the merit of these lines, by exhibiting no sentiment but mortification on hearing them read with applause in a London circle.'

In the second volume of this work we find a selection from the private correspondence of Mrs. Barbauld. Before quoting such passages as seem of superior interest, we shall extract from the memoir Miss Aikin's explanatory remarks respecting this department of her labors.

It only remains to speak of her familiar letters. These were certainly never intended by herself to meet the public eye. She kept no copies of them; and it is solely by the indulgence of her correspondents or their representatives, an indulgence for which she here desires to offer her grateful acknowledgements, that the editor has been enabled to give them to the world. She flatters herself that their publication will not be considered as a trespass either against the living or the dead: some of them, particularly a considerable proportion of those addressed to Dr. Aikin, seemed to claim insertion as biographical records; and those written during her residence in France, in the years 1785 and 1786, appeared no less curious and valuable at the present day for the matter they contain, than entertaining and agreeable from the vivacity with which they are written. But it was impossible not to be influenced also by the desire of thus communicating to those admirers of Mrs. Barbauld's genius who did not enjoy the advantage of her personal acquaintance, a just idea of the pointed and elegant remark, the sportive and lambent wit, the affectionate spirit of sympathy, and the courteous expression of esteem and benevolence, which united to form at once the graces of her epistolary style, and the inexpressible charm of her conversation.'

As these letters will not allow of regular analysis, we shall quote under their distinguishing heads those remarks which are most characteristic of the turn of the writer's genius.

Feminine affections:

'Women are naturally inclined not only to love, but to all the soft and gentle affections; all the tender attentions and kind sympathies of nature. When, therefore, one of our sex shows any particular complacency towards one of yours, it may be resolved into friendship; into a temper naturally caressing, and those endearing intercourses of life which to a woman are become habitual. But when man, haughty, independent man, becomes sensible to all the delicacies of sentiment, and softens his voice and address to the tone of les manières douces, it is much to be suspected a stronger power than friendship has worked the change. You are hardly social creatures till your minds are humanized and subdued by that passion which alone can tame you to "all the soft civilities of life." Your heart requires a stronger fire to melt it than ours does the chaste and gentle rays of friendship, like starbeams, may play upon it without effect; - it will only yield to

gross

gross material fire. There is a pretty flight for you! In short, women I think may be led on by sentiment to passion; but men must be subdued by passion before they can taste sentiment.'

Poetical description:

I have seen some rich descriptions of West Indian flowers and plants, just, I dare say, but unpleasing merely because their names were uncouth, and forms not known generally enough to be put into verse. It is not, I own, much to the credit of poets, -but it is true, that we do not seem disposed to take their word for any thing, and never willingly receive information from them.'

66 Percy," and "The School for Scandal:"

'Miss More is, I assure you, now very much the ton, and, moreover, has got six or seven hundred pounds by her play: I wish I could produce one every two winters; we would not keep school. I cannot say, however, that I cried altogether so much at Percy as I laughed at The School for Scandal, which is one of the wittiest plays I remember to have seen; and I am sorry to add, one of the most immoral and licentious; in principle I mean, for in language it is very decent.'

Dating from London, Jan. 2. 1784, Mrs. B. says on the subject of balloons, which, by-the-bye, were not then such hackneyed affairs as their incessant exhibition has now rendered them:

• Well, my dear brother, here we are in this busy town, nothing in which (the sight of friends excepted) has given us so much pleasure as the balloon which is now exhibiting in the Pantheon. It is sixteen feet one way, and seventeen another; and when full (which it is not at present) will carry eighty-six pounds. When set loose from the weight which keeps it to the ground, it mounts to the top of that magnificent dome with such an easy motion as put me in mind of Milton's line, "Rose like an exhalation." We hope to see it rise in the open air before we leave town.'

In the same letter it is stated, that the enthusiasm for Mrs. Siddons seems something abated this winter. As the last season was spent in unbounded admiration, this, I suppose, will be employed in canvassing her faults, and the third settle her in a proper degree of reputation.' Dramatic patrons are confessedly the most capricious of mortals, and it is not to be supposed that even Mrs. Siddons should escape unaffected by their proverbial waywardness.

Automatons:

There is a curious automaton which plays at chess. His countenance, they say, is very grave and full of thought, and you

coun

can hardly help imagining he meditates upón every move. He is wound up, however, at every two or three moves. The same man has made another figure, which speaks: but as his native tongue is French, he stays at home at present to learn English. The voice is like that of a young child.'

In a letter from Paris, dated June 7. 1786, Mrs. B. exclaims, By the way, I have found out the reason why the French have so little poetry: it is because every body makes verses.' We fancy that a similar propensity to versifying nearer home has not tended to the encouragement of the genuine spirit of poetry. Mrs. B. gets very playfully warm upon the subject of Dr. Fordyce's insinuation against woman's faith in friendship:

It is not true, what Dr. Fordyce insinuates, that women's friendships are not sincere; I am sure it is not: I remember when I read it I had a good mind to have burnt the book for that unkind passage. I hope the Doctor will give us our revenge, as he has begun his sermons to young men: they were advertised in the papers, was it not a piece of parade unbecoming a preacher? It would be difficult to determine whether the age is growing better or worse; for I think our plays are growing like sermons, and our sermons like plays.'

