the self-devoting benefactors of her time and her country. In 1828, nine years after the death of her fourth sister, Hannah More moved to Clifton, and here she died at the age of eighty-eight. They are all five buried at Wrington. 'Mrs More' formed a link with the earlier Victorian age it was this revered friend of his father and the Clapham sect that little Tom Macaulay, alone at the moment in the house, asked if he might not have the pleasure of offering a glass of old spirits' -having at four read that this was one of the customary refreshments of Robinson Crusoe. She left about £30,000, chiefly in legacies to charitable and religious institutions. HANNAH MORE. From an Engraving by Worthington after Pickersgill. The third sister, Sally (1743-1817), thus described Hannah's first interview-which founded a warm friendship-with the great English moralist during her London sojourn in 1773-74: We have paid another visit to Miss Reynolds; she had sent to engage Dr Percy-Percy's Collection, now you know him-quite a sprightly modern, not a rusty antique, as I expected; he was no sooner gone than the most amiable and obliging of women, Miss Reynolds, ordered the coach to take us to Dr Johnson's very own house: yes, Abyssinia's Johnson! Dictionary's Johnson! Rambler's, Idler's, and Irene's Johnson! Can you picture to yourselves the palpitation of our hearts as we approached his mansion? The conversation turned on a new work of his just going to the press-the Tour to the Hebrides-and his old friend Richardson. Mrs Williams, the blind poet who lives with him, was introduced to us. She is engaging in her manners, her conversation lively and entertaining. Miss Reynolds told the doctor of all our rapturous exclamations on the road. He shook his scientific head at Hannah, and said she was a silly thing!' 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 could have acquitted himself more en cavalier. We are engaged with him at Sir Joshua's, Wednesday evening. What do you think of us? I forgot to mention, that not finding Johnson in his little parlour when we came in, Hannah seated herself in his great chair, hoping to catch a little ray of his genius: when he heard it he laughed heartily, and told her it was a chair on which he never sat. He said it reminded him of Boswell and himself when they stopped a night, as they imagined, where the weird sisters appeared to Macbeth. The idea so worked on their enthusiasm, that it quite deprived them of rest. However, they learned the next morning, to their mortification, that they had been deceived, and were quite in another part of the country. In a later letter (1776), after the publication of Hannah's Sir Eldred, the same lively writer Boswellised still further: 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 Montagu says if tender words are the precursors of 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 same ease, familiarity, and confidence we should have done had only our own dear Dr Stonehouse been present, we entered upon the history of our birth, parentage, and education; shewing how we were born with more desires than guineas, and how, as years increased our appetites, the cupboard at home began to grow 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-boxes, 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-'I 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 lives to shame duchesses.' He took his leave with so much warmth and tenderness, we were quite affected at his manner. If Hannah's head stands proof against all the adulation and kindness of the great folks here, why then I will venture to say nothing of this kind will hurt her hereafter. A literary anecdote: Mrs Medalla-Sterne's daughter-sent to all the correspondents of her deceased father, begging the letters which he had written to them; among other wits, she sent to Wilkes with the same request. He sent for answer, that as there happened to be nothing extraordinary in those he had received, he had burnt or lost them. On which the faithful editor of her father's works sent back to say, that if Mr Wilkes would be so good as to write a few letters in imitation of her father's style, it would do just as well, and she would insert them. In a letter Hannah thus comments on Garrick's Death. From Dr Cadogan's I intended to have gone to the Adelphi, but found that Mrs Garrick was at that moment quitting her house, while preparations were making for the last sad ceremony; she very wisely fixed on a private friend's house for this purpose, where she could be at her ease. I got there just before her; she was prepared for meeting me; she ran into my arms, and we both remained silent for some minutes; at last she whispered: 'I have this moment embraced his coffin, and you come next.' She soon recovered herself, and said with great composure: The goodness of God to me is inexpressible; I desired to die, but it is his will that I should live, and He has convinced me He will not let my life be quite miserable, for He gives astonishing strength to my body, and grace to my heart; neither do I deserve; but I am thankful for both.' She thanked me a thousand times for