sisting, and noting down the results;
how, with one spirit and one interest, they grew old together and
illustrious together; their several achievements, both at home and in
observatories on strange shores to which they voyaged, always
associated; with what affectionate care she trained the favorite
nephew, who was to burnish into still more effulgent brightness the
star-linked name of Herschel, the story of all this is full of
attractiveness, and forms one of the warm and poetic episodes in the
high, cold annals of science. The union of John Aikin and his sister
Letitia, afterwards Mrs. Barbauld, in life, tastes, labors, was
uncommonly close and complete. The narrative of it; so warm,
substantial, and healthy was it, leaves a pleasing and invigorating
influence on the sympathies of those who read it. They composed
together several of their excellent and most useful literary works.
While Mrs. Barbauld was tarrying at Geneva, her brother addressed a
letter in verse to her:

Yet one dear wish still struggles in my breast,
And paints one darling object unpossessed.
How many years have whirled their rapid course
Since we, sole streamlets from one honored source,
In fond affection, as in blood, allied,
Have wandered devious from each other's side,
Allowed to catch alone some transient view,
Scarce long enough to think the vision true!
Oh! then, while yet some zest of life remains;
While transport yet can swell the beating veins;
While sweet remembrance keeps her wonted seat,
And fancy still retains some genial heat;
When evening bids each busy task be o'er,
Once let us meet again, to part no more!

That evening came. In the village of Stoke Newington, they spent the
last twenty years of their lives, in that close neighborhood which
admitted of the daily, almost hourly, interchanges of mind and heart.
There was a friendship of great strength between Goethe and his
sister Cornelia. She was only a year younger than her brother, his
companion in plays, lessons, and trials, bound to him by the closest
ties and innumerable associations. While she was yet in the cradle,
he prepared dolls and amusements for her, and was very jealous of all
who came between them.

They grew up in such union, that, as he afterwards said, they might
have been taken for twins. The sternness of their father drove them
into a more confiding sympathy. When he had become a young man, and
was accustomed to make frequent excursions, he says, "I was ag