HANNAH MORE. 1745-1833.

Hannah More was born on the 2nd of February, 1745, in the hamlet of Fishponds in Stapleton parish, about four miles from Bristol. Her father was the Master of the Free School of that place. His five daughters grew up to follow his profession, opening, in 1757, a boarding-school in Bristol, which was very successful. Hannah’s early womanhood was passed at Bristol, with occasional visits to London, where she was welcomed by the most brilliant society of the day. After the death of her dear friend Garrick, in 1779, she gradually withdrew herself from the world. In 1785 she went to live at Cowslip Green, whence she removed in 1800 to Barley Wood, near Wrington, eight miles from Bristol. Her sisters shared her home, devotedly laboring with her among the poor. Death took them from her one by one, and at last, in September, 1833, she followed them. She had removed to Clifton in order to be under the care of friends.

It is sadly to be feared that some of her once very popular works, which undoubtedly accomplished much good in their day, have passed with modern readers into the category of “books which are no books,”—among which Charles Lamb reckoned “court calendars, directories, pocket-books, draught-boards, bound and lettered at the back, ... and generally, all those volumes which ‘no gentleman’s library should be without.’” The whirligig of time brings in new fashions of thought and expression, and “the ways of literature are strewn all over with the shells of books which the public has devoured and forgotten.” But to turn from the works of Mrs. More’s pen and read of the works of her helping hands among the poor, is as though, in some old-time garden where the untrimmed box-borders have grown into sad confusion, and the old flowers with the odd names have ceased to bloom, we came suddenly upon the fresh wild-rose that is never out of fashion. The story of the sturdy struggles of this delicate woman with the squalor, ignorance, and indifference of that barbarous rural England of the eighteenth and early nineteenth century, brings her near to us to-day, claiming a respectful admiration which modern taste hardly accords to her writings.

Poems: The Search After Happiness. Sir Eldred of the Bower and the Legend of Sensibility. The Bas Bleu. Florio. Bleeding Rock. Bible Rhymes.

Dramas: Percy, A Tragedy, performed at Covent Garden Theatre, 1777. Fatal Falsehood, performed in 1779. The Inflexible Captive.

Prose Works: Thoughts on the Manners of the Great. Estimate of the Religion of the Fashionable World. Strictures on Female Education. Cælebs in Search of a Wife, 1808. Practical Piety. Christian Morals. Moral Sketches.

At an early age she evinced a large aptitude for learning, and a desire for information. When her mother first began to think of teaching her to read, she found Hannah had already made considerable progress, from attending to the instructions bestowed on her elder sisters.

Her nurse having lived in the family of Dryden, the inquisitive mind of the intelligent child was incessantly prompting her to ask for stories about the poet; and to her father’s excellent memory she was indebted for long stories from the Greek and Roman histories. Whilst sitting on his knee, he would, to gratify her ear by the sound, repeat speeches of her favorite heroes, in their original language, afterward translating them into English.

Mr. More imparted to his daughters the rudiments both of Latin and of the mathematics, and was afterward, it is said, alarmed at the proficiency of his pupils.

Mrs. Elwood: ‘Memoirs of the Literary Ladies of England.’ London: Henry Colburn, 1843.

At this early period, too, the signs of that precarious health which exercised her piety and virtue by so many trials in the course of her long life, began to appear; and it was recorded in the family, that pain and suffering were in her at that early period without their usual attendants of fretfulness and impatience.

In her days of infancy, when she could possess herself of a scrap of paper, her delight was to scribble upon it some essay or poem, with some well-directed moral, which was afterward secreted in a dark corner where the servant kept her brushes and dusters. Her little sister, with whom she slept, was usually the repository of her nightly effusions; who, in her zeal lest these compositions should be lost, would sometimes steal down to procure a light, and commit them to the first scrap of paper which she could find. Among the characteristic sports of Hannah’s childhood, which their mother was fond of recording, we are told that she was wont to make a carriage of a chair, and then call to her sisters to ride with her to London to see bishops and booksellers; an intercourse which we shall hereafter show to have been realized. The greatest wish her imagination could frame, when her scraps of paper were exhausted, was, that she might one day be rich enough to have a whole quire to herself; and when, by her mother’s indulgence, the prize was obtained, it was soon filled with supposititious letters to depraved characters, to reclaim them from their errors, and letters in return expressive of contrition and resolutions of amendment.

