THEIR AUTHORS AND ORIGIN. 235
to live at Stoke Newington, as Mr. Barbauld was the minister of a Unitarian congregation in that neighbourhood. He died in 1808.
In 1790, Mrs. Barhauld began to write valuable political pamphlets on great questions of the time. She also assisted her brother, Dr. Aikin, in his work, " Evenings at Home." Her brother is known as the author of a " Biographical Dictionary," and of the " Works of British Poets." Later, she published some of the works of Addison, Collins, and Akenside, prefixing to each writer s works a valuable introductory essay. In addition to these literary undertakings, she edited the " British Novelists ; " and, at the age of sixty-eight, she published her largest and most highly finished poem, " Eighteen Hundred and Eleven." Besides the great talent displayed in her longer pieces in prose and verse, some of her shorter pieces have been justly admired, especially her " Address to the Deity."
Her sole contribution to the "New Congregational Hymn Book " is justly a favourite :
" How blest the righteous wJien he dies ! " No. 727.
It is a happy illustration of how much poetry a hymn may contain, without ceasing to be simple, easily intelligible, and adapted to public worship ; without, in fact, ceasing to be what we understand by a hymn. It is found at page 31 5 of Vol. I. of "The Works of A. L. Barbauld, with a Memoir," by Lucy Aikin, 1825. The hymn is headed, " The Death .of the Virtuous," and begins in the original :
" Sweet is the scene when Virtue dies ! When sinks a righteous soul to rest."
Verse 3 is also different in the original. It is as follows :
" Triumphant smiles the victor s brow, Fanned by some angel s purple wing : Where is, Grave, thy victory now ? And where, insidious Death ! thy sting ?"
The other part of the hymn is given in the "New Congre-
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