such a real act of friendship, and bade me be comforted, for it was God's will. She told me they had just returned from Althorp, Lord Spencer's, where he had been reluctantly dragged, for he had felt unwell for some time; but during his visit he was often in such fine spirits, that they could not believe he was ill. On his return home, he appointed Cadogan to meet him, who ordered him an emetic, the warm bath, and the usual remedies, but with very little effect. On the Sunday he was in good spirits and free from pain; but as the suppression still continued, Dr Cadogan became extremely alarmed, and sent for Pott, Heberden, and Schomberg, who gave him up the moment they saw him. Poor Garrick stared to see his room full of doctors, not being conscious of his real state. No change happened till the Tuesday evening, when the surgeon who was sent for to blister and bleed him made light of his illness, assuring Mrs Garrick that he would be well in a day or two, and insisted on her going to lie down. Towards morning, she desired to be called if there was the least change. Every time that she administered the draughts to him in the night, he always squeezed her hand in a particular manner, and spoke to her with the greatest tenderness and affection. Immediately after he had taken his last medicine, he softly said 'O dear!' and yielded up his spirit with a groan, and in his perfect senses. His behaviour during the night was all gentleness and patience, and he frequently made apologies to those about him for the trouble he gave them. . . . I paid a melancholy visit to the coffin yesterday, where I found room for meditation till the mind burst with thinking.' His new house is not so pleasant as Hampton, nor so splendid as the Adelphi, but it is commodious enough for all the wants of its inhabitant; and, besides, it is so quiet that he never will be disturbed till the eternal morning, and never till then will a sweeter voice than his own be heard. May he then find mercy! They are preparing to hang the house with black, for he is to lie in state till Monday. I dislike this pageantry, and cannot help thinking that the disembodied spirit must look with contempt upon the farce that is played over its miserable relics. But a splendid funeral could not be avoided, as he is to be laid in the Abbey with such illustrious dust, and so many are desirous of testifying their respect by attending. I can never cease to remember with affection and gratitude so warm, steady, and disinterested a friend; and I can most truly bear this testimony to his memory, that I never witnessed in any family more decorum, propriety, and regularity than in his; where I never saw a card, nor even met-except in one instance-a person of his own profession at his table, of which Mrs Garrick, by her elegance of taste, her correctness of manners, and very original turn of humour, was the brightest ornaAll his pursuits and tastes were so decidedly intellectual, that it made the society and the conversation which was always to be found in his circle interesting and delightful. ment. The following couplets from Bas Bleu have been often quoted and are still remembered: In men this blunder still you find, If there's a sin more deeply black than others, O Charity, divinely wise, Thou meek-eyed daughter of the skies. In Calebs (1809; 16th ed. 1826) a young northcountry squire loses in succession a revered father and an adored mother, and setting forth into the world on his quest of a wife, endeavours to keep their maxims constantly in mind. He reports on a perfect galaxy of excellent women, young and older, set off by a much larger number who have very pronounced or less conspicuous faults or foibles; and has room for disquisitions not merely on women's duties and rights and women's education, but on the indispensable qualifications of a model clergyman, Antinomianism, and the beauties of Akenside's verse (than some of which there is nothing more splendid in the whole mass of our poetry,' and from which Thomson might to his advantage have learnt melody and rhythm). In the midst of amusing, lively, and witty accounts of his experiences, he sometimes interpolates a page or two on such somewhat irrelevant topics as grace and works, or the true principles of Sabbath-keeping. As Mrs Hannah's mouthpiece, he is more severe on 'high professors' who are selfish, inconsistent, and censorious than on kindly worldlings; and while disapproving 'irreligion' in all shapes, re-. serves the hottest indignation for what is really base and contemptible. We learn that children are now brought too much forward; that too much time is wasted by girls on music; that dozens of superfluous subjects are taught them (including a smattering of Italian and of German); while from the heiress of the man of rank to the daughter of the opulent tradesman there is no one subject in which young women are so generally deficient as in domestic economy. The following quotations are from Cælebs: Conversation at Dinner. From my fondness for conversation, my imagination had been early fired with Dr Johnson's remark, that there is no pleasure on earth comparable to the fine