Lippincotts Magazine of Popular Literature and Science | Page 4

with the colossal fame of Hannah More,
but the idol is long since forgotten, and now, a little more than forty
years after her death, many might ask, Who was Hannah More? She
was the daughter of the schoolmaster at Stapleton, near Bristol, and
was born on the 2d of February, 1745. She was one of five daughters,
who by the education received from their father were enabled to set up
in Bristol a boarding-school for young ladies which had the luck to
become fashionable. Hannah's literary reputation began at the age of
seventeen with a pastoral drama, the Search after Happiness, written
for, and performed by, the young ladies of the boarding-school. On this
slender basis she visited London, was so fortunate as to attract the
attention of Garrick, and was by him introduced into his brilliant circle.
She must have been at that time both witty and pretty, for Mrs.
Montagu and the Reynoldses were delighted with her, Dr. Johnson
gave her pet names, and Horace Walpole called her Saint Hannah. Her
next great success was her tragedy of Percy, in which Garrick sustained
the principal character, and in which Mrs. Siddons afterward appeared.
Later on, Mrs. More published some Sacred Dramas, but after the
death of Garrick she abandoned dramatic writing, her views leading her
to take up what was called, in her day, "strict behavior," of which she
now became the apostle. On her literary profits she retired to Cowslip
Green, near Bristol, and later on to Barley Wood, where she was joined
by her sisters, who were enabled to retire on the handsome profits of
their school. But neither "strict behavior" nor anything else could
weaken Hannah's hold on her day and generation: her Estimate of the

Religion of the Fashionable World went off like hot cakes, and her
Thoughts on the Manners of the Great were scrambled for by both
great and small--seven large editions in a few months, the second in a
week, the third in four hours! How many people now-a-days have read
Coelebs, of which twelve editions were printed in the first year, and in
all thirty thousand copies of disposed of in America alone? Corinne
appeared when Lucilla, the heroine of Coelebs, was at the height of her
popularity, and much animated comparison was instituted between
Corinne and the rival she has long survived.
[Illustration: THE CATHEDRAL]
The first opposition which Hannah More encountered arose from her
efforts to improve the condition of the poor in her neighborhood by
education and the formation of benefit societies. The impulse to this
movement came from Mr. Wilberforce, who, being on a visit at Barley
Wood, was taken on an excursion to Cheddar Cliffs, then, as now, one
of the "sights" of the vicinity. Mr. Wilberforce, while admiring the
scenery, chanced to fall into conversation with one of the inhabitants,
and learned, to his dismay, that the whole beautiful region was sunk in
ignorance and vice. This discovery was discussed in full conclave on
their return to Barley Wood, and Mrs. More undertook to have a school
opened in Cheddar. The school proved a success, and by the aid of the
subscriptions which her name brought from far and near she eventually
extended the system over nine of the neighboring parishes, sunk in the
barbarism of English village-life of that day, of which Cowper's village
of Olney was an example. But this work did not go on as smoothly as
the sale of Coelebs: it at once aroused opposition from the large class
who do not like to see old ruts abandoned, and was branded as
Methodism--an epithet that was then freely used as an extinguisher for
anything novel, and was a "bugaboo" of whose terrors we can have in
this day little conception. Hannah was accused of endeavoring to
spread toleration, and a favorite charge against her was that she had
partaken of "bread and wine in a meeting-house." In vain her sister
Martha explained that she sinned in good company, for many
"High-Church people did the same, and one gentleman and lady with
ten thousand pounds a year, who have always the Church prayers

performed morning and evening in their family." Although the bishop
excused her, it was determined that Hannah was to be crushed by a
review; but all was of no more avail than in the case of Miss Martineau,
which has been recently recalled by her autobiography. Hannah
survived it all, and stuck through thick and thin to her triumphant
schools and her "strict behavior." A less harmful shaft was hurled by a
Bristol wit on an occasion when her clothes took fire and she was saved
by the stout quality of her gown:
Vulcan to scorch thy gown in vain essays: Apollo strives in vain to fire
thy lays.