How gayly is at first begun
Title:
Life's Progress Primary Text:
MS Folger, 254-5* (placed after "A Sigh", perhaps because of line "Our Sighs are then but Vernal Air"). Secondary Eds:
1713 Misc, 259-62; rpt of 1713: 1903 Reynolds, 136- 8; rpts of 1903 Reynolds: 1930 Fausset, 65-7; 1979 Rogers AF, 96-7. 18C:
1709 Manley, New Atalantis, 169-71 (stanza 2 altered to omit Biblical references). 19C:
Rpts of 1713: 1825 Dyce, 136-8 (omits Stanzas 3 & 9); 1848 Bethune, 41-2, 1853 Rowton, 107-8; 1855 Hale, 554-5; 1861 Williams 149-50 (all also omit Stanzas 3 & 9) 20C:
Rpts of 1713/1903: 1905 Tutin, 24-5; 1905 Wordsworth (compiled 1819), 18-9, Stanzas 1, 4, 5, 6; 1974 Davie, 39-40; 1990 Lonsdale, 8-9; 1991 Uphaus/Foster, 178-9. Comment:
Reminiscent of late 17th century French poet, Regnier, whom Finch read and thought she was imitating in "The Equipage"; its "underground" or unofficial popularity is suggested by the claim of oral and manuscript or commonplace transmission in a 1) 1763 letter by Anna Seward (1810 Poetical Works, ed. Scott) in which she recites it from memory as taught to her by her mother who learned it in her youth from another woman; and 2) 1812 note by J. H. R. in The Gentleman's Magazine, in which he says he read the poem in what appears to have been a miscellany of handwritten old poems, this one ascribed to "Anne Countess of Winchilsea, who lived in the reign of Queen Anne" (1903 Reynolds lxxii-lxxiv).
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