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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/26383-0.txt b/26383-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e8e539b --- /dev/null +++ b/26383-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1573 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Anna Seward, by Stapleton Martin + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Anna Seward + and Classic Lichfield + + +Author: Stapleton Martin + + + +Release Date: August 21, 2008 [eBook #26383] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ANNA SEWARD*** + + +Transcribed from the 1909 Deighton and Co. edition by David Price, email +ccx074@pglaf.org + + [Picture: Picture of Anna Seward] + + + + + + Anna Seward + AND + CLASSIC LICHFIELD, + BY + STAPLETON MARTIN, M.A. + + + AUTHOR OF + “_Izaak Walton and his Friends_,” _etc._ + + “As long as the names of Garrick, of Johnson, and of Seward shall + endure, Lichfield will live renowned.”—_Clarke_. + + “Biography, the most interesting perhaps of every species of + composition, loses all its interest with me when the shades and + lights of the principal characters are not accurately and faithfully + detailed.” + + _Extract from a letter of Sir Walter Scott to Anna Seward_. + + Worcester: + PRINTED BY DEIGHTON AND CO., HIGH STREET. + 1909. + + + + +PREFACE. + + +Literature and music and science have been found this year amazingly +prolific in centenary commemorations of their great exemplars, as a +leading article in the “Times,” for April, 1909, has lately reminded us. +Yet the death in 1809 of Anna Seward, who “for many years held a high +rank in the annals of British literature,” to quote the words of Sir +Walter Scott, has generally passed unnoticed. It is the aim of this book +to resuscitate interest in the poetess, and in the literary circle over +which she reigned supreme. + + + + +ANNA SEWARD + + +Anna Seward, a daughter of the Rev. Thomas Seward, destined to become, by +universal assent, the first poetess of her day in England, was born 12th +December, 1747. Her mother was Elizabeth, one of the three daughters of +the Rev. John Hunter (who was in 1704 appointed Head Master of Lichfield +Grammar School), by his first wife, Miss Norton, a daughter of Edward +Norton, of Warwick, and sister of the Rev. Thomas Norton, of Warwick. +Anna Seward’s parents were married at Newton Regis Church, Warwickshire, +in October, 1741. The poetess was born at Eyam in Derbyshire, where her +father was then the Rector. She was baptized Anne, but she generally +wrote her name Anna. Her pet name in her own family was “Nancy,” and +also often “Julia.” + +Mr. Seward attained some literary fame, and was co-adjutor to an edition +of the works of Beaumont and Fletcher. When Anna Seward was seven years +old, the family removed to Lichfield, and when she was thirteen they +moved into the Bishop’s Palace, “our pleasant home” as she called it, +where she continued to live after her father’s death, and for the +remainder of her days. + +The derivation of the word “Lichfield” has excited a good deal of +controversy. In Anna Seward’s time, it was generally thought to mean +“the field of dead bodies,” _cadaverum campus_—from a number of Christian +bodies which lay massacred and unburied there, in the persecution raised +by Diocletian. A reference to “Notes and Queries,” in the Sixth and +Eighth Series, will show an inquirer that later search throws some doubt +on such derivation. St. Chad, or Ceadda (669–672) founded the diocese of +Lichfield, and was its patron saint. + +The Cathedral, the Venus of Gothic creation, as now existing, was built +piecemeal during the 13th and early part of 14th centuries. The present +Bishop’s Palace is of stone, and was erected in 1687, by Thomas Wood, who +was Bishop from 1671 to 1692, on the site of the old palace, built by +Bishop Walter de Langton (1296–1321). The Bishops of Lichfield had a +palace at Eccleshall, and this was the one used by these dignitaries down +to the time of Bishop George Augustus Selwyn, who, it may be mentioned, +was born 5th April, 1809. The latter sold it, and with part of the net +proceeds added two ugly wings and an ugly chapel to the palace when he +came to dwell there, in order to make it a centre of religious activity +in the diocese. The body of the palace is, however, to this day little +changed from its state when inhabited by the Sewards. + +Anna Seward had several sisters, and one brother, all of whom died in +infancy, except her second sister, Sarah. She, almost on the eve of +marriage in her nineteenth year, to Mr. Porter, brother to Mrs. Lucy +Porter of Lichfield, and son-in-law to Dr. Samuel Johnson, died in June, +1764. She is described as having been “lovely.” + +A stanza in “The Visions,” an elegy, the first of the poems in Anna +Seward’s “Poetical Works,” having reference to the sad event, runs thus:— + + The bridal vestments waited to array, + In emblematic white, their duteous maid; + But ne’er for them arrived that festal day; + Their sweet, crush’d lily low in earth is laid. + +John Hunter was Samuel Johnson’s schoolmaster, and Johnson declared that +he was very “severe, and wrong-headedly severe.” He once said, “My +master whipt me very well. Without that, sir, I should have done +nothing.” Mrs. Hunter died in July, 1780, aged 66. She had been very +beautiful, from all accounts, insomuch that Dr. Green, afterwards Bishop +of Lincoln, and Dr. Newton, afterwards Bishop of Lichfield (“the learned +and lucky pair”) were once, Anna Seward tells us, rivals in their +attachment to her. + +Miss Honora Sneyd was the youngest daughter of Edward Sneyd, who was the +youngest son of Ralph Sneyd of Bishton, in Staffordshire. She was +adopted by Mr. and Mrs. Seward and brought up by them as one of their own +children. + +Edward Sneyd was a Major of the Royal Horse Guards (blue), and became a +widower early in life. The death of his wife was a great affliction, but +his relations and friends, who were numerous, proved eager to take charge +of his daughters. Nothing could have exceeded the kindness and care with +which Mrs. Seward executed the trust that she had undertaken. Indeed, +none could have singled out Honora from Mrs. Seward’s own daughters by +the light of anything in Mrs. Seward’s treatment or conduct. Honora was +very beautiful and accomplished, and had attracted many admirers, as well +as lovers. Anna Seward relates a whimsical story of an “oddity,” an +“awkward pedantic youth, once resident for a little time at Lichfield, +who, when asked how he liked Honora, replied, ‘I could not have conceived +that she had half the face she has,’ adding that Honora was finely +rallied about this imputed plenitude of face. The oval elegance of its +delicate and beauteous contour made the exclamation trebly absurd.” But +her first real lover was the “ill-fated” Major André. He first met +Honora at Buxton, or Matlock, and, falling deeply in love with her, +became a frequent visitor at the Palace. He writes, “How am I honoured +in Mr. and Mrs. Seward’s attachment to me!” An engagement followed, but +the marriage was prohibited. The reason, it would seem, was that André +had not sufficient means to support a wife. André wrote to Honora, “But +oh! my dear Honora! it is for thy sake only I wish for wealth,” which +wealth, indeed, he called “vile trash” in another of his letters. + +The story of the young soldier is truly a sad one. In 1780, while +serving in America, André was entrusted with secret negotiations for the +betrayal of West Point to the British forces, but was captured by the +Americans. In spite of his petition that General Washington would “adapt +the mode of death to his feelings as a man of honour,” he was hanged as a +spy at Tappan. General Washington was unable to listen to strong appeals +for clemency, for, though commander of the American armies, his voice +counted but one on the court martial. André was of French descent, and +has been described as high-spirited, accomplished, affectionate and +merry-hearted. Anna Seward tells us that he appeared to her to be +“dazzled” by Honora, who estimated highly his talents; but the poetess +adds that he did not possess “the reasoning mind” Honora required. In +1821 his body was, on the petition of the Duke of York, brought to +England. “The courtesy and good feeling,” remarks Dean Stanley of the +Americans, were remarkable. The bier was decorated with garlands and +flowers, as it was transported to the ship. On arrival in England the +remains were first deposited in the Islip Chapel, and subsequently buried +in the nave of Westminster Abbey, where the funeral service was +celebrated, and where a monument was erected to his memory. + +Washington, Anna Seward records, did her the honour to charge his +aide-de-camp to assure her that no circumstances of his life had given +him so much pain as the necessary sacrifice of André’s life. + +Thomas Day, the author of “Sandford and Merton,” who spent a good deal of +his life in hunting for a wife, made love to Honora. She, however, +refused to marry him; and small wonder, for the conditions he wished to +impose on her were ridiculously stringent and restrictive, and she, not +unnaturally, refused to entertain the prospect of the unqualified control +of a husband over all her actions, implied by his requirements. Later on +Day wished to marry Honora’s sister, but she also refused his offer. It +may be added that he eventually succeeded in marrying a Yorkshire lady, +who became devoted to him, and was inconsolable on his death, in 1789, +from a kick by a horse. + +The Earl of Warwick, when Lord George Greville, met Honora at some +race-meeting, and was, we read, much fascinated with her. A Colonel +Barry also was her lover, and once stated, “she was the only woman he had +ever seriously loved.” + +Honora supplied the place of Sarah Seward, after the latter’s death, in +Anna Seward’s affections, and numbers of her poems and letters testify +how ardently the poetess admired and loved her. + +In 1765 Richard Lovell Edgeworth, the well-known author, visited +Lichfield. He had been a wild and gay young man, and had eloped with his +first wife, who died in March, 1773. His personal address was +“gracefully spirited, and his conversation eloquent.” He danced and +fenced well, was an ingenious mechanic, and invented a plan for +telegraphing, consequent on a desire to know the result of a race at +Newmarket. Becoming very intimate with the Sewards, and the addresses he +had made to and for Honora, “after some time being permitted and +approved,” Edgeworth married her on 17th July, 1773, as his second wife, +in the beautiful ladies’ choir in Lichfield Cathedral. Mr. Seward, who +had become a Canon Residentiary of Lichfield Cathedral, performed the +ceremony, and shed “tears of joy while he pronounced the nuptial +benediction,” and Anna Seward is recorded to have been really glad to see +Honora united to a man whom she had often thought peculiarly suited to +her friend in taste and disposition. + +Honora died of consumption in 1780, and, in accordance with her dying +wish, Edgeworth married her sister Elizabeth on Christmas Day in the same +year. Honora, who was buried at King’s Weston, had issue two children. + +In Anna Seward’s elegy, entitled “Lichfield,” written in 1781, we read:— + + “When first this month, stealing from half-blown bowers, + Bathed the young cowslip in her sunny showers, + Pensive I travell’d, and approach’d the plains, + That met the bounds of Severn’s wide domains. + As up the hill I rose, from whose green brow + The village church o’erlooks the vale below, + O! when its rustic form first met my eyes, + What wild emotions swell’d the rising sighs! + Stretch’d the pain’d heart-strings with the utmost force + Grief knows to feel, that knows not dire remorse; + For there—yes there,—its narrow porch contains + My dear Honora’s cold and pale remains, + Whose lavish’d health, in youth, and beauty’s bloom, + Sunk to the silence of an early tomb.” + +Edgeworth is to be remembered as having been a good Irish landlord; he +had a property at Edgeworthstown. + +In 1802 Anna Seward wrote, “The stars glimmered in the lake of Weston as +we travelled by its side, but their light did not enable me to +distinguish the Church, beneath the floor of whose porch rests the +mouldered form of my heart—dear Honora,—yet of our approach to that +unrecording, but thrice consecrated spot, my heart felt all the mournful +consciousness.” + +It is not easy to agree with Mr. E. V. Lucas, the author of a very +entertaining book, entitled “A Swan and her Friends” (Methuen & Co.), +when he says, “of Honora’s married life little is known, but she _may_ +have been very happy,” for she left a letter, written a few days before +her death, which cannot easily be construed as applying merely to her +death-bed state. Here is a paragraph from it:— + + “I have every blessing, and I am happy. The conversation of my + beloved husband, when my breath will let me have it, is my greatest + delight, he procures me every comfort, and as he always said he + thought he should, contrives for me everything that can ease and + quiet my weakness.” + + “Like a kind angel whispers peace, + And smooths the bed of death.” + +Her husband records that she was the most beloved as a wife, a sister, +and a friend, of any person he had ever known. Each member of her own +family, unanimously, almost intuitively, preferred her. + +Anne Hunter, the eldest sister of Mrs. Seward, married a few days before +her, viz., in October, 1741, at Newton Regis Church, the Rev. Samuel +Martin, the Rector, who was formerly a Fellow of Oriel College, Oxford. +He afterwards became the Rector of Gotham, Notts., where he remained for +27 years, until his death, in 1775. In a letter dated 23rd June, 1764, +written from Gotham, while visiting “her excellent Uncle and Aunt +Martin,” as she styled them, soon after the death of Sarah Seward, Anna +Seward says, “pious tranquility broods over the kind and hospitable +mansion, and the balms of sympathy and the cordials of devotion are here +poured into our torn hearts,” and “my cousin, Miss Martin, is of my +sister’s age, and was deservedly beloved by her above all her other +companions next to myself and Honora.” + +It was Dr. Erasmus Darwin (grandfather of Charles Robert Darwin, the +naturalist, who died in 1882, author of the “Origin of the Species”) who +first discovered Anna Seward as a poetess. Happening to peruse some +verses apparently written by her, he took an opportunity of calling at +the Palace when Anna Seward was alone, and satisfied himself that she +could write good poetry unaided, and that her literary abilities were of +no common kind. + +Dr. Darwin (who was a native of Nottinghamshire) in either the year 1756 +or 1757, arrived in Lichfield to practise as a Physician there, where he +resided until 1781. Darwin was a “votary to poetry,” a philosopher, and +a clever though an eccentric man. He wrote “The Botanic Garden,” which +Anna Seward pronounced to be “a string of poetic brilliants,” and in +which book Horace Walpole noted a passage “the most sublime in any author +or in any of the few languages with which I am acquainted.” He inserted +in it, as his own work, some lines of Anna Seward’s,—which was ungallant, +to say the least. Anna Seward’s mother repressed her early attempts at +poetry, so for a time she contented herself with reading “our finest +poets,” and with “voluminous correspondence.” On her mother’s death, +being free to exercise her poetical powers, she forthwith produced odes, +sonnets, songs, epitaphs, epilogues, and elegies, in profusion. + +Anna Seward visited Bath, and her introduction into the literary “world” +was made by Anna, Lady Miller, a verse writer of some fame, who +instituted a literary salon at Bath-Easton, during the Bath season. An +antique vase, which had been dug up in Italy in 1759, was placed on a +modern altar decorated with laurel, each guest being invited to place in +the urn an original composition in verse. When it was determined which +were the best three productions, their authors were crowned by Lady +Miller with wreaths of myrtle. Lady Miller died in 1781, and a handsome +monument in the Abbey at Bath marks the spot where she was buried. It is +stated in the D.N.B. that the urn, after her death, was set up in the +public park in Bath. + +Fanny Burney met Lady Miller, whom she describes with her usual candour: +“Lady Miller is a round, plump, coarse-looking dame of about forty, and +while all her aim is to appear an elegant woman of fashion, all her +success is to seem an ordinary woman in very common life, with fine +clothes on. Her habits are bustling, her air is mock-important, and her +manners very inelegant.” + +Once a year the most ingenious of the vase effusions was published, the +net profits being applied to some Bath charity. Four volumes of the +compositions appeared. The prize poem was written several times by Anna +Seward, and on one occasion was awarded for her monody on the death of +David Garrick. + +Macaulay says, in his essay on Madame D’Arblay, that Lady Miller kept a +vase “wherein fools were wont to put bad verses.” Dr. Johnson also said, +when Boswell named a gentleman of his acquaintance who wrote for the +vase, “He was a blockhead for his pains”; on the other hand, when told +that the Duchess of Northumberland wrote, Johnson said, “Sir, the Duchess +of Northumberland may do what she pleases: nobody will say anything to a +lady of her high rank.” Remembering who were ranked among the +contributors to the “Saloon of the Minervas,” these criticisms seem +rather absurd, for + + “Bright glows the list with many an honour’d name.” + +Christopher Anstey, a fellow of King’s