Mary Scott (1751/52–1793), married name Mary Taylor, was an English poet, born in

Milborne Port Milborne Port is a village, electoral ward and civil parish in Somerset, England, east of Sherborne, and in the South Somerset district. It has a population of 2,802. The parish includes the hamlets of Milborne Wick and Kingsbury Regis. The vil ...

Somerset ( en, All The People of Somerset) , locator_map = , coordinates = , region = South West England , established_date = Ancient , established_by = , preceded_by = , origin = , lord_lieutenant_office =Lord Lieutenant of Somerset , lord_ ...

. She wrote '' The Female Advocate'' (1774) in defence of women writing. Title page of Mary Scott's The Female Advocate

Life and work

Scott's father was a linen

draper Draper was originally a term for a retailer or wholesaler of cloth that was mainly for clothing. A draper may additionally operate as a cloth merchant or a haberdasher. History Drapers were an important trade guild during the medieval period ...

. Not much else is known about her life before the publication of '' The Female Advocate'', dedicated to her friend

Mary Steele Mary, Lady Steele ( Scurlock; November 1678 – 26 December 1718) was the second wife of Sir Richard Steele, whom she married in 1707. She was born in Carmarthen, the only child of Jonathan Scurlock, Sheriff of Carmarthen. She inherited th ...

, in 1774. Scott credits John Duncombe's '' The Feminead'' (1754), a poem in praise of the accomplishments of women writers, as the inspiration for her own poem. The poem consists of 522 lines of rhyming couplets; it supplements Duncombe's, and discusses more contemporary writers. Among the poets referred to are

Lucy Aikin Lucy Aikin (6 November 1781 – 29 January 1864) was an English historical writer, biographer and correspondent. She also published under pseudonyms such as Mary Godolphin. Her literary-minded family included her aunt Anna Laetitia Barbauld, a w ...

Anna Laetitia Barbauld Anna Laetitia Barbauld (, by herself possibly , as in French, Aikin; 20 June 1743 – 9 March 1825) was a prominent English poet, essayist, literary critic, editor, and author of children's literature. A " woman of letters" who published in mu ...

Mary Chudleigh Mary, Lady Chudleigh (; August 1656–1710) was an English poet who belonged to an intellectual circle that included Mary Astell, Elizabeth Thomas, Judith Drake, Elizabeth Elstob, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, and John Norris. In her later ye ...

Sarah Fielding Sarah Fielding (8 November 1710 – 9 April 1768) was an English author and sister of the novelist Henry Fielding. She wrote ''The Governess, or The Little Female Academy'' (1749), thought to be the first novel in English aimed expressly at chil ...

Anne Killigrew Anne Killigrew (1660–1685) was an English poet and painter, described by contemporaries as "A Grace for beauty, and a Muse for wit." Born in London, she and her family were active in literary and court circles. Killigrew's poems were ci ...

Catharine Macaulay Catharine Macaulay (née Sawbridge, later Graham; 23 March 1731 – 22 June 1791), was an English Whig republican historian. Early life Catharine Macaulay was a daughter of John Sawbridge (1699–1762) and his wife Elizabeth Wanley (died 1733 ...

Catherine Parr Catherine Parr (sometimes alternatively spelled Katherine, Katheryn, Kateryn, or Katharine; 1512 – 5 September 1548) was Queen of England and Ireland as the last of the six wives of King Henry VIII from their marriage on 12 July 1543 until ...

Helen Maria Williams Helen Maria Williams (17 June 1759 – 15 December 1827) was a British novelist, poet, and translator of French-language works. A religious dissenter, she was a supporter of abolitionism and of the ideals of the French Revolution; she was impri ...

, and

Phillis Wheatley Phillis Wheatley Peters, also spelled Phyllis and Wheatly ( – December 5, 1784) was an American author who is considered the first African-American author of a published book of poetry. Gates, Henry Louis, ''Trials of Phillis Wheatley: Ameri ...

