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

CHAPTER VIII.

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 classick 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

1

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 variety 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 shewn, she had entertained from early life a partiality so decided, that the renunciation of all connection 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 dramatick exhibitions. It is, however, impossible not to regret that,

instead of condemning the stage as irreclaimable, she did not apply the high advantages which she possessed for such an object, to the purification and improvement of the national drama, the character of which it is very possible her "Preface to the Tragedies," though most unintentionally, has concurred with other causes to deteriorate. The stage has hitherto rather reflected than formed the morals and manners of society.

"The drama's laws the drama's patrons give,

And those who live to please must please to live." 1

Hence, if dramatick literature, for the most part, exhibited a false standard of morality, the cause is traceable to those popular corruptions to which we have already adverted. In contributing to the correction of these, Mrs. More had already made a step toward a reformation of the theatre; and, with her dramatick predilections, theatrical success, and histrionick acquaintances, none could possess higher advantages, had she thought herself justified in employing them, for effecting a complete dramatick reformation. The depth, distinctness, and durability of impression produced by theatrical exhibitions, and which, in Mrs. More's view, is a serious objection to them, would, where virtue is the animating principle of a play, become a direct argument in their favour. For, though the stage is not expected to be, nor ought to be, a school of religion, there is nothing in its nature which prevents it from becoming a school of

1 Johnson's prologue at the opening of Drury Lane theatre.