"Our Chief Poetess": Mary Barber and Swift's Circle

Canadian Journal of Irish StudiesCanadian Association of Irish Studies

"Our Chief Poetess": Mary Barber and Swift's CircleAuthor(s): Bernard TuckerSource: The Canadian Journal of Irish Studies, Vol. 19, No. 2 (Dec., 1993), pp. 31-44Published by: Canadian Journal of Irish StudiesStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25512969 .

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"Our Chief Poetess": Mary Barber and Swift's Circle

BERNARD TUCKER

The great gathering-in of Irish literature, the Field Day Anthology, has 89

poems in the section 'Anglo-Irish Verse 1675-1825' edited by Bryan Coleborne.

Given the justified criticisms of the otherwise excellent anthology, it is not

surprising that only 8 of the 89 poems are by women. One poem is by Esther

Johnson (Stella), who was Irish only by residence and by virtue of being Swift's

significant other. Two are by Laetitia Pilkington and one by Constantia

Grierson, both members of Swift's circle of women poets. Two poems are by

Mary O'Brien who wrote at the end of the eighteenth-century. The biographical notes in the anthology tell us she "is said to have been the wife of a Patrick

O'Brien" (perhaps "Patrick O'Brien is said to be the husband of the Mary O'Brien" might have been more helpful). Two poems are by the other member

of Swift's circle, Mary Barber; of the more than 100 poems in Mary Barber's

Poems on Several Occasions (1734) they are hardly the best.

The scant attention paid to Irish women poets of the first half of the

eighteenth-century is not surprising. Until recently even assiduous students of

early eighteenth-century poetry would have known the names of few Irish

women poets. Mary Barber survived by having a couple of poems anthologised. Yet Swift described her as "our chief poetess,"1 telling Pope that she "had a sort

of Genius."2 He described her as "a poetical genius" in a letter to the Countess of Suffolk;3 two years later she was "the best poetess of both kingdoms."4 Mary Barber's contemporary Laetitia Pilkington, however, claimed that the poems would have been "much worse" had not she, Dr. Delany, Constantia Grierson, Swift and others met frequently to correct them (Memoirs, 373).

Swift referred to Mary Barber, Constantia Grierson and Mary Sican as his

"triumfeminate." He also called his Irish women friends his "female senate."

Mary Barber is the only one of these poets to have produced a significant body of verse; Grierson and Pilkington wrote few poems which survive. Since Roger Lonsdale included a good selection of Mary Barber's poems in his recent

anthology of eighteenth-century women poets it is difficult to understand why she is ignored by the Field Day Anthology.

Recent Swift scholars have been rather dismissive of Mary Barber. Irvin

Ehrenpreis, in his monumental biography of Swift, wrote that "a glance at Mrs.

Barber's readers" (III, 636). Harold Williams, in his edition of Swift's

correspondence, called her "an indifferent versifier" (III, 369). It is tempting to speculate on the reasons for the dismissal of Mary Barber by Ehrenpreis and

Williams. One can understand why scholars of their vintage must have found

difficulty in admitting Mary Barber, a woman, even to the fringes of the canon.

But why is she so passed over in the Field Day Anthology? It is true that she



32 The Canadian Journal of Irish Studies

did not write overtly on politics or contemporary cultural events. However, her

poems display a kaleidoscope of "ordinary" domestic life both in Ireland and in England. Content and subject matter do not seem valid reasons for omitting

Mary Barber from the Field Day Anthology. Nor could she have been neglected on grounds of nationality; one might ask how "Irish" is Gulliver's Travels or

the plays of Congreve, Sheridan, Wilde or Shaw?

Mary Barber was born about 1690; she married Jonathan Barber, a feckless

English-born woollen-draper of Capel Street, Dublin. They had four children:

Constantine, who later became President of the Irish College of Physicians;

Rupert, who was a miniaturist painter; Myra; and Lucius. We know little of her

life apart from the references in the correspondence of Swift and his circle. She

appears to have been acquainted with the rich and the powerful; for example, she knew the Lord Lieutenant, Lord Carteret, who with his wife was an early patron, and the Earl of Errery to whom she dedicated her Poems. Certainly Swift placed her at the forefront of the group of women poets he assisted so

generously; on one occasion he wrote of her only defect as "too much

bashfulness,"6 on another he wrote ofthe "humble opinion"7 she had of herself. It is generally agreed that Mary Barber began writing poetry to enliven her

children's lessons when she was teaching them at home. About 1724, when the

poet Thomas Tickell was Secretary to the Lords Justices of Ireland, she wrote

a poem about the plight of an officer's widow and her blind child. She sent

"The Widow Gordon's Petition" to Tickell, asking him to show it to the Lord

Lieutenant. As a result she gained considerable recognition and an introduction to Swift, who visited her at her shop,8 received her at the Deanery and discussed her work with her. She continued writing poetry and by 1730 had enough poems to consider publishing a collection.

