l!:!_cy Aikin (1781-1864)
Niece of Anna Letitia Barbauld and daughter of Martha Jennings and John Aikin, Lucy Aikin was born in Warrington on 6 November 178i. When she was three years old her family moved to Yarmouth, where her father practiced medicine. Brought up on Barbauld's Early Lessons and Hymns in Prose for Chil dren, Aikin realized early that words would be her metier. After complaining that her older brother George took half a tart intended for the younger chil dren, she was admonished, "You should be willing to give your brother part of your tart." But she objected to the injustice, and her father, "who," she later recalled, "had listened with great attention to my harangue, exclaimed, 'Why Lucy, you are quite eloquent!' O! never-to-be-forgotten praise! Had I been a boy, it might have made me an orator; as it was, it incited me to exert to the utmost, by tongue and by pen, all the power of words I possessed or could ever acquire-I had learned where my strength lay." 1 Aikin studied French, Italian, and Latin. Her father was her chief men tor. A close observer of the natural world, he taught his children to know and to love plants, birds, and animals of all kinds. In 1792 the family moved to London, where her father practiced as a physician until his health failed in 1797. Then he took his family to Stoke Newington and devoted the rest of his life, the next quarter-century, to literature. It was during this period that he published, in conjunction with Barbauld, the hugely successful and influential six-volume Evenings at Home. Aikin was seventeen when she first began publishing articles in reviews, magazines, and the Annual Register. Believing that "the magic of rhyme is felt in the very cradle," in 1801 she published an anthology, Poetry for Children, Consisting of Short Pieces to be Committed to Memory, which included some of her own poems as well as several anonymous contributions by her aunt. It
I. Lucy Aikin, Memoirs, Miscellanies and Letters, ed. Philip Henery Le Breton (London, 1864), xvii.
6 Lucy Aikin 7 went through at least eleven editions and continued to be reprinted as late as 1845. In 1810 Joseph Johnson brought out Aikin's long feminist poem, Epistles on Women, Exemplifying their Character and Condition in various Ages and Nations, documenting not only the history of women's achievements but also their subjugation. It is an ambitious but uneven work, certainly not the equal of Barbauld's tour de force, Eighteen Hundred and Eleven, published two years later. However, a comparison of the poems shows the strong intellectual bond that existed between the two women. Aikin's next book was a novel, Lorimer; a Tale (1814); but she made her reputation with the two pioneering social histories that followed: Memoirs ef the Court ef Queen Elizabeth (1818), issued in at least six editions during her lifetime, and Memoirs ef the Court ef King James the First (1822), which the Edinburgh Review praised as "a work very nearly as entertaining as a novel, and far more instructive than most histories." 2 These innovative works highlight the literary, artistic, and social character of the times rather than the more usual parliamentary or military history. Aikin lived quietly at Stoke Newington, principally writing and caring for her invalid father until his death in December 1822, when she and her mother moved to Hampstead. In 1823 she published a life of her father (Memoir ef John Aikin, M.D. ... With a Selection ef his Miscellaneous Pieces), and in 1825 she edited The Works ef Anna La?titia Barbauld, including her valuable biography of her aunt, letters, prose pieces, and many poems not published during Bar bauld's lifetime. To this day, many of Barbauld's poems can only be dated by the chronological order in which Lucy Aikin placed them in this edition. A short biography of Elizabeth Ogilvy Benger and two more histories followed: Memoirs of the Court of King Charles the First (1833) and The Life ofJoseph Addison (1843), which Thomas Macaulay, writing in the Edinburgh Review, thought disappointing.3 According to Aikin's own account, she knew "almost every literary woman of celebrity." 4 She was an accomplished conversationalist and letter writer. One of her correspondents was fellow Unitarian William Ellery Channing, to whom she wrote for many years (1826-42).5 Aikin lived the
2. 37 (June 1822): 212-13. 3. Ibid., 78 (July-October 1843). The biography of Benger was published with Benger's Memoirs of the Life of Anne Boleyn (London, 1827). 4. Aikin, Memoirs, Miscellanies and Letters, 7. 5. Anna Letitia Le Breton published selections from both. sides of the correspondence in 1874. She quotes a letter from Channing's nephew and biographer, William Henry Channing, in which he observes that "for many years, indeed, Dr. Channing regarded Miss Aikin as one of his most confidential European friends; and he wrote to her in consequence with the undisguised freedom of familiar intercourse. He valued her letters very highly for the liberal information given in them, as to all movements in the world of letters, of politics and of religion around 8 Lucy Aikin last eighteen years of her life with a niece, Anna Letitia Le Breton, first in Wimbledon and then in Hampstead. At age eighty-four, she died from influenza (29 January 1864); her grave in the old churchyard of Hampstead lies next to that of her lifelong friend Joanna Baillie. In 1864 her nephew, Philip Henery Le Breton, published some of her letters to Channing along with other correspondence, miscellaneous prose pieces, and a memoir, quoting extensively from an autobiography.
