She was even ashamed to proclaim her own great Genius, probably because the Custom of the Times discountenanced poetical Excellence in a Female. The Gentlemen of the Quill published it not, perhaps envying her superior Talents; and her Bookseller, complying with national Prejudices, put a fictitious Name to her Love's Contrivance, thro' Fear that the Work shou'd be condemned if known to be Feminine. With modest Diffidence she sent her Performances, like Orphans, into the World, without so much as a Nobleman to protect them; but they did not need to be supported by Interest, they were admired as soon as known, their real Standard, Merit, brought crowding Spectators to the playhouses, and the female Author, tho' unknown, heard Applauses, such as have since been heaped on that great Author and Actor Colley Cibber.
Her play of the Busy Body, when known to be the Work of a Woman scarce defray'd the Expences of the First Night. The thin audience were pleased, and caused a full House the Second; the Third was crowded, and so on to the Thirteenth, when it was stopt, on account of the advanced Season; but the following Winter it appear'd again with Applause, and for Six Nights successively, was acted by rival Players, both at Drury Lane and at the Hay-Market Houses. See here the Effects of Prejudice, a Woman who did Honour to the Nation, suffer'd because she was a Woman. Are these things fit and becoming a free-born People, who call themselves polite and civilized! Hold! let my Pen stop, and not reproach the present Age for the Sins of their Fathers....
A Poet is born so, not made by Rules; and is there not an equal Chance that the Poetical Birth should be female as well as male?... I could wish that some young Ladies of my Acquaintance, now in Boarding Schools, had classical Education, which would improve their Minds, furnish them with a more general Knowledge, and of course better fit them for Conversation, and the Management of Business.
The author of "To the World" finds great satisfaction in the union of Mrs. Lennox with "Lord Corke and Mr. Samuel Johnson" in the translation of Brumoy's Greek Theatre.
This convinces me [she says] that not only that barbarous Custom of denying Women to have Souls, begins to be rejected as foolish and absurd, but also that foolish Assertion, that Female Minds are not capable of producing literary Works, equal even to those of Pope, now loses Ground, and probably the next Age may be taught by our pens that our Geniuses have been hitherto cramped and smothered, but not extinguished, and that the Sovereignty which the male Part of the Creation have, until now usurped over us, is unreasonably arbitrary: And, further, that our natural Abilities entitle us to a larger Share, not only in Literary Decisions, but that, with the present Directors, we are equally entitled to Power both in Church and State....
In 1764 Baker, in Biographia Dramatica, gave an account of Mrs. Centlivre's work, and most eighteenth-century dramatic collections included plays by her. In 1776 The New English Theatre, which professed to assemble "the most Valuable Plays which have been Acted on the London Stage," published The Busy Body, A Bold Stroke for a Wife, and The Wonder. Her plays were included by John Bell in various collections from 1776 to 1792. Mrs. Inchbald, in her British Theatre (1808), and Oxberry, in The New English Drama, 1818-1824, carried the publication of her plays into the nineteenth century. Such brief notices as occur are highly laudatory. Mr. Baker says: "In a word we cannot help giving it as our opinion, that if we do not allow her to be the very first of our female writers for the stage, she has but one above her, and may justly be placed next to her predecessor in dramatic glory, the great Mrs. Behn." Nearly half a century later Mrs. Inchbald gave even stronger praise when she said that Mrs. Centlivre "ranks in the first class of our comic dramatists." Of the Busy Body Mrs. Inchbald said: "This comedy is by far her best work. In excellence of fable, strength of character, and intricacy of occurrences, it forms one of the most entertaining exhibitions the theatre can boast." Of The Wonder she wrote: "Garrick thought Don Felix worthy his most powerful exertions, in describing the passion of jealousy; and his character was upon the lists with the favorite parts he performed.... Mrs. Centlivre has somewhere said 'the Muses, like most females, are least liberal to their own sex.' She was ungrateful if she did not acknowledge her obligation to them in the composition of this work; for they presided with no niggardly influence over the whole production."
Modern study of Mrs. Centlivre's work has taken a surprising turn. It has to do entirely with Quellen and Verhältnisse. In 1900-1905 there were seven German dissertations dealing with the sources of her plays.[199]
The impulse to play-writing seems to have expended itself with Mrs. Centlivre. Hannah Cowley's popular Belle's Stratagem (1782) is the only other play of even moderate importance through the rest of the century. The situation with regard to play-writing is rather curious. Virtuous ladies were at liberty to write tragedies because tragedies were supposed to be moral and elevating. But unfortunately none of these ladies succeeded in tragedy. On the other hand, ladies who were not virtuous wrote comedies and were eminently successful. The realm between tragedy and comedy, the sentimental comedy, in its combination of didacticism and morality with social studies from middle-class life and the opportunity for rapid intrigue, might have seemed the very medium in which women could most advantageously work. But the successful sentimental comedies from The Conscious Lovers to False Delicacy were written by men playwrights.
General Learning and Literary Work
Besides the women whose work was sufficiently specialized to be grouped under particular subjects or species there were many women to whom learning was itself an avocation with no thought of any literary outcome, and there were many more whose interests were in the general field of belles-lettres and who wrote either in verse or in prose, and on such varied themes as the occasion might suggest. Since no effective principle of classification suggests itself in connection with these writers, it will probably be in the interests of clearness to discuss them in an order as nearly chronological as may be.