Born (Charlotte Ramsay), in New York, 1720. To England, 1735(?). Being unprovided for at her father’s death, went on the stage for a short time. Married to—Lennox, 1748(?). Friendship with Dr. Johnson and Richardson. Edited “The Ladies’ Museum,” 1760–61. Play, “The Sister” (dramatized from her novel “Henrietta”), produced at Covent Garden, 18 Feb. 1769; “Old City Manners” (adapted from Jonson, Chapman and Marston’s “Eastward Hoe!”), Drury Lane, 9 Nov. 1775. Ill health and distress in later years. Pension from Royal Literary Fund, 1803. Died, in London, 4 Jan. 1804. Works: “Poems on Several Occasions” (anon.), 1747; “The Life of Harriot Stuart” (anon.), 1751 (1750); “The Female Quixote” (anon.), 1752; “Shakespear Illustrated” (3 vols., anon.), 1753–54; “Philander” (anon.), 1758; “Henrietta” (anon.), 1758; “Sophia,” 1762; “The Sisters,” 1769; “Old City Manners,” 1775; “Euphemia,” 1790; “Memoirs of Henry Lennox,” 1804. She translated: “Memoirs of the Countess of Berci,” 1756; “Memoirs of the Duke of Sully,” 1756; “Memoirs for the History of Madame de Maintenon,” 1757; Brumoy’s “Greek Theatre” (with Johnson and others), 1759; the Duchess de la Vallière’s “Meditations,” 1774.

Personal

  A poetess and deplorable actress.

  He (Dr. Johnson) gave us an account of Mrs. Lennox. Her “Female Quixote” is very justly admired here. But Mrs. Thrale says that though her books are generally approved, nobody likes her. I find she, among others, waited on Dr. Johnson upon her commencing writing, and he told us that at her request he carried her to Richardson. “Poor Charlotte Lennox!” continued he. “When we came to the house she desired me to leave her; ‘for,’ says she, ‘I am under great restraint in your presence; but if you leave me alone with Richardson, I’ll give you a very good account of him;’ however, I fear poor Charlotte was disappointed, for she gave me no account at all.”

  Mrs. Lenox, a lady now well known in the literary world, had written a novel intitled, “The Life of Harriot Stuart,” which in the spring of 1751, was ready for publication. One evening at the club, Johnson proposed to us the celebrating the birth of Mrs. Lenox’s first literary child, as he called her book, by a whole night spent in festivity. Upon his mentioning it to me, I told him I had never sat up a whole night in my life; but he continuing to press me, and saying, that I should find great delight in it, I, as did all the rest of our company, consented. The place appointed was the Devil tavern, and there, about the hour of eight, Mrs. Lenox and her husband, and a lady of her acquaintance, now living, as also the club, and friends to the number of near twenty, assembled. Our supper was elegant, and Johnson had directed that a magnificent hot apple-pie should make a part of it, and this he would have stuck with bay-leaves, because, forsooth, Mrs. Lenox was an authoress, and had written verses; and further, he had prepared for her a crown of laurel, with which, but not till he had invoked the muses by some ceremonies of his own invention, he encircled her brows. The night passed, as must be imagined, in pleasant conversation, and harmless mirth, intermingled at different periods with the refreshments of coffee and tea. About five Johnson’s face shone with meridian splendour, though his drink had been only lemonade; but the far greater part of us had deserted the colours of Bacchus, and were with difficulty, rallied to partake of a second refreshment of coffee, which was scarcely ended when the day began to dawn. This phenomenon began to put us in mind of our reckoning; but the waiters were all so overcome with sleep, that it was two hours before we could get a bill, and it was not till near eight that the creaking of the street-door gave the signal for our departure.

General

  On the evening of Saturday, May 15, he was in fine spirits at our Essex Head Club. He told us, “I dined yesterday at Mrs. Garrick’s with Mrs. Carter, Miss Hannah More, and Miss Fanny Burney. Three such women are not to be found: I know not where I could find a fourth, except Mrs. Lennox, who is superiour to them all.”

  But her (Dorothy Osborne’s) favourite books were those ponderous French Romances which modern readers know chiefly from the pleasant satire of Charlotte Lennox.

  A very ingenious, deserving, and not very fortunate woman, who wrote the clever novel of the “Female Quixote,” and a somewhat silly book about Shakespeare, to which Johnson, a great friend of her’s, was suspected to have contributed…. Though with too much sentiment, it [“Sister”] is both amusing and interesting; and the Strawberry-hill critics who abused it, and afterwards pronounced Burgoyne’s “Heiress” “the finest comedy in the English language,” might have had the justice to discover that three of the characters of the fashionable General were stolen from this very “Sister” of poor Mrs. Lennox.

  It [“Female Quixote”] certainly is a very amusing book…. The story is rather wire-drawn, but rather full of humor.

  The “Female Quixote,” published in 1752, and perpetuated by Mrs. Barbauld, is precious for preserving to the world the best impression we have of what the old, old romances of the Calprénede and Scudéry school really were; sparing us an effort which even I am incapable of—that is, wading through the black volumes like those beloved of the old nurse in the Wortley family, and even of Lady Mary herself and her contemporaries. It is an agreeable and ingenious satire upon the old romances, and I really think it is written in a modern spirit, and that Arabella, the heroine, has more good stuff in her than other imaginary ladies of the time who have been more praised. She is supposed to have been brought up in the country and secluded from all society, but allowed to amuse herself in an old library furnished with the works of these voluminous authors. Of course she imbibes their views of life, and when she comes out into the world, possessed of beauty and fortune, it is with a pronounced ignorance of every circumstance of real life and manners. She fancies every man who speaks to her to be secretly in love with her, and is in constant apprehension of being forcibly carried off.