This branch of the family was attached to the established church, Mr. More himself being a stanch Tory, and what is known as a High Churchman; but the other members of the family were Presbyterians, and the daughters of Mr. Jacob More had frequently heard their father say that he had two great-uncles captains in Oliver Cromwell’s army. Jacob More’s mother appears, from family tradition, to have possessed a mind of more than ordinary vigor. She was a pious woman, and used to tell her younger relatives that they would have known how to value gospel privileges had they lived, like her, in the days of proscription and persecution, when, at midnight, pious worshippers went with stealthy steps through the snow, to hear the words of inspiration delivered by a holy man at her father’s house; while her father, with a drawn sword, guarded the entrance from violent or profane intrusion.

I would wish you a Merry Christmas as well as a Happy New-Year, but that I hate the word merry so applied; it is a fitter epithet for a bacchanalian than a Christian festival, and seems an apology for idle mirth and injurious excess.

Hannah More: Letter to her sister from Hampton 1780, in ‘Memoirs,’ by W. Roberts.

On Sunday evening I was a little alarmed; they were preparing for music (sacred music was the ostensible thing), but before I had time to feel uneasy, Garrick turned round and said, “Nine,[1] you are a Sunday woman; retire to your room—I will recall you when the music is over.”

Hannah More: Letter to her sister, from Farnborough Place, 1777, in ‘Memoirs,’ by W. Roberts.

We spent an agreeable evening at Dr. Cadogan’s, where Mrs. Montagu and I, being the only two monsters in the creation who never touch a card (and laughed at enough for it we are), had the fireside to ourselves; and a more elegant and instructive conversation I have seldom enjoyed.

Hannah More: Letter to her sister from London 1777, in ‘Memoirs,’ by W. Roberts.

I am going, to-day, to a great dinner; nothing can be conceived so absurd, extravagant and fantastical as the present mode of dressing the head. Simplicity and modesty are things so much exploded, that the very names are no longer remembered. I have just escaped from one of the most fashionable disfigurers; and though I charged him to dress me with the greatest simplicity, and to have only a very distant eye upon the fashion, just enough to avoid the pride of singularity; yet in spite of all these sage didactics, I absolutely blush at myself.

Hannah More: Letter to her sister, from London 1776, in ‘Memoirs,’ by W. Roberts.

Again I am annoyed by the foolish absurdity of the present mode of dress. Some ladies carry on their heads a large quantity of fruit, and yet they would despise a poor useful member of society who carried it there for the purpose of selling it for bread. Some, at the back of their perpendicular caps, hang four or five ostrich feathers, of different colors, etc. Spirit of Addison! thou pure and gentle shade arise! thou who, with such fine humor, and such polished sarcasm, didst lash the cherry-colored hood and the party patches; awake! for the follies thou didst lash were but the beginning of follies; and the absurdities thou didst censure were but the seeds of absurdities!

Hannah More: Letter to her sister, from London, 1776, in ‘Memoirs,’ by W. Roberts.

The other night we had a great deal of company, eleven damsels, to say nothing of men. I protest I hardly do them justice, when I pronounce that they had, among them, on their heads, an acre and a half of shrubbery, besides slopes, grass-plots, tulip-beds, clumps of peonies, kitchen-gardens, and green-houses.... I have no doubt that they held in great contempt our roseless heads and leafless necks.

Hannah More: Letter to her sister, from Burgay, 1777, in ‘Memoirs,’ by W. Roberts.

