No More Learning

BARBAULD
From preceding generations whose
lives had been concentrated upon household affairs, these women
pioneers had acquired the strictly practical bent of mind which
comes out in all their verse, as in all their prose.
The child born at Kibworth Harcourt, Leicestershire, a century
and a half ago, became one of the first of these pleasant writers for
young and old.
She was one of the thousand refutations of the
stupid popular idea that precocious children never amount to any.
thing When only two, she could read roundly without spelling,
and in half a year more could read as well as most women. Her
father was master of a boys' school, where her childhood was passed
under the rule of a loving but austere mother, who disliked all
intercourse with the pupils for her daughter. It was not the fash-
ion for women to be highly educated; but, stimulated perhaps by the
scholastic atmosphere, Lætitia implored her father for a classical

lic.


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ANNA LÆTITIA BARBAULD
training, until, against his judgment, he allowed her to study Greek
and Latin as well as French and Italian. Though not fond of the
housewifely accomplishments insisted upon by Mrs. Aikin, the eager
student also cooked and sewed with due obedience.
Her dull childhood ended when she was fifteen, for then her
father accepted a position as classical tutor in a boys' school at
Warrington, Lancashire, to which place the family moved.
The new
home afforded greater freedom and an interesting circle of friends,
among them Currie, William Roscoe, John Taylor, and the famous
Dr. Priestley. A very pretty girl, with brilliant blonde coloring and
animated dark-blue eyes, she was witty and vivacious, too, under
the modest diffidence to which she had been trained. Naturally she
attracted much admiration from the schoolboys and even from their
elders, but on the whole she seems to have found study and writing
more interesting than love affairs. The first suitor, who presented
himself when she was about sixteen, was a farmer from her early
home at Kibworth. He stated his wishes to her father. “She is in
the garden,” said Mr. Aikin. “You may ask her yourself. ” Lætitia
was not propitious, but the young man was persistent, and the posi-
tion grew irksome. So the nimble girl scrambled into a convenient
tree, and escaped her rustic wooer by swinging herself down upon
the other side of the garden wall.
During these years at Warrington she wrote for her own pleas-
ure, and when her brother John returned home after several years'
absence, he helped her to arrange and publish a selection of her
The little book which appeared in 1773 was highly praised,
and ran through four editions within a year. In spite of grace and
fluency, most of these verses seem flat and antiquated to the modern
reader. Of the spirited first poem (Corsica,' Dr. Priestley wrote to
her:-"I consider that you are as much a general as Tyrtæus was,
and your poems (which I am confident are much better than his ever
were) may have as great effect as his. They may be the coup de grace
to the French troops in that island, and Paoli, who reads English,
will cause it to be printed in every history in that renowned island. ”
Miss Aikin's next venture was a small volume in collaboration
with her brother, Miscellaneous Pieces in Prose by J. and A. L.
Aikin. This too was widely read and admired. Samuel Rogers has
related an amusing conversation about the book in its first vogue:
«I am greatly pleased with your Miscellaneous Pieces,” said Charles
James Fox to Mrs. Barbauld's brother. Dr. Aikin bowed.
ticularly admire, continued Fox, your essay Against Inconsistency
in our Expectations. )” “That,” replied Aikin, “is my sister's. ” «
like much,” continued Fox, “your essay on Monastic Institutions. ) »
«That,” answered Aikin, is also my sister's. ” Fox thought it wise
poems.
I par-


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ANNA LÆTITIA BARBAULD
1483
to say no more about the book. The essay Against Inconsistency
in our Expectations) was most highly praised by the critics, and pro-
nounced by Mackintosh “the best short essay in the language. ”
When thirty years old, Lætitia Aikin married Rochemont Bar-
bauld, and went to live at Palgrave in Suffolk, where her husband
opened a boys' school, soon made popular by her personal charm and
influence. Sir William Gell, a classic topographer still remembered;
William Taylor, author of a Historic Survey of German Poetry);
and Lord Chief Justice Denman, were a few among the many who
looked back with gratitude to a childhood under her care.
Perhaps her best known work is the “Early Lessons for Children,
which was written during this period. Coming as it did when, as
Hannah More said, there was nothing for children to read between
(Cinderella and the Spectator, it was largely welcomed, and has
been used by generations of English children. The lessons were
written for a real little Charles, her adopted son, the child of her
brother, Dr. Aikin. For him, too, she wrote her Hymns in Prose
for Children,' a book equally successful, which has been translated
into French, German, Spanish, Italian, and even Latin.
After eleven busy years at Palgrave, during which, in spite of her
cheerful energy, Mrs. Barbauld had been much harassed by the nerv-
ous irritability of her invalid husband, the Barbaulds gave up their
school and treated themselves to a year of Continental travel. On
their return they settled at Hampstead, where Mr. Barbauld became
pastor of a small Unitarian congregation. The nearness to London
was a great advantage to Mrs. Barbauld's refreshed activity, and she
soon made the new home a pleasant rendezvous for literary men and
women. At one of her London dinner parties she met Sir Walter
Scott, who declared that her reading of Taylor's translation of Bür-
ger's Lenore) had inspired him to write poetry. She met Dr. John-
son too, who, though he railed at her after his fashion, calling her
Deborah and Virago Barbauld, did sometimes betray a sincere admi-
ration for her character and accomplishments. Miss Edgeworth and
Hannah More were dear friends and regular correspondents.
From time to time she published a poem or an essay; not many,
for in spite of her brother's continual admonition to write, hers was
a somewhat indolent talent. In 1790 she wrote a capable essay upon
the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts; a year later, a poetical
epistle to Mr. Wilberforce on the Slave Trade; in 1792, a defense of
Public Worship; and in 1793, a discourse as to a Fast Day upon the
Sins of Government.
In 1808 her husband's violent death, the result of a long insanity,
prostrated her for a time. Then as a diversion from morbid thought
she undertook an edition of the best English novels in fifty volumes,


