Sarah Dixon (baptised 28 September 1671 – 23 April 1765) was an English poet, probably born in

Rochester, Kent Rochester ( ) is a town in the unitary authority of Medway, in Kent, England. It is at the lowest bridging point of the River Medway, about east-southeast of London. The town forms a conurbation with neighbouring towns Chatham, Kent, Chatham, ...

, where she was baptised.Orlando, Cambridg
Retrieved 14 May 2017.
/ref> She took to writing "during a Youth of much Leisure", although her earliest surviving dated poem is from 1716. The 500 subscribers to her anonymous ''Poems on Several Occasions'' included

Elizabeth Carter Elizabeth Carter (pen name Eliza; 16 December 1717 – 19 February 1806) was an English poet, classicist, writer, translator, and linguist. As one of the Bluestocking Circle that surrounded Elizabeth Montagu,Encyclopaedia BritannicRetrieved 1 ...

and

Alexander Pope Alexander Pope (21 May 1688 Old Style and New Style dates, O.S. – 30 May 1744) was an English poet, translator, and satirist of the Age of Enlightenment, Enlightenment era who is considered one of the most prominent English poets of the early ...

, and the society hostess Maria Coventry, Countess of Coventry.''The Feminist Companion to Literature in English. Women Writers from the Middle Ages to the Present'', eds Virginia Blain, Patricia Clements and Isobel Grundy (London: Batsford, 1990), p. 299.Richard Greene, "Dixon, Sarah (1671/2–1765)", ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' (Oxford, UK: OUP, 2004
Retrieved 14 May 2017.
/ref>

Family and work

Dixon was the daughter of James Dixon, barrister at the

Middle Temple The Honourable Society of the Middle Temple, commonly known simply as Middle Temple, is one of the four Inns of Court entitled to Call to the bar, call their members to the English Bar as barristers, the others being the Inner Temple (with whi ...

, and Elizabeth Southouse, and the granddaughter of Prebendary Robert Dixon (died 1688). She is likely to have spent most of her life at St Stephen's, also known as Hackington, just north of

Canterbury Canterbury (, ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and UNESCO World Heritage Site, in the county of Kent, England; it was a county borough until 1974. It lies on the River Stour, Kent, River Stour. The city has a mild oceanic climat ...

, although it has been suggested the family moved to

Newnham, Kent Newnham is a village and civil parish in the Syndale valley in Kent, England, in the administrative borough of Swale near the medieval market town of Faversham. History Newnham has existed as a community of dwellings and work-units for at le ...

when her father remarried. Dixon had a brother, who probably died in his late teens. There are indications that she also had a sister. Her niece, Mrs Eliza Bunce (née De Langle), was among her subscribers and added further poems of Dixon's to her copy. Eliza Bunce's husband, Rev. John Bunce (died 1786), Vicar of St Stephen's, encouraged Dixon and corrected her work for publication. Her poem "The Ruins of St. Austin's, Canterbury" (the oldest Christian site in Britain) was written at the age of 73 and appeared posthumously in 1774 in the ''Kentish Gazette''. Although Dixon is described in one copy of her printed work as a widow, the memorial stone on the chancel floor of St Stephen's calls her only the daughter of James Dixon, barrister. A 1739 poem of hers addresses John and Eliza Bunce on the death of a daughter. One of the verses in her volume is entitled "On the Death of my Dear Brother, Late of

University College, Oxford University College, formally The Master and Fellows of the College of the Great Hall of the University commonly called University College in the University of Oxford and colloquially referred to as "Univ", is a Colleges of the University of Oxf ...

". No husband or children are mentioned.

Opinions

Dixon described her own work as "all artless, uninformed", but she was versatile and appears to have been well read. A modern critic calls her "a mordant satirist of both sexes: her love poems... run the gamut from rejoicing to pathos to scoffing." Another notes how "individual poems range from light, but pointed satire on the follies and failings of women, through romantic, ballad-like lyrics, to earnest, mature, religious verse." A third comments, "Sarah Dixon, who shows so much insight into matters of the heart, embodies the merits of family loyalty and patriotism."Author Profile: Deborah Kennedy. Bucknell U
Retrieved 15 May 2017.
/ref>

Death

Sarah Dixon died on 23 April 1765 at the age of 93, according to the St Austin's memorial stone, at the village of Hackington,

Kent Kent is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Essex across the Thames Estuary to the north, the Strait of Dover to the south-east, East Sussex to the south-west, Surrey to the west, and Gr ...

References

External links

*A reproduction of ''Poems on Several Occasions 1740'' appears here
Retrieved 14 May 2017.
It was republished in 2002 by Northeastern University Women Writers Project. *The text of "The Request of Alexis
Retrieved 14 May 2017
*The text of "Strephon" ("Ah, Strephon! why was I ordained by fate/To please a swain, so fickle and ingrate?"
Retrieved 14 May 2017
*Further information on Dixon: Ann Messenger, ''Pastoral Tradition and the Female Talent'' (New York: AMS Press, 2001) {{DEFAULTSORT:Dixon, Sarah 1671 births 1765 deaths 18th-century English poets English women poets 18th-century British women writers Anglican writers Writers from Canterbury People from Rochester, Kent People from Newnham, Kent 18th-century English women writers 18th-century English people