Contents - BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD - INDEX TO CHAPTERS - INDEX TO BIBLIOGRAPHIES - INDEX TO AUTHORS

The Cambridge History of English and American Literature in 18 Volumes (1907–21).
Volume VII. Cavalier and Puritan.

VI. Caroline Divines

§ 14. Lettice (Morison), lady Falkland

Such lives as those of the Ferrars were imitated in many parts of England; and an illustration of how closely the literary and religious interests of Anglican England were knit together is afforded by the history of Lettice (Morison), lady Falkland, wife of the famous leader of the theological coterie of Great Tew. After the fashion of Little Gidding, she planned

places for the education of Young Gentlewomen and for the retirement of Widows, … hoping thereby that learning and religion might flourish more in her own Sex than heretofore, having such opportunities to serve the Lord without distractions.

Her biography is a characteristic record of Anglican devotion, but, from the point of view of the historian of literature, it is chiefly noticeable for two things: the absence of rhetoric or ornament, with the precision of detail in which the tale is told, photographic in the exactness with which the daily life of a great lady of the time is realised; and the influence of Spanish and French mysticism both on the biographer and on the lady whose sayings he records. Nicholas Ferrar had translated A Hundred and Ten Divine Considerations of Juan de Valdés, and it seems probable that Duncon himself was acquainted with the work in its Italian form.