Anne Finch, Countess of Winchilsea

This article is about the 18th century English poet. For the 20th century American poet, see Annie Finch.

Anne Finch, Countess of Winchilsea (1661-1720). Courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

Anne Finch
Born	Anne Kingsmill April 1661 Sydmonton, Hampshire
Died	August 5, 1720 Westminster
Occupation	Lady in waiting, peer
Nationality	English
Citizenship	British subject
Notable work(s)	Miscellany: Poems on Several Occasions Written by a Lady (1713)
Spouse(s)	Heneage Finch

Anne Finch, Countess of Winchilsea (April 1661 - 5 August 1720) was an English poet.

Life

Youth and education

Finch was born Anne Kingsmill, the daughter of Sir William Kingsmill of Sidmonton (near Southampton), in April 1661.

5 months after her birth her father died. Her mother married Sir Thomas Ogle in 1662, and died in 1664.

Career

Nothing is heard of Anne Finch until 1683, when she is mentioned as a maid of honor to Mary of Modena, duchess of York.

In May 1684 she married colonel Heneage Finch, 2nd son of the 2nd earl of Winchilsea, who was attached to the duke of York's household. To him she addressed poems and versified epistles, in which he figures as "Daphnis" and she as "Ardelia."

At the 1688 Revolution Heneage Finch refused the oath of allegiance to William and Mary, and he and his wife had no fixed home until they were invited in 1690 by Finch's nephew Charles, 4th earl of Winchelsea, to live at Eastwell Park, Kent, where they would remain for the next 12 years. After the death of William and the accession of Queen Anne in 1702, the Finches returned to London.

On the death of his nephew Charles in 1712, Heneage succeeded to the title as 5th earl of Winchilsea, with Anne becoming countess of Winchilsea (or "Lady Winchelsea").

Anne Finch was a friend of Alexander Pope, of Nicholas Rowe, and of other men and women of letters. Her most considerable work, a poem on "Spleen," written in stanzas after Cowley's manner, and published in Gildon's Miscellany, 1701, inspired Rowe to compose some verses in her honour, entitled "An Epistle to Flavia". Pope addressed "An impromptu to Lady Winchilsea" (Miscellanies, 1727), in which he declared that "Fate doomed the fall of every female wit" before "Ardelia's" talent. She replied by comparing "Alexander" to Orpheus, who she said would have written like Pope had he lived in contemporary London.

The only collected edition of her poems was printed in 1713, containing a tragedy never acted, called Aristomenes, or the Royal Shepherd, and dedicated to the countess of Hertford, with "an Epilogue to [Rowe's] Jane Shore, to be spoken by Mrs. Oldfield the night before the poet's day" (printed in the General Dictionary, x. 178, from a manuscript in the countess's possession).

Another poem, entitled "The Prodigy," written at Tunbridge Wells, called forth Cibber's regret that the countess's rank made her only write occasionally as a pastime.

Finch died 5 August 1720, aged 59. She left no children. Her husband died 30 September 1726.

Writing

Did I, my lines intend for public view,
How many censures, would their faults pursue,
Some would, because such words they do affect,
Cry they’re insipid, empty, and uncorrect.
And many have attained, dull and untaught,
The name of wit only by finding fault.
True judges might condemn their want of wit,
And all might say, they’re by a woman writ.

“

”

Finch, The Introduction

Lady Winchelsea's poems contain many copies of verse addressed to her friends and contemporaries. She was to some extent a follower of the "matchless Orinda" in the fervor of her friendships.

During her lifetime she published only 2 books of note: 1. The poem on "Spleen," in A New Miscellany of Original Poems, published by Charles Gildon, London, 1701, 8vo; republished under the title of The Spleen, a Pindarique Ode; with a Prospect of Death, a Pindarique Essay, London, 1709, 8vo. 2. Miscellany Poems on Several Occasions, written by a Lady, 1713, 8vo.

With Alexander Pope she was on friendly terms, and 1 of the 7 commendatory poems printed with the 1717 edition of his works was by her.

On her death, she left a number of unpublished manuscripts to her friends, the countess of Hertford and a clergyman named Creake, and by their permission some of these poems were printed by Birch in the General Dictionary.

According to James Winn, Finch is the anonymous librettist of the opera Venus and Adonis (composed circa 1683), with music by John Blow. Bruce Wood, in his critical edition of the opera for the Purcell Society, agrees with Winn.

Lady Winchelsea's poems were almost forgotten when Wordsworth, in the "Essay, supplementary to the Preface" of his Poems (1815), drew attention to her nature-poetry, asserting that with the exception of Pope's Windsor Forest and her "Nocturnal Reverie," English poetry between Milton's Paradise Lost and Thomson's Seasons did not present "a single new image of external nature." Wordsworth sent at Christmas 1819 a MS of extracts from Lady Winchelsea and other writers to Lady Mary Lowther, and his correspondence with Alexander Dyce contains some minute criticism and appreciation of her poetry.

