poems, and within the year four editions of the work were called for. And in the same year 8he published, in conjunction with her brother. Dr. Aiken, a volume called "Miscellaneous Pieces in Prose." In 1774, Miss Aiken married the Rev. Rochemont Barbauld, a dissenting minister, descended from a family of French Protestants. He had charge, at that time, of a congregation at Palgrave, in Suffolk, where he also opened a boarding-school for boys, the success of which is, in a great measure, to be attributed to Mrs. Barbauld's exertions. She also took several very young boys as her own entire charge, among whom were. Lord Denman, afterwards Chief Justice of England, and Sir William Gell. It was for these boys that she composed her "Hymns in Prose for Children." In 1775, she published a volume entitled "Devotional Pieces, compiled from the Psalms of David," with "Thoughts on the Devotional Taste, and on Sects and Establishments;" and also her "Early Lessons," which still stands unrivalled among children's books.
In 1786, after a tour to the continent, Mr. and Mrs. Barbauld established themselves at Hampstead, and there several tracts proceeded from the pen of our authoress on the topics of the day, in all which she espoused the principles of the Whigs. She also assisted her father in preparing a series of tales for children, entitled "Evenings at Home," and she wrote critical essays on Akenside and Collins, prefixed to editions of their works. In 1802, Mr. Barbauld became pastor of the congregation (formerly Dr. Price's) at Newington Green, also in the vicinity of London; and quitting Hampstead, they took up their abode in the village of Stoke Newington. In 1803, Mrs. Barbauld compiled a selection of essays from the "Spectator," Tatler," and "Guardian," to which she prefixed a preliminary essay; and, in the following year, she edited the correspondence of Richardson, and wrote an interesting and elegant life of the novelist Her husband died in 1808, and Mrs. Barbauld has recorded her feelings on this melancholy event in a poetical dirge to his memory, and also in her poem of "Eighteen Hundred and Eleven." Seeking relief in literary occupation, she also edited a collection of the British novelists, published in 1810, with an introductory essay, and biographical and critical notices. After a gradual decay, this accomplished and excellent woman died on the 9th. of March, 1825. Some of the lyrical pieces of Mrs. Barbauld are flowing and harmonious, and her "Ode to Spring" is a happy imitation of Collins. She wrote also several poems in blank verse, characterized by a serious tenderness and elevation of thought. "Her earliest pieces," says her niece, Miss Lucy Aiken, "as well as her more recent ones, exhibit in their imagery and allusions, the fruits of extensive and varied reading. In youth, the power of her imagination was counterbalanced by the activity of her intellect, which exercised itself in rapid but not unprofitable excursions over almost every field of knowledge. In age, when this activity abated, imagination appeared to exert over her an undiminished sway." Charles James Fox is said to have been a great admirer of Mrs. Barbanld's songs, but they are by no means the best of her compositions, being generally artificial, and unimpassioned in their character.
Her works show great powers of mind, an ardent love of civil and religious liberty, and that genuine and practical piety which ever distinguished her character.
