Anne Finch, Countess of Winchilsea

Anne Finch, Countess of Winchilsea (* April 1661 in Sydmonton, Hampshire; † August 5, 1720 in Westminster, Middlesex ) was an English poet of the Augustan Age.

Life

Anne Finch is from Hampshire and was born in April 1661 near Newbury, the daughter of Sir William Kingsmill and Anne Haslewood. Anne's father died five months after her birth. The mother married in 1662 Sir Thomas Ogle, but died two years later. Anne and her sister Bridget grew up with her grandmother Lady Kingsmill after also the stepfather had died in 1671. The girls enjoyed a progressive for the time training in a private setting, presumably with her uncle Sir William Haslewood.

1683 Maid of Honour Anne of Mary of Modena, Duchess of York, and married in May 1684 Heneage Finch the Gentleman of the Bedchamber of James, Duke of York. After the revolution of 1688 and the flight of James, who had become king as James II, Heneage was one of the so-called Nonjurors who do not take the oath to the new King William III. took off from Orange. The Finch's talking then far from London to, but Heneage appeared in court and had to take lengthy negotiations, as he claimed France had expelled the king want to follow. In the nineties, Anne and her husband lived at Eastwell Park, Kent, the country estate of Heneages nephew Charles Finch, 4th Earl of Winchilsea. The situation of the couple did not relax until the reign of Queen Anne (from 1702), and Anne Finch was appointed Lady of the Bedchamber. In August 1712 Heneage inherited surprisingly the title of Earl of Winchilsea, when his nephew Charles Finch died childless.

With the beginning of the reign of George I, the ratios for the couple were heavy again, as it came to an extremely anti- Jacobite Whig government to power. This led to a worsening in health by Anne Finch. They have long suffered from depression. In 1715 she fell gravely ill. Until her death in August 1720, was correspondingly impaired health, which is also reflected in their late work.

Work

Anne began writing in the eighties. 1701 published four of her poems in Charles Gildons New Collection of Poems on Several Occasions, 1713 came their collection Miscellany Poems (London: John Barber) out. Anne exchanged letters to authors and artists such as Alexander Pope, Charles Jervas and Matthew Prior Many poems after 1715 have a religious content, probably not least because Anne gravely ill.

After her death, the Countess died in 1720, numerous poems remained unpublished. Anne Finch's verses found it in various anthologies, but towards the end of the 18th century, their works were rarely printed. Her poems, especially the Nocturnal Reverie, were praised by Wordsworth in the essay, Supplemantary to the Preface of his Poetical Works ( 1815). Reminiscences of her longer poem The Spleen can be found for example in Alexander Pope's Essay on Man and Shelley Epipsychidion.

Works

• A Nocturnal Reverie and Enquiry after Peace come from the collection Miscellany Poems 1713.