“Philosophical Fancies. Folio. London 1653.
“Philosophical & Physical Opinions. Folio. London 1655.
“Philosophical Letters. Folio. London 1664.
“Two Hundred and Eleven Sociable Letters. Folio. London 1664.
“Orations. Folio. 1662.
“Poems. Folio. 1653.”
The reader need not be afraid that much of all this is to be inflicted upon him; we have already seen a good deal of her writings; but a few fresh examples must needs be given. One reason for the prodigious number of her works was that she always kept secretaries at hand to write at dictation whatever happened to come into her head, a second seems to have been that she considered whatever came into her head to have been worthy of publication. Cibber says of her:—[170]
“Being now restored to the sunshine of prosperity, she dedicated her time to writing poems, philosophical discourses, orations and plays. She was of a generous turn of mind, and kept a great many young ladies about her person, who occasionally wrote what she dictated. Some of them slept in a room contiguous to that in which her Grace lay, and were ready, at the call of her bell, to rise any hour of the night, to write down her conceptions, lest they should escape her memory. The young ladies, no doubt, often dreaded her Grace’s conceptions, which were frequent, but all of the poetical or philosophical kind.”