Disparagement of women's verse, however, must not go too far. Women, especially English women, have produced a great quantity of beautiful poetry that is worthy of a place in any rank but the very first. It is the business of subsequent pages to show how beautiful this poetry is. But there is another beauty which it may be hoped that these pages will also reveal the beauty of noble lives led by pure and able women. For with but one or two exceptions, the great Englishwomen of letters have left splendid examples of intellectual vigour in association with the most lovely qualities of personal character. Physical beauty has not unfrequently been theirs; but they have bequeathed to us more enduring charms.

I must here express the reluctance with which I have had to abandon my original intention of allowing the later pages of this book to take some detailed notice of every considerable English poetess now alive. Pressure of space has forced me to adopt a plan that is much less comprehensive. The chapter on contemporary writers will be found to deal chiefly with six or eight poetesses, whose works are deserving of more attention than, even by this selective process, I have been able to afford. As these writers are still producing poetry, I have deemed it undesirable to attempt any exact classification of them in order of merit.

ENGLISH POETESSES.

I

CHAPTER I.

KATHERINE PHILIPS-APHRA BEHN-THE DUCHESS OF NEWCASTLE-EARLY MINOR WRITERS.

REMEMBER to have conceived a humble affection

for the "Matchless Orinda," England's first professed poetess, at a very early age. In the dusty recesses of an Edinburgh book-shop I had been burrowing through a rarely-visited accumulation of old folios, and came upon. three treasures side by side: a perfect copy of the first complete "Faery Queen," the original "Arcadia," and "Poems by Mrs. Katherine Philips, the Matchless Orinda, to which is added Monsieur Corneille's Pompey and Horace, Tragedies, with several other Translations out of the French. 1667."

Katherine

Philips.

London:

Such was the title of a goodly volume in excellent preservation, adorned by a portrait of the author, and inscribed. with many notes in various characters of handwriting. These notes gave the volume a dignity that Rivière's stateliest binding could not have bestowed upon it. I recollect that the first entry eulogised the poetess in ludicrously unstinted terms, and ended with the trite quotation beginning "Nec Jovis ira, nec ignis, nec ferrum poterit." But other inscriptions proved that the work had been handed down from

B

one possessor to another as a thing to be cherished and reverenced, and the repeated occurrence of one nameBonner-marked it as an heirloom of some bookish family. This pedigree made me covet the volume; and no doubt it would now be on one of my shelves but for the still greater attractions displayed by the folio Spenser at the same time. Even the Spenser alone was more than my fortunes at the moment could command, for its price was two guineas, certainly little enough for such a volume. There was talk with the bookseller about a premium of five shillings to be paid if the book were reserved till I returned to claim it in a few days; and in a few days, accordingly, my two guineas made me possessor of the "Faery Queen," the worthy vendor, in the end, declining all advance on the original price. It was then that I indulged myself with another peep at the "matchless Orinda,” still longing to possess and love what so many reverent hands had fondled. At this time, indeed, Katherine Philips was but a name to me, yet the living pen-scratches of these dead admirers seemed to give her a worth in my eyes beyond the public fame she had won as the friend of Jeremy Taylor and Cowley. From the testimony of these unpretending and obscure followers, I then and there grew to a conviction that there must be something very lovable in her, much as one makes sure of a woman's goodness of heart when her servants are overheard to praise her. A short time afterwards I took occasion to inquire if the book was still unbought, but my hopes of ultimately being able to cherish its declining years were dispelled. It had been advertised by catalogue, and written for by a London gentleman. This is the only first folio of "Orinda" I have ever seen. Copies of the edition

are scarce now.

Whatever the judgment of to-day may be upon the writings of Katherine Philips, nobody can doubt that in her age she deserved her wonderful reputation. Her wit and her

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beauty were sought in the Court of Charles the Second, but she contented herself with a quiet country life in Wales. She was intimate with the most brilliant spirits of the times, and commanded their admiration, without once lowering the dignity of her womanhood by participation in the looseness of morals prevalent among them. She was well read in general literature,―quite beyond the average of women of her time, her acquaintance with the Bible being not the least noticeable feature of her condition. She exhibited a remarkable interest in politics, and was not afraid to make her political opinions known. She was the first Englishwoman who ever wrote much verse that people talked about, yet so modest was she that she would not consent that any of it should be published during her lifetime. Before she was thirty she was a great power in the literature of the day. Cowley, Dryden, Sir John Denham, and others felt, regarding her, as, later, Sir Richard Steele felt regarding another, that to love her had been a liberal education. At the age of thirty-three, when she died, she was giving every promise of developing into such a factor in English society as Madame Rambouillet had been in France. One of her poems, indeed, indicates that she had actually inaugurated an association which we may presume to have borne resemblance to the coterie of the Precieuses. Not a breath of scandal had ever touched her. Not a line had ever left her pen that she need have blushed for. Her end fulfilled the wish expressed

in her own lines:

"So that, in various accidents,

I conscience may, and honour, keep,

I with that ease and innocence

Shall die, as infants go to sleep."

In short, she shines to us as she shone for those who surrounded her, a sweet woman in a corrupt society.

All this can be said of Katherine Philips, while yet we

may confess that modern reader.

to be felt in it.

her poetry is not very interesting to the It is affected. There is little heart-beating Even to the extent of sickly prudery, she eschews the romance of love as a theme, and versifies platonically on the delights of friendship, generally friendship between one woman and another. Some of her strongest thinking is expended on political poems which have lost all savour now; and stilted use of stale classical metaphor is abundant. If her acquaintance, Mrs. Owen, goes to sea, verses are written encharging her to the care of a sufficiently respectable Triton. His Majesty crossing from France must be addressed in an epistle comparing him to Arion on a dolphin. And so on. These faults are easily pointed to but there yet remains a great deal of worth in Katherine Philips's verse.

Two things have to be borne in mind when we judge her. In the first place, we have to recollect the recognition she deserves as being the first Englishwoman with sufficient imagination (and confidence in it) to adopt pliant verse as the habitual vehicle for her thinking, in defiance of the almost vested right in it which male writers had till then preserved. Her courage may be compared to that of a woman who should make herself as skilful with the rapier as a man. Over form of verse Orinda exhibits as much command as any author of her time. And, as our first poetess, she at any rate should obtain rank relatively as high as that which we accord to Cædmon, our first poet.

In the second place, we have to give attention to the fact that for her, as for all other writers of the period, French influence was supreme. It was largely woman's influence, too, that the French thus gave us at this time. The affected delicacy of the Precieuses was teaching us how to be very proper in our ways of speech. They did not exactly recommend us the proverbial "prunes and prisms," but they certainly preached prudery and precision beyond all things.