kard,' which was written in
early days, with much spirit and real humour. It begins with a classic
incantation, and then goes on:--

'Twas at the solemn silent noontide hour
When hunger rages with despotic power,
When the lean student quits his Hebrew roots
For the gross nourishment of English fruits,
And throws unfinished airy systems by
For solid pudding and substantial pie.

The tankard now,

Replenished to the brink,
With the cool beverage blue-eyed maidens drink,

but, accustomed to very different libations, is endowed with voice and
utters its bitter reproaches:--

Unblest the day, and luckless was the hour
Which doomed me to a Presbyterian's power,
Fated to serve a Puritanic race,
Whose slender meal is shorter than their grace.

VI.

Thumbkin, of fairy celebrity, used to mark his way by flinging crumbs of
bread and scattering stones as he went along; and in like manner authors
trace the course of their life's peregrinations by the pamphlets and
articles they cast down as they go. Sometimes they throw stones,
sometimes they throw bread. In '92 and '93 Mrs. Barbauld must have been
occupied with party polemics and with the political miseries of the
time. A pamphlet on Gilbert Wakefield's views, and another on 'Sins
of the Government and Sins of the People,' show in what direction her
thoughts were bent. Then came a period of comparative calm again and of
literary work and interest. She seems to have turned to Akenside and
Collins, and each had an essay to himself. These were followed by
certain selections from the _Spectator_, _Tatler_, &c., preceded by one
of those admirable essays for which she is really remarkable. She also
published a memoir of Richardson prefixed to his correspondence. Sir
James Mackintosh, writing at a later and sadder time of her life, says
of her observations on the moral of Clarissa that they are as fine a
piece of mitigated and rational stoicism as our language can boast of.

In 1802 another congregation seems to have made signs from Stoke
Newington, and Mrs. Barbauld persuaded her husband to leave his flock at
Hampstead and to buy a house near her brother's at Stoke Newington. This
was her last migration, and here she remained until her death in 1825.
One of her letters to Mrs. Kenrick gives a description of what might
have been a happy home:--'We have a pretty little back parlour that
looks into our little spot of a garden,' she