 "Mary Oxlie of Morpet" is credited as the author of a commendatory poem of fifty-two lines, "To William Drummond of Hawthornden," which prefaced Edward Phillips' 1656 edition of his brother-in-law's poems.In 1675, in a section of his "Theatrum poetarum" called "Women among the moderns eminent for poetry," Phillips describes "Mary Morpeth" as a "Scotch Poetess" who wrote "many other things in Poetry" (259) apart from the dedication, though none of these other poems are now known and the 1656 ascription identifies her as Northumbrian.The original date of the poem is conjectural, though from internal evidence it would seem to have been 1616.