Charlotte Lennox

Charlotte Lennox Poems

Charlotte Lennox Biography

Charlotte Lennox (c. 1730 – January 4, 1804) was a British author and poet of the 18th century. She is most famous now as the author of The Female Quixote and for her association with Samuel Johnson, Joshua Reynolds, and Samuel Richardson, but she had a long career and wrote poetry, prose, and drama. Charlotte Lennox was born in Gibraltar from what research has discovered. Her father, James Ramsay, was a Scottish captain in the Royal Navy, and her mother was Scottish and Irish. She was baptised Barbara Ramsay. Very little direct evidence for her pre-public life is available, and biographers have extrapolated from her first novel elements that seem semi-autobiographical. She was, with her parents, in New York in 1738-1742, and at fifteen she accepted a position as a "companion" to the widow Mary Luckyn in London. A companion would be something above the position of servant but near it in function. When she arrived in London, however, she found that Mary Luckyn had gone insane, and so the position was withdrawn. She then served as the companion to Lady Isabella Finch. Her first volume of poetry was entitled Poems on Several Occasions, dedicated to Lady Isabella in 1747. She was preparing herself for a position at court, but such a future was rendered moot by her marriage to Alexander Lennox, a Scot who was rarely employed. Indeed, his only known employment was in the customs office from 1773 - 1782, and this was reported to be as a benefice of the Duke of Newcastle as a reward for his wife. He also claimed to be the proper heir to the Earl of Lennox in 1768, but the House of Lords rejected his claims on the basis of bastardry. Around 1750, Charlotte Lennox attempted to be an actor. She was not very successful, at least at first, but she received a benefit night at the Haymarket Theatre in a production of The Mourning Bride in 1750. That year she also published her most successful poem, The Art of Coquetry in Gentleman's Magazine. She met Samuel Johnson around this time, and he held her in very high regard. When her first novel, The Life of Harriot Stuart, Written by Herself, appeared, Johnson threw a lavish party for Lennox, with a laurel wreath and an apple pie that contained bay leaf. Johnson thought her superior to his other female literary friends, Elizabeth Carter, Hannah More, and Frances Burney. He ensured that Charlotte Lennox was introduced to important members of the London literary scene. The women of Johnson's circle were not fond of Lennox. Hester Thrale, Elizabeth Carter, and Lady Mary Wortley Montagu all faulted her, either for her housekeeping, her unpleasant personality, or her temper. They regarded her specifically as unlady-like and incendiary. However, Samuel Richardson and Samuel Johnson both reviewed and helped out with Lennox's second and most successful novel, The Female Quixote, or, The Adventures of Arabella, and Henry Fielding praised the novel in his Covent Garden Journal. The Female Quixote was quite popular. It was reprinted and packaged in a series of great novels in 1783, 1799, and 1810. It was translated into German in 1754, French in 1773 and 1801, and Spanish in 1808. The novel formally inverts Don Quixote: as the don mistakes himself for the knightly hero of a Romance, so Arabella mistakes herself for the maiden love of a Romance. While the don thinks it his duty to praise the Platonically pure damsels he meets (such as the farm girl he loves), so Arabella believes it is in her power to kill with a look and it is the duty of her lovers to suffer ordeals on her behalf. The Female Quixote was officially anonymous and technically unrecognized until after Lennox's death. The anonymity was an open secret, though, as her other works were advertised as, by "the author of The Female Quixote", but no published version of The Female Quixote bore her name during her life. The translator-censor of the Spanish version, Lieutenant Colonel Don Bernardo María de Calzada, appropriated the text, saying "written in English by unknown author and in Spanish by D. Bernardo...", even though de Calzada, who was not fluent in English, only translated to Spanish the previous French translation, which was already censored. In the preface, de Calzada also warns the reader of the questionable quality of the text, as good British texts were only written by "Fyelding" (sic.) and Richardson, the two authors with international fame (in contrast to the often mechanical "romances" produced by various names for shops like Edmund Curll's or the satirical romances appearing under one-off pseudonyms that were not, first and foremost, novels). Joseph Baretti taught Lennox Italian and several helped her translate The Greek Theatre of Father Brumoy[1], the most influential French study of Greek tragedy at mid-eighteenth century. Learning several languages, Charlotte Lennox took an interest in the sources for Shakespeare's plays. In 1753, she wrote Shakespear Illustrated, which discussed Shakespeare's sources extensively. She preferred originals to their adaptations, and so her work ended up being critical of Shakespeare. She did not discuss any of the beauties of Shakespeare's poetry or the power of his personifications, and so Garrick and Johnson both regarded her work as being more of a case of Shakespeare exposed than Shakespeare illustrated. In 1755 she translated Memoirs of Maximilian de Bethune, Duke of Sully, which sold well. Her third novel, Henrietta, appeared in 1758 and sold well, but it did not bring her any money. From 1760 to 1761 she wrote for the periodical The Lady's Museum, which contained material which would eventually comprise her 1762 novel Sophia. David Garrick produced her Old City Manners at Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in 1775 (an adaptation of Ben Jonson's Eastward Ho). Finally, in 1790, she published Euphemia, her last novel, with little success, as the public's interest in novels of romance seemed to have waned. She had two children who survived infancy, Harriot Holles Lennox (d. 1782) and George Lewis Lennox (b. 1771). She was estranged from her husband for many years, and the couple finally separated for good in 1793. He left for America after their separation, while she lived in poverty, entirely reliant on the support of the Literary Fund. She died on January 4, 1804 and was buried in an unmarked grave at Broad Court cemetery. During the 19th century, The Female Quixote remained moderately popular. In the 20th century, feminist scholars such as Janet Todd, Jane Spencer, and Nancy Armstrong have praised Lennox's skill and inventiveness.)

