SOURCE: "The Countess of Winchilsea," in A Tradition of Poetry, Macmillan, 1967, pp. 162-70.

In the following excerpt, Buxton discusses the importance of nature in Finch's poetry and sees her as a precursor to the Romantics.

[Finch] herself, with no masculine tradition of the active life to make discontent, with no household to manage, and no children to care for, might yet have found time hang heavy on her, had she not taken endless pleasure in the life of the countryside. Once, on a visit to Eastwell in July 1689, she took too long a walk in the park, drawn (she said) by 'romantic notions', and got a lift home again 'in a water-cart driven by one of the underkeepers in his green coat, with a hazelbough for a whip'. She turned the incident into a burlesque, merrily laughing at herself for so unromantic a homecoming. She loved the park...