Mary Leapor: Mira's Will

.

In a Park: Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot, c. 1862, oil on canvas, 47 x 48 cm (National Museum, Belgrade)

Imprimis -- My departed Shade I trust
To Heav’n -- My Body to the silent Dust;
My Name to publick Censure I submit,
To be dispos’d of as the World thinks fit;
My Vice and Folly let Oblivion close,
The World already is o’erstock’d with those;
My Wit I give, as Misers give their Store,
To those who think they had enough before.
Bestow my Patience to compose the Lives
Of slighted Virgins and neglected Wives;
To modish Lovers I resign my Truth,
My cool Reflexion to unthinking Youth;
And some Good-nature give (‘tis my Desire)
To surly Husbands, as their Needs require;
And first discharge my Funeral -- and then
To the Small poets I bequeath my Pen.
       Let a small Sprig (true Emblem of my Rhyme)
Of blasted Laurel on my Hearse recline;
Let some grave Wight, that struggles for Renown,
By chanting Dirges through a Market-Town,
With gentle Step precede the solemn Train;
A broken Flute upon his Arm shall lean.
Six comick Poets may the Corse surround,
And All Free-holders; if they can be found:
Then follow next the melancholy Throng,
As shrewd instructors, who themselves are wrong.
The Virtuoso, rich in Sun-dry’d Weeds,
The Politician, whom no Mortal heeds,
The silent Lawyer, chamber’d all the Day,
And the stern Soldier that receives no Pay.
But stay -- the Mourners shou’d be first our Care,
Let the freed Prentice lead the Miser’s Heir;
Let the young relict wipe her mournful Eye,
And widow’d Husbands o’er their Garlick cry.
      All this let my Executors fulfil,
And rest assur’d that this is Mira’s Will;
Who was, when she these Legacies design’d,
In Body healthy, and compos’d in Mind.

Young Girl Reading: Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot, c. 1868, oil on panel, 32.5 x 41.3 cm (National Gallery of Art)

Poetry: Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot, n.d., oil on canvas, 55 x 46 cm (Wallraf-Richartz-Museum, Cologne)

Mary Leapor (1722-1746): Mira's Will, from Poems Upon Several Occasions, 1748

Mrs. Mary Leapor was born at Marston St. Lawrence, in Northamptonshire, in the year 1722; whence she removed with her father, a gardener, to Brackley in the same county, where she resided the remainder of her life. Mrs. Leapor from her childhood delighted in reading, and particularly Poetry, but had few opportunities of procuring any books of that kind: her whole library consisted of sixteen or seventeen odd volumes, among which were part of the works of Mr. Pope, her greatest favourite, Dryden's fables, some volumes of plays, & c. Her person was indeed plain, but the reader must not form an idea of it from the poem call'd Mira's Picture, for though she has there made very free with herself, yet her appearance was by no means disagreeable. The poem was occasioned by her hearing that a gentleman, who had seen some of her verses, desired to know what her person was. The reader will be still more surprised at the excellence of her writings, when he is informed that her death, which was occasioned by the measles, happened so early as her 24th year.

-- George Coleman, in George Coleman and Bonnell Thornton: Poems by Eminent Ladies (1755)

Mary Leapor is one of the instances which may be produced of the powers of natural genius, little assisted by education. She was the daughter of a person who, at the time of her birth, the 26th of February 1722, was gardener to Judge Blencowe, at Marston St. Laurence, in Northamptonshire. She was brought up under the care of a pious and sensible mother, who died a few years before her. The little education which she received, consisted wholly in being taught to read and write. She began at a very early age to compose verses, at first with the approbation of her parents, who afterwards, imagining an attention to poetry would be prejudicial to her, endeavoured by every possible means to discountenance her in such pursuits. These, however, were ineffectual, and she was at last left to follow the bent of her genius and inclination. She died of the measles, the 12th of November 1746, at Brackley; and after her death two volumes of poems were printed in 8vo. in 1748 and 1751.

-- Isaac Reed, in Biographia Dramatica; or, A Companion to the Playhouse (1782)