Anna Temple, Elizabeth Craven's Literary Cousin

Anna Countess Temple,
circle of Thomas Hudson.

Literary tastes and talents often run in families. Elizabeth Craven had an elder cousin who was also a poet, and whose works were published by Horace Walpole. She was Anna, Lady Temple, née Chambers, and her mother had been Lady Mary Berkeley, a daughter of the 2nd Earl of Berkeley. 

    Anna was born in 1707, the daughter of Thomas Chambers of Hanworth. She married Richard Grenville, Lord Temple. The Grenville family owned the estate at Stowe, in Buckinghamshire, celebrated for its splendid landscape design.

    She does not seem to have been known as a Bluestocking or one of the circle of Mrs Elizabeth Montagu. But her friendship with Horace Walpole and his encouragement of her writing indicates that she must have been a cultivated woman. In 1764 Walpole printed a volume of her poems at Strawberry Hill, Poems by Anna Chamber Countess Temple, and this is now available among the Gale online editions.

    Among her works is a poem in praise of Stowe, with the misleadingly modest title On Gardening. Written in heroic couplets, it imagines Albion, the goddess of England, wandering along the banks of the Thames, in search of the most delightful and edifying sights. She finds Stowe and decides that for landscape it cannot be surpassed:-

         By commerce Albion and by arms refin'd

        Sought for the charms of art and nature join'd 

        Along the banks of her own Thames she stray'd

        Where the gay sisters of the waters play'd, 

        In many a soft meander wildly rov'd 

        And grac'd the meadows which their stream improv'd.

        She mark'd romantic Windsor's warlike pride 

        To learning's peaceful seat so near ally'd, 

        Where Temple's bosom early sigh'd for praise, 

        Struck with th inspiring fame of ancient days. 

        She came where silver Thames and Isis bright 

        Their friendly treasures in one stream unite, 

        Where princes prelates fir'd with patriot views 

        By generous gifts invited every muse, 

        Where every muse her grateful tribute brought 

        And virtue practis'd what sound learning taught. 

        At length her longing eyes and hallow'd feet 

        Reach verdant Stowe's magnificent retreat, 

        Where fame and truth had promis'd she should find 

        Scenes to improve and please her curious mind. 

        Each step invention's elegance display'd 

        Such as when Churchill wooes th'Aonian maid 

        And joins in easy graceful negligence 

        Th' harmonious pow'rs of verse with sterling sense,

        Such as when Poussin's or Albano's hand 

        On glowing canvas the rich landscape plann'd, 

        And classic genius strove by mimic art, 

        Thro' the admiring eye to reach the heart.       

        Amidst the wonders of each striking scene 

        High on the summit of a sloping green 

        A solemn temple, in proportion true,    

        Magnificently simple, courts the view. 

        Concord and victory with pride proclaim 

        This mansion sacred to Britannia's fame, 

        Whose form majestic from all hands receives 

        The various product ev'ry region gives, 

        Pleas'd at her feet their choicest gifts to lay 

        And homage to her pow'r superior pay. 

        The sculptur'd walls her glories past declare 

        In proud memorials of successful war. 

        No factious sacrifice to France and Spain 

        Those consecrated trophies can profane, 

        For public liberty her awful seat 

        Here fixing, here protects her last retreat, 

        Where to the great and good in every shade 

        The fragrant tribute of just praise is paid, 

        Where the prime beauties form'd by nature's hand 

        Throughout her works in every distant land     

        Transplanted flourish in their native ease, 

        And as by magic charm, collected, please. 

        Here the fair queen of this heroic isle 

        Imperial Albion with a gracious smile 

        Confess'd she lovely nature saw at last 

        Unite with art, and both improv'd by taste. 

It is an accomplished piece of Augustan poetry, complete with classical references and allusions to Art, Nature and the most admired landscape painters of the day, Poussin and Albano. 

She was not the first to write about Stowe, of course. In 1732 Gilbert West's celebrated poem about Stowe was published, hailing it as a work of aesthetic genius. Alexander Pope had paid it an immense compliment in his fourth Epistle, On Taste, where after satirizing the follies of many contemporary grand houses, he says that if you follow all the best principles, the result may be:

        A work to wonder at -- perhaps a Stowe. 

So Anna Temple had a lot to compete with, and shows that she had studied the best models well. 

    Another one of her poems commemorates a gift to her niece.

Sent With a Piece of Painted Flowered Silk to Lady Charles Spencer.

    Since the times are so bad and are still growing worse 

    You may call this your own without sinking your purse. 

    The nymphs and the fawns say the pattern is new 

    And that Flora's gay pencil design'd it is true.

