Neo-Latin Women Writers: Elizabeth Jane Weston and Bathsua Reginald (Makin)

von Donald Cheney

This volume contains the work of the only two Renaissance Englishwomen known to have published collections (as opposed to compilations) of their Latin poetry. Elizabeth Jane Weston lived in Prague as a child, her stepfather being alchemist to Rudolph II. Her stepfather's disgrace, imprisonment and death in 1597 left her to try and support her destitute family household with her writing. Her facility at Latin verses and the support of Georg Martinius von Baldhoven quickly led her to international fame. For Poemata we reprint here the copy of the 1602 edition owned by the Folger Shakespeare Library and for Parthenica we reprint the copy of the 1608(?) edition owned by the Houghton Library. Bathsua Reginald (Makin) was the daughter of Henry Reginald, a London school-master. She is said to have been fluent in Greek, Latin and French and to have knowledge also of Hebrew and Syriac. Her Musa virginea GrAco-Latino-Gallica of 1616 certainly confirm these claims to have been accurate. She later became tutor to Princess Elizabeth, daughter of Charles I. The work for which she is best known today is An Essay to Revive the Antient Education of Gentlewomen published in 1673. The work reproduced here is the 1616 edition of Musa virginea and as an appendix we also reprint an engraved card showing specimens of script.