1737, June 22. Mrs. Cooper came to my chambers: said she would return Puttenham's Art of Poesy, Browne's Pastorals, and Sir Henry Wotton, when she had finished her extracts for the second volume of her Muses' Library to be published by Christmas.
July 4, Monday. Returned Sir T. More's works: some of his English poetry therein might be for Mrs. Cooper's work, or Mr. Haywards, on Fortune, etc.
Aug. 13. Rec'd letter from Mrs. Cooper to borrow old Marlowe's poem of Hero and Leander for the continuation of her Muses' Library; sent by the servant a very scarce collection of old poetry, called The Paradise of Dainty Devices, in which are several pieces by the old Lord Vaux in King Henry the Eighth's time, the Earl of Oxford, Sir W. Raleigh, Mr. Edwards, Jasper Haywood, Hunis, Churchyard, Kinwelmarsh, Lloyd, Whetstone, etc., printed 4o. 1578. To borrow one of Caxton's books of Sir Hans Sloane and remember to apply the story of Absyrtus in the preface for Mr. Hayward's Collection of select thoughts from our old poets.[278]
Mrs. Cooper frequently comments on the difficulty and expense of gathering material for her enterprise and gratefully acknowledges "the generous Assistance of the Candid Mr. Oldys." Biographical data were also obtained only through most patient effort. The only Lives of the Poets to which she could have access were Wood's Athenæ Oxoniensis and the works of Phillips, Winstanley, and Jacob. Edward Phillips's Theatrum Poetarum appeared in 1675. Its first volume gave brief biographical and critical notes on sixty-four authors from Robert of Gloucester to George Chapman, thus covering about the same ground as Mrs. Cooper's first volume which closes with Samuel Daniel. William Winstanley's Lives of the English Poets was published in 1687. It includes notes on poets from William the Conqueror to James II with occasional brief illustrative extracts. The Poetical Register of Giles Jacob (1724) is, in the first volume, confined to dramatists and is based on Langbain. The second volume, The Lives and Characters of the English Poets, extends about a century and a quarter later than Mrs. Cooper's volume. In the period before 1600 about half the names in her volume are included and briefly commented on. Jacob also gives an occasional extract.
Mrs. Cooper was not, then, without predecessors in her undertaking. The novelty in her book was her assumption that people would not only like to know about the old poets, but that there would be many lovers of literature who would rejoice in reading the old poems, and very nearly in their original antiquated form. She gives ten pages from Langland, eleven from Barclay, twenty-eight from Sackville, twenty-four from Churchyard, thirty-five from Fulke Greville, thirty-one from Fairfax, and so on. Chaucer, Spenser, and Shakespeare are less fully represented, as being already well known. The selections are the result of wide reading and are made because they pleased Mrs. Cooper's own taste. "What has given me Pleasure in my Closet," she says, "I have undertaken to recommend to the Publick; not presuming to inform the Judgment, but only awaken the Attention." That she failed to "awaken Attention" was the fault of the age. Her selections were representative and interesting.
Mrs. Cooper's book shows not only wide research and a full knowledge of extant criticism, but it also manifests a personal zest in reading and an unusual independence of literary judgment. This independence is shown in her choice of authors. Phillips, Winstanley, and Jacob had omitted Langland, but she says, "In my Judgment, no Writer, except Chaucer, and Spenser, for many Ages, had more of real Inspiration." Or take the case of Lydgate. Phillips mentions him, but not, apparently, from any personal knowledge of his work. Winstanley and Jacob praise him highly. Mrs. Cooper says of him: "Many Authors are so profuse in his Praise as to rank him very little below his Master, and, often, quote them together; which rais'd my Curiosity so high, that I gave a considerable Price for his Works, and waded thro' a large Folio, hoping still to have my Expectation gratified.... But I must, either confess my own want of Penetration, or beg leave to dissent from his Admirers." She gives a long quotation from Lord Brook's A Treatise of Humane Learning, because his name has "never yet received the Honours it deserved." She is indignant at the general indifference to the work and fame of Edward Fairfax and writes a eulogy of several pages. Her comments on Chaucer, Spenser, and Shakespeare are brief, since all agree on their preëminence. Mr. Lounsbury, after noting one or two errors in the book, says of it: "I know of no similar work produced at that period in which the knowledge displayed is so accurate and comprehensive, or the critical estimates so uniformly good and just. There was exhibited in it not merely freshness of judgment but the independence that springs from the study of writers at first hand."[279] Mrs. Cooper had in her the making of a scholar. She allowed herself no generalities. Whatever she said was based on a thorough study of the material under discussion. Furthermore, she acquainted herself with all extant critical opinion without thereby losing the power to form an opinion of her own.
Mrs. Cooper's Preface is an excellent, even an eloquent, piece of writing, in justification of poets as a nation's glory. She recognizes that "Merit is not its own Preservative" and wishes in her book to set up if possible "a Bulwark which shall preserve Merit from the attacks of Time." She considers her "Series of Poetry (which has never been aim'd at anywhere else) ... one of the most valuable collections that ever was made publick." She has no apologies to make. In introducing to the moderns this august company of ancient poets she is saved from any possible self-consciousness by the dignity of her enterprise. The same tone pervades her Dedication. No single name is glorious enough to appear at the head of her list. She chooses rather a dedication to "the truly Honourable Society for the Encouragement of Learning."[280] That Society was then in the hey-day of its brief glory. Mrs. Cooper had, apparently, no thought of personally benefiting by her Dedications. On the contrary she counted this an opportunity to express what all authors and lovers of literature must feel towards a design "so great, seasonable, and humane" as that of this new organization, a design applauded by "all who have Generosity, Benevolence or Politeness."
As dramatist and actress Mrs. Cooper would deserve at least passing mention, but as a scholar, as an ardent advocate of early English poetry, she must take high rank, not only among the learned women, but also among the learned men of her day.
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (1689-1762)
No woman of the first half of the eighteenth century had a more active mind or facile pen than Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. Although almost none of her work appeared in print in her lifetime, her personality made its own way, and she was early recognized as of note for genius and learned acquirements. It is, therefore, of especial interest to inquire into the particulars of her education, and to find out her status as a woman of letters.