the heart of the philanthropist; and to pass over unnoticed, long years nay decades of unwearied charity, meeting the claims of want under every variety of demand, amid the opposition of the selfish, and the calumnies of the malignant. She may well be said to have gone through "evil report," who was publicly denounced from the pulpit as a disaffected, vicious, seditious woman; who was with Hatfield in his attack on the King; who kept assassins in her pay-who fomented the desire of war— and lastly, who was concerned with Charlotte Cordoy in the murder of Murat!! Surely!" the force of folly could no further go," against one whose life had been spent in the attempt to reform profligate ignorance, to recall presumptuous apostacy, and to remove spiritual degradation.

We are not writing a history of H. More, which can best be read in her own works, and in the pages of her faithful biographer, else could we have enlarged with delight on the calm enjoyments, the tranquil occupations, and the high duties of her domestic life, which sisterly affection heightened, which piety sanctified, and conscience approved. How quiet, but how deep was the love which bound this little happy female family in its golden chain! How pure and how true it was, was not only seen in the unbroken pleasure of their lives, and in their tender respect for each other, but in the calmness and content with which they submitted to their separation in death. "Some natural tears they dropt, but wip'd them soon," as one by one they fell asleep in full maturity of age, with affections unimpaired, and hearts uninjured by the world. Their's was no worldly regret, no forlorn and unsupported grief; they sorrowed not like those who have no hope. It is said, we believe, that there is no solid and substantial joy but what must have been long foreseen and prepared. However that may be, whether true generally or not, we are sure that the gladness and hope and joy of the departing spirit, must have been prepared by a long surrender of itself, when that surrender was the most difficult task it could perform, and the most costly sacrifice it could make. If a speck, a single speck, was seen in the pure mirror of her fading mind, of whose departure from the living we are now speaking; if a cloud, a dimness, passed across the serene light of the long and golden evening of her days,-let us feel and acknowledge that it is another memento, for ever wanted, to remind us that in the midst of strength we are in weakness, and that in a world of trial even our noblest exertions cannot be separated from the imperfect and frail machinery by which they are moved. She who never suffered the activity of her intellect to slumber, who woke at every call of duty, and listened for every tender whisper of conscience, whose moral and spiritual powers were alike in exercise and controul;-she was fated to feel, in common with some of the greatest minds, that her task was done before the night of life had descended, and for a few seasons she was left upon earth to afford a delightful though pensive gratification to the sympathies of her friends, in watching over her wants, who had lived to watch for all; in preserving from anxiety and danger that heart that never faltered nor failed; and in supplying, as far as they could, the place of those exhausted energies which had prematurely perished before the task of love had closed. We were in hopes to have found room to say something more peculiarly on the literary merits of Hannah More's works, but we must forbear. Her Poetical talents we do not estimate highly, though much extolled by Johnson; her Vers de Société are the best; her politics are very shallow, and her eulogies on the

good king, the good queen, and the good bishop, will meet with no favour in these uncourtly and degenerate days; but her Prose works are distinguished for soundness of argument, justness of thought, solidity of reflection, and fullness of illustration. There is a moral eloquence that elevates them; an earnestness and force that comes upon us with the conviction of truth; this, together with the choice of the subjects, and that tone of general censure which never fails to please, made her as popular a moralist in her day, as the Estimate had made Brown in the age preceding. Independently of the great merit of her writings, a lady setting up as the monitor of the age was sure to attract curiosity and admiration; but when Bishops patronized and Queens approved, the success was certain; as probably not a single person ever appropriated the censure that was so widely diffused. Her language is in general select, and her style harmonious; if it has defects, it is perhaps in a want of flexibility and variety. It more resembles Johnson's than Addison's, and indeed it was formed during the time when the Rambler and Adventurer were in the highest reputation; hence perhaps, we find that she uses learned and long words brought from the ancient languages, when a purer Saxon idiom* would have imparted more ease and elegance; but though sometimes incorrect,† her style is free from all affectation, all tawdry, and all tinsel; and is as far as possible from anything approaching to Miss Seward, or Miss Jane Porter, or even Milady Morgan herself:-her Letters are written with grace, vivacity, and politeness; and are rich beyond any book that has been lately published, in recollections of literature, and anecdotes of literary men. We are afraid, that with this work the volumes which could unfold to us the spirit of the Johnsonian age, are for ever closed; the flood of time has risen; the giants who were on earth in those days, are departed; and the latest foot-step printed on the sand, is that of Hannah More, whose name will descend to posterity as one among the "devout and honourable women," of whom England we trust possesses "not a few.”

With regard to the manner in which the book is edited, we have not much to say. Mrs. More's voluminous correspondence, and the fortunate preservation of her letters, has made her, her own biographer; and seldom even is there a necessity for supplying by narrative the intervals of her more interesting letters. Her editor's religious principles are in accordance with those of the person whose life he has published; but they are more positively declared, and more severely watched: his coarse, we fear we must also add, his almost brutal attack on the memory of the late Lord

If, when Mrs. More speaks of a Mr. B-, the poet of urns and obelisks,' visiting her, she means Mr. Lisle Bowles, we pronounce at once and decidedly that she must have been unable to estimate some of the most beautiful and refined and touching poetry in the English language. We hope some one else was meant than the honoured bard of Bremhill.

