Hannah More was the youngest but one of the five daughters of Jacob
More, who, after receiving an education for the church, bounded his
wishes by the possession of a school at Stapleton, England, upon
obtaining which, he married the daughter of a respectable farmer; and
to the soundness of her judgment in the culture and regulation of her
children, the credit and success which attended them are, in a great
degree, to be attributed.
Like other intelligent children, Hannah More displayed at an early age
a desire for knowledge and a love of books. To supply the want of the
latter, her father was accustomed to relate to his children, from
memory, the most striking events of Grecian and Roman history,
dwelling much on the parallels and wise sayings of Plutarch. He would
also recite to them the speeches of his favorite heroes in the
original languages, and then translate them into English. Hannah thus
acquired a taste for the Latin classics, an acquaintance with which
she carefully cultivated, in defiance of her father's horror of _blue
stockingism_, which was extreme, and which probably prevented his
instructing her in Greek.
The bent of her mind displayed itself at an early age. Every scrap of
paper, of which she could possess herself, was scribbled over with
essays and poems, having some well-directed moral. Her little sister,
with whom she slept, was the depositary of her nightly effusions; and,
in her zeal lest they should be lost, she would sometimes steal down
to procure a light, and commit them to paper. The greatest wish her
imagination could frame, was that she might some day be rich enough to
have a whole quire of paper; and, when this wish was gratified, she
soon filled it with letters to depraved characters, of her own
invention, urging them to abandon their errors, and letters in return,
expressive of contrition and resolutions of amendment.
[Illustration: HANNAH MORE.]
Her elder sisters, having been educated with that view, opened a
boarding-school for young ladies at Bristol; and under their care the
school education of Hannah was completed. While yet a pupil, she
attracted the notice and enjoyed the friendship of many eminent men.
She delighted to study the sciences with Ferguson, the astronomer; and
such was his opinion of her taste and genius, that he submitted his
compositions to her for the correction of errors in style. Of her
conversational powers at this period an anecdote is related. A
dangerous illness brought her under the care of Dr. Woodward, an
eminent physician. On one of his visits, being led into conversation
with his patient on literary subjects, he forgot the purpose of his
coming; till, recollecting himself when half way down stairs, he cried
out, "Bless me! I forgot to ask the girl how she was;" and returned to
the room, exclaiming, "How are you to-day, my poor child?"
In her seventeenth year, she appeared before the public as an author.
The class of books, now so common, called "Readers," and "Speakers,"
was then unknown. Young persons were in the habit of committing to
memory the popular plays of the day, which were not always pure in
their sentiments, or moral in their tendency. "To furnish a
substitute," as the youthful moralist tells us in her preface, "for
the very improper custom of allowing plays, and those not of the
purest kind, to be acted by young ladies in boarding-schools, and to
afford them an innocent, and perhaps not altogether unuseful
amusement, in the exercise of recitation," she composed a drama,
called the "Search after Happiness." Her object was to convey
instruction in a pleasing form, and the intention was well executed.
The plot is of the simplest kind, and one not calculated to kindle the
fervors of poetry. Four young ladies betake themselves to the retreat
of a virtuous lady, who, with her two daughters, has renounced the
world and fixed herself in a secluded spot--to receive from her, as
from an oracle, instructions which shall guide them in the way which
leads to peace and contentment.
Among the pupils of the Misses More were two Misses Turner, who were
in the habit of passing the vacations at the house of a bachelor
cousin of the same name. They were permitted to bring some of their
young friends with them, and took the two youngest of their
governesses, Hannah and Patty More. "The consequence was natural.
Hannah was clever and fascinating; Mr. T. was generous and sensible:
he became attached, and made his offer, which was accepted. She gave
up her interest in the school, and was at much expense in fitting
herself out to be the wife of a man of fortune." The day was fixed
more than once for the wedding, and Mr. Turner each time postponed it.
Her sisters and friends interfered, and broke off the engagement, and
would not suffer her to listen to any of his subsequent proposals. To
compensate her, as he said, for the robbery he had committed on her
time, and to enable her to devote herself to literary pursuits, Mr.
Turner settled upon her an annuity; and at his death, to show that he
still retained his esteem, he left her a legacy. The distress and
disturbance which this event occasioned her, led to a resolution, on
her part, never again to incur a similar hazard--a resolution the
strength of which was tested by actual trial.
Among the favorite sports of Hannah's childhood was the making a
carriage of a chair, and playing at riding to London to visit bishops
and booksellers--a day-dream which became a reality in 1784. Of the
circumstances which led to the journey we have no record. A few days
after her arrival in London, she was, by a fortunate accident, brought
to the notice of Garrick. A letter written by her to a mutual friend,
describing the effect produced upon her mind by his representation of
Lear, was shown to him, and excited in him a curiosity to see and
converse with her. The desire was gratified; they were reciprocally
pleased, and Miss More was soon domesticated with Mr. Garrick and his
affectionate wife; and, for the next twenty years, she spent six
months of each year under their hospitable roof. Through them she was
at once received on terms of cordial kindness into their wide and
splendid circle. She was welcomed as a sister spirit by the _coterie_
which she has so elaborately eulogized in the "Bas Bleu." She has
often been heard to describe, very humorously, her raptures on her
first introduction to a "live author," and her sisters long remembered
her strong desire to get a sight, from some hiding-place, of Dr.
Johnson. She was now to meet him face to face. The first interview was
at Sir Joshua Reynolds's. She had been prepared by Sir Joshua for
finding him in one of his sombre moods, but was surprised and
delighted at his coming to meet her, as she entered the room, with
good-humor on his countenance, and a macaw of Sir Joshua's on his
hand; and still more at his accosting her with a verse from a morning
hymn, which she had written at the desire of her early and firm
friend, Dr. Stonehouse.