MAJOR WORKS: Epistles on Women, Exemplifying their Character and Condition in Viiri ous Ages and Nations. With Miscellaneous Poems (London, 1810); Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth, 2 vols. (London, 1818); Memoirs of the Court of King James the First, 2 vols. (London, 1822); Memoir of John Aikin, M.D . ... With a Selection of his Miscel laneous Pieces, Biographical, Moral, and Critical, 2 vols. (London, 1823); Memoirs ef the Court ef King Charles the First, 2 vols. (London, 1833); The Life efJoseph Addison, 2 vols. (London, 1843).
TEXT USED: The text for Epistles on Women is from the London edition (1810).
from Epistles on Women, Exemplifying their Character and Condition in various Ages and Nations
from the Introduction Feeling with gratitude of what her [woman's] heart and mind are capable, the scholars, the sages, and the patriots of coming days will treat her as a sister and a friend. The politic father will not then leave as a "legacy" to his daughters* the injunction to conceal their wit, their learning, and even their good sense, in deference to the "natural malignity" t with which most men regard every woman of a sound understanding and cultivated mind; nor will even the reputation of our great Milton himself secure him from the charge of a blasphemous presumption in making his Eve address to Adam the ac knowledgement, "God is thy head, thou mine";* and in the assertion that
her-as to leading persons, new books and rising authors-and as to the tendencies of the times. And so heartily did he enjoy the originality, brightness, spirit, wit and shrewd sagacity with which Miss Aikin's opinions were declared, that, in the hope of inciting her to full re sponse, he seems often to have suggested to her his rising thoughts, as if in half soliloquy" (Correspondence of William Ellery Channing, D.D. , and Lucy Aikin [Boston, 1874], vii-viii). Lucy Aikin 9 the first human pair were formed, "He for God only, she for God in him."§ ... I have simply endeavoured to point out, that between the two partners of human life, not only the strongest family likeness, but the most complete identity of interest subsists: so that it is impossible for man to degrade his companion without degrading himself, or to elevate her without receiving a proportional accession of dignity and happiness. This is the chief "moral of my song"; 11 on this point all my examples are brought to bear. I regard it as the Great Truth to the support of which my pen has devoted itself.
•A reference to John Gregory's A Father's Legacy to his Daughters (1774), often published with Hester Chapone's Letters on the Improvement of the Mind (1773). t Mary Wollstonecraft, in A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, quotes Gregory, also from A Father's Legacy: "But if you happen to have any learning, keep it a profound secret, especially from the men, who generally look with a jealous and malignant eye on a woman of great parts, and a cultivated understanding." ~Aikin slightly misquotes Eve speaking to Adam in Milton, Paradise Lost 4.637- 38: "God is thy Law, thou mine: to know no more/ Is Woman's happiest knowledge and her praise." Earlier in the same book, Eve addresses Adam as "my Guide/ And Head" (442-43). §Ibid., 4.299.
11 See Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queen, introduction, line 9.
from Argument to Epistle I Subject proposed-the fame of man extended over every period of life that of woman transient as the beauty on which it is founded-Man renders her a trifler, then despises her, and makes war upon the sex with Juvenal# and Pope. A more impartial view of the subject to be attempted.
# Decimus Junius Juvenalis (A.D. 60?-140?), Roman poet whose satires were widely admired by eighteenth-century writers.
from Epistle I E'en while the youth, in love and rapture warm, Sighs as he hangs upon her beauteous form, Careless and cold he views the beauteous mind, For virtue, bliss, eternity designed. "Banish, my fair," he cries, "those studious looks; IO Lucy Aikin
Oh! what should beauty learn from crabbed books? Sweetly to speak and sweetly smile be thine; Beware, nor change that dimple to a line!"
