SOURCE: "Mrs. Barbauld," in The Nation, New York, Vol. XVIII, No. 456, March 26, 1874, pp. 206-07.

In the following excerpt, the writer summarizes Barbauld's contributions to English literature.

We fear that not many of our readers will have very distinct ideas suggested to their minds by the name of the excellent woman whose memory Mrs. Ellis has revived in the two handsome volumes noted below [The Life and Works of Anna Laetitia Barbauld, 1874]. Devout churchgoers may have noticed her name in their hymn-books as the author of some of the finest religious lyrics which they contain; and such of them as shall have passed the "mezzo del cammin" of life may rejoice that they encountered, at the outset of their pilgrimage, so gentle and wise a friend as she with her Early Lessons and with her contributions to her brother Dr. Aiken's excellent Evenings at Home. But of the younger...