Anne Finch, Countess of Winchilsea (1661-1720): the other sources for her poetry (2)

A miniature portrait of Anne Finch when still young

You, when your body, life shall leave
Must drop entire, into the grave;
Unheeded, unregarded lie,
And all of you together, die;
Must hide that fleeting charm, that face in dust,
Or to some painted cloth, the slighted Image trust.
Whilst my famed works, shall through all times surprise,
My polished thoughts, my bright ideas rise,
And to new men be known, still talking to your eyes.
— in imitation of a fragment of Sapho’s

Friends and readers,

Well it was on June 30, 2020 that I posted a description of the four major sources of Anne Finch’s poetry as the foundation for my review of the new standard edition of her poetry by Jennifer Keith (and others), the opening of summer and hoped that in a few days I would post a description of the several other sources of her poetry that are known today. It’s now September, end of summer, with days shortening, temperatures dropping some, fall on the way. I have worked on and off all summer on this and (about a month and a half later) another review of an anthology of essays on Jane Austen and the arts. (I did teach and worked on projects, read with friends on line, wrote on the Net daily.) My problem with the review is the same: I have not the second volume, and thus many of the questions I have about the first I am told are answered in the second.

Some fundamental disagreements have led me to go back to all my original material so I can work from these if I must concentrate on just the one volume — I’ve very much enjoyed some of this because I’ve read in Anne’s sources for poetry (she writes many translations, imitations from the French as well as Italian, not to omit the Bible and fables), about women’s plays in the era, poetry by her women contemporaries, a few known to her and a few her friends. These sources are often printed texts by other people or individuals. For this blog I describe the other manuscripts and printed books which contain further poems by Anne Finch which are not found in the major four sources or are found in different forms. I re-read and/or skimmed the books and articles I knew of, and read carefully for the first time the articles that have been printed since, especially a couple by Keith (which I found to be very good).

I’m nonetheless especially troubled by Keith’s refusal to accept as by Anne Finch unattributed poems outside the acknowledged sources, even where there is good evidence and several people (besides me) have argued in print are by her. I assume they do not print these at all in the second volume (as they do not print any in the first). On this what I can say is this erasure and refusal makes my site not obsolete; it is and will for some time still perform its original purpose: to add to Myra Reynolds 1903 edition (drawn from 3 sources, MS Northampton or FH 283, MS Folger, 1713 Miscellany, plus what she knew of of the minor others sources) and the Hinnant-McGovern edition of the MS Wellesley what cannot be easily found otherwise.

*********************************************

Eastwell Manor (as it’s now called) today

The question is, what order should I list these sources in? group them as manuscript and then printed book? and within that, which seems the most important — to include poems clearly by her, some of which are remarkably good and/or interesting? in chronological order insofar as we can tell when they were produced or printed, or insofar as we can tell whether the poems by her found in them are early or late. On my site I attempted chronological order of their production/printing even if the book or ms appeared or was made late and still contains an earlier poem by Finch. I couldn’t tell when a manuscript was begun or no longer in use for copying, so if it contained an early poem by her I listed it early. I’ll repeat that, though it obscures interesting thematic connections as it’s the least subjective way of doing it.  In a way I do what Keith does in her new standard: I am content to put the ms’s and books in the order they themselves came and forget trying to date individual poems (except in commentary)

Click on the links as you go because I have not written out all over again the detailed information on my website but linked it in here. This is the summary of all the findings from the minor sources that I neglected to write up in one convenient place at the time Jim and I built the website and I put all the materials I had on it. You will find some fine poetry by Anne and links to further poetry placed in the alphabetical index on the website.

I begin with a text and source and book I didn’t know of until I began this review, it is one that Keith will not accept as by Anne Finch:

From a modern production of Venus and Adonis — this is a highly sexual sensual work of art (see other images)

1683, an anonymous libretto for John Blow’s Venus and Adonis, a pastoral opera-like masque, French influenced, nowadays an online copy exists; everything about this piece you might want to know, especially if you are interested in its probable author, Anne Finch, may be found in James Winn’s “A Versifying Maid of Honor:” Anne Finch and the Libretto for Venus and Adonis, The Review of English Studies, 59:238 (2008):67-85.  It is very sexy but then so are her two plays.

1693, The Female Vertuosos by Thomas Wright, with a dedication to Charles Finch, third Earl of Winchilsea (Heneage & Anne’s nephew): 1 song, “For the soft Joys of Love no longer last”

1696 Miscellanea Sacra or POEMS on DIVINE & MORAL SUBJECTS. Collected by N. Tate, Servant to His Majesty. “Tis not that which First we Love,/But what Dying we approve”: Mr. Waller. London. Printed for Hen. Playfor in the Temple Change in Fleet Street. MCDXCVI. 12 poems set off from the others surrounding them by style and topic. After the 6th, the printer suddenly skips the “by the same hand”, and then returns to it for the eighth. Six are found in the manuscripts; I am firmly convinced the 6 others are also by her

1701 A New Miscellany of Original Poems On Several Occasions. Written by the E. of D., Sir Charles Sidley, Sir Fleetw. Shepheard, Mr Wolesly, Mr Granvill, Mr Dryden, Mr Stepney, Mr. Rowe. And several other Eminent Hands. Never before Printed. London. Printed for Peter Buck, at the Sign of the Temple in Fleet Street; and George Strahan at the Golden Ball over against the Royal Exchange in Cornhill. 1701. Attributed to Charles Gilden. According to Cameron, this volume appeared in July 1701. The editor could have equally been Nicholas Rowe, friend to Anne.

