Bathsua Makin

Verse

D.O.M.S. (‘In eximiâ formâ, sublime ingenium’)

A Latin inscription which Lucy Hastings, Countess of Huntingdon, had engraved on the tomb of her parents, Sir John and Eleanor Davies, including, inter alia, twenty lines of lapidary verse. First published in Grosart.

It has been attributed to Bathsua Makin, but the authorship is uncertain.

MaB 1

Copy in a neat italic hand, on two pages of a pair of conjugate quarto leaves, very faded. [1652].

Huntington, HA Literature Box 1 (2).

In mortem clarissimi Domini, Domini Henrici Hastings (‘En duplex ænigma! senex, juvenisque! beatus’)

A 24-line Latin elegy on the death of. Henry, Lord Hastings, oldest son of Lucy Hastings, Dowager Countess of Huntingdon, on 24 June 1649. First published in H.T. Swedenberg, Jr., ‘More tears for Lord Hastings’, HLQ, 16 (1952), 43-51. Works of John Dryden, California edn, I (1956), 172-3.

*MaB 2

A neatly written autograph presentation MS to Lucy Hastings, with a revision in line 9, headed in full ‘In mortem clarissimi Domini, Domini Henrici Hastings, Baronis inclytissimi, illustrissimi Comitis de Huntingdon et doctissimæ Comitissæ Dominæ Luciæ Filij unici, Juvenis præstantissimi, optimæque spei, eruditissimi, pulcherrimi, et bonaru literarum amantissimi’, and signed ‘Bathsua Makin’, on the first page of two conjugate folio leaves, originally folded as a packet. 1649.

This MS cited in Brink, p. 319.

Huntington, HA Literature Box 1 (1).

‘Magnus in Heroum numero spectabere Boile’

See MaB 10.

To the right honorable the Countesse Douager of Huntingdon (‘Illustrious Lady, where shall I begin’)

Kissing the Rod, ed. Germaine Greer et al. (New York, 1988), p. 228.

*MaB 3

Autograph presentation MS, signed ‘Bathsua Makin’, on the first page of a pair of conjugate quarto leaves, undated.

In: A folio composite miscellany of verse MSS, chiefly poems on affairs of state, in various hands and paper sizes, now disbound in folders.

Among papers of the Hastings family, Earls of Huntingdon.

Harvard, fMS Eng 623, Folder 26.

Upon the much lamented death of the right honourable the Lady Elizabeth Langham (‘Passe not, but wonder, and amazed stand’)

A 39-line English elegy on the death of Lucy Hastings's granddaughter, Lady Elizabeth Langham, on 28 March 1664. First published in Simon Ford, A Christian's Acquiescence in all the Products of Divine Providence (London, 1665). The Female Spectator: English Women writers before 1800, ed. Mary R. Mahl and Helene Koon (Old Westbury, NY, 1977), pp. 124-5. Kissing the Rod, ed. Germaine Greer et al. (New York, 1988), pp. 226-7.

*MaB 4

A neatly written autograph presentation MS, incorporated in an autograph letter to Lucy Hastings, Countess of Huntingdon, signed ‘Bathsua Makin mæsta ploravit’, the poem on two pages in a pair of conjugate folio leaves, 2 May 1664. 1664.

Cited in Brink, pp. 319-20, and in Teague, p. 86. Facsimile of the first page in Maggs's sale catalogue The Huntingdon Papers (1926), p. 172 and Plate XVIII.

Huntington, HA 8799.

Letters

Letter(s)

*MaB 5

Autograph letter signed by Makin, to her brother-in-law John Pell, 19 December [1652]. 1652.

In: A folio composite volume of papers and correspondence of John Pell (1611-85), mathematician and political agent, in various hands.

Pell Papers (1st series), Volume II.

Quoted in Teague, p. 81.

British Library, Add. MS 4279, f. 103r.

*MaB 6

Autograph letter signed by Makin, to Lucy Hastings, Countess of Huntingdon (addressed as ‘Illustrious Princesse’), from lodgings in Long Acre, [London], 16 March ‘1667’, on a pair of conjugate quarto leaves. 1667/8.

Maggs's sale catalogue The Huntingdon Papers (1926), p. 175.

Cited in Brink, p. 320, and in Teague, p. 87.

Huntington, HA 8800.

*MaB 7

Autograph letter signed by Makin, to Lucy Hastings, Countess of Huntingdon (addressed as ‘Illustrious Princesse’), 24 October 1668, on a pair of conjugate quarto leaves. 1668.

Maggs's sale catalogue The Huntingdon Papers (1926), p. 175.

Cited in Brink, pp. 320-1, and in Teague, p. 87.

Huntington, HA 8801.

*MaB 8

Autograph letter signed (‘Bathsua Makin’), to Dr Baldwin Hamey (1600-76), physician, from her lodgings at Long Acre, London, 22 November 1675. 1675.

Facsimile in Teague, pp. 92.

Royal College of Physicians, MS 310, No. 84, f. 119.

MaB 9

Copy of Makin's autograph letter to Dr Baldwin Hamey, 22 November 1675. c.1675.

Recorded in Teague, p. 180.

Royal Library, Windsor, Stuart Papers Add. MSS 5.7.

MaB 10

Autograph largely verse letter signed by Makin, to Robert Boyle, in Greek, Latin, and Hebrew, including twelve lines of Latin verse beginning ‘Magnus in Heroum numero spectabere Boile’, undated, on a pair of conjugate quarto leaves. c.1681.

In: A folio guardbook of letters written to Robert Boyle (1627-91), natural philosopher, in various hands and paper sizes, 152 leaves, in modern green cloth.

Volume IV of the Boyle Letters.

Edited in Correspondence of Robert Boyle, ed. Michael Hunter, V, 282-3.

Royal Society, London, BL/4, ff. 6r-7v.