It would be difficult, if not impossible, in a work of this kind, to do justice to the various merits of Mr. Kett. He had filled the important office of tutor of his college for more than twenty years, and had trained up many in sound learning and good principles, who are now filling very respectable stations with credit to themselves; he had been some years an examining master under the new system, was for a short time one of the select preachers, which appointment he resigned, and at an early period of his life was chosen Bampton Lecturer. All those situations he filled with propriety, and to the satisfaction of the illustrious University to which he belonged; and had he been of an ambitious turn of mind, he was certainly qualified for, and might have had the means of procuring, a much higher station than ever fell to his lot. But he possessed an independence of principle which prevented him from soliciting what, perhaps, he felt to be his due; and enjoying enough to satisfy all his moderate wants, he left the scramble for preferment to more bustling candidates. Perhaps it would have contributed to the comfort of the latter years of his life, had he felt the necessity for exertion, and been placed in a situation where it was required. Though naturally cheerful and acceptable to all classes and descriptions of persons, after he retired from the active business and engagements of his college he was occasionally subject to a depression of spirits, the common malady of literary men. In company, however, he was, to the last, affable, entertaining, and instructive, without the slightest degree of pedantry or affectation; and it was only when presuming ignorance attempted to dogmatize, that he assumed the scholar, and set down the silly pretender to knowledge, in a manner peculiarly his own.

Among his friends were the late Dr. Samuel Parr, to whom he was much attached, and to whose interests on a particular occasion he showed a high degree of benevolent attention. The present learned President of Magdalen College, and

See the Memoir of Dr. Parr in the present volume.

Dr. Tournay, Warden of Wadham, were always among his particular friends and associates in the University, and they did honor to his choice. In short, there were few persons of any literary celebrity who were wholly unknown to Mr. Kett; and young men of merit were always sure to find in his kind-heartedness and advice, not only counsel, but assistance in their various pursuits.

It may be added, that as a preacher he was animated and impressive, without the slightest tincture of enthusiasm, which he always discouraged, as being inimical to the best interests of the church to which he was sincerely devoted. As a writer, his general style partook more of neatness and elegance, than of originality of thought and expression. Like his conversation, it was rather calculated to please and convince, than to astonish and confound. In short, he was a man who bore his faculties meekly, and was beloved and esteemed by those who knew him best.

The seventh volume of the Public Characters has furnished us with the earlier part of the preceding memoir. For the latter part (with the exception of two or three paragraphs from the Gentleman's Magazine, and a few interesting facts from another quarter) we are indebted to a gentleman, long on terms of the strictest intimacy with Mr. Kett, and eminently qualified to appreciate his merits in every respect.

26

No. III.

MRS. BARBAULD.

We take the liberty of transcribing a memoir of this excellent and justly-celebrated woman, prefixed to the exceedingly interesting edition of her works (in two volumes, octavo), recently published by her amiable and accomplished niece, Miss Lucy Aikin; so well qualified, not less by congeniality of feeling and talent, than by consanguinity and intimate knowledge of the subject, to be the biographer of her venerable and beloved relation.

"Anna Lætitia Barbauld, a name long dear to the admirers of genius and the lovers of virtue, was born at the village of Kibworth Harcourt, in Leicestershire, on June 20th, 1743, the eldest child and only daughter of John Aikin, D.D., and Jane his wife, daughter of the Rev. John Jennings of Kibworth, and descended by her mother from the ancient family of Wingate, of Harlington, in Bedfordshire.

"That quickness of apprehension by which she was eminently distinguished, manifested itself from her earliest infancy. Her mother thus writes respecting her in a letter which is still preserved: I once indeed knew a little girl who was as eager to learn as her instructors could be to teach her, and who, at two years old, could read sentences and little stories in her wise book, roundly, without spelling, and in half a year more could read as well as most women; but I never knew such another, and I believe never shall.'

"Her education was entirely domestic, and principally conducted by her excellent mother, a lady whose manners were polished by the early introduction to good company, which her family connexions had procured her; whilst her mind had been cultivated and her principles formed, partly by the in

structions of religious and enlightened parents, partly by the society of the celebrated Dr. Doddridge, who was for some years domesticated under her parental roof.

"In the middle of the last century a strong prejudice still existed against imparting to females any tincture of classical learning; and the father of Miss Aikin, proud as he justly was of her uncommon capacity, long refused to gratify her earnest desire of being initiated in this kind of knowledge. At length, however, she in some degree overcame his scruples; and with his assistance she enabled herself to read the Latin authors with pleasure and advantage; nor did she rest satisfied without gaining some acquiantance with the Greek.

"The obscure village of Kibworth was unable to afford her a single suitable companion of her own sex: her brother, the late Dr. Aikin, was more than three years her junior; and as her father was at this period the master of a school for boys, it might have been apprehended that conformity of pursuits, as well as age, would tend too nearly to assimilate her with the youth of the ruder sex by whom she found herself encompassed. But maternal vigilance effectually obviated this danger, by instilling into her a double portion of bashfulness and maidenly reserve; and she was accustomed to ascribe an uneasy sense of constraint in mixed society, which she could never entirely shake off, to the strictness and seclusion in which it had thus become her fate to be educated. Her recollections of childhood and early youth were, in fact, not associated with much of the pleasure and gaiety usually attendant upon that period of life: but it must be regarded as a circumstance favorable, rather than otherwise, to the unfolding of her genius, to have been thus left to find, or make in solitude her own objects of interest and pursuit. The love of rural nature sunk deep into her heart; her vivid fancy exerted itself to colour, to animate, and to diversify all the objects which surrounded her: the few but choice authors of her father's library, which she read and re-read, had leisure to make their full impression,- to mould her sentiments, and to form her taste; the spirit of devotion,

early inculcated upon her as a duty, opened to her, by degrees, an exhaustless source of tender and sublime delight; and while yet a child, she was surprised to find herself a poet.

2

"Just at the period when longer seclusion might have proved seriously injurious to her spirits, an invitation given to her learned and exemplary father to undertake the office of classical tutor in a highly respectable dissenting academy at Warrington, in Lancashire, was the fortunate means of transplanting her to a more varied and animating scene. This removal took place in 1758, when Miss Aikin had just attained the age of fifteen; and the fifteen succeeding years passed by her at Warrington comprehended probably the happiest, as well as the most brilliant portion of her existence. She was at this time possessed of great beauty, distinct traces of which she retained to the latest period of life. Her person was slender, her complexion exquisitely fair, with the bloom of perfect health; her features were regular and elegant, and her dark blue eyes beamed with the light of wit and fancy.

"A solitary education had not produced on her its most frequent ill effects, pride and self-importance: the reserve of her manners proceeded solely from bashfulness, for her temper inclined her strongly to friendship and to social pleasures; and her active imagination, which represented all objects tinged with hues 'unborrowed of the sun,' served as a charm against that disgust with common characters and daily incidents, which so frequently renders the conscious possessor of superior talents at once unamiable and unhappy. Nor was she now in want of congenial associates. Warrington academy included among its tutors names eminent both in science and in literature: with several of these, and especially with Dr. Priestley and Dr. Enfield and their families, she formed sincere and lasting friendships. elder and more accomplished among the students composed an agreeable part of the same society; and its animation was increased by a mixture of young ladies, either residents in

The