Mrs. Barbauld was over seventy when she wrote this ode. A poem, called 'Octogenary Reflections,' is also very touching:—

Say ye, who through this round of eighty years
Have proved its joys and sorrows, hopes and fears;
Say what is life, ye veterans who have trod,
Step following steps, its flowery thorny road?
Enough of good to kindle strong desire;
Enough of ill to damp the rising fire;
Enough of love and fancy, joy and hope,
To fan desire and give the passions scope;
Enough of disappointment, sorrow, pain,
To seal the wise man's sentence—'All is vain.'

There is another fragment of hers in which she likens herself to a schoolboy left of all the train, who hears no sound of wheels to bear him to his father's bosom home. 'Thus I look to the hour when I shall follow those that are at rest before me.' And then at last the time came for which she longed. Her brother died, her faithful Mrs. Kenrick died, and Mrs. Taylor, whom she loved most of all. She had consented to give up her solitary home to spend the remaining years of her life in the home of her adopted son Charles, now married, and a father; but it was while she was on a little visit to her sister-in-law, Mrs. Aikin, that the summons came, very swiftly and peacefully, as she sat in her chair one day. Her nephew transcribed these, the last lines she ever wrote:—

'Who are you?'
'Do you not know me? have you not expected me?'
'Whither do you carry me?'
'Come with me and you shall know.'
'The way is dark.'
'It is well trodden.'
'Yes, in the forward track.'
'Come along.'
'Oh! shall I there see my beloved ones? Will they welcome me, and will they know me? Oh, tell me, tell me; thou canst tell me.'
'Yes, but thou must come first.'
'Stop a little; keep thy hand off till thou hast told me.'
'I never wait.'
'Oh! shall I see the warm sun again in my cold grave?'
'Nothing is there that can feel the sun.'
'Oh, where then?'
'Come, I say.'

One may acknowledge the great progress which people have made since Mrs. Barbauld's day in the practice of writing prose and poetry, in the art of expressing upon paper the thoughts which are in most people's minds. It is (to use a friend's simile) like playing upon the piano—everybody now learns to play upon the piano, and it is certain that the modest performances of the ladies of Mrs. Barbauld's time would scarcely meet with the attention now, which they then received. But all the same, the stock of true feeling, of real poetry, is not increased by the increased volubility of our pens; and so when something comes to us that is real, that is complete in pathos or in wisdom, we still acknowledge the gift, and are grateful for it.

MISS EDGEWORTH.

1767-1849.

'Exceeding wise, fairspoken, and persuading.'—Hen. VIII.
Early Days.
I.

Few authoresses in these days can have enjoyed the ovations and attentions which seem to have been considered the due of many of the ladies distinguished at the end of the last century and the beginning of this one. To read the accounts of the receptions and compliments which fell to their lot may well fill later and lesser luminaries with envy. Crowds opened to admit them, banquets spread themselves out before them, lights were lighted up and flowers were scattered at their feet. Dukes, editors, prime ministers, waited their convenience on their staircases; whole theatres rose up en masse to greet the gifted creatures of this and that immortal tragedy. The authoresses themselves, to do them justice, seem to have been very little dazzled by all this excitement. Hannah More contentedly retires with her maiden sisters to the Parnassus on the Mendip Hills, where they sew and chat and make tea, and teach the village children. Dear Joanna Baillie, modest and beloved, lives on to peaceful age in her pretty old house at Hampstead, looking through tree-tops and sunshine and clouds towards distant London. 'Out there where all the storms are,' I heard the children saying yesterday as they watched the overhanging gloom of smoke which, veils the city of metropolitan thunders and lightning. Maria Edgeworth's apparitions as a literary lioness in the rush of London and of Paris society were but interludes in her existence, and her real life was one of constant exertion and industry spent far away in an Irish home among her own kindred and occupations and interests. We may realise what these were when we read that Mr. Edgeworth had no less than four wives, who all left children, and that Maria was the eldest daughter of the whole family. Besides this, we must also remember that the father whom she idolised was himself a man of extraordinary powers, brilliant in conversation (so I have been told), full of animation, of interest, of plans for his country, his family, for education and literature, for mechanics and scientific discoveries; that he was a gentleman widely connected, hospitably inclined, with a large estate and many tenants to overlook, with correspondence and acquaintances all over the world; and besides all this, with various schemes in his brain, to be eventually realised by others of which velocipedes, tramways, and telegraphs were but a few of the items.