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 mis conduct 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 hearing was almost unimpaired, and, until very near the close of her life, her features were not wrinkled or uncomely. Her deathbed 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 aTM infant in sleep. Her pulse waxed fainter and fainter, and her spirit passed quietly away on the 7th of September 1833.

MRS. BARBAULD.

ANNA LETITIA BARBAULD, a name long dear to the admirers of genius and the lovers of virtue, was born at the village of Kibworth Harcourt, in Leicestershire, 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 Bedfordshire.

That quickness of apprehension by which she was eminently distin uished, 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 principally 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 enlightered 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 classical 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 assistance, 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 sex her brother, the late Dr. Aikin, was more than three years her junior; and as her father was, at this period, the master of a school for boys, it might have been apprehended that conformity of pursuits, as well as age, would tend too nearly to assimilate her with the youth of the ruder sex, by whom she was surrounded. But the vigilance of her mother effectually obviated this danger, by instilling into her a double portion of bashfulness and maidenly reserve; and she was accustomed to ascribe an uncasy 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 reccllections of childhood and early youth were, in fact, not associated with much of the pleasure and

gayety usually attendant upon that period of life; but it must be regarded as a circumstance favorable, rather than otherwise, to the unfolding of her genius, to be left thus to find, or make, in solitude, her own objects of interest or pursuit. The love of rural nature sank deep in her heart. Her vivid fancy excited itself to color, animate, and diversify, all the objects which surrounded her; the few but choice authors of her father's library, which she read and re-read, had leisure to make their full impression,-to mould her sentiments, and to form her taste. The spirit of devotion, early inculcated upon her as a duty, opened to her, by degrees, an exhaustless source of tender and sublime delight; and while yet a child, she was surprised to find herself a poet.

Just at the period when longer seclusion might have proved seriously injurious to her spirits, an invitation given to her learned and exemplary father to undertake the office of classical tutor to a highly respectable academy at Warrington, in Lancashire, was the fortunate means of transplanting her to a more varied and animating scenc. This removal took place in 1758, when Miss Aikin had just attained the age of fifteen; and the fifteen succeeding years, passed by her at Warrington, comprehended probably the happiest, as well as the most brilliant, portion of her existence. She was at this time possessed of great beauty, distinct traces of which she retained to the latest period of her life. Her person was slender, her complexion fair, with the bloom of perfect health: her features were regular and elegant; and her light blue eyes beamed with the light of wit and fancy.

A solitary education had not produced on her its most frequent ill effects, pride and self-importance, the reserve of her manners proceeded solely from bashfulness, for her temper inclined her strongly to friendship, and to social pleasures; and her active imagination, which represented all objects tinged with hues "unborrowed of the sun," served as a charm against that disgust with common characters and daily incidents, which so frequently renders the conscious possessor of superior talents at once unamiable and unhappy.

Nor was she now in want of congenial associates. Warrington academy included among its tutors names eminent both in science and literature; with several of these, and especially with Dr. Priestley and Dr. Canfield and their families, she formed sincere and lasting friendships. The elder and more accomplished among the students composed an agreeable part of the same society; and its animation was increased by a mixture of young ladies, either residents in the town, or occasional visitors, several of whom were equally distinguished for personal charms, for amiable manners, and cultivated minds. The rising institution, which flourished for several years in high reputation, diffused a classic air over all connected with it. Aikin, as was natural, took a warm interest in its success; and no academic has ever celebrated his alma mater in nobler strains, or with a more filial affection, than she has manifested in that portion of her early and beautiful poem, "The Invitation," where her theme is this "nursery of men for future years.'

Miss

About the close of the year 1771, her brother, after