producing an edition of William Collins's poems (1797), six volumes of the correspondence of the mideighteenth- century novelist Samuel Richardson (1804), fifty volumes of The British Novelists (beginning in 1810), and a popular anthology of poetry and prose for young women called The Female Speaker (1811). The British Novelists was the first attempt to establish a national canon in fiction paralleling the multivolume collections of British poets (such as the one associated with Samuel Johnson's prefaces) that had been appearing since the 1770s. Her introductory essay, 'On the Origin and Progress of Novel-Writing,' is a pioneering statement concerning the educational value of novels.
Barbauld's last major work in poetry was Eighteen Hundred and Eleven (1812), a bitter diagnosis of contemporary British life and politics, which lamented the war with France (then in its seventeenth year), the poverty of leadership, the fallen economy, colonialism, and the failure of genius (at the conclusion, the Spirit of Genius emigrates to South America). Critics, even the more liberal ones, were antagonized by a woman writer's use of the scourge of Juvenalian satire, and their response was anguished and unanimously negative; and Barbauld seems not to have attempted another long work after this (she was, by this time, in her late sixties). After Barbauld's death, her niece Lucy Aikin brought out her aunt's Works (two volumes), including several previously unpublished pieces.
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T HE M OUSE'S PETITION / 27
The Mouse's Petition1
Found in the trap where he had heen confined all night by Dr. Priestle}', for the sake of making experiments with different kinds of air
'Parcere subjectis, et debellare superbos.'
?Virgil
Oh hear a pensive prisoner's prayer, For liberty that sighs; And never let thine heart be shut Against the wretch's cries.
5 For here forlorn and sad I sit, Within the wiry gate; And tremble at th' approaching morn, Which brings impending fate.
If e'er thy breast with freedom glow'd,
10 And spurn'd a tyrant's chain, Let not thy strong oppressive force A free-born mouse detain.
Oh do not stain with guiltless blood Thy hospitable hearth; 15 Nor triumph that thy wiles betray'd A prize so little worth.
The scatter'd gleanings of a feast My frugal meals supply; But if thine unrelenting heart
20 That slender boon deny,
The cheerful light, the vital air, Are blessings widely given; Let nature's commoners enjoy The common gifts of heaven.
25 The well-taught philosophic mind To all compassion gives; Casts round the world an equal eye, And feels for all that lives.
If mind, as ancient sages taught,2 30 A never dying flame,
1. Addressed to the clergyman, political theorist, and scientist Joseph Priestley (1733?1804), who at this time was the most distinguished teacher at the Nonconformist Protestant Warrington Academy, where Barbauld's father was also a member of the faculty. The imagined speaker (the petitioning mouse) is destined to participate in just the sort of experiment that led Priestley, a few years later, to the discovery of 'phlogiston'?what we now- call oxygen. Tradition has it that when Barbauld showed him the lines, Priestley set the mouse free. According to Barbauid's modern editors, the poem was many times reprinted and was a favorite to assign students for memorizing. The Latin epigraph is from The Aeneid 6.853, 'To spare the humbled, and to tame in war the proud.'
2. Lines 29?36 p!ay on the idea of transmigration of souls, a doctrine that Priestley believed until the early 1770s.
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28 / ANNA LETITIA BARBAULD
Still shifts through matter's varying forms, In every form the same,
Beware, lest in the worm you crush A brother's soul you find; 35 And tremble lest thy luckless hand Dislodge a kindred mind.
Or, if this transient gleam of day Be all of life we share, Let pity plead within thy breast
40 That little all to spare.
So may thy hospitable board With health and peace be crown'd; And every charm of heartfelt ease Beneath thy roof be found.
45 So, when destruction lurks unseen, Which men, like mice, may share, May some kind angel clear thy path, And break the hidden snare.
ca. 1771 1773
An Inventory of the Furniture in Dr. Priestley's Study
A map of every country known,1 With not a foot of land his own. A list of folks that kicked a dust On this poor globe, from Ptol. the First;2
5 He hopes,?indeed it is but fair,? Some day to get a corner there. A group of all the British kings, Fair emblem! on a packthread swings. The Fathers, ranged in goodly row,3
10 A decent, venerable show, Writ a great while ago, they tell us, And many an inch o'ertop their fellows. A Juvenal to hunt for mottos; And Ovid's tales of nymphs and grottos.4