A few extracts from the sprightly letters of a sister who accompanied
her, will furnish the best picture of the scenes in which Miss More
now bore a part. "Hannah has been introduced to Burke--the Sublime and
Beautiful Burke! From a large party of literary persons assembled at
Sir Joshua's she received the most encouraging compliments; and the
spirit with which she returned them was acknowledged by all present."
"The most amiable and obliging of women--Miss Reynolds--has taken us
to Dr. Johnson's _very own_ house! Can you picture to yourselves the
palpitation of our hearts as we approached his mansion? 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 to attend us
down a very long entry to our coach, and not Rasselas could have
acquitted himself more _en cavalier_. I forgot to mention, that, not
finding Johnson in his parlor when we came in, Hannah seated herself
in a great chair, hoping to catch a little ray of his genius: when he
heard of 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 at the spot--as they imagined--where the weird
sisters appeared to Macbeth; the idea so worked upon their enthusiasm
that it 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."
Johnson was not always, however, in the humor to swallow the flattery
which she lavished upon him; Mrs. Thrale records a surly enough rebuke
which the doctor administered to her: "Consider, madam, what your
flattery is worth before you choke me with it." As he was complaining,
upon another occasion, that he had been obliged to ask Miss Reynolds
to give her a hint on the subject, somebody observed that she
flattered Garrick also; "Ay," said the doctor, "and she is right
there; first, she has the world with her; and, secondly, Garrick
rewards her. I can do nothing for her. Let her carry her praise to a
better market." But in this flattery there was no want of sincerity
and no disingenuousness. At the age of thirty-one she had brought to
London the fresh, ecstatic enthusiasm of a country girl of seventeen;
when, instead of having Johnson pointed out to her as he rolled along
the pavement of Fleet Street, and gazing at Garrick from the side
boxes, she found herself at once admitted to the inmost circle of the
literary magnets--it is not wonderful that her feelings should
overflow in language and gesture rather too warm for the acclimated
inhabitants of the temperate zone.
The same hyperbolical style is to be found in the letters intended
only for the eyes of her sisters. "Mrs. Montagu is not only the finest
genius, but the finest lady, I ever saw; she lives in the highest
style of magnificence; her apartments and tables are in the most
splendid taste; but what baubles are these when speaking of a Montagu!
Her form--for she has no body--is delicate to fragility; her
countenance the most animated in the world; she has the sprightly
vivacity of sixteen, with the judgment and experience of a Nestor.
Mrs. Carter has in her person a great deal of what the gentlemen mean
when they speak of a 'poetical lady:' independently of her great
talents and learning, I like her much: she has affability, kindness,
and goodness; and I honor her heart more than her talents; but I do
not like one of them better than Mrs. Boscawen; she is at once
learned, polite, judicious, and humble." At a party at which all these
and other luminaries were collected, Dr. Johnson asked Miss More her
opinion of the new tragedy of "Braganza." "I was afraid," says she,
"to speak before them all, as I knew there was a diversity of opinion:
however, as I thought it a less evil to dissent from a fellow-creature
than to tell a falsity, I ventured to give my sentiments, and was
satisfied with Johnson's answering, 'You are right, madam.'"
Stimulated by the approbation of such judges, Miss More turned to
literature with redoubled energy; and from this period, the important
part of her personal history may be read in that of a succession of
works, all in their season popular; all commendable for moral tone;
considerably above mediocrity in literary execution; and some of them
worthy to survive their age.
After her return home, she one day laughingly said to her sisters, "I
have been so fed with praise, that I think I will try what is my real
value, by writing a slight poem, and offering it to Cadell."
Accordingly she wrote and sent him "Sir Eldred of the Bower," a ballad
in the style which Dr. Percy had rendered popular. Cadell offered her
a price far exceeding her idea of its worth; adding that, if she would
ascertain what Goldsmith received for the "Deserted Village," he
would make it up to the same sum. With the public the poem met with a
success which its merits by no means justify. At a tea-visit in her
own lodgings, where she had Johnson all to herself,--and as she tells
us he ought always to be had, for he did not care to speak in mixed
companies,--the new poem was discussed. The leviathan of letters,
instead of expressing his contempt for compositions of this class, and
treating her to a new stanza,--like
"I put my hat upon my head,
And walked into the Strand,
And there I met another man
With his hat in his hand,"--
indited the following, which she proudly engrafted on the original in
the second edition, no doubt receiving the compliment as paid to the
author, rather than to the heroine:--
"My scorn has oft the dart repelled
Which guileful beauty threw;
But goodness heard, and grace beheld,
Must every heart subdue."
In her early life, Miss More was subject to frequent attacks of
illness, which she was wont to say were a great blessing to her, for
they induced a habit of industry not natural to her, and taught her to
make the most of her _well_ days. She laughingly added, it had taught
her to contrive employment for her sick ones; that from habit she had
learned to suit her occupations to every gradation of the capacity she
possessed. "I never," said she, "afford a moment of a healthy day to
cross a _t_ or dot an _i_; so that I find the lowest stage of my
understanding may be turned to some account, and save better days for
better things. I have learned also to avoid procrastination, and that
idleness which often attends unbroken health." These habits of order
and industry gave her much time for intellectual pursuits, even amidst
the dissipations of the city.