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1484
ANNA LÆTITIA BARBACLD
for which she wrote an admirable introductory essay.
She also
made a compilation from the Spectator, Tatler, Guardian, and Free-
holder, with a preliminary discourse, which she published in 1811.
It was called “The Female Speaker,' and intended for young women.
The same year her (Eighteen Hundred and Eleven,' a patriotic di-
dactic poem, wounded national self-love and drew upon her much
unfriendly criticism, which so pained her that she would publish no
more. But the stirring lines were widely read, and in them Macaulay
found the original of his famous traveler from New Zealand, who
meditates on the ruined arches of London Bridge. Her prose style,
in its light philosophy, its humorously sympathetic dealing with
every-day affairs, has been often compared with Addison's.
Her old age was serene and happy, rich in intellectual companion-
ships and in the love and respect of many friends. Somewhere she
speaks of that state of middling life to which I have been accus-
tomed and which I love. " She disliked extremes, in emotion as in all
things, and took what came with cheerful courage. The poem Life,'
which the self-satisfied Wordsworth wished that he had written, ex-
presses her serene and philosophic spirit.
AGAINST INCONSISTENCY IN OUR EXPECTATIONS
A
S MOST of the unhappiness in the world arises rather from
disappointed desires than from positive evil, it is of the
utmost consequence to attain just notions of the laws and
order of the universe, that we may not vex ourselves with fruit-
less wishes, or give way to groundless and unreasonable discon-
tent.
The laws of natural philosophy, indeed, are tolerably
understood and attended to; and though we may suffer incon-
veniences, we are seldom disappointed in consequence of them.
No man expects to preserve orange-trees in the open air through
an English winter; or when he has planted an acorn, to see it
become a large oak in a few months. The mind of man naturally
yields to necessity; and our wishes soon subside when we see the
impossibility of their being gratified.
Now, upon an accurate inspection, we shall find in the moral
government of the world, and the order of the intellectual system,
laws as determinate, fixed, and invariable as any in Newton's
Principia. ' The progress of vegetation is not more certain than
the growth of habit; nor is the power of attraction more clearly
proved than the force of affection or the influence of example.


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ANNA LÆTITIA BARBALLD
1485
The man, therefore, who has well studied the operations of
nature in mind as well as matter, will acquire a certain modera-
tion and equity in his claims upon Providence. He never will
be disappointed either in himself or others. He will act with
precision; and expect that effect and that alone, from his efforts,
which they are naturally adapted to produce.
For want of this, men of merit and integrity often censure
the dispositions of Providence for suffering characters they despise
to run away with advantages which, they yet know, are pur-
chased by such means as a high and noble spirit could never
submit to. If you refuse to pay the price, why expect the pur-
chase ? We should consider this world as a great mart of com-
merce, where fortune exposes to our view various commodities, -
riches, ease, tranquillity, fame, integrity, knowledge. Everything
is marked at a settled price. Our time, our labor, our ingenuity,
is so much ready money which we are to lay out to the best
advantage. Examine, compare, choose, reject; but stand to your
own judgment: and do not, like children, when you have pur-
chased one thing, repine that you do not possess another which
you did not purchase. Such is the force of well-regulated
industry, that a steady and vigorous exertion of our faculties,
directed to one end, will generally insure success.
Would you, for instance, be rich: Do you think that single
point worth the sacrificing everything else to? You may then
be rich. Thousands have become so from the lowest beginnings,
by toil, and patient diligence, and attention to the minutest
article of expense and profit. But you must give up the pleas-
ures of leisure, of a vacant mind, of a free, unsuspicious temper.
If you preserve your integrity, it must be a coarse-spun and
vulgar honesty. Those high and lofty notions of morals which
you brought with you from the schools must be considerably
lowered, and mixed with the baser alloy of a jealous and
worldly-minded prudence. You must learn to do hard if not
unjust things; and for the nice embarrassments of a delicate and
ingenuous spirit, it is necessary for you to get rid of them as
fast as possible. You must shut your heart against the Muses,
and be content to feed your understanding with plain, household
truths. In short, you must not attempt to enlarge your ideas,
or polish your taste, or refine your sentiments; but must keep
on in one beaten track, without turning aside either to the right
hand or to the left. “But I cannot submit to drudgery like this:


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ANNA LÆTITIA BARBAULD
man
I feel a spirit above it. ” 'Tis well: be above it then; only do
not repine that you are not rich.
Is knowledge the pearl of price? That too may be purchased
– by steady application, and long solitary hours of study and
reflection. Bestow these, and you shall be wise. “But” (says
the man of letters) "what a hardship is it that many an illiter-
ate fellow who cannot construe the motto of the arms on his
coach, shall raise a fortune and make a figure, while I have
little more than the common conveniences of life. ” Et tibi magui
satis ! — Was it in order to raise a fortune that you consumed
the sprightly hours of youth in study and retirement ? Was it
to be rich that you grew pale over the midnight lamp, and dis-
tilled the sweetness from the Greek and Roman spring? You
have then mistaken your path, and ill employed your industry.
“What reward have I then for all my labors ? What reward!
A large, comprehensive soul, well purged from vulgar fears and
perturbations and prejudices; able to comprehend and interpret
the works of
of God. A rich, flourishing, cultivated
mind, pregnant with inexhaustible stores of entertainment and
reflection. A perpetual spring of fresh ideas; and the conscious
dignity of superior intelligence. Good heaven! and what reward
can you ask besides?
“But is it not some reproach upon the economy of Provi-
dence that such a one, who is a mean, dirty fellow, should have
amassed wealth enough to buy half a nation ? Not in the least.
He made himself a mean, dirty fellow for that very end. He has
paid his health, his conscience, his liberty, for it; and will you
envy him his bargain ? Will you hang your head and blush in his
presence because he outshines you in equipage and show ? Lift
up your brow with a noble confidence, and say to yourself, I have
not these things, it is true; but it is because I have not sought,
because I have not desired them; it is because I possess some-
thing better. I have chosen my lot. I am content and satisfied.
You are a modest man — you love quiet and independence,
and have a delicacy and reserve in your temper which renders
it impossible for you to elbow your way in the world, and be
the herald of your own merits. Be content then with a modest
retirement, with the esteem of your intimate friends, with the
praises of a blameless heart, and a delicate, ingenuous spirit; but
resign the splendid distinctions of the world to those who can
better scramble for them.


