References to Members of the Steele Circle in The Female Advocate

Background

In the selections below, the individuals described by Scott are a Miss Williams of Yeovil, a close friend of both Scott and Mary Steele (see Steele's tribute poem to Williams); Anne Steele ("Theodosia"); William Steele IV ("Philander"); and Dr. Richard Pulteney (1730-1801) of Blandford. Pulteney is connected to other members of the Steele circle. Originally from Leicester, he attended the Great Meeting (Presbyterian) congregation there, and knew both Coltman families (Elizabeth Coltman, Mary Steele’s friend, and the family of Elizabeth Coltman Heyrick) and the Reid family, which included Coltman’s close friend (and later that of Mary Steele), Mary Reid, all of whom also attended the Great Meeting. As Samuel Coltman writes in his Journal, Mary Reid was ‘the old friend of our family’s so often alluded to in the letters of D^r Pulteney and the sister to D^r Reid; both of them distinguished for talents in the society they frequented’ (Leicestershire Record Office, 15D57/449). Lonsdale (Eighteenth-Century Women Poets, p. 320) incorrectly assumes Pulteney is Scott’s early muse, having missed the reference to Mary Steele’s father. It may be that Pulteney, a Unitarian, played some role in Mary Scott’s rejection of Calvinism in the late 1770s.

(And thou, my Celia, in life’s gayest bloom

Felt’st its dread stroke, and met an early tomb:

Listless I touch the long-neglected lyre,

Now thy dear name has ceas’d my songs t’inspire.

Nor more shall Fancy’s glowing page delight,

Or Art’s proud trophies charm my aching sight,

Still the keen pangs of parting rend my breast,

And rob my days of peace, my nights of rest!)

When Theodosia tunes her Heav’n-taught lyre,

What bosom burns not with seraphic fire?

Sweet harmonist! in thy extatic lines

Virtue in all her native graces shines:

There, each bright hope in tuneful numbers flows,

And there, fair faith! Thy sacred ardour glows:

There, resignation smiles on care and pain,

And rapt’rous joy attunes the grateful strain.

O yet may Heav’n its healing aid extend,

And yet to health restore my valued friend:

Long be it ere her gentle spirit rise,

To fill some glorious mansion in the skies.

Philander! generous, affable, sincere,

His taste as polish’d as his judgment clear,

Blest with the tenderst feelings of the Heart,

Wise without Stiffness, prudent without Art,

Form’d with like ease t’ enjoy a prosp’rous state

Or bear the storms of unpropitious fate.

Such he, who, when I first attun’d the lay,

With his own candour view’d the faint essay;

Enjoin’d me still to court the Muse’s smile,

The tiresome hours of languor to beguile.

O could this pen, which gratitude impells,

But tell how — — — in each scene excels!

O could she but some glowing colours find,

To paint each feature of his finish’d mind!

A mind, unstain’d with vanity, or art,

The gentlest manners, and the kindest heart!

A mind where prudence, judgement, taste unite,

Though learn’d yet humble, though sincere polite;

His passions calm’d, his wishes all subdu’d,

But these (the noblest!) to be wise and good.

Text: Mary Scott, The Female Advocate (London: J. Johnson, 1774); reprinted in Nonconformist Women Writers, vol. 4, pp. 34-35, 40, 45-46.