Ou various Readers various judgements give, And think Books are condemn’d, or ought to live287 According to your censures,288 bad or good,
Before you read them, or they’re understood, Laying aspersions with a jeering brand; But read them first, that is, to understand On forfeit of your selves, like this that’s writ, Or prejudice your judgements and your wit.
Now for your own sakes, these Books like them then, Have mercy on your selves you censuring Men; For when you’re dead, and all your envious looks, These Writings they will live as long as Books. O but a Woman writes them, she doth strive T’intrench too much on Man’s Prerogative;
Then that’s the crime her learned Fame pulls down; If you be Scholars, she’s too of the Gown:
Therefore be civil to her, think it fit
She should not be condemn’d, ’cause she’s a Wit. [b2r] If you be Souldiers, Ladies you’ll defend,
And your sheath’d Arguments, when drawn, will end The small male Gossipings: but Gallants, pray Be not you factious, though each Mistris say
286NP 1671 (Wing N856) alters the title of this preface to ‘The Duke of Newcastle Upon All The Works of
the Duchess’ (sig. A2). The manuscript of Margaret’s plays was lost at sea ‘when the ship carrying it . . . foundered’; although Margaret kept copies of her plays, their publication was delayed (Grant, Margaret the First, pp. 159-160). Later, in SL, letter CXLIII, Cavendish writes about the incident: ‘I Heard the Ship was Drown'd, wherein the man was that had the Charge and Care of my Playes, to carry them into E. [England] to be Printed, I being then in A. [Amsterdam or Antwerp] which when I heard, I was extremely Troubled, and if I had not had the Original of them by me, truly I should have been much Afflicted, and accounted the Loss of my Twenty Playes, as the Loss of Twenty Lives, for in my Mind I should have Died Twenty Deaths, which would have been a great Torment (p. 295).
287NP 1656 (Wing N855): printer’s convention - ‘(live’ appears on the line below after ‘good’, sig. b2r. 288censures] opinions (OED n. 3).
The Books are naught, but dance, & with them play, Sweet pretty Ladies, and discourse with those Of Ribbins, point de Jane,289 and finer Cloaths, Their better reading, and let Books alone; But these I will compare to every one That here doth follow. Nay, old Homer writ Not clearer290 Phancies, nor with clearer Wit; And that Philosophy she doth dispense, Beyond old Aristotle’s hard non-sense; 291 Her observations of Diseases new,
More than Hippocrates292 the Grecian knew; As eloquent as Roman Cicero,293
And sweeter flowers of Rhet’rick there do grow; More lofty high descriptions she hath still Than swell’d lines of th’ Imitator Virgil;294 As good Odes too as Horace,295 nay, I can
289point de Jane] thread lace made with a needle, with the prepositional phrase denoting the place from which
the lace originated (OED n.3 1 a). From the French point (stitch). Probably a lace made with the point de
genes (Genoa) stitch. NP 1671 (Wing N856) spells the phrase ‘Point de Gen’s’ (sig. A2v), which could also be a reference to thePoint de Flandre or Flemish Point. See Clara M. Blum, Old World Lace (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1920), pp. 29 and 35.
290NP 1656 (Wing N855): Although the ‘p’ is not quite discernible, it appears that the word ‘purer’ is
handwritten in left margin next to ‘Not clearer’, but the insertion point is not indicated (sig. b2v). The word is perhaps meant to replace ‘Not clearer’. However, NP 1671 (Wing N856) retains the line as it is, altering ‘Phancies’ to ‘Fancies’ and the semicolon to a colon (sig. A2v). The addition/correction noted in the 1656 edition does not appear in the errata and is obviously not typewritten. It is likely that this and other handwritten corrections were either directed by or inserted by Cavendish. See James Fitzmaurice, ‘Margaret Cavendish on Her Own Writing: Evidence from Revision and Handmade Correction’, The Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America 85.3 (September, 1991), pp. 297-307.
291Aristotle’s hard non-sense] Cavendish attacks Aristotle in Observations upon Experimental Philosophy, saying he
‘may justly be called the “Idol of the Schools”; for his doctrine is generally embraced with such reverence, as if truth itself had declared it’ (as cited in Observations, ed. by O’Neill, p. 267). She refutes Aristotle’s doctrine concerning motion, in which he lists types of motions and reports that motion is finite. Margaret disagrees, asserting that motion is infinite and ‘nature and all her parts are perpetually self-moving’ (as cited in Observations, ed. by O’Neill, p. 268).
