THE AUTHOR OF THE MONODY.
Anna Seward, the abiding friend and ever-faithful correspondent of Major André until his death, was a daughter of Thomas Seward, the canon-resident of Lichfield Cathedral. She was born at Eyam, in Derbyshire, England, in 1747. Her education, superior to that of most girls of her time, was superintended by her father, who was a graduate of Oxford, a man of great moral worth, and noted for his scholarship.
Miss Seward evinced a taste and a genius for poetic composition at a very early age, and before she reached the period of young womanhood she attracted the attention of local literary characters. She became a great favorite of Dr. Samuel Johnson, who was a native of Lichfield and was a frequent guest at the house of her father. On one occasion, when she was about fourteen years of age, she wrote a clever poetical address of welcome to Dr. Johnson, which greatly pleased the recipient. Miss Seward is often incidentally mentioned in Boswell's "Life of Johnson." Writing of a visit at Mr. Seward's in 1775, when Anna was twenty-eight years of age, Boswell, Johnson's shadow, says, "And now, for the first time, I had the pleasure of seeing his celebrated daughter, Miss Anna Seward, to whom I have since been indebted for many civilities."
Miss Seward's first acquaintance with young André, her interest in his love-affair with Honora Sneyd, and her pleasant epistolary and personal intercourse with him until his departure for America, have been referred to in the early portions of the brief notice of that young soldier's career contained in this volume. During his service in America she was his constant correspondent; and she first informed him of the death of Honora a short time before his own tragic exit from earth.
The circumstances attending the death of her friend inspired Miss Seward to write her most notable and most admired poem, "Monody on Major André." She was then thirty-three years old. It was printed for the author at Lichfield early in 1781. Being consonant in its utterances with the feelings of the British public at that time, it had a large sale, and produced a powerful sensation. She received congratulatory letters from literary people and others in various parts of the kingdom. No man was more delighted with it than was Dr. Johnson, "the colossus of English literature."
Johnson was a fierce Tory, and hated the Americans with a spirit of savage ferocity. On one occasion, while at Lichfield, he said, "I am willing to love all mankind, excepting an American." He called them "rascals," "robbers and pirates," and angrily exclaimed, "I'd burn and destroy them!" Boswell says Miss Seward, who was present at this outburst of passion, and whose feelings were favorable to the American cause, boldly rebuked Johnson, saying, "Sir, this is an instance that we are most violent against those we have most injured." This delicate but keen reproach irritated Johnson still more, and, says Boswell, "he roared out another tremendous volley, which one might fancy could be heard across the Atlantic." But Johnson and Anna Seward remained good friends until a short time before the death of the former. They corresponded with each other, and frequently met in social circles.
I have said Dr. Johnson was delighted by Miss Seward's "Monody." He exhibited that delight in the most public manner by writing and publishing in the "Gentleman's Magazine," over his own signature, the following poetic epistle to the author:
"To Miss Seward, on her Monody on Major André:
"Above the frigid etiquette of form,
With the same animated feelings warm,
I come, fair maid, enamored of thy lays,
With tribute verse, to swell the note of praise.
Nor let the gentle Julia's[65] hand disclaim
The bold intrusion of an honest strain.
Nor is it mine alone—'tis the full voice
Of such as honor with no vulgar choice,[66]
Of such as feel each glowing line along
Once the bright subject of an humble song.[67]
The treasures of the female heart make known
By copying the soft movements of her own.
Woman should walk arrayed in her own robe,
The hope, the boast, the blessing of the globe.
"Shrewsbury. S. Johnson."
Miss Seward's "Monody" was dedicated to Sir Henry Clinton. To it were appended three letters written to her by young André immediately after his betrothal to and personal separation from Honora Sneyd. These I have appended to the "Monody," The printed copy of that poem, before me, bears the autograph signature of Anna Seward at the end.
