The Blazing World and Other Writings (Penguin Classics) (5 page)

Poems, and Fancies
, 1653. 2nd edn, 1664. 3rd edn,
Poems, or Several Fancies in Verse: with the Animal Parliament, in Prose
, 1668.

Philosophical Fancies
, 1653.

The World’s Olio
, 1655. 2nd edn, 1671.

Philosophical and Physical Opinions
, 1655. 2nd edn, 1663. Reissued as
Grounds of Natural Philosophy
, 1668.

Nature’s Pictures
, 1656 (including ‘A True Relation of my Birth, Breeding and Life’). 2nd edn, 1671.

Plays
, 1662.

Orations of Divers Sorts
, 1662. 2nd edn, 1668.

CCXI Sociable Letters
, 1664.

Philosophical Letters
, 1664.

Observations upon Experimental Philosophy. To which is added, The Description of a New World Called the Blazing World
, 1666. 2nd edn, 1668.

The Life of… William Cavendish
, 1667. 2nd edn, 1675. Latin translation by Walter Charleton, 1668.

Plays, never before Printed
, 1668.

Bowerbank, Sylvia and Sara Mendelson, eds
Paper Bodies: A Margaret Cavendish Reader
, Calgary: Broadview Press, 1999.

Fitzmaurice, James, ed.
Margaret Cavendish: Sociable Letters
, New York: Garland Publishing, 1997.

James, Susan, ed.
Margaret Cavendish: Political Writings
, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003.

O’Neill, Eileen, ed.
Margaret Cavendish: Observations upon Experimental
Philosophy
, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001.

Partington, Leigh Tillman, ed.
The Atomic Poems of Margaret (Lucas) Cavendish
, Women Writers Resource Project, Emory University; Website:
http://chaucer.library.emory.edu/wrrp/index.html

Shaver, Anne, ed.
Margaret Cavendish: The Convent of Pleasure and Other Plays
, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999.

Women Writers Online, the Brown University Women Writers Project,
www.wwp.brown.edu
.

Ballaster, Ros, ‘Restoring the Renaissance: Margaret Cavendish and Katherine Philips’, in
Renaissance Configurations: Voices, Bodies, Spaces 1580–1690
, ed. Gordon McMullan, London: Palgrave, 2001.

Battigelli, Anna,
Margaret Cavendish and the Exiles of the Mind
, Lexington: Kentucky University Press, 1998.

Boesky, Amy,
Founding Fictions: Utopias in Early Modern England
, Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1996.

Burgess, Irene, ‘Recent Studies in Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle (1623–1674); William Cavendish, Duke of Newcastle (1593–1676); and Jane Cavendish Cheyne (1622–1669)’,
English Literary Rennaissance
32: 452–73, 2002.

Campbell, Mary Baine,
Wonder and Science: Imagining Worlds in Early Modern Europe
, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1999.

Clucas, Stephen, ed.
A Princely Brave Woman: Essays on Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle
, London: Ashgate, 2003.

Cottegnies, Line and Nancy Weitz, eds
Authorial Conquests: Essays on Genre in the Writings of Margaret Cavendish
, Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2003.

Holmesland, Oddvar, ‘Margaret Cavendish’s
Blazing World:
Natural Art and the Body Politic’,
Studies in Philology
96: 457–79, 1999.

Ingram, Randall, ‘First Words and Second Thoughts: Margaret Cavendish, Humphrey Moseley, and “the Book”’,
Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies
30: 101-24, 2000.

Iyengar, Sujata, ‘Royalist, Romancer, Racialist: Rank, Race and Gender in the Science and Fiction of Margaret Cavendish,
English Literary History
69(3): 649–72, 2002.

Kahn, Victoria, ‘Margaret Cavendish and the Romance of Contract’,
Renaissance Quarterly
50: 526–66, 1997.

Kegl, Rosemary, ‘“The World I Have Made”: Margaret Cavendish, Feminism and
The Blazing World’
, in
Feminist Readings of Early Modern Culture
, eds Valerie Traub, Lindsay M. Kaplan and Dympna Callaghan, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996.

Keller, Eve, ‘Producing Petty Gods: Margaret Cavendish’s Critique of Experimental Science’,
English Literary History
64: 447-71, 1997.

Khanna, Lee Cullen, ‘The Subject of Utopia; Margaret Cavendish and Her Blazing World’, in
Utopian and Science Fiction by Women
, eds Jane L. Donawerth and Carol A. Kolmerten, New York: Syracuse University Press, 1994.

Lawrence, Karen R.,
Penelope Voyages: Women and Travel in the British Literary Tradition
, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1994.