College, Cambridge, remembered as +having written the “New Bath Guide,” and as having been deemed worthy a +cenotaph in Poets’ Corner in Westminster Abbey, and William Hayley, +appear to have been among the best-known to fame at “the fanciful and +romantic institution at Bath-Easton.” The latter was a friend of Cowper, +Romney and Southey, and published the lives of the two former. In +“English Bards and Scotch Reviewers,” occur these lines:— + + “Triumphant first see Temper’s Triumph shine, + At least I’m sure they triumphed over mine. + Of ‘Music’s Triumphs’ all who read may swear + That luckless music never triumphed there.” + +The poems “Triumphs of Temper” (1781) and “Triumphs of Music” (1804) were +Hayley’s chief productions. He was the most ardent of all of those who +paid their homage to Anna Seward. Mr. Lucas informs us that David +Garrick appears also in the list. To the foregoing names may be added +Edward Jerningham, the friend of Chesterfield and Horace Walpole, a +dramatist as well as a poet; George Butt, the divine, and chaplain to +George III.; William Crowe, “the new star,” as Anna Seward calls him, a +divine and public orator at Oxford; and Richard Graves, a poet and +novelist, the Rector of Claverton, who wrote “Recollections of Shenstone” +in 1788. These, and Thomas Sedgwick Whalley, were perhaps the most +learned of the vase group. The latter, Fanny Burney says, was one of its +best supporters. He was a Prebendary of Wells Cathedral, and +corresponded a good deal with Anna Seward. Wilberforce’s description of +him is worth recalling, viz., “the true picture of a sensible, +well-informed and educated, polished, old, well-beneficed, nobleman’s and +gentleman’s house-frequenting, literary and chess-playing divine.” + +Anna Seward’s “Elegy on Captain Cook,” and her “Monody on Major André,” +were contributed to the Vase, and immediately brought her into great +repute. + +Anna Seward made friends with, and had a great admiration for, the +celebrated recluses, “the ladies of Llangollen Vale,”—Lady Eleanor Butler +and Miss Sarah Ponsonby. They were so called because when they arrived +their names were unknown. It is said that they never left their home for +50 years, and were so absolutely devoted as to be inseparable from each +other. They adopted a semi-masculine attire. These curious +ladies,—“extraordinary women,”—are described as ladies of genius, taste +and knowledge—who were “sought by the first characters of the age, both +as to rank and talents.” + +She kept up a considerable correspondence with both of them. Their house +at Plas Newydd is described minutely and at great length in one of her +letters. It is still standing, and continues to be visited by scores of +tourists. Lady Eleanor Butler died in 1829, and Miss Sarah Ponsonby in +1831. One of Anna Seward’s poems is entitled “Llangollen Vale,” and was +inscribed to these ladies, as likewise were some more of her verses. + +In 1782 Anna Seward produced “Louisa,” a poetical novel in four epistles. +It ran through five editions. She says that she received the highest +encomiums upon the poem “by the first literary characters of the age.” +It is now rarely read. However, the writer of an article in “The Lady’s +Monthly Museum” for March, 1799, vol. 2, wrote that, “the story, though +interesting enough, is but a secondary object. It is told in strains, +which, for energy, voluptuousness, and dignity of description, are rarely +found in our language.” The writer further states that “our readers will +be amply gratified by a perusal of the whole poem, which is everywhere +equally replete with genius and taste, happy invention, and a luxury of +glowing description.” + +She found another writer of the time ready to defend her against a +reviewer who had brought a charge of “accumulating in her dramatic +characters glaring metaphors,” and of aiming “to dazzle by superfluity of +ornaments.” + +In 1790 Canon Seward died. He was deeply beloved by his daughter, who +most dutifully nursed him for some ten years before his death. + +Twelve years later Dr. Darwin died suddenly, in the very act of writing a +letter to Richard Lovell Edgeworth; and in 1804 Anna Seward published a +biographical Memoir of Darwin, in reference to which Sir Walter Scott +wrote, “he could not have wished his fame and character entrusted to a +pen more capable of doing them ample and, above all, discriminating +justice.” She called Darwin her “bright luminary.” On his death she +wrote thus:—“His extinction is universally lamented, from the most +operative cause of regret; and while disease may no longer turn the eyes +of hope upon his rescuing and restoring skill, the poetic fanes lose a +splendid source of ornament; philosophic science, an ingenious and daring +dictator; and medicinal art, a pillar of transcendent strength.” The +Memoir she called, “The woman’s mite in biography.” This book, +notwithstanding Sir Walter Scott’s praise, is, nowadays, considered but a +poor piece of writing. + +The Lichfield literary circle in Anna Seward’s time included many learned +people, for, besides Dr. Darwin, Richard Lovell Edgeworth, and Thomas +Day, may be mentioned the two Canons of the Cathedral—Archdeacon Vyse and +Canon Sneyd Davies, a poet; the Rev. William Robinson (nicknamed “The +Rector” amongst his friends), a great wit, one who could “set the table +in a roar”; Sir Brooke Boothby, a poet and politician; her cousin, the +Rev. Henry White +{20}, Sacrist of Lichfield Cathedral (who married Lucy, the daughter of +the Rev. John Hunter by his second wife); and sometimes Dr. Johnson, but +his presence was not much appreciated. “There was,” wrote Sir Walter +Scott, “some aristocratic prejudice in their dislike, for the despotic +manners of Dr. Johnson were least likely to be tolerated when the lowness +of his origin was in fresh recollection.” + +How came Anna Seward to dominate and reign as the Queen over the literary +society in Lichfield? The great “magnetic” power she must have possessed +accounts to a large extent for the popular adulation bestowed upon her. +Still, the circumstances of her residence in the Episcopal Palace, and +her being by birth a lady and endowed with a certain amount of wealth, +added to an attractive presence, must have greatly helped her to attain +the position. + +Anna Seward certainly hated, and hated venomously, Dr. Johnson, who was +afraid of her, and he, she says, “hated me.” She could not endure his +mannerisms, but mimicked his gestures and curious demeanours; calling him +“a despot,” “the old literary Colossus,” an “envious calumniator,” “surly +Samuel Johnson,” “the massive Being,” “the old elephant,” and “a +growler.” + +In 1787, Anna Seward tells us, she became acquainted with Mr. and Mrs. +Piozzi (formerly Mrs. Thrale), and on the latter’s publication of +Johnson’s letters, she writes:—“Greatly as I admired Johnson’s talents +and revered his knowledge, and formidable as I felt the powers to be of +his witty sophistry, yet did a certain quickness of spirit, and zeal for +the reputation of my favourite authors, irresistibly urge me to defend +them against his spleenful injustice—a temerity, which I was well aware +made him dislike me, notwithstanding the coaxing regard he always +expressed for me on his first salutations on returning to Lichfield.” +Again, in other letters, she says:—. . . “I have had frequent +opportunities of conversing with that wonderful man (Dr. Johnson). +Seldom did I listen to him without admiring the great powers of his mind, +and feeling concern and pain at the malignance of his disposition. He +would sometimes be just to the virtues and literary fame of others, if +they had not been praised in the conversation before his opinion was +asked—if they had been previously praised, never.” . . . + +“What right had a man who wrote a play for the stage, to avow contempt +for the theatric profession”? she wrote, when referring to Johnson’s envy +of David Garrick. Boswell admitted, when he visited Anna Seward, in +1785, at Lichfield, that Johnson was “galled by Garrick’s prosperity.” . . . +“Who can think Johnson’s heart a good one? In the course of many +years’ personal acquaintance with him, I never knew a single instance in +which the praise (from another’s lip) of any human being, excepting that +of Mrs. Thrale, was not a caustic on his spirit; and this, whether their +virtues or abilities were the subject of encomium.” His opinions of +poetry were, she thought, “so absurd and inconsistent with each other, +that, though almost any of his dogmas may be clearly and easily +confronted, yet the attempt is but combating an hydra-headed monster . . . +Johnson’s ‘Lives of the Poets,’ and all the records of his own life +and conversation, prove that envy did deeply stain his spirit. To your +question, ‘Whom could Johnson envy’? I answer, all his superiors in +genius, all his equals; in short, at times, every celebrated author, +living or dead . . . I cannot help feeling that he has superiors, and +that in a very large degree, though they will not be found amongst our +essayists, where I acknowledge his pre-eminence. Johnson was a very +bright star, yet to Shakespeare and Milton, he was but as a star to the +sun . . . Gray was indolent, and wrote but little; yet that little proves +him the first genius of the period in which he lived. I have been +assured that he had more learning than Johnson, and he certainly was a +very superior poet. Johnson felt the superiority, and for that he hated +him. . . . Johnson’s first ambition was to be distinguished as a poet, +and as a poet he was first celebrated. His fine satire, ‘London,’ had +considerable reputation; yet it neither eclipsed, nor had power to +eclipse, the satires of Pope.” + +The account she has given of Johnson’s last days and hours differs very +widely from Macaulay’s version, who states that, “when at length the +moment, dreaded through so many years, came close, the dark cloud passed +away from Johnson’s mind. His temper became unusually patient and +gentle; he ceased to think with terror of death, and that which lies +beyond death; he spake much of the mercy of God and of the propitiation +of Christ.” In a letter written by Anna Seward to T. S. Whalley, dated +November 7th, 1784, she said, “The extinction, in our sphere, of that +mighty spirit, approaches fast. A confirmed dropsy deluges the vital +source. It is melancholy to observe with what terror he contemplates his +approaching fate.” In a letter to Mrs. Knowles (the wife of Dr. Knowles, +an eminent physician in London, and in her younger days a well-known +Staffordshire beauty), dated March 27th, 1785, Anna Seward says, “O, yes, +as you observe, dreadful were the horrors which attended poor Johnson’s +dying state. His religion was certainly not of that nature which sheds +comfort on a death-bed pillow. I believe his faith was sincere, and +therefore could not fail to reproach his heart, which had swelled with +pride, envy, and hatred, through the whole course of his existence. But +religious feeling, on which you lay so great stress, was not the +desideratum in Johnson’s virtue.” The reader must decide for himself +which of these two contradictory accounts he will believe. It may be +remarked that she was in “the almost daily habit of contemplating his +dying,” which she describes as “a very melancholy spectacle.” She +informs us that it was at Johnson’s repeatedly expressed desire that she +often visited him. + + * * * * * + +In a letter written in 1785, to James Boswell, Anna Seward said that she +regretted it was not in her power to collect more anecdotes of Dr. +Johnson’s infancy. “My mother passed her days of girlhood with an uncle +at Warwick, consequently, was absent from home in the school-boy days of +the great man; neither did I ever hear her mention any of the promissory +sparkles which, doubtless, burst forth, though no records of them are +within my knowledge. I cannot meet with any contemporary of those, his +_very_ youthful days. . . . Adieu, sir, go on and prosper in your arduous +task of presenting to the world the portrait of Johnson’s mind and +manners. If faithful, brilliant will be its lights, but deep its +shades.” + +Anna Seward seems to have known everybody worth knowing, and she met many +celebrities of her day,—not only at Lichfield, but when she visited +Buxton and Harrogate, as she sometimes did, for the Baths. Writing from +Buxton in 1796 to Mr. Saville, she said, “my acquaintance here seem to +set a far higher value on my talents and conversation, such as they are, +than the Lichfieldiens; but it is more than probable that novelty is the +cause of this so much more appreciating attention”; and, further on, she +adds that she had conversed with William Wilberforce, the philanthropist, +“who disappoints no expectation his imputed eloquence has excited”; and +also with the luminous and resistless Lord Chancellor, Thomas Erskine, +“whose every sentence is oratory, whose form is graceful, whose voice is +music, and whose eye lightens as he speaks.” She corresponded with Dr. +William Lort Mansel, when he was Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, in +1798, who was well known as a wit, and writer of epigrams, and to whom +she was introduced by her cousin, H. White, at Lichfield. In a letter +written in 1806, she said that “the animated attention with which he +honoured me, the praise he lavished on my poems, and the passages he +quoted from them, constituted one of the most poignant literary +gratifications I ever received. The hope that they may live, is attached +to the demonstrated impression they had made on a mind of such +distinguished classical endowment.” Further on, she said that he often +exclaimed, “Lichfield is, indeed, classic ground of peculiar +distinction.” + +In a letter dated March 5th, 1789, written from Lichfield by Anna Seward, +she said, “I was honoured and blest by a two hours personal conversation +with the most distinguished excellence that ever walked the earth, since +saints and angels left off paying us morning visits. To say that his +name is Howard would be superfluous. This is the third time he has +favoured me with his conversation on his way through this town. I am +truly glad of our King’s recovery, but yet I should not walk half so tall +upon a visit from him. Mr. Howard presented me with his new publication, +and had previously given me the former.” + +The Poet Laureate in 1785 was Thomas Warton, and she corresponded with +him, “our great Laureate,” as she called him. + +Miss Mitford has described Anna Seward as “all tinkling and tinsel—a sort +of Dr. Darwin in petticoats.” Edgeworth described her as “a handsome +woman of agreeable manners, she was generous, possessed of good sense, +and capable of strong affection”; and Sir Walter Scott thought that she +must have been, “when young, exquisitely beautiful; for, in advanced age, +the regularity of her features, the fire and expression of her +countenance, gave her the appearance of beauty, and almost of youth. Her +eyes were auburn, of the precise shade and hue of her hair, and possessed +great expression. In reciting, or in speaking with animation, they +appeared to become darker, and, as it were, to flash fire. . . . Her +voice was melodious, guided by excellent taste, and well suited to +reading and recitation, in which she willingly exercised it.” + +An accident to her knee in her youth prevented her from riding, which, +had she been able to do, she thought she would have enjoyed. + +She did not care for “eternal card-parties,” and considered the +card-table “an annihilator of ideas.” She had a passionate love for +scenery, especially for mountain scenery, and in general for the +pleasures of landscape. + +Her estimates of many of the poets born in her lifetime appear in her +letters, but most of their poetry was only read during their respective +lives, and for a few years after, and theirs, like her own productions, +are little known to readers of this age, though it appears that she hoped +her works would be read for a long time after her death. She wrote, “If +my poems are of that common order which have, as Falstaff says, a natural +alacrity in sinking, the praise of hireling and nameless critics would +not keep them above the gulf of oblivion. If, on the contrary, they +possess the buoyant property of true poetry, their fame will be +established in after years, when no one will ask, ‘What said the +reviewers?’” Her remarks as to plagiarism—petty pilferings—and borrowing +from others, to be found in her letters, are most interesting. She +thought that “imitative traces, of one kind or other, may be found in all +works of imagination, up to Homer; and that he is not detected in the +same practice, is certainly owing to the little that remains of the +writings of his predecessors.” + +Her religious views were broad. She felt “no great reverence for Kings.” +In politics she was a Whig. “I was born and bred in Whiggism,” which +word, she tells us, was synonymous to “fool and rascal,” from Johnson’s +lips. It may be added that Johnson also said, “the Devil was the first +Whig.” She confessed she had no great appetite for politics, though she +expressed her views pretty freely on the subject. In 1790 the titles of +nobility were suppressed in France, and Anna Seward disapproved of +Burke’s vindication of hereditary honours. She thought that “they are +more likely to make a man repose, with slumbering virtue upon them, for +the distinction he is to receive in society, than to inspire the effort +of rendering himself worthy of them. They are to men what beauty is to +women, a dangerous gift, which has a natural tendency to make them +indolent, silly, and worthless. Let property be hereditary, but let +titular honours be the reward of noble or