Elizabeth Tollet: A New Newtonian Woman

Unless otherwise indicated, citations from Tollet, Poems, refer to Tollet E. , Poems on several occasions. With Anne Boleyn to King Henry VIII. An epistle (London, c. 1760).

Tollet appears neither in any of the major Newton biographies, nor in Nicolson M. H. , Newton demands the muse: Newton's Opticks and the eighteenth century poets (Princeton, 1946).

For invisible workers, see Shapin S. , “The house of experiment in seventeenth-century England”, Isis, lxxix (1988), 373–404, and Pumfrey S. , “Who did the work? Experimental philosophers and public demonstrators in Augustan England”, The British journal for the history of science, xxviii (1995), 131–56. The growing literature on individual female natural philosophers includes: Findlen P. , “A forgotten Newtonian: Women and science in the Italian provinces”, in Clark W. Golinski J. Schaffer S. (eds), The sciences in enlightened Europe (Chicago and London, 1999), 313–49; Harkness D. E. , “Managing an experimental household: The Dees of Mortlake and the practice of natural philosophy”, Isis, lxxxviii (1997), 247–62; Hunter L. Hutton S. (eds), Women, science and medicine 1500–1700: Mothers and sisters of the Royal Society (Stroud, 1997); Schiebinger L. , The mind has no sex? Women in the origins of modern science (Cambridge, Mass. and London, 1989), 37–118; Terrall M. , “Émilie du Châtelet and the gendering of science”, History of science, xxxiii (1995), 283–310; Zinsser J. P. , “Émilie du Châtelet: Genius, gender, and intellectual authority”, in Smith H. L. (ed.), Women writers and the early modern British political tradition (Cambridge, 1998), 168–90.

For popularization, see Cooter R. Pumfrey S. , “Separate spheres and public places: Reflections on the history of science popularization and science in popular culture”, History of science, xxxii (1994), 237–67. For Newtonianism, see Fara P. , Newton: The making of genius (London, 2002), and Stewart L. , The rise of public science: Rhetoric, technology, and natural philosophy in Newtonian Britain, 1660–1750 (Cambridge, 1992). For Enlightenment women collectively, see Daston L. J. , “The naturalised female intellect”, Science in context, v (1992), 209–35; Mullan J. , “Gendered knowledge, gendered minds: Women and Newtonianism, 1690–1760”, in Benjamin M. (ed), A question of identity: Women, science and literature (New Brunswick, 1993), 41–56; Noble D. F. , A world without women: The Christian clerical culture of Western science (New York, 1992); Walters A. , “Conversation pieces: Science and politeness in eighteenth-century England”, History of science, xxxv (1997), 121–54.

For instance, Gallagher C. , Nobody's story: The vanishing acts of women in the marketplace, 1670–1820 (Berkeley, 1994) and Turner C. , Living by the pen: Women writers in the eighteenth century (London, 1992).

Nicolson , op. cit. (ref. 1); for a direct response, see Jones W. P. , “Newton further demands the muse”, Studies in English literature 1500–1900, iii (1963), 287–306. Other studies include: Epstein J. L. Greenberg M. L. , “Decomposing Newton's rainbow”, Journal of the history of ideas, xlv (1984), 115–40; Fara P. Money D. , “Isaac Newton and Augustan Anglo-Latin poetry”, Studies in the history and philosophy of science , forthcoming; Greenberg M. L. , “Eighteenth-century poetry represents moments of scientific discovery: Appropriation and generic transformation”, in Peterfreund S. (ed.), Literature and science: Theory and practice (Boston, 1990), 115–37; Jones W. P. , The rhetoric of science: A study of scientific ideas and imagery in eighteenth-century English poetry (London, 1966); Thomas W. K. Ober W. U. , A mind for ever voyaging: Wordsworth at work portraying Newton and science (Edmonton, 1989).

Barker H. Chalus E. , Gender in eighteenth-century England: Roles, representations and responsibilities (Harlow, 1997), 1–28. Vickery A. , “Golden age to separate spheres? A review of the categories and chronology of English women's history”, The historical journal, xxxvi (1993), 383–414. Lonsdale R. , Eighteenth century women poets: An Oxford anthology (Oxford and New York, 1990), pp. xxi–xlvii, especially p. xxii.

