Lives of Celebrated Women Part 9

"Exhausted Florio, at the age When youth should rush on glory's stage, When life should open fresh and new, And ardent Hope her schemes pursue, Of youthful gayety bereft, Had scarce an unbroached pleasure left; He found already, to his cost, The s.h.i.+ning gloss of life was lost, And Pleasure was so coy a prude, She fled the more, the more pursued; Or, if o'ertaken and caressed, He loathed and left her when possessed.

But Florio knew the world; that science Sets sense and learning at defiance; He thought the world to him was known, Whereas he only knew the _town_.

In men this blunder still you find: All think their little set--mankind.

Though high renown the youth had gained, No flagrant crimes his life had stained; Though known among _a certain set_, He did not like to be in debt; He shuddered at the dicer's box, Nor thought it very heterodox That tradesmen should be sometimes paid, And bargains kept as well as made.

His growing credit, as a sinner, Was, that he liked to spoil a dinner, Made pleasure and made business wait, And still by system came too late; Yet 'twas a hopeful indication On which to found a reputation: Small habits, well pursued, betimes May reach the dignity of crimes; And who a juster claim preferred Than one who always broke his word?"

The death of Garrick may be considered an era in the life of Miss More. His wit, his gayety, his intelligence, added to his admiration of her genius, and the warmth of his friends.h.i.+p for her, formed the strongest spell that held her in subjection to the fascinations of brilliant society and town life. The early feeling which prompted the infant wish for "a cottage too low for a clock" was still fresh in her bosom. The country, with its green pastures and still waters, still retained its charms for her. "I have naturally," she writes, "but a small appet.i.te for grandeur, which is always satisfied, even to indigestion, before I leave town; and I require a long abstinence to get any relish for it again." After the death of her friend, she carried into execution the resolution she had long cherished, of pa.s.sing a portion of her time in retirement in the country. With this view, she possessed herself of a little secluded spot, which had acquired the name of "Cowslip Green," near Bristol.

Still, however, her sensibility to kindness would not let her withhold herself entirely from her London friends; her annual visits to Mrs.

Garrick brought her back into contact with the world and its crowded resorts.

From her earliest acquaintance with society, she had seen with sorrow the levity of manners, the indifference to religion, and the total disregard of the Sabbath, which prevailed in its higher circles. Not content with holding herself uncontaminated, she felt it to be her duty to make an effort for a reformation, and with this end she published "Thoughts on the Importance of the Manners of the Great to General Society." To appreciate the value of the effort, we must remember that these "Thoughts" were not the animadversions of a recluse, but of one who was flattered, admired, and courted, by the very people whom she was about to reprove; that the step might probably exclude her from those circles in which she had hitherto been so caressed. But the happiness of her friends was dearer to her than their favor. That the probable consequences did not ensue, does not diminish her merit. This work and the one which speedily followed it, "An Essay on the Religion of the Fas.h.i.+onable World," were popular beyond hope, and the wish of Bishop Porteus, "that it might be placed in the hands of every person of condition," was almost realized. It is unnecessary to dwell on these works; they are too well known; they established her reputation as a great moral writer, possessing a masterly command of language, and devoting a keen wit and a lively fancy to the best and n.o.blest of purposes.--After giving one extract from the most vigorous of her poems, "Slavery," written to aid the efforts which Clarkson and Wilberforce were making in behalf of the African slave, and in which she heartily sympathized, we will pa.s.s on to new scenes, in which Miss More's benevolent spirit exhibits itself in a yet more active manner.

"O thou sad spirit, whose preposterous yoke The great deliverer, death, at length has broke!

Released from misery, and escaped from care, Go, meet that mercy man denies thee here.

And if some notions, vague and undefined, Of future terrors, have a.s.sailed thy mind; If such thy masters have presumed to teach-- As terrors only they are p.r.o.ne to preach; For, should they paint eternal mercy's reign, Where were the oppressor's rod, the captive's chain?-- If, then, thy troubled soul has learned to dread The dark unknown thy trembling footsteps tread, On Him who made thee what thou art depend; He who withholds the means accepts the end.

Thy mental night thy Savior will not blame; He died for those who never heard his name.

Nor thine the reckoning dire of light abused, Knowledge disgraced, and liberty misused: On thee no awful judge incensed shall sit, For parts perverted or dishonored wit.

When ignorance will be found the safest plea, How many learned and wise shall envy thee!"

