University of Virginia Library

This Poem was written on the terrace walk of the Palace garden at Lichfield, soon after the death of the Author's only sister, who died at 19, on the eve of her intended marriage.

This, and all other Poems of this Collection marked; were written between the age of 17 and 23.

The Vale of Stowe, which slopes down from Lichfield Cathedral.

Miss Honora Sneyd, since Mrs Edge- worth, the daughter of Edward Sneyd, Esq. She was adopted by Mr and Mrs Seward, and educated in their family. In her 18th year she became the object of the brave, unfortunate Ma- jor André's unalienable attachment.

Then of Lichfield, and afterwards wife of the Rev. Richard Levett. This picture, in verse, was drawn by the author at eighteen.

The author had heard, and be- lieved, that her friend was attached, at the time this poem was written, to a young lady at Angiers.

Written on the terrace walk in the palace garden, Lichfield, the day on which Miss Honora Sneyd left that place for a month's residence in Shropshire, May 1769.

This celebrated willow of Stowe Valley, from its very uncommon magnitude, excites the attention of naturalists. It is of recorded dearness to Dr Johnson, whence a mistaken idea arose that he had planted it.

Miss Sarah Seward, who died in her 19th year, and on the verge of her purposed nuptials.

The Bishop's Palace at Lichfield.

Miss H. Sneyd was then at Bristol, on account of a consumptive complaint.

This spot is known to the inhabitants of Lichfield by the name of Bessy Banks' Grave. When the author walked thither, in the year 1791, she found the two trees, which stood on each side the tumulus, had been recently cut down, and deplored a devastation which she almost fancied sacrilegious.

Whose name, and city-arms testify her military honours in ancient times. Addison's father being Dean of Lichfield, the infancy of that celebrated author was probably passed in her bosom; and it is well known what eminent men, in later days, were educated beneath her walls.

The trees of the cathedral walk at Lichfield are flowering limes, so beautiful when their branches are left to grow naturally. It is, however, only very lately that the tasteless custom has been renounced of lopping them to form a straight line at top. A barbarism, which existed when Major André was at Lichfield, and to which he alludes, with so much playful elegance, in the second of those charming letters subjoined to the Monody.

Stowe Church, said to be the mother church of this city, is older than its cathedral.

Two elegant houses, one at the foot, the other near the top of that umbrageous rising, which soon, but beautifully, bounds this valley to the east. They were built in the year 1756, by a lady of the Aston family, of whom frequent mention is made in Dr Johnson's letters to Mrs Piozzi, when she was Mrs Thrale.

Green-Hill Church, belonging to the city.

Miss Sarah Seward. She died in her 19th year. The first poem in this collection is an Elegy to her memory.

Weston, on the edge of Shropshire.

A fine sheet of water near Weston-Hall, belonging to Lord Bradford.

Newport, the residence of the author's amiable friend, Mrs Short.

Strow Valley, Lichfield.

This poem was written the day before that lady's funeral, and in view of the villa where she died, in the Vale of Stowe, near Lichfield.

This was written when first Sir William's Oriental Miscellany appeared.

The river Wie runs through Mensaldale, the loveliest of the Peak Vallies, and through the rich meads below Bakewell, where it winds and curves with capricious wantonness. The waters of the Derwent have a tint of amber, which seems to suit the dark and luxuriant foliage on their banks, and is well contrasted by the white foam, almost perpetually formed by its rocky channel. The clearness of the Wie is still more beautiful. Hence it becomes the mirror of the exquisite scenery on its borders.

This Ode is an answer to Mr Boothby's verses on the preceding Ode, which verses he sent to the author from Tunbridge.

Tunbridge.

In allusion to his verses which maintain that love may subsist with rival passions. See the elegant edition of his Poems, published 1796, by Cadell, page 59.

These little poems were written in the early youth of the author. They describe an attachment between a lady of birth, rank, beauty, and talents, the daughter of wealthy parents, and a gentleman, much her inferior in family and station, without fortune, and her equal only in intellect, merit, and affection. Nor is the situation entirely imaginary; the author was entrusted with the perusal of a prose correspondence between that unhappy pair, which bore the same sort of relation to the ensuing poems, as the real letters between Abelard and Eloisa bear to Pope's Love-Epistle, “Eloisa to Abelard.”

The first verse is from an old ballad.

Written on request, for music.

Snow, covering mines, pits, and pools, slightly frozen, in mountainous countries, is imminently dangerous, especially where there are no turnpike roads.

Her death, by the application of the Asp.

An itinerant performer of great ability, whom indiscretion, and an extravagant wife, had prevented from attaining better situations, which his talents would have adorned. This prologue was spoken by him very finely, for his benefit, at Birmingham, in the spring 1782.

Parody of one of the lines in Mr Sheridzn's Monody on Garrick.

See his fine Epilogue to Semiramis.

A play written by Mrs Short, then of Newport, and represented by the pupils of her seminary.

Eliza and Caroline, characters in the play.

A term in botany for the first buds of flowers.

A critical friend of the author's seemed to doubt whether a frown kindling fire was just metaphor; but, since it is poetically orthodox to say that the flame of love is lighted by the sunny ray of a smile, that of jealousy may certainly be said to enkindle from the lightning ofa frowning eye. There are lurid and dismal fires, as well as bright and cheerful ones.