The major (but brief) modern biographical sources are the Dictionary of national biography and Lonsdale R. , Eighteenth century women poets: An Oxford anthology (Oxford and New York, 1990), 96. For the Westmorland suggestion: Cooke Tollet is described as “a youth of Northern extract” (Gentleman's magazine, c (1820), 602); George Tollet's entry in Foster's Alumni Oxoniensis reports he comes from “Westmor”. For Staffordshire, see Burke's genealogical and heraldic history of the commoners of Great Britain and Ireland, ii (1835), 224. For Betley Hall, see Healey E. , Emma Darwin: The inspirational wife of a genius (London, 2001), 99: In the nineteenth century, it was still owned by the Tollet family, close friends of the Wedgwoods. I am grateful for information from two archivists, Judith Curthoys at Christ Church and Malcolm Underwood at St John's. I am also grateful to Rob Iliffe for the following information: There is a letter from Marcus Tollet to Newton of 21 October 1706 asking him to present a boy to the Newchapel Free School (Pierpont Morgan Library, N.Y., Acc. No. MA2536 (R42)). I have not seen this letter, but Marcus Tollet is not mentioned in any of the sources I have examined.

Gentleman's magazine, c (1820), 602 and ci (1820), 98, 419. There was a correspondence debate about whether these words referred to Cooke, but even if not, they evidently matched his reputation.

Scott R. F. , Admissions to the College of St John the Evangelist in the University of Cambridge (Cambridge, 1903), 302. Luttrell N. , A brief historical relation of State affairs from September 1678 to April 1714 (6 vols, Oxford, 1857), iv, 219, 306, 661. Collinge J. M. , Navy Board officials 1660–1832 (London, 1978), 18–20, 50, 144. I am grateful for information from the Tower's Librarian, Bridget Clifford, and Archivist, Dr Parnell. Tollet's engraved two-handled silver cup is owned by the Tower, class no. XVII-67.

Monthly review, xiii (1755), 376. Hays M. , Female biography; Or, memoirs of illustrious and celebrated women, of all ages and countries (6 vols, London, 1803), vi, 435–6.

Heilbrun C. G. , Writing a woman's life (London, 1988). Henry M. M. , Prisoner of history: Aspasia of Miletus and her biographical tradition (New York and Oxford, 1995). McGovern B. , Anne Finch and her poetry: A critical biography (Athens, Georgia and London, 1992), 1–7, 159–78. Salvaggio R. , Enlightened absence: Neoclassical configurations of the feminine (Urbana and Chicago, 1988).

Tollet , Poems, “The Portrait”, 33–34; see also “The Coquette and Prude”, 125–7.

British Library Add MS 1388, f136, undated letter (1692–94) from Tollet to Holder.

For the lives of eighteenth-century genteel women, see Vickery A. , The gentleman's daughter: Women's lives in Georgian England (New Haven and London, 1998). For further references to this literature, see Barker Chalus , op. cit. (ref. 6), and Kent S. K. , Gender and power in Britain, 1640–1990 (London and New York, 1999), 1–150.

Tollet , Poems, 68 (from “Hypatia”).

Pp. 240–1 of Iliffe R. Willmoth F. , “Astronomy and the domestic sphere: Margaret Flamsteed and Caroline Herschel as assistant-astronomers”, in Hunter L. Hutton S. (eds), Women, science and medicine 1500–1700: Mothers and sisters of the Royal Society (Stroud, 1997), 235–65.

Nichols J. , A select collection of poems (8 vols, London, 1780–2), vi, 64.

Tollet , Poems, p. i.

Monthly review, xiii (1755), 375. Nangle B. C. , The monthly review first series 1748–89 (Oxford, 1934), 26–27, 210. Hanway J. , Translations of several odes, satyrs, and epistles of Horace (London, 1730), 262–3.

Tollet , Poems, 129 (“On the Death of Sir Isaac Newton”).

Iliffe Willmoth , op. cit. (ref. 16), 244–57. Costa S. , “The Ladies' diary: Gender, mathematics, and civil society in early eighteenth-century England”, Osiris, xvii (2002), 49–73. I am grateful to Shelley Costa for informing me that, up to 1725, Tollet did not contribute — At least, not under her own name.

However, since she included a short early poem addressed “To a Person who printed and mangled some Verses of mine” (p. 51 of the 1724 edition of Tollet, Poems), she must already have published one or more of her poems. She may have been the author of “The unfortunate maiden”, a cheaply produced broadsheet of verses about Susannah's grief when her lover is drowned. The British Library catalogue tentatively attributes this poem to her (HS 54/1250 (6)), presumably because she later wrote a musical drama about Susannah; however, there does not seem to be much resemblance between them, and the broadsheet poem is not subtle (it ends: “When o'er the white waves stooping, / His floating corpse she espy'd, / Then like a lilly drooping, / She bow'd her head and dy'd.”) She wrote an admiring poem about Handel, but his Oratorio “Susanna” appeared after she had already died.

Dictionary of national biography; Lonsdale, op. cit. (ref. 6), 96–102, 520–1.

Hanway , op. cit. (ref. 19), 262–3. Hanway did not, however, belong to the Latin poetry correspondence circle of Anthony Alsop: See Money D. , The English Horace: Anthony Alsop and the tradition of British Latin verse (Oxford, 1998).