Roger Lonsdale suggests (xxvi) that in the 1730s it became normal for women to publish their verse by subscription, a method often dictated by the need to gain financial security. Promising Mary Barber9 that he would write to Gay and Pope promoting her forthcoming collection, which she planned as a money-raising venture, Swift worked hard to obtain subscriptions. He wrote many letters on behalf of Mary Barber; his correspondence at the time contains many references to her and her work.

Armed with introductions from Swift to many friends and influential

people Mary Barber travelled to England in 1730 in order to collect together enough subscriptions to enable her to publish her collection. She continued to suffer?as she did all her life?from the gout (more probably arthritis) as she had done in Ireland. Contrary to Swift's instructions, she sought to

persuade Alexander Pope to correct her verse. Swift was forced to write

apologetically to his friend: "Mrs. Barber acted weakly in desiring you to correct her Verses, I desired her friends here to warn her against everything of that kind. I do believe there was a great Combat between her modesty and her

Ambition."10



Mary Barber and Swift's Circle 33

In June 1731 Mary Barber was involved in a curious affair which has never

been fully explained. Three Letters to the Queen on the Distresses of Ireland were published over Swift's forged signature; they referred to Mrs. Barber as

"the best female poet of this or perhaps any age." The letters were a tactless

attempt to solicit the Queen's support for Mary Barber's poetry. Inevitably, the

Queen took offence and Swift felt he was once again subject to the Queen's

displeasure as he had been when in 1704 Queen Anne had not been amused by his A Tale of a Tub. In a letter to Pope11 he passionately defended himself

against any involvement. Although some evidence implicates Mary Barber in

the letters, Swift forgave her. In his will of 1740 he made her a bequest of "the

medal of Queen Anne and Prince George which she formerly gave me."

Mary Barber spent about three years in England?much of the time in the

fashionable centres of Tunbridge Wells, Bath, and London. She had become

friendly with Mrs. Pendarves, who was to become the second wife of Swift's

friend Dr. Patrick Delany in 1743, and there are various references to her in

Mrs. Delany's extensive correspondence. She suffered an attack of gout which

seriously affected the use of her limbs; her plans for moving her family to

England were again delayed. In April 1733 Mrs. Pendarves wrote: "I am in

great hopes Mrs. Barber will be well enough to travel with us [to England]; she will be an excellent companion for us, for she has constant spirits and good humour" (Johnson, 407). Swift took up her cause again, writing to her

namesake John Barber, the Lord Mayor of London, to find a post for her husband: "Our friend Mrs. Barber is recovering of her gout, and intends in a few weeks to return to London_And I hope by the Success of her poems, she will be made tolerably easy, and independing, as she well deserves for her Virtue and good Sense."12 The subscription list was still incomplete by the summer

of 1732 and dragged slowly until 1734. In 1733 Mrs. Conduit wrote that "the town had already been so long invited into the subscription that most people had already refused or accepted." Lord Mayor Barber had written to Swift

apologetically about the unsuitability of Jonathan Barber for most posts. He mentioned the number of relatives who had approached him. Since Mary Barber had addressed him as "cousin" he wrote warily: "I hope it will not be

expected I should have the care of them."13

Mary Barber was involved in another mysterious event early in 1734 when with several others she was arrested in England for importing Swift's scurrilous

"Epistle to a Lady" and his "On Poetry: a Rhapsody," which were seen as an

attack on the Walpole administration. However, she was soon released. There was talk of arresting Swift until Walpole was told by a friend that he would need

10,000 men to make the arrest. So the matter was dropped. The same year saw the publication of the Poems on Several Occasions

which were published in a quarto edition by Samuel Richardson, who was also a subscriber; they were published the following year in octavo and reissued in 1736. The collection of 132 poems included six by Constantia Grierson (who




had died in 1733), five by Mary Barber's son Con, one by Elizabeth Rowe, and five by others. Nine hundred ofthe great and the good in Ireland and England subscribed to the edition; Swift took ten copies.

