Martha Simmonds, Judith Zins-Pennick, Anne Finch Countess of Winchilsea, Anne Wharton, Aphra Behn, Mary Astell or Judith Drake,
___________________________
861J Martha Simmonds [Simmons; née Calvert] (1625-1665)
A lamentation for the lost sheep of the house of Israel. With an invitation to have them turn in their mindes to the true shepherd of their soules. ALSO, something in discovery of the nakedness of all professions, who are found in the words without the life and power. Written by one of the children of the Light, who is known to the world by the name of Martha Simmonds, [sic]
London : printed for Giles Calvert, at the Black spread Eagle neer the west end of Pauls, 1656 Price: $4,500
Martha Calvert was probably born January 1624. She was the younger sister of the booksellers George and Giles Calvert. Giles’s shop at the Black Spread Eagle in St Paul’s Churchyard, London, which was the leading outlet for the works of early Quakers.
Martha Simmonds, in this, all but hidden, book emphatically demonstrates how The Anglican Church are the lost sheep of Israel and how ‘The children of light” will expose the evil acts of profits and ministers and render them with more than words.
I am sure that this pamphlet while published in three editions, was hardly popular and most copies destroyed.
Bernadette Smith, The Testimony of Martha Simmonds (2008) writes: “Perhaps the reason for the continued hiddenness of the early Quaker women’s writings is the failure of successive generations to question both the structure and nature of theological discourse, which has excluded women. Martha Simmonds has been among this hidden group of women for four centuries and I hope to present her as one of a group of Quaker women who were able to consolidate their mission through the utilisation of, and engagement with, the contemporary cultures of print, religious discourse and apocalyptic preaching which made them unique as a group, if not unprecedented.
The Last decade of Marth’s life was one of religious turmoil. Martha moved to London to live with her brother and was converted to Quakerism in about 1654, and wrote several pamphlets about her new faith, three of which were published by her brother Giles Calvert: When the Lord Jesus Came to Jerusalem 1655 ½ sheet One UK copy two variations. (2); A Lamentation for the Lost Sheep of the House of Israel 1655 Haverford, 1655 , 1656 Ucla & Lib Co. of Philad (3); and O England, thy Time is Come Haverford. [for a total of 7 publications represented in fewer than 20 copies]
As soon as a year after her conversion Martha was very active and by December 1655 she had been imprisoned several times in Colchester for interrupting church services and walking through the town in sackcloth and ashes. In about 1655 she married Thomas Simmonds who had recently returned to London after several years as a bookseller in Birmingham. In March 1655 the Quakers established the Bull and Mouthas their main London meeting place, where Thomas opened his bookshop; he became their principal publisher the following year. But Martha Simmonds was interpretation of Quakerism was a situational one, and Almost a performative expression of an individual relation with God . Martha and other women began in 1656 to interrupt Quaker meetings led by Francis Howgilland Edward Burrough, singing and chanting “innocency”. Some male Quakers considered her a witch. H. Larry Ingle argues that “she was certainly a powerful woman, a fact that helps explain the degree of opposition to her.” According to Ingle one of the problems was that like many Quakers “she spoke in a language that could not be read literally but was peppered with metaphors and images that had meaning to her but to few others…. it is easy to see how her enemies – and she had many in and outside the Children of the Light – could consider her a witch.”
Bernadette Smith, has attempted to recover Simmonds’ reputation in her article The Testimony of Martha Simmonds (2008). Smith argues that male writers have constantly referred to Simmonds as a”‘possible witch”, a “Ranterish woman”. Smith quotes Andrew W. Brink sees Simmonds as the “model for Eve and compares Eve’s supposed deception of Adam to Simmonds’ part in Nayler’s downfall… Simmonds: would not leave him (Nayler) alone in London or in Bristol, following him… much as Satan tracked Eve until he (Satan) implanted the self-destructive idea of becoming a goddess.”
New ESTC Beta R184168, Wing S3792
https://datb.cerl.org/estc/R184168
Library Company of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States: Wing S3792 Log.2318.Q.
