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    upon her reward . . . . . . Sever will she be forgotten by those who knew her ! Her strong sense , her feelincr , her energy , her principle , her patriot feelings , her piety , rational , yet ardentall these mark a character of no common sort . When to these high claims upon general regard are added those of relation or friend , the feeling must be such as no course of years can efface . '

    " A gentle and scarcely perceptible decline was now sloping for herself the passage to the tomb : she felt and hailed its progress as a release from languor and infirmity , a passport to another and a higher state of being . Her friends ,

    however , flattered themselves that they might continue to enjoy her yet a little longer ; and she had consented to remove under the roof of her adopted son , that his affectionate attentions and those of his family might be the solace of every remaining hour . But Providence had ordained it

    otherwise : she quitted indeed her own house , bat whilst on a visit at the neighbouring one of her sister-in-law , Mrs . Aikin , the constant and beloved friend of nearly her whole life , her bodily powers

    gave way almost suddenly ; and , after lingering a few days , on the morning of March the 9 th , 1825 , she expired without a struggle , in the eighty-second year of her age . "—Mem . pp . liii . —Ivii .

    One short sentence in the character here given of Mrs . Barbauld speaks volumes : u passed through a long life , without having dropped , it is believed , a single friendship , and without having drawn upon herself a single enmity which could

    properly be called personal . "—Mem . p . lix . Although we are far from wishing that this Memoir of Mrs . Barbauld had been a confession of faith , either her own or her biographer ' s , we may yet be allowed to express our regret that her character as a Christian is

    not made more prominent , and that her o-eneral views of divine truth are not more precisely delineated . Her helief # iu the Christian revelation , her trust in a merciful Providence , and her •\ Uachmcnt to the opinions of the hheral Dissenters , are apparent in her

    Y f 5 but her adrn irers cannot check the desire of knowing- the whole history of her mind , in relation to these "loinentous subjects . Her judgment upon the leading- theological and mo-* questions that were agitated during e eventfu l period of her Kfe must fl b ^ n worthy of record ; and the

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    statement would , we are persuaded , have been a taew and valuable testimony on behalf of those principles of Christian truth that most highly exalt the benevolence of the Divine

    character and the wisdom and equity of the moral government of the universe . In a work against the Unitarians that was once popular , whatever be the estimation in which it is now held , Mrs , Barbauld is alluded to as one of their

    writers and is charged with a saying to their disparagement : the charge is , we have reason to believe , entirely groundless ;* but its being made is a proof of the importance attached to

    her opinions : and the denomination amongst whom she is thus placed , by an angry polemic , in order to serve a purpose , will ever be proud to appeal to the sanction of a writer , who yields to few tliat have earned for themselves

    a name in English literature and who is pre-eminent amongst female authors . She was not indeed a controversial Unitarian , but there are passages in her works which express , and that not

    feebly , her dislike of the system of theology received as orthodox ; and the spirit of all her compositions , whether in verse or prose , is congenial with a rational and benevolent scheme

    of religious doctrine . Miss Aikin fancies a resemblance between the genius of Mrs . Barbauld and that of Addison , ( Mem . p . xl . ) and she characterizes the style of both as being full of Idiom . Now this is by no means the quality that we should have attributed to Mrs . Barbauld ' s

    prose-writings . In these she appears to us , notwithstanding our previous admission , to resemble Johnson still more than Addison , exhibiting Johnson s stateliness and strength chastened by the liveliness and grace of her sex . Her declamation in her pamphlets , and splendid it commonly is ,

    falls into the strain of the author of Rasselas . She displays also some of his tendency to antithesis and the balance of phrases , clauses and sentences . Is it not a corroboration of this opinion that she was so good an imitator of this imposing writer ?

    We allude to the late A . Fuller ' s tc Calvinistic and Socinian Schemes Compared /* in which is attributed to Mrs , Barbauld the remark that Unitarianisin is the frigid zone of Christianity / 1

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    Review . —Mrs * Barbauld ' s Works * 487

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Aug. 2, 1825, page 487, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2539/page/33/