Born: 20 June 1743, United Kingdom
Died: 9 March 1825
Country most active: United Kingdom
Also known as: Anna Aikin
From Famous Women: An Outline of Feminine Achievement Through the Ages With Life Stories of Five Hundred Noted Women. Written by Joseph Adelman, published 1926 by Ellis M Lonow Company:
Anna Laetitia Barbauld, an English writer. She displayed unusual talent as a child, and her early education was directed with care by her father, the Rev. John Aikin, a Unitarian minister.
In 1773 she published a volume of her poems, which the same year ran through four editions.
In 1774 she married the Rev. Rochemont Barbauld.
During her long life she wrote the life of Richardson, the novelist, and edited Akenside’s Pleasures of the Imagination and Collins’s Odes and a collection of the British Novelists, with memoirs and criticisms.
Her writings are distinguished for their pure moral tone, simplicity, and earnestness, and her books for children are among the best of their class.
The following is excerpted from A Cyclopædia of Female Biography, published 1857 by Groomsbridge and Sons and edited by Henry Gardiner Adams.
BARBAULD, ANNA LETITIA, To whom the cause of rational education is much indebted, was the eldest child, and only daughter of the Rev. John Aiken, D. D. She was born on the 20th. of June, 1743, at Kibworth Harcourt, in Leicestershire, where her father was at that time master of a boys’ school. From her childhood, she manifested great quickness of intellect, and her education was conducted with much care by her parents. In 1773, she was induced to publish a volume of her poems, and within the year four editions of the work were called for. And in the same year 8he published, in conjunction with her brother. Dr. Aiken, a volume called “Miscellaneous Pieces in Prose.” In 1774, Miss Aiken married the Rev. Rochemont Barbauld, a dissenting minister, descended from a family of French Protestants. He had charge, at that time, of a congregation at Palgrave, in Suffolk, where he also opened a boarding-school for boys, the success of which is, in a great measure, to be attributed to Mrs. Barbauld’s exertions. She also took several very young boys as her own entire charge, among whom were. Lord Denman, afterwards Chief Justice of England, and Sir William Gell. It was for these boys that she composed her “Hymns in Prose for Children.” In 1775, she published a volume entitled “Devotional Pieces, compiled from the Psalms of David,” with “Thoughts on the Devotional Taste, and on Sects and Establishments;” and also her “Early Lessons,” which still stands unrivalled among children’s books.
In 1786, after a tour to the continent, Mr. and Mrs. Barbauld established themselves at Hampstead, and there several tracts proceeded from the pen of our authoress on the topics of the day, in all which she espoused the principles of the Whigs. She also assisted her father in preparing a series of tales for children, entitled “Evenings at Home,” and she wrote critical essays on Akenside and Collins, prefixed to editions of their works. In 1802, Mr. Barbauld became pastor of the congregation (formerly Dr. Price’s) at Newington Green, also in the vicinity of London; and quitting Hampstead, they took up their abode in the village of Stoke Newington. In 1803, Mrs. Barbauld compiled a selection of essays from the “Spectator,” “Tatler,” and “Guardian,” to which she prefixed a preliminary essay; and, in the following year, she edited the correspondence of Richardson, and wrote an interesting and elegant life of the novelist Her husband died in 1808, and Mrs. Barbauld has recorded her feelings on this melancholy event in a poetical dirge to his memory, and also in her poem of “Eighteen Hundred and Eleven.” Seeking relief in literary occupation, she also edited a collection of the British novelists, published in 1810, with an introductory essay, and biographical and critical notices. After a gradual decay, this accomplished and excellent woman died on the 9th. of March, 1825. Some of the lyrical pieces of Mrs. Barbauld are flowing and harmonious, and her “Ode to Spring” is a happy imitation of Collins. She wrote also several poems in blank verse, characterized by a serious tenderness and elevation of thought. “Her earliest pieces,” says her niece, Miss Lucy Aiken, “as well as her more recent ones, exhibit in their imagery and allusions, the fruits of extensive and varied reading. In youth, the power of her imagination was counterbalanced by the activity of her intellect, which exercised itself in rapid but not unprofitable excursions over almost every field of knowledge. In age, when this activity abated, imagination appeared to exert over her an undiminished sway.” Charles James Fox is said to have been a great admirer of Mrs. Barbanud’s songs, but they are by no means the best of her compositions, being generally artificial, and unimpassioned in their character.
Her works show great powers of mind, an ardent love of civil and religious liberty, and that genuine and practical piety which ever distinguished her character.