The poems were well received. Anne Donnellan reported to Swift in May 1735 that "her [Mary Barber's] poems are generally greatly liked: there are,

indeed, a few severe critics (who think that judgement is only shewn in finding faults) that say they are not poetic; and a few fine ladies, who are not

commended in them, that complain they are dull."14

Mary Barber's fortunes did not improve with the publication of her poems. She continued to suffer from the gout, which prevented her from following her

plan of letting lodgings in Bath and made impossible a projected venture into

selling Irish linen. She wrote to Swift in November 1736 from Bath, where she had been living for several years.15 She hoped that her son Rupert, who was

studying painting in Bath, would remain with her and that her eldest son Con, who was being helped by the celebrated Dr. Mead in his medical career, might also join her. In need of financial support she asked Swift for the manuscript of his unpublished Polite Conversations. This he readily agreed to and on its

publication in 1738 she received the proceeds. In the following year she grew more sick and a few years later was back

in Ireland under the care of her son Con. We hear of her visiting the Delanys at Delville in 1744; at some stage she and her family had a house nearby. In

July Mrs. Delany referred to Mary Barber's state: "Monday I invited all the Barber race, and our good old friend, though she had the gout upon her and was forced to be lifted out upon men's shoulders ..." (Johnson, 142). In December

1747 Mrs. Delany described Mary Barber in her closing years: "Poor old Mrs. Barber has struggled for six weeks past with a disorder that I doubt must prove fatal to her" (Johnson, 164). Little is heard of her husband, Jonathan, during her life. He was, however, still alive in 1755 when Mrs. Delany referred to his rather careless attitude to his family who "if they had not met with better friend than himself, might have starved" (Delany, 327).

Mary Barber wrote very little verse after 1734, although some brief poetry on her gout appeared in The Gentleman's Magazine in March 1737. A selection of her poems appeared in Poems by Eminent Ladies in 1755.

However, when it was reprinted in 1780 only six of her poems remained. She died in 1757.

The anonymous introduction to Poems by Eminent Ladies (published in

1755) is an interesting near-contemporary view of the background against which Mary Barber wrote:

These volumes are perhaps the most solid compliment that can possibly be paid to the Fair Sex. They are a standing proof that great abilities are not confined to the men, and that

genius often glows with equal warmth, and perhaps with




more delicacy, in the breast of a female. ... It is indeed a

remarkable circumstance, that there is scarce one Lady, who

has contributed to fill these Volumes, who was not celebrated

by her contemporary poets, and that most of them have been

particularly distinguished by the most lavish encomiums

either from Cowley, Dryden, Roscommon, Creech, Pope or

Swift.

There is indeed no good reason to be assigned why the

poetical attempts of females should not be well received, unless it can be demonstrated that fancy and judgment are

wholly confined to one half of our species; a notion, to which

the readers of these volumes will not readily assent. Besides, most of these Ladies (like many of our greatest male writers) were more indebted to nature for their Success than to education.

(xi)

Since these lines were written, the eighteen "eminent ladies" mostly disappeared from the literary scene. Only five (Aphra Behn, Alison Cockburn, Lady Mary

Wortley Montagu, the Duchess of Newcastle and Anne Finch) appear, for

example, in the Penguin Companion to Literature of twenty years ago. Happily, recent editing and research are beginning to rediscover them.

Women poets of the eighteenth-century were inclined to underestimate

their own performances. Swift had, of course, dismissed his own verse as

"scribbling" (and there is some debate about whether he genuinely felt this or whether there was the usual degree of Swiftian irony). What is refreshing about the poetry of the recently "discovered" women poets of the early eighteenth-century is that in contrast to the famous and near-famous male

poets of the time they so often (in Terry Castle's words) "scorned the more

bombastic styles of the period, preferring a livelier, homelier Muse" (Castle,

1227-8). These poets, Castle suggests, resisted rule and affectation; they also tended to be caustic on the themes of love, sex and marriage.