Well pleased she hears, vain triumph lights her eyes; IO Well pleased, in prattle and in smiles complies; But eyes, alas! grow dim, and roses fade, And man contemns the trifler he has made. The glass reversed by magic power of Spleen, A wrinkled idiot now the fair is seen; Then with the sex his headlong rage must cope, And stab with Juvenal, or sting with Pope. Be mine, while Truth with calm and artless grace Lifts her clear mirror to the female face, With steadier hand the pencil's task to guide, 20 And win a blush from Man's relenting pride.
No Amazon, in frowns and terror drest, I poise the spear, or nod the threatening crest, Defy the law, arraign the social plan, Throw down the gauntlet in the face of man, And, rashly bold, divided empire claim, Unborrowed honours, and an equal's name: No, Heaven forbid! I touch no sacred thing, But bow to Right Divine in man and king; Nature endows him with superior force, 30 Superior wisdom then I grant, of course; For who gainsays the despot in his might, Or when was ever weakness in the right? With passive reverence too I hail the law, Formed to secure the strong, the weak to awe, Impartial guardian of unerring sway, Set up by man for woman to obey. In vain we pout or argue, rail or chide, He mocks our idle wrath and checks our pride; Resign we then the club and lion's skin,
13 Spleen] "Passionate, irritable, peevishly angry" (OED). 28 Right Divine] Mary Wollstonecraft, in A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, chap. 3, writes: "The divine right of husbands, like the divine right of kings, may, it is to be hoped, in this enlightened age, be contested without danger." Lucy Aikin II ----- And be our sex content to knit and spin; To bow inglorious to a master's rule, And good and bad obey, and wise and fool; Here a meek drudge, a listless captive there, For gold now bartered, now as cheap as air; Prize of the coward rich or lawless brave, Scorned and caressed, a plaything and a slave, Yet taught with spaniel soul to kiss the rod, And worship man as delegate of God.
from Epistle II What wonder then, the Western wilds among Where the red Indian's hunter-bow is strung, (Nature's tough son, whose adamantine frame No pleasures soften and no tortures tame) If, fiercely pondering in her gloomy mind The desperate ills that scowl on womankind, The maddening mother gripes the infant slave, And forces back the worthless life she gave?•
"Swift, swift;' she cries, "receive thy last release; Die, little wretch; die once and be at peace! IO Why shouldst thou live, in toil, and pain, and strife, To curse the names of mother and of wife? To see at large thy lordly master roam, The beasts his portion and the woods his home, Whilst thou, infirm, the sheltering hut must seek, Poorly dependent, timorously weak, There hush thy babe, with patient love carest, And tearful clasp him to thy milkless breast Hungry and faint, while feasting on his way Thy reckless hunter wastes the jocund day? 20 Or, harder task, his rapid courses share, With patient back the galling burden bear, While he treads light, and smacks the knotted thong, And goads with taunts his staggering troop along? Enough; .... 'tis love, dear babe, that stops thy breath; 'Tis mercy lulls thee to the sleep of death: Ah! would for me, by like indulgent doom, 12 Lucy Aikin
A mother's hand had raised the early tomb! O'er these poor bones the moons had rolled in vain, 30 And brought nor stripes nor famine, toil nor pain; I had not sought in agony the wild, Nor, wretched, frantic mother! killed my child." Want hardens man; by fierce extremes the smart Inflames and chills and indurates his heart, Arms his relentless hand with brutal force, And drives o'er female necks his furious course.
• "In all unpolished nations, it is true, the functions in domestic economy which fall naturally to the share of the women, are so many, that they are subjected to hard labour, and must bear more than their full portion of the common burden. But in America their condition is so peculiarly grievous, and their depression so complete, that servitude is a name too mild to describe their wretched state. A wife, amongst most tribes, is no better than a beast of burden, destined to every office of labour and fatigue. While the men loiter out the day in sloth, or spend it in amusement, the women are condemned to incessant toil. Tasks are imposed upon them without pity, and services are received without complacency or gratitude. "Every circumstance reminds the women of this mortifying inferiority. They must approach their lords with reverence, they must regard them as more exalted beings, and are not permitted to eat in their presence. "There are many districts in America where this dominion is so grievous, and so sensibly felt, that some women, in a wild emotion of maternal tenderness, have destroyed their female children in their infancy, in order to deliver them from that intolerable bondage to which they knew they were doomed." Robertson's Hist. of America, [3 vols. (Dublin, I777)], vol. ii, 105. Hearne describes the women of the Northern tribes which he visited, as wading through the snow encumbered with heavy burdens, while the men, themselves carry ing nothing, urged them on with blows and threats. He mentions other particulars, also illustrative of the wretched condition of the American females, too numerous and too horrid for poetical narration. Certainly Rousseau did not consult the interests of the weaker sex in his preference of savage life to civilized. Aikin. Lucy Aikin 13
from Epistle III Rise, bright Aspasia, too! thy tainted name Sails down secure through infamy to fame; Statesmen and bards and heroes bend the knee, Nor blushes Socrates to learn of thee. Thy wives, proud Athens! fettered and debased, Listlessly duteous, negatively chaste, 0 vapid summary of a slavish lot! They sew and spin, they die and are forgot. Cease, headlong Muse! resign the dangerous theme, Perish the glory that defies esteem! IO Inspire thy trump at Virtue's call alone, And blush to blazon whom She scorns to own.