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ANNA LÆTITIA BARBAULD
1487
The man whose tender sensibility of conscience and strict
regard to the rules of morality makes him scrupulous and fear-
ful of offending, is often heard to complain of the disadvantages
he lies under in every path of honor and profit. "Could I but
get over some nice points, and conform to the practice and opin-
ion of those about me, I might stand as fair a chance as others
for dignities and preferment. ” And why can you not ? What
hinders you from discarding this troublesome scrupulosity of
yours which stands so grievously in your way? If it be a small
thing to enjoy a healthful mind, sound at the very core, that
does not shrink from the keenest inspection; inward freedom
from remorse and perturbation; unsullied whiteness and sim-
plicity of manners; a genuine integrity,
“Pure in the last recesses of the mind; »
if you think these advantages an inadequate recompense for
what you resign, dismiss your scruples this instant, and be a
slave-merchant, a parasite, or — what you please.
“If these be motives weak, break off betimes; »
and as you have not spirit to assert the dignity of virtue, be
wise enough not to forego the emoluments of vice.
I much admire the spirit of the ancient philosophers, in that
they never attempted, as our moralists often do, to lower the
tone of philosophy, and make it consistent with all the indul-
gences of indolence and sensuality. They never thought of hav-
ing the bulk of mankind for their disciples; but kept themselves
as distinct as possible from a worldly life. They plainly told
men what sacrifices were required, and what advantages they
were which might be expected.
“Si virtus hoc una potest dare, fortis omissis
Hoc age deliciis
If you would be a philosopher, these are the terms. You must
do thus and thus; there is no other way. if not, go and be one
of the vulgar.
There is no one quality gives so much dignity to a character
as consistency of conduct. Even if a man's pursuits be wrong
and unjustifiable, yet if they are prosecuted with steadiness and
vigor, we cannot withhold our admiration. The most character-
istic mark of a great mind is to choose some one important


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ANNA LÆTITIA BARBAULD
object, and pursue it through life. It was this made Cæsar a
great man. His object was ambition: he pursued it steadily;
and was always ready to sacrifice to it every interfering passion
or inclination.
There is a pretty passage in one of Lucian's dialogues, where
Jupiter complains to Cupid that though he has had so many
intrigues, he was never sincerely beloved. In order to be loved,
says Cupid, you must lay aside your ægis and your thunder-
bolts, and you must curl and perfume your hair, and place a
garland on your head, and walk with a soft step, and assume a
winning, obsequious deportment. But, replied Jupiter, I am not
willing to resign so much of my dignity. Then, returns Cupid,
leave off desiring to be loved. He wanted to be Jupiter and
Adonis at the same time.
It must be confessed that men of genius are of all others
most inclined to make these unreasonable claims. As their relish
for enjoyment is strong, their views large and comprehensive,
and they feel themselves lifted above the common bulk of man-
kind, they are apt to slight that natural reward of praise and
admiration which is ever largely paid to distinguished abilities;
and to expect to be called forth to public notice and favor:
without considering that their talents are commonly very unfit
for active life; that their eccentricity and turn for speculation
disqualifies them for the business of the world, which is best
carried on by men of moderate genius; and that society is not
obliged to reward any one who is not useful to it.
have been a very unreasonable race, and have often complained
loudly of the neglect of genius and the ingratitude of the age.
The tender and pensive Cowley, and the elegant Shenstone, had
their minds tinctured by this discontent; and even the sublime
melancholy of Young was too much owing to the stings of dis-
appointed ambition.
The moderation we have been endeavoring to inculcate will
likewise prevent much mortification and disgust in our commerce
with mankind. As we ought not to wish in ourselves, so neither
should we expect in our friends, contrary qualifications. Young
and sanguine, when we enter the world, and feel our affections
drawn forth by any particular excellence in a character, we imme-
diately give it credit for all others; and are beyond measure dis-
gusted when we come to discover, as we soon must discover, the
defects in the other side of the balance. But nature is much
The poets


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ANNA LÆTITIA BARBALLD
1489
more frugal than to heap together all manner of shining qualities
in one glaring mass. Like a judicious painter, she endeavors to
preserve a certain unity of style and coloring in her pieces.
Models of absolute perfection are only to be met with in romance;
where exquisite beauty, and brilliant wit, and profound judgment,
and immaculate virtue, are all blended together to adorn some
favorite character. As an anatomist knows that the racer cannot
have the strength and muscles of the draught-horse; and that
winged men, griffins, and mermaids must be mere creatures of
the imagination: so the philosopher is sensible that there are
combinations of moral qualities which never can take place but in
idea. There is a different air and complexion in characters as
well as in faces, though perhaps each equally beautiful; and the
excellences of one cannot be transferred to the other. Thus if
one man possesses a stoical apathy of soul, acts independent of
the opinion of the world, and fulfills every duty with mathemat-
ical exactness, you must not expect that man to be greatly influ-
enced by the weakness of pity, or the partialities of friendship;
you must not be offended that he does not fly to meet you after
a short absence, or require from him the convivial spirit and
honest effusions of a warm, open, susceptible heart. If another
is remarkable for a lively, active zeal, inflexible integrity, a strong
indignation against vice, and freedom in reproving it, he will
probably have some little bluntness in his address not altogether
suitable to polished life; he will want the winning arts of conver-
sation; he will disgust by a kind of haughtiness and negligence
in his manner, and often hurt the delicacy of his acquaintance
with harsh and disagreeable truths.
We usually say
That man is a genius, but he has some
whims and oddities - Such a one has a very general knowledge,
but he is superficial, etc. Now in all such cases we should speak
more rationally, did we substitute “therefore ” for “but”: “He
is a genius, therefore he is whimsical;” and the like.
It is the fault of the present age, owing to the freer com-
merce that different ranks and professions now enjoy with each
other, that characters are not marked with sufficient strength;
the several classes run too much into one another. We have
fewer pedants, it is true, but we have fewer striking originals.
Every one is expected to have such a tincture of general knowl-
edge as is incompatible with going deep into any science; and
such a conformity to fashionable manners as checks the free
III-94