Unlike her contemporary male poets (except perhaps Swift), Mary Barber is not afraid to present herself in a less than flattering light. This

attractive trait is described by Margaret Doody: "The presentation of the self as a comic and sometimes awkward figure, not simply or smoothly in the

right: this is a self-presentation common in the Swift of the Poems, and

perhaps learned from him" (74). Her subjects are so often similar to the unbuttoned Swift of "On the Little House by the Churchyard of Castleknock" or "The Author's Manner of Living." Mary Barber's domesticity of subject, however, is almost certainly connected with the position of women poets at the time, the way they were perceived and the way they perceived themselves. It is also a commentary on the contemporary assessment of women. There is

little point in speculating why Mary Barber offered poetry on domestic and




everyday events. The result is that her topics are not the grand topics of her

male counterparts; her style, her imagery, and her language are far removed

from those of so many of her male contemporaries. Poems on Several Occasions resembles Swift* s Tale of a Tub or Gulliver's

Travels in its preliminary material: a letter from Swift to the Earl of Orrery

commending Mary Barber and her poetry, Mary Barber's dedication to Lord

Orrery, her preface, a list of subscribers and an introductory poem by Constantia Grierson addressed to Mary Barber as "Sapphira" (her familiar nom de poesie).

Mary Barber's Preface is interesting since it sets out with great modesty her intention. Roger Lonsdale suggests that she "no doubt made herself all the more acceptable to her fashionable subscribers by emphasising her

modest literary pretensions" as well as being "the first woman poet to make a virtue out of the original educational purposes of her poems (for her son) and the domestic content of many of them" (xxvi).

In her "Preface" (48) Mary Barber is as apologetic as she is in writing to

Orrery or Swift. Perhaps her mood is ironic (in much the way that Swift

sought to "apologise" for his poems); more probably she feels the need to

explain why a "mere" woman would presume to write poetry: "I am sensible that a Woman steps out of her Province whenever she presumes to write for the Press." She explains that her aim is "chiefly to form the Minds of my

Children." The inculcation of morals and manners, the traditional domestic maternal role was her only intention, she claims, until she was prompted to write her petition in verse in support of the "distresses of an officer's widow." The poetic petition was a success; a side result was that she "gain'd

. . . the

Protection of that whole noble Family." Mary Barber makes much of a

further incident when she helped a distressed English gentlewoman to sell a

pair of diamond earrings. This fortuitously brought her the friendship and

patronage of the influential Earl of Orrery.

Mary Barber describes how she was encouraged to publish her poetry by "several Persons of Quality and Distinction" and through the "Goodness of such men of Genius," who corrected her work. Having decided to publish the

poems?but with "Diffidence and Reluctance" she is at pains to anticipate any criticism of her name-dropping; such activity "hath been finely rallied by a powerful Hand" (perhaps Swift's?). Acknowledging the great help given her by Swift, she then draws attention to those poems "written between a

Mother and her Son," once again stating her aim "to form the Minds of Youth": "What has the public to do with verses written between a mother and her son? I answer, that as nothing can be of more use to society than the

taking every care to form the minds of youth, I publish some of the verses written by me with that view, when my son was a schoolboy, as the best

apology a woman could make for writing at all." Continuing in modest tone she hopes that the inclusion of the work of others in the volume will "make




this Collection of Value." Then follows an account of the life and achievements

of Constantia Grierson who had died in 1733 aged 27.

Mary Barber was right to refer to "several occasions" in the collection's

title. More than a third of the poems are quite clearly stated as being for

specific occasions. These are wide-ranging: a friend resenting advice,

recovery from sickness, reading books, seeing pictures, apologies for various

social events, behaviour, marriage; the topics are many and varied. This is

in keeping with the general pattern of much of the light verse of the early

eighteenth-century.

In Poems by Eminent Ladies there is a letter from Ann Jones (another

"forgotten" poet) to the Hon. Miss Lovelace, which praises Mary Barber's

poetry. She significantly draws attention to Barber's poems of gratitude. Before that, however, Ann Jones writes critically of the subject matter of

some of her female fellow writers:

Whenever I meet with a sister in print I always expect to

hear that Corydon has prov'd false; or that Sylvia's cruel

parents have had prudence enough to keep two mad people from playing the fool together, for life. I've often wished, for the honour of our sex, that these subjects had been

exhausted seventeen hundred years ago; but am afraid that seventeen hundred years hence, we shall have the same

false Corydon's, and the same complaining Sylvia's. 'Tis pity, that this passion along should set us to rhyming. The subject is so beaten, that it cannot possibly afford us anything new; and

probably that's one reason, why we so seldom succeed in our

poetical excursions. There is, however, an affection I cannot

but admire in this authoress; and that is, her excess of gratitude to all those by whom she has been in any obliged.