useful exertions. France, in +her folly, has destroyed them totally, instead of making them +conditional.” Howbeit, titled people appear to have been highly honoured +by her, notwithstanding these observations. By 1797 she had lost her +long-existing confidence in Pitt’s wisdom and integrity, and in 1798 she +thought he was “disqualified for retaining the reasonable confidence of +the people of England.” In 1801 she wrote of “Pitt’s low and perfidious +manœuvres,” and she never changed her opinion of him. She seemed unable +to write what is called plain English. Archdeacon Vyse is described by +her as “a man of prioric talents in a metrical impromptu.” Another +person “evinced an elevated mind,” while a third exhibited an “attic +spirit” in her writings. An evening is described as being “attic”; but +even Pope, we may remark, calls a nightingale an “attic warbler.” It is +true, however, he was writing poetry, not prose. Though a Bluestocking, +her praise was usually generously bestowed; she knew well how to flatter. +She, though unacquainted with Latin, paraphrased Horace; and she admitted +her ignorance of French. She loved all animals, notably cats and dogs, +and, believing in a future existence for the dumb creation, wrote a poem, +entitled “On the Future Existence of Brutes.” + +The following are three of more beautiful stanzas:— + + “Has GOD decreed this helpless, suffering train + Shall, groaning yield the vital breath he gave, + Unrecompens’d for years of want, and pain, + And close on them the portals of the grave? + + Ah, no! the great Retributory Mind + Will recompense, and may, perhaps, ordain + Some future mode of being, more refin’d + Than ours, less sullied with inherent stain; + + Less torn by passion, and less prone to sin, + Their duty easier, trial less severe, + Till their firm faith, and virtue prov’d, may win + The wreaths of life in yon Eternal Sphere. + +She appears to have liked all things bright and beautiful. “It is too +seldom,” she wrote, “that people express a conscious enjoyment of the +present. While regret is busy with the past, and expectation with the +future, _ennui_ usurps the place of cheerful feelings, and thinks coldly +of the social, and yawns through the studious hour.” But as to Balls, +she tells us, “I am one of the creatures that love not Balls in general.” + +Had she lived now, she probably would have approved of women having +votes, for, concerning a book published in her life-time, entitled, +“Rights of Woman,” she wrote:—“It has, by turns, pleased and displeased, +startled, and half-convinced me that its author is oftener right than +wrong. Though the ideas of absolute equality in the sexes are carried +too far, and though they certainly militate against St. Paul’s maxims +concerning that important compact, yet they do expose a train of +mischievous mistakes in the education of females.” We may note that Tom +Paine, “the greatest of pamphleteers,” died in 1809, whose pamphlets, +“The Rights of Man,” and “The Age of Reason,” achieved great success. +Anna Seward sympathised with the views expressed in his books on the +French Revolution, though she considered many of his views on politics +far too fanciful to be put into practice; moreover, she thought they +would, if adopted, “ruin the earth.” + +Her affection for a Mr. Saville (“a man of sense, and a scholar”) who was +for 48 years Vicar-choral of Lichfield Cathedral, appears to have been +merely platonic, though deep and sincere. In a letter dated August 31st, +1803, she tells us that, “the dearest friend I had on earth, passed in +one quarter of an hour, from apparent health and even gay vivacity, to +the silence and ghastliness of death.” He died August 2nd, 1803, aged 67 +years. She erected a monument to his memory in the Cathedral, and +composed the verses inscribed on it. His vault is on the south side of +the green surrounding the Cathedral. + +In a letter to Sir Walter Scott, written in 1807, the poetess remarks +that her “astonishment and disgust” rose to their utmost height while she +read Wordsworth’s poem, “The Daffodils”—“dancing daffodils, ten thousand, +as he says, in high dance in the breeze beside the river, whose waves +dance with them, and the poet’s heart, we are told, danced too.” She +deemed this unnatural writing, and mentions some of his verses she liked, +notably the “Leech-Gatherer.” If he had written nothing else, that +composition might stamp him, she thought, a poet of no common powers. +Lovers of poetry generally, however, think “The Daffodils” one of the +most beautiful poems ever written. + +Mr. Alfred Austin, the Laureate of our own day, has recently written in +an article, entitled, “The Essentials of Great Poetry,” that the English +masters of song are, Chaucer, Spencer, Shakespeare, Milton, and Byron, +and he tells us that only the merest fraction of Wordsworth’s work is +real poetry. Anna Seward would seem to have agreed with the selection of +these names, if we substitute Pope for Byron. However, the latter was, +we must recollect, only born in 1788. She would surely have welcomed Mr. +Austin’s estimate of Wordsworth! Anna Seward considered Southey’s +genius, beyond comparison, superior to that of Wordsworth. She wrote in +1796, “This is the age of wonders. A great one has lately arisen in the +poetical world—the most extraordinary that ever appeared, as to juvenile +powers, except that of the ill-starred Chatterton—Southey’s Joan of Arc, +an epic poem of strength and beauty, by a youth of twenty.” Cowper was, +to her mind, a vapourish egotist and a fanatic. She hated his Calvinism, +and thought that the spirit of scornful denunciation everywhere prevails +when Cowper reprehends the errors of mankind. Still, in answer to a +request for her opinion of Cowper, she wrote, “He appears to me at once a +fascinating, and a great poet; as a descriptive one, hardly excelled;” +but she would not allow that his constitutional melancholy was any excuse +for his misantrophy. She writes, “Dante is the only poetic author of +high reputation, whom I cannot understand. Were you not struck with the +inherent cruelty of that mind which could delight in suggesting pains and +penalties at once so odious and so horrid?” We may remember that Dante +has stated that “I found the original of my hell in the world which we +inhabit.” + +She did not like “gloomy religionists,” as she called the Calvinists. +One acquaintance she evidently did not care for, because he talked +“methodistically.” Hannah More, she lamented, “exposed herself to the +reproach of that absurd and intolerant Methodism with which I have long +believed her tainted.” She wrote to the Rev. R. Fellowes; “the eminent +champion in our day of true and perfect Christianity,”—“How happily have +you removed that dire impediment to rational faith, the doctrine of +original sin, which the revived Calvinistic school, of which Mr. +Wilberforce is the head, so injudiciously presses upon the attention of +the public. . . . The licentious, or giddy votaries of fashion, wish to +have an excuse for persisting in their career, and think they have found +it in the dark and cruel difficulties in which resumed Calvinism involves +Christianity.” + +Anna Seward did not sing, but enjoyed music. She learnt, late in life, +to handle the harpsichord sufficiently well to play it in little private +concerts. Musical festivals she frequented, and admired Elizabeth +Billington’s singing. + +This vocalist is remembered in our day as one of England’s greatest +singers, especially at Handel commemorations. “Handel,” Anna Seward +said, “is as absolute a monarch of the human passions as Shakespeare.” . . . +“Were Handel living, I should approach and address him with much more +awe than any merely good sort of body upon the throne of England.” . . . + +“Poetry itself, though so much the elder science, for music has been a +science only since the harmonic combinations were discovered, possesses +not a more inherent empire over the passions than music, of which Handel +is the mighty master; than whom + + ‘Nothing went before so great, + And nothing greater can succeed.’” . . . + +“Milton knew music scientifically, and felt all its powers. To Samuel +Johnson, the sweetest airs and most superb harmonies were but unmeaning +noises. {39} I often regret that Milton and Handel were not +contemporaries; that the former knew not the delight of hearing his own +poetry heightened as Handel has heightened it.” + +The poetess thought that “The contemptible rage for novel-reading is a +pernicious and deplorably prevalent taste, which vitiates and palls the +appetite for literary food of a more nutritive and wholesome kind. . . . +I am well assured, that novels and political tracts are the only things +generally read.” . . . Though disavowing a propensity to read and to love +novels, yet she always considered the “Clarissa” and “Grandison” of +Richardson—“glorious Richardson” she calls him—as the highest efforts of +genius in our language, next to Shakespeare’s plays. She abjured the +coarse, unfeeling taste of those who preferred Fielding’s romances to the +glories of the Richardsonian pen. In 1792 she wrote that “the London +papers had no authority for saying that I was writing a novel. The +design of framing such a composition never occurred to me; though I am +well aware that novels and political tracts are the only things generally +read. If I could write like Richardson, I would turn novelist; but then +my work would be too good to be popular;—for how is Richardson +neglected!” + +Mr. Andrew Lang, at the festival this year of the Royal Literary Fund, +stated that the only literary people who prospered were “the novelist and +the gentleman who remembered many people in his reminiscences. The +essayist was no longer in favour. He had been killed by fiction and +photographs. It was the purpose of the Royal Literary Fund to aid +authors who needed assistance, and all who were not novelists did need +it.” It seems that the public, a hundred years ago, had the same taste +as the public of to-day! It is novels, novels, novels, which alone +satisfy their appetites, when they feed on books! + +“Wit was never my talent,” Anna Seward says, but she has recorded that +when the “rulers of our Cathedral” decreed a four years’ silence for “the +pealing organ and the full-voic’d choir,” because of alterations to be +made there, she considered them “a little bedemoned, or much +be-deaned—which is nearly the same thing.” + +Anna Seward was a faithful and generous friend; her fault would appear to +have been her conceit. As Mr. Lucas finely remarks, everything conspired +to increase her self-esteem and importance, for the three things that +might have corrected it were all lacking: poverty, London life, and +marriage. + +The poetess had several lovers, and was jilted by one, who was a native +of Lichfield, and who afterwards became a General. “But overtures, not +preceded by assiduous tenderness and, which expected to reap the harvest +of love without having nursed its germs, suited not my native enthusiasm, +nor were calculated to inspire it.” She wrote in 1767, from Gotham +Rectory, “to a female mind, that that can employ itself ingeniously, that +is capable of friendship, that is blessed with affluence, where are the +evils of celibacy? For my part, I could never imagine that there were +any, at least, compared to the _ennui_, the chagrin, the preclusion, +which hearts, cast in the warm mould of passion, must feel in a marriage +of mere esteem.” + +As to sermons, she considered, “immoderate length in a sermon is a fault +which excellence itself cannot expiate.” . . . “The present mode of dress +in our young women of fashion, and _their_ imitators, is, for its gross +immodesty, a proper subject of grave rebuke for the preacher.” . . . +“Nothing is more disgusting to me, and, indeed, to the generality of +people, than dictatorial egotism from the pulpit. Even in the learned +and aged clergyman it is priestly arrogance. When we see that man in the +pulpit whom we are in the habit of meeting at the festal board, at the +card-table, perhaps seen join in the dance, and over whose frailties, in +common with our own, no holy curtain has been drawn, we expect modest +exhortation, sober reasoning, chastened denunciation.” . . . + +Anna Seward informs us that she was “no great reader of sermons,” but she +wrote a sermon for “an ingenious young clergyman of our neighbourhood, +who has just taken orders, and who wishes to make his first essay in the +pulpit with something of my writing. If I know anything of my talents, +sermonising is their _forte_.” She wrote another sermon for a friend, a +funeral sermon, delivered on a festival day—Whit-Sunday, and chose the +text from the 7th chapter of Job; a verse than which she thought there +was nothing in Scripture more sublime:—“The eyes of them that have seen +me, shall see me no more—thine eyes are upon me—and I am not.” “The +young preacher,” she says, “spoke this oration with solemn earnestness +and unaffected sensibility.” + +Her love and admiration for Lichfield began early in life, and remained +keen to its close. When twenty-four years old she wrote from Gotham +Rectory, in 1767, “We bend our course towards Lichfield, lovely, +interesting Lichfield, where the sweetest days of my youth have +passed—the days of prime.” No City could compare with Lichfield in her +eyes, and no Cathedral with that of Lichfield when the music to be heard +there was also taken into account. After visiting York Cathedral, that +“vast and beautiful House of God”: she herself styled it “noble and +transcendent,” she wrote, “I passed through York, and heard choral +service in the noblest Cathedral in the world; . . . but if the sight +perceived the undying superiority of York Minster, my ear acknowledged +the yet more transcendent, harmonic advantages of the Gothic boast of +Lichfield.” + +Lichfield, although it may seem to the casual visitor rather a sleepy +place to-day, appears to have been pretty lively in Anna Seward’s day. +“Plays thrice in the week, balls and suppers at our Inns, cards and +feasting within our houses.” And again, “Lichfield has been of late +wondrous gay. Six private balls were given, which I was persuaded to +attend.” + +Sir Walter Scott corresponded for some time with the poetess before his +visit to Lichfield in May, 1807. He wrote in 1805, “believe me, I shall +not be within many miles of Lichfield without paying my personal respects +to you, and yet I should not do it in prudence, because I am afraid you +have formed a higher opinion of me than I deserve; you would expect to +see a person who had dedicated himself much to literary pursuits, and you +would find me a rattle-skulled half-lawyer, half-sportsman, through whose +head a regiment of horse has been exercising since he was five years old; +half-educated, half-crazy, as his friends sometimes tell him, +half-everything, but entirely Miss Seward’s much obliged, affectionate +and faithful servant, Walter Scott.” + +She wrote of him, “the stranger guest delighted us all by the unaffected +charms of his mind and manners,” and Scott, Lockhart tells us, “had been, +as was natural, pleased and flattered by the attentions of the Lichfield +poetess in the days of his early aspirations after literary distinction.” + +No one can deny that Anna Seward was the most famous poetess of her day, +but there is, as Sir Walter Scott wrote, “a fashion in poetry, which, +without increasing or diminishing the real value of the materials moulded +upon it, does wonders in facilitating its currency, while it has novelty, +and is often found to impede its reception when the mode has passed +away.” It must be admitted that her poetry is not likely ever again to +be much read; still, a study of her, and of the Lichfield _Savants_ of +her time, must always be instructive. + +Writing as to the probability of the poems being much read, Sir Walter +Scott says: “The general reception they may meet with is dubious, since +collectors of occasional and detached poems have rarely been honoured +with a large share of public favour.” + +There is yet, it may be suggested, another reason, which is, that her +poetry was far too artificial, and abounds in words now unfashionable, +even when used in prose. + +Anna Seward died 25th March, 1809, and is buried Lichfield Cathedral, +probably in the choir. She had always prayed for a sudden death, but +though this prayer was not literally answered, she did not long suffer +serious illness, for on the 23rd of March she was seized with “an +universal stupor,” which only continued until the 25th. + +The poetess has always been known as “The Swan of Lichfield,” though no +one seems to know who gave her the name. + +There are two portraits of Anna Seward, painted by Romney; the latest +particulars with regard to their history and present ownership is to be +found in “Notes and Queries” 10, s. IX., 218. Her portrait by Kettle is +in the possession of Colonel Sir Robert T. White-Thomson, K.C.B., of +Broomford Manor, Exbourne, N. Devon, and he also possesses a miniature of +her by Miers. It is not known who the painter was of the portrait +forming the frontispiece of this book, which is the same as the +frontispiece to “The Lady’s Monthly Museum” for March, 1799. + +Anna Seward commenced her Will thus:—“I, Anne, or as I have generally +written myself, _Anna_ Seward, daughter of the late Reverend Thomas +Seward, Canon Residentiary of the Cathedral Church of Lichfield, do make +and publish my last Will and Testament in manner following:—I desire to +have a frugal and private funeral, without any other needless expense +than that of a lead coffin to protect my breathless body. If the Dean +and Chapter shall not object to our family vault in the choir