Leslie, Marina, ‘Evading Rape and Embracing Empire in Margaret Cavendish’s Assaulted and Pursued Chastity’, in
Representing Virginity in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance
, eds Marina Leslie and Kathleen Coyne Kelly, University of Delaware Press, 1999.

Leslie, Marina,
Renaissance Utopias and the Problem of History
, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1998.

Masten, Jeffrey,
Textual Intercourse: Collaboration, Authorship and Sexualities in Renaissance Drama
, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997.

Mendelson, Sara Heller,
The Mental World of Stuart Women: Three Studies
, Brighton: Harvester, 1987.

Pacheco, Anita, ed.
A Companion to Early Modern Women’s Writing
, Oxford: Blackwell, 2002.

Rees, Emma, ed. Cavendish Issue,
Women’s Writing
4(3), 1997.

Rogers, John,
The Matter of Revolution: Science, Poetry and Politics in the Age of Milton
, 1996.

Rosenthal, Laura J.,
Playwrights and Plagiarists in Early Modern England: Gender, Authorship, Literary Property
, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1996.

Schwarz, Kathryn, ‘Chastity, Militant and Married: Cavendish’s Romance, Milton’s Masque’, PMLA 118: 270–85, 2003.

Spiller, Elizabeth, ‘Reading through Galileo’s Telescope: Margaret Cavendish and the Experience of Reading’,
Renaissance Quarterly
53: 192–221, 2000.

Taneja, Gulshan, ed. Cavendish Issue,
In-Between
9(1–2), 2000.

Whitaker, Katie,
Mad Madge
, New York: Basic Books, 2002.

Wilcox, Helen, ed.
Women and Literature in Britain 1500–1700
, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996.

Wiseman, Susan, ‘Margaret Cavendish among the Prophets: Performance Ideologies and Gender in and after the English Civil War’,
Women’s Writing
6: 95–111, 1999.

For James Fitzmaurice’s regularly updated online Cavendish bibliography visit
http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/˜jbf/CavBiblio.html
.

A noble gentleman that had been married many years, but his wife being barren, did bear him no children; at last she died, and his friends did advise him to marry again, because his brother’s children were dead, and his wife was likely to have no more: so he took to wife a virtuous young Lady, and after one year she conceived with child, and great joy there was of all sides: but in her child-bed she died, leaving only one daughter to her sorrowful husband, who in a short time, oppressed with melancholy, died, and left his young daughter, who was not a year old, to the care and breeding of his brother, and withal left her a great estate, for he was very rich. After the ceremonies of the funeral, his brother carried the child home, which was nursed up very carefully by his wife; and being all that was likely to succeed in their family, the uncle grew extreme fond and tender of his niece, insomuch that she grew all the comfort and delight of his life.

A great Duke which commanded that province, would often come and eat a breakfast with this gentleman as he rid a-hunting; and so often they met after this manner, that there grew a great friendship; for this gentleman was well bred, knowing the world by his travels in his younger days; and though he had served in the wars, and had fought in many battles, yet was not ignorant of courtly entertainment. Besides, he was very conversible, for he had a voluble tongue, and a ready understanding, and in his retired life was a great student, whereby he became an excellent scholar; so that the Duke took great delight in his company. Besides, the Duke had a desire to match the niece of this gentleman, his friend, to his younger son, having only two sons, and knowing this child had a great
estate left by her father, and was likely to have her uncle’s estate joined thereto, was earnest upon it: but her uncle was unwilling to marry her to a younger brother, although he was of a great family; but with much persuasion, he agreed, and gave his consent, when she was old enough to marry, for she was then not seven years old. But the Duke fell very sick; and when the physicians told him, he could not live, he sent for the gentleman and his niece, to take his last farewell; and when they came, the Duke desired his friend that he would agree to join his niece and his son in marriage; he answered, that he was very willing, if she were of years to consent.

Said the Duke, I desire we may do our parts, which is, to join them as fast as we can; for youth is wild, various, and inconstant; and when I am dead, I know not how my son may dispose of himself when he is left to his own choice; for he privately found his son very unwilling thereto, he being a man grown, and she a child. The gentleman seeing him so desirous, agreed thereto.

Then the Duke called his son privately to him, and told him his intentions were to see him bestowed in marriage before he died.

His son desired him, not to marry him against his affections, in marrying him to a child.

His father told him, she had a great estate, and it was like to be greater, by reason all the revenue was laid up to increase it; and besides, she was likely to be heir to her uncle, who loved her as his own child; and her riches may draw so many suitors when she is a woman, said he, that you may be refused.

