(1743-1825)
When Lætitia Aikin Barbauld was about thirty years old, her friend, Mrs.
Elizabeth Montague, wishing to establish a college for women, asked her
to be its principal. In her letter of refusal Mrs. Barbauld said:--"A
kind of Academy for ladies, where they are to be taught in a regular
manner the various branches of science, appears to me better calculated
to form such characters as the _Précieuses_ or _Femmes Savantes_ than
good wives or agreeable companions. The very best way for a woman to
acquire knowledge is from conversation with a father or brother.... The
thefts of knowledge in our sex are only connived at while carefully
concealed, and if displayed are punished with disgrace." It is odd to
find Mrs. Barbauld thus reflecting the old-fashioned view of the
capacity and requirements of her own sex, for she herself belonged to
that brilliant group--Hannah More, Fanny Burney, Maria Edgeworth, Jane
Austen, Joanna Baillie, Mary Russell Mitford--who were the living
refutation of her inherited theories. Their influence shows a pedagogic
impulse to present morally helpful ideas to the public.
[Illustration: ANNA L. BARBAULD]
From preceding generations whose lives had been concentrated upon
household affairs, these women pioneers had acquired the strictly
practical bent of mind which comes out in all their verse, as in all
their prose.
The child born at Kibworth Harcourt, Leicestershire, a century and a
half ago, became one of the first of these pleasant writers for young
and old. She was one of the thousand refutations of the stupid popular
idea that precocious children never amount to anything. When only two,
she "could read roundly without spelling, and in half a year more could
read as well as most women." Her father was master of a boys' school,
where her childhood was passed under the rule of a loving but austere
mother, who disliked all intercourse with the pupils for her daughter.
It was not the fashion for women to be highly educated; but, stimulated
perhaps by the scholastic atmosphere, Lætitia implored her father for a
classical training, until, against his judgment, he allowed her to
study Greek and Latin as well as French and Italian. Though not fond of
the housewifely accomplishments insisted upon by Mrs. Aikin, the eager
student also cooked and sewed with due obedience.
Her dull childhood ended when she was fifteen, for then her father
accepted a position as classical tutor in a boys' school at Warrington,
Lancashire, to which place the family moved. The new home afforded
greater freedom and an interesting circle of friends, among them Currie,
William Roscoe, John Taylor, and the famous Dr. Priestley. A very pretty
girl, with brilliant blonde coloring and animated dark-blue eyes, she
was witty and vivacious, too, under the modest diffidence to which she
had been trained. Naturally she attracted much admiration from the
schoolboys and even from their elders, but on the whole she seems to
have found study and writing more interesting than love affairs. The
first suitor, who presented himself when she was about sixteen, was a
farmer from her early home at Kibworth. He stated his wishes to her
father. "She is in the garden," said Mr. Aikin. "You may ask her
yourself." Lætitia was not propitious, but the young man was persistent,
and the position grew irksome. So the nimble girl scrambled into a
convenient tree, and escaped her rustic wooer by swinging herself down
upon the other side of the garden wall.
During these years at Warrington she wrote for her own pleasure, and
when her brother John returned home after several years' absence, he
helped her to arrange and publish a selection of her poems. The little
book which appeared in 1773 was highly praised, and ran through four
editions within a year. In spite of grace and fluency, most of these
verses seem flat and antiquated to the modern reader. Of the spirited
first poem 'Corsica,' Dr. Priestley wrote to her:--"I consider that you
are as much a general as Tyrtæus was, and your poems (which I am
confident are much better than his ever were) may have as great effect
as his. They may be the _coup de grace_ to the French troops in that
island, and Paoli, who reads English, will cause it to be printed in
every history in that renowned island."
Miss Aikin's next venture was a small volume in collaboration with her
brother, 'Miscellaneous Pieces in Prose by J. and A.L. Aikin.' This too
was widely read and admired. Samuel Rogers has related an amusing
conversation about the book in its first vogue:--"I am greatly pleased
with your 'Miscellaneous Pieces,'" said Charles James Fox to Mrs.
