SOURCE: "The Countess of Winchilsea," in Countries of the Mind: Essays in Literary Criticism, Oxford University Press, 1931, pp. 166-80.

In the following excerpt, Murry describes Finch as a poet of emotions rather than one of ideas, pointing specifically to her love of nature and of her husband.

In 1664, when Anne Finch was three, her mother died; and seven years later her stepfather, Sir Thomas Ogle, died also. No doubt she lived with some of her many connexions, who naturally brought her up to be married, and little besides. There is a perceptible tinge of resentment against such an education in her poetry; and seeing that her dreamland was one

 Where no dowry e'er was paid,
Where no jointure e'er was made … 

and that none of her childhood connexions, save one, have any place in her poetry, we may imagine that she was none too happy as a girl...