A very important and curiously put together anthology (someone has pulled sheets from it). There are 7 poems by her here, one deliberately (mis)attributed to Charles Finch (“The First Edilium of Bion”), and one anonymous (“The Retirement”). 2 more may be by her (To Mr Granville, A Dialogue). Several poems by Rowe, one to Catherine Fleming (Flavia) praising Finch’s “Spleen.” John Irwin Fisher has persuasively argued that the Bion translation from the French is by Anne Finch, “‘In Pity to the emptying Town,’ Who’s Who, Where’s What, and Who’s the Poet,” Reading Swift: Papers from the Fifth Muenster Symposium on Jonathan Swift, ed. Hermann J. Real (Muenchen: Wilhelm Fink, 2008):286-305; Iola Williams, Some poetical miscellanies of the early 18th century, The Library 4:10 (1929):233-37

MS Portland, Vols 19 & 20. Vol 19: 5 poems by Anne, one found no where else, written in her own hand, profoundly depressed (“The long the long expected Hour is come” — the visit was too short, Lady Worsley hurried away). These are earlier or pre-1713 Miscellany poems; this has the better version of “I on Myself Can Live.” Vol 20: 3 by her, possibly a 4th; my guess is these come post-1713 Miscellany or later in her life (when generally more cheerful)

1714 POETICAL MISCELLANIES, Consisting of ORIGINAL POEMS AND TRANSLATIONS by the best Hands. Published by MR. STEELE. LONDON: Printed for JACOB TONSON at Shakespear’s Head over-against Catherine-street in the Strand. MDDCXIV. 7 poems by Anne. Nos 1, 3-5, 7-9. No 11 (an 8th, and Sapho poem) possibly by her, and Nos 6 & 10 also. One poem to Catherine Fleming (Flavia)

MS Additional 4457: 7 poems by Anne. Around the time of the 1713 Miscellany, one dated 1715. This has a better version of the Twelfth Night poem. 2 appeared in Birch.

1717 Poems on Several Occasions, published by Bernard Lintot, London. Reprinted 1935, Pope’s Own Miscellany, edited by Norman Ault. Of 89 poems, 9 are by Mrs. Finch, 1 is placed separately, then 6 (1st calls her Mrs. FINCH, the third Lady WINCHELSEA), then an eighth attributed to her as Mrs. Finch, probably therefore an earlier poem by her which Pope took from a different manuscript collection. 3 to or for Pope. Especially beautiful “An Invocation to the southern Winds inscrib’d to the right honourable CHARLES Earl of WINCHELSEA, at his Arrival in LONDON, after having been long detained on the coast of HOLLAND” By the honourable Mrs. FINCH, pp. 118-123, found nowhere else.

MS Harleian 7316 10 poems by Anne, not all firmly attributed. Nos 1-3, 5, 9-10, 12-15. 3 poems to Catherine Fleming.

MS F-H 282, Heneage’s diary, written into a 1723 almanac. 1 poem. “A Fragment of a dessign’d Poem upon Pitty, found in a little paper written with in her own hand:’Pitty, the softest Attribute Above,’ unfinished, among her last verses. Very touching his copying it out side-ways 3 years after she died.

1724 The Hive. A Collection of the Most Celebrated Songs. Reprinted a number of times. No new poems, but found among others by Finch (attributed elsewhere) are Love’s Relief (also unattributed in 1714 Steele), 1 from M Harleian I find uncertain, and ‘Ye lads and lasses that live at Longleat’, pp. 262-4 (in MS 28101, it resembles her gay ballad to Catherine Fleming).

MS Additional 28101. 1 poem. On a Gentleman’s sitting upon a lady’s Cremona fiddle, pp. 262-64, “Ye lads and ye lasses that live at Longleat …” Possibly by Anne (see directly above).

********************************

One of the source books Anne Finch poured over: Madame Dacier’s brief essay on and translations from what was known of Sappho

Now here I bring together these printed books and manuscripts, with attributed and unattributed poems by Anne Finch (and a couple mis-attributed, as by Charles Finch or by a young child) in them all; some found in the major 4 sources or sources here (with attribution material), some found nowhere else; I see that in fact the number is not overwhelming. They are deal-able with. Having made this list in a single page format is firm groundwork, which will help enable me review the Keith volume.  There are 13 volumes, of which 7 are printed books, and 6 manuscripts.  I regret strongly I do not dare to even link this blog into my website.  I just don’t know how to cope with it any more.  I haven’t gone near the website except of course to read it — not to correct or put new things in it — since 2015.

