Page:Poems of Anne Countess of Winchilsea 1903.djvu/57

This poem, no trace of which is to be found elsewhere, is ascribed by Mr. Adrian Drift, Prior's executor, to Anne, Countess of Winchilsea. Matthew PriorThere is no evidence that Lady Winchilsea knew Prior, nor can the slight personal allusions in this poem be taken as indicating any first-hand knowledge of the poet. Such knowledge might easily have come, however, with sufficient minuteness and directness from Longleat through Elizabeth Singer, to whom Prior, in the intervals of his attendance on the king as gentleman of the bed-chamber, was paying vain addresses. The poem must be an early one, its spirit and phraseology having little likeness to any of Lady Winchilsea's work except her first drama. Certainly the hysterical emotion with which the lady speaks of herself as "A Virgin-heart fraught with secret wishes," "a love-sick maid whose passion is raised to excess by the swelling numbers of the poet," is quite out of keeping with the usual dignified and delicate reticence of Lady Winchilsea's personal allusions. The lines are an acknowledgment of poetical indebtedness to Prior, a point to be more fully discussed in connection with Ardelia's songs.

Nicholas Rowe's estimate of Lady Winchilsea's poems is recorded in An Epistle to Flavia. On the sight of two Pindaric Odes on the Spleen and Vanity. Written by a Lady, her Friend. Nicholas RoweThis dates before any published work of hers, for it is evident that the poems had been transmitted to Rowe through some trusted intermediary with many cautions as to secrecy. Rowe's praise is unqualified. Ardelia is a "divine nymph" whose inspiration comes from heaven. She alone has not bowed the knee to false gods of wit, she is the only rival of Pindar short of the celestial choirs. Rowe approved of Ardelia's caution in keeping her poems from the public eye, but lines such as his would not have made her averse to the