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The Birtwhistles of Craven and Galloway |
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A review in the European
Magazine in 1810 of her first published work, “Poems and Translations from the minor Greek Poets”, tells us
that many of the translations had been carried out by Anna between the ages
of 10 and 16, when her family had lived in Gatehouse of Fleet, where an uncle
owned a cotton mill. These dates are
consistent with political letters bearing her father’s hallmark style
of composition beginning to appear in the Dumfries Weekly Journal in December
1792, and a poem written by Anna
in 1807 which contains the lines Nine summer suns have shone since by they side/O’er the rich bank of
gentle Fleet I hung. Alexander Birtwhistle, the uncle who owned the
Gatehouse cotton mill, had moved to |
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Figure 21. Presentation of colours in
1798 to Alexander Birtwhistle, Anna’s uncle, by her aunt, Mrs Thomas
Birtwhistle |
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Many of the translations in “Poems and Translations” were of Odes
of Anacreon, and a footnote tells us that
Anna had been attracted to the ancient Greek poet because of his contempt for
wealth, hilarity and sportive homage to beauty. This would appear to be an accurate assessment of her own
philosophy; when she later inherited considerable wealth, she wrote to a friend that her relatives
could not understand why she lived so modestly. Apart from the short period
when married and living in Galloway, Anna does not appear to have lived in a
family home, choosing to live with others, sometimes in |
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