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.