Anthologies

Eighteenth-Century Women Poets

An Oxford Anthology

Edited by Roger Lonsdale

Oxford and New York: Oxford UP, 1990

CONTENTS

Introduction

MARY, LADY CHUDLEIGH (nee LEE) (1656-1710)

from The Ladies Defence

To the Ladies

The Resolve

ANNE FINCH (nee KINGSMILL), COUNTESS OF WINCHILSEA (1661-1720)

from The Spleen. A Pindaric Poem

A Sigh

Life's Progress

A Pastoral Dialogue between Two Shepherdesses

Adam Posed

A Tale of the Miser and the Poet

from The Petition for an Absolute Retreat

The Hog, the Sheep and Goat, Carrying to a Fair

Enquiry after Peace. A Fragment

To the Nightingale

Reformation

Friendship between Ephelia and Ardelia

A Nocturnal Reverie

A Ballad to Mrs Catherine Fleming in London

A Song on the South Sea

SARAH EGERTON (nee FYGE, later FIELD) (1670-1723)

The Repulse to Alcander

To Philaster

To One who said I must not Love

To Marina

The Emulation

ELIZABETH THOMAS (1675-1731)

Epistle to Clemena. Occasioned by an Argument

The Execration

The True Effigies of a Certain Squire

A New Litany, Occasioned by an Invitation to a Wedding

On Sir J---- S---- saying in a Sarcastic Manner, My Books would make me Mad. An Ode

from Jill, A Pindaric Ode

To Almystrea, on her Divine Works

The Triumvirate

The Forsaken Wife

ELIZABETH ROWE (nee SINGER) (1674-1737)

A Hymn

A Laplander's Song to his Mistress

Upon the Death of her Husband

A Hymn

OCTAVIA WALSH (1677-1706)

["At length my soul the fatal union finds"]

LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU (nee PIERREPONT) (1689-1762)

The Resolve

Saturday: The Small-Pox

Verses Written in the Chiosk of the British Palace, at Pera, Overlooking the City of Constantinople

Epitah

The Lover: A Ballad

Epistle [to Lord Bathurst]

An Answer to a Love-Letter in Verse

A Receipt to Cure the Vapours

from Verses Addressed to the Imitator of the First Satire of the Second Book of Horace

Addressed to ----

Hymn to the Moon

Verses Written in a Garden

MARY MONCK (nee MOLESWORTH) (c.1678-1715)

Masque of the Virtues against Love. From Guarini

On a Romantic Lady

Verses written on her Death-bed

JANE HOLT (nee WISEMAN) (fl. 1701-17)

To Mr. Wren, my Valentine Six Year Old

SUSANNA CENTLIVRE (nee FREEMAN) (1669?-1723)

from An Epistle to the King of Sweden

From the Country, To Mr. Rowe in Town

JANE BRERETON (nee HUGHES) (1685-1740)

from Epistle to Mrs Anne Griffiths. Written from London

from To Mr Thomas Griffith, at the University of Glasgow

ANONYMOUS

Cloe to Artimesa

MARTHA SANSOM (nee FOWKE) (1690-1736)

from Clio's Picture. To Anthony Hammond Esq

To Cleon's Eyes

To Lady E---- H----

The Invitation from a Country Cottage

Song

CONSTANTIA GRIERSON (nee CRAWLEY) (c.1705-32)

To Miss Laetitia Van Lewen

JUDITH MADAN (nee COWPER) (1702-81)

On her own Birthday, August 26, 1723

An Ode Composed in Sleep

To Lysander. October 3, 1726

ELIZABETH TOLLET (1694-1754)

To my Brother at St. John's College in Cambridge

On a Death's Head

From Virgil

from Hypatia

Winter Song

The Rose

On the Prospect from Westminster Bridge, March 1750

MARY DAVYS (1674-1732)

from The Modern Poet

ARABELLA MORETON (after 1690-before 1741)

The Humble Wish

FRANCES SEYMOUR (nee THYNNE), COUNTESS OF HERTFORD (later DUCHESS OF SOMERSET) (1699-1754)

The Story of Inkle and Yarico

[To the Countess of Pomfret]

MEHETABEL WRIGHT (nee WESLEY) (1697-1750)

Address to her Husband

Wedlock. A Satire

To an Infant Expiring the Second Day of its Birth

An Epitaph on Herself

ANONYMOUS ('A LADY')

An Epithalamium

MARY BARBER (c.1690-1757)