Hill A. , Works (4 vols, London, 1753–4), iii, 51–52. By comparing her with an “Indian” Alzira, Hill may possibly have been satirically commenting on the practice of Anne Finch and other women poets to refer to themselves with names such as Ardelia and Arminda; Voltaire's play Alzire was published in 1736.

Gentleman's magazine, lxxxv (1815), 484 (from the epitaph on her gravestone); Nichols , op. cit. (ref. 17), vi, 64.

Reynolds M. , The learned lady in England 1650–1760 (Gloucester, Mass., 1964), 373–419. Miller J. , The humours of Oxford (Dublin, 1730), 82. Mullan , op. cit. (ref. 3). Vickery , op. cit. (ref. 6).

Centlivre S. , The basset-table: A comedy (London, 1706). Lock F. P. , Susanna Centlivre (Boston, 1979).

McGovern , op. cit. (ref. 11). Smith H. , Reason's disciples: Seventeenth-century English feminists (Urbana, 1982), 151–91.

Tollet , Poems, 30–31, 35–40, 139, 49–50. Blackler was buried in the Tower, and it seems reasonable to suggest that they both lived there.

Hawley J. (ed.). Bluestocking feminism: Writings of the bluestocking circle, ii: Elizabeth Carter (London, 1999), especially the editor's introduction.

Guest H. , Small change: Women, learning, patriotism, 1750–1810 (Chicago and London, 2000).

Monthly review, xiii (1755), 373. For journals and readers, see Secord J. A. , Victorian sensation: The extraordinary publication, reception, and secret authorship of Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation (Chicago, 2000).

Turner , op. cit. (ref. 4), 135–6 (Bathoe's).

Charlton J. (ed.), The Tower of London: Its buildings and institutions (London, 1978).

Tollet , Poems, 25–26.

Tollet , Poems, 25–26 (from “To my Brother at St John's College in Cambridge”). Westfall R. , Never at rest: A biography of Isaac Newton (Cambridge, 1980), 556.

Tollet , Poems , 96 (from “Anne Boleyn”). For a summary of recent literature on women and space, see pp. 24–26 of Mill S. , “Written on the landscape: Mary Wollstonecraft's Letters written during a short residence in Sweden, Norway and Denmark”, in Gilroy A. (ed.), Romantic geographies: Discourses of travel 1775–1844 (Manchester, 2000), 19–34.

Tollet , Poems, 66 (from “Hypatia”).

Tollet , Poems, 67 (from “Hypatia”).

Feminist interpretations include Smith , op. cit. (ref. 29) and Ferguson M. (ed.), First feminists: British women writers, 1578–1799 (Bloomington, 1985).

Tollet , Poems, 67 (from “Hypatia”).

Wollstonecraft M. , A vindication of the rights of woman (Harmondsworth, 1975), 119.

See ref. 5 for references. For poems celebrating Newton's Principia, see Albury W. R. , “Halley's ode on the Principia of Newton and the Epicurean revival in England”, Journal of the history of ideas, xxxix (1978), 24–43, and Figala K. Petzold U. , “Physics and poetry: Fatio de Duillier's Ecloga on Newton's Principia“, Archives internationales d'histoire des sciences, xxxvii (1987), 316–49.

Ramsay A. , Works (3 vols, London, 1851), i, 268. Opening of Glover's unpaginated poem in Pemberton H. , A view of Sir Isaac Newton's philosophy (London, 1728).

Tollet , Poems, 46–47.

Tollet , Poems, 151.

Baker H. , The universe. A poem. Intended to restrain the pride of man (London, 1727), 6 (see pp. 5–8). Tollet does not mention Baker by name, but writes “This Essay of mine was occasioned by an ingenious Poem, called the Universe…”.

Tollet , Poems, 107 (from “Microcosm”). Spadafora D. , The idea of progress in eighteenth-century Britain (New Haven and London, 1990).

Stevens G. A. , Works (London, 1807), 68–69.

Frankel L. , “Damaris Cudworth Masham: A seventeenth century feminist philosopher”, Hypatia , iv/i (1989), 80–90 (the meeting is not mentioned in Westfall, op. cit. (ref. 37)). Hutton S. , “Anne Conway, Margaret Cavendish and seventeenth-century scientific thought”, in Hunter Hutton (eds), op. cit. (ref. 16), 218–34. Conway A. , The principles of the most ancient and modern philosophy , ed. by Coudert A. P. Corse T. (Cambridge, 1996). Nicolson M. H. Hutton S. (eds), The Conway letters: The correspondence of Anne, Viscountess Conway, Henry More, and their friends 1642–1684 (Oxford, 1992).

Tollet , Poems, 100 (from “Microcosm”).

Centlivre , op. cit. (ref. 28), 30.

Tollet , Poems, 128–30.