being once +more opened, I desire to be laid at the feet of my late dear father; but, +if they object to disturbing the choir pavement, I then request to be +laid by the side of him who was my faithful excellent friend, through the +course of thirty-seven years, the late Mr. John Savile, in the vault +which I made for the protection of his remains in the burial ground on +the south side of the Lichfield Cathedral: I will that my hereafter +executors, or trustees, commission one of the most approved sculptors to +prepare a monument for my late father and his family, of the value of +£500; that with consent of the Dean and Chapter, they take care the same +be placed in a proper part of Lichfield Cathedral.” The Will is a very +lengthy one, many relations, connections, servants and friends being +remembered in it. Lockhart relates that “she bequeathed her poetry to +Scott, with an injunction to publish it speedily and prefix a sketch of +her life, while she made her letters (of which she had kept copies) the +property of Mr. Constable, in the assurance that due regard for his own +interests would forthwith place the whole collection before the admiring +world. Scott superintended accordingly the edition of the lady’s verses, +which was published in three volumes in August, 1810, by John Ballantyne +and Co., and Constable lost no time in announcing her correspondence, +which appeared a year later, in six volumes.” + +As regards the literary correspondence, Lockhart observed, “no collection +of this kind, after all, can be wholly without value; I have already +drawn from it some sufficiently interesting fragments, as the biographies +of other eminent authors of this time will probably do hereafter under +the like circumstances.” + +The _Staffordshire Advertiser_ for July 8th, 1809, contained the +following notice:—“We hear Mr. Constable intends to publish Miss Seward’s +correspondence before Christmas next; and if the public in general be as +anxious for its appearance as the inhabitants of Lichfield and its +vicinity, it must prove to him a very valuable legacy indeed.” + +A monument, the work of Bacon, was erected in the Cathedral, +commemorating the parents of Anna Seward, her sister Sarah, and herself. +It was originally placed in the north transept, but is now in the north +aisle of the nave. There is a representation of the poetess mourning her +relations, while her harp hangs, neglected, on a tree. + +Sir Walter Scott wrote the lines on the monument, which run as follows:— + + Amid these Aisles, where once his precepts showed, + The heavenward pathway which in life he trode, + This simple tablet marks a Father’s bier; + And those he loved in life, in death are near. + For him, for them, a daughter bade it rise, + Memorial of domestic charities. + Still would you know why o’er the marble spread, + In female grace the willow droops her head; + Why on her branches, silent and unstrung, + The minstrel harp, is emblematic hung; + What Poet’s voice is smother’d here in dust, + Till waked to join the chorus of the just; + Lo! one brief line an answer sad supplies— + Honour’d, belov’d, and mourn’d, here Seward lies: + Her worth, her warmth of heart, our sorrows say: + Go seek her genius in her living lay. + + + + +INDEX. + + _Pages_ + +André 5, 6, 7, 17 + +Animals 33 + +Anstey 15 + +Austin, Mr. Alfred 36 + +Barry 8 + +Bath 13, 14 + +Bath Easton 13 + +Billington 38, 39 + +Boothby 20 + +Boswell 23, 26 + +Burke 31 + +Butt 16 + +Buxton 5, 27 + +Card playing 30 + +Calvinism 37, 38 + +Cook 17 + +Cowper 15, 37 + +Darwin, Erasmus 12, 13, 19, 20, 29 + +Davies 20 + +Day 7, 8 + +Edgeworth, Family of 8, 9, 10, 11, 19, 20, 29 + +Erskine 27 + +Eyam 1 + +Fellowes 38 + +Garrick 14, 16, 23 + +Gotham 11, 12, 42, 44 + +Graves 16 + +Green 4 + +Handel 39, 40 + +Hayley 15, 16 + +Horse Exercise 30 + +Howard 28, 29 + +Hunter, Family of 1, 4, 11 + +Jerningham 16 + +Johnson, Samuel 3, 15, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 31, + 39 + +Kettle 47, 48 + +Knowles 25 + +Ladies of Llangollen 17, 18 + +Lang, Mr. Andrew 41 + +Lichfield, Cathedral 2, 9, 35, 41, 44, 45, 47, 48, 49, 50 + + City 12, 44 + +Lockhart 46, 49, 50 + +“Louisa” 18 + +Lucas, Mr. E. V. 10, 16, 42 + +Macaulay 24, 25, 26 + +Mansel 27, 28 + +Martin of Gotham 11, 12 + +Methodists 38 + +Miers 48 + +Miller, Lady 13, 14, 15 + +Milton 24, 36 + +More 38 + +Music 38, 39 + +Newton 4 + +Northumberland, Duchess of 15 + +Novel-reading 40, 41 + +Piozzi 21, 22 + +Pitt 32 + +Pope 24, 36 + +Porter, Family of 3 + +Portraits of Anna Seward 47, 48 + +Religion, Gloomy 37 + +Romney 15, 47 + +Saville 27, 35, 49 + +Scott, Sir Walter 20, 35, 45, 46, 47, 49, 51 + +Sermons 42, 43, 44 + +Seward, Canon 1, 2, 9, 19, 50 + +Seward, Sarah 3, 12, 51 + +Seward, Anna + + Birth of 1 + + Death of 47 + + Will of 48 + + Burial Place of 47, 48, 49 + + Monument of 50 + + Relics of 47, 48 + +Sneyd, Honora 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 + + Marriage of 9 + + Character of 5, 10, 11 + + Death of 9 + + Burial Place of 9 + +Southey 15, 36, 37 + +Vase, The, at Bath Easton 13, 14, 15, 16, 17 + +Vyse 20, 32 + +Warton 29 + +Warwick, Earl of 8 + +Washington 6, 7 + +Whalley 16, 17, 25 + +White 20 + +White-Thomson, Sir R. T. 47, 48 + +Wilberforce 17, 38 + +Wit 41 + +Woman’s Rights 34, 35 + +Wordsworth 35, 36 + +Footnotes + + +{20} NOTE.—It was Thomas White, Prebendary of Lichfield Cathedral, who +married Lucy Hunter, and became the father of Henry White. + +{39} Macaulay says that Johnson just knew the bell of St. Clement’s +Church from the organ. + + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ANNA SEWARD*** + + +******* This file should be named 26383-0.txt or 26383-0.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/6/3/8/26383 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Anna Seward + and Classic Lichfield + + +Author: Stapleton Martin + + + +Release Date: August 21, 2008 [eBook #26383] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ANNA SEWARD*** +</pre> +<p><a name="startoftext"></a></p> +<p>Transcribed from the 1909 Deighton and Co. edition by David +Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p0b.jpg"> +<img alt="Picture of Anna Seward" src="images/p0s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<h1>Anna Seward<br /> +<span class="smcap">and</span><br /> +CLASSIC LICHFIELD,<br /> +<span class="smcap">by</span><br /> +STAPLETON MARTIN, M.A.</h1> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="smcap">author +of</span><br /> +“<i>Izaak Walton and his Friends</i>,” +<i>etc.</i></p> +<blockquote><p>“As long as the names of Garrick, of +Johnson, and of Seward shall endure, Lichfield will live +renowned.”—<i>Clarke</i>.</p> +<p>“Biography, the most interesting perhaps of every +species of composition, loses all its interest with me when the +shades and lights of the principal characters are not accurately +and faithfully detailed.”</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Extract from a letter of Sir +Walter Scott to Anna Seward</i>.</p> +</blockquote> +<p style="text-align: center">Worcester:<br /> +<span class="smcap">printed by deighton and co.</span>, <span +class="smcap">high street</span>.<br /> +1909.</p> +<h2><!-- page v--><a name="pagev"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +v</span>PREFACE.</h2> +<p>Literature and music and science have been found this year +amazingly prolific in centenary commemorations of their great +exemplars, as a leading article in the “Times,” for +April, 1909, has lately reminded us. Yet the death in 1809 +of Anna Seward, who “for many years held a high rank in the +annals of British literature,” to quote the words of Sir +Walter Scott, has generally passed unnoticed. It is the aim +of this book to resuscitate interest in the poetess, and in the +literary circle over which she reigned supreme.</p> +<h2><!-- page 1--><a name="page1"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +1</span>ANNA SEWARD</h2> +<p>Anna Seward, a daughter of the Rev. Thomas Seward, destined to +become, by universal assent, the first poetess of her day in +England, was born 12th December, 1747. Her mother was +Elizabeth, one of the three daughters of the Rev. John Hunter +(who was in 1704 appointed Head Master of Lichfield Grammar +School), by his first wife, Miss Norton, a daughter of Edward +Norton, of Warwick, and sister of the Rev. Thomas Norton, of +Warwick. Anna Seward’s parents were married at Newton +Regis Church, Warwickshire, in October, 1741. The poetess +was born at Eyam in Derbyshire, where her father was then the +Rector. She was baptized Anne, but she generally wrote her +name Anna. Her pet name in her own family was +“Nancy,” and also often “Julia.”</p> +<p>Mr. Seward attained some literary fame, and was co-adjutor to +an edition of the works of Beaumont and Fletcher. When Anna +Seward was seven years old, the family <!-- page 2--><a +name="page2"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 2</span>removed to +Lichfield, and when she was thirteen they moved into the +Bishop’s Palace, “our pleasant home” as she +called it, where she continued to live after her father’s +death, and for the remainder of her days.</p> +<p>The derivation of the word “Lichfield” has excited +a good deal of controversy. In Anna Seward’s time, it +was generally thought to mean “the field of dead +bodies,” <i>cadaverum campus</i>—from a number of +Christian bodies which lay massacred and unburied there, in the +persecution raised by Diocletian. A reference to +“Notes and Queries,” in the Sixth and Eighth Series, +will show an inquirer that later search throws some doubt on such +derivation. St. Chad, or Ceadda (669–672) founded the +diocese of Lichfield, and was its patron saint.</p> +<p>The Cathedral, the Venus of Gothic creation, as now existing, +was built piecemeal during the 13th and early part of 14th +centuries. The present Bishop’s Palace is of stone, +and was erected in 1687, by Thomas Wood, who was Bishop from 1671 +to 1692, on the site of the old palace, built by Bishop Walter de +Langton (1296–1321). The <!-- page 3--><a +name="page3"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 3</span>Bishops of +Lichfield had a palace at Eccleshall, and this was the one used +by these dignitaries down to the time of Bishop George Augustus +Selwyn, who, it may be mentioned, was born 5th April, 1809. +The latter sold it, and with part of the net proceeds added two +ugly wings and an ugly chapel to the palace when he came to dwell +there, in order to make it a centre of religious activity in the +diocese. The body of the palace is, however, to this day +little changed from its state when inhabited by the Sewards.</p> +<p>Anna Seward had several sisters, and one brother, all of whom +died in infancy, except her second sister, Sarah. She, +almost on the eve of marriage in her nineteenth year, to Mr. +Porter, brother to Mrs. Lucy Porter of Lichfield, and son-in-law +to Dr. Samuel Johnson, died in June, 1764. She is described +as having been “lovely.”</p> +<p>A stanza in “The Visions,” an elegy, the first of +the poems in Anna Seward’s “Poetical Works,” +having reference to the sad event, runs thus:—</p> +<blockquote><p>The bridal vestments waited to array,<br /> + In emblematic white, their duteous maid;<br /> +But ne’er for them arrived that festal day;<br /> + Their sweet, crush’d lily low in earth is +laid.</p> +</blockquote> +<p><!-- page 4--><a name="page4"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +4</span>John Hunter was Samuel Johnson’s schoolmaster, and +Johnson declared that he was very “severe, and +wrong-headedly severe.” He once said, “My +master whipt me very well. Without that, sir, I should have +done nothing.” Mrs. Hunter died in July, 1780, aged +66. She had been very beautiful, from all accounts, +insomuch that Dr. Green, afterwards Bishop of Lincoln, and Dr. +Newton, afterwards Bishop of Lichfield (“the learned and +lucky pair”) were once, Anna Seward tells us, rivals in +their attachment to her.</p> +<p>Miss Honora Sneyd was the youngest daughter of Edward Sneyd, +who was the youngest son of Ralph Sneyd of Bishton, in +Staffordshire. She was adopted by Mr. and Mrs. Seward and +brought up by them as one of their own children.</p> +<p>Edward Sneyd was a Major of the Royal Horse Guards (blue), and +became a widower early in life. The death of his wife was a +great affliction, but his relations and friends, who were +numerous, proved eager to take charge of his daughters. +Nothing could have exceeded the kindness and care <!-- page +5--><a name="page5"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 5</span>with +which Mrs. Seward executed the trust that she had +undertaken. Indeed, none could have singled out Honora from +Mrs. Seward’s own daughters by the light of anything in +Mrs. Seward’s treatment or conduct. Honora was very +beautiful and accomplished, and had attracted many admirers, as +well as lovers. Anna Seward relates a whimsical story of an +“oddity,” an “awkward pedantic youth, once +resident for a little time at Lichfield, who, when asked how he +liked Honora, replied, ‘I could not have conceived that she +had half the face she has,’ adding that Honora was finely +rallied about this imputed plenitude of face. The oval +elegance of its delicate and beauteous contour made the +exclamation trebly absurd.” But her first real lover +was the “ill-fated” Major André. He +first met Honora at Buxton, or Matlock, and, falling deeply in +love with her, became a frequent visitor at the Palace. He +writes, “How am I honoured in Mr. and Mrs. Seward’s +attachment to me!” An engagement followed, but the +marriage was prohibited. The reason, it would seem, was +that André had <!-- page 6--><a name="page6"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 6</span>not sufficient means to support a +wife. André wrote to Honora, “But oh! my dear +Honora! it is for thy sake only I wish for wealth,” which +wealth, indeed, he called “vile trash” in another of +his letters.</p> +<p>The story of the young soldier is truly a sad one. In +1780, while serving in America, André was entrusted with +secret negotiations for the betrayal of West Point to the British +forces, but was captured by the Americans. In spite of his +petition that General Washington would “adapt the mode of +death to his feelings as a man of honour,” he was hanged as +a spy at Tappan. General Washington was unable to listen to +strong appeals for clemency, for, though commander of the +American armies, his voice counted but one on the court +martial. André was of French descent, and has been +described as high-spirited, accomplished, affectionate and +merry-hearted. Anna Seward tells us that he appeared to her +to be “dazzled” by Honora, who estimated highly his +talents; but the poetess adds that he did not possess “the +reasoning mind” Honora required. In 1821 his body +was, on the petition of the Duke of <!-- page 7--><a +name="page7"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 7</span>York, brought +to England. “The courtesy and good feeling,” +remarks Dean Stanley of the Americans, were remarkable. The +bier was decorated with garlands and flowers, as it was +transported to the ship. On arrival in England the remains +were first deposited in the Islip Chapel, and subsequently buried +in the nave of Westminster Abbey, where the funeral service was +celebrated, and where a monument was erected to his memory.</p> +<p>Washington, Anna Seward records, did her the honour to charge +his aide-de-camp to assure her that no circumstances of his life +had given him so much pain as the necessary sacrifice of +André’s life.</p> +<p>Thomas Day, the author of “Sandford and Merton,” +who spent a good deal of his life in hunting for a wife, made +love to Honora. She, however, refused to marry him; and +small wonder, for the conditions he wished to impose on her were +ridiculously stringent and restrictive, and she, not unnaturally, +refused to entertain the prospect of the unqualified control of a +husband over all her actions, implied by his requirements. +Later on Day wished to marry Honora’s <!-- page 8--><a +name="page8"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 8</span>sister, but she +also refused his offer. It may be added that he eventually +succeeded in marrying a Yorkshire lady, who became devoted to +him, and was inconsolable on his death, in 1789, from a kick by a +horse.</p> +<p>The Earl of Warwick, when Lord George Greville, met Honora at +some race-meeting, and was, we read, much fascinated with +her. A Colonel Barry also was her lover, and once stated, +“she was the only woman he had ever seriously +loved.”</p> +<p>Honora supplied the place of Sarah Seward, after the +latter’s death, in Anna Seward’s affections, and +numbers of her poems and letters testify how ardently the poetess +admired and loved her.</p> +<p>In 1765 Richard Lovell Edgeworth, the well-known author, +visited Lichfield. He had been a wild and gay young man, +and had eloped with his first wife, who died in March, +1773. His personal address was “gracefully spirited, +and his conversation eloquent.” He danced and fenced +well, was an ingenious mechanic, and invented a plan for +telegraphing, consequent on a desire to know the result of a race +at Newmarket. <!-- page 9--><a name="page9"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 9</span>Becoming very intimate with the +Sewards, and the addresses he had made to and for Honora, +“after some time being permitted and approved,” +Edgeworth married her on 17th July, 1773, as his second wife, in +the beautiful ladies’ choir in Lichfield Cathedral. +Mr. Seward, who had become a Canon Residentiary of Lichfield +Cathedral, performed the ceremony, and shed “tears of joy +while he pronounced the nuptial benediction,” and Anna +Seward is recorded to have been really glad to see Honora united +to a man whom she had often thought peculiarly suited to her +friend in taste and disposition.