Written for My Son . . . at His First Putting on Breeches

An Unanswerable Apology for the Rich

The Conclusion of a Letter to the Rev. Mr C----

Stella and Flavia

To Mrs. Frances-Arabella Kelly

On seeing an Officer's Widow distracted

from To a Lady

MISS W----

The Gentleman's Study. In Answer to The Lady's Dressing-Room

ELIZABETH BOYD (fl. 1727-45)

On the Death of an Infant of five Days old

ANONYMOUS ('A LADY')

Woman's Hard Fate

LAETITIA PILKINGTON (nee VAN LEWEN) (c.1708?-50)

Memory, a Poem

Sorrow

JEAN ADAMS (1710-65)

A Dream, or the Type of the Rising Sun

On the Phoenix

To the Muse

ANONYMOUS ('THE AMOROUS LADY')

On being charged with Writing Incorrectly

A Letter to my Love.--All alone, past 12, in the Dumps

To my Love

ANNE INGRAM, VISCOUNTESS IRWIN (nee HOWARD, later DOUGLAS) (c.1696-1764)

from An Epistle to Mr. Pope

MARY CHANDLER (1687-1745)

My Own Epitaph

A True Tale

MARY JONES (d.1778)

An Epistle to Lady Bower

The Lass of the Hill

Stella's Epitaph

Soliloquy on an Empty Purse

Epistle from Fern Hill

ELIZABETH CARTER (1717-1806)

On the Death of Mrs. Rowe

A Dialogue

Ode to Wisdom

MARY COLLIER (1690?-c.1762)

from The Woman's Labour. An Epistle to Mr. Stephen Duck

SARAH DIXON (fl. 1672-1765)

Verses left on a Lady's Toilet

To Strephon

The Slattern

The Returned Heart

Cloe to Aminta. On the Loss of her Lover

Lines Occasioned by the Burning of Some Letters

ELIZABETH FRANCES AMHERST (later THOMAS) (c.1716-79)

A Prize Riddle on Herself when 24

A Song for the Single Table on New Year's Day

The Welford Wedding

From a Young Woman to an Old Officer who Courted her

Verses designed to be Sent to Mr. Adams

ANNABELLA BLOUNT (nee GUISE) (fl. 1700-41)

[A Cure for Poetry]

CHARLOTTE BRERETON (b.c.1720)

To Miss A[nn]a M[ari]a Tra[ver]s. An Epistle from Scotland

FRANCES GREVILLE (nee MACARTNEY) (c.1724-89)

Miss F[an]ny M[acar]t[ne]y to Miss P[egg]y B[ank]s

A Prayer for Indifference

MARY LEAPOR (1722-46)

The Headache. To Aurelia

Strephon to Celia. A Modern Love-Letter

Soto. A Character

Proserpine's Ragout

Mira to Octavia

Man the Monarch

from An Epistle to Artemisia

Advice to Sophronia

An Essay on Woman

The Epistle of Deborah Dough

from Crumble Hall

Upon her Play being returned to her

The Visit

from Mira's Picture. A Pastoral

Mira's Will

An Epistle to a Lady

ELIZABETH TEFT (fl. 1741-7)

On Learning. Desired by a Gentleman

On Viewing Herself in a Glass

On Snuff-Taking

To a Gentleman who disordered a Lady's Handkerchief

CHARLOTTE LENNOX (nee RAMSAY) (1729?-1804)

A Song

from The Art of Coquetry

HENRIETTA KNIGHT (nee ST JOHN), LADY LUXBOROUGH (1699-1756)

Written . . . in a tempestuous Night 1748

The Bullfinch in Town

ESTHER LEWIS (later CLARK) (fl. 1747-89)

A Mirror for Detractors. Addressed to a Friend

Advice to a Young Lady lately married

from A Letter to a Lady in London

CATHERINE JEMMAT (nee YEO) (fl. 1750-66)

The Rural Lass

HESTER MULSO (later CHAPONE) (1727-1801)

To Stella

ANNA WILLIAMS (1706-83)

Verses to Mr. Richardson on . . . Sir Charles Grandison

The Nunnery

ANONYMOUS ('OPHELIA')

Snaith Marsh. A Yorkshire Pastoral

CLARA REEVE (1729-1807)

from To my Friend Mrs. ----

A Character

A new Cantata

ANONYMOUS ('A LADY')

The Domestic Philosopher

MARY LATTER (1722?-77)

from Soliloquies on Temporal Indigence

MARY WHATELEY (later DARWALL) (1738-1825)

Ode to Truth

The Power of Destiny

The Vanity of External Accomplishments

On the Author's Husband Desiring her to Write Some Verses

ALISON COCKBURN (nee RUTHERFORD) (1713-94)

