{"admin":{"added":1592997946000,"created":1556799826000,"flag":"Standard Record","id":"object-110005516","indexed":1747159852005,"modified":1681742637000,"processed":1747159409017,"source":"adlib","stream":"fitz-online","uid":"adlib-object-110005516","uri":"https:\/\/data.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk\/id\/object\/110005516","uuid":"b9280703-170f-37ba-a5b1-abb55db39926","version":5},"agents":[{"@link":{"relation":"person","type":"reference"},"admin":{"id":"agent-192551","uid":"adlib-agent-192551","uuid":"b494e74a-20ec-3ce9-be5f-3267eaba4253"},"summary_title":"Seward, Anna"},{"@link":{"relation":"person","type":"reference"},"admin":{"id":"agent-198683","uid":"adlib-agent-198683","uuid":"7e8947bd-8aa7-3fbc-8d50-d176e429f260"},"summary_title":"Long, William FRS, FSA"},{"@link":{"relation":"person","type":"reference"},"admin":{"id":"agent-199104","uid":"adlib-agent-199104","uuid":"f51109c2-99a2-365f-8b1d-e9d302037daa"},"summary_title":"Knowles, Mary"},{"@link":{"relation":"person","type":"reference"},"admin":{"id":"agent-198502","uid":"adlib-agent-198502","uuid":"b67bd5fa-4f2a-302b-afaa-81f4c4f45ec8"},"summary_title":"Hayley, Eliza"},{"@link":{"relation":"person","type":"reference"},"admin":{"id":"agent-198991","uid":"adlib-agent-198991","uuid":"6704da4c-9ab6-3716-8ebd-8a5d62c1c5ab"},"summary_title":"Saville, John"}],"content":{"description":[{"type":"content description","value":"Hayley thanks Seward for writing at \"such affectionate Length, while you are riding in the Whirlwind of Dissipation\" (Seward is in London). \n\nSeward has tried to assist Hayley in a project to encourage someone (unnamed) to \"present a few hundred pounds to a divine actress\": the idea of which was \"to a poor Poets Imagination so sublimely captivating ... that I could not help trying the possibility of accomplishing so splendid a project.-- it has failed.--- but I still feel a degree of pleasure in having made the attempt, & particularly in the affectionate ardour, with which you have assisted my design\".\n\nShe has also written a critique of Hayley's tragedy \"Marcella\", which would be published in his \"Plays of Three Acts; Written for a Private Theatre\" (1784), and which was drawn from a story told to his friend Thornton \"by his relation Mr. Young, (the calumniated son of the sublime poet\" [Hayley's \"Memoirs\", vol1, p 180]. Hayley defends his choice of making \"that naughty Creature Hernandez ... ugly & old: --- but might not some rigid critics have said, that we violated poetical probability, if the Rogue had been young & handsome?\"\n\nHe continues \"when I first read the tragic Story, with all its unsoftened Enormities, it appeared to me very highly dramatic, & the Heroine, tho guilty both of Murder & Adultery, laid hold of my Heart, & drew from me the Tears of Compassion.---\n\nMore delicate judges of human Nature, exclaimed against Her- 'Such an infernal Jade could deserve no Pity\" I therefore endeavoured to whitewash my Heroine, but perhaps, in that dangerous Experiment, I have ruined the Story. SHakespeare, I am persuaded, would have been bold enough to paint Her in all her Guilt, & at the same Time happy enough to invest Her with supreme dominion over the Mind, & perhaps over the Heart, of the most dainty Spectator.\"\n\nSeward has also cricised the tone of Hayley's work. \" As to the Tone of tragic Language in general,\" he continues, \" I cannot bring myself to think, or rather to feel exactly as you do on this article.-- You have a strong adopted passion for an equal strain of highly ornamented Expression - many critics consider it as the Essence of Poetry -- Perhaps you are all perfectly right I can only say it affects me in a veryt different Manner - Simplicity is to me one of the most attractive charms in Composition, & particularly in domestic Tragedy; but in attempting to catch this most coy & fugitive Grace, I have Sunk perhaps (as her Followers often do) into the Snares of Insipidity ---\"\n\nHayley then switches subject to say that he is \"not surprised to find you wearied by the Racket of London --- it is not the Element for Poets --- Whenever I am caught & put into the hot & crowded Rooms of that City, I feel like a poor Cat in an Air-Pump...\". He then proposes that Seward takes \"the fair Quaker Mrs Knowles by the Hand\" and trips \"into a Post Chaise about six o clock one of these fine Mornings & reach Eartham by dinner Time!-- perhaps you may tempt the dear Longinus to play the Knight Errant, & escort two such fair & sprightly Travellers to our Castle, where you are all sure of finding not indeed a sumptious Banquet, but a most cordial Welcome -- Eliza joins me in this request...\""}]},"identifier":[{"accession_number":"Hayley\/XII\/30","primary":true,"type":"accession number","value":"Hayley\/XII\/30"},{"priref":"110005516","type":"priref","value":"110005516"},{"type":"uri","uri":"https:\/\/data.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk\/id\/object\/110005516","value":"https:\/\/data.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk\/id\/object\/110005516"}],"institutions":[{"@link":{"type":"reference"},"admin":{"id":"agent-149638","uid":"adlib-agent-149638","uuid":"7376d833-d0a7-3be0-916e-9c892b7a24d8"},"summary_title":"The Fitzwilliam Museum"}],"lifecycle":{"creation":[{"date":[{"earliest":1783,"latest":1783,"value":"1783-04-08"}],"maker":[{"@link":{"type":"reference"},"admin":{"id":"agent-198487","uid":"adlib-agent-198487","uuid":"4dbae6db-a725-3bfd-b34e-5d215b1a85e6"},"summary_title":"Hayley, William"}]}]},"measurements":{"dimensions":[{"value":"1 sheet, folded."}]},"summary_title":"William Hayley to Anna Seward: letter","title":[{"value":"William Hayley to Anna Seward: letter"}],"type":{"base":"object","type":"OBJECT"}}