Had she lived now, she probably would have approved of women having votes, for, concerning a book published in her life-time, entitled, “Rights of Woman,” she wrote:—“It has, by turns, pleased and displeased, startled, and half-convinced me that its author is oftener right than wrong. Though the ideas of absolute equality in the sexes are carried too far, and though they certainly militate against St. Paul’s maxims concerning that important compact, yet they do expose a train of mischievous mistakes in the education of females.” We may note that Tom Paine, “the greatest of pamphleteers,” died in 1809, whose pamphlets, “The Rights of Man,” and “The Age of Reason,” achieved great success. Anna Seward sympathised with the views expressed in his books on the French Revolution, though she
considered many of his views on politics far too fanciful to be put into practice; moreover, she thought they would, if adopted, “ruin the earth.”
Her affection for a Mr. Saville (“a man of sense, and a scholar”) who was for 48 years Vicar-choral of Lichfield Cathedral, appears to have been merely platonic, though deep and sincere. In a letter dated August 31st, 1803, she tells us that, “the dearest friend I had on earth, passed in one quarter of an hour, from apparent health and even gay vivacity, to the silence and ghastliness of death.” He died August 2nd, 1803, aged 67 years. She erected a monument to his memory in the Cathedral, and composed the verses inscribed on it. His vault is on the south side of the green surrounding the Cathedral.
In a letter to Sir Walter Scott, written in 1807, the poetess remarks that her “astonishment and disgust” rose to their utmost height while she read Wordsworth’s poem, “The Daffodils”—“dancing daffodils, ten thousand, as he says, in high dance in the breeze beside the river, whose waves dance with
them, and the poet’s heart, we are told, danced too.” She deemed this unnatural writing, and mentions some of his verses she liked, notably the “Leech-Gatherer.” If he had written nothing else, that composition might stamp him, she thought, a poet of no common powers. Lovers of poetry generally, however, think “The Daffodils” one of the most beautiful poems ever written.
Mr. Alfred Austin, the Laureate of our own day, has recently written in an article, entitled, “The Essentials of Great Poetry,” that the English masters of song are, Chaucer, Spencer, Shakespeare, Milton, and Byron, and he tells us that only the merest fraction of Wordsworth’s work is real poetry. Anna Seward would seem to have agreed with the selection of these names, if we substitute Pope for Byron. However, the latter was, we must recollect, only born in 1788. She would surely have welcomed Mr. Austin’s estimate of Wordsworth! Anna Seward considered Southey’s genius, beyond comparison, superior to that of Wordsworth. She wrote in 1796, “This is the age of wonders. A great one has lately
arisen in the poetical world—the most extraordinary that ever appeared, as to juvenile powers, except that of the ill-starred Chatterton—Southey’s Joan of Arc, an epic poem of strength and beauty, by a youth of twenty.” Cowper was, to her mind, a vapourish egotist and a fanatic. She hated his Calvinism, and thought that the spirit of scornful denunciation everywhere prevails when Cowper reprehends the errors of mankind. Still, in answer to a request for her opinion of Cowper, she wrote, “He appears to me at once a fascinating, and a great poet; as a descriptive one, hardly excelled;” but she would not allow that his constitutional melancholy was any excuse for his misantrophy. She writes, “Dante is the only poetic author of high reputation, whom I cannot understand. Were you not struck with the inherent cruelty of that mind which could delight in suggesting pains and penalties at once so odious and so horrid?” We may remember that Dante has stated that “I found the original of my hell in the world which we inhabit.”
She did not like “gloomy religionists,” as
she called the Calvinists. One acquaintance she evidently did not care for, because he talked “methodistically.” Hannah More, she lamented, “exposed herself to the reproach of that absurd and intolerant Methodism with which I have long believed her tainted.” She wrote to the Rev. R. Fellowes; “the eminent champion in our day of true and perfect Christianity,”—“How happily have you removed that dire impediment to rational faith, the doctrine of original sin, which the revived Calvinistic school, of which Mr. Wilberforce is the head, so injudiciously presses upon the attention of the public. . . . The licentious, or giddy votaries of fashion, wish to have an excuse for persisting in their career, and think they have found it in the dark and cruel difficulties in which resumed Calvinism involves Christianity.”
Anna Seward did not sing, but enjoyed music. She learnt, late in life, to handle the harpsichord sufficiently well to play it in little private concerts. Musical festivals she frequented, and admired Elizabeth Billington’s singing.