ENVOI

Prince, where leaves murmur of the May,
A tree of bitter clusters grows;
The bodies of men dead are they!
_This is King Louis's orchard close_!

Translation of Andrew Lang.




ANNA LÆTITIA BARBAULD

(1743-1825)


When Lætitia Aikin Barbauld was about thirty years old, her friend, Mrs.
Elizabeth Montague, wishing to establish a college for women, asked her
to be its principal. In her letter of refusal Mrs. Barbauld said:--"A
kind of Academy for ladies, where they are to be taught in a regular
manner the various branches of science, appears to me better calculated
to form such characters as the _Précieuses_ or _Femmes Savantes_ than
good wives or agreeable companions. The very best way for a woman to
acquire knowledge is from conversation with a father or brother.... The
thefts of knowledge in our sex are only connived at while carefully
concealed, and if displayed are punished with disgrace." It is odd to
find Mrs. Barbauld thus reflecting the old-fashioned view of the