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ANNA LÆTITIA BARBALLD
a
woman
as
a
workings of the ruling passion, and gives an insipid sameness to
the face of society, under the idea of polish and regularity.
There is a cast of manners peculiar and becoming to each
age, sex, and profession; one, therefore, should not throw out
illiberal and commonplace censures against another. Each is
perfect in its kind:
a woman; a tradesman as
tradesman. We are often hurt by the brutality and sluggish con-
ceptions of the vulgar; not considering that some there must be
to be hewers of wood and drawers of water, and that cultivated
genius, or even any great refinement and delicacy in their moral
feelings, would be a real misfortune to them.
Let us then study the philosophy of the human mind. The
man who is master of this science will know what to expect
from every one.
From this man, wise advice; from that, cordial
sympathy; from another, casual entertainment. The passions and
inclinations of others are his tools, which he can use with as
much precision as he would the mechanical powers; and he can
as readily make allowance for the workings of vanity, or the bias
of self-interest in his friends, as for the power of friction, or the
irregularities of the needle.
A DIALOGUE OF THE DEAD
BETWEEN
HELEN
AND
MADAME MAINTENON
ELEN
He
Whence comes it, my dear Madame Maintenon, that
beauty, which in the age I lived in produced such extraor-
dinary effects, has now lost almost all its power ?
Maintenon-I should wish first to be convinced of the fact,
before I offer to give you a reason for it.
Helen — That will be very easy; for there is no occasion to
go any further than our own histories and experience to prove
what I advance. You were beautiful, accomplished, and fortu-
nate; endowed with every talent and every grace to bend the
heart of man and mold it to your wish; and your schemes were
successful; for you raised yourself from obscurity and dependence
to be the wife of a great monarch. — But what is this to the
influence my beauty had over sovereigns and nations! I occas-
ioned a long ten-years' war between the most celebrated heroes
of antiquity; contending kingdoms disputed the honor of placing
on their respective thrones; my story is recorded by the
me


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ANNA LÆTITIA BARBAULD
1491
Do you
father of verse; and my charms make a figure even in the an-
nals of mankind. You were, it is true, the wife of Louis XIV. ,
and respected in his court, but you occasioned no wars; you are
not spoken of in the history of France, though you furnished
materials for the memoirs of a court. Are the love and admi-
ration that were paid you merely as an amiable woman to be
compared with the enthusiasm I inspired, and the boundless
empire I obtained over all that was celebrated, great, or power-
ful in the age I lived in ?
Maintenon — All this, my dear Helen, has a splendid appear-
ance, and sounds well in a heroic poem; but you greatly deceive
yourself if you impute it all to your personal merit.
imagine that half the chiefs concerned in the war of Troy were
at all influenced by your beauty, or troubled their heads what
became of you, provided they came off with honor? Believe
me, love had very little to do in the affair: Menelaus sought to
revenge the affront he had received; Agamemnon was flattered
with the supreme command; some came to share the glory,
others the plunder; some because they had bad wives at home,
some in hopes of getting Trojan mistresses abroad; and Homer
thought the story extremely proper for the subject of the best
poem in the world. Thus you became famous; your elopement
was made a national quarrel; the animosities of both nations
were kindled by frequent battles; and the object was not the
restoring of Helen to Menelaus, but the destruction of Troy by
the Greeks. — My triumphs, on the other hand, were all owing
to myself, and to the influence of personal merit and charms over
the heart of man. My birth was obscure; my fortunes low; I
had past the bloom of youth, and was advancing to that period
at which the generality of our sex lose all importance with the
other; I had to do with a man of gallantry and intrigue, a
monarch who had been long familiarized with beauty, and accus-
tomed to every refinement of pleasure which the most splendid
court in Europe could afford: Love and Beauty seemed to have
exhausted all their powers of pleasing for him in vain. Yet this
man I captivated, I fixed; and far from being content, as other
beauties had been, with the honor of possessing his heart, I
brought him to make me his wife, and gained an honorable title
to his tenderest affection. — The infatuation of Paris reflected little
honor upon you.
A thoughtless youth, gay, tender, and impress-
ible, struck with your beauty, in violation of all the most sacred


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1492
ANNA LÆTITIA BARBAULD
laws of hospitality carries you off, and obstinately refuses to
restore you to your husband. You seduced Paris from his duty,
I recovered Louis from vice; you were the mistress of the Tro-
jan prince, I was the companion of the French monarch.
Helen–grant you were the wife of Louis, but not the
Queen of France. Your great object was ambition, and in that
you met with a partial success; - my ruling star was love, and I
gave up everything for it. But tell me, did not I show my influ-
ence over Menelaus in his taking me again after the destruction
of Troy?
Maintenon — That circumstance alone is sufficient to show that
he did not love you with any delicacy. He took you as a posses-
sion that was restored to him, as a booty that he had recovered;
and he had not sentiment enough to care whether he had your
heart or not. The heroes of your age were capable of admiring
beauty, and often fought for the possession of it; but they had
not refinement enough to be capable of any pure, sentimental
attachment or delicate passion. Was that period the triumph of
love and gallantry, when a fine woman and a tripod were placed
together for prizes at a wrestling-bout, and the tripod esteemed
the most valuable reward of the two ? No; it is our Clelia, our
Cassandra and Princess of Cleves, that have polished mankind
and taught them how to love.
Helen — Rather say you have lost sight of nature and pas-
sion, between bombast on one hand and conceit on the other.
Shall one of the cold temperament of France teach a Grecian
how to love ? Greece, the parent of fair forms and soft desires,
the nurse of poetry, whose soft climate and tempered skies dis-
posed to every gentler feeling, and tuned the heart to harmony
and love! - was Greece a land of barbarians ? But recollect, if
you can, an incident which showed the power of beauty in
stronger colors — that when the grave old counselors of Priam
on my appearance were struck with fond admiration, and could
not bring themselves to blame the cause of a war that had
almost ruined their country; - you see
I charmed the old as
well as seduced the young.
Maintenon — But I, after I grown old, charmed the
young; I was idolized in a capital where taste, luxury, and mag-
nificence were at the height; I was celebrated by the greatest
wits of my time, and my letters have been carefully handed
down to posterity.
was