And now we are upon vanities, what do you think is the reigning mode as to powder?—only turmeric, that coarse dye which stains yellow. The Goths and Vandals, the Picts and Saxons, are come again. It falls out of the hair, and stains the skin so that every pretty lady must look as yellow as a crocus, which I suppose will become a better compliment than as white as a lily.

Hannah More: Letter to her sister, from Hampton, 1782, in ‘Memoirs,’ by W. Roberts.

The other evening they carried me to Mrs. Ord’s assembly; I was quite dressed for the purpose; Mrs. Garrick gave me an elegant cap, and put it on herself; so that I was quite sure of being smart; but how short-lived is all human joy! and see what it is to live in the country! When I came into the drawing-rooms I found them full of company, every human creature in deep mourning, and I, poor I, all gorgeous in scarlet. I never recollected that the mourning for some foreign Wilhelmina Jaquelina was not over. However, I got over it as well as I could, made an apology, lamented the ignorance in which I had lately lived, and I hope this false step of mine will be buried in oblivion.

Hannah More: Letter to her sister, from London, 1780, in ‘Memoirs,’ by W. Roberts.

I find my dislike of what are called public diversions greater than ever, except a play; and when Garrick has left the stage, I could be very well contented to relinquish plays also, and to live in London, without ever again setting my foot in a public place.

Hannah More: Letter to her sister, from London, 1776, in ‘Memoirs,’ by W. Roberts.

I had no less than five invitations to dine abroad to-day, but preferred the precious and rare luxury of solitude.

‘Percy’ is acted again this evening: do any of you choose to go? I can write you an order: for my own part, I shall enjoy a much superior pleasure—that of sitting by the fire, in a great chair.

Hannah More: Letters to her sister, from London, 1777 and 1778, in ‘Memoirs,’ by W. Roberts.

On Monday I was at a very great assembly at the Bishop of St. Asaph’s. Conceive to yourself one hundred and fifty or two hundred people met together, dressed in the extremity of the fashion; painted as red as bacchanals; poisoning the air with perfumes; treading on each other’s gowns; making the crowd they blame; and not one in ten able to get a chair; protesting they are engaged to ten other places, and lamenting the fatigue they are not obliged to endure; ten or a dozen card-tables crammed with dowagers of quality, grave ecclesiastics, and yellow admirals; and you have an idea of an assembly. I never go to these things when I can possibly avoid it, and stay, when there, as few minutes as I can.

Hannah More: Letter to her sister, from Hampton, 1782, in ‘Memoirs,’ by W. Roberts.

With the well-known writer, Dr. Langhorne, when vicar of Blagdon, she long maintained a poetical and literary correspondence. The introduction took place in 1773, while she was recovering from an attack of ague, at Uphill, on the Somersetshire coast. The doctor was at the time taking his recreation at the neighboring and better known watering-place, Weston-Super-Mare. They often rode together upon the sands; Miss More, as the custom then was, on the pillion behind her servant; and when it happened that either chanced to miss the other, a paper was placed in a cleft post near the water, generally containing some quaint remark, or a few verses. On one of these occasions, the doctor committed his wit and gallantry to the sand, on which he inscribed with his cane:

“Along the shore
Walked Hannah More;
Waves! let this record last:
Sooner shall ye,
Proud earth and sea,
Than what she writes, be past.

John Langhorne.”

“Some firmer basis, polish’d Langhorne, choose,
To write the dictates of thy charming muse;
Thy strains in solid characters rehearse,
And be thy tablet lasting as thy verse.

Hannah More.”

