Bradstreet's life; an inspiration and then a warning. There are
hints that Anne resented the limitations that hedged her in, and
had small love of the mutual criticism, which made the corner
stone of Puritan life. That she cared to write had already excited
the wonder of her neighbors and Anne stoutly asserted her right to
speak freely whatever it seemed good to say, taking her stand
afterwards given in the Prologue to the first edition of her
poems, in which she wrote:

"I am obnoxious to each carping tongue
Who says my hand a needle better fits,
A Poet's pen all scorn I should thus wrong,
For such despite they cast on Female wits;
If what I do prove well, it won't advance,
They'l say it's stol'n, or else it was by chance.

"But sure the antique Greeks were far more mild,
Else of our Sexe, why feigned they those Nine
And poesy made Callippi's own Child;
So 'mongst the rest they placed the Arts Divine,
But this weak knot they will full soon untie,
The Greeks did nought but play the fools and lye."

This has a determined ring which she hastens to neutralize by a
tribute and an appeal; the one to man's superior force, the other
to his sense of justice.

"Let Greeks be Greeks, and women what they are,
Men have precedency and still excell,
It is but vain unjustly to wage warrs;