Primary Copy
University of California, Los Angeles, William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, Los Angeles, California, U.S.
§
Worthy Proverbs by Judith Zins-Pennick 1663
862J Judith Zins-Pemminck (1631-1664) [Caton, William, translator]
Some worthy proverbs left behind by Judith Zins-Penninck, to be read in the congregation of the saints· Translated into English by one that testifieth, that God is no respecter of persons, for whosoever worketh righteousness, and feareth him, of what nation, countrey, trib or language soever he or she be, such find acceptance with the Lord. W.C.
London : printed for William Warwick, 1663. Price. $ 4,500
Quarto [2], 10 p. Signatures; Bound in modern plain wrapers
Judith Zinspenning, daughter Conrad Zinspenning and Catharina de Mol who were Mennonite, and afterwards a Baptist. Judith was married in 1652 to the Mennonite physician Jacob Willemsz Sewel. She showed such a deep religious inclination that her father said: “It is a pity that this girl is not a boy, who then in time might become an eminent instrument in the church.” Judith joined the Quakers in 1657, after hearing William Ames. She became an eloquent minister, visited England in 1663, was author of A Serious Reproof to the Flemish Baptists, 1660, a Book of Proverbs (translated into English by William Caton, London, 1663), An Epistle, and other short books. She died at Amsterdam on 10 September 1664, aged 34. Her husband predeceased her.
“You foolish Virgins, how have you been sleeping away your precious time“
With Quakerism she found the lively inner “Spirit.” The Sewels left the Mennonites and became ardent “instruments” of Quakerism. The Sewel home became a place for Quaker meetings. She was the first woman to lead worship services.
In 1663 she traveled to England with William Ames’ successor William Caton, where she developed further intimate contacts with the Quakers. She preached and wrote several books, including Een ernstige berispinge aen de leeraers van de ulaemsche doops-gesinde gemeinte ende de leeden derselve In Amsterdam : [publisher not identified], 1660 . She became a victim of a plague epidemic on her return to The Netherlands. Years later her son noted Dutch historian and lexicographer Willem Sewel published her writings in Eenige schriften en zendbrieven. . . nu tot verderen dienst gemeen gemaakt (1684). He also included a warm tribute to her in his Historie.
The present work is in fact a letter comprised of a series of proverbs of various lengths and on a great variety of subjects, focused on achieving wisdom and love through service and obedience to God and by supporting “them that are stumbling.” The work is signed in type “Your Friend and Sister, Judith Zins-Penninck” and datelined at the end from Colchester on June 2, 1663. The text is an English translation by Quaker William Caton (1636-1665) of the original Dutch. Zins-Penninck (or Zinspenning, as her name is sometimes found) was a deeply religious Mennonite until she was converted to Quakerism by missionary William Ames in 1657. She became a valuable missionary herself, hosting Quaker meetings at her house and preaching the Quaker doctrine in England in 1663, the same trip that produced the present work. Sadly, she contracted the plague on her way back from England to the Netherlands and died the next year.
•Note. The subsequent history of William Bradford in America, his work, and
his connection with the Keith schism, is part of Pennsylvania history.
ºNote. Judith Zins-Penninck or Zins-Penning, was a Dutch woman, the wife
of Jacob Williamson Sewel, and the mother of William Sewel, the well-known Quaker
historian. She died at Amsterdam, in the, 7th month, 1664. A copy of the above
tract, which is somewhat rare, is in the Haver ford College Library. (See Smith’s
Catalogue of Friends’
ESTC No.: R25223; Wing Z13; Smith, J. Descriptive catalogue of Friends’ books, II, p. 979.
https://datb.cerl.org/estc/R25223
Locations :1) Folger Shakespeare, 2)Friends Historical Society of Swarthmore College, 3)Harvard, 4)Haverford, 5)Huntington, 6)Yale .
I could not find any book by Judith Zins-Penninck in APC . In the 1906 book auctions records I only found this !
