Note 206 — Chapter II · INDICATIONS OF A NEW ATTITUDE TOWARD NATURE IN THE POETRY OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

The estimate of Lady Winchilsea here given was based on the 1713 edition of her poems. In 1903, through the kindness of Mr. Edmund Gosse and of the Earl of Winchilsea, I was enabled to bring out a complete edition of her works. In the Introduction to those poems I have endeavored to indicate Lady Winchilsea’s literary qualities and affiliations, and to give some idea of her life and personality. So far as her attitude toward Nature is concerned nothing is to be found in the scope of her voluminous verse that is of higher significance than the poems published by Ward. The new fact that does emerge from a fuller knowledge of her writings is the very interesting relation between her poetry of Nature and the events of her life. For an analysis of this relation I must refer to pp. cxxxiii-cxxxiv of the Introduction to my edition of her poems (“The Poems of Anne, Countess of Winchilsea,” The University of Chicago Press, 1903).