292Reverence for Hippocrates as the perfect doctor existed even in the fourth century BC. His name is
invoked throughout Galen’s writing, and he was known for ‘saving patients from the plague, resisting the financial inducements of the Persian king, above all working strenuously as a Greek among fellow Greeks’ (Mark Grant, ed., Galen on Food and Diet (London: Routledge, 2000).
293Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 BC), lawyer, politician, philosopher, and famous orator (Simon
Hornblower and Anthony Spawforth, eds., Oxford Classical Dictionary (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003)).
294Roman poet (70-19 BC) and author of the Latin epic poem Aeneid. This work has many parallels with
Homer’s Odyssey (Hornblower and Spawforth).
Compare her Dialogues to rare Lucian.296 Lucan,297the Battail of thy Civil War Is lost, this Lady doth exceed thee far;
More Fame by Morals than grave Plutarch298 gain’d, Profitable Fables, as Esop feign’d; 299
And as good Language as ev’r Terence300 writ, Thy Comedies, poor Plautus,301 far less wit. Thy rare Epistles all Epistles sully,
Beyond the two Familiars of vain Tully;302 And as wise Sentences thou still dost say
As the Apocrypha,303 or Seneca;304 [b2v] As smooth and gentle Verse as Ovid305 writ,
And may compare with sweet Tibullus306 wit. What takes the Soul more than a gentle vain?
296Lucian of Samosata (125 – 180 AD), a rhetorician famous for his satiric dialogues. His ‘mission in life
was not to reform society nor to chatise it, but simply to amuse it’. See Lucian, ed. by T. E. Page and W. H. D. Rouse, vol. 1, Loeb Classical Library (London: William Heinemann, 1913), pp. vii - ix.
297Marcus Annaeus Lucanus (39-65 AD), born in Cordova, Spain, wrote the epic poem De Bello Civili, or
Concerning the Civil War, which deals with the Roman civil war, with the conflicting forces being led by Julius Caesar and Pompey. See Lucan, ed. by T. E. Page and W. H. D. Rouse, Loeb Classical Library (London: William Heinemann, 1962), pp. ix - xv.
298Greek Philosopher and biographer born around 50 AD and died after 120 AD. He wrote a number of
essays on philosophical topics often referred to as ‘Moralia’ (Hornblower and Spawforth).
299Aesop, the supposed creater of a collection of moral tales featuring animals. The fables of this legendary
figure proliferated during the English Civil War, perhaps because they frequently exposed the brutality of power relations. See Jane Elizabeth Lewis, The English Fable: Aesop and Literary Culture, 1651-1740 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996).
300Terence] Publius Terentius Afer (185-159 BC), Roman playwright who is known as a ‘master of style’. See
Terrence, ed. by E. Capps, T. E. Page and W. H. D. Rouse, vol. 1, Loeb Classical Library (London: William Heinemann, 1918), pp. vii - xi.
301Plautus] Titus Maccius Plautus (c. 254 – 184 BC), Roman comic playwright, known for his verbal
brilliance (Hornblower and Spawforth).
302Tully] Anglicanized name for Marcus Tullius Cicero, who, in addition to being a famous orator, also
wrote a collection of letters titled Epistulae ad Familiares.
303Apocrypha] The Apocrypha refers to a number of the Old Testament books that Protestants excluded
after the Reformation because they believed the books did not have a ‘well-grounded claim to inspired authorship’ (OED n. B 1 a). The Apocrypha, however, which contains the Book of Wisdom, would have been included in the 1611 King James Bible, which is the bible the Cavendishes would have read. In NP 1671 (Wing N856), Margaret replaces ‘the Apocrypha’ with ‘Marcus Aurelius’, possibly wanting to avoid religious controversy.
304Seneca] Roman philosopher whose philosophical works played a large role in the revival of Stoicism
during the Renaissance. He also wrote a collection of moral essays (Katja Vogt, ‘Seneca’, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Online).
305Ovid] Publius Ovidius Naso. Roman poet born in 43 BC known for his epic poem on mythological
transformations.
306Tibullus] Albius Tibullus, born between 55 and 48 BC and died 19 BC, a Roman knight and writer known
Thou charm’st the charming Orpheus307 with thy strain. If all these Wits were prais’d for several wayes,
What deserv’st thou that hast them all? what praise?308 [b3r:b3v] W. NEWCASTLE.