(no page numbers)

Perhaps the most unusual of these occasional poems is "On Sending my Son as a Present to Dr. Swift, Dean of St. Patrick's, on his Birth Day" (Tucker, ed., 108-109). This poem contains strong echoes of Swift?as do many of

Mary Barber's poems. It is not only the jaunty movement of the octosyllabics but the imagery and the treatment of the subject matter which are reminiscent

of Swift's occasional verse. Perhaps as a result of the strong interest which

Swift took in editing Mary Barber's work "Apollo's Edict" has been attributed to both of them and appears both with his other poems and in her volume. In

this birthday poem for Swift (and we remember Swift's excellent birthday poems to Stella) there is a Swiftian use made of ingenious argument as the

reader is led through a series of premises to what appears to the poet as a

"logical" outcome:




A Curious Statue, we are told

Is priz'd above its Weight in Gold; If the fair Form the Hand confess

Of Phidias or Praxiteles:

But if the Artist could inspire The smallest Spark of heav'nly Fire, Tho' but enough to make it walk, Salute the company, or talk; This would advance the Price so high,

What Prince were rich enough to buy? Such if Hibemia could obtain, She sure would give it to the Dean:

So to her Patriot should she pay Her thanks upon this Natal Day.

The poet then claims to be creating a greater present than the statue: her son.

The concluding couplet is very much the near-panegyrical style (which one

might more properly call the compliment style): a style which was often used

by Swift with tongue in cheek. Here it is anything but panegyrical:

Kings could not send a nobler Gift; A meaner were unworthy Swift.

Mary Barber seems to have had a close relationship with her eldest son, Con, whose persona she used in a number of poems. These poems evince a

strong maternal concern in his schooling, his social behaviour and even his

undergraduate education. There is also an underlying pride in his progress. Mary Barber's apparently feckless husband is virtually ignored in the poems, yet her eldest son is vividly present as a mouthpiece for his mother's views.

Mary Barber's best known poem, perhaps the only one from her collection which was generally well known until recently, is "Written for My Son, and

Spoken by him at his first putting on Breeches" (Tucker, 72-75). Its subject (the absurdity of men's clothing) is unusual even among the prolific list of

topics which Augustan poets treated. Women's clothing was often ridiculed in

poetry, but here Mary Barber is able to speak through her son to criticize the male world in general. Once again Mary Barber echoes Swift's own peculiar colloquial style, presented in a mixture of tetrameters and longer eleven

syllable lines. Mary Barber follows Swift in spurning the grander and more

public style of Pope's pentameters. Margaret Doody argues that both poets were minority figures?"in a position of subjugation and supposed docility" (92)?although Swift obviously enjoyed considerable social and even political status. Mary Barber hints that although she goes through the motions of

compliment and petition in many of her poems (often seeking patronage for




others) she was never herself subjugated nor docile. Swift, of course, assumed

such a position as a persona when it suited him. In addition, he affected a low

estimate of his own poetry and so wrote often in a throwaway manner (perhaps because he had a fear of failure he pretended that he wasn't really trying very

hard). In this poem the rhymes are often Swiftian (bewitches/breeches,

natures/creatures, strait/fret); the metre is often as careless as Swift's:

The Cravat finishes the Work, Like Bow-string sent from the Grand Turk. (25-26)

Several poems were written for Con to deliver to his schoolmaster?an

early form of the parental apology. Mary Barber's apologies, however, were

not for her son's absence from school; one reproached his master for bringing in a rod, another explains why he should be excused from false praise: "An

Apology written for my son to his Master, who had commanded him to write

Verses on the Death of the late Lord_." In her admonition of her master who brought in a rod, spoken through her

son's voice, Mary Barber refers to Locke's views on education. She advocates

the "play-way": Locke taught "to play us into learning." It is not easy to infer

from the poem whether "Con's" views are his mother's, or those she imagines a typical contemporary boy would hold. Swiftian pragmatism is evident in the

poem as the master is urged to follow Mary Barber's advice and so

make a Fortune by your School. You'll soon have all the Elder Brothers, And be the Darling of their Mothers.

