and imitations of Horace, although she knew no Latin. In 1788 she wrote a sermon for a young clergyman, who preached it, and it was probably not the sole composition of the kind she attempted (cf. Gent. Mag. 1801, i. 113, 195, 396).
Besides the portrait by Romney, already mentioned, which seems to have been engraved both by Woolnoth and Ridley, Miss Seward sat for a miniature to Smart in 1771 and to Miers in 1777. A portrait painted in 1762 by Kettle, and engraved by Cardon, forms a frontispiece to the first volume of the letters, and was in 1811 in the possession of Thomas White of Lichfield.
[Scott's memoir, prefixed to the poems, 1810; Miss Seward's Letters, 6 vols. 1811; A Swan and her Friends, by E. V. Lucas, 1907; authorities cited.]
SEWARD, THOMAS (1708–1790), canon of Lichfield and of Salisbury, son of John Seward of Badsey, Worcestershire, born in 1708, was admitted a foundation scholar of Westminster school in 1723. He was elected by the school to scholarships at Christ Church, Oxford, and Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1727, but upon his rejection by both universities he became a pensioner of St. John's College, Cambridge, where he graduated B.A. in 1730 and M.A. in 1734; then he became travelling tutor to Lord Charles Fitzroy, third son of the Duke of Grafton, who died while on the tour in Italy in 1739 (cf. Walpole, Letters, ed. Cunningham, viii. 415). The Duke of Grafton subsequently promised some preferment for Seward. He became rector of Eyam, Derbyshire, and Kingsley, Staffordshire. He also obtained the prebend of Bubbenhall in the church of Lichfield, though the date of his admission does not appear, and on 30 April 1755 he was collated to the prebend of Pipa Parva in the same church. He was installed in the prebend of Lyme and Halstock in the church of Salisbury on 5 June 1755. He resided at Lichfield from 1754, and was acquainted with Dr. Johnson, whom he used to entertain on his visits to Lichfield. Boswell describes him as a great valetudinarian, and ‘a genteel, well-bred, dignified clergyman, who had lived much in the great world.’ In 1779 he was portrayed as the Canon in the novel ‘Columella,’ by Richard Graves (1715–1804) [q. v.] He died at the bishop's palace, Lichfield, on 4 March 1790. He married Elizabeth, daughter of the Rev. John Hunter, headmaster of Lichfield grammar school, and was father of Anna Seward [q. v.], the authoress, who caused a monument to be erected to her parents in Lichfield Cathedral. The monument was executed by Bacon, and the verses which form part of the epitaph were the composition of Sir Walter Scott. His portrait, painted by Wright of Derby, was engraved by Cromell for Miss Seward's ‘Letters,’ vol. ii.
Seward edited, in conjunction with Sympson, the ‘Works’ of Beaumont and Fletcher, and wrote the preface, 10 vols. London, 1750, 8vo. It was a poor performance; Coleridge exclaimed in his ‘Lectures on Shakespeare’ (p. 146): ‘Mr. Seward! Mr. Seward! you may be, and I trust you are, an angel, but you were an ass!’ ‘The Female Right to Literature’ and four other poems by Seward were printed in Dodsley's ‘Collection,’ ii. 296–308 (cf. Gent. Mag. 1780, p. 123). Seward also published:
- ‘The Conformity between Popery and Paganism,’ London, 1746, 8vo [cf. Middleton, Conyers].
- A curious sermon, preached at Lichfield in 1756, entitled ‘The late dreadful Earthquakes no proof of God's particular Wrath against the Portuguese.’
[Boswell's Johnson, ed. Hill; Gent. Mag. 1790 i. 280, 369; Graduati Cantabr.; Le Neve's Fasti, ed. Hardy, i. 588, 621, ii. 672; Nichols's Illustr. of Lit.; Nichols's Lit. Anecd.; Welch's Alumni Westmon., ed. Phillimore, pp. 281, 296.]
SEWARD, WILLIAM (1747–1799), man of letters, the only son of William Seward (partner in the firm of Calvert & Seward, then the chief brewers of beer in London), was born in January 1747. When very young he was trained at a small seminary near Cripplegate, and he is said to have been at Harrow school in December 1757 (Thornton, Harrow School, pp. 136–8). For a time he was at Charterhouse school, and on 4 June 1764 he matriculated from Oriel College, Oxford. As he was possessed of considerable property and had no taste for trade, he declined, to his father's dismay, to continue in the family business.
On quitting the university Seward travelled on the continent, particularly in Italy, and then returned to London with a confirmed love of literature and the fine arts, and a pronounced tendency to hypochondria. He invariably spent the winter in London and the summer in the country (Burney, Memoirs, iii. 265). He was a great favourite in the house of the Thrales at Streatham, where Dr. Johnson often met him. To Johnson's rooms in London he was a frequent visitor, and he was among the friends that attended the doctor's funeral. Parr consulted him on Johnson's epitaph, and Seward made a suggestion which was adopted. With letters of recommendation from Johnson to
