Abyssinia's Johnson, Dictionary Johnson, Rambler's, Idler's and Irene's Johnson ! Can you picture to yourselves the palpitation of our hearts as we approached his mansion? When our visit was ended he called for his hat (as it rained) to attend us down a very long entry to our coach, and not Rasselas himself could have acquitted himself more en cavalier."

In the following year, she had again the advantage of associating familiarly with the elite of the world of letters, including the most distinguished characters of her own sex, and although in danger of being spoiled by the adulatory homage which was freely paid to her worth and talents, never was woman less inflated by the admiration of her genius, nor more improved by intercourse with intellectual society.

But while her taste was attaining a high degree of refinement, her christian dispositions acquired fresh energies, and in her letters written in unreserved confidence to her schoolkeeping sisters, we find the evidences of heartfelt piety and tenderness of soul on every point, in which she perceived an aberration from christian practice. For example-one evening at the opera, she thought of the call; What doest thou here, Elijah? and was always painfully affected by any violation of the sacredness of the Sabbath, and never sanctioned by her own conduct the habit of making or receiving any visits on that day, as she deemed them inconsistent with practical devotion; and even in the enjoyment of edifying and delightful conversations, on a particular Sunday she thus moralizes on their insufficiency to satisfy the longings and aspirations of a religious temper-" For my own part (written on a Sunday evening to her sisters) the more I see of the honoured, famed, and great; the more I see of the littleness, the unsatisfactoriness of all created good, and that no earthly pleasure can fill up the wants of the immortal principle within; one need go no farther than the company I have just left, to be convinced that pain is for man, and that fortune, talents and science, confer no exemption from the general lot. Mrs Montague, eminently distinguished for wit and virtue, the wisest where all are wise, is hastening to insensible decay by a slow but sure hectic. Mrs Chapone has experienced the severest reverses of fortune, and Mrs Boscawen's life has been a continued series of afflictions,

that may almost bear a parallel with those of the righteous man of Uz. Tell me then what is it to be wise ?" Again she returned to her home, where she composed as an experimental effort the legendary tale of "Sir Eldred of the Bower," and "The Bleeding Rock," for which productions of her muse Mr Cadell paid her a sum much exceeding her own estimate of their worth. These poems obtained the approval of those best qualified to judge of them: her friend Garrick read "Sir Eldred" to a party of her acquaintances with such feeling as affected to tears his own wife, who was well accustomed to the graces of his intonation, and the authoress herself shed tears abundantly; and Johnson declared on perusing it that "Miss More had but one fault, that of suffering herself to gaze upon the barren rocks of Bristol, while the rich pastures of London had no fence to exclude her from them." He repeated many of the stanzas by heart; and he read both these poems through at the house of Garrick, and suggested some alterations in the first stanza of "Sir Eldred," but not altering one word of the other poem. At this time (1776) one of Hannah's sisters was with her in London, and in a letter to another sister at Bristol, thus playfully alludes to the happy nature of the intercourse which subsisted between the Moralist' and the interesting females of the elegant society in which they were domesticated.

"If a wedding should take place before our return, don't be surprised-between the mother of Sir Eldred' and the father of my much loved Irene;' nay, Mrs Montague says, if tender words are the precursors o connubial engagements, we may expect great things; for it is nothing but,Child,' 'Little Fool,' 'Love' and Dearest.' After much critical discourse, he turns round to me, and with one of his most amiable looks, which must be seen, to form the least idea of it. he says, 'I have heard that you are engaged in the useful and honourable employment of teaching young ladies ;' upon which, with all the saine ease, familiarity, and confidence, as we should have done, had only our own Dr Stonehouse been present, we entered upon the history of our birth, parentage, and education, showing how we were born with more desires than guineas, and how, as years increased, our appetites increased also, the cupboard at home being too small to gratify them; and how with a

bottle of water, a bed, and a blanket, we set out to seek our fortunes; and how we found a great house, with nothing in it; and how it was like to remain so till looking into our knowledge-box, we happened to find a little larning, a good thing when land is gone,* or rather none; and so at last by giving a little of this little larning to those who had less, we got a good store of gold in return, but how, alas! we wanted the wit to keep it. I love you both; cried the inamorato,-1 love you all five-I never was at Bristol-I will come on purpose to see you. What! five women live happily together! I will come and see you-I have spent a happy evening-I am glad I came-God for ever bless you, you live to shame duchesses. He took his leave with so much warmth and tenderness, we were quite affected at his manner."

