Mrs. Barbauld was a schoolmistress, and a schoolmaster's wife and
daughter. Her father was Dr. John Aikin, D.D.; her mother was Miss Jane
Jennings, of a good Northamptonshire family--scholastic also. Dr. Aikin
brought his wife home to Knibworth, in Leicestershire, where he opened a
school which became very successful in time. Mrs. Barbauld, their eldest
child, was born here in 1743, and was christened Anna Lætitia, after
some lady of high degree belonging to her mother's family. Two or three
years later came a son. It was a quiet home, deep hidden in the secluded
rural place; and the little household lived its own tranquil life far
away from the storms and battles and great events that were stirring
the world. Dr. Aikin kept school; Mrs. Aikin ruled her household with
capacity, and not without some sternness, according to the custom of the
time. It appears that late in life the good lady was distressed by the
backwardness of her grandchildren at four or five years old. 'I once,
indeed, knew a little girl,' so wrote Mrs. Aikin of her daughter, 'who
was as eager to learn as her instructor could be to teach her, and who
at two years old could read sentences and little stories, in her _wise_
book, roundly and without spelling, and in half a year or more could
read as well as most women; but I never knew such another, and I believe
I never shall.' It was fortunate that no great harm came of this premature
forcing, although it is difficult to say what its absence might not
have done for Mrs. Barbauld. One can fancy the little assiduous girl,
industrious, impulsive, interested in everything--in all life and
all nature--drinking in, on every side, learning, eagerly wondering,
listening to all around with bright and ready wit. There is a pretty
little story told by Mrs. Ellis in her book about Mrs. Barbauld, how
one day, when Dr. Aikin and a friend 'were conversing on the passions,'
the Doctor observes that joy cannot have place in a state of perfect
felicity, since it supposes an accession of happiness.
'I think you are mistaken, papa,' says a little voice from the opposite
side of the table.
'Why so, my child?' says the Doctor.
'Because in the chapter I read to you this morning, in the Testament, it
is said that "there is more joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth
than over ninety and nine just persons that need no repentance."'
Besides her English Testament and her early reading, the little girl was
taught by her mother to do as little daughters did in those days, to
obey a somewhat austere rule, to drop curtsies in the right place, to
make beds, to preserve fruits. The father, after demur, but surely
not without some paternal pride in her proficiency, taught the child
Latin and French and Italian, and something of Greek, and gave her an
acquaintance with English literature. One can imagine little Nancy with
her fair head bending over her lessons, or, when playing time had come,
perhaps a little lonely and listening to the distant voices of the
schoolboys at their games. The mother, fearing she might acquire rough
and boisterous manners, strictly forbade any communication with the
schoolboys. Sometimes in after days, speaking of these early times and
of the constraint of many bygone rules and regulations, Mrs. Barbauld
used to attribute to this early formal training something of the
hesitation and shyness which troubled her and never entirely wore off.
She does not seem to have been in any great harmony with her mother. One
could imagine a fanciful and high-spirited child, timid and dutiful,
and yet strong-willed, secretly rebelling against the rigid order of her
home, and feeling lonely for want of liberty and companionship. It was
true she had birds and beasts and plants for her playfellows, but she
was of a gregarious and sociable nature, and she was unconsciously
longing for something more, and perhaps feeling a want in her early
life which no silent company can supply.
She was about fifteen when a great event took place. Her father was
appointed classical tutor to the Warrington Academy, and thither
the little family removed. We read that the Warrington Academy was a
Dissenting college started by very eminent and periwigged personages,
whose silhouettes Mrs. Barbauld herself afterwards cut out in
sticking-plaster, and whose names are to this day remembered and held in
just esteem. They were people of simple living and high thinking, they
belonged to a class holding then a higher place than now in the world's
esteem, that of Dissenting ministers. The Dissenting ministers were
fairly well paid and faithfully followed by their congregations. The
college was started under the auspices of distinguished members of the
community, Lord Willoughby of Parham, the last Presbyterian lord, being
patron. Among the masters were to be found the well-known names of Dr.
Doddridge; of Gilbert Wakefield, the reformer and uncompromising martyr;
of Dr. Taylor, of Norwich, the Hebrew scholar; of Dr. Priestley, the
chemical analyst and patriot, and enterprising theologian, who left
England and settled in America for conscience and liberty's sake.
Many other people, neither students nor professors, used to come to
Warrington, and chief among them in later years good John Howard with
MSS. for his friend Dr. Aikin to correct for the press. Now for the
first time Mrs. Barbauld (Miss Aikin she was then) saw something of real
life, of men and manners. It was not likely that she looked back with
any lingering regret to Knibworth, or would have willingly returned
thither. A story in one of her memoirs gives an amusing picture of the
manners of a young country lady of that day. Mr. Haines, a rich farmer
from Knibworth, who had been greatly struck by Miss Aikin, followed her
to Warrington, and 'obtained a private audience of her father and begged
his consent to be allowed to make her his wife.' The father answered
'that his daughter was there walking in the garden, and he might go
and ask her himself.' 'With what grace the farmer pleaded his cause I
know not,' says her biographer and niece. 'Out of all patience at his
unwelcome importunities, my aunt ran nimbly up a tree which grew by the
garden wall, and let herself down into the lane beyond.'
The next few years must have been perhaps the happiest of Mrs. Barbauld's
life. Once when it was nearly over she said to her niece, Mrs. Le
Breton, from whose interesting account I have been quoting, that she had
never been placed in a situation which really suited her. As one reads
her sketches and poems, one is struck by some sense of this detracting
influence of which she complains: there is a certain incompleteness and
slightness which speaks of intermittent work, of interrupted trains of
thought. At the same time there is a natural buoyant quality in much of
her writing which seems like a pleasant landscape view seen through the
bars of a window. There may be wider prospects, but her eyes are bright,
and this peep of nature is undoubtedly delightful.