He told his father, her riches could not make him happy, if he could not affect her. Whereupon the Duke grew so angry, that he said, that his disobedience would disturb his death, leaving the world with an unsatisfied mind.

Whereupon he seemed to consent, to please his father. Then were they as firmly contracted as the priest could make them, and two or three witnesses to avow it.

But after his father was dead, he being discontented, went to the wars; but in short time he was called from thence, by reason his elder brother died, and so the Dukedom and all the estate
came to him, being then the only heir: but he never came near the young Lady, nor so much as sent to her, for he was at that time extremely in love with a great lady, who was young and handsome, being wife to a grandee [who] was very rich, but was very old, whose age made her more facile to young lovers, especially to this young Duke, who returned him equal affections; he being a man that was favoured by nature, fortune, and breeding, for he was very handsome, and of a ready wit, active, valiant, full of generosity, affable, well fashioned; and had he not been sullied with some debaucheries, he had been the completest man in that age.

But the old gentleman, perceiving his neglect towards his niece, and hearing of his affections to that lady, strove by all the care and industry he could to give her such breeding as might win his love; not that he was negligent before she was contracted to him; for from the time of four years old, she was taught all that her age was capable of, as to sing, and to dance; for he would have this artificial motion become as natural, and to grow in perfection, as she grew in years. When she was seven years of age, he chose her such books to read in as might make her wise, not amorous, for he never suffered her to read in romancies, nor such light books; but moral philosophy was the first of her studies, to lay a ground and foundation of virtue, and to teach her to moderate her passions, and to rule her affections. The next, her study was in history, to learn her experience by the second hand, reading the good fortunes and misfortunes of former times, the errors that were committed, the advantages that were lost, the humour and dispositions of men, the laws and customs of nations, their rise, and their fallings, of their wars and agreements, and the like.

The next study was in the best of poets, to delight in their fancies, and to recreate in their wit; and this she did not only read, but repeat what she had read every evening before she went to bed. Besides, he taught her to understand what she read, by explaining that which was hard and obscure. Thus she was always busily employed, for she had little time allowed her for childish recreations.

Thus did he make her breeding his only business and employment; for he lived obscurely and privately, keeping but a little family, and having little or no acquaintance, but lived a kind of a monastical life.

But when the niece was about thirteen years of age, he heard the Duke was married to the Lady with whom he was enamoured; for her husband dying, leaving her a widow, and rich, [she] claimed a promise from him that he made her whilst her husband was living, that when he died, being an old man, and not likely to live long, to marry her, although he was loath; for men that love the pleasures of the world, care not to be encumbered and obstructed with a wife, but [he] did not at all reflect upon his contract; for after his father died, he resolved not to take her to wife; for she being so young, he thought the contract of no validity: but [the lady] seeming more coy when she was a widow, than in her husband’s time, seeking thereby to draw him to marry her, and being overcome by several ways of subtlety, [he] married her. Whereupon the uncle was mightily troubled, and was very melancholy; which his niece perceived, and desired [of] him to know the cause.

Whereupon he told her. Is this the only reason, said she? Yes, said he; and doth it not trouble you, said he? No, said she, unless I had been forsaken for some sinful crime I had committed against Heaven, or had infringed the laws of honour, or had broken the rules of modesty, or some misdemeanour against him, or some defect in nature, then I should have lamented, but not for the loss of the man, but for the cause of the loss, for then all the world might have justly defamed me with a dishonourable reproach:
¹
but now I can look the world in the face with a confident brow, as innocence can arm it. Besides, it was likely I might have been unhappy in a man that could not affect me; wherefore, good Uncle, be not melancholy, but think that fortune hath befriended me, or that destiny had decreed it so to be; if so, we are to thank the one, and it was impossible to avoid the other; and if the fates spin a long thread of your life, I shall never murmur for that loss, but give thanks to the gods for that blessing.

O, but Child, said he, the Duke was the greatest and richest match, since his brother died, in the kingdom; and I would not have thy virtue, beauty, youth, wealth, and breeding, stoop to a low fortune, when thou mayst be a match fit for the Emperor of the whole world in a few years, if you grow up, and go on as you have begun.

O, Uncle, said she, let not your natural affection make you an impartial judge, to give the sentence of more desert than I can own; if I have virtue, it is a reward sufficient in itself; if I have beauty, it is but one of nature’s fading favourers; and those that loved me for it, may hate me when it is gone; and if I be rich, as you say I am like to be, who are happier than those that are mistresses of their own fortunes? And if you have bred me well, I shall be happy in what condition soever I am in, being content, for that is the end and felicity of the mind.