In withdrawing herself from general society, Miss More had cherished the hope of devoting herself to meditation and literary leisure. But there was no rest for her but in the consciousness of being useful. In the course of her rambles in the neighborhood of her residence, she was shocked to find the same vices, against which she had lifted up her voice in high places, existing in the peasant's cottage, in a different form, but heightened by ignorance, both mental and spiritual. Though in a feeble state of health, she could not withhold herself from the attempt to effect a reformation.

In this she had no coadjutors but her sisters, who, having acquired a competency, had retired from school-keeping, and had, with her, a common home. Provision was made by law for the support of clergymen; but the vicar of Cheddar received his fifty pounds a year, and resided at Oxford; and the rector of Axbridge "was intoxicated about six times a week, and was very frequently prevented from preaching by two black eyes, honestly acquired by fighting."

She commenced operations by seeking to establish a school at Cheddar.

Some of the obstacles she encountered may be best related in her own words. "I was told we should meet with great opposition, if I did not try to propitiate the chief despot of the village, who is very rich and very brutal; so I ventured to the den of this monster, in a country as savage as himself. He begged I would not think of bringing any religion into the country; it made the poor lazy and useless. In vain I represented to him that they would be more industrious, as they were better principled; and that I had no selfish views in what I was doing. He gave me to understand that he knew the world too well to believe either the one or the other. I was almost discouraged from more visits; but I found that friends must be secured at all events; for, if these rich savages set their faces against us, I saw that nothing but hostilities would ensue: so I made eleven more of these agreeable visits; and, as I improved in the art of canva.s.sing, had better success. Miss W. would have been shocked, had she seen the petty tyrants whose insolence I stroked and tamed, the ugly children I praised, the pointers and spaniels I caressed, the cider I commended, and the wine I swallowed. After these irresistible flatteries, I inquired of each if he could recommend me to a house, and said that I had a little plan which I hoped would secure their orchards from being robbed, their rabbits from being shot, their game from being stolen, and which might lower the poor rates. If effect be the best proof of eloquence, then mine was good speech, for I gained in time the hearty concurrence of the whole people, and their promise to discourage or favor the poor as they were attentive or negligent in sending their children. Perhaps the hearts of some of these rich brutes may be touched; they are as ignorant as the beasts that perish, intoxicated every day before dinner, and plunged in such vices as make me begin to think London a virtuous place." The vicarage house, which had not been occupied for a hundred years, was hired for a school-house; "the vicar," she says, "who lives a long way off, is repairing the house for me; and, as he is but ninety-four years old, he insists on my taking a lease, and is as rigorous about the rent as if I were taking it for an a.s.sembly-room."

The prejudices of the poor were more difficult to be overcome than those of the rich. Some thought that her design was to make money, by sending of their children for slaves; others, that, if she instructed them for seven years, she would acquire such a control as to be able to send them beyond seas. But she persisted, and her success was great beyond expectation. In a short time, she had at Cheddar near three hundred children, under the charge of a discreet matron, whom she hired for the purpose.

Encouraged by this success, she extended her field of operations, and established schools at several other villages. The nearest of these was six miles from her home; the labor and fatigue of superintending the whole was therefore very great. But she declined an a.s.sistant for reasons stated in a letter to Mr. Wilberforce, who had offered to seek for one. "An ordinary person would be of no use; one of a superior cast, who might be able to enter into my views, and further them, would occasion an expense equal to the support of one or two more schools. It will be time enough to think of your scheme when I am quite laid by. This hot weather makes me suffer terribly; yet I have now and then a good day, and on Sunday was enabled to open the school.

It was an affecting sight. Several of the grown-up lads had been tried at the last a.s.sizes; three were children of a person lately condemned to be hanged; many thieves; all ignorant, profane, and vicious, beyond belief. Of this banditti I have enlisted one hundred and seventy; and when the clergyman, a hard man, who is also a magistrate, saw these creatures kneeling round us, whom he had seldom seen but to commit or to punish in some way, he burst into tears."

Her plan was not limited to intellectual and spiritual instruction.

The children were taught to sew, to spin, and to knit. Nor were her labors confined to the advancement of the well-being of the young; she sought to introduce branches of manufacture, suitable to the strength and s.e.x of the women, and she arranged with master manufacturers to buy the products of their labor. She sought to establish habits of economy by getting up a.s.sociations, in which each contributed a portion of her earnings, on condition of receiving a support in case she should be disabled from labor. This was a work of difficulty.

