Anna Seward, and Classic LichfieldMartin, Stapleton
History
Anna Seward, and Classic Lichfield
Martin, Stapleton
English poetry -- 18th century -- History and criticism; Seward, Anna, 1742-1809; Women poets -- Biography
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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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