full flow of London talk. I who, since I had quitted college, had seldom had my mind refreshed but with the petty rills and penurious streams of knowledge which country society afforded, now expected to meet it in a strong and rapid current, fertilizing wherever it flowed, producing in abundance the rich fruits of argument and the gay flowers of rhetoric. I looked for an uninterrupted course of profit and delight. I flattered myself that every dinner would add to my stock of images; that every debate would clear up some difficulty, every discussion elucidate some truth; that every allusion would be purely classical, every sentence abound with instruction, and every period be pointed with wit. On the tiptoe of expectation I went to dine with Sir John Belfield in Cavendish-square. I looked at my watch fifty times. I thought it would never be six o'clock. I did not care to shew my country breeding by going too early, to incommode my friend, nor my town breeding by going too late, and spoiling his dinner. Sir John is a valuable, elegant-minded man, and, next to Mr Stanley, stood highest in my father's esteem for his mental accomplishments and correct morals. As I knew he was remarkable for assembling at his table men of sense, taste, and learning, my expectations of pleasure were very high. Here at least,' said I, as I heard the name of one clever man announced after another, 'here at least I cannot fail to find "The feast of reason and the flow of soul: here, at least, all the energies of my mind will be brought into exercise. From this society I shall carry away documents for the improvement of my taste; I shall treasure up hints to enrich my understanding, and collect aphorisms for the conduct of life.' At first there was no fair opportunity to introduce any conversation beyond the topics of the day, and to those, it must be confessed, this eventful period gives a new and powerful interest. I should have been much pleased to have had my country politics rectified, and any prejudices which I might have contracted removed or softened, could the discussion have been carried on without the frequent interruption of the youngest man in the company. This gentleman broke in on every remark, by descanting successively on the merits of the various dishes; and, if it be true that experience only can determine the judgment, he gave proof of that best right to peremptory decision by not trusting to delusive theory, but by actually eating of every dish at table. His animadversions were uttered with the gravity of a German philosopher and the science of a French cook. If any of his opinions happened to be controverted, he quoted, in confirmation of his own judgment, l'Almanac des Gourmands, which he assured us was the most valuable work that had appeared in France since the revolu tion. The author of this book he seemed to consider of as high authority in the science of eating as Coke or Hale in that of jurisprudence, or Quintilian in the art of criticism. To the credit of the company, however, be it spoken, he had the whole of this topic to himself. The rest of the party were, in general, of quite a different As soon as the servants were beginning to withdraw, we got into a sort of attitude of conversation; all except the eulogist of l'Almanac des Gourmands, who, wrapping himself up in the comfortable consciousness of his own superior judgment, and a little piqued that he had found neither support nor opposition, (the next best thing to a professed talker,) he seemed to have a perfect indiffer ence to all topics except that on which he had shewn so much eloquence with so little effect. The last tray was now carried out, the last lingering servant had retired. I was beginning to listen with all my powers of attention to an ingenious gentleman who was about to give an interesting account of Egypt, where he had spent a year, and from whence he was lately returned. He was just got to the catacombs, 'When on a sudden open fly, With impetuous recoil and jarring sound,' the mahogany folding doors, and in at once, struggling who should be first, rushed half a dozen children, lovely, fresh, gay, and noisy. This sudden and violent irruption of the pretty barbarians necessarily caused a total interruption of conversation. The sprightly creatures ran round the table to chuse where they would sit. At length this great difficulty of courts and cabinets, the choice of places, was settled. The little things were jostled in between the ladies, who all contended who should get possession of the little beauties. One was in raptures with the rosy cheeks of a sweet girl she held in her lap. A second exclaimed aloud at the beautiful lace with which the frock of another was trimmed, and which she was sure mamma had given her for being good. A profitable, and doubtless a lasting and inseparable, association was thus formed in the child's mind between lace and goodness. A third cried out, ‘Look at the pretty angel !