Though the subscription was only three half-pence per week, yet many could not raise even this: such were privately a.s.sisted. Other inducements, besides considerations of providence, must be held out to the improvident. "An anniversary feast of tea was held, at which some of the clergy and better sort of people were present. The patronesses waited on the women, who sat and enjoyed their dignity.

The journal and state of affairs was read. A collateral advantage resulted from this. The women, who used to plead that they could not go to church because they had no clothes, now went. The necessity of going to church in procession on the anniversary, raised an honest ambition to get something decent to wear, and the churches on Sunday were filled with very clean-looking women."

Similar machinery was brought into exercise to advance the cause of her schools. Two years after the first attempt, we find this apology for not sooner writing to a friend: "I have been too busy in preparing for a grand celebration, distinguished by the pompous name of _Mendip Feast_; the range of hills you remember in this country, on the top of which we yesterday gave a dinner of beef, and plum pudding, and cider, to our schools. There were not six hundred children, for I would not admit the _new_ schools, telling them they must be good for a year or two, to be ent.i.tled to so great a thing as a dinner. Curiosity had drawn a great mult.i.tude, for a country so thinly peopled; one wondered whence five thousand people--for that was the calculation--could come.

We all parted with the most perfect peace, having fed about nine hundred people for less than a _fine_ dinner for twenty, costs."

It would require a large volume to speak of all Miss More's labors in behalf of erring and suffering humanity. At one time, we find her engaged, in the most hara.s.sing and embarra.s.sing situations, spending days and nights with armed Bow Street officers in searching the vilest haunts for a young heiress, who had been trepanned away from school at the age of fourteen. The details of another of her attempts to alleviate suffering, exhibit so strikingly the genuine liberality of her heart and conduct, as to be worth relating. She was one day informed that a woman, who called every day for stuff to feed a pig, was, with her husband and children, peris.h.i.+ng with hunger. She lost no time in endeavoring to rescue this miserable family, and soon discovered that the woman was possessed of more than ordinary talent.

She produced several sc.r.a.ps of poetry, which evinced much genius. It occurred to Miss More that this talent might be made the means of exciting a general interest in her behalf, and raising a fund to set her up in some creditable way of earning a subsistence. She accordingly took a great deal of pains in instructing her in writing, spelling, and composition; and, while the object of her charity was preparing, under her inspection, a small collection of poems, she was employed in writing to all her friends of rank and fortune, bespeaking subscriptions. Mrs. Montagu cautioned her not to let her own generous nature deceive her as to the character and temper of her beneficiary.

"It has sometimes happened to me," she writes, "that, by an endeavor to encourage talents and cherish virtue, by driving from them the terrifying spectre of pale poverty, I have introduced a legion of little demons: vanity, luxury, idleness, and pride, have entered the cottage the moment poverty vanished. However, I am sure despair is never a good counsellor."

For thirteen months, Miss More's time was largely occupied in the woman's service, and the result of her efforts was the realization of a sum exceeding three thousand dollars, which was invested for the woman's benefit under the trustees.h.i.+p of Mrs. Montagu and Miss More.

The result is made known in a letter from the latter to the former. "I am come to the postscript, without having found courage to tell you, what I am sure you will hear with pain; at least it gives _me_ infinite pain to write it. I mean the open and notorious ingrat.i.tude of our milk-woman. There is hardly a species of slander the poor, unhappy creature does not propagate against me, because I have called her a _milk-woman_, and because I have placed the money in the funds, instead of letting her spend it. I confess my weakness; it goes to my heart, not for my own sake, but for the sake of our common nature. So much for my _inward_ feelings; as to my _active_ resentment, I am trying to get a place for her husband, and am endeavoring to increase the sum I have raised for her. Do not let this harden _your_ heart or mine against any future object. 'Do good for its own sake' is a beautiful maxim." The milk-woman presently put her slanders into a printed shape; and Mrs. Montagu, on reading the libel, found one thing Miss More's letter had not prepared her for. Here is her comment: "Mrs. Yeardsley's conceit that _you can envy her talents_ gives me comfort, for, as it convinces me she is mad, I build upon it a hope that she is not guilty in the All-seeing Eye." The last allusion which Miss More herself makes to the behavior of "Lactilla" is on the occasion of a second publication of hers, in which the generous patroness was again, after a lapse of two years, maligned and insulted with a cool bitterness that may well be called diabolical, and is in these words, addressing Horace Walpole: "Do, dear sir, join me in sincere compa.s.sion, without one atom of resentment. If I wanted to punish an enemy, it should be by fastening on him the trouble of constantly hating somebody." Mrs. Montagu and Miss More resisted with exemplary patience the woman's violent importunities to be put in possession of the princ.i.p.al, as well as interest, of her little fortune, fearing that it would be consumed in those vices to which it was apparent she was addicted. At length, they gave over the trust to a respectable lawyer, who transferred it to a merchant of Bristol; and he was soon hara.s.sed into the relinquishment of the whole concern.