At her first introduction to its brilliant society, Patty More seemed
to have some apprehensions that her sister "Hannah's head might not
stand proof against all the adulation and kindness of the great
folks." But these effected no change in her deportment; her simplicity
remained unsullied; home and the society of her sisters had lost for
her none of its charms. Her good sense and firmness of character were
subjected to a yet more severe trial upon the production of the
tragedy of "Percy." Nothing could exceed the zeal which Garrick
displayed to insure its success. Miss More thus speaks of it in a
letter to her sister: "It is impossible to tell you of all the
kindness of the Garricks; he thinks of nothing, talks of nothing,
writes of nothing, but 'Percy.' When he had finished his prologue and
epilogue, he desired I would pay him. Dryden, he said, used to have
five guineas apiece, but, as he was a richer man, he would be content
if I would treat him with a handsome supper and a bottle of claret. We
haggled sadly about the price; I insisting that I could only afford to
give him a beef-steak and a pot of porter; and at about twelve, we sat
down to some toast and honey, with which the temperate bard contented
himself." She adds in the same letter, "What dreadful news from
America!--Burgoyne's surrender.--We are a disgraced, undone nation.
What a sad time to bring out a play in! when, if the country had the
least spark of virtue remaining, not a creature would think of going
to it."
The success of "Percy" was prodigious; greater than that of any
tragedy for years. She received for it about six hundred pounds,
which, she tells us, "her friend Mr. Garrick invested for her on
the best security, and at five per cent., and so it made a decent
little addition to her small income." Cadell paid one hundred and
fifty pounds for the copy-right, and it proved a very successful
speculation. The first edition, of four thousand copies,--a very
large one for those days,--was sold off in a fortnight.
Though the patronage of Garrick and the popularity of the author
contributed in no small degree to its success, yet the tragedy
itself possesses intrinsic merits. The plot is simple. Bertha, the
daughter of Lord Raby, is betrothed, in early youth, to Earl Percy.
His family incur the displeasure of Lord Raby, and, during the young
earl's absence in the Holy Land, he compels his daughter to marry
Earl Douglas, the hereditary enemy of the Percys. The proud spirit
of Douglas is chafed to find that his own ardent love is met only
with cold and respectful obedience. He suspects the preengagement
of her affections, and his jealousy rouses him to fury, when Percy
is found in the neighborhood of his castle. In the catastrophe,
all the principal personages are involved in a common destruction.
In the development of the plot the author displays considerable
imagination, and much dramatic skill. The interest is well sustained;
the didactic spirit sometimes breaks forth, as in the conclusion of
the following extract, in which Lord Raby laments the sombre and
melancholy spirit with which the jealousy of Douglas has infected his
whole household:--
"----Am I in Raby castle?
Impossible! That was the seat of smiles;
There cheerfulness and joy were household gods.
But now suspicion and distrust preside,
And discontent maintains a sullen sway.
Where is the smile unfeigned, the jovial welcome,
Which cheered the sad, beguiled the pilgrim's pain,
And made dependency forget its bonds?
Where is the ancient, hospitable hall,
Whose vaulted roof once rung with harmless mirth;
Where every passing stranger was a guest,
And every guest a friend? I fear me much,
If once our nobles scorn their rural seats,
Their rural greatness, and their vassals' love,
Freedom and English grandeur are no more."
The following passage, in which Bertha seeks to exculpate herself for
the breach of faith with which Percy, whom she meets by accident after
his return, charges her, is full of pathos:--
"I could withstand his fury; but his tears--
Ah, they undid me! Percy, dost thou know
The cruel tyranny of tenderness?
Hast thou e'er felt a father's warm embrace?
Hast thou e'er seen a father's flowing tears,
And known that thou couldst wipe those tears away?
If thou hast felt, and hast resisted these,
Then thou may'st curse my weakness; but if not,
Thou canst not pity, for thou canst not judge."
Encouraged by the success of "Percy," and urged by Garrick, Miss More
composed a second tragedy, called the "Fatal Falsehood." The whole was
completed, and four acts had been revised by Garrick, when death
deprived her of that warm and disinterested friend. Miss More pays the
following tribute to his memory: "I never can cease to remember with
affection and gratitude so warm, steady, and disinterested a friend; 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, or ever met--except in one
instance--a person of his own profession at his table. All 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."
The success of the "Fatal Falsehood" was great, but not equal to that
of "Percy." We must content ourselves with making one extract, in
which she characterizes "Honor," as it is technically called:--
"Honor! O yes, I know him. 'Tis a phantom,
A shadowy figure, wanting bulk and life,
Who, having nothing solid in himself,
Wraps his thin form in Virtue's plundered robe,
And steals her title. Honor! 'tis the fiend
Who feeds on orphans' tears and widows' groans,
And slakes his impious thirst in brothers' blood.
Honor! why, 'tis the primal law of hell!
The grand device to people the dark realms
With noble spirits, who, but for this cursed honor,
Had been at peace on earth, or blessed in heaven.
With this _false_ honor Christians have no commerce;
Religion disavows, and truth disowns it."
One more tragedy, the "Inflexible Captive," completes Miss More's
labors in this department of literature. She arrived at the conclusion
that, by contributing plays, however pure, to the existing stage, she
should be using her powers to heighten its _general_ attraction as a
place of amusement; and, considering the English theatre as, on the
whole, the most profligate in the world, she resolved to abjure it and
all its concerns forever--an instance of self-love sacrificed to
principle hardly to be paralleled. When her works were collected, the
tragedies were allowed to take their place, in order, as the author
tells us in a preface written in her happiest manner, that she might
ground on such publication her sentiments upon the general tendency of
the drama, and, by including in her view her own compositions, might
involve herself in the general object of her own animadversions.
She makes no apology for the republication of her "Sacred Dramas,"
though they may, perhaps, be regarded as falling within the range of
some of her criticisms on the old Mysteries and Moralities--pieces "in
which events too solemn for exhibition, and subjects too awful for
detail, are brought before the audience with a formal gravity more
offensive than levity itself."
