In 1775, Mrs. Barbauld published a small volume entitled “Devotional Pieces, compiled from the Psalms of David, with Thoughts on the Devotional Taste, and on Sects and Establishments.” About the same time, she wrote that admirable little volume, “Early Lessons,” a publication which has ever since been a standard work, and, though frequently imitated, yet remains unrivalled amidst all its competitors.
This little volume was written for the use of one of her nephews, who had been adopted by Mr. Barbauld and herself, in consequence of their having no child of their own. In the present day, when parents are in 174 possession of the labors of many clever persons for aiding the task of early instruction, it is difficult to form a correct estimate of the value of Mrs. Barbauld’s “Early Lessons.” At the time of its first appearance, as at present, there was a multitude of books professedly written for children, but few adapted to the comprehension of a child of very tender age, that were not at the same time injurious from their folly or puerility.
It would seem that the value of a book which was not only free from these objections, but calculated to impress upon the mind of the child just ideas and noble principles, could not fail to be appreciated by every parent and teacher; but there are those who maintain that the reformation begun by Mrs. Barbauld is an evil. It would seem that, in putting “Mother Goose’s Melodies,” “Jack the Giant-Killer,” and other works of the kind, into the hands of children, as soon as they begin to read, we are likely to distort their minds by grotesque representations, which may exert a lasting and pernicious influence on their understandings; that we set about teaching what is false, and what we must immediately seek to unteach; that we inculcate the idea upon the young mind that books are vehicles of fiction and incongruity, and not of truth and reason.
If the works alluded to produce any effects, they must be of this nature; and on some minds they have probably had a fatal influence. Yet such is the prejudice engendered by early associations, that many grave persons, whose first reading was of the kind we have mentioned, lament the repudiation of “Mother Goose” 175 and her kindred train, and deem it a mistake to use books in their place founded on the idea of Mrs. Barbauld’s works—that truth is the proper aliment of the infant mind, as well calculated to stimulate the faculties as fiction, and that its exhibition is the only safe and honest mode of dealing with those whose education is intrusted to our care.
The success of the school at Palgrave remained unimpaired; but the unceasing call for mental exertion, on the part of the conductors, which its duties required, so much injured their health, that, after eleven years of unremitting labor, an interval of complete relaxation became necessary; and Mrs. Barbauld accompanied her husband, in the autumn of 1785, to Switzerland, and afterwards to the south of France. In the following year they returned to England, and, early in 1787, took up their residence in Hampstead, where, for several years, Mr. Barbauld received a few pupils.
In 1790, Mrs. Barbauld published an eloquent and indignant address to the successful opposers of the repeal of the corporation and test acts. In the following year was written her poetical epistle to Mr. Wilberforce, on the rejection of the bill for abolishing the slave trade. In 1792, she published “Remarks on Mr. Gilbert Wakefield’s Inquiry into the Expediency and Propriety of Public or Social Worship;” and in 1793, she produced a work of a kind very unusual for a female—a sermon, entitled “The Sins of Government Sins of the Nation.” In all these works Mrs. Barbauld showed those powers of mind, that ardent love for civil and religious liberty, and that genuine 176 and practical piety, by which her life was distinguished, and for which her memory will long be held in reverence. In particular, her “Remarks on Mr. Wakefield’s Inquiry” may be noticed as being one of the best and most eloquent, and yet sober, appeals in favor of public worship that has ever appeared.
Our youthful readers will be pleased to learn that Mrs. Barbauld wrote some of the articles in that entertaining work by her brother, Dr. Aikin, entitled “Evenings at Home.” These contributions were fourteen in number. It would be useless to distinguish them here, or to say more concerning them than that they are equal in merit to the other parts of the volumes. These papers, trifling in amount, but not in value, comprise all that Mrs. Barbauld published from 1793 to 1795, when she superintended an edition of Akenside’s “Pleasures of Imagination,” to which she prefixed a critical essay. In 1797, she brought out an edition of Collins’s “Odes,” with a similar introduction. These essays are written with elegance, and display much taste and critical acuteness.
Mr. Barbauld became, in 1802, pastor of a Unitarian congregation at Newington Green, and at this time he changed his residence to Stoke Newington. The chief inducement to this removal was the desire felt by Mrs. Barbauld and her brother to pass the remainder of their lives in each other’s society. This wish was gratified during twenty years, and was interrupted only by death. In 1804, she published a selection of the papers contained in the Spectator, Guardian, Tatler and Freeholder, with a preliminary essay, in which is given an instructive account of the state of society 177 at the time the papers originally appeared, and of the objects at which they aimed. This essay has been much admired for its elegance and acuteness. In the same year, Mrs. Barbauld prepared for publication a selection from the correspondence of Richardson, the novelist, prefixing a biographical notice of him, and a critical examination of his works.
About this time, Mrs. Barbauld’s husband, to whom she had been united for more than thirty years, fell into a state of nervous weakness, and at last died, in November, 1808. From the dejection occasioned by this loss, Mrs. Barbauld sought relief in literary occupation, and undertook the task of editing a collection of the British novelists, which was published in 1810. To these volumes she contributed an introductory essay, and furnished biographical and critical notices of the life and writings of each author; these were written with her usual taste and judgment. In the next year, she composed and published the longest and most highly-finished of her poems, entitled “Eighteen Hundred and Eleven.” The time at which this poem appeared was by many persons looked upon with gloomy forebodings, and the matters of which it treats were considered as indicative of the waning fortunes of Great Britain. It was perhaps owing to the spirit of melancholy prediction by which it is pervaded, that the poem was not received by the public as it deserved. It is written throughout with great power and in harmonious language; its descriptions are characterized by deep feeling and truth, and its warnings are conveyed with an earnestness which is the best evidence of the sincerity of the author.