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ANNA LÆTITIA BARBAULD
1493
Helen — Tell me now sincerely, were you happy in your ele-
vated fortune ?
Maintenon Alas! Heaven knows I was far otherwise: a
thousand times did I wish for my dear Scarron again.
He was
a very ugly fellow, it is true, and had but little money: but the
most easy, entertaining companion in the world: we danced,
laughed, and sung; I spoke without fear or anxiety, and was
sure to please. With Louis all was gloom, constraint, and a
painful solicitude to please — which seldom produces its effect;
the king's temper had been soured in the latter part of life by
frequent disappointments; and I was forced continually to en-
deavor to procure him that cheerfulness which I had not myself.
Louis was accustomed to the most delicate flatteries; and though
I had a good share of wit, my faculties were continually on the
stretch to entertain him,- a state of mind little consistent with
happiness or ease; I was afraid to advance my friends or punish
my enemies. My pupils at St. Cyr were not more secluded from
the world in a cloister than I was in the bosom of the court; a
secret disgust and weariness consumed me. I had no relief but
in my work and books of devotion; with these alone I had a
gleam of happiness.
Helen — Alas! one need not have married a great monarch for
that.
Maintenon - But deign to inform me, Helen, if you were
really as beautiful as fame reports ? for to say truth, I cannot in
your shade see the beauty which for nine long years had set the
world in arms.
Helen -- Honestly, no: I was rather low, and something sun-
burnt; but I had the good fortune to please; that was all. I
was greatly obliged to Homer.
Maintenon — And did you live tolerably with Menelaus after
all your adventures ?
Helen - As well as possible. Menelaus was a good-natured
domestic man, and was glad to sit down and end his days in
quiet. I persuaded him that Venus and the Fates were the cause
of all my irregularities, which he complaisantly believed. Besides,
I was not sorry to return home: for to tell you a secret, Paris had
been unfaithful to me long before his death, and was fond of a
little Trojan brunette whose office it was to hold up my train;
but it was thought dishonorable to give me up. I began to think
love a very foolish thing: I became a great housekeeper, worked


## p. 1494 (#292) ###########################################

1494
ANNA LÆTITIA BARBAULD
the battles of Troy in tapestry, and spun with my maids by the
side of Menelaus, who was so satisfied with my conduct, and
behaved, good man, with so much fondness, that I verily think
this was the happiest period of my life.
Maintenon — Nothing more likely; but the most obscure wife
in Greece could rival you there. — Adieu! you have convinced me
how little fame and greatness conduce to happiness.
LIFE
L
IFE! I know not what thou art,
But know that thou and I must part;
And when or how or where we met,
I own to me's a secret yet.
But this I know, when thou art fled,
Where'er they lay these limbs, this head,
No clod so valueless shall be,
As all that then remains of me.
O whither, whither dost thou fly,
Where bend unseen thy trackless course,
And in this strange divorce,
Ah, tell where I must seek this compound I ?
To the vast ocean of empyreal flame,
From whence thy essence came,
Dost thou thy flight pursue, when freed
From matter's base encumbering weed ?
Or dost thou, hid from sight,
Wait, like some spell-bound knight,
Through blank oblivion's years th' appointed hour,
To break thy trance and reassume thy power ?
Yet canst thou without thought or feeling be?
O say what art thou, when no more thou’rt thee?
Life! we've been long together,
Through pleasant and through cloudy weather;
'Tis hard part when friends are dear;
Perhaps 'twill cost a sigh, a tear;
Then steal away, give little warning,
Choose thine own time;
Say not good-night, but in some brighter clime
Bid me good-morning.


## p. 1495 (#293) ###########################################

ANNA LÆTITIA BARBAULD
1495
PRAISE TO GOD
P
RAISE to God, immortal praise,
For the love that crowns our days —
Bounteous source of every joy,
Let Thy praise our tongues employ!
For the blessings of the field,
For the stores the gardens yield,
For the vine's exalted juice,
For the generous olive's use;
Flocks that whiten all the plain,
Yellow sheaves of ripened grain,
Clouds that drop their fattening dews,
Suns that temperate warmth diffuse -
All that Spring, with bounteous hand,
Scatters o'er the smiling land;
All that liberal Autumn pours
From her rich o'erflowing stores:
These to Thee, my God, we owe -
Source whence all our blessings flow!
And for these my soul shall raise
Grateful vows and solemn praise.
Yet should rising whirlwinds tear
From its stem the ripening ear
Should the fig-tree's blasted shoot
Drop her green untimely fruit -
Should the vine put forth no more,
Nor the olive yield her store —
Though the sickening flocks should fall,
And the herds desert the stall —
Should Thine altered hand restrain
The early and the latter rain,
Blast each opening bud of joy,
And the rising year destroy:
Yet to Thee my soul should raise
Grateful vows and solemn praise,
And, when every blessing's flown,
Love Thee — for Thyself alone.


## p. 1496 (#294) ###########################################

1496
ALEXANDER BARCLAY
(1475-1552)
B
-an
ARCLAY's reputation rests upon his translation of the famous
"Ship of Fools and his original Eclogues. ' A controversy
as to the land of his birth - event which happened
about the year 1475 — has lasted from his century to our own. The
decision in favor of Scotland rests upon the testimony of two wit-
nesses: first, Dr. William Bullim, a younger contemporary of Barclay,
who mentions him in (A Dialogue Both Pleasaunt and Pietifull
Wherein is a Godlie Regement Against the Fever Pestilence with a
Consolation and Comforte Against Death,' which was published in
1564; and secondly, Barclay himself.
Bullim groups the Muses at the foot of Parnassus, and gathers
about them Greek and Latin poets, and such Englishmen as Chaucer,
Gower, Skelton, and Barclay, the latter “with an hoopyng russet
long coate, with a pretie hood in his necke, and five knottes upon
his girdle, after Francis's tricks. He was borne beyond the cold
river of Twede. He lodged upon a sweetebed of chamomill under
the sinamone-tree: about him many shepherdes and shepe, with
pleasaunte pipes; greatly abhorring the life of Courtiers, Citizens,
Usurers, and Banckruptes, etc. , whose daies are miserable. And the
estate of shepherdes and countrie people he accompted moste happie
and sure. Deprived of its poetic fancy, this passage means that
Barclay was a monk of the order of St. Francis, that he was born
north of the Tweed, that his verse was infused with such bitterness
and tonic qualities as camomile possesses, and that he advocated the
cause of the country people in his independent and admirable Ec-
logues,' another title for the first three of which is Miseryes of
Courtiers and Courtes of all Princes in General. '
Barclay was educated at Oxford and Cambridge, and upon his
return to England after several years of residence abroad, he was
made one of the priests of Saint Mary Ottery, an institution of devout
practice and learning in Devonshire. Here in 1508 was finished
(The Shyp of Folys of the Worlde translated out of Laten, Frenche,
and Doche into Englysshe tonge by Alexander Barclay, Preste, and
at that time chaplen in the sayd College. '
After his work was completed Barclay went to London, where
his poem was “imprentyd
in Fleet Street at the signe of
Saynt George by Rycharde Pyreson to hys Coste and charge: ended


