is impossible to give here the names of the authoresses who appeared all
on a sudden about half a century after Lady Wortley Montagu. One of the
earliest of them was a lady of the same name, Mrs. E. Montagu, the author
of the Essays on Shakspeare, and Mrs. Anna Laetitia Barbauld, who wrote
numerous poems and admirable hymns for children. There is great beauty in
the Epistle of Mrs. Barbauld to Wilberforce, on the subject of the
Abolition of the Slave Trade (1781.) Mrs. Hannah More has also written
several works of _religious fiction_, and above all, some charming poems;
Florio (1786,) and the Blue Stocking, or Conversation. The Blue Stocking
is a burlesque name given to a lady's coterie, in which several females
attempted to start a sort of _bureau d'esprit_ under the direction of
Mesdames Robinson and Piozzi, a coterie innocent enough, but which excited
the wrath of Mr. Gifford, the Editor of the _Quarterly Review_, who
fulminated against it several satires in excessively bad taste, and
written in a tone of disgusting pedantry. The verses of Mr. Gifford are
infinitely more ridiculous than those he pretends to correct. Amongst the
English ladies who have written romance, Miss Edgeworth, Mrs. Inchbald,
and Lady Morgan, are worthy of especial note. Several ladies, without
having written works of great importance, have still produced poetical
pieces of graceful beauty; in this number it is but justice to distinguish
Mrs. Opie. And lastly, in order to finish this hasty catalogue, we may
remark that there have appeared in England, in our days, several ladies of
a high order of literary, poetical, and at the same time, philosophical
talent. Lady Morgan herself has contrived to mix up history and romance
in her writings, with great ability; but among the ladies, who inscribed
their fame on monuments more durable than romantic stories, we must select
for honourable mention the names of Joanna Baillie, Aikin, Benger, and
Helen Maria Williams. Miss Baillie, sister of the celebrated Dr. Baillie,
the physician, is a woman of the highest talent. It is not your pretty
nothings, your elegant trifles, which occupy her genius; on the contrary,