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.