Anne was from her birth an extraordinarily precocious child. Her mother wrote of her in after years, comparing her with some less wonderful grandchildren, “I once, indeed, knew a little girl who was as eager to learn as her instructors could be to teach her, and who, at two years old, could read sentences and little stories in her _wise book_, roundly, without spelling, and in half a year more could read as well as most women; but I never knew such another, and I believe never shall.” Her father shared sufficiently in the prejudices of the period to refuse for a long time to impart to this gifted child any of the classical learning of which he was the master, and in which she ardently desired to share. At length she so far overcame his scruples that she became able to read Latin with facility, and gained some acquaintance with Greek. The fact that her father was a schoolmaster no doubt enabled her to enjoy many opportunities of instruction and education to which the bulk of Englishwomen at that time were complete strangers. At a time when it was thought enough education for most women if they were able to read, “and perhaps to write their names or so,” it is not surprising if schoolmasters’ daughters enjoyed an advantage in being able at least to pick up the crumbs that fell from the rich man’s table. Anne was thirty years of age before she made her first appearance in print with a volume of verse in 1773; but she appears to have been known as a poet in her own circle of friends a few years earlier than this, as there is a letter in existence from Dr. Priestley, dated 1769, in which he asks permission to send a copy of her poem, called “Corsica,” to Boswell, who was destined to future immortality as the biographer of Dr. Johnson. Her first printed volume was highly successful, and passed through four editions almost immediately. Thus encouraged, Anne and her brother shortly afterwards printed a joint-volume, called _Miscellaneous Pieces in Prose_, which also attracted much attention and commendation. In Rogers’s _Table Talk_ an anecdote is given about this volume which illustrates the amusing mistakes sometimes arising from joint authorship. The various articles in the book were not signed by their respective authors, and on one occasion Charles James Fox, meeting John Aikin at a dinner party, wished to compliment him on his book. “I particularly admire,” he said, “your essay, ‘Against Inconsistency in our Expectations.’” “That,” replied Aikin, “is my sister’s.” “I much like,” returned Fox, “your essay on Monastic Institutions.” “That” answered Aikin, “is also my sister’s.” Fox thought it best to say no more about the book.