Bathsua Makin

c.1600–after 1681?

Introduction

Bathsua Makin (née Reynolds or Reginald), scholar and teacher, who in the 1640s tutored Charles I's daughter Princess Elizabeth, was commonly acknowledged in her time to be the most learned woman in England. Her various writings bear witness to her knowledge and teaching skills, not only in English but also in Latin, Greek, French, Spanish, Italian, German, Hebrew, and even shorthand. A number of her poems in praise of James I and his family were published by her father, Henry Reynolds, as Musa Virginea (London, 1616). What is generally, but uncertainly, attributed to her (having a prefatory epistle declaring the author to be a man) is the anonymously published treatise An Essay to Revive the Antient Education of Gentlewomen (London, 1673), which may perhaps have been written by, or heavily indebted to, Mark Lewis (1621/2-81), schoolmaster and educationalist. This essay is edited in Teague, pp. 109-50.

Makin's surviving manuscripts, in prose and verse, some also multi-lingual, bear witness to more private concerns, particularly her relationship with members of the Hastings family, several of whom (notably Sir John Davies's daughter Lucy, Countess of Huntingdon, and her daughter Elizabeth) she tutored. Written in her neat italic or roman hand, these manuscripts offer verse memorials on the death of Hastings family members (MaB 1-4).

They are supplemented by a few surviving letters to Lucy Hastings and to other notable scholars in Makin's circle (MaB 5-10).

Abbreviations

Brink — Jean R. Brink, Bathsua Reginald Makin: Most Learned Matron, Huntington Library Quarterly, 54/4 (Fall 1991), 313-26.
Teague — Frances Teague, Bathsua Makin, Woman of Learning (Lewisburg & London, 1998).

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]

The Huntington Library, shelfmarks F through M (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 edition, I (1956), 172-3.

*MaB 2

Autograph

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.

The Huntington Library, shelfmarks F through M (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

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, other MSS (fMS Eng 623 Folder 26) | Catalogue

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

Autograph

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.

The Huntington Library, shelfmarks F through M (HA 8799)

Letters

Letter(s)

*MaB 5 1652

Autograph

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

Quoted in Teague, p. 81.

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.

The British Library: Additional MSS, numbers 4101 through 4999 (Add. MS 4279 f. 103r)

*MaB 6

Autograph

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.

The Huntington Library, shelfmarks F through M (HA 8800)

*MaB 7

Autograph

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.

The Huntington Library, shelfmarks F through M (HA 8801)

*MaB 8

Autograph

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 c.1681

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.

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

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.

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

Bathsua Makin

Introduction

Abbreviations

Verse

Letters

Contents