1592997946000 1558451347000 Standard Record object-110005526 1747159851945 1681744061000 1747159409017 adlib fitz-online adlib-object-110005526 https://data.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/id/object/110005526 43ce09bf-f916-3762-b712-3f5c321462ac 5 person reference agent-192551 adlib-agent-192551 b494e74a-20ec-3ce9-be5f-3267eaba4253 Seward, Anna person reference agent-198502 adlib-agent-198502 b67bd5fa-4f2a-302b-afaa-81f4c4f45ec8 Hayley, Eliza person reference agent-192537 adlib-agent-192537 d5687729-51f9-3b8b-a80c-fcaefd5b4dfe Darwin, Erasmus person reference agent-199381 adlib-agent-199381 3b66e96a-4029-38e0-a2ac-9ef04f015e58 Harward, Charles person reference agent-198991 adlib-agent-198991 6704da4c-9ab6-3716-8ebd-8a5d62c1c5ab Saville, John person reference agent-198972 adlib-agent-198972 920da6ce-e8e0-3b0e-94df-aef3bd9411e9 Seward, Thomas content description Hayley opens with an "Impromptu" (six 4-line stanzas) thanking Seward for sending the completed version of her epistolary novel in verse, "Louisa". It concludes by describing Pope's Eloisa, Prior's Emma and Seward's Louisa "as Archetypes of Art", who will "to the End of Time obtain/ The Homage of the Heart". "Tho she [Louisa] has been but a few Hours under our Roof," Hayley continues, "we have surveyed Her again & again still with Encreasing affection & delight. Tho I see you have retaines some Lines that I wished you to omit, I sincerely protest to you, that yr poem is altogether so beautiful, I have no sentiments towards you but those of affectionate admiration." He continues: "Yr delightful present arrived at a happy Hour to relieve us from the teizing vexation of some legal perplexities, & the magic of yr Muse soon banished from our Thoughts all the demons of iniquitous Litigation & the black Gentleman at their Head" [this is a reference to Eliza Hayley's brother-in-law, Charles Harward, Dean of Chichester, and Eliza's mother's will]. Hayley writes that Seward's "Force of Language" in "Louisa" is "as powerful as the Colouring of Rubens, & by the Truth & delicacy of Sentiment as Chaste as the designs of Raphael," and continues "you have raised a few ordinary occurrences of Life into a most beautiful and pathetic Composition which forms in itself a new Class in the arrangements of Literature; if yr Friend Darwin adored you, as the Inventress of the Epic Elegy, He ought to renew his Adorations to the Inventress of the Poetical Novel --- Indeed if Litchfield were a part of antient Attica, instead of Modern England, we should soon behold yr Statue, surrounded by Enthusiastic Admirers in the Midst of yr native City.---" He then adds another three stanzas which conclude "Still in the arts of War & Peace (If I may speak a free word) Old England triumphs over Greece, And Sappho yields to Seward.---" The latter part of the letter thanks Seward for her "charming long letter", asks if "the song & the plants" Hayley sent to Hayward for John Saville "arrived safe at Litchfield", and concludes "we were deeply grieved by yr account of yr Lameness ... I fear we shall be two poetical Cripples ... Coragio! - let us scramble on together over the rough Rock of Parnassus". Hayley/XII/40 1 accession number Hayley/XII/40 110005526 priref 110005526 uri https://data.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/id/object/110005526 https://data.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/id/object/110005526 reference agent-149638 adlib-agent-149638 7376d833-d0a7-3be0-916e-9c892b7a24d8 The Fitzwilliam Museum 1784 1784 1784 1784-01-14 1784 Date from postmark 1 1784 1784 1784 reference agent-198487 adlib-agent-198487 4dbae6db-a725-3bfd-b34e-5d215b1a85e6 Hayley, William 2 sheets, stitched together. William Hayley to Anna Seward: letter object OBJECT