from Argument ef Epistle IV Man cannot degrade the female sex without degrading the whole race. An cient Germans - their women free and honoured-hence the valour of the men, the virtue of both sexes, the success of their resistance to Rome. . .. Exhortation to Englishmen to look with favour on the mental improvement of females-to English women to improve and principle their minds, and by their merit induce the men to treat them as friends.
from Epistle IV Sons of fair Albion, tender, brave, sincere, (Be this the strain) an earnest suppliant hear! Feel that when heaven, evolved its perfect plan, Crowned with its last best gift transported Man, It formed no creature of ignoble strain, Of heart unteachable, obtuse of brain; (Such had not filled the solitary void, Nor such his soul's new sympathies employed,) But one all eloquent of eye, of mien;
I Aspasia] Plato describes Aspasia as the preceptress of Socrates and says in his Menexenus that she wrote the celebrated funeral oration of Pericles. She was a brilliant conversationalist who lived openly with Pericles, a married man. As a result, he endured much ridicule and she much slander. Pericles successfully defended her against a criminal charge of religious heresy and corrupting Athenian women. 12 blazon] Proclaim. 14 Lucy Aikin
IO Intensely human; exquisitely keen To feel, to know: Be generous then, unbind Your barbarous shackles, loose the female mind; Aid its new flights, instruct its wavering wing, And guide its thirst to Wisdom's purest spring: Sincere as generous, with fraternal heart Spurn the dark satirists's unmanly part; Scorn too the flatterer's, in the medium wise, Nor feed those follies that yourselves despise.
For you, bright daughters of a land renowned, 20 By Genius blest, by glorious Freedom crowned; Safe in a polisht privacy, content To grace, not shun, the lot that Nature lent, Be yours the joys of home, affection's charms, And infants clinging with caressing arms: Yours too the boon, of Taste's whole garden free, To pluck at will her bright Hesperian tree, Uncheckt the wreath of each fair Muse assume, And fill your lap with amaranthine bloom. Press eager on; of this great art possest, 30 To seize the good, to follow still the best, Ply the pale lamp, explore the breathing page, And catch the soul of each immortal age. Strikes the pure bard his old romantic lyre? Let high Belphrebe warm, let Amoret sweet inspire: Does History speak? drink in her loftiest tone, And be Cornelia's virtues all your own. Thus self-endowed, thus armed for every state, Improve, excel, surmount, subdue, your fate! So shall at length enlightened Man efface
34 Belphrebe warm ... Amoret sweet] It ought to be remembered for the honour of Spenser, that no poet has given such pure and perfect, such noble, lovely, and at the same time various drafts of female characters. His Belphrebe, his Amoret, his Canace, his Britomart and his Pastora, are a gallery of portraits, all beautiful, but each in a different style from all the rest. Aikin. 36 Cornelia's] Cornelia was the Roman mother of Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus, knm'ITll for her purity, excellent character, and intelligence; Plutarch speaks highly of her conduct in widowhood. Or the reference may be to the daughter of Metellus Scipio, who married Pompeii after the death of her first husband and whose character and accomplishments were remarkable. Plutarch says that she was well versed in music, literature, geometry, and philosophy. That slavish stigma seared on half the race, 40 His rude forefathers' shame; and pleased confess, 'Tis yours to elevate, 'tis yours to bless; Your interest one with his; your hopes the same; Fair peace in life, in death undying fame, And bliss in worlds beyond, the species' general aim. "Rise;' shall he cry, "O Woman, rise! be free! My life's associate, now partake with me: Rouse thy keen energies, expand thy soul, And see, and feel, and comprehend the whole; My deepest thoughts, intelligent, divide; 50 When right confirm me, and when erring guide; Soothe all my cares, in all my virtues blend, And be, my sister, be at length my friend." (1810)