It was not long after Johnson's poetical epistle to the author of the "Monody" appeared before an interruption of the goodly feeling between him and his fair friend occurred. In 1782 Johnson's "Lives of the British Poets" appeared, in which he severely criticised the poetry of her cherished friend Thomas Hayley. Ever ready and prompt to defend heroically those she had learned to esteem, she instantly took fire at the attack, and she wrote letters to her friends which were far from complimentary to Johnson. To Hayley she wrote:
"You have seen Dr. Johnson's 'Lives of the Poets.' They have excited your generous indignation. A heart like Hayley's would shrink astonished to perceive a mind so enriched with the power of genius capable of such cool malignity. Yet the 'Gentleman's Magazine' praised these unworthy efforts to blight the laurels of undoubted fame. Oh, that the venom may fall where it ought!"
Animadversions by Miss Seward more severe than this found their way, without her consent, into the public prints, and deeply offended Dr. Johnson. The breach thus made was never healed. Miss Seward refused to retract a word, but persisted in her utterances. Sometimes, even after the death of Dr. Johnson, in 1784, they were spiced with attacks upon his personal character. These attacks drew from Boswell a defense of his dead friend, whom he almost adored, and in 1793 he and Miss Seward carried on a spirited controversy in the "Gentleman's Magazine."
Miss Seward's writings in verse and prose were quite voluminous. The latter, consisting of her literary correspondence from 1784 to 1807, was published in six volumes in the latter year. Her poetical works, with extracts from her literary correspondence, edited by Sir Walter Scott, were published in three volumes in 1810. Next to her "Monody," in point of excellence and popularity, was her "Elegy on Captain James Cook," the famous circumnavigator of the globe. Of this performance Sir Walter Scott said, "It conveyed a high impression of the original power of the author."
The literary fame of Anna Seward has not been enduring, and she, who was a conspicuous figure in the world of letters in England during the last quarter of the eighteenth century, is now almost forgotten. Her known social relations to Major André, and her "Monody," have perpetuated her memory in the minds of Americans. It is said that, when she was fully informed of all the circumstances connected with the death of André, she was satisfied that she had been unjust toward Washington in her animadversions upon his character in her poem, and expressed a regret that she had so misjudged him.
Miss Seward, in a letter to her friend Miss Ponsonby, related that several years after the peace a friend of Washington's, an American officer, introduced himself to her (Miss Seward), saying he was commissioned by General Washington to call upon her and assure her that no circumstance of his life had been so mortifying as to be censured in the "Monody" on André as the pitiless author of his ignominious fate; that he had labored to save him; and that he requested his friend to leave with Miss Seward a package of papers which he had sent, consisting of copies of the records of the court-martial, etc. "The American officer referred to," says Sargent, "is supposed to have been Colonel Humphreys."
Various opinions have been expressed concerning the writings of Miss Seward. The literary circle of Lichfield, of which she was the central figure, appears to have been a mutual-admiration society. The productions of each member appear to have been eulogized by every other member. Her friend, the celebrated Dr. Erasmus Darwin, declared that she was "the inventress of epic elegy"; the eccentric philosopher Day called her a "prodigy of genius"; while the wits of London gently ridiculed the pretensions of the literary Lichfieldians. Horace Walpole wrote: "Misses Seward and Williams, and a half a dozen more of these harmonious virgins, have no imagination, no novelty. Their thoughts and phrases are like their gowns—old remnants cut and turned." The Rev. Alexander Dyce wrote: "She was endowed with considerable genius, and with an ample portion of that fine enthusiasm which sometimes may be taken for it; but her taste was far from good, and her numerous productions (a few excepted) are disfigured by florid ornament and elaborate magnificence."
After Miss Seward's death, in 1809, there was published a small volume with the title of "The Beauties of Anna Seward." She died a maiden. The portrait preceding this brief memoir is a carefully drawn copy with pen and ink of an engraving by A. Carden, from the original picture painted in 1763, when she was sixteen years of age, by Tilly Kettle, an English portrait-painter of note, who was then only about twenty-three years of age.