In the memoir of this gifted woman, written by Lucy Aiken, her kindred in genius as well in blood, we find this beautiful and just description of the subject of our sketch:—
“To claim for Mrs. Barbauld the praise of purity and elevation of mind may well appear superfluous. Her education and connections, the course of her life, the whole tenour of her writings, bear abundant testimony to this part of her character. It is a higher, or at least a rarer commendation to add, that no one ever better loved ‘a sister’s praise,’ even that of such sisters as might have been peculiarly regarded in the light of rivals. She was acquainted with almost all the principal female writers of her time; and there was not one of the number whom she failed frequently to mention in terms of admiration, esteem, or affection, whether in conversation, in letters to her Mends, or in print. To humbler aspirants in the career of letters, who often applied to her for advice or assistance, she was invariably courteous, and in many instances essentially serviceable. The sight of youth and beauty was peculiarly gratifying to her fancy and her feelings; and children and young persons, especially females, were accordingly large sharers in her benevolence: she loved their society, and would often invite them to pass weeks or months in her house, when she spared no pains to amuse and instruct them; and she seldom failed, after they had quitted her, to recall herself from time to time to their recollection, by affectionate and playful letters, or welcome presents.
In the conjugal relation, her conduct was guided by the highest principles of love and duty. As a sister, the uninterrupted flow of her affection, manifested by numberless tokens of love—not alone to her brother, but to every member of his family—will ever be recalled by them with emotions of tenderness, respect, and gratitude. She passed through a long life without having lost, it is said, a single friend.”
The following is excerpted from the Dictionary of National Biography, originally published between 1885 and 1900, by Smith, Elder & Co. It was written by Arthur Aikin Brodribb.
BARBAULD, ANNA LETITIA (1743–1825), poet and miscellaneous writer, was the only daughter and eldest child of John Aikin, D.D., and his wife Jane Jennings, and was born in 1743 at Kibworth, Leicestershire. When she was fifteen years old, her father became one of the tutors of the newly established academy at Warrington. There she passed the next fifteen years of her life, and formed intimate and lasting friendships with several of her father’s colleagues and their families, in whose cultivated society she had every encouragement to turn to account her early, not to say precocious, education. It is related of her that she could read with ease before she was three years old, and that when quite a child she had an acquaintance with many of the best English authors. When she had mastered French and Italian, her industry compelled her father, very reluctantly, to supplement these with a knowledge of Latin and Greek also, accomplishments rarely found in young women of that period. Learned as she was, even in her youth, she was so modest and unassuming, and had so little confidence in her powers, that no one but her brother was able to induce her to appear before the world as an author. It was at his instigation that she published, in 1773, her first volume of poems, including ‘Corsica,’ ‘The Invitation,’ ‘The Mouse’s Petition,’ and ‘An Address to the Deity.’ The book had an immediate success, and went through four editions in the first year. The celebrated Mrs. Montagu wrote that she greatly admired the poem on Corsica, and had presented a copy to her friend Paoli. In the same year she, or rather her brother, published ‘Miscellaneous Pieces in Prose,’ by J. and A. L. Aikin. These also have been several times reprinted. The authors did not sign their respective contributions, and some of the pieces have in consequence been generally misappropriated, but in Mrs. Barbauld’s share of the work we find several of her best essays, and notably those on ‘Inconsistency in our Expectations,’ and ‘On Romances.’ The former of these possesses every quality of good English prose; the latter is avowedly an imitation of Dr. Johnson’s style and method of reasoning. Of this essay Johnson observes: ‘The imitators of my style have not hit it. Miss Aikin has done it the best, for she has imitated the sentiment as well as the diction.’ Croker refers this remark to the wrong essay. In the year following these literary successes, in 1774, Mrs. Barbauld married. Her husband, the Rev. Rochemont Barbauld, came of a French protestant family settled in England since the persecutions of Louis XIV. His father, a clergyman of the church of England, sent him, rather injudiciously, to the dissenting academy at Warrington, where he naturally imbibed presbyterian opinions. He was an excellent man, but had a tendency to insanity, which became more and more pronounced towards the close of his life. Soon after their marriage the Barbaulds removed to Palgrave in Suffolk, where Mr. Barbauld had charge of a dissenting congregation, and proceeded to establish a boys’ school. They had no children, but adopted a nephew, Charles Rochemont Aikin [q. v.], the ‘little Charles’ of the well-known ‘Early Lessons.’ At Palgrave were written the ‘Hymns in Prose for Children,’ Mrs. Barbauld’s best work, which, besides passing through many editions, has been translated into several European languages. The school, chiefly owing to Mrs. Barbauld’s exertions, was extremely prosperous during the eleven years of its existence. Among the pupils were the first Lord Denman, Sir William Gell, Dr. Sayers, and William Taylor of Norwich. The holidays were mostly spent in London, where at the houses of Mrs. Montagu and Mr. Joseph Johnson, her publisher, she made the acquaintance of many of the celebrities of the day. The school-work proving somewhat excessive, the undertaking, though successful and remunerative, was given up in 1785, and after travelling on the continent for about a year the Barbaulds returned to England and settled at the then rural village of Hampstead. Mr. Barbauld officiated at a small chapel there, and took a few pupils, while his wife found herself more at leisure for society and literature. At Hampstead Joanna Baillie and her sister were among her more intimate friends. Here she wrote several essays, and contributed fifteen papers—her share of the work is generally thought to be much larger—to her brother’s popular book ‘Evenings at Home.’ In 1802, at the earnest request of her brother, in whose society she hoped to end her days, she and her husband left Hampstead for Stoke Newington. For a short time Mr. Barbauld again undertook pastoral work, but his mental health utterly gave way, and he died insane in London in 1808. This, the one great sorrow of Mrs. Barbauld’s life, deeply affected her, but left her free, for the first time since her marriage, for serious literary work. Shortly after her husband’s death Mrs. Barbauld undertook an edition, in fifty volumes, of the best English novelists. Prefixed to the edition is an essay, written at some length, on the ‘Origin and Progress of Novel Writing,’ and the works of each author are introduced by short, but complete, biographical notices. The novels thus edited include ‘Clarissa,’ ‘Sir Charles Grandison’ ‘The Castle of Otranto,’ ‘The Romance of the Forest,’ ‘The Mysteries of Udolpho,’ ‘Zeluco,’ ‘Evelina,’ ‘Cecilia,’ ‘Tom Jones,’ ‘Joseph Andrews,’ ‘Belinda,’ ‘The Vicar of Wakefield,’ and many others. In 1811 she prepared for the use of young ladies a selection, formerly well known and popular, of the best passages from English poets and prose writers. This appeared in one volume, and was called ‘The Female Speaker.’ In the same year she wrote the most considerable of her poems, entitled ‘Eighteen Hundred and Eleven,’ a work which, at a time of the deepest national gloom, was written in eloquent but too despondent strains. Of this poem Mr. Crabb Robinson says: ‘Dear Mrs. Barbauld this year incurred great reproach by writing a poem entitled “Eighteen Hundred and Eleven.” It prophesies that on some future day a traveller from the antipodes will, from a broken arch of Blackfriars Bridge, contemplate the ruin of St. Paul’s (this is the original of Macaulay’s New-Zealander). This was written more in sorrow than in anger, but there was a disheartening and even gloomy tone which I, even with all my love for her, could not quite excuse. It provoked a very coarse review in the “Quarterly,” which many years after Murray told me he was more ashamed of than any other article in the review.’ Southey, the former friend of Mrs. Barbauld’s brother, was the author of this article. This was the last of Mrs. Barbauld’s published works, but to the day of her death, some years later, she constantly wrote letters and minor pieces which did not see the light till long afterwards, and were not, indeed, intended for publication. The remainder of her life was passed tranquilly at Stoke Newington, where she died in 1825. Her epitaph justly says of her that she was ‘endowed by the Giver of all good with wit, genius, poetic talent, and a vigorous understanding;’ and the readers of her works will readily allow the easy grace of her style and her lofty but not puritanical principles. Her letters, some few of which have been published since her death, show that though her life was habitually retired she greatly enjoyed society. They record friendships formed or casual acquaintance made with (among others) Mrs. Montagu, Hannah More, Dr. Priestley, Miss Edgeworth, Howard the philanthropist, Mrs. Chapone, Gilbert Wakefield, Dugald Stewart, Walter Scott, Joanna Baillie, H. Crabb Robinson, William Roscoe, Wordsworth, Montgomery, Dr. W. E. Channing, Samuel Rogers, and Sir James Mackintosh. Her writings in prose and poetry are both numerous and miscellaneous, and many of them were not printed in her lifetime. Her more important works include: 1. ‘Poems’ (1773). 2. ‘Miscellaneous Pieces in Prose.’ 3. ‘Hymns in Prose for Children.’ 4. ‘Early Lessons.’ 5. ‘Poetical Epistle to William Wilberforce.’ 6. ‘An Edition, with Essay and Lives, of the British Novelists.’ 7. ‘The Female Speaker.’ 8. ‘Eighteen Hundred and Eleven.’