Anna Seward Part 2

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 a.s.siduous 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 pa.s.sion, 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 pa.s.sed-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 G.o.d": she herself styled it "n.o.ble and transcendent," she wrote, "I pa.s.sed through York, and heard choral service in the n.o.blest 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, b.a.l.l.s and suppers at our Inns, cards and feasting within our houses." And again, "Lichfield has been of late wondrous gay. Six private b.a.l.l.s 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 pa.s.sed 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 a.s.surance 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 circ.u.mstances."

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.