Amidst her varied range of literary application, Theology had a superior charm for her, and of sermons she says, there are few persons to whom one can venture to recommend them. She herself read all that were deserving of notice, with a power of discrimination, an acuteness of judgment, and a fastidiousness of criticism, worthy even of her "gay and libertine friend" Johnson, as she playfully called the grave moralist. As an instance of this, we may notice her observation on the frequent use of the term vice, in the untranslated sermons of Saurin; "I think sin is a theological, vice a moral, and crime a judicial term."

It is, however, more than probable, that she was indebted for these distinctions to having read the remarks of Locke on "moral relations," in which divine, civil, and philosophical laws are respectively termed measures of sin and duty, crimes and innocences, virtue and vice. She returned to Bristol uninjured by the blandishments of fashion and adulation, and with all her original simplicity of character. "The constitution of her mind was so opposed to sophistication and art, that rank, literature, affectation, and fashion, saw the bird escape as from the snare of the fowler, without losing a feather of its natural plumage, to soar at large in its own free element, and revisit its accustomed scenes."

• She alluded evidently to the couplet in Hudibras:"When goods and land and all is spent,

Then learning is most excellent."

Miss Hannah More's domestication with the Garricks, and the dramatic taste which so predominated in the society which usually frequented the hospitable house of the British Roscius, probably originated the tragedy of "Percy," which was presented to the public at the close of 1777, and most favourably received. It had the advantage of appearing under the friendly auspices of Garrick, who wrote the Prologue and Epilogue, and exerted himself unceasingly in all the arrangements connected with its representation before the public. The critics approved; four thousand copies were sold within a fortnight after publication, and altogether the success of this play was enough to disturb the equanimity of a less regulated temperament.

Dr Percy, the bishop of Dromore, and other grave churchmen attended the representation, and from the critical and elegant pen of the prelate, she was favoured with the following note:-"Dr Percy waits on Mrs More, with his best thanks for her most invaluable present of "Percy," corrected with her own hand, which he shall ever highly value and keep as a pledge of friendship. He should not have delayed returning his sincere acknowledgments so long, but he has been for many days past, wholly engaged in regulating and dispensing the duke's annual charity to many hundreds of poor." To this a personal visit succeeded from his lordship to present the congratulations of the duke and duchess of Northumberland, on the success of "Percy," and from Mackenzie, whose mortal span had been nearly commensurate with her own, she had the gratification of receiving a characteristic letter on the same subject, in which he writes, " Though a man, and a man of business, I too can shed tears, and feel the luxury of shedding them."

In the succeeding summer 1778, we find her mind verging with its wonted tendency, towards the study of scriptural subjects; and in a letter to her friend Mrs. Guatkin, she states, that she had read over three times, within a very short period, the "Epistles," with Locke's paraphrase, and that of another, in which the obscurities of St Paul were elucidated; which reading, without doubt, became the groundwork for the noble essay which she afterwards composed on the life and writings of the same Apostle. Amidst the varied subjects of her

serious contemplation, the knowledge of Jesus Christ was the prominent one, and by this her more discursive reflections were controlled. She had about this time the satisfaction of forming an acquaintance with Dr Porteus, then bishop of London, which was only dissolved at his death. But whilst she was thus increasing the number of her friends, she had also to regret the loss of Mr Garrick, who had been her generous and disinterested friend for many years; and to whom she owed her introduction to the most eminent literary society. The disruption of this connecting link, between her and the gay and brilliant world, occasioned such a revolution in her feelings, as led her to detach herself from those habits and associations, which, while they gratified her intellectual tastes and predilections, formed an opposing barrier to the concentration of her thoughts and energies on "the deep things of God."

The soul-harrowing ceremony of the interment of her best friend in Westminster abbey she had the fortitude to witness, and thus, in a letter to Bristol, she concludes her details of the mournful pageant.-" And this is all of Garrick! yet a very little while and he shall say to the worm, Thou art my brother, and to corruption, thou art my mother and my sister; so passes away the fashion of this world, and the very same night he was buried, the playhouses were as full as if no such thing had happened; nay, the very mourners of the day partook of the revelries of the night, the same night too." Miss Hannah More continued an unabated intimacy with Mrs Garrick; and every year while the widow lived, visited her at Hampton Court, where she indulged in restrained and unobtrusive grief, which never was obliterated from her affectionate heart.

Encouraged by the success of "Percy," she wrote another tragedy, "Fatal Falsehood," which met with considerable success, but not equal to that which had attended the representation of "Percy;" and on the occasion of preparing for the press a second edition of this play, her publisher observed to her "that she was too good a Christian for an author." In 1780, Miss Hannah More again enjoyed the privilege of attending parties of the elite of London society, at the house of Mrs Delany, where she met, amongst persons of the most elevated rank, Horace Walpole, Soame Jenyns, Mr Pepys, and Mrs