As a general poet, Miss More was, at this period, the very height of
the fashion. Horace Walpole thought himself honored in being
permitted to print some of her pieces in the most lavish style of
expense, at the press of Strawberry Hill. But fashions in literature
are scarcely more lasting than those in dress. Her poems are now
immersed in Lethe, except a few terse couplets, which have floated
down to the present generation on the stream of oral citation, and
are now often in the mouths of people who fancy that they belong
to Swift or Gay. Many of her poems are, however, worthy of a better
fate. They are distinguished by purity and elevation of sentiment,
ease and strength of diction, and harmony of versification. In the
last particular she received great praise from Johnson, who
pronounced her to be "the best versificatrix in the English
language."
We will give a few extracts. The first is from "Sensibility," a poem
in which she claims for that quality the place which Mrs. Grenville,
in a then well-known ode, arrogated for "Indifference."
"Sweet sensibility! thou keen delight!
Unprompted moral! sudden sense of right!
Perception exquisite! fair virtue's seed!
Thou quick precursor of the liberal deed!
Thou hasty conscience! reason's blushing morn!
Instinctive kindness e'er reflection's born!
Prompt sense of equity! to thee belongs
The swift redress of unexamined wrongs;
Eager to serve, the cause perhaps untried,
But always apt to choose the suffering side;
To those who know thee not no words can paint,
And those who know thee know all words are faint.
She does not feel thy power who boasts thy flame,
And rounds her every period with thy name.
As words are but th' external marks to tell
The fair ideas in the mind that dwell,
And only are of things the outward sign,
And not the things themselves they but define,
So exclamations, tender tones, fond tears,
And all the graceful drapery feeling wears,--
These are her garb, not her; they but express
Her form, her semblance, her appropriate dress;
And these fair marks,--reluctant I relate,--
These lovely symbols, may be counterfeit.
There are who fill with brilliant plaints the page,
If a poor linnet meet the gunner's rage;
There are who for a dying fawn deplore,
As if friend, parent, country, were no more;
Who boast, quick rapture trembling in their eye,
If from a spider's snare they snatch a fly;
There are whose well-sung plaints each breast inflame,
And break all hearts--but his from whence they came."
The "Bas Bleu" is a sprightly portraiture of what she considered to
be the right constitution and character of social conversation. It
is a vivacious image of that circle of gay and graceful conversers
from whose appellation it takes its name. It was first circulated
in manuscript, and we find Miss More apologizing to her sister for
the shortness of a letter, on the ground that she had not a moment
to spare, as she was copying the "Bas Bleu," for the king, at his
request. Dr. Johnson pronounced it to be "a very great performance."
To the author herself he expressed himself in yet stronger terms.
She writes to her sister, "As to the 'Bas Bleu,' all the flattery
I ever received from every body together would not make up his sum.
He said--but I seriously insist you do not tell any body, for I
am ashamed of writing it even to you--he said, 'there was no name in
poetry that might not be glad to own it.' You cannot imagine how
I stared; all this from Johnson, that parsimonious praiser! I
told him I was delighted at his approbation; he answered quite
characteristically, 'And so you may, for I give you the opinion of
a man who does not rate his judgment in these things very low, I
can tell you.'" The following extract will give some idea of its
merits:--
"What lively pleasure to divine
The thought implied, the printed line!
To feel allusion's artful force,
And trace the image to its source!
Quick Memory blends her scattered rays,
Till Fancy kindles at the blaze;
The works of ages start to view,
And ancient wit elicits new.
But wit and parts if thus we praise,
What nobler altars shall we raise?
Those sacrifices could we see
Which wit, O virtue! makes to thee,
At once the rising thought to dash,
To quench at once the bursting flash!
The shining mischief to subdue,
And lose the praise and pleasure too!
Though Venus' self could you detect her
Imbuing with her richest nectar
The thought unchaste, to check that thought,
To spurn a fame so dearly bought,--
This is high principle's control,
This is true continence of soul.
Blush, heroes, at your cheap renown,
A vanquished realm, a plundered town
Your conquests were to gain a name--
This conquest triumphs over fame."
"Florio" is a metrical tale of a young man of good principles and
right feelings, who, from deference to fashion, has indulged in
vanities and follies bordering on depravity, which he lays aside in
disgust when virtue and good sense, in alliance with female
loveliness, have made apparent to him the absurdity and danger of his
aberrations. In the following extract the reader will recognize some
of the oft-quoted couplets of which we have spoken:--
"Exhausted Florio, at the age
When youth should rush on glory's stage,
When life should open fresh and new,
And ardent Hope her schemes pursue,
Of youthful gayety bereft,
Had scarce an unbroached pleasure left;
He found already, to his cost,
The shining gloss of life was lost,
And Pleasure was so coy a prude,
She fled the more, the more pursued;
Or, if o'ertaken and caressed,
He loathed and left her when possessed.
But Florio knew the world; that science
Sets sense and learning at defiance;
He thought the world to him was known,
Whereas he only knew the _town_.
In men this blunder still you find:
All think their little set--mankind.
Though high renown the youth had gained,
No flagrant crimes his life had stained;
Though known among _a certain set_,
He did not like to be in debt;
He shuddered at the dicer's box,
Nor thought it very heterodox
That tradesmen should be sometimes paid,
And bargains kept as well as made.
His growing credit, as a sinner,
Was, that he liked to spoil a dinner,
Made pleasure and made business wait,
And still by system came too late;
Yet 'twas a hopeful indication
On which to found a reputation:
Small habits, well pursued, betimes
May reach the dignity of crimes;
And who a juster claim preferred
Than one who always broke his word?"
The death of Garrick may be considered an era in the life of Miss
More. His wit, his gayety, his intelligence, added to his admiration
of her genius, and the warmth of his friendship for her, formed the
strongest spell that held her in subjection to the fascinations of
brilliant society and town life. The early feeling which prompted the
infant wish for "a cottage too low for a clock" was still fresh in her
bosom. The country, with its green pastures and still waters, still
retained its charms for her. "I have naturally," she writes, "but a
small appetite for grandeur, which is always satisfied, even to
indigestion, before I leave town; and I require a long abstinence to
get any relish for it again." After the death of her friend, she
carried into execution the resolution she had long cherished, of
passing a portion of her time in retirement in the country. With this
view, she possessed herself of a little secluded spot, which had
acquired the name of "Cowslip Green," near Bristol.