</p> +<p>Honora died of consumption in 1780, and, in accordance with +her dying wish, Edgeworth married her sister Elizabeth on +Christmas Day in the same year. Honora, who was buried at +King’s Weston, had issue two children.</p> +<p>In Anna Seward’s elegy, entitled +“Lichfield,” written in 1781, we read:—</p> +<blockquote><p>“When first this month, stealing from +half-blown bowers,<br /> +Bathed the young cowslip in her sunny showers,<br /> +Pensive I travell’d, and approach’d the plains,<br /> +That met the bounds of Severn’s wide domains.<br /> +As up the hill I rose, from whose green brow<br /> +The village church o’erlooks the vale below,<br /> +<!-- page 10--><a name="page10"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +10</span>O! when its rustic form first met my eyes,<br /> +What wild emotions swell’d the rising sighs!<br /> +Stretch’d the pain’d heart-strings with the utmost +force<br /> +Grief knows to feel, that knows not dire remorse;<br /> +For there—yes there,—its narrow porch contains<br /> +My dear Honora’s cold and pale remains,<br /> +Whose lavish’d health, in youth, and beauty’s +bloom,<br /> +Sunk to the silence of an early tomb.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Edgeworth is to be remembered as having been a good Irish +landlord; he had a property at Edgeworthstown.</p> +<p>In 1802 Anna Seward wrote, “The stars glimmered in the +lake of Weston as we travelled by its side, but their light did +not enable me to distinguish the Church, beneath the floor of +whose porch rests the mouldered form of my heart—dear +Honora,—yet of our approach to that unrecording, but thrice +consecrated spot, my heart felt all the mournful +consciousness.”</p> +<p>It is not easy to agree with Mr. E. V. Lucas, the author of a +very entertaining book, entitled “A Swan and her +Friends” (Methuen & Co.), when he says, “of +Honora’s married life little is known, but she <i>may</i> +have been very happy,” for she left a letter, written a few +days before her death, which cannot easily be construed as +applying <!-- page 11--><a name="page11"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 11</span>merely to her death-bed state. +Here is a paragraph from it:—</p> +<blockquote><p>“I have every blessing, and I am +happy. The conversation of my beloved husband, when my +breath will let me have it, is my greatest delight, he procures +me every comfort, and as he always said he thought he should, +contrives for me everything that can ease and quiet my +weakness.”</p> +<p>“Like a kind angel whispers peace,<br /> +And smooths the bed of death.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Her husband records that she was the most beloved as a wife, a +sister, and a friend, of any person he had ever known. Each +member of her own family, unanimously, almost intuitively, +preferred her.</p> +<p>Anne Hunter, the eldest sister of Mrs. Seward, married a few +days before her, viz., in October, 1741, at Newton Regis Church, +the Rev. Samuel Martin, the Rector, who was formerly a Fellow of +Oriel College, Oxford. He afterwards became the Rector of +Gotham, Notts., where he remained for 27 years, until his death, +in 1775. In a letter dated 23rd June, 1764, written from +Gotham, while visiting “her excellent Uncle and <!-- page +12--><a name="page12"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 12</span>Aunt +Martin,” as she styled them, soon after the death of Sarah +Seward, Anna Seward says, “pious tranquility broods over +the kind and hospitable mansion, and the balms of sympathy and +the cordials of devotion are here poured into our torn +hearts,” and “my cousin, Miss Martin, is of my +sister’s age, and was deservedly beloved by her above all +her other companions next to myself and Honora.”</p> +<p>It was Dr. Erasmus Darwin (grandfather of Charles Robert +Darwin, the naturalist, who died in 1882, author of the +“Origin of the Species”) who first discovered Anna +Seward as a poetess. Happening to peruse some verses +apparently written by her, he took an opportunity of calling at +the Palace when Anna Seward was alone, and satisfied himself that +she could write good poetry unaided, and that her literary +abilities were of no common kind.</p> +<p>Dr. Darwin (who was a native of Nottinghamshire) in either the +year 1756 or 1757, arrived in Lichfield to practise as a +Physician there, where he resided until 1781. Darwin was a +“votary to <!-- page 13--><a name="page13"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 13</span>poetry,” a philosopher, and a +clever though an eccentric man. He wrote “The Botanic +Garden,” which Anna Seward pronounced to be “a string +of poetic brilliants,” and in which book Horace Walpole +noted a passage “the most sublime in any author or in any +of the few languages with which I am acquainted.” He +inserted in it, as his own work, some lines of Anna +Seward’s,—which was ungallant, to say the +least. Anna Seward’s mother repressed her early +attempts at poetry, so for a time she contented herself with +reading “our finest poets,” and with +“voluminous correspondence.” On her +mother’s death, being free to exercise her poetical powers, +she forthwith produced odes, sonnets, songs, epitaphs, epilogues, +and elegies, in profusion.</p> +<p>Anna Seward visited Bath, and her introduction into the +literary “world” was made by Anna, Lady Miller, a +verse writer of some fame, who instituted a literary salon at +Bath-Easton, during the Bath season. An antique vase, which +had been dug up in Italy in 1759, was placed on a modern altar +decorated with laurel, each guest being invited to place <!-- +page 14--><a name="page14"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +14</span>in the urn an original composition in verse. When +it was determined which were the best three productions, their +authors were crowned by Lady Miller with wreaths of myrtle. +Lady Miller died in 1781, and a handsome monument in the Abbey at +Bath marks the spot where she was buried. It is stated in +the D.N.B. that the urn, after her death, was set up in the +public park in Bath.</p> +<p>Fanny Burney met Lady Miller, whom she describes with her +usual candour: “Lady Miller is a round, plump, +coarse-looking dame of about forty, and while all her aim is to +appear an elegant woman of fashion, all her success is to seem an +ordinary woman in very common life, with fine clothes on. +Her habits are bustling, her air is mock-important, and her +manners very inelegant.”</p> +<p>Once a year the most ingenious of the vase effusions was +published, the net profits being applied to some Bath +charity. Four volumes of the compositions appeared. +The prize poem was written several times by Anna Seward, and on +one occasion was awarded for her monody on the death of David +Garrick.</p> +<p><!-- page 15--><a name="page15"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +15</span>Macaulay says, in his essay on Madame D’Arblay, +that Lady Miller kept a vase “wherein fools were wont to +put bad verses.” Dr. Johnson also said, when Boswell +named a gentleman of his acquaintance who wrote for the vase, +“He was a blockhead for his pains”; on the other +hand, when told that the Duchess of Northumberland wrote, Johnson +said, “Sir, the Duchess of Northumberland may do what she +pleases: nobody will say anything to a lady of her high +rank.” Remembering who were ranked among the +contributors to the “Saloon of the Minervas,” these +criticisms seem rather absurd, for</p> +<blockquote><p>“Bright glows the list with many an +honour’d name.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Christopher Anstey, a fellow of King’s College, +Cambridge, remembered as having written the “New Bath +Guide,” and as having been deemed worthy a cenotaph in +Poets’ Corner in Westminster Abbey, and William Hayley, +appear to have been among the best-known to fame at “the +fanciful and romantic institution at Bath-Easton.” +The latter was a friend of Cowper, Romney and Southey, and +published the <!-- page 16--><a name="page16"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 16</span>lives of the two former. In +“English Bards and Scotch Reviewers,” occur these +lines:—</p> +<blockquote><p>“Triumphant first see Temper’s Triumph +shine,<br /> +At least I’m sure they triumphed over mine.<br /> +Of ‘Music’s Triumphs’ all who read may swear<br +/> +That luckless music never triumphed there.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>The poems “Triumphs of Temper” (1781) and +“Triumphs of Music” (1804) were Hayley’s chief +productions. He was the most ardent of all of those who +paid their homage to Anna Seward. Mr. Lucas informs us that +David Garrick appears also in the list. To the foregoing +names may be added Edward Jerningham, the friend of Chesterfield +and Horace Walpole, a dramatist as well as a poet; George Butt, +the divine, and chaplain to George III.; William Crowe, +“the new star,” as Anna Seward calls him, a divine +and public orator at Oxford; and Richard Graves, a poet and +novelist, the Rector of Claverton, who wrote “Recollections +of Shenstone” in 1788. These, and Thomas Sedgwick +Whalley, were perhaps the most learned of the vase group. +The latter, Fanny Burney says, was one of its best +supporters. He was a Prebendary of Wells Cathedral, and +corresponded a good <!-- page 17--><a name="page17"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 17</span>deal with Anna Seward. +Wilberforce’s description of him is worth recalling, viz., +“the true picture of a sensible, well-informed and +educated, polished, old, well-beneficed, nobleman’s and +gentleman’s house-frequenting, literary and chess-playing +divine.”</p> +<p>Anna Seward’s “Elegy on Captain Cook,” and +her “Monody on Major André,” were contributed +to the Vase, and immediately brought her into great repute.</p> +<p>Anna Seward made friends with, and had a great admiration for, +the celebrated recluses, “the ladies of Llangollen +Vale,”—Lady Eleanor Butler and Miss Sarah +Ponsonby. They were so called because when they arrived +their names were unknown. It is said that they never left +their home for 50 years, and were so absolutely devoted as to be +inseparable from each other. They adopted a semi-masculine +attire. These curious ladies,—“extraordinary +women,”—are described as ladies of genius, taste and +knowledge—who were “sought by the first characters of +the age, both as to rank and talents.”</p> +<p>She kept up a considerable correspondence <!-- page 18--><a +name="page18"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 18</span>with both of +them. Their house at Plas Newydd is described minutely and +at great length in one of her letters. It is still +standing, and continues to be visited by scores of +tourists. Lady Eleanor Butler died in 1829, and Miss Sarah +Ponsonby in 1831. One of Anna Seward’s poems is +entitled “Llangollen Vale,” and was inscribed to +these ladies, as likewise were some more of her verses.</p> +<p>In 1782 Anna Seward produced “Louisa,” a poetical +novel in four epistles. It ran through five editions. +She says that she received the highest encomiums upon the poem +“by the first literary characters of the age.” +It is now rarely read. However, the writer of an article in +“The Lady’s Monthly Museum” for March, 1799, +vol. 2, wrote that, “the story, though interesting enough, +is but a secondary object. It is told in strains, which, +for energy, voluptuousness, and dignity of description, are +rarely found in our language.” The writer further +states that “our readers will be amply gratified by a +perusal of the whole poem, which is everywhere equally replete +with genius and taste, <!-- page 19--><a name="page19"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 19</span>happy invention, and a luxury of +glowing description.”</p> +<p>She found another writer of the time ready to defend her +against a reviewer who had brought a charge of +“accumulating in her dramatic characters glaring +metaphors,” and of aiming “to dazzle by superfluity +of ornaments.”</p> +<p>In 1790 Canon Seward died. He was deeply beloved by his +daughter, who most dutifully nursed him for some ten years before +his death.</p> +<p>Twelve years later Dr. Darwin died suddenly, in the very act +of writing a letter to Richard Lovell Edgeworth; and in 1804 Anna +Seward published a biographical Memoir of Darwin, in reference to +which Sir Walter Scott wrote, “he could not have wished his +fame and character entrusted to a pen more capable of doing them +ample and, above all, discriminating justice.” She +called Darwin her “bright luminary.” On his +death she wrote thus:—“His extinction is universally +lamented, from the most operative cause of regret; and while +disease may no longer turn the eyes of hope <!-- page 20--><a +name="page20"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 20</span>upon his +rescuing and restoring skill, the poetic fanes lose a splendid +source of ornament; philosophic science, an ingenious and daring +dictator; and medicinal art, a pillar of transcendent +strength.” The Memoir she called, “The +woman’s mite in biography.” This book, +notwithstanding Sir Walter Scott’s praise, is, nowadays, +considered but a poor piece of writing.</p> +<p>The Lichfield literary circle in Anna Seward’s time +included many learned people, for, besides Dr. Darwin, Richard +Lovell Edgeworth, and Thomas Day, may be mentioned the two Canons +of the Cathedral—Archdeacon Vyse and Canon Sneyd Davies, a +poet; the Rev. William Robinson (nicknamed “The +Rector” amongst his friends), a great wit, one who could +“set the table in a roar”; Sir Brooke Boothby, a poet +and politician; her cousin, the Rev. Henry White<br /> +<a name="citation20"></a><a href="#footnote20" +class="citation">[20]</a>, Sacrist of Lichfield Cathedral (who +married Lucy, the daughter of the Rev. John Hunter by his second +wife); and sometimes Dr. Johnson, but his presence was not much +appreciated. “There was,” wrote Sir Walter +Scott, “some aristocratic prejudice <!-- page 21--><a +name="page21"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 21</span>in their +dislike, for the despotic manners of Dr. Johnson were least +likely to be tolerated when the lowness of his origin was in +fresh recollection.”</p> +<p>How came Anna Seward to dominate and reign as the Queen over +the literary society in Lichfield? The great +“magnetic” power she must have possessed accounts to +a large extent for the popular adulation bestowed upon her. +Still, the circumstances of her residence in the Episcopal +Palace, and her being by birth a lady and endowed with a certain +amount of wealth, added to an attractive presence, must have +greatly helped her to attain the position.</p> +<p>Anna Seward certainly hated, and hated venomously, Dr. +Johnson, who was afraid of her, and he, she says, “hated +me.” She could not endure his mannerisms, but +mimicked his gestures and curious demeanours; calling him +“a despot,” “the old literary Colossus,” +an “envious calumniator,” “surly Samuel +Johnson,” “the massive Being,” “the old +elephant,” and “a growler.”</p> +<p>In 1787, Anna Seward tells us, she became acquainted with Mr. +and Mrs. Piozzi <!-- page 22--><a name="page22"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 22</span>(formerly Mrs. Thrale), and on the +latter’s publication of Johnson’s letters, she +writes:—“Greatly as I admired Johnson’s talents +and revered his knowledge, and formidable as I felt the powers to +be of his witty sophistry, yet did a certain quickness of spirit, +and zeal for the reputation of my favourite authors, irresistibly +urge me to defend them against his spleenful injustice—a +temerity, which I was well aware made him dislike me, +notwithstanding the coaxing regard he always expressed for me on +his first salutations on returning to Lichfield.” +Again, in other letters, she says:—. . . “I have had +frequent opportunities of conversing with that wonderful man (Dr. +Johnson). Seldom did I listen to him without admiring the +great powers of his mind, and feeling concern and pain at the +malignance of his disposition. He would sometimes be just +to the virtues and literary fame of others, if they had not been +praised in the conversation before his opinion was asked—if +they had been previously praised, never.” . . .</p> +<p>“What right had a man who wrote a play <!-- page 23--><a +name="page23"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 23</span>for the +stage, to avow contempt for the theatric profession”? she +wrote, when referring to Johnson’s envy of David +Garrick. Boswell admitted, when he visited Anna Seward, in +1785, at Lichfield, that Johnson was “galled by +Garrick’s prosperity.” . . . “Who can think +Johnson’s heart a good one? In the course of many +years’ personal acquaintance with him, I never knew a +single instance in which the praise (from another’s lip) of +any human being, excepting that of Mrs. Thrale, was not a caustic +on his spirit; and this, whether their virtues or abilities were +the subject of encomium.” His opinions of poetry +were, she thought, “so absurd and inconsistent with each +other, that, though almost any of his dogmas may be clearly and +easily confronted, yet the attempt is but combating an +hydra-headed monster . . . Johnson’s ‘Lives of +the Poets,’ and all the records of his own life and +conversation, prove that envy did deeply stain his spirit. +To your question, ‘Whom could Johnson envy’? I +answer, all his superiors in genius, all his equals; in short, at +times, every celebrated author, living or <!