Eighteen Hundred and Eleven

Britain had been at war with France for a decade and was on the brink of losing, when Barbauld presented her readers with her shocking Juvenalian satire.

Nor distant is the hour; low murmurs spread, And whispered fears, creating what they dread; Ruin, as with an earthquake shock, is here (lines 39–49) This pessimistic view of the future was, not surprisingly, poorly received; "reviews, whether in liberal or conservative magazines, ranged from cautious to patronizingly negative to outrageously abusive.

"[1] Barbauld, stunned by the reaction, retreated from the public eye; in fact, she never published another work within her lifetime.

She wrote to a friend: "I do not know how to rejoice at this victory, splendid as it is, over Buonaparte [sic], when I consider the horrible waste of life, the mass of misery, which such gigantic combats must occasion.

"[2] Everard Green noted that "In her own time, the idea that the United States – then still mainly reckoned a minor and peripheral power – would one day eclipse the mighty British Empire was greeted with scorn.