But if thou hadst been in love with him, said her uncle, where had been your content then? for no education can keep out that passion.

I hope, said she, the gods will be more merciful than to suffer such passions I cannot rule. What manner of man is he, said she? for I was too young to remember him.

His person, said he, is handsome enough.

That is his outside, said she; but what is his inside? What is his nature and disposition?

Debauched, said he, and loves his luxuries.

Said she, heavens have blessed me from him.

Well, said her uncle, since I am crossed in thy marriage, I will strive to make thee a meteor of the time, wherefore I will carry thee to the metropolitan city for thy better education; for here thou art bred obscurely, and canst learn little, because thou hearest nor seest little; but you shall not appear to the world this two or three years: but go always veiled, for the sight of thy face will divulge thee; neither will we have acquaintance or commerce with any, but observe, hear, and see so much as we can, not to be known.

Sir, said she, I shall be ruled by your direction, for I know my small bark will swim the better and safer for your steerage;
wherefore I shall not fear to launch it into the deepest or [most] dangerous places of the world, which I suppose are the great and populous cities. So making but small preparations, only what was for there necessity, they took their journey speedily, carrying no other servants but those that knew and used to obey their master’s will; and when they came to the city, they took private lodging; where after they had rested some few days, he carried her every day, once or twice a day, after her exercise of dancing and music was done; for he was careful she should not only keep what she had learned, but learn what she knew not: but after those hours, he carried her to lectures, according as he heard where any were read, as lectures of natural philosophy, for this she had studied least: but taking much delight therein, she had various speculations thereof; also lectures of physic, and lectures of chemistry, and lectures of music, and so divers others, on such days as they were read. Also, he carried her to places of judicature to hear great causes decided; and to the several courts, to hear the several pleadings, or rather wranglings of several lawyers: but never to courts, masques, plays, nor balls; and she always went to these places masked, muffled, and scarfed; and her uncle would make such means to get a private corner to sit in, where they might hear well; and when he came home, he would instruct her of all that was read, and tell her where they differed from the old authors; and then would give his opinion, and take her opinion of their several doctrines; and thus they continued for two years.

In the meantime, her beauty increased according to her breeding, but was not made known to any as yet: but now being come to the age of sixteen years, her uncle did resolve to present her to the world, for he knew, youth was admired in itself; but when beauty and virtue were joined to it, it was the greater miracle. So he began to examine her; for he was jealous she might be catched with vain gallants, although he had observed her humour to be serious, and not apt to be catched with every toy; yet he knew youth to be so various, that there was no trusting it to itself.

So he asked her, how was she taken with the riches and
gallantry of the city, for she could not choose but see lords and ladies riding in their brave gilt coaches, and themselves dressed in rich apparel, and the young gallants riding on prancing horses upon embroidered footcloths as she passed along the streets.

She answered, they pleased her eyes for a time, and that their dressings were like bridal houses, garnished and hung by some ingenious wit, and their beauties were like fine flowers drawn by the pencil of nature; but being not gathered by acquaintance, said she, I know not whether they are virtuously sweet, or no; but as I pass by, I please my eye, yet no other ways than as senseless objects; they entice me not to stay, and a short view satisfies the appetite of the senses, unless the rational and understanding part should be absent; but to me they seem but moving statues.

Well, said he, I hear there is to be a masque at court, and I am resolved you shall go, if we can get in, to see it; for though I am old, and not fit to go, since my dancing days are done, yet I must get into some corner to see how you behave yourself.

Pray, said she, what is a masque?

Said he, it is painted scenes to represent the poet’s heavens and hells, their gods and devils, and clouds, sun, moon, and stars; besides, they represent cities, castles, seas, fishes, rocks, mountains, beasts, birds, and what pleaseth the poet, painter, and surveyor. Then there are actors, and speeches spoke, and music; and then lords or ladies come down in a scene, as from the clouds; and after that, they begin to dance, and everyone takes out according as they fancy. If a man takes out a woman, if she cannot dance, or will not dance, then she makes a curchy
²
to the King, or Queen, or chief grandee, if there be anyone, if not, to the upper end of the room, then turn to the man, and make another to him; then he leaves, or leads her to them she will take out; and she doth the like to him, and then goeth to her place again. And so the men do the same, if they will not dance; and if they do dance, they do just so[.] When the dance is ended, and all the chief of the youth of the city come to see it, or to show themselves, or all those that have youthful minds, and love sights, and fine clothes; then the room is made as light
with candles, as if the sun shined, and their glittering bravery makes as glorious a show as his gilded beams.