elia's real name--Theophilus Gibber says,
"A great number of our authoress' poems still continue unpublished,
in the hands of the Rev. Mr. Creake." In 1884 I saw advertised, in an
obscure book-list, a folio volume of old manuscript poetry. Something
excited my curiosity, and I sent for it. It proved to be a vast
collection of the poems of my beloved Anne Finch. I immediately
communicated with the bookseller, and asked him whence it came. He
replied that it had been sold, with furniture, pictures and books, at
the dispersing of the effects of a family of the name of Creake. Thank
you, divine Ardelia! It was well done; it was worthy of you.

Anne Finch, Countess of Winchilsea, is not a commanding figure in
history, but she is an isolated and a well-defined one. She is what
one of the precursors of Shakespeare calls "a diminutive excelsitude."
She was entirely out of sympathy with her age, and her talent was
hampered and suppressed by her conditions. She was the solitary writer
of actively developed romantic tastes between Marvell and Gray, and
she was not strong enough to create an atmosphere for herself within
the vacuum in which she languished. The facts of her life are
extremely scanty, although they may now be considerably augmented
by the help of my folio. She was born about 1660, the daughter of a
Hampshire baronet. She was maid of honour to Mary of Modena, Duchess
of York, and at Court she met Heneage Finch, who was gentleman of
the bed-chamber to the Duke. They married in 1685, probably on the
occasion of the enthronement of their master and mistress, and when
the crash came in 1688, they fled together to the retirement of
Eastwell Park. They inhabited this mansion for the rest of their
lives, although it was not until the death of his nephew, in 1712,
that Heneage Finch became fourth Earl of Winchilsea. In 1713 Anne was
at last persuaded to publish a selection of her poems, and in 1720 she
died. The Earl survived her until 1726.

My manuscript was written, I think, in or about the year 1696--that
is to say, when Mrs. Finch was in retirement from the Court. She has
adopted the habit of writing,

_Betrayed by solitude to try
Amusements, which the prosperous fly_.

But her exile from the world gives her no disquietude. It seems almost
an answer to her prayer. Years before, when she was at the centre of
fashion in the Court of James II., she had written in an epistle to
the Countess of Thanet:

_Give me,