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Henrietta Battier

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Henrietta Battier
BornHenrietta Fleming
c. 1751
Meath
DiedOctober 1813
Sandymount[1]
Pen nameA Lady, Countess of Laurel, Pat. Pindar, Patt. Pindar, Pat. T. Pindar, Polly Pindar
Occupationpoet, political satirist, writer
LanguageEnglish
NationalityIrish
PeriodRomantic
Years active1783-99
Literature portal

Henrietta Battier (née Fleming; c.1751 – 1813) was an Irish poet, political satirist, and sometime actress. She is best known for the squibs she published as "Pat. Pindar" and other pen-names. A subscriber to the United Irish test, she embraced the causes of Catholic-Protestant unity, representative government, and national independence.

Life

Henrietta Fleming was the daughter of John Fleming of Staholmog, Co. Meath. In 1768 she married William Battier (d. c. 1794),[2] the estranged son of a Dublin banker of French Huguenot descent.[3] They had at least four children and she began writing in order to subsidize the family's income.[4][5]

Title page of The Kirwanade by Henrietta Battier (Dublin, 1791)
Title page of The Kirwanade by Henrietta Battier (Dublin, 1791) (Google)

Writing

While on a visit to London in 1783–4, she approached Samuel Johnson to request his advice about publishing a manuscript collection of poems. Johnson was encouraging and helped her to build a subscription list. He reportedly said to her, "Don't be disheartened my Child, I have been often glad of a Subscription myself."[5] Johnson's death in 1784, as well as serious illnesses for both herself and her husband and the death of their son in 1789, delayed Battier's plans and The protected fugitives was not published until 1791.[6] Some of her work was, however, published in 1789, along with that of William Preston and others, in A Collection of Poems, Mostly Original, by Several Hands (London: M. Graisberry, by subscription for Joshua Edkins).[7] While she was in London, she acted the role of Lady Rachel Russell in Thomas Stratford's tragedy on the death of William Russell, at the Drury Lane Theatre.

Back in Dublin, where she enjoyed the patronage of Elizabeth Rawdon, Countess of Moira, she found her "patriot heart, that throbs with honest pride", and wrote verses that pilloried the Attorney-General, John FitzGibbon, Earl of Clare (a "glitt'ring snake"), and others in the London-appointed Dublin Castle Irish executive.[8] Beginning with The Kirwanade, and under the name "Pat. Pindar," these were published as a series of pointed political lampoons: "magnificently controlled vituperation in vigorous, colloquial heroic couplets."[9] Her subsequent satires argued for reform, religious tolerance, and Irish independence.[10]

In "Bitter Orange", which appeared in the United Irishman's paper The Press, and in The Lemon (1797),[4] she denounced the loyalist and sectarian Orange Order as "boys of the ascendancy" formed to support the "bondage of our hundred years".[11] With another of Lady Moira's bluestocking set, Margaret King, she responded to an appeal in The Press for women to "act for the amelioration of your country in the mighty crisis that awaits her": she took the United Irish test.[12]

Last years

After the suppression of the 1798 rebellion, and the subsequent union of Ireland with Great Britain, which she protested in An Address (1799), Battier's political and literary stock fell. In her final years, she was visited in her Fade Street lodgings by Thomas Moore who, while a student at Trinity College in 1796, had begun reciting his own, often satiric, verse at her literary salon.[13] Battier died in poverty in Dublin in 1813.[4]

Critical reception

Battier's work has been anthologized in Stephen C. Behrendt's Romantic-Era Irish Women Poets in English (2021).[14] The Kirwanade, or, Poetical Epistle and An Address on … the Projected Union are available through open access, and the rest of her publications are available through EEBO. After years of obscurity, her work has recently become of interest to researchers.[15]

Selected works

  • The mousiad: an heroi-comic poem. Canto I. By Polly Pindar, half-sister to Peter Pindar. Dublin: P. Byrne, 1787[16]/London: J. Ridgway, 1787[17](attributed).
  • An epistle from Patrick Pindar, to the hills and the vallies, and all whom it may concern. London: Printed for the benefit of the Down Cathedral, 1790.[18]
  • The Protected Fugitives. A Collection of Miscellaneous Poems, the Genuine Productions of a Lady. Never before Published. Dublin: printed for the author by James Porter, 1791.[19][2]
  • The Kirwanade, or, Poetical Epistle. Humbly Addressed to the Modern Apostle. Published in two parts. Dublin: printed for the author by James Porter, 1791.[1][2]
  • The Gibbonade, or, Political Reviewer. Three issues, Dublin: printed for the author, 1 May 1793 – 12 September 1794.[1]
  • Marriage ode royal after the manner of Dryden. Dublin and London, 1795.[20]
  • [An irregular ode] to Edward Byrne, Esq. of mullinahack, on his marriage with Miss Roe, step-daughter to one Noble Lord, and niece to another!!! Dublin: Stephen Colbert, 1797.[21]
  • The lemon, A poem, by Pat. Pindar, in answer to a scandalous libel, entitled, The orange; written [tho' anonymous] by the Reverend Dr. Bobadil. 1797. (2 editions, 1797. 2nd canto, 1798.)[1]
  • An Address on … the Projected Union, To the Illustrious Stephen III, King of Dalkey, Emperor of the Mugglins. Dublin: printed for the author, 1799.[1][2]