His residence at Belmont was beautifully situated, and he had carriages and horses and every thing to make a visit to Belmont agreeable. He permitted his cousins to ask any young persons at the school to spend their vacations with them. Their governesses being nearly of their own age, they made choice of the two youngest of the sisters—Hannah and Patty More. The consequence was natural. She was very clever and fascinating, and he was generous and sensible; he became attached, and made his offer, which was accepted. He was a man of large fortune, and she was young and dependent; she quitted her interest in the concern of the school, and was at great expense in preparing and fitting herself out to be the wife of a man of large fortune. The day was fixed more than once for the marriage, and Mr. Turner each time postponed it. Her sisters and friends interfered, and would not permit her to be so treated and trifled with. He continued in the wish to marry her; but her friends, after his former conduct, and on other accounts, persevered in keeping up her determination not to renew the engagement.

Since I wrote last, Hannah has been introduced by Miss Reynolds to Baretti, to Edmund Burke—the sublime and beautiful Edmund 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, as Miss Reynolds informed poor us.

... We have paid another visit to Miss Reynolds. She had sent to engage Dr. Percy (Percy’s collection—now you know him), quite a spritely modern, instead of a rusty antique, as I expected. He was no sooner gone than Miss Reynolds ordered the coach to take us to Dr. Johnson’s very own house; yes, Abyssinia’s Johnson! Dictionary Johnson! Rambler’s, Idler’s, and Irene’s Johnson!

... 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 (as it rained), 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 little parlor when we came in, Hannah seated herself in his great chair, hoping to catch a little ray of his genius; when he heard it he laughed heartily, and said it was a chair on which he never sat.

Tuesday evening we drank tea at Sir Joshua’s with Dr. Johnson. Hannah is certainly a great favorite. She was placed next him, and they had the entire conversation to themselves. They were both in remarkably high spirits; it was certainly her lucky night! I never heard her say so many good things. The old genius was extremely jocular, and the young one very pleasant. You would have imagined we had been at some comedy had you heard our peals of laughter. They, indeed, tried which could “pepper the highest,” and it is not clear to me that the lexicographer was really the highest seasoner.

It is nothing but “child,” “little fool,” “love,” and “dearest.” After much critical discourse, he turns round to me, and with one of his most amiable looks, which must be seen to form the least idea of it, he says: “I have heard that you are engaged in the useful and honorable employment of teaching young ladies,” upon which ... we entered upon the history of our birth, parentage, and education; showing how we were born with more desires than guineas; and how, as years increased our appetites, the cupboard at home began to grow too small to gratify them; and how, with a bottle of water, a bed, and a blanket, we set out to seek our fortunes; and how we found a great house, with nothing in it; and how it was like to remain so, till looking into our knowledge-boxes, we happened to find a little learning, a good thing when land is gone, or rather none: and so at last, by giving a little of this little learning to those who had less, we got a good store of gold in return; but how, alas! we wanted the wit to keep it.—“I love you both,” cried the inamorato—“I love you all five—I never was at Bristol—I will come on purpose to see you—what! five women live happily together!—I will come and see you—I have spent a happy evening—I am glad I came—God for ever bless you, you live lives to shame duchesses.”

Sally More: Letters to her sisters, London, 1774-5, 6, in ‘Memoirs of Hannah More,’ by W. Roberts.

Her ‘Search after Happiness’ had reached a sixth edition. An edition was sent from Philadelphia, with two complimentary poems addressed to the author; and the profits of the sale had netted £100. She thought, therefore, not without reason, that she had established sufficient literary reputation to justify her in setting a high pecuniary value on her writings. She, therefore, offered at once to Mr. (afterwards Alderman) Cadell two little poems, to form a thin quarto, after the fashion of the day, requesting to know what he would give for them, and stating at the same time that she would not part with them for “a very paltry consideration.” Mr. Cadell, though he had not seen the poems, was so well prepared to entertain high expectations, that he immediately offered to give Miss More whatever Goldsmith might have received for his ‘Deserted Village.’ This she was unable to discover, and therefore she laid her demand at forty guineas, which the popularity of the volume amply justified. It comprised ‘Sir Eldred of the Bower,’ a tale which appears to have been suggested by her taste for ballad literature, which Percy’s ‘Reliques of Ancient Poetry’ had revived; and ‘The Legend of the Bleeding Rock’ before mentioned. The former of these pieces was honored by the revision, and even more, by the critical touch of Johnson, whose pen has furnished the stanza which now appears in it:

“My scorn has oft the dart repell’d
Which guileful beauty threw;
But goodness heard, and grace beheld,
Must every heart subdue.”