    It was finish'd and deftin'd for beauty's fair queen, 

    So to whom it belongs is most easily seen. 

    Tho' flowrets soon wither yet these will not die 

    When fading reviv'd by a beam from your eye, 

    If you only breathe on 'em they' ll fill the whole room     

    With sweets far surpassing Arabia's perfume. 

    Refuse not this trifle, your title is clear 

    And Spencer will vouch it tho' married a year.

Lady Charles Spencer was the daughter of Lady Temple's sister, Lady Vere. She was born Hon. Mary Beauclerk, and in October 1762 she married Lord Charles Spencer, a younger son of the Duke of Marlborough. So this poem must have been written in 1763, and is joking about the short duration of husbandly devotion. Painted flowered silk was a very expensive material that would have been used to make a fashionable gown.

   Horace Walpole wrote a rather tongue-in-cheek poem to Lady Temple entitled "Countess Temple Appointed Poet Laureate to the King of the Faeries". It is a graceful but somewhat condescending compliment on her efforts. He could not really take a woman poet seriously. But Anna Temple wanted to be taken seriously. One of her most remarkable poems is The Jewel in the Tower, verses on the imprisonment of John Wilkes in the Tower of London, which took place in 1763. 

        THE JEWEL IN THE TOWER, A SONG 

            IF what the Tower of London holds 

            Is valued more than all its power,

            Then counting what it now enfolds 

            How wondrous rich is London Tower.

            I think not of the armory             

            Nor of the guns' and lions' roar,

            Nor yet the valu'd library, 

            But of the Jewel in the Tower.

 

            These are the marks upon it found, 

            King William's crest it bears before 

            And Liberty's engraven round, 

            Though now confin'd within the Tower.

 

            With thousand methods they did try it 

            Its firmness strengthen'd every hour, 

            They were not able all to buy it,

            And so they sent it to the Tower.

            The owners modestly reserv'd            

            It in a decent Aylesb'ry bower 

            And cannot think it has deserv'd 

            The Caesar's  honour of the Tower. 

            The day shall come to make amends, 

            Of liberty th' exulting hour,

            When o'er his foes and midst his friends 

            Shall shine the Jewel of the Tower. 

John Wilkes.

There was a close link between the Temple family, with its Whig tradition, and John Wilkes, the radical politician; nevertheless it is striking to find a woman writing such praise of a man of such very strong views, whose life was frequently scandalous in many respects. This poem rises above the conventional level of the others. 

    John Wilkes was flattered and in return wrote her these lines:

      THE TEMPLE OF THE MUSES

       THE Muses and Graces to Phoebus complain'd 

         That no more on the earth a Sappho remain'd,

         That the empire of wit was now at an end 

         And on beauty alone the sex must depend, 

         For the men he had giv'n all his fancy and fire,

         Art of healing to Armstrong as well as his lyre, 

         When Apollo replied, To make you amends  

         In one fair you shall see Wit and Virtue good friends, 

         The Grecian's high spirit and sweetness I'll join 

         With a true Roman virtue to make it divine. 

         Your pride and my boast thus form'd would you know,

            You must visit the earthly Elysium of Stow.

So Anna Temple had a lot in common with her younger cousin, who was also a Whig, and an admirer of John Wilkes. She wrote about him in her Memoirs. The two cousins must have met, as Elizabeth Craven was very familiar with her aunt Lady Betty Germaine, the sister of Lady Mary Chambers. And when Anna Chambers was married, the wedding took place at Marble Hill, the house of the Countess of Suffolk, Elizabeth Craven's aunt by marriage. It is possible that the young Elizabeth saw a copy of Lady Temple's poems that spurred her interest in writing and made her aspire to be a poet.

    Lady Temple's only child died young. In 1775, her husband's nephew George Grenville married Elizabeth Craven's youngest half-sister, Lady Mary Nugent, so the two writers must have met at the wedding. Anna Temple died in 1777.

    

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Poems by Anna Chamber Countess Temple. Originally published by H. Walpole at Strawberry Hill 1764. Rpt· Creative Media Partners Ltd 2018 

The Works Of Horatio Walpole, Earl Of Orford - Volume 4 - Page 384

Horace Walpole · 1798

A Catalogue of the Royal and Noble Authors of England, ...With Lists of Their Works. Horace Walpole, ed Thomas Park  vol. IV (1806) page 361 

The New Foundling Hospital for Wit. vol 1, 1768 

The letters of Horace Walpole, earl of Orford, Volume 4, p 175. By Horace Walpole, ed. Peter Cunningham, pub R Bentley 1857.