## p. 1497 (#295) ###########################################

ALEXANDER BARCLAY
1497
C
the yere of our Saviour MDIX. the XIII. day of December. ” That he
became a Benedictine and lived at the monastery of the order at
Ely is evident from his "Eclogues. ' Here he translated at the
instance of Sir Giles Arlington, Knight, The Myrrour of Good Man-
ers,' from a Latin elegiac poem which Dominic Mancini published
in the year 1516.
“It was about this period of his life,” says Mr. Jamieson in his
admirable edition of the Ship of Fools,' “probably the period of
the full bloom of his popularity, that the quiet life of the poet and
priest was interrupted by the recognition of his eminence in the
highest quarters, and by a request for his aid in maintaining the
honor of the country on an occasion to which the eyes of all Europe
were then directed. In a letter to Wolsey dated oth April, 1520,
Sir Nicholas Vaux – busied with the preparation for that meeting of
Henry VIII. and Francis I. called the field of the Cloth of Gold -
begs the Cardinal to send them . . Maistre Barkleye, the Black
Monke and Poete, to devise histoires and convenient raisons to flor-
isshe the buildings and banquet house withal. ”
He became a Franciscan, the habit of which order Bullim refers
to; and
sure 'tis,” says Wood, “that living to see his monastery
dissolvid, in 1539, at the general dissolution by act of Henry VIII. ,
he became vicar of Much Badew in Essex, and in 1546, the same
year, of the Church of St. Matthew the Apostle at Wokey, in Som-
ersetshire, and finally in 1552, the year in which he died, of that of
All Saints, Lombard Street, London. In his younger days he was
esteemed a good poet and orator, but when years came on, he spent
his time mostly in pious matters, and in reading the histories of
Saints. ”
'The Ship of Fools) is the most important work associated with
Barclay's name. It was a translation of Sebastian Brandt's (Stulti-
fera Navis, a book which had attracted universal attention on the
Continent when it appeared in 1494. In his preface, Barclay admits
that it is not translated word by word according to the verses of my
actor. For I have but only drawn into our mother tongue in rude
language the sentences of the verses as near as the paucity of my
wit will suffer me, sometime adding, sometime detracting and taking
away such things as seemeth me necessary. ” The classes and con-
ditions of society that Barclay knew were as deserving of satire as
those of Germany. He tells us that his work was undertaken «to
cleanse the vanity and madness of foolish people, of whom over great
number is in the Realm of England. ”
The diction of Barclay's version is exceptionally fine. Jamieson
calls it “a rich and unique exhibition of early art,” and says:—Page
after page, even in the antique spelling of Pynson's edition, may be


## p. 1498 (#296) ###########################################

1498
ALEXANDER BARCLAY
read by the ordinary reader of to-day without reference to a diction-
ary; and when reference is required, it will be found in nine cases
out of ten that the archaism is Saxon, not Latin. This is all the
more remarkable that it occurs in the case of a priest translating
mainly from the Latin and French, and can only be explained with
reference to his standpoint as a social reformer of the broadest type,
and to his evident intention that his book should be an appeal to all
classes, but especially to the mass of people for amendment of their
follies. ”
As the original work belonged to the German satirist, the extract
from the Ship of Fools) is placed under the essay entitled “Sebastian
Brandt. ' His Eclogues' show Barclay at his best. They portray the
manners and customs of the period, and are full of local proverbs
and wise sayings. According to Warton, Barclay's are the first
Eclogues) that appeared in the English language. “They are like
Petrarch's,” he says, “and Mantuans of the moral and satirical kind;
and contain but few touches of moral description and bucolic im-
agery. ” Two shepherds meet to talk about the pleasures and crosses
of rustic life and life at court. The hoary locks of the one show
that he is old. His suit of Kendal green is threadbare, his rough
boots are patched, and the torn side of his coat reveals a bottle never
full and never empty. His wallet contains bread and cheese; he has
a crook, and an oaten pipe. His name is Cornix, and he boasts that
he has had worldly experience. The other shepherd, Coridon, having
seen nothing, complains of country life. He grumbles at the sum-
mer's heat and the winter's cold; at beds on the flinty ground, and
the dangers of sleeping where the wolves may creep in to devour
the sheep; of his stiff rough hands, and his parched, wrinkled, and
weather-beaten skin. He asks whether all men are so unhappy. Cor-
nix, refreshing himself at intervals with his bottle and crusts, shows
him the small amount of liberty at court, discourses upon the folly
of ambition, lays bare the rapine, avarice, and covetousness of the
worldly-minded, and demonstrates that the court is “painted fair with-
out, but within it is ugly and vile. ” He then gives the picture of
a courtier's life, which is cited below. He tells how the minstrels
and singers, philosophers, poets, and orators are but the slaves of
patronizing princes; how beautiful women deceive; describes to him,
who has known nothing but a diet of bread and cheese, the delights
of the table; dilates on the cups of silver and gold, and the crys-
tal glass shining with red and yellow wine; the sewers bearing
in roasted crane, gorgeous peacocks, and savory joints of beef and
mutton; the carver wielding his dexterous knife; the puddings, the
pasties, the fish fried in sweet oils and garnished with herbs; the
costumes of the men and women in cloth of gold and silver and gay


