To Miss Scott on reading "The Female Advocate" (1774)

Oh! while a grateful World thy worth displays

And dwells enraptur’d on thy tuneful Lays,

Shall Friendship leave untouch’d the silent Lyre,

Nor boast the joys thy pleasing strains inspire?

Could I like thee expressive language find

To paint the Ideas that expand my mind,

Then might the Glow that animates my breast

Be with a corresponding warmth exprest.

But though unequal to the fond design,

Cold and unfaithful flows the languid line;

Thy mental paintings charm my raptur’d sight,

And my heart beats with wonder and delight.

O form’d to vindicate thy Sex’s cause,

And free their Minds from folly’s tyrant laws,

May thy Example and thy precepts fire

Their Minds to imitate what they admire.

By nature cloath’d in Beauty’s fairest dyes,

The lovely family of Flora rise;

Though beauteous all, yet different is their bloom,

Their texture various, various their perfume:

Thus have thy well drawn Characters display’d

Genius and worth in different forms array’d;

Thy Pencil well each nice distinction knew,

And sweetly blended every varied hue;

While Energy and Harmony combine,

And taste and Genius breathe in every Line.

O while Applauses deck thy honor’d Name,

And Paens echo from the Trump of Fame;

Say, wilt thou still with wonted kindness view

The humble lay to friendship ever true?

Yet tho thy sweetly-flowing Strains excite

The Glow of Gratitude and warm delight,

Still dearer are the tender ties that bind

My long-lov’d Myra to my grateful Mind:

Thy Counsel oft has cheer’d Affliction’s night;

Thy presence made Prosperity more bright:

Each dear Memorial of thy friendship past,

Fond Memory feels as strongly as the last.

With animated Step, my Friend pursue

The path that Science opens to thy view;

And Oh, may heaven those long-lost joys bestow,

The Calm of peace, and health’s enlivening glow;

And while thy tuneful Lays transmit to Fame,

With deathless Laurels crown’d the Female Name;

Thy gen’rous Labors will for ever be

A fairer, nobler Monument to Thee.

Sylvia

Text: MS, Steele Collection, Angus Library, Regent’s Park College, Oxford, STE 5/5/iv; also 5/1 (this version transcribed by Mary Steele Tomkins, Mary Steele’s niece, and is devoid of all punctuation); see also Whelan, Nonconformist Women Writers, vol. 3, pp. 31-32. The poem first appeared in The Lady’s Magazine 5 (1774), pp. 662-63, titled ‘To Miss Scot [sic], on reading the Female Advocate’, signed ‘Sylvia’; this was Mary Steele’s first published poem. No substantive variants exist between the 1774 printed text and 5/5/iv, which is probably the fairest copy of any poem in Mary Steele’s hand in the Steele collection. Differences, however, do exist between the two texts, including the absence of three paragraph breaks, some punctuation and spelling variations, and the omission of capitalizations for several nouns. Herbert McLachlan incorrectly attributes authorship of the poem to Anne Steele. See Herbert McLachlan, ‘The Taylors and Scotts of the Manchester Guardian’, Essays and Addresses (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1950), p. 79.