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c gentle pilgrim , glad ^ would I Those tones for ever hear \ With thee to share my scanty lot , That lot to me were dear .
But Jo , along * the vine-clad steep , The gleam of armour shines ; His scattered ftocl ; , his straw-roofed hut , The helpless swain resigns . And now the smouldering flames aspire , Their lurid light I see ; I hear the human wolves approach ; I cannot shelter thee . '"
The " Ode to Remorse / ' I . 251 — 260 , is perhaps , of all that is new in the < c Works , " the greatest effort of Mrs . Barbauld ' s muse . The numbers are finely varied ; the characters suitable and striking ; the imagery bold and at the same time natural . There
is true poetic spirit ia these lines : " Cruel Remorse ! when Youth and Pleasure sport , And thoughtless Folly keeps her court , Crouching ' midst rosy bowers thou lurk ' st unseen ;
Slumbering the festal hours away , While Youth disports in that enchanting scene ; Till on some fated day Thou with a tiger-spring dost leap upon thy prey , And tear his helpless breast , o ' erwhelm'd with wild dismay . "
The conclusion * in which Remorse is describe ! as effacing guilt and subsiding * into penitence , and a prayer is offered for the atoning tears of meek contrition / 5 will not he regarded by the many as orthodox in its theology , Imt must still be admired for its genuine poetry by those that cannot take delight in it as the effusion of Christian
chanty . The " Hymns ' are inserted together at the end of the 1 st volurng . It is singular that some of them are not regular in the metre . There are several metrical irregularities in H . VII ., " Come , said Jesus' sacred voice , "
winch the author corrected in the copy from which tlie hymn was printed in Mr . Aspland " s Selection . This is a great fault in compositions designed to he sung * . Only one new Hynin is here introduced ( IJ . IX . ) , and we find it difficult to believe that it is really Mrs . Barbauld's : it is of various metres , if of any , and the sense is not always discoverable . What can be made of the first stanza ?
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" Joy to . the followers Qf the Lord ! Thus saith the sure , the eternal word . Not of earth the joy it brings , Tempered in celestial springs . " 339 .
The prose works consist of letters and some light pieces now printed for the first time , and of tracts published at various periods during Mrs . Barbauld's life , some with and some without her name .
I he < c Correspondence , ' which occupies a third of the volume , is peculiarly interesting . There is an ease and grace in the letters which reminds us of Cowper . Could a volume have l > een made up of Mrs . Barbauld ' s epistolary effusions , it would no doubt have obtained great popularity . Some of the letters were written on
a tour on the Continent : we meet in them , as ' might have been expected , with some interesting * accounts of the French and Swiss Protestants . " Nismcs is the very centre of the Protestants . They are computed to be
30 , 000 , and the richest part of the inhabitants ; for here , as the Dissenters in England , they give themselves to trade . They have no church , nor even barn ; but assemble in the desert , as ' they call it , in the open air , in a place surrounded by rocks , which reverberate the voice . The pulpit is moveable , and there are a few seats of stone for the elders . On
their great festivals they say tiie sight is very striking . "—II . 46 , 47 . " Will you hear how they pass the Sun del v at Geneva ? They have service at seven in the morning , nine , and at two ; after tliat they assemble in parties for conversation , cards and dancing , and finish the daV at the theatre .
* ' Did not you think they had been stricter at Geneva than to have plays on the Sunday , especially as it is but two or three years since they were allowed at all ? The service at their churches is seldom much more than an hour , and I believe few people go more than once a day . As soon as the text is named , the
minister puts on his hat , in which he is followed by all the congregation , except those whose hats and heads have never any connexion , for you well know fli-tt to put his bat upon bis head is the la ^ t use a well dressed Frenchman would
think of putting it to . At proper periods of the discourse the minister stops short and turns his back to you , in order to blow his nose , which is a signal for all the congregation to do the same ; and a glorious concert it is , for the weather , is already severe , and people have got colds .
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560 Review *—Mrs . Barbauld ' s Works .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Sept. 2, 1825, page 560, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2540/page/44/
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