How could all Miss More's learned friends, critics, bishops, and lexicographers, let her use such a barbarism as- Eulogium'-which she does constantly,-or the saturnine coolness of a geometrical calculation.' There are also some mistakes in points of learning in her works (but she confesses she had no pretensions to learning), but which are not worth pointing out, at least in this place. We find, from p. 406 of the first volume, that the anecdote of Glover the poet destroying Mr. West's bed of tulips in a furor Poeticus,' and which we think was first mentioned by Mr. Southey in print, is Miss More's property: the Laureate probably received it from her. There are some strange mistakes in this book (as vol. iii. p. 500) Parson's dialogue between Hagley, for Porson and Hayley; and Grenville's Ode to Indifference for Greville's!!

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Orford,* we shrink from with disgust; and his parallel between Corinne and Celebs is one that would have been avoided by every person of taste and feeling of the sincerity of Mr. Roberts's opinions, of the warmth of his devotional feelings, and the rectitude of his moral judgment, no doubt can be entertained; we only wish that they had been tempered with that gentleness and meekness and indulgence, that added such a grace to the virtues of her whom he lamented and loved, whom for self-denial in conduct, for sacrifice of ease to duty, for active principles of virtue, and unspotted purity of heart, he has justly held up as a model to the Christian world; and who has herself pronounced that " gentleness is the fruit of piety."

DIARY OF A LOVER OF LITERATURE.

(Resumed from Vol. II. p. 233.)

1808. July 23. Went to the theatre in the evening, to see Miss Baillie's De Montford, which went off very heavily. One is at first amazed that what reads so well, should act so ill; the capital failing appears to be that the characters describe the passions and sentiments which they ought to exhibit. This will be pardoned in the perusal, but in representation becomes glaringly unnatural, and insufferably dull.

Aug. 5. Finished the historical department and chronicle of Annual Register, 1794. The eulogy on Burke's son in the chronicle, though something in Burke's manner, is evidently not from him. By whom is it written? I am surprised the afflicted father should not have poured out his soul upon this topic, in a work he had so long and zealously patronized.

Sept. 12. Finished Zouch's Life of Sir Philip Sydney, a feeble composition. Prentice dined with us, returning from White's funeral-not mentioned in his will; remarked that on these occasions there is the melancholy satisfaction of ascertaining in what real degree of esteem you have have been held by professed friends.

Sept. 14. Read Duppa's Life of Michael Angelo, a piece of biography utterly unworthy of the subject. Roscoe has treated the same in a smaller compass, with far more spirit. Duppa, as Roscoe I think did before him, speculates on M. Angelo's being the remote cause of the Reformation, by occasioning the rebuilding of St. Peter's, and the consequent profuse sale of indulgences. Duppa, who is a great stickler for the beau ideal, states a distinctive character of M. Angelo and the antient sculptors; that the former made ideal beauty and aggregate form subservient to expression, the latter made expression and animated feelings subservient to form. One is delighted in finding in M. Angelo, a natural, erect and independent spirit, as simple and sublime as his genius, in this respect how different from our -!

Oct. 28. Read the first seven of Paley's posthumous sermons; the first and third are on a subject, which Hume has treated with his usual penetration; the strange indifference of firm believers to their destiny in

* This attack on Lord Orford by the Editor, is absolutely written in defiance of Miss More's having dedicated one of her works to him, in which she speaks of the agreeable information she had received from his writings; and adds, that among the brilliant and lively things she heard from him, she never remembers to have heard an unkind or ungenerous one, and adds her feeble testimony to the temperate use he made of his wit, guided by politeness, and directed by humanity.' To what unseemly lengths will not bigotry and violence drive even persons of sense and breeding!

a future state.' I remark one distinguishing excellence in Paley, which has a powerful effect in winning confidence; he is never so engrossed with a view he is taking of a subject, as not to be disposed to give due consideration and weight to its other bearings.

