SIR WALTER SCOTT'S TRIBUTE TO MISS SEWARD. 275

not condemn. Let the painful mystery rest; the benevolent, impulsive heart of Anna Seward may have had its errors, but it had, also, exalted virtues.

She died, after much suffering, on the 25th of March, 1809. The last words she ever penned were in a postscript to Sir Walter Scott.

It is Thursday, and each intervening day since I closed my letter has taken large death-strides upon me.' Two days more she languished, and was then released. Oh what a blessing is sudden death!' she had previously written; 'I always prayed for it, but am not worthy to have my prayer granted.'

'Her friends,' Sir Walter Scott remarks, 'comprised many names distinguished in British literature;' and her death broke up for ever one of those provincial circles which we shall not, in these days of railroads, ever see again. Many were the minor celebrities who hovered round the Cathedral Close: Sir Brook Boothby, an accomplished member of an ancient Derbyshire family; Mr. Mundy, of Markeaton Hall, the gifted author of two beautiful poems, called 'Needwood Forest,'-all vanished from the scene. No longer did Dr. Darwin and Johnson, who, antipodes in matters of faith, growl defiance at each other when, during Johnson's occasional visits, they met. No longer did Hayley flatter nor Savile sing; all was silent in that episcopal home where so many bright spirits had once ministered. The last, and not least, was one of its latest visitants, Walter Scott.

Miss Seward's poems constitute a far less agreeable and important addition to the 'Literature of Society' than her letters, which, full as they are of anecdotes and of discussion, -will be always a valuable commentary on the history of her own times. They have not, however, in other respects, any signal attraction. The language in which she expressed herself is always artificial, and often exaggerated. Self predominates in every epistle. Even in her utmost expressions

of fondness for friends, or regret for their death, she seems to us always to have the publisher, and posthumous reputation, in her eye. Such, unhappily, is too often the case with all literary women; and until such tendencies can be weeded out, neither accomplishments nor learning will secure them from something, in many minds, approaching to disgust.

This voluminous writer bequeathed twelve quarto and manuscript volumes of her letters to Constable of Edinburgh, with injunctions to publish two volumes yearly. They run over the periods between 1784 and 1807. Large as the collection was, it did not comprise a twelfth part of the epistolary writing of the gifted author, yet it filled six volumes.

Her poems were compressed into three volumes by Sir Walter Scott, with the declaration that there was not a line in his possession that might not with honour to her who bequeathed him the MSS., be inserted.'

Amongst the most popular of her poetic works were, her novel in verse, ‘Louisa,' which passed into two editions, and her monody on the death of Major André, and her collection of original sonnets, published in 1799.

These poems are written with facility and ease, but show none of that high genius which secures immortality. But, as a biographer, Miss Seward was delightful. Her life of Darwin, and her description of the society at Lichfield, are truly animated and characteristic.

Upon Darwin, whom Scott calls the Poet of Flora, the stain rests, as Sir Walter declares, of having inserted the first fifty verses of Miss Seward's poetry in the Botanic Garden without acknowledgment. In this respect only, except that Darwin was the first person to induce her to write verses, are the works of Anna Seward and of the author of the Loves of the Plants' connected. On the merits of that poem, once so celebrated, now so forgotten, it lies not within

SUPPOSED LITERARY THEFT.

the compass of our plan to enter.

277

It has far more of science

in it than of poetry. If success in a monetary point of view could have secured it immortality, it would not have been wanting. Dr. Darwin received large sums both for his poetic and philosophic works. The philosophy he professed has been found false and superficial, and is out of date. The poetry is no longer suited to the noble simplicity of taste which honours the manliness of Tennyson's verse. What can be expected from the poet who preferred, as Darwin did, Akenside's blank verse to that of Milton?

Much solicitude was shown by Miss Seward for the preservation of her MS. poems, as well as for her letters. Even during her life she had, however, to complain of what she calls 'sonnet forgery,' and discovered what she calls an 'illegitimate sonnet,' with her name inscribed as its authoress, in the Gentleman's Magazine' for August, 1804. The lines were addressed to a Mr. Dimond, of whose poetic existence she had never heard, and begun,-in a pun, which almost drove her mad, Bright Dimond!' Then she complains, with as much vehemence as a certain writer has lately done in Macmillan's Magazine,' of certain false anecdotes of her in the sixth volume of Public Characters:' alleging that she who could never sing a note in her whole life, had a rare gift of singing. These forgeries and misstatements show, however, how large was the fame she enjoyed: a fame, we must remark, immeasurably extended in proportion to her literary merits, and due, chiefly, to her influence on social life-to her cheerfulness, her encouragement of others, her sympathy, and her personal and mental charms. As a poetess, Sir Walter Scott well describes Miss Seward's 'style,' whilst he hints at her defects :

6

Miss Seward,' he says, 'was in practice trained and attached to that school of picturesque and florid description, of lofty metaphor, and bold personification; of a diction which inversion and the use of compound epithets, rendered as remote

278 PURER TASTE IN OUR TIME THAN IN MISS SEWARD'S.

as possible from the tone of ordinary language, which was introduced, or at least considered fashionable, by Darwin, but which was too remote from common life, and natural expression to retain its popularity.'

Happy indeed is it that this modern euphuism is already obsolete, and that a simpler and purer taste has superseded that for Miss Seward's Odes' or for Darwin's Loves of the Plants.'

CHAPTER XI.

THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON.

ANSTEY'S NEW BATH GUIDE;' EXTRACTS FROM IT.-BATH IN OLDEN TIMES.— COLMAN AND HIS BROAD GRINS.' GEORGE THE FOURTH AND COLMAN. GEORGE COLMAN'S CENSORSHIP. — LAURENCE STERNE ; HIS LIFE. HIS GRANDFATHER THE ARCHBISHOP. STERNE'S CARELESSNESS OF HIS DUTIES. HIS TRISTRAM SHANDY.'-BURTON'S 'ANATOMY OF MELANCHOLY.' STERNE'S PLAGIARISMS. - HIS PASSION FOR