Still, however, her sensibility to kindness would not let her withhold
herself entirely from her London friends; her annual visits to Mrs.
Garrick brought her back into contact with the world and its crowded
resorts.
From her earliest acquaintance with society, she had seen with sorrow
the levity of manners, the indifference to religion, and the total
disregard of the Sabbath, which prevailed in its higher circles. Not
content with holding herself uncontaminated, she felt it to be her
duty to make an effort for a reformation, and with this end she
published "Thoughts on the Importance of the Manners of the Great to
General Society." To appreciate the value of the effort, we must
remember that these "Thoughts" were not the animadversions of a
recluse, but of one who was flattered, admired, and courted, by the
very people whom she was about to reprove; that the step might
probably exclude her from those circles in which she had hitherto been
so caressed. But the happiness of her friends was dearer to her than
their favor. That the probable consequences did not ensue, does not
diminish her merit. This work and the one which speedily followed it,
"An Essay on the Religion of the Fashionable World," were popular
beyond hope, and the wish of Bishop Porteus, "that it might be placed
in the hands of every person of condition," was almost realized. It is
unnecessary to dwell on these works; they are too well known; they
established her reputation as a great moral writer, possessing a
masterly command of language, and devoting a keen wit and a lively
fancy to the best and noblest of purposes.--After giving one extract
from the most vigorous of her poems, "Slavery," written to aid the
efforts which Clarkson and Wilberforce were making in behalf of the
African slave, and in which she heartily sympathized, we will pass on
to new scenes, in which Miss More's benevolent spirit exhibits itself
in a yet more active manner.
"O thou sad spirit, whose preposterous yoke
The great deliverer, death, at length has broke!
Released from misery, and escaped from care,
Go, meet that mercy man denies thee here.
And if some notions, vague and undefined,
Of future terrors, have assailed thy mind;
If such thy masters have presumed to teach--
As terrors only they are prone to preach;
For, should they paint eternal mercy's reign,
Where were the oppressor's rod, the captive's chain?--
If, then, thy troubled soul has learned to dread
The dark unknown thy trembling footsteps tread,
On Him who made thee what thou art depend;
He who withholds the means accepts the end.
Thy mental night thy Savior will not blame;
He died for those who never heard his name.
Nor thine the reckoning dire of light abused,
Knowledge disgraced, and liberty misused:
On thee no awful judge incensed shall sit,
For parts perverted or dishonored wit.
When ignorance will be found the safest plea,
How many learned and wise shall envy thee!"
In withdrawing herself from general society, Miss More had cherished
the hope of devoting herself to meditation and literary leisure. But
there was no rest for her but in the consciousness of being useful. In
the course of her rambles in the neighborhood of her residence, she
was shocked to find the same vices, against which she had lifted up
her voice in high places, existing in the peasant's cottage, in a
different form, but heightened by ignorance, both mental and
spiritual. Though in a feeble state of health, she could not withhold
herself from the attempt to effect a reformation.
In this she had no coadjutors but her sisters, who, having acquired a
competency, had retired from school-keeping, and had, with her, a
common home. Provision was made by law for the support of clergymen;
but the vicar of Cheddar received his fifty pounds a year, and resided
at Oxford; and the rector of Axbridge "was intoxicated about six times
a week, and was very frequently prevented from preaching by two black
eyes, honestly acquired by fighting."
She commenced operations by seeking to establish a school at Cheddar.
Some of the obstacles she encountered may be best related in her own
words. "I was told we should meet with great opposition, if I did not
try to propitiate the chief despot of the village, who is very rich
and very brutal; so I ventured to the den of this monster, in a
country as savage as himself. He begged I would not think of bringing
any religion into the country; it made the poor lazy and useless. In
vain I represented to him that they would be more industrious, as they
were better principled; and that I had no selfish views in what I was
doing. He gave me to understand that he knew the world too well to
believe either the one or the other. I was almost discouraged from
more visits; but I found that friends must be secured at all events;
for, if these rich savages set their faces against us, I saw that
nothing but hostilities would ensue: so I made eleven more of these
agreeable visits; and, as I improved in the art of canvassing, had
better success. Miss W. would have been shocked, had she seen the
petty tyrants whose insolence I stroked and tamed, the ugly children I
praised, the pointers and spaniels I caressed, the cider I commended,
and the wine I swallowed. After these irresistible flatteries, I
inquired of each if he could recommend me to a house, and said that I
had a little plan which I hoped would secure their orchards from being
robbed, their rabbits from being shot, their game from being stolen,
and which might lower the poor rates. If effect be the best proof of
eloquence, then mine was good speech, for I gained in time the hearty
concurrence of the whole people, and their promise to discourage or
favor the poor as they were attentive or negligent in sending their
children. Perhaps the hearts of some of these rich brutes may be
touched; they are as ignorant as the beasts that perish, intoxicated
every day before dinner, and plunged in such vices as make me begin to
think London a virtuous place." The vicarage house, which had not been
occupied for a hundred years, was hired for a school-house; "the
vicar," she says, "who lives a long way off, is repairing the house
for me; and, as he is but ninety-four years old, he insists on my
taking a lease, and is as rigorous about the rent as if I were taking
it for an assembly-room."
The prejudices of the poor were more difficult to be overcome than
those of the rich. Some thought that her design was to make money, by
sending of their children for slaves; others, that, if she instructed
them for seven years, she would acquire such a control as to be able
to send them beyond seas. But she persisted, and her success was great
beyond expectation. In a short time, she had at Cheddar near three
hundred children, under the charge of a discreet matron, whom she
hired for the purpose.