“William Warwick, bookseller in Colchester (?), 1663. His name is found on the imprint to a pamphlet entitled Some Worthy Proverbs Left Behind by Judith Zins-Penninckt to Be Read in the Congregation of the Saints.’ Translated into English by one that testifieth that God is no respecter of persons, for whosoever worketh righteousness, and feareth him, of what Nation, Countrey, Tribe or Language soever he or she be, such find acceptance with the Lord. W[illiam] C[aton], London, Printed for William Warwick, 1663.”
W. Warwick also printed “A Testimony,” etc., to Edward Burrough, in 1662; and William Ames’s “Sound out of Zion,” in 1663. The imprint, as given by Smith, “London. Printed and are to Be Sold by William Warwick,” would seem to imply that in 1662 and 1663, Warwick was resident in London, and not Colchester, as the Dictionary supposes. (Smith 1 : 367 ; 1 : 28.)”
¶
Anne Finch Countess of Winchilsea and Anne Wharton Two Female Wits!
A poetic miscellany with early modern female ownership with contributions of two Poetesses.
777E Anne Wharton, (née Lee) 1659-1685 (contributor) Anne Finch Anne Countess of Winchilsea (Contributor) John Sheffield Buckingham 1647-1721
A Collection of Poems: Viz. The Temple of Death: By the Marquis of Normanby. An Epistle to the Earl of Dorset: By Charles Montague, Lord Halifax. The Duel of the Stags: By Sir Robert Howard. With Several Original Poems, Never before Printed, By The E. of Roscommon. The E. of Rochester. The E. Orrery. Sir Charles Sedley. } { Sir George Etherege. Mr. Granville. Mr. Stepney. Mr. Dryden, &c.
London: Printed for Daniel Brown at the Black Swann and Bible without Temple Bar; And Benjamin Tooke at the Middle-Temple-gate in Fleetstreet, 1701. Price $2,200
Octavo 19 x 11cm. Signatures: A⁴, B-2E⁸, 2F⁴ (Bb3 missigned “B3”) Bound in contemporary panelled calf, raised bands, reback’d, gilt spine and morocco label. A very good copy, being internally very crisp and clean. A revised and enlarged edition of A Collection of Poems by Several Hands, published in 1693, this itself being an expansion of the first edition of 1672. (see #844J)
Silence, you Winds; listen, Etherial Lights, While our Urania sings what Heav’n indites. (Waller)
The miscellany’s title-poem is a translation by the Earl of Mulgrave of Philippe Habert’s elegy ‘Le Temple de la Mort,’ in spite of the scorn expressed in the publisher’s preface for the French nation, and ‘the Servile way of following their Modes’. An essay on poetry, by J. Sheffield, 1st duke of Buckingham.–Horace: of the art of poetry, by Horatius Flaccus.–An essay on translated verse, by the earl of Roscommon.–Coopers hill, by J. Denham.–The duel of the stags, by R. Howard.–The temple of death, by P. Habert.–Macflecknoe, by J. Dryden; with Spencer’s ghost, by J. Oldham–Lecretius.–The plague of Ahtens (!) by T. Sprat.–The spleen, by A.K. Finch, contess of Winchilsea.–A letter from Italy, by J. Addison together with The mourning muse of Alexis, by W. Congreve.–The Kit-Cats, by R. Blackmore.–The campaign, by J. Addison.–Pastorals, by A. Philips.–Faction display’d, by W. Shippen.–Baucis and Philemon, by J. Swift; as also An ode upon, by W. Dillon, 4th earl of Roscommon.–Muscipula, by E. Holdsworth. This is the Fourth edition of the important ‘Temple of Death’ miscellany of Restoration poetry, retaining most of the poems from the third edition (1693) and adding much material, including all the poems on pp. 172-282 – with contributions from Stepney, Arwaker and Congreve – and the poems at the end (pp. 391-453), among them ‘The Spleen’ by ANNE ( Kingsmil) FINCH, Countess of Winchilsea. The Poetry Foundation , which misses the date of the poem The Spleen, writes “possibly Finch’s most well-known poem, was first published anonymously in 1709. [Actually FIRST PRINTED HERE]
The ode was immediately popular and received much attention for its accurate description of the symptoms of melancholia—the disease often associated with the spleen—which Finch suffered from throughout her life. The speaker begins by acknowledging that hypochondria is also often associated with the spleen, the “pretended Fits,” the “sullen Husband’s feign’d Excuse,” and the coquette’s melancholy pose, “careless Posture, and the Head reclin’d.” She then proceeds to undermine these portraits of feigned illness, treating the disease as a real and terrifying affliction:
From Speech restrain’d, by thy Deceits abus’d,
To Deserts banish’d or in Cells reclus’d,
Mistaken Vot’ries to the Pow’rs Divine,
Wilst they a purer Sacrifice design,
Do but the Spleen obey, and worship at thy Shrine.