-- page 24--><a +name="page24"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 24</span>dead . . . I +cannot help feeling that he has superiors, and that in a very +large degree, though they will not be found amongst our +essayists, where I acknowledge his pre-eminence. Johnson +was a very bright star, yet to Shakespeare and Milton, he was but +as a star to the sun . . . Gray was indolent, and wrote but +little; yet that little proves him the first genius of the period +in which he lived. I have been assured that he had more +learning than Johnson, and he certainly was a very superior +poet. Johnson felt the superiority, and for that he hated +him. . . . Johnson’s first ambition was to be distinguished +as a poet, and as a poet he was first celebrated. His fine +satire, ‘London,’ had considerable reputation; yet it +neither eclipsed, nor had power to eclipse, the satires of +Pope.”</p> +<p>The account she has given of Johnson’s last days and +hours differs very widely from Macaulay’s version, who +states that, “when at length the moment, dreaded through so +many years, came close, the dark cloud passed away from +Johnson’s mind. His temper became unusually patient +and gentle; <!-- page 25--><a name="page25"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 25</span>he ceased to think with terror of +death, and that which lies beyond death; he spake much of the +mercy of God and of the propitiation of Christ.” In a +letter written by Anna Seward to T. S. Whalley, dated November +7th, 1784, she said, “The extinction, in our sphere, of +that mighty spirit, approaches fast. A confirmed dropsy +deluges the vital source. It is melancholy to observe with +what terror he contemplates his approaching fate.” In +a letter to Mrs. Knowles (the wife of Dr. Knowles, an eminent +physician in London, and in her younger days a well-known +Staffordshire beauty), dated March 27th, 1785, Anna Seward says, +“O, yes, as you observe, dreadful were the horrors which +attended poor Johnson’s dying state. His religion was +certainly not of that nature which sheds comfort on a death-bed +pillow. I believe his faith was sincere, and therefore +could not fail to reproach his heart, which had swelled with +pride, envy, and hatred, through the whole course of his +existence. But religious feeling, on which you lay so great +stress, was not the desideratum in <!-- page 26--><a +name="page26"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +26</span>Johnson’s virtue.” The reader must +decide for himself which of these two contradictory accounts he +will believe. It may be remarked that she was in “the +almost daily habit of contemplating his dying,” which she +describes as “a very melancholy spectacle.” She +informs us that it was at Johnson’s repeatedly expressed +desire that she often visited him.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">* * * * *</p> +<p>In a letter written in 1785, to James Boswell, Anna Seward +said that she regretted it was not in her power to collect more +anecdotes of Dr. Johnson’s infancy. “My mother +passed her days of girlhood with an uncle at Warwick, +consequently, was absent from home in the school-boy days of the +great man; neither did I ever hear her mention any of the +promissory sparkles which, doubtless, burst forth, though no +records of them are within my knowledge. I cannot meet with +any contemporary of those, his <i>very</i> youthful days. . . . +Adieu, sir, go on and prosper in your arduous task of presenting +to the world the portrait of Johnson’s mind and +manners. If faithful, <!-- page 27--><a +name="page27"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 27</span>brilliant +will be its lights, but deep its shades.”</p> +<p>Anna Seward seems to have known everybody worth knowing, and +she met many celebrities of her day,—not only at Lichfield, +but when she visited Buxton and Harrogate, as she sometimes did, +for the Baths. Writing from Buxton in 1796 to Mr. Saville, +she said, “my acquaintance here seem to set a far higher +value on my talents and conversation, such as they are, than the +Lichfieldiens; but it is more than probable that novelty is the +cause of this so much more appreciating attention”; and, +further on, she adds that she had conversed with William +Wilberforce, the philanthropist, “who disappoints no +expectation his imputed eloquence has excited”; and also +with the luminous and resistless Lord Chancellor, Thomas Erskine, +“whose every sentence is oratory, whose form is graceful, +whose voice is music, and whose eye lightens as he +speaks.” She corresponded with Dr. William Lort +Mansel, when he was Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, in +1798, who was well known as a wit, and writer of <!-- page +28--><a name="page28"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +28</span>epigrams, and to whom she was introduced by her cousin, +H. White, at Lichfield. In a letter written in 1806, she +said that “the animated attention with which he honoured +me, the praise he lavished on my poems, and the passages he +quoted from them, constituted one of the most poignant literary +gratifications I ever received. The hope that they may +live, is attached to the demonstrated impression they had made on +a mind of such distinguished classical endowment.” +Further on, she said that he often exclaimed, “Lichfield +is, indeed, classic ground of peculiar distinction.”</p> +<p>In a letter dated March 5th, 1789, written from Lichfield by +Anna Seward, she said, “I was honoured and blest by a two +hours personal conversation with the most distinguished +excellence that ever walked the earth, since saints and angels +left off paying us morning visits. To say that his name is +Howard would be superfluous. This is the third time he has +favoured me with his conversation on his way through this +town. I am truly glad of our King’s recovery, but yet +I should not walk half so tall upon a <!-- page 29--><a +name="page29"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 29</span>visit from +him. Mr. Howard presented me with his new publication, and +had previously given me the former.”</p> +<p>The Poet Laureate in 1785 was Thomas Warton, and she +corresponded with him, “our great Laureate,” as she +called him.</p> +<p>Miss Mitford has described Anna Seward as “all tinkling +and tinsel—a sort of Dr. Darwin in petticoats.” +Edgeworth described her as “a handsome woman of agreeable +manners, she was generous, possessed of good sense, and capable +of strong affection”; and Sir Walter Scott thought that she +must have been, “when young, exquisitely beautiful; for, in +advanced age, the regularity of her features, the fire and +expression of her countenance, gave her the appearance of beauty, +and almost of youth. Her eyes were auburn, of the precise +shade and hue of her hair, and possessed great expression. +In reciting, or in speaking with animation, they appeared to +become darker, and, as it were, to flash fire. . . . Her voice +was melodious, guided by excellent taste, and well suited to +reading and recitation, in which she willingly exercised +it.”</p> +<p><!-- page 30--><a name="page30"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +30</span>An accident to her knee in her youth prevented her from +riding, which, had she been able to do, she thought she would +have enjoyed.</p> +<p>She did not care for “eternal card-parties,” and +considered the card-table “an annihilator of +ideas.” She had a passionate love for scenery, +especially for mountain scenery, and in general for the pleasures +of landscape.</p> +<p>Her estimates of many of the poets born in her lifetime appear +in her letters, but most of their poetry was only read during +their respective lives, and for a few years after, and theirs, +like her own productions, are little known to readers of this +age, though it appears that she hoped her works would be read for +a long time after her death. She wrote, “If my poems +are of that common order which have, as Falstaff says, a natural +alacrity in sinking, the praise of hireling and nameless critics +would not keep them above the gulf of oblivion. If, on the +contrary, they possess the buoyant property of true poetry, their +fame will be established in after years, when no one will ask, +‘What said the reviewers?’” Her <!-- page +31--><a name="page31"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +31</span>remarks as to plagiarism—petty +pilferings—and borrowing from others, to be found in her +letters, are most interesting. She thought that +“imitative traces, of one kind or other, may be found in +all works of imagination, up to Homer; and that he is not +detected in the same practice, is certainly owing to the little +that remains of the writings of his predecessors.”</p> +<p>Her religious views were broad. She felt “no great +reverence for Kings.” In politics she was a +Whig. “I was born and bred in Whiggism,” which +word, she tells us, was synonymous to “fool and +rascal,” from Johnson’s lips. It may be added +that Johnson also said, “the Devil was the first +Whig.” She confessed she had no great appetite for +politics, though she expressed her views pretty freely on the +subject. In 1790 the titles of nobility were suppressed in +France, and Anna Seward disapproved of Burke’s vindication +of hereditary honours. She thought that “they are +more likely to make a man repose, with slumbering virtue upon +them, for the distinction he is to receive in society, than to +inspire the effort of <!-- page 32--><a name="page32"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 32</span>rendering himself worthy of +them. They are to men what beauty is to women, a dangerous +gift, which has a natural tendency to make them indolent, silly, +and worthless. Let property be hereditary, but let titular +honours be the reward of noble or useful exertions. France, +in her folly, has destroyed them totally, instead of making them +conditional.” Howbeit, titled people appear to have +been highly honoured by her, notwithstanding these +observations. By 1797 she had lost her long-existing +confidence in Pitt’s wisdom and integrity, and in 1798 she +thought he was “disqualified for retaining the reasonable +confidence of the people of England.” In 1801 she +wrote of “Pitt’s low and perfidious +manœuvres,” and she never changed her opinion of +him. She seemed unable to write what is called plain +English. Archdeacon Vyse is described by her as “a +man of prioric talents in a metrical impromptu.” +Another person “evinced an elevated mind,” while a +third exhibited an “attic spirit” in her +writings. An evening is described as being +“attic”; but even Pope, we may remark, calls a +nightingale an <!-- page 33--><a name="page33"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 33</span>“attic warbler.” It +is true, however, he was writing poetry, not prose. Though +a Bluestocking, her praise was usually generously bestowed; she +knew well how to flatter. She, though unacquainted with +Latin, paraphrased Horace; and she admitted her ignorance of +French. She loved all animals, notably cats and dogs, and, +believing in a future existence for the dumb creation, wrote a +poem, entitled “On the Future Existence of +Brutes.”</p> +<p>The following are three of more beautiful stanzas:—</p> +<blockquote><p>“Has <span class="smcap">God</span> decreed +this helpless, suffering train<br /> + Shall, groaning yield the vital breath he gave,<br +/> +Unrecompens’d for years of want, and pain,<br /> + And close on them the portals of the grave?</p> +<p>Ah, no! the great Retributory Mind<br /> + Will recompense, and may, perhaps, ordain<br /> +Some future mode of being, more refin’d<br /> + Than ours, less sullied with inherent stain;</p> +<p>Less torn by passion, and less prone to sin,<br /> + Their duty easier, trial less severe,<br /> +Till their firm faith, and virtue prov’d, may win<br /> + The wreaths of life in yon Eternal Sphere.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>She appears to have liked all things bright and +beautiful. “It is too seldom,” she wrote, +“that people express a conscious <!-- page 34--><a +name="page34"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 34</span>enjoyment of +the present. While regret is busy with the past, and +expectation with the future, <i>ennui</i> usurps the place of +cheerful feelings, and thinks coldly of the social, and yawns +through the studious hour.” But as to Balls, she +tells us, “I am one of the creatures that love not Balls in +general.”</p> +<p>Had she lived now, she probably would have approved of women +having votes, for, concerning a book published in her life-time, +entitled, “Rights of Woman,” she +wrote:—“It has, by turns, pleased and displeased, +startled, and half-convinced me that its author is oftener right +than wrong. Though the ideas of absolute equality in the +sexes are carried too far, and though they certainly militate +against St. Paul’s maxims concerning that important +compact, yet they do expose a train of mischievous mistakes in +the education of females.” We may note that Tom +Paine, “the greatest of pamphleteers,” died in 1809, +whose pamphlets, “The Rights of Man,” and “The +Age of Reason,” achieved great success. Anna Seward +sympathised with the views expressed in his books on the French +Revolution, though she <!-- page 35--><a name="page35"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 35</span>considered many of his views on +politics far too fanciful to be put into practice; moreover, she +thought they would, if adopted, “ruin the earth.”</p> +<p>Her affection for a Mr. Saville (“a man of sense, and a +scholar”) who was for 48 years Vicar-choral of Lichfield +Cathedral, appears to have been merely platonic, though deep and +sincere. In a letter dated August 31st, 1803, she tells us +that, “the dearest friend I had on earth, passed in one +quarter of an hour, from apparent health and even gay vivacity, +to the silence and ghastliness of death.” He died +August 2nd, 1803, aged 67 years. She erected a monument to +his memory in the Cathedral, and composed the verses inscribed on +it. His vault is on the south side of the green surrounding +the Cathedral.</p> +<p>In a letter to Sir Walter Scott, written in 1807, the poetess +remarks that her “astonishment and disgust” rose to +their utmost height while she read Wordsworth’s poem, +“The Daffodils”—“dancing daffodils, ten +thousand, as he says, in high dance in the breeze beside the +river, whose waves dance with <!-- page 36--><a +name="page36"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 36</span>them, and the +poet’s heart, we are told, danced too.” She +deemed this unnatural writing, and mentions some of his verses +she liked, notably the “Leech-Gatherer.” If he +had written nothing else, that composition might stamp him, she +thought, a poet of no common powers. Lovers of poetry +generally, however, think “The Daffodils” one of the +most beautiful poems ever written.</p> +<p>Mr. Alfred Austin, the Laureate of our own day, has recently +written in an article, entitled, “The Essentials of Great +Poetry,” that the English masters of song are, Chaucer, +Spencer, Shakespeare, Milton, and Byron, and he tells us that +only the merest fraction of Wordsworth’s work is real +poetry. Anna Seward would seem to have agreed with the +selection of these names, if we substitute Pope for Byron. +However, the latter was, we must recollect, only born in +1788. She would surely have welcomed Mr. Austin’s +estimate of Wordsworth! Anna Seward considered +Southey’s genius, beyond comparison, superior to that of +Wordsworth. She wrote in 1796, “This is the age of +wonders. A great one has lately <!-- page 37--><a +name="page37"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 37</span>arisen in the +poetical world—the most extraordinary that ever appeared, +as to juvenile powers, except that of the ill-starred +Chatterton—Southey’s Joan of Arc, an epic poem of +strength and beauty, by a youth of twenty.” Cowper +was, to her mind, a vapourish egotist and a fanatic. She +hated his Calvinism, and thought that the spirit of scornful +denunciation everywhere prevails when Cowper reprehends the +errors of mankind. Still, in answer to a request for her +opinion of Cowper, she wrote, “He appears to me at once a +fascinating, and a great poet; as a descriptive one, hardly +excelled;” but she would not allow that his constitutional +melancholy was any excuse for his misantrophy. She writes, +“Dante is the only poetic author of high reputation, whom I +cannot understand. Were you not struck with the inherent +cruelty of that mind which could delight in suggesting pains and +penalties at once so odious and so horrid?” We may +remember that Dante has stated that “I found the original +of my hell in the world which we inhabit.”</p> +<p>She did not like “gloomy religionists,” as <!-- +page 38--><a name="page38"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +38</span>she called the Calvinists. One acquaintance she +evidently did not care for, because he talked +“methodistically.” Hannah More, she lamented, +“exposed herself to the reproach of that absurd and +intolerant Methodism with which I have long believed her +tainted.” She wrote to the Rev. R. Fellowes; +“the eminent champion in our day of true and perfect +Christianity,”—“How happily have you removed +that dire impediment to rational faith, the doctrine of original +sin, which the revived Calvinistic school, of which Mr. +Wilberforce is the head, so injudiciously presses upon the +attention of the public. . . . The licentious, or giddy votaries +of fashion, wish to have an excuse for persisting in their +career, and think they have found it in the dark and cruel +difficulties in which resumed Calvinism involves +Christianity.”