More, Hannah, one of the most brilliant femaLe ornaments of Christian literature, was born at the village of Stapleton, in Gloucestershire, Feb. 2, 1745, and was the daughter of a clergyman of the Church of England, a man eminent for his classical attainments, and at that time employed as a village schoolmaster in charge of a charity school. Some time after the birth of his daugh- ter Hannah he removed to Bristol, where he kept a pri- vate school. There were other daughters, and the fam- ily soon began to be taken notice of as one in which tliere was a display of talent that was unusual ; so that some exertions were made by persons to whom they were known, and the sisters became early in life estab- lished in a school for the education of girls, which con- tinued for many years the most flourishing establish- ment of the kind in the west of England. Hannah was- from the beginning the most remarkable of the group.. She wrote verse at a very early age, and though these, compositions were highly thought of in the family cir- cle, they were never allowed to go beyond the precincts, of their own house. And yet, ui ways and by circum- stances almost unnoticed, the fame of her literary talent was widely spread, and in 1773 she was prevailed upon to publish a pastoral drama, which was entitled The Search after Happiness. It was brought out under the direction of her pastor. Dr. Stonehouse, a learned cler- gyman of the Church of England. He it was also whO' introduced Hannah to the great literati. In 1774 she published a regular tragedy on the story of Regulus,. and two tales in verse ; and her turn being then thought by her friends to incline to the drama, means were taken to obtain an introduction for her to Garrick, by whom she was very kindly received. He, in turn, introduced her to Dr. Johnson, Burke, Sir Joshua Reynolds, and other persons, who at that time formed what was con- sidered the best literary society of London. Her man- ners and conversation confirmed the good impression elicited by her talents, and the position in society orig- inally conceded as a favor was soon acknowledged as a weU-established right. During this period of her life she produced two tragedies, Percy (1777) and The Fatal Falsehood (1779), and other poems. These attempts at dramatic composition, and the consequent connection with the stage, seem to indicate that she was then, in a great measure, if not altogether, a stranger to evan- gelical views of Christian dutj% But the death of Da- vid Garrick (1779), to whom she had become very much attached, produced a great change in her character. Educated as she had been with a deep impression of the truths of the Christian religion, the life which she now led began to appear to her as unbefitting a creature with the glorious prospects which Christianity opens to man. She therefore determined on forsaking the dra- ma and retiring from the gaj' circles of fashion and of literature, and even quitted London in order the better to devote herself to the life befitting, as she thought, a child of God and an heir of immortality. She estab- lished her residence at a little rural retreat in the vi- cinity of Bristol, named Cowslip Green, where she en- joyed a freshness of feeling and a sweet mental tran- quillity to which she had previously been a stranger. In her transitive state she had produced her Suc7-ed Dramas (1782), a publication more favorably received perhaps than her former works. But she finally re- solved to devote herself to a treatment of subjects
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snrer of good results, and to write with careful prep- aration. Slie felt obliged to confess, to quote her own words from the Preface of the third volume of her works, that slie did not " consider the stage in its pres- ent state as becoming the appearance or countenance of a Christian; on which account she thought proper to renounce her dramatic productions in any other light than as mere poems." llaving become sensible of the follies of the world and the reigning defects of modern society, she resolved to embody the results of her obser- vations and experience in the form of earnest and sol- emn admonitions against them. The first in this series of contemplated works was of a didactic nature, and was entitled Essays to Youw/ Ladies. This was almost immediately followed by Thourjhts on the Manners of the Great, a little volume which was issued in 1788 anon- ymously, and the object of which was to expose, in or- der to amend, the low morality — the loose and licen- tious principles — of fashionable society. Having ex- cited a considerable degree of interest and curiosity, the work was attributed to the pen of more than one person of official dignity in the Churcli as well as the State. But tlie real author was ere long discovered, and the eclat which the discovery gave to her name encouraged her to persevere in the course of moral instruction she had contemplated. Almost ever}' successive year brought out some new production from her pen ; and such was the power as well as the charms of her elo- quent composition that her works were universally ap- plaudeil, and by none more than by the verj' classes whose faults many of them were designed to expose and cen- sure. Thus, immediately after the last-mentioned popu- lar work, ajjpeared A n Estimate of the Religion of the Fashionable World (1791), and this enjoyed as great a measure of success as its predecessor. To counteract the principles of the French Revolution, which had un- settled every European nation, and introduced a wild and turbulent spirit among some classes even of Great Britain, she conferred an incalculable benefit on her country by publishing, first, Village Politics, by Will Chipp, and next a periodical work, "The Cheap Ke- pository Tracts" — a series of admirable tales of a moral and religious nature for the common people, one of which is the well-known Shejiherd of Salisbury Plain. The influence which both these publications had over the popular mind is almost beyond conception. They were circulated by hundreds of thousands in all parts of the United Kingdom, and were more than anything else instrumental in maintaining the cause of onler and of true religion against the torrent of infidel philosophy which had set in so strongly from France. The next work which came from her pen was entitled Strictures on the .Modo'n i^i/stcm of Female Education (1799). Ex- ceptions were taken by some to the "high Calvinistic principles" of this work; but it amounted to little after all, for she was known to do so much good tliat the op- position soon died out. Testimony was borne to its merits by bishop Tortcus, in that he recommended the authoress as a competent person to superintend the edu- cation of the young princess Charlotte; and .ilthough an absurd etiquette, it seems, prevented that responsi- ble office being held l)y any lady beneath the ranks of the aristocracy, slic showed her fitness for the task by the publication of J/ints towards Forming the Character of a Young Princess (1805). After the lapse of some years she published Calebs in Search of a Wife, one of the best of novels in respect lo principle and moral ten- dency; and this was followed by Practical Piety (1811), Christian Morak (1812), The Spirit of Prayer (1813), An Essay on the Character and Writings of St. Paul (1815), and Modirn Sketches (1819). But tliough these literary labors demanded much of her time, she yet found a portion fur i)hilanlhropic hd)or; and having built a |pleasant liume and received her sisters there, she devoted herself with them to the people of her vicinity, especially the ])oor, of whom there were many — it being a mining district — who "had grown up