THE DNB writes “WHARTON, ANNE (1632?–1685), poetess, born in Oxfordshire about 1632, was the second daughter and coheiress of Sir Henry Lee, third baronet, of Ditchley, by Anne, daughter of Sir John Danvers, knight, of Cornbury. On 16 Sept. 1673 she married, as his first wife, Thomas Wharton (afterwards first Marquis of Wharton) [q. v.], to whom she brought a dowry of 10,000l. and 2,500l. a year. In 1680 and 1681 she was in Paris, and both then and afterwards had some correspondence with Dr. Gilbert Burnet [q. v.], who sent poems for her to criticise, among them his ‘Paraphrase on the Fifty-third Chapter of Isaiah, in imitation of Mrs. Anne Wharton.’ Her own ‘Lamentations of Jeremiah paraphrased,’ written apparently in 1681, appeared in the collection entitled ‘The Temple of Death,’ 1695
(it was reprinted with some addition in the second volume of ‘Whartoniana,’ 1727, pp. 64–92). Her ‘Verses on the Snuff of a Candle’ appeared in the first volume of ‘Dryden’s Miscellanies’ (1684, i. 144); her ‘Penelope to Ulysses’ in Tonson’s ‘Ovid’s Epistles by several Hands,’ of 1712, and some minor pieces, including a song, ‘How hardly I conceal’d my Tears,’ is published here in 1701 before ” Tooke’s ‘Collection’ (1716, p. 209), and in other miscellanies.
Her ‘Elegy on the Death of the Earl of Rochester’ (in the ‘Examen Miscellaneum’ of 1702, p. 15) drew from Waller the lines to ‘fairest Chloris,’ commencing ‘Thus mourn the Muses!’ and her ‘Paraphrase on the Lord’s Prayer,’ some tumid verses commencing
Waller pays the lady the somewhat doubtful compliment of assuring her that she was allied to Rochester ‘in genius as well as in blood.’ The kinship in either case was remote; the earl’s mother was aunt to Anne’s father, Sir Henry Lee. Her verses were also commended by Dryden, who upon the death of her elder sister, the Countess of Abingdon, in 1691, wrote the panegyrical poem ‘Eleonora.’ Anne Wharton died at Adderbury on 29 Oct. 1685, and was buried at Winchendon on 10 Nov. following. Her marriage had proved childless and unhappy, and it was only the good counsel of Burnet that prevented her from leaving her husband about 1682. A collection of ‘Copies of Mrs. Wharton’s Poems’ was appended to the Bodleian copy of Edward Young’s ‘Amoris Christiani mnēmoneutikon’ (1686). In addition to her printed writings, Mrs. Wharton left in manuscript a blank-verse tragedy in five acts called ‘Love’s Martyr, or Witt above Crowns.’ The subject is the love of Ovid for Julia, daughter of the emperor Augustus. The tragedy, formerly at Strawberry Hill, now forms Additional MS. 28693. A portrait, painted by Lely, was engraved by R. Earlom. Another, engraved by Bocquet, is given in Walpole’s ‘Royal and Noble Authors’ (1806, iii. 284).
