Lippincotts Magazine of Popular Literature and Science | Page 4

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. Hannah! the cause is visible enough: Stuff is thy raiment, and thy writings--stuff.
[Illustration: BARLEY WOOD, HANNAH MORE'S RESIDENCE.]
A curious incident in Hannah More's life was her encounter with Ann Yearsley, the Bristol Milkwoman, of whom some account