</p> +<p>Anna Seward did not sing, but enjoyed music. She learnt, +late in life, to handle the harpsichord sufficiently well to play +it in little private concerts. Musical festivals she +frequented, and admired Elizabeth Billington’s singing.</p> +<p><!-- page 39--><a name="page39"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +39</span>This vocalist is remembered in our day as one of +England’s greatest singers, especially at Handel +commemorations. “Handel,” Anna Seward said, +“is as absolute a monarch of the human passions as +Shakespeare.” . . . “Were Handel living, I should +approach and address him with much more awe than any merely good +sort of body upon the throne of England.” . . .</p> +<p>“Poetry itself, though so much the elder science, for +music has been a science only since the harmonic combinations +were discovered, possesses not a more inherent empire over the +passions than music, of which Handel is the mighty master; than +whom</p> +<blockquote><p>‘Nothing went before so great,<br /> +And nothing greater can succeed.’” . . .</p> +</blockquote> +<p>“Milton knew music scientifically, and felt all its +powers. To Samuel Johnson, the sweetest airs and most +superb harmonies were but unmeaning noises. <a +name="citation39"></a><a href="#footnote39" +class="citation">[39]</a> I often regret that Milton and +Handel were not contemporaries; that the former knew not the +delight <!-- page 40--><a name="page40"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 40</span>of hearing his own poetry heightened +as Handel has heightened it.”</p> +<p>The poetess thought that “The contemptible rage for +novel-reading is a pernicious and deplorably prevalent taste, +which vitiates and palls the appetite for literary food of a more +nutritive and wholesome kind. . . . I am well assured, that +novels and political tracts are the only things generally +read.” . . . Though disavowing a propensity to read and to +love novels, yet she always considered the “Clarissa” +and “Grandison” of Richardson—“glorious +Richardson” she calls him—as the highest efforts of +genius in our language, next to Shakespeare’s plays. +She abjured the coarse, unfeeling taste of those who preferred +Fielding’s romances to the glories of the Richardsonian +pen. In 1792 she wrote that “the London papers had no +authority for saying that I was writing a novel. The design +of framing such a composition never occurred to me; though I am +well aware that novels and political tracts are the only things +generally read. If I could write like Richardson, I would +turn <!-- page 41--><a name="page41"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +41</span>novelist; but then my work would be too good to be +popular;—for how is Richardson neglected!”</p> +<p>Mr. Andrew Lang, at the festival this year of the Royal +Literary Fund, stated that the only literary people who prospered +were “the novelist and the gentleman who remembered many +people in his reminiscences. The essayist was no longer in +favour. He had been killed by fiction and +photographs. It was the purpose of the Royal Literary Fund +to aid authors who needed assistance, and all who were not +novelists did need it.” It seems that the public, a +hundred years ago, had the same taste as the public of +to-day! It is novels, novels, novels, which alone satisfy +their appetites, when they feed on books!</p> +<p>“Wit was never my talent,” Anna Seward says, but +she has recorded that when the “rulers of our +Cathedral” decreed a four years’ silence for +“the pealing organ and the full-voic’d choir,” +because of alterations to be made there, she considered them +“a little bedemoned, or much be-deaned—which is +nearly the same thing.”</p> +<p><!-- page 42--><a name="page42"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +42</span>Anna Seward was a faithful and generous friend; her +fault would appear to have been her conceit. As Mr. Lucas +finely remarks, everything conspired to increase her self-esteem +and importance, for the three things that might have corrected it +were all lacking: poverty, London life, and marriage.</p> +<p>The poetess had several lovers, and was jilted by one, who was +a native of Lichfield, and who afterwards became a General. +“But overtures, not preceded by assiduous tenderness and, +which expected to reap the harvest of love without having nursed +its germs, suited not my native enthusiasm, nor were calculated +to inspire it.” She wrote in 1767, from Gotham +Rectory, “to a female mind, that that can employ itself +ingeniously, that is capable of friendship, that is blessed with +affluence, where are the evils of celibacy? For my part, I +could never imagine that there were any, at least, compared to +the <i>ennui</i>, the chagrin, the preclusion, which hearts, cast +in the warm mould of passion, must feel in a marriage of mere +esteem.”</p> +<p>As to sermons, she considered, “immoderate length in a +sermon is a fault which <!-- page 43--><a name="page43"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 43</span>excellence itself cannot +expiate.” . . . “The present mode of dress in our +young women of fashion, and <i>their</i> imitators, is, for its +gross immodesty, a proper subject of grave rebuke for the +preacher.” . . . “Nothing is more disgusting to me, +and, indeed, to the generality of people, than dictatorial +egotism from the pulpit. Even in the learned and aged +clergyman it is priestly arrogance. When we see that man in +the pulpit whom we are in the habit of meeting at the festal +board, at the card-table, perhaps seen join in the dance, and +over whose frailties, in common with our own, no holy curtain has +been drawn, we expect modest exhortation, sober reasoning, +chastened denunciation.” . . .</p> +<p>Anna Seward informs us that she was “no great reader of +sermons,” but she wrote a sermon for “an ingenious +young clergyman of our neighbourhood, who has just taken orders, +and who wishes to make his first essay in the pulpit with +something of my writing. If I know anything of my talents, +sermonising is their <i>forte</i>.” She wrote another +sermon for a friend, a funeral sermon, delivered on a <!-- page +44--><a name="page44"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +44</span>festival day—Whit-Sunday, and chose the text from +the 7th chapter of Job; a verse than which she thought there was +nothing in Scripture more sublime:—“The eyes of them +that have seen me, shall see me no more—thine eyes are upon +me—and I am not.” “The young +preacher,” she says, “spoke this oration with solemn +earnestness and unaffected sensibility.”</p> +<p>Her love and admiration for Lichfield began early in life, and +remained keen to its close. When twenty-four years old she +wrote from Gotham Rectory, in 1767, “We bend our course +towards Lichfield, lovely, interesting Lichfield, where the +sweetest days of my youth have passed—the days of +prime.” No City could compare with Lichfield in her +eyes, and no Cathedral with that of Lichfield when the music to +be heard there was also taken into account. After visiting +York Cathedral, that “vast and beautiful House of +God”: she herself styled it “noble and +transcendent,” she wrote, “I passed through York, and +heard choral service in the noblest Cathedral in the world; . . . +but if the sight perceived <!-- page 45--><a +name="page45"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 45</span>the undying +superiority of York Minster, my ear acknowledged the yet more +transcendent, harmonic advantages of the Gothic boast of +Lichfield.”</p> +<p>Lichfield, although it may seem to the casual visitor rather a +sleepy place to-day, appears to have been pretty lively in Anna +Seward’s day. “Plays thrice in the week, balls +and suppers at our Inns, cards and feasting within our +houses.” And again, “Lichfield has been of late +wondrous gay. Six private balls were given, which I was +persuaded to attend.”</p> +<p>Sir Walter Scott corresponded for some time with the poetess +before his visit to Lichfield in May, 1807. He wrote in +1805, “believe me, I shall not be within many miles of +Lichfield without paying my personal respects to you, and yet I +should not do it in prudence, because I am afraid you have formed +a higher opinion of me than I deserve; you would expect to see a +person who had dedicated himself much to literary pursuits, and +you would find me a rattle-skulled half-lawyer, half-sportsman, +through whose head a regiment of horse has been <!-- page 46--><a +name="page46"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 46</span>exercising +since he was five years old; half-educated, half-crazy, as his +friends sometimes tell him, half-everything, but entirely Miss +Seward’s much obliged, affectionate and faithful servant, +Walter Scott.”</p> +<p>She wrote of him, “the stranger guest delighted us all +by the unaffected charms of his mind and manners,” and +Scott, Lockhart tells us, “had been, as was natural, +pleased and flattered by the attentions of the Lichfield poetess +in the days of his early aspirations after literary +distinction.”</p> +<p>No one can deny that Anna Seward was the most famous poetess +of her day, but there is, as Sir Walter Scott wrote, “a +fashion in poetry, which, without increasing or diminishing the +real value of the materials moulded upon it, does wonders in +facilitating its currency, while it has novelty, and is often +found to impede its reception when the mode has passed +away.” It must be admitted that her poetry is not +likely ever again to be much read; still, a study of her, and of +the Lichfield <i>Savants</i> of her time, must always be +instructive.</p> +<p>Writing as to the probability of the poems <!-- page 47--><a +name="page47"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 47</span>being much +read, Sir Walter Scott says: “The general reception they +may meet with is dubious, since collectors of occasional and +detached poems have rarely been honoured with a large share of +public favour.”</p> +<p>There is yet, it may be suggested, another reason, which is, +that her poetry was far too artificial, and abounds in words now +unfashionable, even when used in prose.</p> +<p>Anna Seward died 25th March, 1809, and is buried Lichfield +Cathedral, probably in the choir. She had always prayed for +a sudden death, but though this prayer was not literally +answered, she did not long suffer serious illness, for on the +23rd of March she was seized with “an universal +stupor,” which only continued until the 25th.</p> +<p>The poetess has always been known as “The Swan of +Lichfield,” though no one seems to know who gave her the +name.</p> +<p>There are two portraits of Anna Seward, painted by Romney; the +latest particulars with regard to their history and present +ownership is to be found in “Notes and Queries” 10, +s. IX., 218. Her portrait by Kettle is in the possession of +Colonel Sir <!-- page 48--><a name="page48"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 48</span>Robert T. White-Thomson, K.C.B., of +Broomford Manor, Exbourne, N. Devon, and he also possesses a +miniature of her by Miers. It is not known who the painter +was of the portrait forming the frontispiece of this book, which +is the same as the frontispiece to “The Lady’s +Monthly Museum” for March, 1799.</p> +<p>Anna Seward commenced her Will thus:—“I, Anne, or +as I have generally written myself, <i>Anna</i> Seward, daughter +of the late Reverend Thomas Seward, Canon Residentiary of the +Cathedral Church of Lichfield, do make and publish my last Will +and Testament in manner following:—I desire to have a +frugal and private funeral, without any other needless expense +than that of a lead coffin to protect my breathless body. +If the Dean and Chapter shall not object to our family vault in +the choir being once more opened, I desire to be laid at the feet +of my late dear father; but, if they object to disturbing the +choir pavement, I then request to be laid by the side of him who +was my faithful excellent friend, through the course of +thirty-seven years, the late Mr. <!-- page 49--><a +name="page49"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 49</span>John Savile, +in the vault which I made for the protection of his remains in +the burial ground on the south side of the Lichfield Cathedral: I +will that my hereafter executors, or trustees, commission one of +the most approved sculptors to prepare a monument for my late +father and his family, of the value of £500; that with +consent of the Dean and Chapter, they take care the same be +placed in a proper part of Lichfield Cathedral.” The +Will is a very lengthy one, many relations, connections, servants +and friends being remembered in it. Lockhart relates that +“she bequeathed her poetry to Scott, with an injunction to +publish it speedily and prefix a sketch of her life, while she +made her letters (of which she had kept copies) the property of +Mr. Constable, in the assurance that due regard for his own +interests would forthwith place the whole collection before the +admiring world. Scott superintended accordingly the edition +of the lady’s verses, which was published in three volumes +in August, 1810, by John Ballantyne and Co., and Constable lost +no time in announcing her correspondence, <!-- page 50--><a +name="page50"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 50</span>which +appeared a year later, in six volumes.”</p> +<p>As regards the literary correspondence, Lockhart observed, +“no collection of this kind, after all, can be wholly +without value; I have already drawn from it some sufficiently +interesting fragments, as the biographies of other eminent +authors of this time will probably do hereafter under the like +circumstances.”</p> +<p>The <i>Staffordshire Advertiser</i> for July 8th, 1809, +contained the following notice:—“We hear Mr. +Constable intends to publish Miss Seward’s correspondence +before Christmas next; and if the public in general be as anxious +for its appearance as the inhabitants of Lichfield and its +vicinity, it must prove to him a very valuable legacy +indeed.”</p> +<p>A monument, the work of Bacon, was erected in the Cathedral, +commemorating the parents of Anna Seward, her sister Sarah, and +herself. It was originally placed in the north transept, +but is now in the north aisle of the nave. There is a +representation of the poetess mourning her relations, while her +harp hangs, neglected, on a tree.</p> +<p><!-- page 51--><a name="page51"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +51</span>Sir Walter Scott wrote the lines on the monument, which +run as follows:—</p> +<blockquote><p>Amid these Aisles, where once his precepts +showed,<br /> +The heavenward pathway which in life he trode,<br /> +This simple tablet marks a Father’s bier;<br /> +And those he loved in life, in death are near.<br /> +For him, for them, a daughter bade it rise,<br /> +Memorial of domestic charities.<br /> +Still would you know why o’er the marble spread,<br /> +In female grace the willow droops her head;<br /> +Why on her branches, silent and unstrung,<br /> +The minstrel harp, is emblematic hung;<br /> +What Poet’s voice is smother’d here in dust,<br /> +Till waked to join the chorus of the just;<br /> +Lo! one brief line an answer sad supplies—<br /> +Honour’d, belov’d, and mourn’d, here Seward +lies:<br /> +Her worth, her warmth of heart, our sorrows say:<br /> +Go seek her genius in her living lay.</p> +</blockquote> +<h2><!-- page i--><a name="pagei"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +i</span>INDEX.