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Maria Riddell
Mrs Walter Riddell by Thomas Lawrence (1769-1830)
Born	1772
Died	1808
Occupation(s)	Poet and author

Maria Banks Riddell (née Woodley; 1772–1808) was a West Indies-born poet, anthologist, naturalist, editor and travel writer, who was resident in Scotland and Wales. Robert Burns paid tribute to her as "a votary of the Muses". She was raised in England until she was sixteen.

Life, family and character

Maria was the third and youngest daughter of William Woodley, Governor and Captain-General of the Leeward Islands for the terms 1768–1771 and 1791–1793). She married Walter Riddell in the Leewards and the couple purchased the old Holm Estate in Troqueer Parish, Nithsdale, re-named Goldielea Estate, that Walter again renamed Woodley Park from 1792 to 1794 in his wife's honour.

Robert Burns

Walter owned sugar plantations in the West Indies however he was forced to sell Woodley Park back to Colonel Goldie having failed to raised the final payment on the property. The couple moved to Tinwald House and then Halleaths near Lochmaben. On the death of her husband she was left in a dire financial situation.

William Smellie published Maria's "Voyages to the Madeira and Leeward and Caribbee Islands."

The couple settled in an estate in Kirkcudbrightshire 

Following the death of her first husband, Riddell married the Welsh landowner Phillips Lloyd Fletcher. She was buried in a family vault located in Chester.

Life

She accompanied him on a visit to the islands in 1788 and wrote an account of it. The book also included a natural history of the Leeward Islands written by her.

in the historical county of Kirkcudbrightshire.

Maria and her husband were reconciled with Burns in 1795, when she sent a poem of appeasement.

She was a friend of the novelist and poet Helen Craik, another admirer of Burns. She included some poems by Anna Laetitia Barbauld, Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire and Mary Darwall in her 1802 anthology, The Metrical Miscellany.

Works

• Voyage to the Madeira and Leeward and Caribbean Isles, with Sketches of the Natural History of these Islands, Edinburgh, 1792
• The Metrical Miscellany, consisting chiefly of poems hitherto unpublished, 1802 (as editor), 2nd ed., 1803

See also

• Lydia Byam

Association with Robert Burns

Prior to moving into Woodley Park, Maria and Walter stayed at Friars' Carse and it was there that she first met Burns circa December 1791, by which time he had moved to Dumfries and was an infrequent visitor.

At the December 1793 date of the 'Rape of the Sabine Women' incident Walter Riddell was in the West Indies, returning in March 1794.

A depressed and spiteful Burns wrote some unpleasant epigrams on Maria, such as "Monody on a Lady Famed for her Caprice:"

How cold is that bosom which folly once fired, How pale is that cheek where the rouge lately glisten’d; How silent that tongue which the echoes oft tired, How dull is that ear which to flatt’ry so listen’d! If sorrow and anguish their exit await, From friendship and dearest affection remov’d; How doubly severer, Maria, thy fate, Thou diedst unwept, as thou livedst unlov’d.

Another unkind epigram was "Pinned to Mrs Walter Riddell's Carriage:"

If you rattle along like your Mistress' tongue, Your speed will outrival the dart; But a fly for your load, you'll break down on the road, If your stuff be as rotten's her heart.

Burns also wrote an epistle "Esopus to Maria:"

What scandal call'd Maria's janty stagger The ricket reeling of a crooked swagger? What slander nam'd her seeming want of art The flimsy wrapper of a rotten heart; Whose spite e'en worse than Burns' venom when He dips in gall unmixed his eager pen, And pours his vengeance in the burning line? Who christen'd thus Maria's Lyre divine, The idiot strum of vanity bemused, And e'en the abuse of Poesy abused? Who called her verse a parish workhouse, made For motley foundling Fancies, stolen or strayed?

Friars' Carse in 1805

On 3 July 1796 Burns went to the Brow Well on the Solway Firth for medical treatment and after his initial three week stay stated that he intended to continue taking the treatment for the whole summer whilst "staying at a friend's house", presumably an offer made by Maria Riddell. On 5 July 1796, Maria sent her carriage to collect him so that he could dine with her at Lochmaben. She recorded that he had the "stamp of death" on his face and was "touching the brink of eternity" and his greeting to her was "Well madam, have you any commands for the other world".

In December 1794 Maria sent Burns a book, signalling a slow reconciliation. He responded with a stilted letter written in the third person, however the friendship was restored and proved to continue after Burns's death with staunch support for his memory.

After Burns's death Maria wrote a perceptive and detailed memoir that was published by Dr James Currie after appearing in the "Dumfries Weekly Journal".

Correspondence with Robert Burns

On 12 January 1794 Burns wrote saying "If it is true, that 'Offences come only from the heart' - before you I am guiltless: To admire, esteem, prize and adore you, as a most accomplished of women, & the first of friends - if these are crimes, I am the most offending thing alive."

References

Notes

Further reading

1. Brown, Hilton (1949). There was a Lad. London : Hamish Hamilton.
2. Burns, Robert (1839). The Poetical Works of Robert Burns. The Aldine Edition of the British Poets. London : William Pickering.
3. De Lancey Ferguson, J. (1931). The Letters of Robert Burns. Oxford : Clarendon Press.
4. Douglas, William Scott (Edit.) 1938. The Kilmarnock Edition of the Poetical Works of Robert Burns. Glasgow : The Scottish Daily Express.
5. Hecht, Hans (1936). Robert Burns. The Man and His Work. London : William Hodge.
6. Mackay, James A. (2004). Burns. A Biography of Robert Burns. Darvel : Alloway Publishing. ISBN 0907526-85-3.
7. Mackay, James A. (1988). Burns-Lore of Dumfries amd Galloway. Ayr : Alloway Publishing. ISBN 0-907526-36-5.
8. McIntyre, Ian (2001). Robert Burns. A Life. New York : Welcome Rain Publishers. ISBN 1-56649-205-X.
9. McNaught, Duncan (1921). The Truth about Robert Burns. Glasgow : Maclehose, Jackson & Co. ISBN 9781331593317
10. McQueen, Colin Hunter (2008). Hunter's Illustrated History of the Family, Friends and Contemporaries of Robert Burns. Messsrs Hunter McQueen & Hunter. ISBN 978-0-9559732-0-8
11. Purdie, David, McCue & Carruthers, G (2013). Maurice Lindsay's The Burns Encyclopaedia. London : Robert Hale. ISBN 978-0-7090-9194-3
12. Ross Roy, G. (1985). Letters of Robert Burns. Oxford : Clarendon Press.

==External links==]

• Researching the Life and Times of Robert Burns

Category:1772 births Category:1808 deaths Category:18th-century naturalists Category:18th-century Scottish writers Category:18th-century Scottish women writers Category:19th-century Scottish writers Category:19th-century Scottish women writers Category:18th-century women scientists Category:British Leeward Islands people Category:Scottish travel writers Category:Caribbean writers Category:British women travel writers Category:Scottish women poets Category:People associated with Dumfries and Galloway Category:Anthologists Category:Women anthologists Category:Women naturalists Category:Scottish naturalists Category:Buildings and structures in Dumfries and Galloway Category:Robert Burns