Constantia Grierson

Mrs. Constantia Grierson
Born	Constantia Crawley 1705 Kilkenny
Died	December 2, 1732 Dublin
Cause of death	possibly tuberculosis.
Resting place	St. John's Parish Church, Dublin, Ireland
Known for	editor, poet, and classical scholar
Spouse	George Grierson

Constantia Grierson [née Crawley] (c. 1705 – 2 December 1732), was an editor, poet, and classical scholar from County Kilkenny, Ireland.

Life

Constantia was born to an impoverished rural family in County Kilkenny. She received some training in languages, classical and modern, from her parish Minister but was mostly self-educated. According to one editor she was "a most excellent scholar, not only in Greek and Roman literature, but in history, divinity, philosophy, and mathematics: and what makes her character the more remarkable is, that she died so early as the age of 27, and that she acquired this great learning merely by the force of her own genius, and continual application."^[1]

Constantia moved to Dublin at the age of eighteen to study midwifery, but met publisher George Grierson (c.1679–1753) for whom she edited editions of Virgil, Terence, and Tacitus. After the death of George's first wife the couple married.^[2] She was active in her husband's business and he emphasized her contributions in his successful petition to the Irish House of Commons in 1729 to be granted the patent for King's Printer: "the Editions corrected by her have been approved of, not only in this Kingdom, but in Great Britain, Holland and elsewhere, and the Art of Printing, through her care and assistance, has been brought to greater perfection than has been hitherto in this Kingdom."^[1]

In addition to her editorial work she was a poet.^[1] Little of her poetry survives, however her friend Mary Barber published six of her pieces in her Poems on Several Occasions (1734).^[3] Those six and two others, included by Laetitia Pilkington in her Memoirs, were published in Poems by the Most Eminent Ladies of Great Britain and Ireland.^[1] Jonathan Swift included her, along with Barber and literary critic Elizabeth Sican, in his "triumfeminate" and she was part of his Dublin literary circle.

After a period of frail health, Grierson died at the age of twenty-seven, possibly of tuberculosis, and was buried in Dublin. Her reputation was enhanced by being mentioned by George Ballard in his Memoirs of Several Ladies of Great Britain, who have been Celebrated for their Writings or Still in the Learned Languages, Arts and Sciences (1752), though she did not receive much critical attention until recently.^[4]

Family

She was born in 1705 in Kilkenny, Ireland; died 2 December, 1732; buried 4 December, 1732.^[5] Constantia married George Grierson, as his second wife about September or October 1726 in Dublin.^[2] George was born c1679 in Dumfriesshire, Scotland and died October 27, 1753, Drumcondra, Dublin. He was buried St. John's Parish Church. Constantia died aged 27, and was buried in St. John's Parish Church, Dublin. Shortly after Constantia's death, George married again.

Altogether she had four children, three of whom did not survive infancy.

• George Primrose Grierson, b. May 29, 1727; baptised June 17, 1727, Dublin, Ireland, page (08).
• George [Abraham] Grierson, baptism on October 1, 1728, page (09); who was the longest liver, & died in Germany, leaving a Will,
• A daughter, buried July 30, 1731 (Greeves notes) page 304.
• A daughter of Mrs. Grierson's, March 20, 1732, burial, page (97).

Works

• Editions of Virgil, Terence (Dublin, 1727), and Tacitus (3 vols., Dublin, 1730).
• Grierson, Constantia (1773), "Poems by Mrs. Constantia Grierson", in Colman, G.; Thornton, B., Poems by the most eminent ladies of Great-Britain and Ireland, VOL. I (A new edition ed.), London: printed for T. Becket and Co. and T. Evans, near York building, Strand., p. 240, http://www.nku.edu/~issues/eminent_ladies/vol1/master_file_vol_1.html#grierson .

References

Footnotes

1. ^ ^{a b c d} (Grierson 1773, p. 240)
2. ^ ^{a b} It is not clear if they married at all, as the date is unrecorded. The marriage was most probably sometime after the death of George's first wife, who died or was certainly buried on April 19, 1726, at St. John's Parish Church, Dublin. There is some indication that she was expecting a child and it is unclear whether there were any children from the first union.
3. ^ Bryan, Coleborne (2004), "Barber, Mary (c.1685–1755)", in Matthew, H.C.G.; Harrison, Brian; British Academy, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford: Oxford University Press, http://www.oxforddnb.com.proxy.hil.unb.ca/view/article/1332 .
4. ^ (Ballard 1752)
5. ^ These dates are from the records of the Church of Ireland, Dublin. Also in the work of (Dr.) Mary Pollard in her: (A dictionary of members of the Dublin book trade 1550-1800 by Dr. Mary Pollard, Guild of St. Luke the Evangelist (Dublin, Ireland) - she is also Keeper of the ArchBishop's Library in Dublin, Ireland, 2002.

Further reading

• Cibber, Theophilus; Shiells, Robert; Coxeter, Thomas (1753), "Mrs. Constantia Grierson", The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland, Vol. V, London: Printed for R. Griffiths at the Dunciad in St. Paul's Church Yard, pp. 72–74, http://books.google.com/books?id=5OJb9xuDEF8C&lpg=PP1&pg=PA72 .
• Rees, D. Ben. (2004), "Grierson, Constantia (1705–1732)", in Matthew, H.C.G.; Harrison, Brian; British Academy, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford: Oxford University Press, http://www.oxforddnb.com.proxy.hil.unb.ca/view/article/11575 .
• Lonsdale, Roger H., ed. (1989), "Constantia Grierson.", Eighteenth century women poets: an Oxford anthology, New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 91–93, ISBN 9780198117698, http://books.google.com/books?id=gIxpQgAACAAJ .
• Ballard, George (1752), "Memoirs of Constantia Grierson.", Memoirs of several ladies of Great Britain:who have been celebrated for their writings or skill in the learned languages, arts and sciences, Oxford: Printed by W, Jackson, for the author, pp. 461–464, http://books.google.com/books?id=GnxBAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA461 .
• Grierson, David Alan in his Grierson World Project, Grierson One Name Studies - A Global Study, of the Griersons in Dublin, & other parts of Ireland, 2002.

External links

•  "Grierson, Constantia". Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900. 

Persondata
Name	Grierson, Constantia
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth
Place of birth	Kilkenny
Date of death	December 2, 1732
Place of death	Dublin