Yet to judge from her lively objections [(pp. 44-47)], the attempt to class her as a plagiarist was unjustified. Court poetry in the age was so uniform that apparent echoes are a matter of course. We may compare her
The bloody Wolf, the Wolf does not pursue; The Boar, though fierce, his Tusk will not embrue In his own Kind, Bares, not on Bares do prey: Then art thou, Man, more savage far than they, [(p. 37)]
with Rochester's Satyr against Mankind:
Birds, feed on Birds, Beasts, on each other prey, But Savage Man alone, does Man betray,
or Waller on the death of Lady Rich, "But savage beasts, or men as wild as they!" Anne Killigrew's use of stock epithets and polite locutions mark a conventionality which inevitably borders on the derivative. But at her best, as for example "On the Birth-Day of Queen Katherine," [(p. 47)], she is able to move effectively beyond the conventional. The conflict between the formal occasion and the dismal weather becomes a surprising symbol of paradox, and the dream and scriptural consolation come to have an intensity more metaphysical than courtly. Similarly, in the unfinished "Ode," [(p. 82)], or in parts of the "Pastoral Dialogue," [(p. 63)], she produces some forceful and startling images.
The individuality of her works lies in their firm, evangelical moral tone, which is clearly distinguishable from the genteel piety of her contemporaries. Dryden's comment:
So cold herself, whilst she such Warmth exprest,
'Twas Cupid bathing in Diana's Stream,
is an apt description of, say, her "Pastoral Dialogue," [(pp. 63-75.)] Anne Killigrew's interest in poetic theory is notable; her early "Alexandreis" prays for the "frozen style" to be warmed with a "Poetique fire," and her "Love, the Soul of Poetry," contrasts the flatness of commonplace verse with the rapture and heat produced by a subject which "Enlarg'd his Fancy, and set free his Muse." The poem "To My Lord Colrane" meditates on her slothful muse and its awakening of life. Throughout her writings she keeps the poet's didactic end in view and has a high regard for the nature of her art. Something of the severity of the York household is reflected in the writings of the Maid of Honour.
The present text is reproduced, by kind permission, from the beautiful copy in the Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington. This volume, originally in Dr. Philip Bliss's collection, is listed in the Huth Catalogue (1913), p. 1207, and described by W. C. Hazlitt, Second Series of Bibliographical Collections and Notes (1882), p. 328. It contains on the flyleaf a MS poem by E. E., transcribed below. The Rev. Joseph Hunter, British Museum Add. MSS. 24492, Vol. VI, p. 100, suggests that E. E. was Edmund Elys, [4] the learned and contentious author of occasional poems (Verses on Several Occasions, 1699) and theological pamphlets (for example, Epistola ad Sam. Parkerum S.T.P., 1680). The generally vivacious style of the verse and the reference to the debate with Dr. Parker suggest that the identification is just, but the relationship between Mrs. Elys and the Killigrews is not known. Pages 72 and 73 are skipped, and pages 68 and 69 are misnumbered 60 and 61.
The self-portrait of Anne Killigrew prefixed to the Poems and printed herein as the frontispiece shows that she was a competent if conventional artist. Her descriptions of her paintings, [pp. 27-29], suggest that here too moral and scriptural topics predominated over courtly affairs. E. E., Dryden and the writer of the Epitaph agree on Anne Killigrew's sanctity and gravity of mind. The modern reader may gain from her book of verse a moving insight into the thoughts and preoccupations of a young lady at court in the declining years of the Stuarts.