In the year 1792, affairs wore a very gloomy and threatening aspect in England. French revolutionary and atheistical principles seemed to be spreading wide their destructive influence. Indefatigable pains were taken, not only to agitate and mislead, but to corrupt and poison, the minds of the populace. At this crisis, letters poured in upon Miss More, from persons of eminence, earnestly calling upon her to produce some little tract which might serve to counteract these pernicious efforts. The intimate knowledge she had shown of human nature, and the lively and clear style of her writings, which made them attractive, pointed her out as the proper person for such an effort. Though she declined an open attempt to stem the mighty torrent, which she thought a work beyond her powers, she yet felt it to be her duty to try them in secret, and, in a few hours, composed the dialogue of "Village Politics, by Will Chip." The more completely to keep the author unknown, it was sent to a new publisher. In a few days, every post from London brought her a present of this admirable little tract, with urgent entreaties that she would use every possible means of disseminating it, as the strongest antidote that could be administered to the prevailing poison. It flew with a rapidity almost incredible into the remotest parts of the kingdom. Government distributed many thousands. Numerous patriotic a.s.sociations printed large editions; and in London only, many hundred thousands were distributed.

Internal evidence betrayed the secret of the authors.h.i.+p; and, when the truth came out, innumerable were the thanks and congratulations which bore cordial testimony to the merit of a performance, by which the tact and intelligence of a single female had turned the tide of misguided opinion. Many affirmed that it contributed essentially to prevent a revolution; so true was the touch, and so masterly the delineation, which brought out, in all its relief, the ludicrous and monstrous cheat, whereby appet.i.te, selfishness, and animal force, were attempted to be imposed under the form of liberty, equality, and imprescriptible right.

The success of "Village Politics" encouraged Miss More to venture on a more extensive undertaking. The inst.i.tution of Sunday schools, which had enabled mult.i.tudes to read, threatened to be a curse instead of a blessing; for, while no healthy food was furnished for their minds, the friends of infidelity and vice carried their exertions so far as to load a.s.ses with their pernicious pamphlets, and to get them dropped, not only in cottages and in the highways, but into mines and coal-pits. Sermons and catechisms were already furnished in abundance; but the enemy made use of the alluring vehicles of novels, tales, and songs, and she thought it right to meet them with their own weapons.

She therefore determined to produce three tracts every month, written in a lively manner, under the name of the "Cheap Repository." The success surpa.s.sed her most sanguine expectations. Two millions were sold in the first year--a circ.u.mstance, perhaps, new in the annals of printing. But this very success, she tells us, threatened to be her ruin; for, in order to supplant the trash, it was necessary to undersell it, thus incurring a certain loss. This, however, was met by a subscription on the part of the friends of good order and morals.

The exertion which it required to produce these tracts, to organize her plan, and to conduct a correspondence with the committees formed in various parts of the kingdom, materially undermined her health. She continued them, however, for three years. "It has been," she writes, "no small support to me, that my plan met with the warm protection of so many excellent persons. They would have me believe that a very formidable riot among the colliers was prevented by my ballad of 'The Riot.' The plan was settled; they were resolved to work no more; to attack the mills first, and afterwards the gentry. A gentleman gained their confidence, and a few hundreds were distributed, and sung with the effect, they say, mentioned above--a fresh proof by what weak instruments evils are now and then prevented. The leading tract for the next month is the bad economy of the poor. You, my dear madam, will smile to see your friend figuring away in the new character of a cook furnis.h.i.+ng receipts for cheap dishes. It is not, indeed; a very brilliant career; but I feel that the value of a thing lies so much more in its usefulness than its splendor, that I think I should derive more gratification from being able to lower the price of bread, than from having written the Iliad."