The Flowers of the Forest

JANE ELLIOT (1727-1805)

The Flowers of the Forest

LADY DOROTHEA DUBOIS (nee ANNESLEY) (1728-74)

Song

CHRISTIAN CARSTAIRS (fl. 1763-86)

[On Loch Leven]

Addressed to a Beech Tree

Nightingale

A Song

MARIA FRANCES CECILIA COWPER (nee MADAN) (1726-97)

On Viewing her Sleeping Infant

The World Not Our Rest

PRISCILLA POINTON (later PICKERING) (c.1740-1801)

from To the Critics

Address to a Bachelor on a Delicate Occasion

from Letter to a Sister

LADY ANNE LINDSAY (later BARNARD) (1750-1825)

Auld Robin Gray

SUSANNA BLAMIRE (1747-94)

Epistle to her Friends at Gartmore

from Stoklewath; or, the Cumbrian Village

Written on a Gloomy Day, in Sickness

I've Gotten a Rock, I've Gotten a Reel

When Home We Return

The Siller Croun

Wey, Ned, Man!

Auld Robin Forbes

O Jenny Dear

ANNE PENNY (nee HUGHES, formerly CHRISTIAN) (1731-84)

Odes Sung in Commemoration of the Marine Society

ANONYMOUS ('A LADY')

The Self-Examination

The Visit

ANNA LAETITIA BARBAULD (nee AIKIN) (1743-1825)

from Corsica

The Mouse's Petition to Doctor Priestley

Tomorrow

On the Expected General Rising of the French Nation

The Rights of Woman

To the Poor

To a Little Invisible Being

Washing-Day

To Mr. [S.T.] C[oleridge]

ANNA SEWARD (1742-1809)

Sonnet. To Honora Sneyd

Sonnet. Ingratitiude

Verses Inviting Stella to Tea on the Public Fast-Day

Sonnet. December Morning

Sonnet. To Colebrook Dale

Eyam

Sonnet. To the Poppy

Sonnet

An Old Cat's Dying Soliloquy

MARY SCOTT (later TAYLOR) (1752?-93)

from The Female Advocate

ANONYMOUS ('A FEMALE HAND')

To My Niece, A. M. With a new Pair of Shoes

HANNAH MORE (1745-1833)

from Epilogue to The Search after Happiness

Inscription in a Beautiful Retreat called Fairy Bower

from Sensibility: A Poetical Epistle

from The Bas Bleu: Or, Conversation

from Slavery, A Poem

Patient Joe, or The Newcastle Collier

from The Gin-Shop; or, A Peep into Prison

ANONYMOUS

On a Gentleman's complaining to a Lady that he could not eat Meat, owing to the Looseness of his Teeth

ANONYMOUS ('A LADY')

On Meeting ---- ----, Esq. in St. Jame's Park

LADY SOPHIA BURRELL (nee RAYMOND, later CLAY) (1750?-1802)

from Verses to a Lady

The Picture of a Fine Gentleman

The School for Satire

MARY SAVAGE (fl. 1763-77)

Letter to Miss E.B. at Bath

from Letter to Miss E.B. on Marriage

To a School-Boy at Eton. Yes and No

The Disaster

ANNE WILSON (fl. 1778)

from Tesia: A Descriptive Poem

FRANCES BURNEY (later D'ARBLAY) (1752-1840)

To [Charles Burney]

ANN MURRAY (c.1755-after 1816)

The Tˆte … Tˆte, Or Fashionable Pair. An Eclogue

ANN THOMAS (fl. 1784-95)

To Laura, On the French Fleet parading before Plymouth

ANNE HUNTER (nee HOME) (1742-1821)

North American Death Song

A Pastoral Song

CHARLOTTE SMITH (nee TURNER) (1749-1806)

Sonnet Written at the Close of Spring

Sonnet Written in the Church Yard at Middleton in Sussex

Thirty-Eight

from The Emigrants: A Poem

Fragment Descriptive of the Miseries of War

Sonnt. On being Cautioned against Walking on an Headland

Sonnet. The Sea View

JANE CAVE (later WINSCOM) (c.1754-1813)

A Poem for Children

Written . . . on an Angry, Petulant Kitchen-Maid

An Elegy on a Maiden Name

Written a Few Hours before the Birth of a Child

Written the First Morning of the Author's Bathing at Teignmouth

from The Head-Ache, Or An Ode to Health

JANE WEST (nee ILIFFE) (1758-1852)

from To a Friend on her Marriage

To the Hon. Mrs. C[ockayn]e

HANNAH COWLEY (nee PARKHOUSE) (1743-1809)