## p. 1499 (#297) ###########################################

ALEXANDER BARCLAY
1499
damask; the din of music, voices, laughter, and jests; and then
paints a picture of the lords and ladies who plunge their knives into
the meats and their hands into platters, spilling wine and gravy
upon their equally gluttonous neighbors. He finishes by saying:-
Shepherds have not so wretched lives as they:
Though they live poorely on cruddes, chese, and whey,
On apples, plummes, and drinke cleree water deepe,
As it were lordes reigning among their sheepe.
The wretched lazar with clinking of his bell,
Hath life which doth the courtiers excell;
The caytif begger hath meate and libertie,
When courtiers hunger in harde captivitie.
The poore man beggeth nothing hurting his name,
As touching courters they dare not beg for shame.
And an olde proverb is sayde by men moste sage,
That oft yonge courters be beggars in their age. ”
The third 'Eclogue begins with Coridon relating a dream that he
went to court and saw the scullions standing
(about me thicke
With knives ready for to flay me quicke. ”
This is a text for Cornix, who continues his tirade, and convinces
Coridon of the misery of the court and his happier life, ending as
follows:-
« Than let all shepheardes, from hence to Salisbury
With easie riches, live well, laugh and be mery,
Pipe under shadowes, small riches hath most rest,
In greatest seas moste sorest is tempest,
The court is nought els but a tempesteous sea;
Avoyde the rockes. Be ruled after me. ”
The fourth (Eclogue' is a dialogue on the rich man's treatment of
poets, by two shepherds, Codrus and Menalcas, musing in shadowe
on the green,” while their snowy flocks graze on the sweet meadow.
This contains a fine allegorical description of Labour. '
The fifth Eclogue' is the Cytezen and the Uplondyshman. '
Here the scene changes, and two shepherds, Faustus and Amyntas,
discourse in a cottage while the snows of January whirl without.
Amyntas has learned in London to go so manerly. ” Not a wrinkle
may be found in his clothes, not a hair on his cloak, and he wears
a brooch of tin high on his bonnet. He has been hostler, coster-
monger, and taverner, and sings the delights of the city. Faustus,
the rustic, is contented with his lot. The Cytezen and the Uplond-
yshman' was printed from the original edition of Wynkyn de Worde,
with a preface by F. W. Fairholt, Percy Society (Vol. xxii. ).


## p. 1500 (#298) ###########################################

1500
ALEXANDER BARCLAY
Other works ascribed to Barclay are:- 'The Figure of Our Holy
Mother Church, Oppressed by the French King'; The Lyfe of the
Glorious Martyr Saynt George, translated (from Mantuan) by Alex-
ander Barclay; "The Lyfe of the Blessed Martyr, Saynte Thomas';
Contra Skeltonum, in which the quarrel he had with his contem-
porary poet, John Skelton, was doubtless continued.
Estimates of Barclay may be found in "The Ship of Fools,' edited
by T. H. Jamieson (1874); Sibbald's Chronicle of Scottish Poetry,'
from the thirteenth century to the union of the crowns (1802); “The
History of English Poetry,' by Thomas Warton (1824); The History
of Scottish Poetry,' by David Irving (1861); and Chips from a Ger-
man Workshop,' by F. Max Müller (1870).
THE COURTIER'S LIFE
Second Eclogue
CORNIX
S®
OME men deliteth beholding men to fight,
Or goodly knights in pleasaunt apparayle,
Or sturdie soldiers in bright harnes and male,
Or an army arrayde ready to the warre,
Or to see them fight, so that he stand afarre.
Some glad is to see those ladies beauteous
Goodly appoynted in clothing sumpteous:
A number of people appoynted in like wise
In costly clothing after the newest gise,
Sportes, disgising, fayre coursers mount and praunce,
Or goodly ladies and knightes sing and daunce,
To see fayre houses and curious picture,
Or pleasaunt hanging or sumpteous vesture
Of silke, of purpure or golde moste oriente,
And other clothing divers and excellent,
Hye curious buildinges or palaces royall,
Or chapels, temples fayre and substantial,
Images graven or vaultes curious,
Gardeyns and medowes, or place delicious,
Forestes and parkes well furnished with dere,
Cold pleasaunt streams or welles fayre and clere,
Curious cundites or shadowie mountaynes,
Swete pleasaunt valleys, laundes or playnes,
Houndes, and such other things manyfolde
Some men take pleasour and solace to beholde.


## p. 1501 (#299) ###########################################

ALEXANDER BARCLAY
1501
But all these pleasоures be much more jocounde,
To private persons which not to court be bounde,
Than to such other whiche of necessitie
Are bounde to the court as in captivitie;
For they which be bounde to princes without fayle
When they must nedes be present in battayle,
When shall they not be at large to see the sight,
But as souldiours in the middest of the fight,
To runne here and there sometime his foe to smite,
And oftetimes wounded, herein is small delite,
And more muste he think his body to defende,
Than for any pleasour about him to intende,
And oft is he faynt and beaten to the grounde,
I trowe in suche sight small pleasour may be founde.
As for fayre ladies, clothed in silke and golde,
In court at thy pleasour thou canst not beholde.
At thy princes pleasour thou shalt them only see,
Then suche shalt thou see which little set by thee,
Whose shape and beautie may so inflame thine heart,
That thought and languor may cause thee for to smart.
For a small sparcle may kindle love certayne,
But skantly Severne may quench it clene againe;
And beautie blindeth and causeth man to set
His hearte on the thing which he shall never get.
To see men clothed in silkes pleasauntly
It is small pleasour, and ofte causeth envy.
While thy lean jade halteth by thy side,
To see another upon a courser ride,
Though he be neyther gentleman nor knight,
Nothing is thy fortune, thy hart cannot be light.
As touching sportes and games of pleasaunce,
To sing, to revell, and other daliaunce:
Who that will truely upon his lord attende,
Unto suche sportes he seldome may entende.
Palaces, pictures, and temples sumptuous,
And other buildings both gay and curious,
These may marchauntes more at their pleasour see
Men suche as in court be bounde alway to bee.
Sith kinges for moste part passe not their regions,
Thou seest nowe cities of foreyn nations.
Suche outwarde pleasоures may the people see,
So may not courtiers for lacke of libertie.
As for these pleasours of thinges vanable
Whiche in the fieldes appeareth delectable,


