Author: Ridgeway, John
Biography:
RIDGEWAY, John (fl 1774)
The unconfirmed attribution to John Ridgeway of A Consolatory Poem on the Death of Infants (1774) is in the catalogue of the Union Theological Seminary Library of New York. Identifying the poet may be impossible: there is no obvious or likely candidate and there are few helpful details in his book. The only specific reference is to a sermon he heard preached at Haberdashers’ Hall, Cheapside, the meeting place of an Independent congregation led by the Rev. Dr. Thomas Gibbons. The sole personal information in the book is about his family: “about nine Years ago” his eldest and youngest children, boys, died of smallpox; his father and a daughter died of the same disease. One poem in the book, “The Rape,” is particularly interesting for its moral argument. The poet describes rape as an act of “Violence.” The rapist “glories in subduing” his victim and with “Looks and Words the most deriding … Laughing goes.” Betrayed by her “credulous Affections,” the victim, nevertheless, has “Sinned.” She must, then “plead … with … God … for Mercy,” yet she herself is magnanimous. She declares, “Most freely I the Wretch forgive.” Her gesture is surprising, for earlier in the poem she cursed him: “O may it ever with him dwell, / Wrapped in the Flames of quenchless Fires / … in deepest Hell.” (ancestry.com 8 Feb. 2024; W. Wilson, History and Antiquities of Dissenting Churches and Meeting Houses in London, Westminster, and Southwark [1810], 3:128 ff.) JC