‘[H]ow Obscure her Lot’: Catharine Cockburn’s Double Afterlife

Abstract

On 13 May 1751 Catherine Talbot wrote the above lament in her journal. One of the many subscribers to Thomas Birch’s two-volume edition of The Works of Catharine Cockburn, Talbot was particularly upset at what she saw as the similarities in situation between Cockburn and her friend Elizabeth Carter. Talbot continued, ‘E[lizabeth]: C[arter]: is her Superiour — Alas will not she live & die perhaps as Obscurely, & What Alas can I do to prevent it?’³³² The result of Talbot’s Socratic questioning was that she then encouraged Carter to embark on the most significant act of her literary career: the translation of all the works of Epictetus, a feat completed in 1757 (published in 1758) and which garnered Carter lifelong financial independence.³³³ Talbot was obviously a sympathetic observer of the plight of learned women, but what she crucially realised was that the lack of an effective patronage/friendship support system meant that Cockburn’s contributions to the republic of letters never won her the sort of remuneration (in terms of wealth and fame) she deserved, and that her productions were wrought in unfairly constrained circumstances. Talbot and, arguably, many of the men behind the subscriber edition belatedly recognised that, had some champion of female learning and the arts stepped forth earlier, Cockburn’s interventions in literary and philosophical affairs might have been more widely available from the start.

She was a remarkable Genius, & Yet how Obscure her Lot in Life! It seems grievous at first, & such Straitness of Circumstances as perplexes and Cramps the Mind, is surely a Grievance, […] methinks those who knew Such Merit did not do their Duty in letting it remain so Obscure.³³¹