[Ballard’s Memoirs of Learned Ladies, p. 297; Burke’s Extinct Peerage, pp. 347, 582; E. R. Wharton’s Whartons of Wharton Hall, 1898, p. 47; Nichols’s Lit. Anecdotes, v. 644; Waller’s Poems, ed. Drury, 1893, p. 342; General Dict. x. 122; Nichols’s Select Collection of Poems, 1780, i. 51, ii. 329, iii. 44, iv. 356; Chaloner Smith’s Mezzotint Portraits, p. 258, where Anne Wharton is wrongly entitled marchioness.]
English Short Title Catalogue Nº T116471; Case 151(e); Greer & Hastings, The Surviving Works of Anne Wharton, 1, 3, 4, 8, 9, 10(a), 20. 182. Prinz (Rochester) VII,21.*
https://datb.cerl.org/estc/T116471
‡
With early publication of Aphra Behn.
844J Aphra Behn 1640-1689. ed John Sheffield, Duke of Buckingham (1648-1720)
A Collection of Poems written upon several occasions by Several Persons with many additions, Never before in print.
London, Printed for Tho. Collins and John Ford in Fleet-street, and Will. Cademan at the Popes Head New-Exchange Strand. 1673. $2,900
Occtavo 17 x 11cm. Signatures: A4,B-M8, N4, ((A1 blank, and present). bound in contemporary sheep hinge cracked but holding strong.
A revised and enlarged edition of A Collection of Poems by Several Hands, being an expansion of the first edition of 1672, which has nothing identifiable as by Behn, Only this edition has the “Song from the Dutch Lover” Most of the other poems are identified as written by Sir Charles Sedley , Sir George Etheridge and Sheffield Duke of Buckingham.
Some of the wonderful Poems in this miscellany are: Aphra Bhen’s Poem A SONG in the Dutch-Lover is on leaf N1r-N2r,
By the Earl of Rochester, To Celia (all things submit themselves to you…)P113, I1r and on M5Vis Another Prologue to Morrocco.
Wing; C5175; Arber’s Term cat.; I 134; Cf. Case, A.E. Poetical miscellanies, 1935, p. 100.Case 151(b); see O’Donnell Bhen *BB2; Prinz (Rochester) VII,4.*
https://datb.cerl.org/estc/R13357
North America:
Columbia University, Folger Shakespeare, Washington, Harvard University, Henry E. Huntington Library, Newberry, Chicago, Princeton University, Princeton, University of California, Los Angeles, William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, University of Texas at Austin, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Yale University,
-*-
480J. Judith Drake. (Mary Astell or Judith Drake (fl 1696 d. 1723)
An essay in defence of the female sex. In which are inserted the characters of a pedant, a squire, a beau, a vertuoso, a poetaster, a city-critick, &c. In a letter to a lady. Written by a lady.
London : printed for A. Roper and E. Wilkinson at the Black Boy, and R. Clavel at the Peacock, in Fleetstreet, 1696. Price: $1,800
Octavo (16 x 9 ½ cm) Signatures: A8, B4, B-K8, L4 (Lacking the engraved frontispiece, “The Compleat Beau”)
Bound in Contemporary blind stamped calf, rebacked. The contents generally clean, Lacking the engraved frontispiece of “The Compleat Beau”. Second edition, published the same year as the first, of “one of the greatest works of early modern ‘feminism’” (Smith, p. 727).
The words “a pedant, .. beau,” and “A vertuoso, .. &c.” are bracketed together on title page. Quire L is two settings: last line of text on p. 148 is 1) “the mean Performance of” or 2) “mean Performance of”.
Wing A 4058. NOW Wing (CD-ROM, 1996), D2125A
Published anonymously and previously attributed to Mary Astell or Jane Barker, the essay is now generally credited as the work of author and physician Judith Drake (c.1670-1723), active as part of an intellectual circle who included Astell and Lady Mary Wortley Montagu.