The Best Poem Of Charlotte Lennox

The Art Of Coquetry

Ye lovely maids! whose yet unpractis'd hearts
Ne'er felt the force of Love's resistless darts;
Who justly set a value on your charms,
Pow'r all your wish, but beauty all your arms
Who o'er mankind wou'd fain exert your sway
And teach the lordly tyrant to obey;
Attend my rules, to you alone addrest
Deep let them sink in every female breast.
The queen of love herself my bosom fires,
Assists my numbers, and my thoughts in spires
Me she instructed in each secret art,
That first subdues and then enslaves the heart
The sigh that heaves by stealth, the starting tear
The melting languish, the obliging fear;
Half-utter'd wishes, broken, kind replies,
And all the silent eloquence of eyes;
To teach the fair by various wiles to move
The soften'd soul, and bend the heart to love
Proud of her charms, and conscious of her face,
The haughty Beauty calls forth ev'ry grace,
With fierce defiance throws the killing dart;
By force she wins, by force she keeps the heart;
The witty fair a nimbler game pursues
Aims at the head, but the rapt soul subdues,
The languid nymph enslaves with softer art,
With sweet neglect she steals into the heart;
Slowly she moves her swimming eyes around,
Conceals her shaft, but meditates the wound;
Her gentle languishments the gazers move,
Her voice is musick, and her looks are love.
To few tho' nature may these gifts impart,
What she witholds, the wise can win from art
Then let your airs be suited to your face,
Nor to a languish tack a sprightly grace.
The short round face, brisk eyes, and auburn hair
Must smiling joy in every motion wear,
The quick unsettled glance must deal around,
Hide all design, and seem by chance to wound,
Dark rolling eyes a languish may assume,
These the soft looks and melting airs become
The pensive head upon the hand reclin'd,
As of some sweet disorder fill'd the mind;
Let the heav'd breast a struggling sign restrain
And seem to stop the falling tear with pain.
The youth, who all the soft distress believes,
Soon wants the kind compassion which he gives
But beauty, wit, and youth may sometimes fail,
Nor always o'er the stubborn soul prevail;
Then let the fair one have recourse to art,
Who cannot storm, may undermine the heart.
First form your artful looks with studious care,
From mile to grave, from tender to severe.
Oft on the careless youth your glances dart,
A tender meaning let each glance impart.
Whene'er he meets your looks, with modest price
And soft confusion turn your eyes aside,
Let a soft sigh steal out, as if by chance,
Then cautious turn, and steal another glance.
Caught by these arts, with pride and hope elate,
The destined victim rushes on his fate:
Pleased, his imagined victory pursues,
And the kind maid with soft attention views,
Contemplates now her shape, her air, her face,
And thinks each feature wears an added grace;
Till gratitude, which first his bosom proves,
By slow degrees sublimed, at length he loves.
'Tis harder still to fix than gain a heart;
What's won by beauty must be kept by art.
Too kind a treatment the best lover cloys,
And oft despair the growing flame destroys:
Sometimes with smiles receive him, sometimes tears,
Perhaps he mourns his ill-requited pains
Condemns your sway, and strives to break his chains;
Behaves as if he now your scorn defied,
And thinks at least he shall alarm your pride:
But with indifference view the seeming chance,
And let your eyes to seek new conquests range;
While his torn breast with jealous fury burns,
He hopes, despairs, adores and hates by turns;
With anguish now repents the weak deceit,
And powerful passion bears him to your feet.
Strive not the jealous love to perplex,
Ill suits suspicion with that haughty sex;
Rashly they judge, and always think the worst,
And love if often banish'd by distrust.
To these an open free behaviour wear,
Avoid disguise, and seem at least sincere;
Whene'er you meet affect a glad surprize,
And give a melting softness to your eyes;
By some unguarded work your love reveal,
And anxiously the rising blush conceal.
By arts like these the jealous you deceive,
Then most deluded when they most believe.
But while in all you seek to raise desire,
Beware the fatal passion you inspire:
Each soft intruding wish in time reprove,
And guard against the sweet invader love.
Not for the tender were these rules design'd,
Who in their faces show their yielding mind:
Whose eyes a native languishment can wear,
Whose smiles are artless, and whose blush sincere;
But for the nymph who liberty can prize,
And vindicate the triumph of her eyes:
Who o'er mankind a haughty rule maintains,
Whose wit can manage what her beauty gains;
Such by these arts their empire may improve,
And unsubdu'd controul the world by love.

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