virgil would or would not be capable of such an act of philanthropic abnegation, or ebullition of disappointed rivalry, as the combustion of his verses would display to the eyes of an astonished and mourning world. Miserable as Virgil's effusions may be, when compared with the verses of Mrs. Bradstreet, yet somehow we have become accustomed to him, and could better spare a better poet, even the famed "Tenth Muse" herself. ALLIBONE, S. AUSTIN, 1854-58, Dictionary of English Literature, vol. I. The formal natural history and historical topics, which compose the greater part of her writings, are treated with doughty resolution, but without much regard to poetical equality. It is not to be denied, that, if there is not much poetry in these productions, there is considerable information. For the readers of those times they contained a very respectable digest of the old historians, and a fair proportion of medical and scientific knowledge.-DUYCKINCK, EVERT A. AND GEORGE L., 1855-65-75, Cyclopædia of American Literature, ed. Simons, p. 53. Independently of what may be said of their poetical merits, her poems do honour to her as a well educated and accomplished woman, from their frequent and accurate allusions to ancient literature and to facts in history; and from the amiable light in which they present her as a daughter, a wife, a parent, and a Christian, it cannot be doubted that she was a bright example in her whole deportment of whatsoever things are true, and honest, and just, and pure, and lovely, and of good report. -ANDERSON, JAMES, 1861, Memorable Women of Puritan Times, vol. I, p. 174. She was well read in the literature of the time, poetical, theological, and other, and without possessing genius, was a young woman of talents. It was the fashion to admire Sidney's "Arcadia," so she admired it, and wrote an elegy upon its chivalrous author, whom his contemporaries insisted on idolizing. She also admired Spenser's "Faerie Queene, which was more read in the first half of the seventeenth century than it ever has been since; and she may be said to have doted upon Du Bartas, whom every body was reading then, through the lumbering version of Sylvester, though nobody can be persuaded to read him now. master was Du Bartas, whose "sugared lines" she read over and over, grudging that the Muses did not part their overflowing store betwixt him and her: Her "A Bartas can do what a Bartas will, But simple I according to my skill.' -STODDARD, RICHARD HENRY, 1879, Richard Henry Dana, Harper's Magazine, vol. 58, p. 769. Though it was only as a poet that Anne Bradstreet was known to her own time, her real strength was in prose, and the "Meditations, Divine and Morall," written at the request of her second son, the Rev. Simon Bradstreet, to whom she dedicated them, March 20, 1664, show that life had taught her much, and in the ripened thought and shrewd observation of men and manners are the best testimony to her real ability. For the reader of to-day they are of incomparably more interest than anything to be found in the poems. There is often the most condensed and telling expression; a swift turn that shows what power of description lay under all the fantastic turns of the style Du Bartas had created for her. That he underrated them was natural.--CAMPBELL, HELEN, 1891, Anne Bradstreet and Her Time, p. 288. While our earliest woman poet was not a genius, her character and abilities excite both admiration and interest. To judge her fairly we must realize how distant she was from the great centers of civilization, and remember the many obstacles she had to overcome. Born when Shakespeare's career was just ending and Milton was still in his infancy, the strictness of her religion as well as the remoteness of her situation shut her out from much that was noblest and most inspiring in the literature of that golden time. . . Her works show industry, careful reading, and a religious, thoughtful, and appreciative mind. On the whole, we should honor and remember Anne Bradstreet, not so much for the intrinsic worth of what she wrote, as for her place in the progress of our history and culture. We must honor her because she was one of the first among us to seriously devote herself to poetry for its own sake, and because her writings and example exerted a salutary and refining influence on others.-PANCOAST, HENRY S., 1898, An Introduction to American Literature, pp. 57, 58, 59. Margaret Cavendish Duchess of Newcastle Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle, died 1673, was as fond of authorship as her noble lord proved himself to be. Lord Orford speaks disparagingly of her ladyship's talents, but it is well known that Horace Walpole spared no man (or woman) in his humour. "Philosophical Fancies," Lon., 1653, 12mo. "Poems and Fancies," 1653, fol. "The World's Olio," 1655, fol. "Nature's Picture drawn by Fancie's Pencil, to the Life," 1656, fol. "Philosophical and Physical Opinions," 1655, fol. "Orations," 1662, fol. "Playes," 1662, fol. She wrote 26 Plays, and a number of Scenes. "Sociable Letters," 1664, fol. "Observations upon Experimental Philosophy," 1666, fol. "Life of William Cavendish, Duke of Newcastle," 1667, fol. The same in Latin, 1668, fol:-The Crown of her Labours. "Grounds of Natural Philosophy," 1668, fol. "Letters and Poems," 1676, fol. "Select Poems," edited by Sir E. Brydges, 1813, 8vo. Her "Autobiography," edited by Brydges, 1814, r. 8vo.ALLIBONE, S. AUSTIN, 1854-58, Dictionary of English Literature, vol. 1, p. 357. PERSONAL Why hath this lady writ her own life? since none cares to know whose daughter she was, or whose wife she is, or how she was bred, or what fortunes she had, or how she lived, or what humour or disposition she was of? I answer that it is true that 'tis to no purpose to the reader, but it is to the Authoress, because I write it for my own sake, not theirs; neither did I intend this piece for to delight, but to divulge; not to please the fancy, but to tell the truth, lest after-ages should mistake, in not knowing I was daughter to one Master Lucas of St. John's near Colchester in Essex, and second wife to the Lord Marquis of Newcastle; for my lord having had two Wives, I might easily have been mistaken, especially if I should die and my Lord Marry again.