A little gem of a cat poem – Anna Seward’s touching ‘An Old Cat’s Dying Soliloquy’
Anna Seward (1742-1809) was an English poet who was known as the ‘Swan of Lichfield’ and even ‘th’immortal Muse of Britain‘. She knew those other great Lichfield figures of the age, Erasmus Darwin and Samuel Johnson, who often met at the Bishop’s Palace where Seward lived (her father was a prebendary in the local church). A precocious child, she was taught to read Shakespeare, Milton, and Pope at the age of three. Sir Walter Scott would later be responsible for publishing Seward’s poetry. She never married, but lived with her father at the Bishop’s Palace until he died in 1790; thereafter, she remained at the Palace until her death 19 years later.