. Men are also praised: Duncombe; Rev.

Thomas Seward Thomas Seward (1708 – 4 March 1790) was an English Anglican clergyman, author and editor who was part of the Lichfield intellectual circle that included Samuel Johnson, Erasmus Darwin and his own daughter Anna Seward, amongst others. Life Tho ...

, author of ''The Female Right to Literature, in a Letter to a Young Lady from Florence'' (1766); William Steele, for his support of his daughter's writing; and

Richard Pulteney Dr Richard Pulteney FRS FRSE FLS (17 February 173013 October 1801) was an English physician and botanist. He was a promoter of Linnaean taxonomy, and authored the first English language biography of Carl Linnaeus, entitled ''A General View of th ...

(1730–1801), a friend and physician who encouraged Scott. She began a correspondence with

Anna Seward Anna Seward (12 December 1742 ld style: 1 December 1742./ref>Often wrongly given as 1747.25 March 1809) was an English Romantic poet, often called the Swan of Lichfield. She benefited from her father's progressive views on female education. Li ...

, whose father she had praised in ''The Female Advocate'', and Seward's published letters are the source of much that is known of Scott's life. In the preface the ''Advocate'', Scott mentions ongoing ill-health and indeed seems to have been a semi-invalid. She lived with her parents until she was in her thirties, caring for her ailing mother until she died in 1787. Her father died in 1788, and Scott was free after over a decade of courtship to marry John Taylor, a match her mother had opposed when alive. Scott was part of a circle of Protestant dissenters and was deeply religious; consequently, when her husband, who had formerly convinced her to convert to Unitarianism, embraced Quakerism, she underwent considerable strain. Scott gave birth to a daughter in 1789 and a son in 1791 (her son,

John Edward Taylor John Edward Taylor (11 September 1791 – 6 January 1844) was an English business tycoon, editor, publisher and member of The Portico Library, who was the founder of the ''Manchester Guardian'' newspaper in 1821, which was renamed in 1959 ...

, went on to found the ''

Manchester Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

''). She died late in her third pregnancy, in 1793, at the age of forty-one.

Works

* *"Verses Addressed to Miss Seward, on the Publication of her Monody on Major André," ''

The Gentleman's Magazine ''The Gentleman's Magazine'' was a monthly magazine founded in London, England, by Edward Cave in January 1731. It ran uninterrupted for almost 200 years, until 1922. It was the first to use the term ''magazine'' (from the French ''magazine'' ...

'' (June 1783) *''The Messiah. A Poem, in Two Parts. Published for the benefit of the General Hospital at Bath'' (

ath Ath (; nl, Aat, ; pcd, Ât; wa, Ate) is a city and municipality of Wallonia located in the province of Hainaut, Belgium. The municipality consists of the following districts: Arbre, Ath, Bouvignies, Ghislenghien, Gibecq, Houtaing, ...

R. Cruttwell, 1788.)

References

Bibliography

* Blain, Virginia, et al., eds. ''The Feminist Companion to Literature in English''. New Haven and London: Yale UP, 1990. * Buck, Claire, ed. ''The Bloomsbury Guide to Women's Literature''. Prentice Hall, 1992. * Lonsdale, Roger ed. ''Eighteenth-Century Women Poets''. New York: Oxford University Press, 1989. * Mullan, John. �
Scott , Mary (1751/2–1793)
” ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography''. Ed. H. C. G. Matthew and Brian Harrison. Oxford: OUP, 2004. 16 Apr. 2007. * *

Todd, Janet Janet Margaret Todd OBE (born 10 September 1942) is a British academic and author. She was educated at Cambridge University and the University of Florida, where she undertook a doctorate on the poet John Clare. Much of her work concerns Mary ...

, ed. ''British Women Writers: a critical reference guide''. London: Routledge, 1989. {{DEFAULTSORT:Scott, Mary 1751 births 1793 deaths People from Somerset English women poets 18th-century British women writers 18th-century British writers 18th-century English women 18th-century English people