1 Lines 113-16. Hereafter line numbers in parentheses will follow all citations of poetry.

2 I wish to thank the many readers whose comments and questions have contributed to this argument at various stages, including Michael McKeon, Kathryn Steele, Kathy Lubey, Meredith Evans, Omri Moses, Jonathan Sachs, Marcie Frank, Laura Runge, and Kirsten Saxton. I'm also grateful for the expert research assistance of Brianne Colon and Julie McIsaac.

3 For another discussion of this passage, and of Montagu’s aristocratic views of authorship in general, see Robert Halsband, Life 255.

4 In “The Politics of Female Authorship,” Isobel Grundy analyzes some of Montagu’s written responses to the appearance of her works in print, arguing that personal and political conflicts “made her too insecure to accept willingly the role of published poet” (37).

5 Citing Michael Treadwell and James Raven respectively, Paula McDowell observes that “while the Printing Act had tried to limit the number of master printers in all of England to twenty-four, by 1705 there were between sixty-five and seventy printing houses in London alone” and “by 1800, print issued from hundreds of presses operating in London and almost every small town in the country” (234).

6 For readings of the poem focusing on Montagu’s frustration with Swift’s sexism, see Halsband, “Ladies of Letters” 42 and “‘The Lady’s Dressing Room’”; Grundy, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu 342-44; and Alison Winch. Notes introducing or accompanying Montagu’s poem in anthologies also often either state or imply that misogyny is Montagu’s major concern: see, for instance, British Literature 768, Meridian Anthology 217, and Norton Anthology 2593.

7 As Peter J. Schakel points out, “The Lady’s Dressing Room” alludes to Ovid’s Remedia Amoris in which Phineus is advised that watching his mistress putting on her make-up will cure his excessive passion for her.

8 Most critics recognize Montagu’s sharp mimicry of Swift’s style and imagery. Emphasizing the innovation in her imitation, my argument builds on Grundy’s passing observation that “Montagu follows Rochester and Behn in her treatment of impotence” (Lady Mary 343).

9 My generalizations about imperfect enjoyment draw on classical and neoclassical poetry and prose as well as criticism by Leo Braudy, Carole Fabricant, Richard Quaintance, Reba Wilcoxon, and Lisa M. Zeitz and Peter Thoms.

10 My essay refers to the version of the poem first published by T. Cooper in February 1734 under the title “The Dean’s Provocation For Writing the Lady’s Dressing-room” which Halsband reproduces in “‘The Lady’s Dressing-Room’ Explicated by a Contemporary.” This early print version of the poem is slightly longer than those in extant manuscripts in the Montagu archive: a publisher or someone else may have added one or more lines. In Essays and Poems 273-75, especially 273 and 275, Grundy and Halsband discuss the differences between various early versions of the poem and the date of its composition (Montagu, “The Reasons”).

11 See, for example, Braudy 188 and Zeitz and Thoms 511-12.

12 See the last lines of Horace, Epistles 1.14.

13 On Montagu’s snobbery and its impact on her attitude toward Swift and Alexander Pope, see Halsband, Life 255-56 and Margaret Anne Doody: both cite the letter in which Montagu sneers, “These two superior Beings were entitl’d by their Birth and hereditary Fortune to be only a couple of Link Boys.”

14 Catherine Ingrassia has explored at length the impact on eighteenth-century authorship of the close imaginative connection between printed text and paper credit.

15 See Ann Cline Kelly, Jonathan Swift and Popular Culture.

16 See Ehrenpreis 708-13 and 756-57.

17 Shortly after the publication of “The Lady’s Dressing Room,” “A Modest Defense of a Late Poem Call’d ‘The Lady’s Dressing Room” appeared. This prose tract, which upheld the decency of the “Hibernian Bard,” was probably written by Swift himself to stir up controversy over his poem. See Halsband, “‘The Lady’s Dressing Room’” 225.

18 “Recovering from Recovery” is the title of Rosenthal’s introduction to the recent special issue of Eighteenth Century: Theory and Interpretation on “The Future of Feminist Theory in Eighteenth-Century Studies.”

19 See Rosenthal, “Introduction” 9-10 and Backscheider 83-99, especially 84.

20 Of this poem and Montagu’s letter on the Turkish baths, Rosenthal remarks that “it sometimes seems, searching through the MLA bibliography, that [Montagu] really only wrote one letter and one poem” (9).