"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.