, an English lady once highly praised for her wit and accomplishments,
, an English lady once highly
praised for her wit and accomplishments, was the daughter
of Mr. Fowler, a merchant of London, and born there
Jan. 1, 1631. She was educated at a boarding-school at
Hackney; where she distinguished herself early for her
skill in poetry. When very young, she became the wife
of James Philips, of the priory of Cardigan, esq. and afterwards went with the viscountess of Dungannon into Ireland. At the request of the earl of Orrery, she translated
from the French, and dedicated to the countess of Cork,
“Corneille’s tragedy of Pompey
” which was several times
acted at the new theatre there in 1663 and 1664, in which
last year it was published. She translated also the four
first acts of “Horace,
” another tragedy of Corneille; the
fifth being done by sir John Denham. She died of the
small pox in London, the 22d of June, 1664, to the regret
of all the beau-monde, in the thirty-third year of her age
“having not left,
” says Langbaine, “any of her sex her
equal in poetry.
” “She not only equalled,
” adds he,
“alt that is reported of the poetesses of antiquity, the
Lesbian Sappho and the Roman Sulpitia, but justly found
her admirers among the greatest poets of our age:
” and
then he mentions the earls of Orrery and Roscommon,
Cowley, and others. Cowley wrote an ode upon her
death. Dr. Jeremy Taylor had addressed to her his “Measures and Offices of Friendship:
” the second edition of
which was printed in 1,657, 12mo. She assumed the name
of Orinda, and gave that of Anten'or to her husband; she
had likewise a female friend Anne Owen, who was Lucasia.
In 1667, were printed, in folio, “Poems by the most deservedly admired Mrs. Catherine Philips, the matchless
Orinda. To which is added, Monsieur Corneille’s Pompey
and Horace, tragedies. With several other translations
from the French;
” and her portrait before them, engraven
by Fait born. There was likewise another edition in 1678,
folio; in the preface of which we are told, that “she wrote
her familiar letters with great facility, in a very fair hand,
and perfect orthography; and if they were collected with
those excellent discourses she wrote on several subjects,
they would make a volume much larger than that of her
poems.
” In 1705, a small volume of her letters to sir
Charles Cotterell was printed under the title of “Letters
from Orinda to Poliarchus:
” the editor of which tells us,
that “they were the effect of an happy intimacy between
herself and the late-famous Poliarchus, and are an admirable pattern for the pleasing correspondence of a virtuous
friendship. They will sufficiently instruct us, how an intercourse of writing between persons of different sexes
ought to be managed with delight and innocence; and teach
the world not to load such a commerce with censure and
detraction, when it is removed at such a distance from
even the appearance of guilt.
” All the praise of her contemporaries, however, has not been sufficient to preserve
her works from oblivion.