That Miss More's efforts in behalf of virtue should be opposed by those against whom they were aimed, will not surprise us. But she was attacked from a quarter whence she had a right to expect sympathy and support. The nature of the attack will be learned from a letter written some years afterwards: "I will say, in a few words, that two Jacobin and infidel curates, poor and ambitious, formed the design of attracting notice and getting preferment by attacking some charity schools--which, with no small labor, I have carried on in this country for near twenty years--as seminaries of vice, sedition, and disaffection. At this distance of time,--for it is now ended in their disgrace and shame,--it will make you smile when I tell you a few of the charges brought against me, viz., that I hired two men to a.s.sa.s.sinate one of these clergymen; that I was actually taken up for seditious practices; that I was with Hadfield in his attack on the king's life. At the same time they declared--mark the consistency--that I was in the pay of the government, and the grand instigator of the war, by my mischievous pamphlets. That wicked men should invent this, is not so strange as that they should have found magazines, reviews, and pamphleteers, to support them. My declared resolution never to defend myself certainly encouraged them to go on.

How thankful am I that I kept that resolution! though the grief and astonishment excited by the combination against me nearly cost me my life."

There is not s.p.a.ce to go at large into an account of this persecution, which was continued for several years. The most inveterate of her enemies was the curate of her own parish, who was named Bere, and the most distressing result to herself was being obliged to discontinue the school at that place. But, whilst laboring so earnestly for the poor and the humble, Miss More was still mindful of the wants of the higher cla.s.ses, and, in the midst of her anxiety and distress, which very seriously affected her health, she found time to compose the "Strictures on Female Education," for their benefit. All her practical admonitions, and all her delineations of female excellence, were afterwards brought together in the character of Lucilla, in the novel of "Coelebs in Search of a Wife," who is a true representative of feminine excellence within the legitimate range of allotted duties.

She did not venture on publis.h.i.+ng this work without much anxious hesitation. "I wrote it," she says, "to amuse the languor of disease.

I thought there were already good books enough in the world for good people, but that there was a large cla.s.s of readers, whose wants had not been attended to--the subscribers to the circulating library. A little to raise the tone of that mart of mischief, and to counteract its corruptions, I thought an object worth attempting." It was published without her name, and though many at once recognized the style, she herself did not acknowledge it till it had pa.s.sed through many editions. It excited such immediate and universal attention, that, in a few days after its first appearance, she received notice to prepare for a second edition; and shortly afterwards she was followed to Dawlish, whither she had gone to try the effect of repose and the sea air, in restoring her health, by the eleventh edition.

Her works at an early period were duly estimated in the United States, and of the "Coelebs" thirty editions had been issued before the author's death. It is not a little creditable to the public taste, that a work so full of plain and practical truth should be so well received. In "Coelebs," as well as in some of her smaller productions, Miss More evinces her power of invention, and gives proof that, had she chosen to employ fiction as the vehicle of instruction, her imagination would have afforded her abundant resources; but habit and the bias of her mind led her in another course: a certain substantiality of purpose, a serious devotion to decided and direct beneficence, an active and almost restless principle of philanthropy, were the great distinctions of her character.

When the education of the Princess Charlotte became a subject of serious attention and inquiry, the advice and a.s.sistance of Miss More were requested by the queen. Bishop Porteus strenuously advised that the education should be intrusted to her; but, when the latter required that the _entire_ direction should be given to her charge, this was thought, by those in power, to be too great a confidence.

They were willing to engage her in a subordinate capacity; but this she declined, and so the negotiation ended. Her ideas on the subject were given to the world under the t.i.tle of "Hints for forming the Character of a Young Princess"--a book which subsequently was a great favorite with her for whose benefit it was intended, and doubtless contributed to the formation of those virtues and principles which made her death so much lamented.

In the country Miss More had hoped to find retirement. But Barley Wood--a place to which she had removed, about one mile from Cowslip Green--was any thing but a hermitage. "Though," she says, "I neither return visits nor give invitations, except when quite confined by sickness, I think I never saw more people, known and unknown, in my gayest days. I never had so many cares and duties imposed upon me as now in sickness and old age. I know not how to help it. If my guests are old, I see them out of respect, and in the hope of receiving some good; if young, I hope I may do them a little good; if they come from a distance, I feel as if I ought to see them on that account; if near home, my neighbors would be jealous of my seeing strangers, and excluding them." Her epistolary labors were enormous. She laid it down as a rule never to refuse or delay answering any application for epistolary advice, enduring the incessant interruptions with indefatigable kindness.

