The temporal condition of Mrs. More was not without "the promise of the life that now is." 1 Her illness elicited proofs, which nothing but tribulation could have afforded her, of the affection and reverence with which she was regarded by all the virtuous and holy of all ranks, from the court to the cottage. Her malady was considered by such as a personal distress to each, and a public calamity to all. This, independently of higher resources, was abundant consolation. Her slanderers, perceiving that no tactics could prevail with her to expose herself to their envenomed bolts, by exchanging for a moment the shield of silence for the weapons of controversy, ceased from their unhallowed labours.

They astonished, all resistance lost, All courage; down their idle weapons dropt;" 2 and the object of their furious but impotent malice, strong in the consciousness of sincerity, and in the esteem and affection of all that was good and holy, passed on to glorify her God, and to benefit her kind.3

11 Tim. iv. 8.

2 Par. Lost, vi. 477.

3 It is a curious fact that four of her most violent traducers were afterwards found guilty of libels against other persons in the court of King's Bench.

VOL. H.-5

CHAPTER II.

"Be wise now, therefore, O ye kings; be instructed, ye judges of the earth.”—Ps. ii. 10.

"A virtuous woman is a crown to her husband."-Prov. xii. 4. My son, fear thou the Lord and the king, and meddle not with them who are given to change."-Ibid. xxiv. 21.

"Be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ."-1 Cor. xi. 11.

"The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord."-Job i. 21.

THE distressful incidents detailed in the last chapter would leave the reader to expect that, during the prevalence of these unhappy dissensions, Mrs. More would have found ample employment in fortifying her spirits against the

trials she was called to endure, and endeavouring, as far as possible, to bear up against the accumulation of obloquy and indignity under which her bodily powers were sinking, and her mind was agitated and distressed. But the conclusion would do injustice to the victorious power of faith, and the sustaining vigour of conscious innocence and sincerity. When her malady would not permit her to quit her apartment, she employed herself in preparing for the press an entire edition of her works. When able, she still undertook the management of her schools; and she was also busied in building a house, and laying out the adjacent grounds. The wish of Socrates, to fill even a small house with real friends, had been, by a good Providence, realized to Hannah More; and Cowslip Green could no longer accommodate the throngs of the learned, the pious, and the distinguished, who constantly resorted to its classic precincts. Mrs. More, therefore, purchased a few acres of land about half a mile from the village of Wrington, on which to erect a more commodious dwelling. In every respect Barley Wood was admirably chosen for the purpose. The luxuriant valley, of which Cowslip Green commands only the portion immediately around, here sweeps away beneath the eye with all its infinite variety of hues, glowing with verdure and foliage, sprinkled with hamlets, towers, and cottages, and pointing the view to the exquisite proportions of the principal village church; flanked by the broad and

bold line of the Mendips, gradually making way for the softer tints of the peaks and knolls which spread down to the Channel, and bounded by the faint outline of the Welsh mountains. It is called by the late accomplished Alexander Knox, "one of the finest spots in the British empire." To these natural advantages, the hand of Hannah More was not slow to add the creations of a pure and well cultivated taste. In the tranquillizing occupations of floriculture and landscape-gardening, she found her frame recruited and her spirits quieted. Sylvan walks and recesses, lawns and flower-beds, sprang rapidly into beauty; and, in 1801, Barley Wood became the residence of Hannah More, and the resort of admiring friends.

In the same year, Mrs. More published her entire works in eight octavo volumes. It was on this occasion that, on republishing her tragedies,

1 The whole passage,-it might almost be said the whole letter,—is too illustrative of the subject of this volume, not to deserve transcription. "Hannah More is wonderfully well, enjoying, to a very competent degree, one of the finest spots in the British empire. It is, I may say, but a field; yet such is the va riety of ground within, and such the extensiveness of prospect without, and, moreover, such the exquisite adaptation of the house and the form and disposition of its rooms, to the site, and such the care to embellish the grounds, that every day almost, more and more, I think this just a gift of all-gracious Providence to Hannah More to sooth her after all her troubles.

*

She now views them just as she should, and feels in her heart that she needed them, and that they have, in some degree, answered their end, in separating her still more from worldly objects and feelings."-Letter to G. Schoales, Esq.-Remains of Alex. Knox, Esq., vol. iv. p. 172.

she took the opportunity to make a formal and elaborate declaration of the revolution which her sentiments had undergone in regard to the stage. To this amusement, as has been shown, she had entertained from early life a partiality so decided, that the renunciation of all connexion with it was a pure sacrifice to what she conceived to be duty. Her views on the subject, she here informs us, were not received from any thing she had read or heard, but had arisen solely from her experience and observation. They are, undoubtedly, very original; and it would be great injustice to Hannah More to class her with those who condemn the drama, together with all other amusements, as a vanity renounced in the baptismal vow. They may be truly conscientious; but Hannah More was not one of them. She made distinctions of which they would not allow. She objected not to the drama as an amusement, but as commonly inculcating principles based on a false foundation; while she drew the broadest distinction between seeing and reading the same play, in which these principles were found.

It is impossible not to respect the decision with which she sacrificed a pleasure in which she delighted, the moment she entertained a doubt of its congruity with the gospel; the frankness with which she avowed so total a revolution in her views; and the candour with which she adduced her own compositions, as instances of the evils which she deprecated in dramatic exhibitions. It is, however, impossible not to regret that,