![]() ![]() In a note to the last stanza quoted above, Elizabeth explains the warmth of her admiration for Johnson’s literary skills: In the first Willow ode, the figure receiving by far the most attention is Johnson himself Elizabeth’s tribute to him (and to his Willow) includes the following: ![]() In this way, Elizabeth made the history of the Lichfield Willow a metaphor for the transmission of culture from ancient times to modern Britain – a theme she continued in her second Willow ode, in which she expressed the hope that a cutting from the Lichfield Willow would one day arrive in America to symbolise the onward migration of civilisation from the Old World to the New. To further boost the tree’s claim to fame, she created for it an ancestry stretching right back to the Tree of Knowledge in the Garden of Eden, and passing through the gardens of classical Greece and Rome before arriving in Lichfield. Elizabeth was inspired by this to write her first Willow ode in praise of Johnson and the other distinguished figures associated with Georgian Lichfield – such as Garrick and Anna Seward – who might have walked or studied under the Willow’s boughs. The Gentleman’s Magazine for July 1785 had carried an article by the Lichfield antiquary Richard Greene about Johnson’s interest in a huge willow tree growing in Lichfield (now known as ‘Johnson’s Willow’). The Lichfield Willow (Johnson’s Willow) in July 1785 Elizabeth’s most sustained expression of her admiration for Johnson, however, is found in a work which she wrote in 1787: ‘A Tribute to British and American Genius: in two Odes on the Litchfield Willow’. The inventory included Elizabeth’s much-treasured library, in which were ‘4 volumes of the Rambler’ (valued at one pound ten shillings).Įvidence of her enthusiasm for another of Johnson’s writings appears in a letter that she wrote on 21 April 1786 to her close friend Dr Benjamin Rush, in which she praises The Lives of the Poets as ‘a work which exites wonder, when one recollects the compiler was on the verge of fourscore’ in this letter she also describes Johnson as ‘a miracle’ and ‘a wonder of a Man’. Following the confiscation of Graeme Park, an inventory and valuation of its contents was made on 17 September 1778 with a view to its sale. Quite when Elizabeth first became aware of Johnson is unclear she was, however, certainly familiar with his writings in his lifetime. Her last years were cheered by the companionship of her close friend and relative Betsy Stedman Elizabeth died in 1801. Because of his pro-British activities, in 1778 Graeme Park was confiscated although Elizabeth was able to reclaim it in 1781, she was later forced to sell the property when it proved uneconomic to run. During the American Revolution Henry sided with the British he eventually fled to England, abandoning Elizabeth. In 1772 Elizabeth married Henry Hugh Fergusson, with whom she settled at Graeme Park. As diversion in the midst of her woes, she immersed herself in literary composition and translation. The conclusion of Elizabeth’s tour was saddened by the death of her mother shortly after her return home she also lost her last surviving sibling, Ann Graeme Stedman. To help revive her spirits, her parents sent her on a tour of Britain during 1764–5 here she was presented to George III, and also met the novelist Laurence Sterne – but, sadly, not (as far as we know) Johnson. Elizabeth Graeme FergussonĮlizabeth became engaged to Benjamin Franklin’s son William however, he subsequently broke off the engagement, which left Elizabeth in a state of depression. At the family home, Graeme Park near Philadelphia, Elizabeth had access to her father’s library, and was well educated, becoming proficient not only in Greek and Latin, but in French and Italian too – so much so, in fact, that one later admirer described her as ‘the most learned woman in America’. Her father was a well-to-do medical man, her mother the stepdaughter of a deputy governor of Pennsylvania. Samuel Johnson became a national figure in Britain during his own lifetime however, his fame also swiftly spread to places as far distant as Pennsylvania, where one of his most fervent early admirers was the poet Elizabeth Graeme Fergusson.Įlizabeth Graeme was born in 1737. This month we welcome John Winterton, Johnson Society of Lichfield council member and editor of ‘Transactions’, who gives insight into a little known American literary connection to Lichfield. ![]()
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