I could make a blog listing all the anthologies that Finch’s poetry has appeared in over the years and which ones, but I doubt anyone is that interested in the history of the printing of her poems — Keith’s second volume contains an essay which appears to be based on a study of this anthology tradition, which I assume will be accurate.  I did list them on my website. But there is an essay by Rachel Bowman in Volume 2 which will be sure to supersede mine even if it cites less anthologies.  Update 7/4/2022: Bowman does not supersede mine; an agenda determines her choices of anthologies; I am neutral because unaware of what this year’s or decades’ fights are about.

I could make a blog about Finch’s sources, for the sake of bringing out what she read and how large the number of her works are derived from translations. She lived in worlds of words — among books and written landscapes, imagined and real. Her memories of texts were important to her; her latest poetry is embedded in the imagery and art and experience of her youth before and moving into her worst depressive years (mid-1690s to 1702 or so).  But this will not make her admired and the above list on the website will have to do.

I am gathering the few important mistakes I made, which can no longer be corrected because I am now (as I say) afraid to touch my website lest I goof.  These with the two new attributions, Venus and Adonis and a poem called “The Cuckoo and the Nightingale” announced in an essay by Gillian Wright, “The Birds and the Poet” (The Review of English Studies, 64:264 (2013): 246-66 will form a third blog for sure.

I will say this refusal of Keith’s to include anything without firm attribution suggests a turning away from the real Finch by her — she does not want to see the depression, for in her list of characteristic passages by Anne, Keith omits Anne’s despair.  Again, her refusal can have the effect of making my website’s original purpose still alive.  I applaud Reynolds for embracing a perception of Finch that includes Finch’s vulnerable depressive wounded personality. I shall write in my review about this de-personalization as an insistent erasure that disables us from making a consistent and vivid sense of Finch’s life and work.  It is only by facing the full woman (however painful a successful academic woman scholar finds this) that we can take in the full resonances and final gallant courage of such a poem as the following free translation, adaptation.

The Goute and Spider. A Fable. Imitated from Mon sr de la Fontaine And Inscribed to Mr Finch After his first Fitt of that Distemper

When from th’infernal pit two Furies rose
One foe to Flies, and one to Mans repose,
Seeking aboue to find a place secure
Since Hell the Goute nor Spider cou’d endure.
On a rich Pallace at the first they light
Where pleas’d Arachne dazzl’d with the sight
In a conspicuous corner of a Room
The hanging Frett work makes her active Loom.
From leaf to leaf with every line does trace,
Admires the strange convenience of the place,
Nor can belieue those Cealings e’re were made
To other end than to promote her Trade.
Where prou’d and prosper’d in her finish’d work,
The hungry Fiend does in close Ambush lurk,
Until some silly Insect shall repay
What from her Bowells she has spun that day.
The wiser Gout (for that’s a thinking ill)
Observing how the splended chambers fill
With visitors such as abound below
Who from Hypocrates and Gallen grow
To some unwealthy shed resolues to fly
And there obscure and unmolested lye.
But see how eithers project quickly fails:
The Clown his new tormentor with him trayles
Through miry ways, rough Woods and furrow’d Lands,
Never cutts the Shooe nor propp’d in Crutches stands,
With Phoebus rising stays with Cynthia out,
Allows no respitt to the harass’d Gout.
Whilst with extended broom th’unpittying maid
Does the transparent Laberynth invade
Back stroke and fore the battering Engin went
Broke euery Cord and quite unhing’d the Tent.
No truce the tall Virago e’re admitts
Contracted and abash’d Arachne’ sits.
Then in conuenient Time the work renews
The battering Ram again the work persues.
What’s to be done? The Gout and Spider meet,
Exchange, the Cottage this; That takes the feet
Of the rich Abbott who that Pallace kept,
And ’till that time in Velvet Curtains slept.
Now Colwort leaves and Cataplasms (thô vain)
Are hourly order’d by that griping traine,
Who blush not to Prescribe t’exhaust our Gold
For aches which incurable they hold.
Whil’st stroak’d and fixt the pamper’d Gout remains
And in an easy Chair euer the Preist detains.
In a thatched Roof secure the Spider thrives
Both mending by due place their hated liues
From whose succeeding may this moral grow
That each his propper Station learn to know.
For You, my Dear, whom late that pain did seize
Not rich enough to sooth the bad disease
By large expenses to engage his stay
Nor yett so poor to fright the Gout away:
May you but some unfrequent Visits find
To prove you patient, your Ardelia kind,
Who by a tender and officious care
Will ease that Grief or her proportion bear,
Since Heaven does in the Nuptial state admitt
Such cares but new endeaments ot begett,
And to allay the hard fatigues of life
Gave the first Maid a Husband, Him a Wife.
(MS Folger, pp. 276-77, from La Fontaine,
La Goutte et l”Araignée, III:9, pp. 92-93)

Bifrons Park, Kent, 1695-1700 (unknown artist)

Ellen