Tollet, Elizabeth

(1694-1754)

   The daughter of George Tollet, commissioner of the Navy in the reigns of William III (1689-1702) and Anne (1702-1714). For much of her childhood her father lived in a house in the grounds of Tower of London, then later at Stratford and West Ham, London, where she died. Highly educated and accomplished, in 1755 she published Poems on Several Occasions, as well as With Anne Boleyn to King Henry VIII, An Epistle. In 1760, she produced Susanna: or Innocence Preserved, a musical drama. She paraphrased over 20 of the Psalms, as well as other passages from the Bible. Nothing else is known of her life. Some of her poems: "Hymn to the Paraclete," "Hypatia," "On a Death's Head," "On Loving Once and Loving Often," "On the Prospect from Westminster Bridge," "The Lord's Prayer," "The Rose," "The Three Children in the Fiery Furnace," "To Mr. Handel," "To My Brother at St. John's College in Cambridge," "Winter Song."

   Sources: Dictionary of National Biography. Electronic Edition 1.1. Oxford University Press, 1997. Eighteenth Century Women Poets: An Oxford Anthology. Roger Lonsdale, ed. Oxford University Press, 1989. Love's Witness: Five Centuries of Love Poetry by Women. Jill Hollis, ed. Carroll and Graf, Inc., 1993. The Columbia Granger's Index to Poetry. 11th ed. The Columbia Granger's World of Poetry, Columbia University Press, 2005 (http://www.columbiagrangers.org). The New Oxford Book of Eighteenth Century Verse. Roger Lonsdale, ed. Oxford University Press, 1984. The Sources for Anne Finch's Translations, Adaptations, Imitations (http://www.jimandellen.org/finch/tollete.html).