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Barbauld, Mrs. Anna Letitia

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Barbauld, Rochemont

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an eminent Christian writer of hymns, was born at Kibworth, Leicester, England, June 20, 1743. She was the daughter of Rev. John Aikin, LL.D., who for several years had charge of a flourishing academy. Her brother, John Aikin, M.D., like his sister, was a distinguished author. His sister early developed remarkable literary ability, and received an accomplished education. At the age of thirty (1773) she published a volume of miscellaneous poems, which was so well-received that four editions of the work were called for within a year after publication. She was married in 1774 to the Rev. Rochemont Barbauld, a descendant of a family of French Protestants. Soon after their marriage Mr. and Mrs. Barbauld opened a select school in the village of Palgrave, which met with great success. Although busily occupied with her work as a teacher. Mrs. Barbauld found time to engage in literary pursmuits. She prepared for the press her Early Lessons for Children and her Hymns in Prose for Children; in 1775 her Devotional Pieces, composed from the Psalms and the book of Job. In 1790 she published APoetical Epistle to Mr. Wilberforce on the Rejection of the Bill for Abolishigs the Slave-trade, and in 1792 Remarks on Gilbert Wirkefield's "Inquiry into the Expediency and Propriety of Public and Social Worship." Mrs. Barbauld was associated with her brother in the production of Evenings at Home,"a work in six volumes, commenced in 1792 and completed in 1795. Mr. Barbauld became pastor of a congregation at Newington-Green, and with his wife made a home at Stoke-Newington. In 1804 Mrs. Barbauld publishled Selections from the "Spectator," "Tatler," "Guardian," and "Freeholder." She wrote also this year a Life of Samuel Richardson. In 1810 she edited the British Novelists, a series which was published in fifty volumes, and in 1811 wrote a poem, Eighteen Hundred and Eleven. She died March 9, 1825. Her rank among the English female writers is a high one. Her hymns are among the best sacred lyrics in the language, and not a few of them have found their way into our best collections. The best known of these are: "Praise to God, immortal praise, For the love that crowns our days;" the Easter hymn, "Again the Lord of life and light Awakes the kindling ray;" also the hymn, "Awake, my soul! lift up thine eyes! See where thy foes against thee rise;" and the hymns of which the following are the first lines: "How blest the sacred tie that binds," "Come, said Jesus' sacred voice," "Our country is Immanuel's land." See Aikin [Miss Lucy], Memoir of Mrs. Barbauld; Cleveland, English Literature of the 19th Century, p. 167, 168; Frost, British Poets, p. 35; Allibone, Dict. of Brit. and Amer. Auth., s.v. (J. C. S.)