Mary Barber's "apology" to her son's master, in which she strongly objects to the writing of verse "on worthless Peers / Whether they're living Lords, or

Dead," follows Swift's widespread putting down of "panegyricks." Barber does not mince her words but uses the colloquial language so often adopted by Swift: "She'll box the Muse from out my Head," says Con.

The poems written for her son are something of a puzzle since occasionally Mary Barber uses a register well beyond the capacity of even a very advanced

teenager; the gratitude is similarly beyond the capacity of a "normal" schoolboy. However, by presenting a number of poems as "written for my son" Mary Barber was to distance herself from her poems in much the same way that Swift did in his many poetic guises. The poems in the persona of her son gave her the

vehicle for comments which might have been difficult if uttered in propria persona. Mary Barber adopts the persona of her son in a fulsome letter of thanks to the Rev. Mr. Sampson for a celebration of Lord Carteret's birthday.

As Swift so often proclaimed his difficulties in obtaining a rhyme, so Con has

difficulty "to tell the Vice-Roy something new." Con's voice and his mother's




reported voice are interwoven in the poem. His mother proclaims the lines are

so good that Con must have had some help from Constantia Grierson. Con is

then supposed to have seen on the table a copy of Swift's poem on Lord

Carteret, "The Birth of Manly Virtue," which causes him to resign the task of

writing a suitable poem for the occasion. So Mary Barber gives up the search

for inspiration in the face of a greater poem; ironically the "greater" poem is

by Swift, who in his turn had often felt like giving up writing poetry because

of the work of more accomplished poets?or so he liked to think.

One of the liveliest poems written by Mary Barber for Con takes the

unusual form of a letter written by him to a friend who has been sent to

Flanders to be educated at the Jesuit College there ("A Letter written for my Son to a young Gentleman who was sent to be educated at the Jesuits College in Flanders"). This letter is closer to Con's voice than many of the other

poems written for him. The subject matter (the boring nature of school, the

excitement of being in a foreign country) is what one would expect. The

postscript, however, has the tone of a maternal takeover. It becomes a

compliment to Lord Carteret and the poem ends inconclusively. The most interesting ofthe poems referring to her son is "The Conclusion

of a Letter to the Rev. Mr. C?,"?an eloquent piece of advice to her son Con

about the kind of wife he should look for. Mary Barber uses other voices to

present alternative views on wives, presenting ironic comments on the dangers of women reading poetry: "There's nothing I dread, like a verse-writing Wife."

With good humour Mary Barber advocates the ideal wife (bringing forward as

her evidence comments by St. Thomas More). Since eighteenth-century male

writers often proposed far different views on marriage it is good that she

redresses the balance. What she proposes appears autobiographical given what we know of her own husband. The general advice given in the poem is serious

and moving. Here, it seems to me, Mary Barber presents what might be called

the "conservative" case for education for women; the stronger and more natural

case was to be presented in later years by Mary Wollstonecraft and others.

Chuse a Woman of Wisdom, as well as good Breeding, With a Turn, at least no Aversion, to Reading:

In the Care of her Person, exact and refin'd; Yet still, let her principal Care be her Mind:

Who can, when her Family Cares give her Leisure, Without the dear Cards, pass an Ev'ning with Pleasure;

In forming her Children to Virtue and Knowledge, Nor trust, for that Care, to a School, or a College:

By Learning made humble, not thence taking Airs, To despise, or neglect, her domestick Affairs:

Nor think her less fitted for doing her Duty,

By knowing its Reasons, its Use, and its Beauty.




When you gain her Affection, take care to preserve it; Lest

others persuade her, you do not deserve it.

Still study to heighten the Joys of her Life; Nor treat her the worse, for her being your Wife.

If in Judgment she errs, set her right, without Pride:

'Tis the Province of insolent Fools, to deride.

A Husband's first Praise, is a Friend and Protector:

Then change not these Titles, for Tyrant and Hector.

Let your Person be neat, unaffectedly clean, Tho' alone with your Wife the whole Day you remain.

Chuse Books, for her Study, to fashion her Mind, To emulate those who excell'd of her Kind.

Be Religion the principal Care of your Life, As you hope to be blest in your Children and Wife:

So you, in your Marriage, shall gain its true End; And find, in your Wife, a Companion and Friend. (49 ff.)