Barbauld's brother. Dr. Aikin bowed. "I particularly admire," continued
Fox, "your essay 'Against Inconsistency in our Expectations.'" "That,"
replied Aikin, "is my sister's." "I like much," continued Fox, "your
essay on 'Monastic Institutions.'" "That," answered Aikin, "is also my
sister's." Fox thought it wise to say no more about the book. The essay
'Against Inconsistency in our Expectations' was most highly praised by
the critics, and pronounced by Mackintosh "the best short essay in the
language."
When thirty years old, Lætitia Aikin married Rochemont Barbauld, and
went to live at Palgrave in Suffolk, where her husband opened a boys'
school, soon made popular by her personal charm and influence. Sir
William Gell, a classic topographer still remembered; William Taylor,
author of a 'Historic Survey of German Poetry '; and Lord Chief Justice
Denman, were a few among the many who looked back with gratitude to a
childhood under her care.
Perhaps her best known work is the 'Early Lessons for Children,' which
was written during this period. Coming as it did when, as Hannah More
said, there was nothing for children to read between 'Cinderella' and
the Spectator, it was largely welcomed, and has been used by generations
of English children. The lessons were written for a real little Charles,
her adopted son, the child of her brother, Dr. Aikin. For him, too, she
wrote her 'Hymns in Prose for Children,' a book equally successful,
which has been translated into French, German, Spanish, Italian, and
even Latin.
After eleven busy years at Palgrave, during which, in spite of her
cheerful energy, Mrs. Barbauld had been much harassed by the nervous
irritability of her invalid husband, the Barbaulds gave up their school
and treated themselves to a year of Continental travel. On their return
they settled at Hampstead, where Mr. Barbauld became pastor of a small
Unitarian congregation. The nearness to London was a great advantage to
Mrs. Barbauld's refreshed activity, and she soon made the new home a
pleasant rendezvous for literary men and women. At one of her London
dinner parties she met Sir Walter Scott, who declared that her reading
of Taylor's translation of Bürger's 'Lenore' had inspired him to write
poetry. She met Dr. Johnson too, who, though he railed at her after his
fashion, calling her Deborah and Virago Barbauld, did sometimes betray a
sincere admiration for her character and accomplishments. Miss Edgeworth
and Hannah More were dear friends and regular correspondents.
From time to time she published a poem or an essay; not many, for in
spite of her brother's continual admonition to write, hers was a
somewhat indolent talent. In 1790 she wrote a capable essay upon the
repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts; a year later, a poetical
epistle to Mr. Wilberforce on the Slave Trade; in 1792, a defense of
Public Worship; and in 1793, a discourse as to a Fast Day upon the Sins
of Government.
In 1808 her husband's violent death, the result of a long insanity,
prostrated her for a time. Then as a diversion from morbid thought she
undertook an edition of the best English novels in fifty volumes, for
which she wrote an admirable introductory essay. She also made a
compilation from the Spectator, Tatler, Guardian, and Free-holder, with
a preliminary discourse, which she published in 1811. It was called 'The
Female Speaker,' and intended for young women. The same year her
'Eighteen Hundred and Eleven,' a patriotic didactic poem, wounded
national self-love and drew upon her much unfriendly criticism, which so
pained her that she would publish no more. But the stirring lines were
widely read, and in them Macaulay found the original of his famous
traveler from New Zealand, who meditates on the ruined arches of London
Bridge. Her prose style, in its light philosophy, its humorously
sympathetic dealing with every-day affairs, has been often compared with
Addison's.
Her old age was serene and happy, rich in intellectual companionships
and in the love and respect of many friends. Somewhere she speaks of
"that state of middling life to which I have been accustomed and which I
love." She disliked extremes, in emotion as in all things, and took what
came with cheerful courage. The poem 'Life,' which the self-satisfied
Wordsworth wished that he had written, expresses her serene and
philosophic spirit.