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The Birtwhistles of Craven and Galloway |
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Flaxman, Titania ( Queen of the Fairies) and the unmarried trio who met frequently at the Flaxman residence were three of Titania’s fairy attendants; Mary Flaxman (Moth), Maria Denman (Peaseblossom) and Anna (Cobweb). These nicknames were often woven into Anna’s letters and literary work, including an epitaph which appeared in the European Magazine in 1820, following the death of Anne Flaxman. This was an adaptation of a poem set to music and titled “A Fairy’s Song”, which Anna had contributed to the Attic Chest, but was re-titled “St Valentine’s Eve, or the Fireside Fairies” in 1820 for the European Magazine; only close friends would have realised that Anna’s poem in the European Magazine was an epitaph to her friend. A reproduction of “A Fairy’s Song” may be seen in an appendix at the end of the book. In November
1813 Anna became the senior poetry correspondent of the European Magazine,
and her first contribution as senior correspondent was an epitaph to William
Franklin, a close friend of both herself and her father. The first few lines
of “Epitaph designed for William Franklin, Esq., late Governor of New
Jersey: Ob Nov 16” brilliantly
encapsulated Anna’s views of William and his father, Benjamin Franklin,
alluding to the experiment said to have been conducted by father and son of
flying a kite into a lightening cloud which
led to the invention of the lightening conductor, and the different
politics of father and son at the time
of the American Revolution. William Franklin must have provided copies of Anna’s book to his friends, for a first edition of “Poems and Translations” which he gave to Mary Odell, the daughter of a fellow American loyalist survives, and has an engraving of himself and his signature inside the front cover ( see figure 15). |
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Figure 25 Anna’s friend, the
diarist Henry Crabb Robinson |
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