Mary Barber adopted other masks?especially in her various poetic

"petitions." She carried out sterling work writing on behalf of various

impoverished gentlewomen of the time. In "The Widow Gordon's Petition: to

the Rt. Hon. the Lady Carteret," the Widow Gordon's son faces blindness; the

poem is a painful plea on behalf of the Widow to wealthy patrons. "Written for a Gentlewoman in Distress. To Her Grace ADELIDA Duchess of Shrewsbury" has an almost Gothic ring about it. There are few similar cries for help in

Augustan poetry; Mary Barber's heart-rending appeals on behalf of the distressed

gentlewoman of the poem do not appear often in the poetry of the early part of the century. Her Grace the Duchess of Shrewsbury no doubt responded as a consequence of the almost suicidal, though dignified, cri de coeur of the

gentlewoman: "shall my Sorrows never, never end?"; "shield me from the

Horrors of Despair!"; "For sad Reflection doubles ev'ry Grief." The

gentlewoman describes her situation:

Of Friends, and Children both, I am bereft, And soon must lost the only Blessing left; A Husband, form'd for Tenderness and Truth, The lov'd, the kind, Companion of my Youth.

She ends dramatically: "Oh! Shield me from it!?Hide me in the grave!" There is no place in these serious poems for Swiftian doggerel or forced rhymes.

In her role as mother Mary Barber wrote other poems: for example, "A True Tale" and "Occasion'd by seeing some Verses written by Mrs. Constantia Grierson on the Death of her Son." These gave her the opportunity to assert at least some form of authority (that of a mother) where she was (as a woman)




pushed to one side and ignored. As a mother she was able to write at least social

criticism rather than the saccharine sentiments so often expected of a (mere) mother writing "verse."

Although many of the poems are light-hearted in tone Mary Barber was

able to move to a more serious vein when the occasion demanded. She thanks Dr. Richard Helsham "upon my Recovery from a dangerous Fit of Sickness":

For fleeting Life recall 'd, for Health restor'd, Be first the God of Life and Health ador'd.

A number of poems contain advice?both serious and humorous. "To Mrs.

Frances-Arabella Kelly" is addressed to a noted society beauty. Writing in

frank, self-dismissing style, Mary Barber sees herself grey-haired in the mirror. Mrs. Kelly is confronted with a memento saeculi by Mary Barber; only women

usually confront such reality. The speaker is envious of Mrs. Kelly's beauty. However, behind the poem is the reality of mutability.

A distinguishing feature of Mary Barber's poetry, which sets her apart from her male contemporaries, is the attention to poems of friendship. In

addition to her circle of acquaintances who are largely social, she had a wide circle of close friends, whom she addressed in her poems. Most of her poems concern women or are directed at women. In this way the "rediscovery" ofthe

poetry of Mary Barber and other women poets has not only made us aware of

poetry by women; it has also introduced the modern reader to the world ofthe

eighteenth-century woman. Until recently (see, for example, Denis Davison's

Penguin Book of Eighteenth-Century Verse) we had known mostly ofthe world of men: their behaviour, their attitudes and their view of the world.

The position of women in Mary Barber's society and her obligation to

placate a succession of patrons and wealthy friends might cause even the careful reader to miss a number of political comments. "To his Grace the Duke of Buckingham and Normanby, at the Camp before Philipsburg," for example, is addressed to a young man who fought with his uncle the Duke of Berwick in the service of France in 1734. If one remembers that the Duke of Berwick was renowned Jacobite, then it is surprising that the tone of the poem is one of

praise for Berwick and his "royal blood" (he was the illegitimate son of James II and Arabella Churchill). It has been suggested that Mary Barber walks a

political tightrope very adeptly in this poem. On the surface she merely joins English kings in lamenting the loss of so many British troops to France and other European countries, and she appears to be urging the Duke of Buckingham to return to fight for Britain. However, on another level one feels there is an

underlying point being addressed: the reader has suspicions about Mary Barber's attitude to the Hanoverian monarchy.

In "To Mrs. Strangeways Horner, with a Letter from my Son; wherein he desires me to accept his first prize of Learning, conferr'd on him by the




University of Dublin" Mary Barber paints a gloomy picture of contemporary Ireland:

Nor see an Isle, by Nature bless'd,

By ill-judg'd Policy oppress'd; Her Trade usurp' by foreign Lands, Whilst Albion fast ties up her Hands:

Nor see her Sons in Science skill'd, And yet her Posts by Strangers fill'd.