In spite, however, of all the interruptions of company and of sickness; for, as she tells us, "From early infancy to late old age, her life was a successive scene of visitation and restoration," she found time and strength to compose a series of works on "Morals,"--the last of the three being produced in the seventy-fifth year of her age.

In 1828, Miss More was subjected to the severest trial, perhaps, of her life. After the death of her sister Martha, who had been the manager of the domestic economy of the sisterhood, affairs at Barley Wood got into sad confusion. Dishonest and dissolute servants wasted her substance. After trying in vain to correct the evil by mild remonstrance, she sank quietly under what seemed inevitable, and determined to take the infliction as a chastis.e.m.e.nt to which it was her duty to submit. At length, however, her friends interposed, and represented to her the danger of her appearing as the patroness of vice, and thereby lessening the influence of her writings. It was determined that her establishment should be broken up. At a bleak season of the year, on a cold and inclement day, after a long confinement to her chamber, she removed to Clifton. From her apartment she was attended by several of the princ.i.p.al gentlemen of the neighborhood, who had come to protect her from the approach of any thing that might discompose her. She descended the stairs with a placid countenance, and walked silently for a few minutes round the lower room, the walls of which were covered with the portraits of her old and dear friends, who had successively gone before her. As she was helped into the carriage, she cast one pensive, parting look upon her bowers, saying, "I am driven, like Eve, out of paradise; but not, like Eve, by angels." From the shock of the discovery of the misconduct of her servants, Miss More never recovered. After her removal to Clifton, her health was in a very precarious state. To her friends and admirers it was painful to see her great and brilliant talents descending to the level of mere ordinary persons; but the good, the kind, the beneficent qualities of her mind suffered no diminution or abatement.

So long as her intellectual faculties remained but moderately impaired, her wonted cheerfulness and playfulness of disposition did not forsake her; and no impatient or querulous expressions escaped her lips, even in moments of painful suffering. Thus free from the infirmities of temper, which often render old age unamiable and unhappy, she was also spared many of the bodily infirmities which often accompany length of years. To the very last her eye was not dim; she could read with ease, and without spectacles, the smallest print.

Her bearing was almost unimpaired, and, until very near the close of her life, her features were not wrinkled or uncomely. Her death-bed was attended with few of the pains and infirmities which are almost inseparable from sinking nature. She looked serene, and her breathing was as gentle as that of an infant in sleep. Her pulse waxed fainter and fainter, and her spirit pa.s.sed quietly away on the 7th of September, 1833.

MRS. BARBAULD.

Anna Let.i.tia Barbauld, a name long dear to the admirers of genius and the lovers of virtue, was born at the village of Kibworth Harcourt, in Leicesters.h.i.+re, on June 20th, 1743. She was the eldest child and only daughter of John Aikin, D.D., and Jane, his wife, daughter of the Rev.

John Jennings, of Kibworth, and descended by her mother from the ancient family of Wingate, of Harlington, in Bedfords.h.i.+re.

That quickness of apprehension by which she was eminently distinguished, manifested itself from early infancy. Her mother writes thus respecting her in a letter which is still preserved: "I once, indeed, knew a little girl who was as eager to learn as her instructors could be to teach her; and who, at two years old, could read sentences and little stories in her wise book, roundly, without spelling, and, in half a year more, could read as well as most women; but I never knew such another, and, I believe, never shall."

Her education was entirely domestic, and princ.i.p.ally conducted by her excellent mother, a lady whose manners were polished by the early introduction to good company which her family connections had procured her; whilst her mind had been cultivated, and her principles formed, partly by the instructions of religious and enlightened parents, and partly by the society of the Rev. Dr. Doddridge, who was for some years domesticated under the parental roof.

In the middle of the last century, a strong prejudice still existed in England against imparting to females any degree of cla.s.sical learning; and the father of Miss Aikin, proud as he justly was of her uncommon capacity, long refused to gratify her earnest desire of being initiated in this kind of knowledge. At length, however, she in some degree overcame his scruples; and, with his a.s.sistance, she enabled herself to read the Latin authors with pleasure and advantage; nor did she rest satisfied without gaining some acquaintance with the Greek.

The obscure village of Kibworth was unable to afford her a suitable companion of her own s.e.x: 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 a.s.similate her with the youth of the ruder s.e.x, 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 a.s.sociated with much of the pleasure and gayety usually attendant upon that period of life; but it must be regarded as a circ.u.mstance 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 cla.s.sical tutor to a highly respectable academy at Warrington, in Lancas.h.i.+re, 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, pa.s.sed 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.