"I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you; that ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust." Matt. v. 44, 45.

CHAPTER III.

AFTER the death of Garrick, Miss More never was present at any theatrical entertainment. Even the performance of her own last tragedy could not tempt her to risk the revival of associations which so painfully increased the intensity of abiding regrets. And when, some years after, Mrs. Siddons,

whom she had never seen, represented the heroine of "Percy," the authoress could not be prevailed on to witness the exhibition. Her account of the affair, as detailed by herself to Miss Ann Gwatkin, was as follows: "Now was the time I felt I ought to exert myself, as it is always better to commence with a great rather than with a small effort. I was strongly urged to go to the theatre, but did not go. With that day my trial was not ended, as on the following I met a large party at Sir Joshua Reynolds's, and by many I was asked with earnestness, How do you like her? Like whom?' Why, Mrs. Siddons; of course you went to see her!' My answer in the negative astonished them. How could you be so wanting in curiosity?' It was then requisite to maintain my ground, and I replied, 'It was not a want of curiosity, but to have gone would have been inconsistent with my publickly professed opinions.' At the same time she abandoned writing for the stage. To gratify, however, her dramatick taste, she proceeded to complete a work which she had begun in very early years, and which is one of her most popular productions. This was the "Sacred Dramas," which were published in 1782. They were written principally for young persons,

1 Mrs. Siddons afterwards enjoyed the intimacy of Hannah More, who had not, however, the full opportunity of comprehending her powers. Mrs. Siddons on one occasion recited to her the play of Hamlet, but Miss More had heard the same play recited by Garrick, and did not therefore so much enjoy the recitation as she might have done had another play been selected. The subject of her antidramatick opinions will be discussed at a more convenient period of the narrative.

and are admirable in this view. The attempt was bold, as Johnson, whose decisions were then received as the last appeal in polite literature, had just delivered his oracle on the subject very explicitly. Fortified, however, not only by the precedent of Cowley's "Davideïs," but by the still more impregnable authority of the bard of Paradise, in taking Scripture as a groundwork of poetry; with the examples before her of "Samson Agonistes" and "Athalie," not to refer to the more ancient and solemn compositions of Apollinarius, Hannah More ventured to controvert the supremacy of Johnsonian authority, and obtained, even from the publick of 1782, a triumphant verdict. She has, however, so far done homage to the critical" colossus,” or rather, perhaps, to piety and just taste, that she has allowed herself small latitude in the conduct of these dramas. They adhere closely to the Scripture narrative, which they very naturally and agreeably cast into the dramatick form. Very shortly after their publication they were translated into German.

1" Sacred History has always been read with submission, reverence, and an imagination overawed and controlled. We have been accustomed to acquiesce in the nakedness and simplicity of the authentick narratives, and to repose on its veracity with such humble confidence as represses curiosity. We go with the historian as he goes, and stop with him when he stops. All amplification is frivolous and vain; all addition to that which is already sufficient for the purposes of religion, seems not only useless, but in some degree profane.”—Johnson's Life of Cowley, speaking of the "Davideis."

The friends who principally shared with Mrs. Garrick Miss More's society, were Mrs. Montagu and Mrs. Boscawen, ladies of equal literary pretension, though far from equal in literary acquirement; but both entertaining the most affectionate esteem for their common friend. To the latter Miss More dedicated her poem on Sensibility, which was published together with the Sacred Dramas. Sensibility was at that time the fashion; but by this expression was not to be understood an acute susceptibility of human suffering, much less a self-denying effort to relieve it. The sentiment was perfectly compatible with the most heartless disregard of real afflictions, and the most selfish prosecution of personal objects.1 It was claimed by the town belle, who defrauded the revenue, and starved the native manufacturer; and by the man of pleasure, who triumphed in the ruin and guilt which he was scattering around him. To weep by the couch of Le Fevre, or sympathize with the sorrows of Maria, was title enough to "Sensibility." Miss More, in her elegant and animated poem, indignantly vindicates the real sentiment, and exposes the counterfeit ; and to no pen more than hers does the present age owe the diminution which has unquestionably taken place in morbid and hypocritical sensibility. The lines which begin with "Since trifles make

1 What was intended by the term "sensibility" in fashionable life is admirably depicted by Mrs. More in "Colebs," under the character of Lady Melbury, who has the most refined compassion for "interesting persons," but ruins families by unpaid debts.

the sum of human things," and conclude with "Corrode our comfort, and destroy our ease," are in truth "golden verses," inspired by the truest sensibility, and inspiring it in turn; worthy to be committed to every memory, and engraven heart.1

on every

Shortly after the publication of this poem, Miss More visited Oxford, where scholarship and gallantry united to pay every suitable compliment to "Sappho." In the common room of Pembroke College she found a print of Johnson, under which was inscribed the verse from her "Sensibility:"

"And is not JOHNSON ours? himself a host."

She was at this time on a visit to her friend Mrs. Kennicott, wife of the celebrated critical editor of the Old Testament. Among the gallant compliments which the wits of Oxford paid on the occasion, the following may be noticed for its brevity:

"Muses nine we had before;

But Kennicott has shown us-More."

In the same year was published a little piece, intituled "Reflections of King Hezekiah in his

'In this poem occurs the line,

"Thee, mitred Chester! all the nine shall boast."

The allusion is to Bishop Porteus's poem on Death. occasion the bishop wrote the following epigram:

"How potent is thy Muse, O More!

Whose vivifying breath

Can do what Muse ne'er did before,

Give life and fame to-death!"

On this