- CAVENDISH, MARGARET (DUTCHESS OF NEWCASTLE), 1667, Lives of the Duke and Dutchess of Newcastle, ed. Lower, p. 309. After dinner I walked to Arundell House, the way very dusty, . where I find much company, indeed very much company, in expectation of the Duchesse of Newcastle, who had desired to be invited to the Society; and was, after much debate pro and con., it seems many being against it; and we do believe the town will be full of ballads of it. Anon comes the Duchesse with her women attending her; among others, the Ferabosco, of whom so much talk is that her lady would bid her show her face and kill the gallants. She is indeed black, and hath good black little eyes, but otherwise but a very ordinary woman, I do think, but they say sings well. The Duchesse hath been a good, comely woman; but her dress so antick, and her deportment so ordinary, that I do not like her at all, nor did I hear her say anything that was worth hearing, but that she was full of admiration, all admiration. Several fine experiments were shown her of colours, loadstones, microscopes, and of liquors. . . . After they had shown her many experiments, and she cried still she was full of admiration, she departed, being led out and in by several Lords that were there. -PEPYS, SAMUEL, 1667, Diary, May 30. She talks like a Nell Gwynne, and looks like her too, though all within bounds.-HUNT, LEIGH, 1847, Men, Women and Books, vol. II, p. 101. "The whole story of this lady is a romance, and all she does is romantic," wrote Pepys of the subject of this paper, whom some of her contemporaries irreverently styled "Mad Madge of Newcastle," while later critics thought so highly of her that, in "A Vision of Female Poets," Shakespeare and Milton are represented as respectfully helping her to alight from her Pegasus. The imputation of insanity probably troubled the Duchess but little; she would console herself with the reflection that "great wits are sure to madness near allied;" and if, as some of her biographers assert, her devoted loyalty to her husband, in the extremely disloyal Court of Charles II., earned her the nickname of "Mad Madge," it becomes a title of honour.-MAYER, GERTRUDE TOWNSHEND, 1894, Women of Letters, vol. I, p. 1. GENERAL know there are some that have but a mean Opinion of her Plays; but if it be consider'd that both the Language and Plots of them are all her own: I think she ought with Justice to be preferr'd to others of her Sex, which have built their Fame on other People's Foundations: sure I am, that whoever will consider well the several Epistles before her Books, and the General Prologue to all her Plays, if he have any spark of Generosity, or Good Breeding, will be favourable in his Censure. LANGBAINE, GERARD, 1691, An Account of the English Dramatick Poets, pp. 390, 391. Her Grace's literary labours have drawn down less applause than her domestic virtues nor can it be denied that she wrote too much to be expected to write well, had her taste or judgment been greatly superior to what we find them. That she displayed poetical talent, however, when it was not clouded by obscure conceits, or warped by a witless effort to engraft the massy trunk of philosophy on the slender wilding of poesy, will be from "The Pastime and Recreation of the Queen of Fairies, in Fairy-land, the Centre of the Earth.' WALPOLE, HORACE, 1758, A Catalogue of the Royal and Noble Authors of England, Scotland, and Ireland. seen If her merit as an author were to be estimated from the quantity of her works, she would have the precedence of all female writers, ancient or modern. There are no less than thirteen folios of her writing; ten of which are in print: They consist chiefly of poems and plays. The life of the duke, her husband, is the most estimable of her productions. This has This has been translated into Latin. We are greatly surprised that a lady of her quality should have written so much; and are little less surprised that one who loved writing so well, has writ no better. -GRANGER, JAMES, 1769-1824, Biographical History of England, vol. v, p. 263. A dear favourite of mine, of the last century but one-the thrice noble, chaste, and virtuous, but again somewhat fantastical, and original-brained, generous Margaret Newcastle.-LAMB, CHARLES, 1821, Mackery End in Hertfordshire. The labors of no modern authoress can be compared, as to quantity, with those of our indefatigable duchess, who has filled nearly twelve volumes, folio, with plays, poems, orations, philosophical discourses, &c. Her writings show that she possessed a mind of considerable power and activity, with much imagination, but not one particle of judgment or taste.-DYCE, ALEXANDER, 1827, ed., Specimens of British Poetesses. Indisputable evidence of a genius as high-born in the realms of intellect as its possessor was exalted in the ranks of society; a genius strong-winged and swift, fertile and comprehensive, but ruined by deficient culture, by literary dissipation, and the absence of concatenation and the sense of proportion.