Author: SEYMOUR, Mr.
Biography:
SEYMOUR, Mr. (fl 1782-9)
The two editions of “Abelard to Eloisa” included in this bibliography under the authorship of “Mr. Seymour” and described as having been originally composed in 1777 are usually attributed to Thomas Warwick (q.v.) but were almost certainly not his. In the first place, they are different from both of Warwick’s two versions of the same title: Seymour’s opening lines are “No, Eloisa, let each cell declare,/ Where oft I bend in agonizing pray’r . . . .” In the second place, they were attributed to “Mr. Seymour” in contemporary collections such as Letters of Abelard and Eloisa . . . [with] Several Poems, by Mr. Pope and Others, ed. John Hughes (1787), 205-19. In 1786 an extract from the poem by “Mr. Seymour” appeared in the Hampshire Chronicle. The so-called “fourth edition” of 1789, sold by Debrett, is dedicated to the Duchess of Devonshire, Georgiana (Spencer) Cavendish. It may be relevant that the Dukes of Somerset were Seymours. No reliable biographical information has been found about the author, however, and he does not appear to have published anything under his own name. (Hampshire Chronicle 19 Jun. 1786; Lawrence S. Wright, “Eighteenth-Century Replies to Pope’s Eloisa,” Studies in Philology 31:4 [1934], 519-33) HJ