was an English poet and letter-writer of the 18th century, who has gained some historic attention because of her association with Samuel Johnson.
Mary Masters, thought to have been born in 1694 in Otley, West Yorkshire[1] was — by her own insistence – a self-taught poet of humble birth: the preface to her first collection reads:[2] The Author of the following Poems never read a Treatise of Rhetorick, or an Art of Poetry, nor was ever taught her English Grammar.
Her Education rose no higher than the Spelling-Book, or the Writing-Master: her Genius to Poetry was always brow-beat and discountenanced by her Parents, and till her Merit got the better of her Fortune, she was shut out from all Commerce with the more knowing and polite Part of the World.Despite this, she seems to have been known to many of the literati of the day, whose names are listed as subscribers to her two collections.
[1] She is also associated with editor of the Gentleman's Magazine, Edward Cave, and whose house was one of a number in which she resided when visiting London.
[4][3] In her Familiar Letters and Poems upon several Occasions (London, 1755) there are three "Short Ejaculations", the first of which, the well-known 'Tis religion that can give Sweetest pleasures while we live, has been adopted in many hymnals.