Oct. 7. Perused Hutchinson's Memoirs. What days of romance were those when a grave gentleman actually expires for grief and anguish at the decease of a gentleman whom he never heard of, but from the deploration of the loss; and when that mirror of excellence Col. Hutchinson himself, becomes smitten with his lady, and sickens at her supposed marriage, long before he saw her-merely from report. Yet, from former experience of something analogous, I believe devoutly that all this is in nature. Mrs. H.'s account of her husband's first passion for her is given with much simplicity and tenderness; one is amazed how much devotion mingled itself with all the feelings of this day; her view of political or rather religious affairs from the Reformation to the long Parliament is very interesting. One gets by the narrative at the root of the feelings of the times on the subject. The fashionable Protestant doctrine of passive obedience to princes, she considers as originating in opposition to the mad prostrating doctrines of its enthusiastic members, the Munster Anabaptists, &c.; and Elizabeth's execution of that Jezebel Mary Queen of Scots, to the danger from a Papist successor to the English throne. There are many passages of most beautiful writing, as when she talks of the thunder in 1639 heard rattling afar off, and flashes penetrating the most obscure woods, forerunners of the storm which next year was more apparent, and of the mischief "when hands which were made only for distaffs, affect the management of sceptres." The passage too respecting Buckingham is fine. "That he seemed an unhappy exhalation drawn up from the earth, not only to cloud the setting but the rising sun." The pious and candid Mrs. Hutchinson almost invariably denominates the royal party, "debosht malignants," and her own," the godly." The account of Colonel Thornhagh's death, at the battle of Preston, is a fine history piece, and may be placed beside Wolfe's. It is curious to observe how seriously she ascribes all impulses on extraordinary occasions to a call from the Lord. The Colonel sought this call by prayer, in sitting in judgment on Charles the First; what a fertile field for delusion and hypocrisy. Cromwell's irresistible powers of cajoling are exemplified by many anecdotes most important to a life of him.

Oct. 25. Began Mad. Cottin's Mathilde: the style and sentiments are pure and delicate, but appear tame and feeble beside the glowing colours of Corinne; the infant passion scarcely felt and not recognized, gradually rising by imperceptible accretions in the bosom of Mathilde, is designed with exquisite delicacy; but on the whole there is too much refinement of sentiment, and the occasional descriptions of natural scenery are much too elaborate, and put on like studies from another hand, instead of springing naturally from the circumstances in which they occur. As one proceeds, the extravagance of the fiction, rendered more insupportable by being grafted upon fact, gradually damps and extinguishes that interest, which length of narrative has a natural tendency to cherish, and one hurries over the latter volumes with impatience to reach the close. the 27th chap. is a just reflection which I do not remember to have seen so fully exhibited. Il n'ya de vraies et durables jouissances que celles que les longues esperances ont achetées, passant en un instant du desir au bonheur, nous passerions en un instant du bonheur au degoût, et du

In

degoût à la mort peut-être, car elle est moins cruelle que lui. Ainsi un jour aurait suffi pour devorer notre rapide existence, et souvent encore l'aurions nous etrouvé trop long.

Nov. 7. Called on Clubbe yesterday before dinner; in a hideous state; afraid to die, and terrified by his apprehension into a persuasion that he must; expressed himself quite satisfied with his reasoning, and practice in his profession.

Nov. 20. Read the first piece in the collection of Paley's Tracts. Considerations on subscription; a most exquisite morceau of controversial writing, replete with keen and just criticism, but nothing after Paley's manner, except in viewing a topic and an argument with its exact limitations, and various bearings; a species of discernment of inestimable use in conflict with a loose writer. I should not have expected that Paley would have taken so decided a part in favour of full freedom of inquiry, and against subscription to Articles. He would have the pulpit like the press, restricted solely to subsequent reprehension, and not by the imposition of any previous limitation. He speaks very happily of the advantage of altering our Articles, "in freeing the governors of the Church from the difficulty of defending some of its decayed fortifications, and the indecency of destroying them."

Nov. 27. A wretched day, never stirred out; read the first three of Paley's Sermons, collected in his Tracts. The first delivers some very judicious cautions against applying scriptural expressions, which were only applicable at the time they were delivered, to present circumstances.Regeneration-for example, (which might truly be applied to the state of a person converted to Christianity), to any supposed sudden change in a person, brought up and professing the Christian religion, wlten it can have no place. The second gives some excellent advice to young clergymen― from the third, BURKE seems to have taken the argument in his Reflections, in favour of different orders of the Church, as adapting ministers of religion to the different ranks of civil society;* and perhaps the spirit of his remark on ballasting the vessel, according to circumstances in which she is placed, may have been borrowed from a subsequent recommendation, on the doctrines to be proposed, or discontinued, according to the prevailing propensity of their minds at the time.

Nov. 28. Beautiful effect of the setting sun pouring its bright effulgence on the town, relieved by the azure hills, and mountain-like clouds. Yet I am still of a fixed opinion, that in engravings, drawings, and paintings, the sky is usually made too forcible,† solid, and substantial, for the ground.

Dec. 15. Finished Franklin's Works.-Priestley's closing letter, giving an account of Franklin's character and conduct, is highly interesting. Of

Cowper's severe strictures on this position of Paley, in his Letters, is probably known to most of our readers. Had Paley taken different ground, and argued abstractedly, that such a variety of orders in the church would be advantageous, his argument would have been right; his error lay, in asserting absolutely, that the different orders of the church perform distinct duties to distinct ranks of society, which is perfectly false.-ED.

+ Does Mr. Green intend to say, that the sky, in paintings in general, is too substantially painted to imitate nature; or does he mean, to produce its proper effect in a picture? If the latter, it would convey a general censure on landscape painters; if the former, it is answered by Joshua Reynolds completely in his Lectures.-ED.

GENT. MAG. VOL. III.

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