Mrs. Barbauld was herself one proof, (and we fancy that there are few of our readers who could not adduce many others,) that female friendship (in the best sense of the word) is to be found, and may be depended upon. In a letter to Miss E. Belsham, p. 61., we meet with a very pretty little allegory:

We are preparing to celebrate the birthday of-a prince, shall I say? why not? a king if you please, since he has more power than any monarch in the universe, and we all expect blessings from him of more value than the Indies: perhaps, indeed, we may expect too much from him, for it is natural to hope for every thing under the auspices of a new king; and however we may have been disappointed by his predecessors, we fondly flatter ourselves that the young sovereign will crown all our hopes, and put us in possession of all our wishes. Blessings, invaluable ones, he certainly has in his disposal; but if we have wasted the bounties of his predecessors, would it not become us to mingle a tear to their memories with the joy which his accession inspires? May the present reign, however, be happy to you and me, and all of us, long I dare not add, except in good actions, because, young as the prince is, it is no presumption to say that his days are numbered; the astronomers have already cast his nativity, nor is it in the power of all the sons of Adam to prolong beyond the appointed term, though but for an hour, the life of the New Year."

Joanna

Joanna Baillie and her tragedy of De Montfort o

I have received, however, great pleasure lately from the re presentation of De Montfort, a tragedy which you probably read a year and a half ago, in a volume entitled "A Series of Plays on the Passions." I admired it then, but little dreamed I was indebted for my entertainment to a young lady of Hampstead whom I visited, and who came to Mr. Barbauld's meeting all the while with as innocent a face as if she had never written a line. The play is admirably acted by Mrs. Siddons and Kemble, and is finely: written, with great purity of sentiment, beauty of diction, strength and originality of character; but it is open to criticism, I cannot believe such a hatred natural. The affection between the brother and sister is most beautifully touched, sand, as far as I know, quite new. The play is somewhat too good for our present

taste.'

The Pedigree and Adventures of Leisure:

She was born somewhere amongst the Chaldean shepherds, where she became a favourite of Urania; and having been instructed in her sublime philosophy, taught men to observe the course of the stars, and to mark the slow revolution of seasons.. The next we hear of her is in the rural mountains and valleys of Arcadia. In this delightful abode her charms made a conquest of the god Pan, who would often sit whole days by her side, tuning his pipe of unequal reeds. By him she had two beautiful children, Love and Poetry, the darlings of the shepherds, who received them in their arms, and brought them up amidst the murmur of bees, the falls of water, the lowing of cattle, and the various rural and peaceful sounds with which that region abounded. When the Romans spread the din of arms over the globe, Leisure was frightened from her soft retreats, and from the cold Scythian to the tawny Numidian. could scarcely find a corner of the world to shelter her head in. When the fierce Goth and Vandal approached, matters were still worse, and Leisure took refuge in a convent on the winding banks of the Seine, where she employed herself in making anagrams and cutting paper. Her retirement, however, did not pass without censure, for it is said she had an intrigue with the superior of the convent, and that the offspring of this amour was a daughter named Ennui.

Mademoiselle Ennui was wafted over to England in a northeast wind, and settled herself with some of the best families in the kingdom. Indeed the mother seldom makes any long residence in a place without being intruded on by the daughter, who steals in and seats herself silently by her side.'

Drs. Price and Priestley, and Mirabeau:

⚫ I last Sunday attended with melancholy satisfaction the funeral sermon of good Dr. Price, preached by Dr. Priestley, who, as he told us, had been thirty years his acquaintance, and twenty years his intimate friend. He well delineated the character he so well knew. I had just been reading an eloge of Mirabeau, and I could not help in my own mind comparing both the men and the tribute

16

paid

paid to their memories. The one died when a reputation raised suddenly, by extraordinary emergencies, was at its height, and very possibly might have ebbed again had he lived longer: the other enjoyed an esteem, the fruit of a course of labours uniformly directed through a long life to the advancement of knowledge and virtue, a reputation slowly raised, without and independent of popular talents. The panegyrist of the one was obliged to sink his private life, and to cover with the splendid mantle of public merit the crimes and failings of the man :- the private character of the other was able to bear the severest scrutiny; neither slander, nor envy, nor party-prejudice, ever pretended to find a spot in it. The one was followed even by those who did not trust him: the other was confided in and trusted even by those who reprobated his principles. In pronouncing the eloge on Mirabeau, the author scarcely dares to insinuate a vague and uncertain hope that his spirit may hover somewhere in the void space of immensity, be rejoined to the first principles of nature; and attempts to soothe his shade with a cold and barren immortality in the remembrance of posterity. Dr. Priestley parts with his intimate friend with all the cheerfulness which an assured hope of meeting him soon again could give, and at once dries the tear he excites.'

Scotland:

I have been much pleased with Scotland. I do not know whether you ever extended your tour so far: if you have not seen it, let me beg that you will; for I do not think that in any equal part of England so many interesting objects are to be met with as occur in what is called the little tour; from Edinburgh to Stirling, Perth and Blair, along the pleasant windings of the Forth and Tay; then by the lakes, ending with Loch Lomond, the last and greatest, and so to Glasgow; then to the Falls of the Clyde, and back by Dumfries; which last, however, we did not do; for we returned to Edinburgh. Scotland is a country strongly marked with character. Its rocks, its woods, its water, its castles, its towns, are all picturesque, generally grand. Some of the views are wild and savage, but none of them insipid, if you except the bleak, flat, extended moor. The entrance into the Highlands by Dunkeld is striking; it is a kind of gate. I thought it would be a good place for hanging up an inscription similar to that of Dante," Per me

si va

Mrs. Montague and her Letters:

Day after day passes, and I do not know what I do with my time; my mind has no energy, nor power of application. I can tell you, however, what I have done with some hours of it, which have been agreeably employed in reading Mrs. Montague's Letters. I think her nephew has made a very agreeable present to the public; and I was greatly edified to see them printed in modest octavo, with Mrs. Montague's sweet face (for it is a very pretty face) at the head. They certainly show a very extraordinary mind, full of wit, and also of deep thought and sound judgement. REV. JULY, 1825.

Y

She