-do but observe-her bracelets are as blue as her eyes. Did you ever see such a match?' "Surely, Lady Belfield,' cried a fourth, 'you carried the eyes to the shop, or there must have been a shade of difference.' I myself, who am passionately fond of children, eyed the sweet little rebels with complacency, notwithstanding the unseasonableness of their interruption. At last, when they were all disposed of, I resumed my enquiries about the resting-place of the mummies. But the grand dispute who should have oranges and who should have almonds and raisins, soon raised such a clamour that it was impossible to hear my Egyptian friend. This great contest was, however, at length settled, and I was returning to the antiquities of Memphis, when the important point, who should have red wine and who should have white, who should have half a glass and who a whole one, set us again in an uproar. Sir John was visibly uneasy, and commanded silence. During this interval of peace, I gave up the catacombs and took refuge in the pyramids. But I had no sooner proposed my question about the serpent said to be found in one of them, than the son and heir, a fine little fellow just six years old, reaching out his arm to dart an apple across the table at his sister, roguishly intending to overset her glass, unluckily overthrew his own, brimful of port wine. The whole contents were discharged on the elegant drapery of a white-robed nymph. All was now agitation and distress, and disturbance and confusion; the gentlemen ringing for napkins, the ladies assisting the dripping fair one; each vying with the other who should recommend the most approved specific for getting out the stain of red wine, and comforting the sufferer by stories of similar misfortunes. The poor little culprit was dismissed, and all difficulties and disasters seemed at last surmounted. But you cannot heat up again an interest which has been so often cooled. The thread of conversation had been so frequently broken that I despaired of seeing it tied together again. I sorrowfully gave up catacombs, pyramids, and serpent, and was obliged to content myself with a little desultory chat with my next neighbour; sorry and disappointed to glean only a few scattered ears, where I had expected so abundant a harvest; and the day from which I had promised myself so much benefit and delight passed away with a very slender acquisition of either. The Majesty and Meanness of Man. I returned to town at the end of a few days. To a speculative stranger, a London day presents every variety of circumstance in every conceivable shape of which human life is susceptible. When you trace the solicitude of the morning countenance, the anxious exploring of the morning paper, the eager interrogation of the morning guest; when you hear the dismal enumeration of losses by land and perils by sea-taxes trebling, dangers multiplying, commerce annihilating, war protracted, invasion threatening, destruction impendingyour mind catches and communicates the terror, and you feel yourself falling with a falling state.' But when, in the course of the very same day, you meet these gloomy prognosticators at the sumptuous, not dinner but Hecatomb,' at the gorgeous fête, the splendid spectacle; when you hear the frivolous discourse, witness the luxurious dissipation, contemplate the boundless indulgence, and observe the ruinous gaming, you would be ready to exclaim, 'Am I not supping in the Antipodes of that land in which I breakfasted? Surely this is a country of different men, different characters, and different circumstances. This at least is a place in which there is neither fear nor danger, nor want, nor misery, nor war.' If you observed the overflowing subscriptions raised, the innumerable societies formed, the committees appointed, the agents employed, the royal patrons engaged, the noble presidents provided, the palacelike structures erected; and all this to alleviate, to cure, and even to prevent every calamity which the indigent can suffer or the affluent conceive; to remove not only want but ignorance; to suppress not only misery but vice-would you not exclaim with Hamlet, 'What a piece of work is man! How noble in reason! How infinite in faculties! In action how like an angel! in compassion how like a God!' If you look into the whole comet-like eccentric orb of the human character; if you compared all the struggling contrariety of principle and of passion; the clashing of opinion and of action, of resolution and of performance; the victories of evil over the propensities to good; if you contrasted the splendid virtue with the disorderly vice; the exalted generosity with the selfish narrowness; the provident bounty with the thoughtless prodigality; the extremes of all that is dignified, with the excesses of all that is abject, would you not exclaim, in the very spirit of Pascal, O! the grandeur and the littleness, the excellence and the corruption, the majesty and the meanness of man! The Music Nuisance. 