An Elegiac Ballad

Departed Youth

Blank Verse. Written on the Sea Shore

HESTER LYNCH PIOZZI (nee SALUSBURY, formerly THRALE) (1741-1821)

An Ode to Society

ANN YEARSLEY (nee CROMARTIE) (1752-1806)

On Mrs. Montagu

from Remonstrance in the Platonic Shade

from To Mira, On the Care of her Infant

Familiar Poem from Nisa to Fulvia of the Vale

ELIZABETH MOODY (nee GREENLY) (d. 1814)

Dr. Johnson's Ghost

To a Gentleman Who Invited Me to Go A-Fishing

The Housewife's Prayer . . . To Economy

Sappho Burns her Books and Cultivates the Culinary Arts

HANNAH WALLIS (fl. 1787)

To Mrs. ----, on the Death of her Husband

The Female's Lamentations; or The Village in Mourning

To a Sick Friend

HELEN MARIA WILLIAMS (1761?-1827)

Sonnet on . . . the Mountain Daisy, by Mr. Burns

Sonnet to Hope

Elegy on a Young Thrush

To Dr. Moore, in Answer to a Poetical Epistle

On the Death of the Rev. Dr. Kippis

HELEN LEIGH (fl. 1788)

The Natural Child

ELIZABETH HANDS (fl. 1789)

Lob's Courtship

On an Unsociable Family

Written . . . on seeing a Mad Heifer run through the Village

A Poem, On the Supposition of an Advertisement . . . of a Volume of Poems, by a Servant-Maid

A Poem, On the Supposition of the Book having been Published and Read

JOANNA BAILLIE (1762-1851)

from A Winter Day

from A Summer Day

Night Scenes of Other Times: The Ghost of Edward

A Reverie

from An Address to the Muses

A Mother to her Waking Infant

A Child to his Sick Grandfather

The Horse and his Rider

REBEKAH CARMICHAEL (later HAY) (fl. 1790-1806)

The Tooth

A Young Lass's Soliloquy

ANN FRANCIS (nee GITTINS) (1738-1800)

from An Elegy on a Favourite Cat

ANN RADCLIFFE (nee WARD) (1764-1823)

Song of a Spirit

MARIA (b.1771?) And HARRIET (b.1774?) FALCONAR

A Prefatory Epistle [to the Reviewers]

JANET LITTLE (later RICHMOND) (1759-1813)

Given to a Lady Who Asked me to Write a Poem

ELLEN TAYLOR (fl. 1792)

Written by the Barrow Side, where she was sent to wash Linen

HENRIETTA O'NEILL (nee BOYLE) (1758-93)

Ode to the Poppy

Written on Seeing her Two Sons at Play

MARY LOCKE (later MISTER) (fl. 1786-1816)

Sonnet

Sonnet

MARY ALCOCK (nee CUMBERLAND) (c.1742-98)

Instructions . . . for the Mob in England

The Chimney-Sweeper's Complaint

Written in Ireland

Modern Manners

A Receipt for Writing a Novel

MARY ROBINSON (nee DARBY) (1758-1800)

Stanzas. Written between Dover and Calais

London's Summer Morning

January, 1795

Stanzas

The Birth-Day

The Haunted Beach

MARIA LOGAN (fl. 1793)

Verses on . . . An Airy and Pleasant Situation, Near A Populous and Commercial Town

ISABELLA KELLY (nee FORDYCE, later HEDGELAND) (c.1759?-1857)

To an Unborn Infant

ANNE BATTEN CRISTALL (b.c.1768)

Morning. Rosamunde

Evening. Gertrude

A Fragment. The Blind Man

Song

ANNABELLA PLUMPTRE (1761-1838)

from Ode to Moderation

ANONYMOUS ('ELIZA')

from A Tour to the Glaciers of Savoy

MATILDA BETHAM (1776-1852)

In a Letter to A.R.C.

Written on Whitsun-Monday, 1795

[The Power of Women]

ANNA SAWYER (fl. 1794-1801)

Lines, Written on Seeing my Husband's Picture

Sunday Schools

ANONYMOUS ('A LADY')

On my own little Daughter, Four Years old

ANONYMOUS ('A LADY')

[A Rebuke to Robert Southey]

GEORGIANA CAVENDISH (nee SPENCER), DUCHESS OF DEVONSHIRE (1757-1806)

The Passage of the Mountain of St. Gothard

Sources and Notes

Additional Notes

Index of Titles and First Lines

Index of Authors

Index of Selected Topics


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