Page:The works of Anna Laetitia Barbauld volume 1.djvu/63

 author—its venerable and female author—to contumely and insult, could only have been anticipated by those thoroughly acquainted with the instincts of the hired assassin of reputation shooting from his coward ambush. Can any one read the touching apostrophe,

the proud and affectionate enumeration of the names which encircle the brow of Britain with the halo of immortal glory; of the spots consecrated by the footsteps of genius and virtue, where the future pilgrim from the West would kneel with beating heart; the splendid description of London with all its "pomp and circumstance" of greatness,—the complacent allusion to "angel charities," and "the book of life" held out "to distant lands,"—and doubt for a moment that this strain was dictated by the heart of a true patriot, a heart which feared because it fondly loved?