Page:The works of Anna Laetitia Barbauld volume 1.djvu/74

 copies of most of those now printed for the first time were found among her papers, evidently prepared for insertion in the enlarged volume which she long meditated, but never completed.

The Poems have been disposed, with some unimportant exceptions, in chronological order, as nearly as it could be ascertained. When the productions of a writer extend over so long a period as nearly sixty years, they become in some measure the record of an age, a document for the historian of literature and opinions; and they ought to be arranged with some view to this secondary object, by which their interest is enhanced. It is also agreeable to race the author's progress from youth to age, by changes of style, or the succession of different trains of thought. In the writings of Mrs. Barbauld, however, the character of the style varies little from the beginning to the end. It is nowhere to be