</h2> +<table> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><i>Pages</i></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>André</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page5">5</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page6">6</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page7">7</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page17">17</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Animals</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page33">33</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Anstey</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page15">15</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Austin, Mr. Alfred</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page36">36</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Barry</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page8">8</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Bath</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page13">13</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page14">14</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Bath Easton</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page13">13</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Billington</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page38">38</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page39">39</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Boothby</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page20">20</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Boswell</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page23">23</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page26">26</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Burke</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page31">31</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Butt</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page16">16</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Buxton</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page5">5</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page27">27</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Card playing</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page30">30</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Calvinism</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page37">37</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page38">38</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Cook</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page17">17</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Cowper</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page15">15</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page37">37</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Darwin, Erasmus</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page12">12</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page13">13</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page19">19</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page20">20</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page29">29</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Davies</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page20">20</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Day</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page7">7</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page8">8</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Edgeworth, Family of</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page8">8</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page9">9</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page10">10</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page11">11</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page19">19</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page20">20</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page29">29</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Erskine</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page27">27</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Eyam</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page1">1</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Fellowes</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page38">38</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Garrick</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page14">14</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page16">16</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page23">23</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Gotham</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page11">11</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page12">12</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page42">42</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page44">44</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Graves</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page16">16</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Green</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page4">4</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Handel</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page39">39</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page40">40</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Hayley</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page15">15</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page16">16</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Horse Exercise</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page30">30</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Howard</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page28">28</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page29">29</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Hunter, Family of</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page1">1</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page4">4</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page11">11</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Jerningham</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page16">16</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Johnson, Samuel</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page3">3</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page15">15</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page20">20</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page21">21</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page22">22</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page23">23</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page24">24</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page25">25</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page26">26</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page31">31</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page39">39</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Kettle</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page47">47</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page48">48</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Knowles</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page25">25</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Ladies of Llangollen</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page17">17</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page18">18</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Lang, Mr. Andrew</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page41">41</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Lichfield, Cathedral</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page2">2</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page9">9</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page35">35</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page41">41</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page44">44</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page45">45</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page47">47</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page48">48</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page49">49</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page50">50</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> City</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page12">12</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page44">44</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Lockhart</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page46">46</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page49">49</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page50">50</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>“Louisa”</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page18">18</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Lucas, Mr. E. V.</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page10">10</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page16">16</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page42">42</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Macaulay</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page24">24</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page25">25</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page26">26</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Mansel</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page27">27</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page28">28</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Martin of Gotham</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page11">11</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page12">12</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Methodists</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page38">38</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Miers</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page48">48</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Miller, Lady</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page13">13</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page14">14</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page15">15</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Milton</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page24">24</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page36">36</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>More</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page38">38</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Music</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page38">38</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page39">39</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Newton</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page4">4</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Northumberland, Duchess of</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page15">15</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Novel-reading</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page40">40</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page41">41</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Piozzi</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page21">21</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page22">22</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Pitt</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page32">32</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Pope</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page24">24</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page36">36</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Porter, Family of</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page3">3</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Portraits of Anna Seward</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page47">47</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page48">48</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Religion, Gloomy</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page37">37</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Romney</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page15">15</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page47">47</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Saville</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page27">27</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page35">35</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page49">49</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Scott, Sir Walter</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page20">20</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page35">35</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page45">45</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page46">46</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page47">47</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page49">49</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page51">51</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Sermons</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page42">42</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page43">43</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page44">44</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Seward, Canon</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page1">1</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page2">2</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page9">9</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page19">19</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page50">50</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Seward, Sarah</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page3">3</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page12">12</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page51">51</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Seward, Anna</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"> </p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> Birth of</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page1">1</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> Death of</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page47">47</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> Will of</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page48">48</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> Burial Place of</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page47">47</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page48">48</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page49">49</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> Monument of</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page50">50</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> Relics of</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page47">47</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page48">48</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Sneyd, Honora</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page4">4</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page5">5</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page6">6</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page7">7</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page8">8</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page9">9</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page10">10</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page11">11</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> Marriage of</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page9">9</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> Character of</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page5">5</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page10">10</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page11">11</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> Death of</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page9">9</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> Burial Place of</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page9">9</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Southey</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page15">15</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page36">36</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page37">37</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Vase, The, at Bath Easton</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page13">13</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page14">14</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page15">15</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page16">16</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page17">17</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Vyse</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page20">20</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page32">32</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Warton</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page29">29</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Warwick, Earl of</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page8">8</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Washington</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page6">6</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page7">7</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Whalley</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page16">16</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page17">17</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page25">25</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>White</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page20">20</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>White-Thomson, Sir R. T.</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page47">47</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page48">48</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Wilberforce</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page17">17</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page38">38</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Wit</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page41">41</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Woman’s Rights</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page34">34</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page35">35</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Wordsworth</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page35">35</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page36">36</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +<h2>Footnotes</h2> +<p><a name="footnote20"></a><a href="#citation20" +class="footnote">[20]</a> <span +class="smcap">Note</span>.—It was Thomas White, Prebendary +of Lichfield Cathedral, who married Lucy Hunter, and became the +father of Henry White.</p> +<p><a name="footnote39"></a><a href="#citation39" +class="footnote">[39]</a> Macaulay says that Johnson just +knew the bell of St. Clement’s Church from the organ.</p> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ANNA SEWARD***</p> +<pre> + + +***** This file should be named 26383-h.htm or 26383-h.zip****** + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/6/3/8/26383 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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