Encouraged by this success, she extended her field of operations, and
established schools at several other villages. The nearest of these
was six miles from her home; the labor and fatigue of superintending
the whole was therefore very great. But she declined an assistant for
reasons stated in a letter to Mr. Wilberforce, who had offered to seek
for one. "An ordinary person would be of no use; one of a superior
cast, who might be able to enter into my views, and further them,
would occasion an expense equal to the support of one or two more
schools. It will be time enough to think of your scheme when I am
quite laid by. This hot weather makes me suffer terribly; yet I have
now and then a good day, and on Sunday was enabled to open the school.
It was an affecting sight. Several of the grown-up lads had been tried
at the last assizes; three were children of a person lately condemned
to be hanged; many thieves; all ignorant, profane, and vicious, beyond
belief. Of this banditti I have enlisted one hundred and seventy; and
when the clergyman, a hard man, who is also a magistrate, saw these
creatures kneeling round us, whom he had seldom seen but to commit or
to punish in some way, he burst into tears."
Her plan was not limited to intellectual and spiritual instruction.
The children were taught to sew, to spin, and to knit. Nor were her
labors confined to the advancement of the well-being of the young; she
sought to introduce branches of manufacture, suitable to the strength
and sex of the women, and she arranged with master manufacturers to
buy the products of their labor. She sought to establish habits of
economy by getting up associations, in which each contributed a
portion of her earnings, on condition of receiving a support in case
she should be disabled from labor. This was a work of difficulty.
Though the subscription was only three half-pence per week, yet many
could not raise even this: such were privately assisted. Other
inducements, besides considerations of providence, must be held out
to the improvident. "An anniversary feast of tea was held, at which
some of the clergy and better sort of people were present. The
patronesses waited on the women, who sat and enjoyed their dignity.
The journal and state of affairs was read. A collateral advantage
resulted from this. The women, who used to plead that they could not
go to church because they had no clothes, now went. The necessity of
going to church in procession on the anniversary, raised an honest
ambition to get something decent to wear, and the churches on Sunday
were filled with very clean-looking women."
Similar machinery was brought into exercise to advance the cause of
her schools. Two years after the first attempt, we find this apology
for not sooner writing to a friend: "I have been too busy in preparing
for a grand celebration, distinguished by the pompous name of _Mendip
Feast_; the range of hills you remember in this country, on the top of
which we yesterday gave a dinner of beef, and plum pudding, and cider,
to our schools. There were not six hundred children, for I would not
admit the _new_ schools, telling them they must be good for a year or
two, to be entitled to so great a thing as a dinner. Curiosity had
drawn a great multitude, for a country so thinly peopled; one wondered
whence five thousand people--for that was the calculation--could come.
We all parted with the most perfect peace, having fed about nine
hundred people for less than a _fine_ dinner for twenty, costs."
It would require a large volume to speak of all Miss More's labors in
behalf of erring and suffering humanity. At one time, we find her
engaged, in the most harassing and embarrassing situations, spending
days and nights with armed Bow Street officers in searching the vilest
haunts for a young heiress, who had been trepanned away from school at
the age of fourteen. The details of another of her attempts to
alleviate suffering, exhibit so strikingly the genuine liberality of
her heart and conduct, as to be worth relating. She was one day
informed that a woman, who called every day for stuff to feed a pig,
was, with her husband and children, perishing with hunger. She lost no
time in endeavoring to rescue this miserable family, and soon
discovered that the woman was possessed of more than ordinary talent.
She produced several scraps of poetry, which evinced much genius. It
occurred to Miss More that this talent might be made the means of
exciting a general interest in her behalf, and raising a fund to set
her up in some creditable way of earning a subsistence. She
accordingly took a great deal of pains in instructing her in writing,
spelling, and composition; and, while the object of her charity was
preparing, under her inspection, a small collection of poems, she was
employed in writing to all her friends of rank and fortune, bespeaking
subscriptions. Mrs. Montagu cautioned her not to let her own generous
nature deceive her as to the character and temper of her beneficiary.
"It has sometimes happened to me," she writes, "that, by an endeavor
to encourage talents and cherish virtue, by driving from them the
terrifying spectre of pale poverty, I have introduced a legion of
little demons: vanity, luxury, idleness, and pride, have entered the
cottage the moment poverty vanished. However, I am sure despair is
never a good counsellor."
For thirteen months, Miss More's time was largely occupied in the
woman's service, and the result of her efforts was the realization of
a sum exceeding three thousand dollars, which was invested for the
woman's benefit under the trusteeship of Mrs. Montagu and Miss More.
The result is made known in a letter from the latter to the former. "I
am come to the postscript, without having found courage to tell you,
what I am sure you will hear with pain; at least it gives _me_
infinite pain to write it. I mean the open and notorious ingratitude
of our milk-woman. There is hardly a species of slander the poor,
unhappy creature does not propagate against me, because I have called
her a _milk-woman_, and because I have placed the money in the funds,
instead of letting her spend it. I confess my weakness; it goes to my
heart, not for my own sake, but for the sake of our common nature. So
much for my _inward_ feelings; as to my _active_ resentment, I am
trying to get a place for her husband, and am endeavoring to increase
the sum I have raised for her. Do not let this harden _your_ heart or
mine against any future object. 'Do good for its own sake' is a
beautiful maxim." The milk-woman presently put her slanders into a
printed shape; and Mrs. Montagu, on reading the libel, found one thing
Miss More's letter had not prepared her for. Here is her comment:
"Mrs. Yeardsley's conceit that _you can envy her talents_ gives me
comfort, for, as it convinces me she is mad, I build upon it a hope
that she is not guilty in the All-seeing Eye." The last allusion which
Miss More herself makes to the behavior of "Lactilla" is on the
occasion of a second publication of hers, in which the generous
patroness was again, after a lapse of two years, maligned and insulted
with a cool bitterness that may well be called diabolical, and is in
these words, addressing Horace Walpole: "Do, dear sir, join me in
sincere compassion, without one atom of resentment. If I wanted to
punish an enemy, it should be by fastening on him the trouble of
constantly hating somebody." Mrs. Montagu and Miss More resisted with
exemplary patience the woman's violent importunities to be put in
possession of the principal, as well as interest, of her little
fortune, fearing that it would be consumed in those vices to which it
was apparent she was addicted. At length, they gave over the trust to
a respectable lawyer, who transferred it to a merchant of Bristol; and
he was soon harassed into the relinquishment of the whole concern.
