Her verses belong to the generalising conventions of strong-minded Denham and limpid Waller: Such Noble Vigour did her Verse adorn, That it seem'd borrow'd. Yet to judge from her lively objections (pp. 44-47), the attempt to class her as a plagiarist was unjustified. Court poetry in the age was so uniform that apparent echoes are a matter of course. We may compare her The bloody Wolf, the Wolf does not pursue; The Boar, though fierce, his Tusk will not embrue In his own Kind, Bares, not on Bares do prey: Then art thou, Man, more savage far than they, (p. 37) with Rochester's _Satyr against Mankind_: _Birds_, feed on _Birds_, _Beasts_, on each other prey, But Savage _Man_ alone, does _Man_ betray, or Waller on the death of Lady Rich, "But savage beasts, or men as wild as they!" Anne Killigrew's use of stock epithets and polite locutions mark a conventionality which inevitably borders on the derivative. But at her best, as for example "On the Birth-Day of Queen _Katherine_," p. 47, she is able to move effectively beyond the conventional. The conflict between the formal occasion and the dismal weather becomes a surprising symbol of paradox, and the dream and scriptural consolation come to have an intensity more metaphysical than courtly. Similarly, in the unfinished "Ode," p. 82, or in parts of the "Pastoral Dialogue," p. 63, she produces some forceful and startling images. The individuality of her works lies in their firm, evangelical moral tone, which is clearly distinguishable from the genteel piety of her contemporaries. Dryden's comment: So cold herself, whilst she such Warmth exprest, 'Twas _Cupid_ bathing in _Diana's_ Stream, is an apt description of, say, her "Pastoral Dialogue," pp. 63-75. Anne Killigrew's interest in poetic theory is notable; her early "Alexandreis" prays for the "frozen style" to be warmed with a "Poetique fire," and her "Love, the Soul of Poetry," contrasts the flatness of commonplace verse with the rapture and heat produced by a subject which "Enlarg'd his Fancy, and set free his Muse." The poem "To My Lord Colrane" meditates on her slothful muse and its awakening of life. Throughout her writings she keeps the poet's didactic end in view and has a high regard for the nature of her art. Something of the severity of the York household is reflected in the writings of the Maid of Honour.