Anne Hunter

Background

Hunter was the eldest daughter of surgeon Robert Boyne Home of Greenlaw Castle, Berwickshire, and sister of Sir Everard Home.

Career

She is mostly remembered now for the texts to at least nine of Joseph Haydn"s 14 songs in English. Their relationship during Haydn"s stay is ambiguous, though at the time she was a widow. Songs by Haydn on her texts include: The Mermaid"s Song, Fidelity, Pleasing Pain, and The Spirit"s Song and a lybretto for The Creation, which was based on John Milton"s Paradise Lost.

Her social literary parties were among the most enjoyable of her time, though not always to her husband"s taste.

On her husband"s death in 1793, Mistress Hunter was left ill provided for, and for some time she was indebted for a maintenance partly to the queen"s bounty and to the generosity of Doctor Maxwell Garthshore, and partly to the sale of her husband"s furniture, library, and curiosities (Ottley, Life of Hunter, pp 137–9).

She lived in retirement in London till her death on 7 January 1821. Her poems (duodecimo, London, 1802.

2nd edition, 1803) show no depth of thought, but have a natural feeling and simplicity of expression, which make many of them worth reading (see British Critic, October 1802, xx 409-13).

Her "Sports of the Genii," written in 1797 to a set of graceful drawings by Mission Susan Macdonald (d 1803), eldest daughter of Lord-chief-baron Macdonald, display in addition humour and fancy.

Connections

friends:

Mary Delany

son-in-law:

Sir James Campbell