In the year 1792, affairs wore a very gloomy and threatening aspect in
England. French revolutionary and atheistical principles seemed to be
spreading wide their destructive influence. Indefatigable pains were
taken, not only to agitate and mislead, but to corrupt and poison, the
minds of the populace. At this crisis, letters poured in upon Miss
More, from persons of eminence, earnestly calling upon her to produce
some little tract which might serve to counteract these pernicious
efforts. The intimate knowledge she had shown of human nature, and the
lively and clear style of her writings, which made them attractive,
pointed her out as the proper person for such an effort. Though she
declined an open attempt to stem the mighty torrent, which she
thought a work beyond her powers, she yet felt it to be her duty to
try them in secret, and, in a few hours, composed the dialogue of
"Village Politics, by Will Chip." The more completely to keep the
author unknown, it was sent to a new publisher. In a few days, every
post from London brought her a present of this admirable little tract,
with urgent entreaties that she would use every possible means of
disseminating it, as the strongest antidote that could be administered
to the prevailing poison. It flew with a rapidity almost incredible
into the remotest parts of the kingdom. Government distributed many
thousands. Numerous patriotic associations printed large editions; and
in London only, many hundred thousands were distributed.
Internal evidence betrayed the secret of the authorship; and, when the
truth came out, innumerable were the thanks and congratulations which
bore cordial testimony to the merit of a performance, by which the
tact and intelligence of a single female had turned the tide of
misguided opinion. Many affirmed that it contributed essentially to
prevent a revolution; so true was the touch, and so masterly the
delineation, which brought out, in all its relief, the ludicrous and
monstrous cheat, whereby appetite, selfishness, and animal force, were
attempted to be imposed under the form of liberty, equality, and
imprescriptible right.
The success of "Village Politics" encouraged Miss More to venture on a
more extensive undertaking. The institution of Sunday schools, which
had enabled multitudes to read, threatened to be a curse instead of a
blessing; for, while no healthy food was furnished for their minds,
the friends of infidelity and vice carried their exertions so far as
to load asses with their pernicious pamphlets, and to get them
dropped, not only in cottages and in the highways, but into mines and
coal-pits. Sermons and catechisms were already furnished in abundance;
but the enemy made use of the alluring vehicles of novels, tales, and
songs, and she thought it right to meet them with their own weapons.
She therefore determined to produce three tracts every month, written
in a lively manner, under the name of the "Cheap Repository." The
success surpassed her most sanguine expectations. Two millions were
sold in the first year--a circumstance, perhaps, new in the annals of
printing. But this very success, she tells us, threatened to be her
ruin; for, in order to supplant the trash, it was necessary to
undersell it, thus incurring a certain loss. This, however, was met by
a subscription on the part of the friends of good order and morals.
The exertion which it required to produce these tracts, to organize
her plan, and to conduct a correspondence with the committees formed
in various parts of the kingdom, materially undermined her health. She
continued them, however, for three years. "It has been," she writes,
"no small support to me, that my plan met with the warm protection of
so many excellent persons. They would have me believe that a very
formidable riot among the colliers was prevented by my ballad of 'The
Riot.' The plan was settled; they were resolved to work no more; to
attack the mills first, and afterwards the gentry. A gentleman gained
their confidence, and a few hundreds were distributed, and sung with
the effect, they say, mentioned above--a fresh proof by what weak
instruments evils are now and then prevented. The leading tract for
the next month is the bad economy of the poor. You, my dear madam,
will smile to see your friend figuring away in the new character of a
cook furnishing receipts for cheap dishes. It is not, indeed; a very
brilliant career; but I feel that the value of a thing lies so much
more in its usefulness than its splendor, that I think I should derive
more gratification from being able to lower the price of bread, than
from having written the Iliad."
That Miss More's efforts in behalf of virtue should be opposed by
those against whom they were aimed, will not surprise us. But she
was attacked from a quarter whence she had a right to expect sympathy
and support. The nature of the attack will be learned from a letter
written some years afterwards: "I will say, in a few words, that
two Jacobin and infidel curates, poor and ambitious, formed the
design of attracting notice and getting preferment by attacking some
charity schools--which, with no small labor, I have carried on in
this country for near twenty years--as seminaries of vice, sedition,
and disaffection. At this distance of time,--for it is now ended in
their disgrace and shame,--it will make you smile when I tell you a
few of the charges brought against me, viz., that I hired two men
to assassinate one of these clergymen; that I was actually taken
up for seditious practices; that I was with Hadfield in his attack
on the king's life. At the same time they declared--mark the
consistency--that I was in the pay of the government, and the grand
instigator of the war, by my mischievous pamphlets. That wicked men
should invent this, is not so strange as that they should have found
magazines, reviews, and pamphleteers, to support them. My declared
resolution never to defend myself certainly encouraged them to go on.
How thankful am I that I kept that resolution! though the grief and
astonishment excited by the combination against me nearly cost me my
life."
