The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America is a collection of poems by Anne Bradstreet (née Dudley) which was published in London by an admiring brother-in-law. The volume begins with a number of short poems honoring Bradstreet by various New England worthies, followed by a respectful poem dedicated to her father Thomas Dudley, after which appear longer scholarly poems (“quaternions”) on the four elements (fire, earth, water, and air); the four humors (or bodily fluids); the four ages of life; the four seasons; and the four “monarchies” (a truncated world history up to the Romans). Following these come shorter verses such as “A Dialogue Between Old and New England: An elegy Upon Sir Philip Sidney” (the courtier and poet the Dudleys claimed as kinsman); a poem in praise of the French poet Guillaume Du Bartas (1544-1590), whom the Puritans held in high esteem; and poems, many of them dedicatory, on a variety of other subjects. Before her death, Bradstreet made emendations and added still more poems for a projected revised edition; some of these added poems are regarded as her finest. This new book, known as Several Poems, was published in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1678.