“In 1696, An Essay in Defense of the Female Sex was published in London, “written by a Lady.” For a long time, this work was attributed to Mary Astell, an English pro-woman writer, known for her work A Serious Proposal to the Ladies published two years earlier. In recent years, however, the authorship has been attributed to Judith Drake, and English intellectual from the same circle as Astell. She was married to the physician and political pamphleteer James Drake, who wrote a poem dedicated to the author, which appeared in the second edition of the book. Another piece of evidence of Drake’s authorship is in the description of the book that appears in a catalog of books sold after 1741 by the publisher Edmund Curll, in which it was noted that it was written by “‘Mrs. Drake, probably a sister of Dr. James Drake, who attended to the publication of the pamphlet’” (quoted in Hill 877). Her husband was James Drake, fellow of the Royal Society, physician and writer on medicine and politics; his name is given to the laudatory verses which introduce this work. Judith completed, edited, and published her posthumous medical opus Anthropologia Nova in 1707.
The essay is now considered “one of the most significant English contributions to the beginning of the modern debate concerning women” (Smith, p. 727) .
Written in the form of a letter to a friend, “the tract vigorously and witfully defended feminine intellectual ability and character. Drake drew on John Locke’s essay on human understanding to construct a rationalist framework on which to argue that these were customs and language. which spawned the belief that women were intellectually inferior to men. Drake then rejected the cult of the elders and, in their stead, defended the value of learning ‘Modern’ and the value of information education for women Drake welded rationalist epistemology to ‘feminist’ The argument was particularly original in the context of early modern writings in favor of women. For, despite the proliferation of these works at the end of the 17th century, only two “feminist” texts had previously used such a methodology as a basis for their discussion, and only one had been English. was The Woman as Good as the Man (1677), a translation of the Cartesian analysis of François Poulain de la Barre on the cultural construction of gender, On the equality of the two sexes (1673). Two decades later, another Cartesian-inspired treatise joined the debate. This was a serious proposition from Mary Astell to the ladies (1694 and 1697), who advocated the establishment of places of “religious retreat” which would allow women to withdraw from the world to practice contemplation “(Smith, pp. 728- 29). See Hannah Smith, “English“ Feminist ”Writings and“ An Essay in Defense of the Female Sex ”by Judith Drake (1696),” The Historical Journal, vol. 44, no. 3, 2001, p. 727-47.
Wing (CD-ROM, 1996),; D2125A; Arber’s Term cat.,; II 580
https://datb.cerl.org/estc/R2585
∞
With two poems attributed to Aphra Behn
194c Poems on affairs of state
Poems on affairs of state: from the time of Oliver Cromwell, to the abdication of K. James the Second. Written by the greatest wits of the age. Viz. Duke of Buckingham, Earl of Rochester, Lord Bu——-st, Sir John Denham, Andrew Marvell, Esq; Mr. Milton, Mr. Dryden, Mr. Sprat, Mr. Waller. Mr. Ayloffe, &c. With some miscellany poems by the same: most whereof never before printed. Now carefully examined with the originals, and published without any castration.
[London : s.n.], Printed in the year 1697. Price $1,100
Octavo 17.5 x 11cm. Signatures: A⁸ (A₁, blank, wanting), B-K⁸, 1 leaf unsigned, L-Q⁸ A⁸. [Lacking A1&8 The Perfect Enjoyment and A satyr against marriage. ] [14], 260 [i.e. 240] + 8p. Not in Case, which has “t” of “time” in uppercase. Bound in modern quarter calf .
Brajazet to Glorana 1683/4 on leaves N1v-Nv2 and DESIRE A Pindarci on leaves Q2v P4r. are both by Mrs Behn
On Desire. A Pindaric. (stanza 1)
by Aphra Behn
| What art thou, O thou new-found pain? From what infection dost thou spring? Tell me — oh! Tell me thou enchanting thing, Thy nature, and thy name; Inform me by what subtle art, What powerful influence, You got such vast dominion in a part Of my unheeded, and unguarded, heart, That fame and honour cannot drive ye thence. |
Most of the other poems address subjects banned but written during the reigns of Cromwell to James II , primarily focusing on political and social events. The poems often reflect the political and social turmoil of the time, with varying perspectives and opinions on the events and figures of the era.
https://datb.cerl.org/estc/R26892
Wing (CD-ROM, 1996), P2719. Not in Case; O’Donnell BB20A (page 251) Prinz (John Wilmot 2nd Earl of Rochester , VII,19
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