## p. 1502 (#300) ###########################################

1502
ALEXANDER BARCLAY
But seldome season mayest thou obtayne respite.
The same to beholde with pleasour and delite,
Sometime the courtier remayneth halfe the yere
Close within walls muche like a prisonere,
To make escapes some seldome times are wont,
Save when the powers have pleasour for to hunt,
Or its otherwise themselfe to recreate,
And then this pleasour shall they not love but hate;
For then shall they foorth most chiefely to their payne,
When they in mindes would at home remayne.
Other in the frost, hayle, or els snowe,
Or when some tempest or mightie wind doth blowe,
Or else in great heat and fervour excessife,
But close in houses the moste parte waste their life,
Of colour faded, and choked were with duste:
This is of courtiers the joy and all the lust.
CORIDON
What! yet may they sing and with fayre ladies daunce,
Both commen and laugh; herein is some pleasaunce.
CORNIX
Nay, nay, Coridon, that pleasour is but small,
Some to contente what man will pleasour call,
For some in the daunce his pincheth by the hande,
Which gladly would see him stretched in a bande.
Some galand seketh his favour to purchase
Which playne abhorreth for to beholde his face.
And still in dauncing moste parte inclineth she
To one muche viler and more abject then he.
No day over passeth but that in court men finde
A thousande thinges to vexe and greve their minde;
Alway thy foes are present in thy sight,
And often so great is their degree and might
That nedes must thou kisse the hand which did thee harm,
Though thou would see it cut gladly from the arme.
And briefly to speake, if thou to courte resorte,
If thou see one thing of pleasour or comfort,
Thou shalt see many, before or thou depart,
To thy displeasour and pensiveness of heart:
So findeth thy sight there more of bitternes
And of displeasour, than pleasour and gladnes.


## p. 1503 (#301) ###########################################

1503
RICHARD HARRIS BARHAM
(1788-1845)
he author of the Ingoldsby Legends belonged to a well-
defined and delightful class of men, chiefly found in mod-
ern England, and indeed mostly bred and made possible by
the conditions of English society and the Anglican Church. It is
that of clergymen who in the public eye are chiefly wits and diners-
out, jokers and literary humorists, yet are conscientious and devoted
ministers of their religion and curators of their religious charges,
honoring their profession and humanity by true and useful lives and
lovable characters. They are men of the
sort loathed by Lewis Carroll's heroine in
the “Two Voices,

( a kind of folk
Who have no horror of a joke,
and indeed love it dearly; but are as firm
in principle and unostentatiously dutiful in
conduct as if they were leaden Puritans or
narrow devotees.
By far the best remembered of this
class, for themselves or their work, are
Sydney Smith and Richard Harris Barham;
RICHARD H. BARHAM
but their relative repute is one of the odd-
est paradoxes in literary history. Roughly speaking, the one is
remembered and unread, the other read and unremembered. Syd-
ney Smith's name is almost as familiar to the masses as Scott's, and
few could tell a line that he wrote; Barham's writing is almost as
familiar as Scott's, and few would recognize his name. Yet he is in
the foremost rank of humorists; his place is wholly unique, and is
likely to remain so. It will be an age before a similar combination
of tastes and abilities is found once more. Macaulay said truly of
Sir Walter Scott that he "combined the minute learning of an anti-
quary with the fire of a great poet. ” Barham combined a like learn-
ing in different fields, and joined to a different outlook and temper
of mind, with the quick perceptions of a great wit, the brimming
zest and high spirits of a great joker, the genial nature and light-
ness of a born man of the world, and the gifts of a wonderful
improvisatore in verse. Withal, he had just enough of serious pur-
pose to give much of his work a certain measure of cohesive unity,


## p. 1504 (#302) ###########################################

RICHARD HARRIS BARHAM
1504
and thus impress it on the mind as no collection of random skits
could do. That purpose is the feathering which steadies the arrows
and sends them home.
It is pleasant to know that one who has given so good a time to
others had a very good time himself; that we are not, as so often
happens, relishing a farce that stood for tragedy with the maker, and
substituting our laughter for his tears. Barham had the cruel sor-
rows of personal bereavement so few escape; but in material things
his career was wholly among pleasant ways. He was well born and
with means, well educated, well nurtured. He was free from the
sordid squabbles or anxious watching and privation which fall to the
lot of so many of the best. He was happy in his marriage and its
attendant home and family, and most fortunate in his friendships
and the superb society he enjoyed. His birth and position as a gen-
tleman of good landed family, combined with his profession, opened
all doors to him.
But it was the qualities personal to himself, after all, which made
these things available for enjoyment. His desires were moderate;
he counted success what more eager and covetous natures might
have esteemed comparative failure. His really strong intellect and
wide knowledge and cultivation enabled him to meet the foremost
men of letters on equal terms. His kind heart, generous nature,
exuberant fun, and entertaining conversation endeared him to every
one and made his company sought by every one; they saved much
trouble from coming upon him and lightened what did come. And
no blight could have withered that perennial fountain of jollity,
drollery, and light-heartedness. But these were only the ornaments
of a stanchly loyal and honorable nature, and a lovable and unselfish
soul. One of his friends writes of him thus:-
«The profits of agitating pettifoggers would have materially lessened in a
district where he acted as a magistrate; and duels would have been nipped
in the bud at his regimental mess. It is not always an easy task to do
as you would be done by; but to think as you would be thought of and
thought for, and to feel as you would be felt for, is perhaps still more diffi-
cult, as superior powers of tact and intellect are here required in order to
second good intentions. These faculties, backed by an uncompromising love
of truth and fair dealing, indefatigable good nature, and a nice sense of
what was due to every one in the several relations of life, both gentle and
simple, rendered our late friend invaluable, either as an adviser or a peace-
maker, in matters of delicate and difficult handling. ”
Barham was born in Canterbury, England, December 6th, 1788,
and died in London, June 17th, 1845. His ancestry was superior, the
family having derived its name from possessions in Kent in Norman
days. He lost his father -
- a genial bon vivant of literary tastes who


## p. 1505 (#303) ###########################################

RICHARD HARRIS BARHAM
1505
seems like a reduced copy of his son - when but five years old; and
became heir to a fair estate, including Tappington Hall, the pictur-
esque old gabled mansion so often imaginatively misdescribed in the
Ingoldsby Legends, but really having the famous blood-stained
stairway. He had an expensive private education, which was nearly
ended with his life at the age of fourteen by a carriage accident
which shattered and mangled his right arm, crippling it perma-
nently.