The obscure village of Kibworth was unable to afford her a suitable companion of her own sex: her brother, the late Dr. Aikin, was more than three years her junior; and as her father was, at this period, the master of a school for boys, it might have been apprehended that conformity of pursuits, as well as age, would tend too nearly to assimilate her with the youth of the ruder sex, by whom she was surrounded. But the vigilance of her mother effectually obviated this danger, by instilling into her a double portion of bashfulness and maidenly reserve; and she was accustomed to ascribe an uneasy sense of constraint in mixed society, which she could never entirely shake off, to the strictness and seclusion in which it had thus become her fate to be educated.
Her recollections of childhood and early youth were, in fact, not associated with much of the pleasure and 169 gayety usually attendant upon that period of life; but it must be regarded as a circumstance favorable, rather than otherwise, to the unfolding of her genius, to be left thus to find, or make, in solitude, her own objects of interest or pursuit. The love of rural nature sank deep in her heart. Her vivid fancy excited itself to color, animate, and diversify, all the objects which surrounded her; the few but choice authors of her father’s library, which she read and re-read, had leisure to make their full impression,—to mould her sentiments, and to form her taste. The spirit of devotion, early inculcated upon her as a duty, opened to her, by degrees, an exhaustless source of tender and sublime delight; and while yet a child, she was surprised to find herself a poet.
Just at the period when longer seclusion might have proved seriously injurious to her spirits, an invitation given to her learned and exemplary father to undertake the office of classical tutor to a highly respectable academy at Warrington, in Lancashire, was the fortunate means of transplanting her to a more varied and animating scene. This removal took place in 1758, when Miss Aikin had just attained the age of fifteen; and the fifteen succeeding years, passed by her at Warrington, comprehended probably the happiest, as well as the most brilliant, portion of her existence. She was at this time possessed of great beauty, distinct traces of which she retained to the latest period of her life. Her person was slender, her complexion fair, with the bloom of perfect health: her features were regular and elegant; and her light blue eyes beamed with the light of wit and fancy.
A solitary education had not produced on her its most frequent ill effects, pride and self-importance; the reserve of her manners proceeded solely from bashfulness, for her temper inclined her strongly to friendship, and to social pleasures; and her active imagination, which represented all objects tinged with hues “unborrowed of the sun,” served as a charm against that disgust with common characters and daily incidents, which so frequently renders the conscious possessor of superior talents at once unamiable and unhappy.
Nor was she now in want of congenial associates. Warrington academy included among its tutors names eminent both in science and literature; with several of these, and especially with Dr. Priestley and Dr. Canfield and their families, she formed sincere and lasting friendships. The elder and more accomplished among the students composed an agreeable part of the same society; and its animation was increased by a mixture of young ladies, either residents in the town, or occasional visitors, several of whom were equally distinguished for personal charms, for amiable manners, and cultivated minds. The rising institution, which flourished for several years in high reputation, diffused a classic air over all connected with it. Miss Aikin, as was natural, took a warm interest in its success; and no academic has ever celebrated his alma mater in nobler strains, or with a more filial affection, than she has manifested in that portion of her early and beautiful poem, “The Invitation,” where her theme is this “nursery of men for future years.”
About the close of the year 1771, her brother, after 171 several years of absence, returned to establish himself in his profession at Warrington—an event equally welcome to her feelings and propitious to her literary progress. In him she possessed a friend with discernment to recognize the stamp of genius in her productions, and anticipate their fame, combined with zeal and courage sufficient to vanquish her reluctance to appear before the public in the character of an author. By his persuasion and assistance, her poems were selected, revised, and arranged for publication; and when all these preparations were completed, finding that she still hesitated and lingered,—like the parent bird, who pushes off its young to their first flight, he procured the paper, and set the press to work on his own authority. The result more than justified his confidence of her success; four editions of the work were called for within the year of publication, 1773; compliments and congratulations poured in from all quarters; and even the periodical critics greeted her muse with nearly unmixed applause.
She was not permitted to repose upon her laurels. Her brother, who possessed all the activity and spirit of literary enterprise, in which she was deficient, now urged her to collect her prose pieces, and to join him in forming a small volume, which appeared also in the year 1773, under the title of “Miscellaneous Pieces in Prose, by J. and A. L. Aikin.” These likewise met with much notice and admiration, and have been several times reprinted. The authors did not think proper to distinguish their respective contributions, and several of the pieces have, in consequence, been generally misappropriated. The fragment of “Sir Bertrand,” 172 in particular, though alien from the character of that brilliant and airy imagination which was never conversant with terror, and rarely with pity, has been repeatedly ascribed to Mrs. Barbauld, even in print.
Having thus laid the foundation of a lasting reputation in literature, Miss Aikin might have been expected to proceed with vigor in rearing the superstructure; and the world awaited with impatience the result of her further efforts. But an event, the most important of her life, was about to subject her to new influences, new duties, to alter her station, her course of life, and to modify even the bent of her mind. This event was her marriage, which took place in May, 1774.
Her husband, the Rev. Rochemont Barbauld, was a dissenting minister, descended from a family of French Protestants, who had taken refuge in England in the reign of Louis XIV. Mr. Barbauld was educated in the academy at Warrington, and, at the time of his marriage, had been recently appointed to the charge of a dissenting congregation at Palgrave, in Suffolk, near Diss, in Norfolk, where he had announced his intention of opening a boarding-school for boys. This undertaking proved speedily successful—a result which must in great part be attributed, first to the reputation, and afterwards to the active exertions, of Mrs. Barbauld. She particularly superintended the departments of geography and English composition, which latter she taught by a method then unusual, but which has since been brought much into practice. Her plan, according to the statement of Mr. William Taylor, of Norwich, one of her first 173 pupils, was, to read a fable, a short story, or a moral essay, aloud, and then to send them back into the school-room to write it out on slates in their own words. Each exercise was separately examined by her: the faults of grammar were obliterated, the vulgarisms were chastised, the idle epithets were cancelled, and a distinct reason was always assigned for every correction, so that the arts of inditing and criticising were in some degree learnt together. Mrs. Barbauld also instructed the pupils in the art of declamation; and the pleasing accomplishments of good reading and graceful speaking have probably never been taught with more assiduity or with better success than by herself. After a few years thus devoted, Mrs. Barbauld was solicited to receive several little boys as her own peculiar pupils; and among this number may be mentioned Lord Denman, the present Chief Justice of England, and the celebrated Sir William Gell. It was for the use of these, her almost infant scholars, that she composed her “Hymns in Prose for Children.”