Critical introduction

by Edmund Gosse

In that invaluable Essay which Wordsworth appended to his Lyrical Ballads in 1815, he says that "excepting the 'Nocturnal Reverie' of Lady Winchilsea, and a passage or two in the Windsor Forest of Pope, the poetry of the period intervening between the publication of the Paradise Lost and the Seasons does not contain a single new image of external nature." This remark, although rather acute than exact, since the poet forgets both Gay and Parnell, did eminent service in restoring to the list of English poets a name entirely and unworthily forgotten. Since Wordsworth’s mention of Lady Winchilsea, the piece that he cites has been often reprinted in collections of verse, but it cannot be said that any further effort has been made to investigate the claims of the neglected authoress.

Yet she was a poetess of singular originality and excellence; her lines "To the Nightingale" have lyrical qualities which were scarcely approached in her own age, and would do credit to the best, while her odes and more weighty pieces have a strength and accomplishment of style which make the least interesting of them worth reading.

Lady Winchilsea was among the last pindaric writers of the school of Cowley. Her odes display that species of writing in the final dissolution out of which it was redeemed by Gray and Collins. Such a poem as her "All is Vanity", full as it is of ingenious thought, and studded with noble and harmonious lines, fails to impress the attention as a vertebrate composition. Her "Ode to the Spleen", from which Pope borrowed his famous "aromatic pain", is still more loose and fragmentary in structure.

On the other hand, her less ambitious studies have a singular perfection of form and picturesqueness of manner. She lights upon the right epithet and employs it with precision, and gives a brilliant turn, even to a triviality, by some bright and natural touch.

Her "Nocturnal Reverie" is worthy of Wordsworth’s commendation; it is simply phenomenal as the creation of a friend of Prior and of Pope, and some of the couplets, especially those which describe the straying horse, and the cries of the birds, are worthy of the closest observers of nature in a naturalistic age.

In light verse Lady Winchilsea took Prior as a model, and succeeded respectably; her reply to Pope’s complimentary verses to her under the name of Ardelia deserves higher praise.

From her age to this Lady Winchilsea has received nothing but neglect from the English public. Her contemporaries disregarded her writings, as she herself complains, and in 1753 there were still existing 2 collections of her poems in MS., which no one had taken the trouble to print. To the public of the 18th century her delicate observation of nature seemed less important than the didactic lyricism of Mary Barber or the frivolity of Laetitia Pilkington. If those unpublished poems, to which reference has been made, are still in the possession of her family, it is highly desirable that they should be given to the world.

Critical reputation

The only major collection of Anne Finch's writings that appeared in her lifetime was Miscellany Poems, on Several Occasions. Nearly a century after her death her poetic output had been largely forgotten, until Wordsworth praised her nature poetry in his 1815 Essay. Wordsworth also gave Finch's poems pride of place in an anthology he prepared for Lady Mary Lowther, which was published only in 1905.

A major collection titled The Poems of Anne, Countess of Winchilsea, edited by Myra Reynolds, was published in 1903. For many years it was considered the definitive collection of her writings. It remains the only scholarly collection of Finch's poetry, and includes all of the poems from Miscellany Poems plus poems retrieved from manuscripts. Further, Reynolds's impressive introduction did as much to re-establish Finch's reputation as Wordsworth's previous praise.

Later, The Wellesley Manuscript, which contained 53 unpublished poems, was released. Literary scholars have noted Finch's distinctive voice and her poems' intimacy, sincerity, and spirituality. They also expressed appreciation for her experimentation as well as her assured usage of Augustan diction and forms.

In 1929, centuries after the Countess' death, in the classic essay A Room of One's Own, Virginia Woolf both critiques Finch's writing and expresses great admiration for it. In Woolf's examination of the "female voice" and her search for the history of female writers, she argues that Finch's writing is "harassed and distracted with hates and grievances," pointing out that to Finch "men are hated and feared, because they have the power to bar her way to what she wants to do--which is to write." However, Woolf excuses the flaws she perceives in Finch's work by claiming that Finch surely had to "encourage herself to write by supposing that what she writes will never be published." She goes on to acknowledge that in Finch's work, "Now and again words issue of pure poetry...It was a thousand pities that the woman who could write like that, whose mind was turned to nature, and reflection, should have been forced to anger and bitterness." Woolf goes on in defense of her as a gifted but sometimes understandably misguided example of women's writing. It is evident that Woolf sympathizes deeply with Finch's plight as a female poet, and though she takes issue with some of the content in Finch's writing, she expresses grief that Finch is so unknown: "...when one comes to seek out the facts about Lady Winchilsea, one finds, as usual, that almost nothing is known about her." Woolf wishes to know more about "this melancholy lady, who loved wandering in the fields and thinking about unusual things and scorned, so rashly, so unwisely, 'the dull manage of a servile house.'" (Citation needed) Finch is known today as one of the most versatile and gifted poets. One of her poems was set to music by Purcell.

