Anna Laetitia Barbauld

Characters

CHARACTERS.

Horace epigraph

Barbauld signals she's writing in the classical tradition of character sketches. Horace's phrase means 'always lovable'—she's setting up a formal comparison between classical ideals and her contemporary subject.

———— semper amabilem.
Horat.

Horace epigraph

Barbauld signals she's writing in the classical tradition of character sketches. Horace's phrase means 'always lovable'—she's setting up a formal comparison between classical ideals and her contemporary subject.

OH! born to sooth distress, and lighten care;
Lively as soft, and innocent as fair;
Blest with that sweet simplicity of thought
So rarely found, and never to be taught;
Of winning speech, endearing, artless, kind,
The loveliest pattern of a female mind;
Like some fair spirit from the realms of rest
With all her native heaven within her breast;

Paradox of innocence

The speaker claims her subject is so good she 'scarce can guess at sin'—but this is idealization, not realism. Barbauld is performing a kind of flattery that becomes almost satirical by its excess.

So pure, so good, she scarce can guess at sin,
But thinks the world without like that within;

Paradox of innocence

The speaker claims her subject is so good she 'scarce can guess at sin'—but this is idealization, not realism. Barbauld is performing a kind of flattery that becomes almost satirical by its excess.

Such melting tenderness, so fond to bless,
Her charity almost becomes excess.

Goodness vs. beauty

Lines 13-15 rank human qualities: wealth, wisdom, beauty, strength are all surpassed by goodness. This is a deliberate moral hierarchy—Barbauld argues that **affection** (genuine love) responds only to moral character, not surface qualities.

Wealth may be courted, wisdom be rever'd,
And beauty prais'd, and brutal strength be fear'd;

Goodness vs. beauty

Lines 13-15 rank human qualities: wealth, wisdom, beauty, strength are all surpassed by goodness. This is a deliberate moral hierarchy—Barbauld argues that **affection** (genuine love) responds only to moral character, not surface qualities.

Goodness vs. beauty

Lines 13-15 rank human qualities: wealth, wisdom, beauty, strength are all surpassed by goodness. This is a deliberate moral hierarchy—Barbauld argues that **affection** (genuine love) responds only to moral character, not surface qualities.

But goodness only can affection move;
And love must owe its origin to love.
**************
Illam quicquid agit, quoquo vestigia flectit,

Tibullus epigraph

The Latin shifts from Horace to a Roman elegist known for love poetry. Barbauld is now quoting a source about grace and beauty following the subject—she's moving from moral praise to aesthetic refinement.

Componit furtim, subsequiturque decor.

Tibullus epigraph

The Latin shifts from Horace to a Roman elegist known for love poetry. Barbauld is now quoting a source about grace and beauty following the subject—she's moving from moral praise to aesthetic refinement.

Tibul.
OF gentle manners, and of taste refin'd,
With all the graces of a polish'd mind.
Clear sense and truth still shone in all she spoke,
And from her lips no idle sentence broke.
Each nicer elegance of art she knew;
Correctly fair, and regularly true.
Her ready fingers plied with equal skill
The pencil's task, the needle, or the quill.
So pois'd her feelings, so compos'd her soul,

Reason vs. passion

For 12 lines, the second portrait emphasizes rational control: 'compos'd her soul,' 'subject all to reason's calm controul.' Then suddenly—'One only passion'—breaks this pattern. The volta reveals what Barbauld is actually describing.

Reason vs. passion

For 12 lines, the second portrait emphasizes rational control: 'compos'd her soul,' 'subject all to reason's calm controul.' Then suddenly—'One only passion'—breaks this pattern. The volta reveals what Barbauld is actually describing.

So subject all to reason's calm controul,
One only passion, strong, and unconfin'd,

Reason vs. passion

For 12 lines, the second portrait emphasizes rational control: 'compos'd her soul,' 'subject all to reason's calm controul.' Then suddenly—'One only passion'—breaks this pattern. The volta reveals what Barbauld is actually describing.

Disturb'd the balance of her even mind:
One passion rul'd despotic in her breast,
In every word, and look, and thought confest:

Love redeems excess

The final couplet resolves the tension: love is the 'one passion' that justifies abandoning reason's control. Barbauld argues that romantic love—unlike other passions—legitimizes 'fond excess' because it's inherently generous.

But that was love, and love delights to bless
The generous transports of a fond excess.

Love redeems excess

The final couplet resolves the tension: love is the 'one passion' that justifies abandoning reason's control. Barbauld argues that romantic love—unlike other passions—legitimizes 'fond excess' because it's inherently generous.

Source Wikipedia Poetry Foundation

Reading Notes

Two portraits, two philosophies of female virtue

The poem presents two contrasting ideals of womanhood, each introduced by a classical epigraph. The first portrait (lines 1-16) emphasizes moral goodness—purity, innocence, charity—almost to the point of unworldliness. The second (lines 17-39) praises refined taste and intellectual accomplishment—artistic skill, clear speech, rational composure. These aren't meant to be the same woman; they're competing models.

Barbauld is working within the 18th-century tradition of character sketches, but she's doing something subtle: she's showing that these two ideals are actually incompatible. The first portrait celebrates a woman who cannot even conceive of sin. The second celebrates a woman whose mind is 'subject all to reason's calm controul.' One is almost supernatural in her goodness; the other is almost mechanical in her perfection. By presenting them separately, Barbauld implies that real women contain contradictions that these neat categories cannot contain.

The poem's resolution is telling: love is what breaks the second woman's rational composure. Barbauld suggests that passion—specifically romantic love—is not a flaw in an otherwise perfect character, but the thing that makes perfection human and generous rather than cold.

Barbauld's use of classical authority

Both epigraphs are in Latin, and both are male poets (Horace and Tibullus). By anchoring her character sketches in classical sources, Barbauld claims authority for describing female virtue—but she's also subtly rewriting those sources for her own purposes. Horace's 'semper amabilem' (always lovable) becomes her springboard for exploring what makes a woman lovable: not beauty or accomplishment alone, but goodness. Tibullus's lines about grace and beauty following a woman's footsteps become, in Barbauld's hands, a meditation on the relationship between external refinement and internal feeling.

This is important because Barbauld was writing in a period when women's education and moral authority were hotly debated. By using classical male poets as her frame, she's not deferring to male authority—she's co-opting it. She's saying: these great poets understood something about female virtue, and I'm going to show you what they really meant. The poem is both a compliment to her subject and a subtle argument about what women's virtue actually consists of.