Anna Riggs was the daughter of Edward Riggs, and his wife Margaret nee Pigott, of Chetwynd, Shropshire. Her grandfather, Edward
Riggs, had been a member of the Irish House of Commons, a commissioner of
revenue, and a Privy Councillor in Ireland, and Anna inherited much of his
wealth.
Her father became a commissioner of customs in London in
1741. Horace Walpole described Anna's mother in 1765 as an old rough
humourist, who passed for a wit. Fanny Burney characterised her as mighty, merry and facetious,
In 1765 Anna married John Miller, a member of an impoverished old Irish family seated at Ballicasey, County Clare. Miller had served through the Seven Years' War, but resigned his commission at the peace of 1763. Anna brought with her a large fortune, and he took her maiden surname before his own.
At
extravagant cost he built a house on the High Street at Batheaston, near Bath, and laid out a
garden, of which Walpole gave a detailed description.
https://www.batheastonhouse.com/photos
John Miller became a baronet in 1778 and Anna became Lady Miller. She instituted a fortnightly literary salon at her villa at Batheaston. Lee characterised the salon as bearing "some resemblance to the later follies of the Della Cruscans".
In Italy, Lady Miller had purchased an antique vase, dug up near Frascati in 1759. The vase was placed on an "altar" decorated with laurel, and each of her guests were invited to place in the urn an original composition in verse.
Anna Riggs Miller’s Letters from Italy, published in 1776,
recounts the Italian part of her Continental trip made in 1770 and 1771. the trip
took them to Paris, where their son was born, and then on a very extensive tour of
Italy.
A committee was appointed to determine the best
three productions, and their authors were then crowned by Lady Miller with
wreaths of myrtle. The practice was continued until Lady Miller's death.
Walpole, wrote unkindly in a letter to Henry Seymour Conway, said, "I
am glad you went [to Bath], especially as you escaped being initiated into Mrs.
Miller's follies at Bath-Easton.
Sir John Riggs-Miller died on May 28, 17989 and the title descended to his only son, born in 1770, upon whose death in 1825 the baronetcy became extinct.
Anna Seward, whose poetic talents were first encouraged by Lady Miller wrote the tribute inscribed on the monument.
Devoted stone! amidst the wrecks of time
Uninjured bear thy Miller’s spotless name:
The virtues of her youth and ripen’d prime,
The tender thought, th’ enduring record claim.
When clos’d the numerous eyes that round this bier
Have wept the loss of wide extended worth,
O gentle stranger, may one generous tear
Drop, as thou bendest o’er this hallow’d earth!
Are truth and genius, love and pity thine,
With liberal charity and faith sincere ?
Then rest thy wandering step beneath this shrine,
And greet a kindred spirit hovering near.
Fanny Burney gives a delightfully realistic, though not wholly flattering, picture of the Miller family, as she met them in 1780, when Mrs. Thrale had taken her to Bath.
It was at the home of the Whalleys in Royal Crescent that the introduction took place, when Lady Miller asked Mrs. Thrale to present her to the author of Evelina.
Said Mrs.Thrale:
“Miss Burney, Lady Miller desires to be introduced to you.”
"Up I jumped and walked forward; Lady Miller, very civilly more than met me half way, and said very polite things, of her wish to know me, and regret that she had not sooner met me, and then we both returned to our seats.
Do you know now that, notwithstanding Bath Easton is so much laughed at in London, nothing here is more tonish than to visit Lady Miller, who is extremely curious [select, particular] in her company, admitting few people who are not of rank or fame, and excluding of those all who are not people of character very unblemished.
Some time after, Lady Miller took a seat next mine on the sofa, to play at cards, and was excessively civil indeed —scolded Mrs. Thrale for not sooner making us acquainted, and had the politeness to offer to take me to the balls herself, as she heard Mr. and Mrs. Thrale did not choose to go.
After all this, it is hardly fair to tell you what I think of her. However, the truth is, I always, to the best of my intentions, speak honestly what I think of the folks I see, without being biased either by their civilities or neglect; and that you will allow is being a very faithful historian.
Well, then, Lady Miller is a round, plump, coarse looking dame of about forty, and while all her aim is to appear an elegant woman of fashion, all her success is to seem an ordinary woman in very common life, with fine clothes on. Her manners are bustling, her air is mock important, and her manners very inelegant.
So much for the lady of Bath Easton; who, however, seems extremely good-natured, and who is I am sure extremely civil".
The Millers were never fully admitted to the select inner circles of the Blue Stockings, though they did enjoy a high degree of popularity (as well as ridicule) for a period of over six years.
The termination of the assemblies came with the sudden death of Lady Miller at the Bristol Hot Wells on June 24, 1781.
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The Frontispiece to Poetical Amusements .................
A vase on a pedestal; myrtle draped around.
The vase was an antique Roman urn, found by a labourer in 1769 at Frascati. As a part of the ancient town of Tusculum, fifteen miles south of Rome, this had been the country seat of many wealthy Romans, including Cicero.
Mrs. Miller’s description, written in 1775, is as follows:
"It [the vase] is at present the receptacle of all the contending poetical morsels which every other Thursday (formerly Friday) are drawn out of it indiscriminately, and read aloud by the Gentlemen present, each in his turn.
Their particular merits are afterwards discussed by them, and prizes assigned to three out of the whole that appear to be the most deserving. Their authors are then, and not before, called for, who seldom fail to be announced either by themselves, or, if absent, by their friends: Then the prize poems are read a second time to the company, each by its author, if present, if not if not, by other Gentlemen, and wreaths of Myrtle presented".
A selection of the compositions was published in 1775. The edition was sold out within ten days and a new edition appeared in 1776 with a second volume of poems. Horace Walpole described the book as "a bouquet of artificial flowers, and ten degrees duller than a magazine". A third volume was published in 1777, and a fourth in 1781.
The profits of the sale were donated
to charity. Among the contributors were the Duchess of Northumberland, who
wrote on a buttered muffin, Lord Palmerston, Lord Carlisle, Christopher Anstey,
William Mason, David Garrick, Anna Seward, and Lady Miller herself, to whom
most of the writers paid extravagant compliments.
The Urn had been purchased after her death by one Edwyn Dowding, and was placed in the public park of Bath. It has now disappeared.
The Urn now in Victoria Park, Bath often described as Lady Millers Urn is not the Batheaston Urn.
.................................
The Frontispiece to Poetical Amusements at a Villa near Bath.
Printed by R. Cruttwell, for L. Bull, bookseller, in Bath: and sold, in London, by Hawes, Clarke, and Collins, 1775.
Available on line -
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=njp.32101037041777&seq=9
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