There is not space to go at large into an account of this persecution,
which was continued for several years. The most inveterate of her
enemies was the curate of her own parish, who was named Bere, and the
most distressing result to herself was being obliged to discontinue
the school at that place. But, whilst laboring so earnestly for the
poor and the humble, Miss More was still mindful of the wants of the
higher classes, and, in the midst of her anxiety and distress, which
very seriously affected her health, she found time to compose the
"Strictures on Female Education," for their benefit. All her practical
admonitions, and all her delineations of female excellence, were
afterwards brought together in the character of Lucilla, in the novel
of "Coelebs in Search of a Wife," who is a true representative of
feminine excellence within the legitimate range of allotted duties.
She did not venture on publishing this work without much anxious
hesitation. "I wrote it," she says, "to amuse the languor of disease.
I thought there were already good books enough in the world for good
people, but that there was a large class of readers, whose wants had
not been attended to--the subscribers to the circulating library. A
little to raise the tone of that mart of mischief, and to counteract
its corruptions, I thought an object worth attempting." It was
published without her name, and though many at once recognized the
style, she herself did not acknowledge it till it had passed through
many editions. It excited such immediate and universal attention,
that, in a few days after its first appearance, she received notice to
prepare for a second edition; and shortly afterwards she was followed
to Dawlish, whither she had gone to try the effect of repose and the
sea air, in restoring her health, by the eleventh edition.
Her works at an early period were duly estimated in the United
States, and of the "Coelebs" thirty editions had been issued
before the author's death. It is not a little creditable to the
public taste, that a work so full of plain and practical truth
should be so well received. In "Coelebs," as well as in some of her
smaller productions, Miss More evinces her power of invention, and
gives proof that, had she chosen to employ fiction as the vehicle
of instruction, her imagination would have afforded her abundant
resources; but habit and the bias of her mind led her in another
course: a certain substantiality of purpose, a serious devotion to
decided and direct beneficence, an active and almost restless
principle of philanthropy, were the great distinctions of her
character.
When the education of the Princess Charlotte became a subject of
serious attention and inquiry, the advice and assistance of Miss More
were requested by the queen. Bishop Porteus strenuously advised that
the education should be intrusted to her; but, when the latter
required that the _entire_ direction should be given to her charge,
this was thought, by those in power, to be too great a confidence.
They were willing to engage her in a subordinate capacity; but this
she declined, and so the negotiation ended. Her ideas on the subject
were given to the world under the title of "Hints for forming the
Character of a Young Princess"--a book which subsequently was a great
favorite with her for whose benefit it was intended, and doubtless
contributed to the formation of those virtues and principles which
made her death so much lamented.
In the country Miss More had hoped to find retirement. But Barley
Wood--a place to which she had removed, about one mile from Cowslip
Green--was any thing but a hermitage. "Though," she says, "I neither
return visits nor give invitations, except when quite confined by
sickness, I think I never saw more people, known and unknown, in my
gayest days. I never had so many cares and duties imposed upon me as
now in sickness and old age. I know not how to help it. If my guests
are old, I see them out of respect, and in the hope of receiving some
good; if young, I hope I may do them a little good; if they come from
a distance, I feel as if I ought to see them on that account; if near
home, my neighbors would be jealous of my seeing strangers, and
excluding them." Her epistolary labors were enormous. She laid it down
as a rule never to refuse or delay answering any application for
epistolary advice, enduring the incessant interruptions with
indefatigable kindness.
In spite, however, of all the interruptions of company and of
sickness; for, as she tells us, "From early infancy to late old age,
her life was a successive scene of visitation and restoration," she
found time and strength to compose a series of works on "Morals,"--the
last of the three being produced in the seventy-fifth year of her
age.
In 1828, Miss More was subjected to the severest trial, perhaps, of
her life. After the death of her sister Martha, who had been the
manager of the domestic economy of the sisterhood, affairs at Barley
Wood got into sad confusion. Dishonest and dissolute servants wasted
her substance. After trying in vain to correct the evil by mild
remonstrance, she sank quietly under what seemed inevitable, and
determined to take the infliction as a chastisement to which it was
her duty to submit. At length, however, her friends interposed, and
represented to her the danger of her appearing as the patroness of
vice, and thereby lessening the influence of her writings. It was
determined that her establishment should be broken up. At a bleak
season of the year, on a cold and inclement day, after a long
confinement to her chamber, she removed to Clifton. From her apartment
she was attended by several of the principal gentlemen of the
neighborhood, who had come to protect her from the approach of any
thing that might discompose her. She descended the stairs with a
placid countenance, and walked silently for a few minutes round the
lower room, the walls of which were covered with the portraits of her
old and dear friends, who had successively gone before her. As she was
helped into the carriage, she cast one pensive, parting look upon her
bowers, saying, "I am driven, like Eve, out of paradise; but not, like
Eve, by angels." From the shock of the discovery of the misconduct of
her servants, Miss More never recovered. After her removal to Clifton,
her health was in a very precarious state. To her friends and admirers
it was painful to see her great and brilliant talents descending to
the level of mere ordinary persons; but the good, the kind, the
beneficent qualities of her mind suffered no diminution or abatement.
So long as her intellectual faculties remained but moderately
impaired, her wonted cheerfulness and playfulness of disposition did
not forsake her; and no impatient or querulous expressions escaped her
lips, even in moments of painful suffering. Thus free from the
infirmities of temper, which often render old age unamiable and
unhappy, she was also spared many of the bodily infirmities which
often accompany length of years. To the very last her eye was not dim;
she could read with ease, and without spectacles, the smallest print.
Her bearing was almost unimpaired, and, until very near the close of
her life, her features were not wrinkled or uncomely. Her death-bed
was attended with few of the pains and infirmities which are almost
inseparable from sinking nature. She looked serene, and her breathing
was as gentle as that of an infant in sleep. Her pulse waxed fainter
and fainter, and her spirit passed quietly away on the 7th of
September, 1833.