Mrs. Madan ("formerly Miss Cowper") was living in 1755. She was reputed to have fine talents for poetry, an "extraordinary genius," in fact, but she could never be brought to publish any of her poems. She is therefore known now only by her translation of Abelard's Letter to Eloisa, a kind of companion piece to Pope's Eloisa to Abelard. It is smooth, well-expressed, and shows some sympathetic understanding of Abelard's emotions.
Miss Mary Masters (fl. 1755)
Miss Mary Masters, a native of Ottley near Leeds in Yorkshire, had an early taste for poetry, but she was "always brow-beat and discountenanced by her parents."[371] The chief poems by her in Eminent Ladies are trite paraphrases of the Psalms and need not detain us.
In 1755 she brought out by subscription Familiar Letters and Poems on Several Occasions. The letters between her as Maria and various friends in 1755 are of considerable interest. The young ladies discuss, in the main, questions of love and marriage, but some letters at the end of the book concern themselves with the relative powers of men and women. "Miss ——" sustains the conventional view that they differ fundamentally, men having more strength of judgment, and women quicker apprehension. She says that no woman has been great as an orator, that the best women poets are inferior to Milton, and that men have always managed the government. Maria maintains that the difference is not in the faculties themselves, but in the training of the faculties and in opportunities for their use. She cites a young lady of twenty-two in France who had been admitted to the Academy of Science. And one entire letter is a eulogy of Italian learned ladies. She gives the name of Clelia Borromeo of Milan, counted by the Italians "the greatest mathematician their country has produced, except Galileo and Manfredi"; Gabriella Agnesi, also of Milan, skilled in algebraic computations; Countess Tullia Francesca Bizetti Imbonati, a "Lyrick Poetess," another Milanese lady; Laura Catterina Bassi, Professor of Experimental Philosophy in the University of Bologna, and many others. Maria is the earliest apologist for the advancement of women to make such definite and intelligent use of the learned Italian ladies as corroborative illustrations.[372]
Miss Mary Chandler (1687-1745)
Miss Mary Chandler (1687-1745), the daughter of a minister, was a popular poetess of Bath, where she had at eighteen set up a little shop. She was literary in her tastes and in spite of constant ill-health and the hard work entailed by her shop she found time for wide reading in poetry. She also wrote rhyming riddles and poems to her friends. She became a favorite among the gentry and the literary ladies in and about Bath, Lady Russell, the Duchess of Somerset, Mrs. Barber, and Elizabeth Rowe being among her friends. She often visited at great houses and her poems were handed about with much praise. She was finally advised to make a collection of these occasional verses and publish them. They appeared under the title A Description of Bath, and the book was so favorably received that it went through six editions by 1744, and a seventh and an eighth edition in 1755 and 1767. Our knowledge of Miss Chandler comes mainly from Cibber's Lives of the Poets. The account published by Cibber was written by Miss Chandler's brother Samuel.[373]
Mary Granville (Mrs. Delany) (1700-1788)
Mary Granville was sent at six to the private school of Mdlle. Puelle. From eight to seventeen she was educated at home according to the established programme for girls destined for marriage and social position. "Music, reading, writing, French, work, and whist" are the occupations she enumerates. At seventeen she was married to Alexander Pendarves, a match counted advantageous though the bridegroom was sixty and detested by the bride. After the wedding—"conducted with much pomp and misery"—there came seven years on an isolated estate where all the skill and patience of the young wife were called into action by the jealous fancies and the hypochondriac whims of her invalid husband. At twenty-four, a beautiful widow, she entered upon a gay period of London life. Socially a success she had many offers of marriage, but her affections were entirely centered upon Lord Baltimore. His impassioned love was not, however, equal to the strain put upon it by her small dowry, and he suddenly married a rich wife. After the long illness that followed this destruction of her hopes Mrs. Pendarves went to Ireland to recuperate. There she met Patrick Delany whom, years later, when she was forty-three, she married. The most satisfying years of her life came after this marriage. Dr. Delany belonged to the best literary set of Dublin, and he was in full accord with his wife's literary and artistic interests. For a quarter of a century her life was one of leisure, stimulating companionship, much reading and discussion, much social variety, and long hours of entertaining hand-work. After Dr. Delany's death in 1768 Mrs. Delany lived in an honored, dignified, but not inactive retirement. She was loved and visited by the King and Queen and by many devoted friends. There had gathered about her name a tradition of love and admiration. A sketch of her entitled "Maria," by Dr. Delany, does not exceed the general impression we get of her charm. He wrote:
Maria was early initiated into every art, with elegance and condition, that could form her into a fine lady, a good woman, and a good Christian. She read and wrote two languages correctly and judiciously. She soon became a mistress of her pen in every art to which a pen could be applied. She wrote a fine hand in the most masterly manner, she drew, and she designed with amazing correctness and skill....