Notes

  1. ^ a b c d e "Battier, Henrietta." The Women's Print History Project, 2019, Person ID 20. Accessed 2023-10-17.
  2. ^ a b c d "Battier, Henrietta". Jackson Bibliography of Romantic Poetry, University of Toronto Libraries. Accessed 2023-10-17.
  3. ^ "Henrietta Battier". Orlando: Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present. Accessed 2023-10-17.
  4. ^ a b c Clarke, Frances (2009). "Battier, Henrietta | Dictionary of Irish Biography". www.dib.ie. Retrieved 11 August 2023.
  5. ^ a b Donald D. Eddy and J.D. Fleeman. A Preliminary Handlist of Books to which Dr. Johnson Subscribed. Charlottesville: The Bibliographical Society of the University of Virginia, 1993.
  6. ^ Battier, Henrietta (2013). "'An Elegy, on the Author's Son', 'An Elegy on the Death of the Author's Child' and 'Addressed to an Officer's Widow'". British Family Life, 1780–1914, Volume 3. Routledge. doi:10.4324/9781003112693. ISBN 978-1-003-11269-3. Retrieved 12 August 2023.
  7. ^ Jackson Bibliography.
  8. ^ Todd, Janet (2004). Rebel Daughters: Ireland in Conflict 1798. London: Penguin. p. 159. ISBN 9780141004891.
  9. ^ "Battier, Henrietta (Fleming)." The Feminist Companion to Literature in English. Virginia Blain, et al., eds. New Haven and London: Yale UP, 1990. 70.
  10. ^ LLC, Book Builders (2014). Encyclopedia of British Writers, 16th, 17th, and 18th Centuries. Infobase Publishing. p. 17. ISBN 978-1-4381-0869-8.
  11. ^ Todd (2004), p. 177
  12. ^ Todd (2004), p. 185
  13. ^ Linkin, Harriet Kramer (2014). "Mary Tighe, Thomas Moore, and the Publication of "Selena"". The Review of English Studies. 65 (271): 711–729. doi:10.1093/res/hgt098. ISSN 0034-6551. JSTOR 24541145.
  14. ^ Behrendt, Stephen C., ed. Romantic-Era Irish Women Poets in English Cork: Cork University Press, 2021. ISBN 9781782054474 ISBN 1782054472
  15. ^ See, for example, Jones, Catherine. “Irish Romanticism.” A History of Irish Women's Poetry. Ed. Ailbhe Darcy and David Wheatley. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, Cambridge, 2021, pp. 105–126.doi:10.1017/9781108778596.007
  16. ^ Battier, Henrietta. The mousiad: an heroi-comic poem. Canto I. By Polly Pindar, half-sister to Peter Pindar. The Women's Print History Project, 2019, title ID 7126, https://womensprinthistoryproject.com/title/7126. Accessed 2023-10-17.
  17. ^ Battier, Henrietta. The mousiad: an heroi-comic poem. Canto I. By Polly Pindar, half-sister to Peter Pindar. The Women's Print History Project, 2019, title ID 7127, https://womensprinthistoryproject.com/title/7127. Accessed 2023-10-17.
  18. ^ Battier, Henrietta. An epistle from Patrick Pindar, to the hills and the vallies, and all whom it may concern. The Women's Print History Project, 2019, title ID 4624, https://womensprinthistoryproject.com/title/4624. Accessed 2023-10-17.
  19. ^ Battier, Henrietta. The Protected Fugitives. A Collection of Miscellaneous Poems, the Genuine Productions of a Lady. Never before Published. The Women's Print History Project, 2019, title ID 4641, https://womensprinthistoryproject.com/title/4641. Accessed 2023-10-17.
  20. ^ Battier, Henrietta. Marriage ode royal after the manner of Dryden. The Women's Print History Project, 2019, title ID 4628, https://womensprinthistoryproject.com/title/4628. Accessed 2023-10-17.
  21. ^ Battier, Henrietta. [An irregular ode] to Edward Byrne, Esq. of mullinahack, on his marriage with Miss Roe, step-daughter to one Noble Lord, and niece to another!!! The Women's Print History Project, 2019, title ID 4649, https://womensprinthistoryproject.com/title/4649. Accessed 2023-10-17.

Bibliography

  • "Battier, Henrietta (Fleming)." The Feminist Companion to Literature in English. Virginia Blain, et al., eds. New Haven and London: Yale UP, 1990. 70.
  • Clarke, Frances. "Battier, Henrietta", Dictionary of Irish Biography. www.dib.ie. 2009.
  • Grundy, Isobel. “Battier , Henrietta (c.1751–1813).” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Ed. H. C. G. Matthew and Brian Harrison. Oxford: OUP, 2004. 5 Apr. 2007.
  • Jones, Catherine. “Irish Romanticism.” A History of Irish Women's Poetry. Ed. Ailbhe Darcy and David Wheatley. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, Cambridge, 2021, pp. 105–126.doi:10.1017/9781108778596.007
  • Todd, Janet. Rebel Daughters: Ireland in Conflict 1798. London: Penguin, 2004 ISBN 9780141004891.
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