Page:The works of Anna Laetitia Barbauld volume 1.djvu/53

 shone, was never attempted by Mrs Barbauld:—in poetry, on the other hand, she surpassed him in all the qualities of which excellence in that style is composed. Certainly this great author could not elsewhere have found a critic so capable of entering, as it were, into the soul of his writings, culling their choicest beauties, and drawing them forth for the admiration of a world by which they had begun to be neglected. Steele and the other contributors to these periodical papers are also ably, though briefly, characterized by her; and such pieces of theirs are included in the Selection as could fairly claim enduring remembrance.

The essay opens with the observation, "that it is equally true of books as of their authors, that one generation passeth away and another cometh." The mutual influence exerted by books and manners on each other is then remarked; and the si-