Recognition

In popular culture

In the farce Three Hours after Marriage (1717) attributed to John Gay, but really the work of Pope, John Arbuthnot, and Gay, Finch is ridiculed as the learned lady, Phoebe Clinket, a character assigned to Pope's hand.

Publications

Poetry

• Upon the Death of King James the Second (anonymous). London, 1701.
• The Tunbridge Prodigy (anonymous). London: John Morphew, 1706.
• "The Spleen" (anonymous); in A New Miscellany of Original Poems. London: Charles Gildon, 1701
  • The Spleen: A Pindarique ode; by a Lady. London: H. Hills, 1709.
• Free-thinkers: A Poem in Dialogue (anonymous). London & Westminster: 1711.
• Miscellany Poems, on Several Occasions; written by a Lady. London:J.B. for Benj. Tooke, William Taylor, & James Round, 1713; London: John Barber for William Taylor & Jonas Browne, 1714.
• The Wellesley Manuscript Poems (edited by Jean M. Ellis D'Alessandro). Florence, Italy: Universita degli Studi di Firenze, 1988
  • (edited by Barbara McGovern). Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1998.

Play

• Aristomenes; or, The royal shepherd: A tragedy. London: J.B. for Benj. Tooke, 1713.

Collected editions

• Poems of Anne, Countess of Winchilsea (edited by Myra Reynolds). Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1903.
• Selected Poems of Anne Finch, Countess of Winchilsea. Hull, QC: Orinda, 1906.
• Poems, by Anne, Countess of Winchilsea (compiled by John Middleton Murray). London: Cape, 1928; New York: Harper, 1928.
• Selected Poems (edited by Katharine M. Rogers). New York: Ungar, 1979.
• Selected Poems (edited by Denys Thompson). Manchester: Carcanet, 1987; New York: Fyfield, 1987.

On Myselfe - Anne Finch

Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy the Poetry Foundation.

Poems by Anne Finch

1. A Noctural Reverie

See also

The Tree - Anne Finch

• List of British poets
• Timeline of British poetry

References

•  Bradley, Emily Tennyson (1889) "Finch, Anne (d.1720)" in Stephen, Leslie Dictionary of National Biography 19 London: Smith, Elder, p. 1 . Wikisource, Web, May 20, 2021.
•  Chisholm, Hugh, ed (1911). "Winchelsea, Anne Finch, Countess of". Encyclopædia Britannica. 28 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 702. . Wikisource, Web, May 20, 2021.
• McGovern, Barbara (1992). Anne Finch and her Poetry: A critical biography. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press.

External links

Poems

• "Fanscomb Barn: In imitation of Milton"
• "The Owl Describing Her Young Ones" - Poem of the Week at The Guardian
• Finch, Anne, Countess of Winchilsea (1661-1720) (2 poems) at Representative Poetry Online
• Finch in The English Poets: An anthology: "To the Nightingale," "The Tree," "A Nocturnal Reverie," Extract from "An Ode to the Spleen", "In Answer to Mr. Pope"
• Finch in A Book of Women's Verse: "The Soldier's Death," "The Sensual Man," "A Nocturnal Reverie," "A Wish for Her Retreat," "Adam Pos'd," "The Wit and the Beau," "The Critick and the Writer of Fables," "To Death"
• Countess of Winchilsea Anne Finch 1661-1720 at the Poetry Foundation (12 poems)
• Anne Finch, Countess of Whinchilsea (1661-1720) at A Celebration of Woman Writers (profile & 13 poems)
• Anne Finch (née Kingsmill), countess of Winchilsea at the Eighteenth-Century Poetry Archive (77 poems)
• Anne Kingsmill Finch at My Poetic Side (96 poems)
• Anne Kingsmill Finch at PoemHunter (96 poems)
• Anne Kingsmill Finch at AllPoetry (98 poems)

Audio / video

• Anne Finch poems at YouTube

Books

• Image of Finch's manuscript of "The wit and the beau"
• Anne Kingsmill Finch Winchilsea at Amazon.com

About

• Anne Finch in the Kids Britannia
• The Literary Encyclopedia
• Anne Finch (1661-1720) at English Poetry, 1579-1830
• Anne Finch, Countess of Winchilsea (1661-1720) at Luminarium: Life, extensive works, study resources

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain, the Dictionary of National Biography (edited by Leslie Stephen). London: Smith, Elder, 1885-1900. Original article is at: Finch, Anne (d. 1720)
 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain, the 1911 Edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica.. Original article is at: Winchelsea, Anne Finch, Countess of