Page:Poems of Anne Countess of Winchilsea 1903.djvu/79

 INTRODUCTION Ixxv ���substituted a bit of poetical paganism for Ardelia's hon- est Hebraisms? Scott, it seems, did not know Lady Southey's "Winchilsea. Southey knew her but slightly. �Specimens He includes her in his Specimens (1807) with the laconic comment: "Her poems were praised by Howe and by Pope; and they deserved praise." He publishes nothing of hers except portions of her Petition for an Absolute Retreat. Much more space is devoted to Anne Killigrew, to Mary Barber, to Constantia Grrierson, to Elizabeth Howe. But Wordsworth made amends for all omissions. �The modern interest in Lady Winchilsea's work and the transfer of emphasis from her poems on man to her hitherto William unnoticed poems on nature date from the pub- �Wordsworth lication of Wordsworth's Essay, Supplementary to the Preface (1815), in which occurred the well-known passage : �Now it is remarkable that, excepting the Nocturnal Reverie of Lady Winchilsea, and a passage or two in the Windsor Forest of Pope, the poetry intervening between the publication of the Para- dise Lost and the Seasons does not contain a single new image of external nature, and scarcely presents a familiar one from which it can be inferred that the eye of the Poet had been steadily fixed upon his object, much less that his feelings had urged him to work upon it in the spirit of genuine imagination. �In 1820 Wordsworth sent Lady Mary Lowther a unique present. It was a manuscript volume of extracts from the poems of Lady Winchilsea and kindred writers. Words- worth had made the selections and a "female friend" had transcribed them for him. In the accompanying Sonnet to Lady Mary Lowther he explained that he had "culled this store of lucid crystals from a Parnassian Cave seldom trod." This volume is probably the one referred to by Christopher North when he says, " We never had in our hands the poems of Anne, Countess of Winchilsea, printed in 1713; but we well remember reading some of them in beautiful manu- ��� �