The views expressed here are in line with Swift's criticism of English rule in

Ireland. The last line quoted is rather puzzling since Mary Barber elsewhere

writes fulsomely of her acquaintance Lord Carteret, the English Lord Lieutenant

in Ireland from 1724-1730.

Mary Barber dares to criticise the political establishment in Britain as well as Britain's treatment of Ireland. In "On Seeing an Officer's Widow distracted, who had been driven to Despair, by a long and fruitless Solicitation for the Arrears of her Pension" she berates the country (presumably the Government) for its treatment of those who had served it in war. There is even an underlying threat in:

BRITAIN, for this impending Ruin dread; Their Woes call loud for Vengeance on thy Head: Nor wonder, if Disasters wait your Fleets; Nor wonder at Complainings in your Streets: Be timely wise; arrest th'uplifted Hand, Ere Pestilence or Famine sweep the Land. (27 ff.)

The poems of Mary Barber, while they may not be of the same order as The

Rape of the Lock or The Seasons, or even the Verses on the Death of Doctor

Swift, enlarge for the twentieth-century reader not only the body of poetry from the period, but they also go some modest way to balancing the often frivolous and even cynical view of women presented by the male poets who, until

recently, were presented as virtually the only poets writing in the early eighteenth-century. In addition, for those interested in the complex personality of Jonathan Swift, his relationship to Mary Barber and her poems throws new

light on the Dean's supposed misogyny. However, it should not be concluded that Mary Barber deserves to be restored to the canon simply as an appendage of Swift. A reappraisal of early eighteenth-century poetry will find a place for

Mary Barber in her own right.




NOTES

1 Swift to Pope, 6 February 1730, Correspondence, III, 369. 2 Swift to Pope, 20 July 1731, Correspondence, III, 479. 3 26 October 1731, Correspondence, III, 501. 4 Swift to Sir Andrew Fountaine,.30 July 1733, Correspondence, IV, 186. 5

Correspondence, III, 369 footnote. 6 Swift to Mrs. Pendarves, 29 January 1736. Correspondence, IV, 456: "I

think she hath every kind virtue, and only one defect, which is too much

bashfulness." 7 Swift to the Earl of Orrery, 20 August 1733, Correspondence, IV, 191.

This letter is printed as a preface to Mary Barber's Poems on Several

Occasions before her dedication to Lord Orrery. 8 Swift to Pope, 20 July 1731, Correspondence, III, 479. 9 Swift to Mary Barber, 23 February 1731, Correspondence III, 440. 10 Swift to Pope, 20 April 1731, Correspondence, III, 457. 11 Swift to Pope, 20 July 1731, Correspondence, III, 479-80. 12 Swift to John Barber, [July 1733], Correspondence, IV, 175. 13 Lord Mayor Barber to Swift, 6 February 1733, Correspondence, IV,

109-110. 14 Miss Anne Donnellan to Swift, 10 May 1735, Correspondence, IV, 333. 15 Mrs. Barber to Swift, 3 November 1736, Correspondence, IV, 538-541.

WORKS CITED

Barber, Mary. Poems on Several Occasions. 1734.

_. The Poetry of Mary Barber. Ed. Bernard Tucker. Edwin Mellen Press, 1992.

Castle, Terry. "Unruly and unresigned." Times Literary Supplement 10/16 November 1989: 1227-8.

Doody, Margaret Anne. "Swift among the Women." Yearbook of English Studies 18(1988).

Ehrenpreis, Irwin. Swift, the Man, his Works and the Age. 3 vols. London, 1962-1983.

Johnson, R. Brimley, intro. Mrs. Delany at Court and among the Wits. London, 1923. The Autobiography and Correspondence of Mary Granville.

Lonsdale, Roger. Eighteenth-Century Women Poets. Oxford, 1989.

Pilkington, Letita. The Memoirs of Mrs. Letitia Pilkington 1712-1750, Written

by Herself, London, reprinted 1928. Poems by Eminent Ladies. Ed. G. Colman & B. Thornton. 2 vols. 1755; revised

1780.

The FieldDay Anthology of Irish Writing. Ed. Seamus Deane. 3 vols. Field Day Publications, 1991.



"Our Chief Poetess": Mary Barber and Swift's Circle

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