-JENKINS, EDWARD, 1872, ed., The Cavalier and His Lady. Heroic romance proved as ephemeral in England as the cloaks and feathers with which it had crossed the Channel, and we may pass over such trivial literary attempts as those of the Duchess of Newcastle to the writings of Mrs. Manley and Mrs. Behn.-TUCKERMAN, BAYARD, 1882, A History of English Prose Fiction, p. 122. She had a conceit that rose to an amazing and amusing serenity; yet the artless candour of its utterances disarms criticism of contempt, and positively creates out of her self-esteem a pleasantry of character. that half resembles a virtue. She possesses abundance of sense, but very little of it common sense. Humour and wit are native in her; even genius can be claimed for portions of her best work; but so woefully did she lack consistency of taste and that species of literary judgment which has been termed the power of selecting the significant, that her works are the oddest medleys ever hurried through a printing press. Each of her volumes reminds one of a lady's overturned work-basket, into which had crept all kinds of consequent and inconsequent things, with even a jewel or two among the mass. She possessed a perfect frenzy for writing. At twelve she was fond of scribbling on philosophical subjects; and in the deepest distress of her chequered life, as in its brighest moments, the sight of mere wet ink on the page seems to have solaced her beyond anything else. never revised what she had thus once committed to paper, being of the opinion that the work of revision would have hindered her productive powers, as, indeed, it often would, had she duly considered the quality of the matter thrown off so hastily. There is no method either in her arrangement of subjects or in her style. One of the sentences in her autobiography is twelve pages long. Yet the bizarrerie of her modes of working frequently produces powerful effects, and at times you will come on smooth passages of her works in which the diction is almost as perfect as that which the most fastidious artifice could have devised.-ROBERTSON, ERIC S., 1883, English Poetesses, p. 14. She Born, in London, July [?] 1591; baptized, 24 Aug. Probably educated at Westminster School and at St. John's Coll., Camb. Removed to Trinity Hall, 1616; B. A., 1617; M. A., 1620. Rector of Dean Prior, Devonshire, 2 Oct. 1629 to 1647. Deprived of living, 1647; returned to London. Restored to living, 24 Aug. 1662. Died, at Dean Prior, Oct. 1674; buried in Dean Prior church, 15 Oct. Works: "King Obron's Feast" (anon., in "A Description of the King and Queene of Fayries"), 1635; "His Mistris Shade" (anon. ; in Shakespeare's "Poems"), 1640; "Hesperides" (with "Noble Numbers"), 1648; Poems in "Lacrymæ Musarum," 1649; Poems in "Witt's Recreations," 1650. Collected Works: ed. by Lord Dundrennan (2 vols.), 1823; by Grosart (3 vols.), 1876; by A. W. Pollard, 1891; by Saintsbury (2 vols.), 1893.— SHARP, R. FARQUHARSON, 1897, A Dictionary of English Authors, p. 132. PERSONAL Being in Devonshire during the last summer, we took an opportunity of visiting Dean Prior, for the purpose of making some inquiries concerning Herrick, who, from the circumstance of having been vicar of that parish (where he is still talked of as a poet, a wit, and a hater of the county), for twenty years, might be supposed to have left some unrecorded memorials of his existence behind him. We found many persons in the village who could repeat some of his lines. . . The person, however, who knows more of Herrick than all the rest of the neighbourhood, we found to be a poor woman in the ninety-ninth year of her age, named Dorothy King. She repeated to us, with great exactness, five of his "Noble Numbers,' among which was the beautiful Litany. These she had learned from her mother, who was apprenticed to Herrick's successor in the vicarage. She called them her prayers, which, she said, she was in the habit of putting up in bed, whenever she could not sleep: and she therefore began the Litany at the second stanza, "When I lie within my bed," &c. Another of her midnight orisons was the poem beginning "Every night thou dost me fright, And keep mine eyes from sleeping," &c. She had no idea that these poems had ever been printed, and could not have read them if she had seen them. She is in possession of few traditions as to the person, manners, and habits of life of the poet; but in return, she has a whole budget of anecdotes respecting his ghost; and these she details with a careless but serene gravity, which one would not willingly discompose by any hints at a remote possibility of their not being exactly true. Herrick, she says, was a bachelor, and kept a maid-servant, as his poems, indeed, discover; but she adds, what they do not discover, that he also kept a pet-pig, which he taught to drink out of a tankard. And this important circumstance, together with a tradition that he one day threw his sermon at the congregation, with a curse for their inattention, forms almost the sum total of what we could collect of the poet's life.-FIELD, BARRON, 1810, Select Poems from Herrick, Carew, etc., The Quarterly Review, vol. IV, pp. 171, 172. This fine old fellow, this joyous heart, who lived to be eighty-three, in spite of "dull Devonshire" and the bad times, wrote almost as much as Carew, Lovelace, and Suckling united, and how much there is in his weed-choked garden, which is comparable with their best compositions! How little we know of him! how scantily |