less mighty was involved in a purified education of the young. Here the object was, at least, definite; the principle, simple. Here then it was that Hannah More appeared to find the platform she desired for the erection of the powerful enginery by which, as a mental Archimedes, she was to move the world of morals. Her plans of beneficence took a wide range; she knew that to effect much she must aim at more; and it does not appear that she bounded her views of spiritual improvement by any narrower limits than those of the whole British Islands. In regard to temporal circumstances, she certainly drew no boundary. The palace, the mansion, the farm, the cottage, were equally the objects of her Christian ambition. She resolved to concentrate all her endowments and all her energies on an object at once worthy her best exertions, and for which her opportunities and habits had peculiarly adapted her. In the country, her pen had leisure to instruct the rich and fashionable; while the rustick labourer, to whom the pen could win no access, was within the reach of personal instruction. From this time, therefore, Hannah More appears in a higher character than the idol of coteries, and the toast of literary adorers. She is the fearless and eloquent prophetess, -careless of personal consequences while true to her commission and her duty; the Cassandra, who, however discredited, ridiculed, opposed, calumniated, still is found unmoved in her high vocation—the inculcation of THE TRUTH.

"Hear this, all ye people; give ear, all ye inhabitants of the world; both high and low, rich and poor, together. My mouth shall speak of wisdom, and the meditation of my heart shall be of understanding.”—Ps. xlix. 1—3.

CHAPTER V.

THE summer of 1787 was almost wholly spent by Mrs. More (for about this time she adopted this alteration of her style) at Cowslip Green; and here she constructed her first methodical battery on vice and error, under the title of "Thoughts on the Importance of the Manners of the Great to General Society." She had associated freely with this class of the community, and was therefore sufficiently acquainted with their habits and practices

1

to treat them fully and correctly. As the most influential portion of society, the reformation of this class was, in general, the most important to the purification of the national morals. "Reformation" (she truly remarks) "must begin with the great, or it will never be effectual. Their example is the fountain whence the vulgar draw their habits, actions, and characters. To expect to reform the poor, while the opulent are corrupt, is to throw odours into the stream, while the springs are poisoned." In 1788, the work appeared anonymously. She appears to have been apprehensive that the publication of her name might have subjected her to invidious charges, which, though contemptible in themselves, might have impaired the influence of those arguments which she wished to make their impression by their native force. The book was frequently canvassed in Mrs. More's presence; and, once, while dining at a party at Mrs. Garrick's, she was abruptly asked by a noble guest, whether she could conjecture who the author was? to whom, with great promptitude and selfpossession, she replied, "Whoever it may be, I doubt not the writer was in earnest.” But the authoress did not long remain unknown. Although not prefixing her name to the work, she made no

1 Thoughts on the Manners of the Great, (Works, vol. xi. p. 56.) The same truth is observed by Cicero, (de Legg. iii. 14.) "Licet videre, si velis replicare memoriam temporum, qualescunque summi civitatis viri fuerunt, talem civitatem fuisse ; quæcunque mutatio morum in principibus exstiterit, eandem in populo sequuturam."

secret of the authorship among private friends; and internal evidence betrayed the truth to many who were otherwise unacquainted with it. It is said that one of the earliest to pierce the disguise was the most illustrious lady of the day, on whom the work made a serious impression. Much to the credit of the fashionable people of that period, Mrs. More, by this step, lost none of her popularity. The malevolence or misconception excited in some quarters was far more than compensated by the admiration which the work produced in others, and by the reflection which it had aroused in all. Seven large editions were sold in a few months, the second in little more than a week, and the third of them in four hours! A book so universally read could not fail to be influential, and its influence was soon traceable in the abandonment of many of the customs which it attacked. The elaborate hairdressing which employed incalculable hands during the sabbath services of the church soon altogether disappeared, the example being set in the highest quarter; the perquisite of cardmoney rapidly diminished; the Christian master no longer pleaded for the practice of employing his servant to tell conventional falsehoods; and Sunday concert-parties of sacred musick, even if unobjectionable in themselves, were seen to produce a large proportion of evil by the necessary desecration of the sabbath on the part of coachmen and servants. For all these improvements, society is very mainly indebted to the pen of Hannah More.

With some it may, perhaps, be matter of surprise

G

that, in this her first work on national reformation, Mrs. More should strike rather at practices than principles; since none was more entirely convinced than she that principle was the only perennial fountain of practice; and that, principles once corrected, practice would, of necessity, be purified. But she did not act without her reasons. The errors which she sought to amend proceeded rather from averseness to the entertainment of the principle than from deliberate resistance to its authority; and this absence of reflection would have denied an audience to a treatise on speculative principles of conduct, however they might be sanctioned. In practices, however, there was somewhat tangible. These might be exposed in a manner at once clear and interesting to those who had thoughtlessly indulged them. The removal of the evil practice was in itself no unimportant good; and the transition from the practice to the principle was less abrupt than the immediate inculcation of the latter. It is nature's order of reformation. The weeds must be extracted before the seed is

sown.

"Virtus est vitium fugere, et sapientia prima
Stultitiâ caruisse."1

It is, moreover, the scriptural and providential order. "Cease to do evil," precedes "learn to do well." 2 "Legality precedes morality in every individual, even as the Jewish dispensation preceded the Christian in the education of the world

1 Horat. lib. i. epist. i. 41.

2 Is. i. 16, 17.