'I look upon the great predominance of music in female education,' said Mr Stanley, "to be the source of more mischief than is suspected; not from any evil in the thing itself, but from its being such a gulph of time as really to leave little room for solid acquisitions. I love music, and were it only cultivated as an amusement should commend it. But the monstrous proportion, or rather disproportion of life which it swallows up, even in many religious families, and this is the chief subject of my regret, has converted an innocent diversion into a positive sin. . . . Only figure to yourself my six girls daily playing their four hours a piece, which is now a moderate allowance! As we have but one instrument they must be at it in succession, day and night, to keep pace with their neighbours. If I may compare light things with serious ones, it would resemble,' added he, smiling, 'the perpetual psalmody of good Mr Nicholas Ferrar, who had relays of musicians every six hours to sing the whole Psalter through every day and night! I mean not to ridicule that holy man; but my girls thus keeping their useless vigils in turn, we should only have the melody without any of the piety. No, my friend! I will have but two or three singing birds to cheer my little grove. If all the world are performers, there will soon be no hearers. Now, as I am resolved in my own family that some shall listen, I will have but few to perform.' Besides the Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Mrs Hannah More, by William Roberts (4 vols. 1834), there is a pleasant little sketch by Miss Yonge in the 'Eminent Women series (1888). Her collected works have been repeatedly reissued (8 vols. 1801; 19 vols. 1818; 11 vols. 1830, &c.). Anna Letitia Barbauld (1743-1825) was born at Kibworth Harcourt in Leicestershire. Her father, the Rev. John Aikin, D.D., then kept a boys' school, and Anna received the same instruction as the pupils, including a thorough knowledge of Greek and Latin. In 1758 Dr Aikin (whose father was a London Scot) undertook the office of classical tutor in a Dissenting academy at Warrington, and there his daughter lived for fifteen years. In 1773 she published a volume of poems, of which four editions were called for in the first year. In May 1774 she was married to the Rev. Rochemont Barbauld, of Huguenot ancestry, who became minister of a Dissenting congregation at Palgrave near Diss, and there opened a boarding-school, which throve under his wife's capable assistance. In 1775 she commenced authoress with a volume of devotional pieces compiled from the Psalms, and with Hymns in Prose for Children. In 1786 Mr and Mrs Barbauld removed to Hampstead, and there the industrious helpmeet wrote several tracts in support of Whig principles. She also aided her brother (John Aikin, 1747-1822, physician and author, father of Lucy Aikin) in preparing a series of papers for children, the famous Evenings at Home (1796) -the bulk of the work being the brother's; and she wrote critical essays on Akenside and Collins for editions of their works. After compiling a selection of essays from the Spectator, Tatler, and Guardian, she edited the correspondence of Richardson, and wrote a Life of the novelist. Her last great enterprise was a col ANNA LETITIA BARBAULD. From an Engraving by Meyer. lection of the British novelists, published in 1810, with an introductory essay and biographical and critical notices. Her husband drowned himself in a fit of insanity in 1808. Some of her lyrical pieces are flowing and harmonious, and her Ode to Spring was plainly an imitation of Collins's manner. Charles James Fox was a great admirer of Mrs Barbauld's poems, but most of them are artificial and unimpassioned. In one, Eighteen Hundred and Eleven, she anticipated Macaulay's New Zealander with a youth from the Blue Mountains or Ontario's Lake' who views the ruins of London (both Horace Walpole and Volney had already brought Peruvians or other wanderers thither). Her hymns were long popular, and some of her lighter things, like The Washing Day, are amusing. Lord Selborne included four of her pieces in his Book of Praise, the best known that of which the first three verses run : Praise to God, immortal praise By far her best serious poem is that on Life, of which the last exquisite stanza was so much admired by Wordsworth, Rogers, and Madame D'Arblay; like Flatman's 'Thought of Death' and Pope's Dying Christian,' the poem was inspired by Emperor Hadrian's ' Animula, vagula, blandula.' Life. Life! I know not what thou art, But know that thou and I must part; I own to me's a secret yet. But this I know, when thou art fled As all that then remains of me. O whither, whither dost thou fly, Where bend unseen thy trackless course, Ah, tell where I must meet this compound I? To the vast ocean of empyreal flame From whence thy essence came Dost thou thy flight pursue, when freed Or dost thou, hid from sight, Wait, like some spell-bound knight, Through blank oblivious years the appointed hour To break thy trance and reassume thy power? Yet canst thou without thought or feeling be? O say what art thou when no more thou 'rt thee? Life! we've been long together, Through pleasant and through cloudy weather; 'Tis hard to part when friends are dear; Perhaps 'twill cost a sigh, a tear; Then steal away, give little warning, Choose thine own time; Say not Good night, but in some brighter clime Bid me Good morning. Ode to Spring. Sweet daughter of a rough and stormy sire, O thou, whose powerful voice, |