John Savile, in the vault which I made for the protection of his remains in the burial ground on the south side of the Lichfield Cathedral: I will that my hereafter executors, or trustees, commission one of the most approved sculptors to prepare a monument for my late father and his family, of the value of £500; that with consent of the Dean and Chapter, they take care the same be placed in a proper part of Lichfield Cathedral.” The Will is a very lengthy one, many relations, connections, servants and friends being remembered in it. Lockhart relates that “she bequeathed her poetry to Scott, with an injunction to publish it speedily and prefix a sketch of her life, while she made her letters (of which she had kept copies) the property of Mr. Constable, in the assurance that due regard for his own interests would forthwith place the whole collection before the admiring world. Scott superintended accordingly the edition of the lady’s verses, which was published in three volumes in August, 1810, by John Ballantyne and Co., and Constable lost no time in announcing her correspondence,
which appeared a year later, in six volumes.”
As regards the literary correspondence, Lockhart observed, “no collection of this kind, after all, can be wholly without value; I have already drawn from it some sufficiently interesting fragments, as the biographies of other eminent authors of this time will probably do hereafter under the like circumstances.”
The Staffordshire Advertiser for July 8th, 1809, contained the following notice:—“We hear Mr. Constable intends to publish Miss Seward’s correspondence before Christmas next; and if the public in general be as anxious for its appearance as the inhabitants of Lichfield and its vicinity, it must prove to him a very valuable legacy indeed.”
A monument, the work of Bacon, was erected in the Cathedral, commemorating the parents of Anna Seward, her sister Sarah, and herself. It was originally placed in the north transept, but is now in the north aisle of the nave. There is a representation of the poetess mourning her relations, while her harp hangs, neglected, on a tree.
Sir Walter Scott wrote the lines on the monument, which run as follows:—
Amid these Aisles, where once his precepts showed,
The heavenward pathway which in life he trode,
This simple tablet marks a Father’s bier;
And those he loved in life, in death are near.
For him, for them, a daughter bade it rise,
Memorial of domestic charities.
Still would you know why o’er the marble spread,
In female grace the willow droops her head;
Why on her branches, silent and unstrung,
The minstrel harp, is emblematic hung;
What Poet’s voice is smother’d here in dust,
Till waked to join the chorus of the just;
Lo! one brief line an answer sad supplies—
Honour’d, belov’d, and mourn’d, here Seward lies:
Her worth, her warmth of heart, our sorrows say:
Go seek her genius in her living lay.
INDEX.
| Pages | |
| André | [5], [6], [7], [17] |
| Animals | [33] |
| Anstey | [15] |
| Austin, Mr. Alfred | [36] |
| Barry | [8] |
| Bath | [13], [14] |
| Bath Easton | [13] |
| Billington | [38], [39] |
| Boothby | [20] |
| Boswell | [23], [26] |
| Burke | [31] |
| Butt | [16] |
| Buxton | [5], [27] |
| Card playing | [30] |
| Calvinism | [37], [38] |
| Cook | [17] |
| Cowper | [15], [37] |
| Darwin, Erasmus | [12], [13], [19], [20], [29] |
| Davies | [20] |
| Day | [7], [8] |
| Edgeworth, Family of | [8], [9], [10], [11], [19], [20], [29] |
| Erskine | [27] |
| Eyam | [1] |
| Fellowes | [38] |
| Garrick | [14], [16], [23] |
| Gotham | [11], [12], [42], [44] |
| Graves | [16] |
| Green | [4] |
| Handel | [39], [40] |
| Hayley | [15], [16] |
| Horse Exercise | [30] |
| Howard | [28], [29] |
| Hunter, Family of | [1], [4], [11] |
| Jerningham | [16] |
| Johnson, Samuel | [3], [15], [20], [21], [22], [23], [24], [25], [26], [31], [39] |
| Kettle | [47], [48] |
| Knowles | [25] |
| Ladies of Llangollen | [17], [18] |
| Lang, Mr. Andrew | [41] |
| Lichfield, Cathedral | [2], [9], [35], [41], [44], [45], [47], [48], [49], [50] |
| City | [12], [44] |
| Lockhart | [46], [49], [50] |
| “Louisa” | [18] |
| Lucas, Mr. E. V. | [10], [16], [42] |
| Macaulay | [24], [25], [26] |
| Mansel | [27], [28] |
| Martin of Gotham | [11], [12] |
| Methodists | [38] |
| Miers | [48] |
| Miller, Lady | [13], [14], [15] |
| Milton | [24], [36] |
| More | [38] |
| Music | [38], [39] |
| Newton | [4] |
| Northumberland, Duchess of | [15] |
| Novel-reading | [40], [41] |
| Piozzi | [21], [22] |
| Pitt | [32] |
| Pope | [24], [36] |
| Porter, Family of | [3] |
| Portraits of Anna Seward | [47], [48] |
| Religion, Gloomy | [37] |
| Romney | [15], [47] |
| Saville | [27], [35], [49] |
| Scott, Sir Walter | [20], [35], [45], [46], [47], [49], [51] |
| Sermons | [42], [43], [44] |
| Seward, Canon | [1], [2], [9], [19], [50] |
| Seward, Sarah | [3], [12], [51] |
| Seward, Anna | |
| Birth of | [1] |
| Death of | [47] |
| Will of | [48] |
| Burial Place of | [47], [48], [49] |
| Monument of | [50] |
| Relics of | [47], [48] |
| Sneyd, Honora | [4], [5], [6], [7], [8], [9], [10], [11] |
| Marriage of | [9] |
| Character of | [5], [10], [11] |
| Death of | [9] |
| Burial Place of | [9] |
| Southey | [15], [36], [37] |
| Vase, The, at Bath Easton | [13], [14], [15], [16], [17] |
| Vyse | [20], [32] |
| Warton | [29] |
| Warwick, Earl of | [8] |
| Washington | [6], [7] |
| Whalley | [16], [17], [25] |
| White | [20] |
| White-Thomson, Sir R. T. | [47], [48] |
| Wilberforce | [17], [38] |
| Wit | [41] |
| Woman’s Rights | [34], [35] |
| Wordsworth | [35], [36] |