o make her his wife.' The father answered
'that his daughter was there walking in the garden, and he might go
and ask her himself.' 'With what grace the farmer pleaded his cause I
know not,' says her biographer and niece. 'Out of all patience at his
unwelcome importunities, my aunt ran nimbly up a tree which grew by the
garden wall, and let herself down into the lane beyond.'

The next few years must have been perhaps the happiest of Mrs. Barbauld's
life. Once when it was nearly over she said to her niece, Mrs. Le
Breton, from whose interesting account I have been quoting, that she had
never been placed in a situation which really suited her. As one reads
her sketches and poems, one is struck by some sense of this detracting
influence of which she complains: there is a certain incompleteness and
slightness which speaks of intermittent work, of interrupted trains of
thought. At the same time there is a natural buoyant quality in much of
her writing which seems like a pleasant landscape view seen through the
bars of a window. There may be wider prospects, but her eyes are bright,
and this peep of nature is undoubtedly delightful.

III.

The letters to Miss Belsham begin somewhere about 1768. The young lady
has been paying a visit to Miss Aikin at Warrington, and is interested
in everyone and everything belonging to the place. Miss Aikin is no less
eager to describe than Miss Belsham to listen, and accordingly a whole
stream of characters and details of gossip and descriptions in faded
ink come flowing across their pages, together with many expressions of
affection and interest. 'My dear Betsy, I love you for discarding the
word Miss from your vocabulary,' so the packet begins, and it continues
in the same strain of pleasant girlish chatter, alternating with the
history of many bygone festivities, and stories of friends, neighbours,
of beaux and partners; of the latter genus, and of Miss Aikin's efforts
to make herself agreeable, here is a sample:--'I talked to him, smiled
upon him, gave him my fan to play with,' says the lively young lady.
'Nothing would do; he was grave as a philosopher. I tried to raise
a conversation: "'Twas fine weather for dancing." He agreed to my
observation. "We had a tolerable set this time." Neither did he contradict
that. Then we were both silent--stupid mortal thought I! but unreasonable
as he appeared to the advances that I made him, there was one object in
the room, a sparkling object wh