Note 146 — EPISTLE TO NATHANIEL LISTER, Esq. OF LICHFIELD, ON HAVING READ HIS VERSES IN MANUSCRIPT, WRITTEN DECEMBER 1786.[141]
Reading edition
l. 1. Source of my life—Rev. Thomas Seward, Canon of Lichfield. In conjunction with Mr Simpson, he published in 1751, an approved Edition of Beaumont and Fletcher’s Plays, with critical notes of much ingenuity. The excellent preface was intirely his. His Female Right to Literature, published in the 2d volume of the first edition of Dodsley’s Miscellany, has been much and justly celebrated. That same volume, p. 302, contains Mr Seward’s Verses on Shakespear’s monument at Stratford-upon-Avon. They do not yield, either in spirit, or beauty, to any panygeric on that great poet, which has been given by our noblest Bards. In the subsequent editions of that Miscellany, there is an idiot alteration in that poem, made by some man, who thought a completer rhyme a good atonement for grossly injuring the sense—
“Nor yet unrival’d the Meonian strain, “The British Eagle, and the Mantuan Swan “Tower equal heights—but happier Stratford thou, &c.”
The editor chose to print Swan Swain, at the expense of all consistency in the metaphor. in Caernarvonshire, are tender, solemn, impressive, and interesting. So is the poem to C. P. It contains the following lines, which speak for themselves.
“—— At this spot, this point, “Here, Pitt,[A] we social meet, and gaze around, “And look back to the scenes our pastimes trod “In life’s fresh morning, when the gamesome hours “Had sliding feet, and laugh’d themselves away. “Luxurious season! vital prime! where Thames “Flows by Etona’s walls, and cheerful sees “Her sons wide swarming;—and where sedgy Cam “Bathes with slow lapse his academic grove; “Pierian walks!—O never, never hope, “Impossible, untenable, to grasp “Those joys again, to feel alike the pulse “Dancing, and fiery spirits boiling high; “Or see the pleasure, that with careless wing “Swept on, and flowery garlands toss’d around, “Disporting. Try to call her back;—as soon “Bid yesterday return, arrest the flight “Of time; or musing on the river’s brink “Say to the wave, that huddles swiftly by “For ever;—“from thy fountain roll anew!”
The late Lord Chatham.