She kept up a considerable correspondence
with both of them. Their house at Plas Newydd is described minutely and at great length in one of her letters. It is still standing, and continues to be visited by scores of tourists. Lady Eleanor Butler died in 1829, and Miss Sarah Ponsonby in 1831. One of Anna Seward’s poems is entitled “Llangollen Vale,” and was inscribed to these ladies, as likewise were some more of her verses.
In 1782 Anna Seward produced “Louisa,” a poetical novel in four epistles. It ran through five editions. She says that she received the highest encomiums upon the poem “by the first literary characters of the age.” It is now rarely read. However, the writer of an article in “The Lady’s Monthly Museum” for March, 1799, vol. 2, wrote that, “the story, though interesting enough, is but a secondary object. It is told in strains, which, for energy, voluptuousness, and dignity of description, are rarely found in our language.” The writer further states that “our readers will be amply gratified by a perusal of the whole poem, which is everywhere equally replete with genius and taste,
happy invention, and a luxury of glowing description.”
She found another writer of the time ready to defend her against a reviewer who had brought a charge of “accumulating in her dramatic characters glaring metaphors,” and of aiming “to dazzle by superfluity of ornaments.”
In 1790 Canon Seward died. He was deeply beloved by his daughter, who most dutifully nursed him for some ten years before his death.
Twelve years later Dr. Darwin died suddenly, in the very act of writing a letter to Richard Lovell Edgeworth; and in 1804 Anna Seward published a biographical Memoir of Darwin, in reference to which Sir Walter Scott wrote, “he could not have wished his fame and character entrusted to a pen more capable of doing them ample and, above all, discriminating justice.” She called Darwin her “bright luminary.” On his death she wrote thus:—“His extinction is universally lamented, from the most operative cause of regret; and while disease may no longer turn the eyes of hope
upon his rescuing and restoring skill, the poetic fanes lose a splendid source of ornament; philosophic science, an ingenious and daring dictator; and medicinal art, a pillar of transcendent strength.” The Memoir she called, “The woman’s mite in biography.” This book, notwithstanding Sir Walter Scott’s praise, is, nowadays, considered but a poor piece of writing.
The Lichfield literary circle in Anna Seward’s time included many learned people, for, besides Dr. Darwin, Richard Lovell Edgeworth, and Thomas Day, may be mentioned the two Canons of the Cathedral—Archdeacon Vyse and Canon Sneyd Davies, a poet; the Rev. William Robinson (nicknamed “The Rector” amongst his friends), a great wit, one who could “set the table in a roar”; Sir Brooke Boothby, a poet and politician; her cousin, the Rev. Henry White
[20], Sacrist of Lichfield Cathedral (who married Lucy, the daughter of the Rev. John Hunter by his second wife); and sometimes Dr. Johnson, but his presence was not much appreciated. “There was,” wrote Sir Walter Scott, “some aristocratic prejudice
in their dislike, for the despotic manners of Dr. Johnson were least likely to be tolerated when the lowness of his origin was in fresh recollection.”