It is not possible for anything on earth to be more agreeable to my taste than my present manner of living. I am so much at my ease; have a great many hours at my own disposal, to read my own books and see my own friends; and, whenever I please, may join the most polished and delightful society in the world. Our breakfasts are little literary societies; there is generally company at meals, as they think it saves time, by avoiding the necessity of seeing people at other seasons. Mr. Garrick sets the highest value upon his time of any body I ever knew. From dinner to tea we laugh, chat, and talk nonsense; the rest of his time is generally devoted to study.

To the most eloquent expression of the eye, to the handwriting of the passions on his features, to a sensibility which tears to pieces the hearts of his auditors, to powers so unparalleled, he adds a judgment of the most exquisite accuracy, the fruit of long experience and close observation, by which he preserves every gradation and transition of the passions, keeping all under the control of a just dependence and natural consistency.... It was a fiction as delightful as fancy, and as touching as truth. A few nights before I saw him in Abel Drugger; and had I not seen him in both, I should have thought it as possible for Milton to have written ‘Hudibras,’ and Butler ‘Paradise Lost,’ as for one man to have played Hamlet and Drugger with such excellence.

I’ll tell you the most ridiculous circumstance in the world. After dinner Garrick took up the Monthly Review (civil gentlemen, by the way, these monthly reviewers) and read ‘Sir Eldred’ with all his pathos and all his graces. I think I never was so ashamed in my life; but he read it so superlatively, that I cried like a child. Only think what a scandalous thing, to cry at the reading of one’s own poetry! I could have beaten myself; for it looked as if I thought it very moving, which I can truly say is far from being the case. But the beauty of the jest lies in this: Mrs. Garrick twinkled as well as I, and made as many apologies for crying at her husband’s reading as I did for crying at my own verses. She got out of the scrape by pretending she was touched at the story and I by saying the same thing of the reading. It furnished us with a great laugh at the catastrophe, when it would really have been decent to have been a little sorrowful.

Hannah More: Letters to her sisters, London, 1776, in ‘Memoirs,’ by W. Roberts.

The sisters were one day dining at the Adelphi, at one of Garrick’s small parties, at which was present “a young gentleman of family and fortune, and greatly accomplished,” who had been visiting most of the courts of Europe, and was just about to publish his travels in Spain. The rest is in the writer’s own words: “Hannah sat mute; only sometimes addressed herself to Mr. Garrick. However, this was not to last forever. Mrs. G. threatened H. to discover who she was; but she entreated she would be silent. At length the discovery was made by the lady of the house saying, in her sweet, pretty, foreign accent, ‘Pray, sir, why don’t you address your Spanish to this lady, and see if she pronounces well?’ The gentleman stared, and instantly made violent love to her in Italian, little thinking that in that language the lady was his match; but when he made what he thought these vast discoveries, he turned to Mr. Garrick—‘Why, sir, did you not tell me I was in company with a learned lady?’ ‘With a learned lady, sir,’ replies the universal enchanter; ‘why, sir, that lady is a great genius! Sir, she has published more than you ever will with all your travelling! She is My Dramatic Pupil, sir!’ Oh! the poor dear petrified gentleman! You never, madam, saw a man so astonished; as he seems to think printing the ne plus ultra of all human perfection. He then paid vast attention to miss, and was quite struck when he attended to her replies, as you know she can find a pretty answer for most questions.”

It is impossible to tell you of all the kindness and friendship of the Garricks; he thinks of nothing, talks of nothing, writes of nothing but ‘Percy.’... When Garrick had finished his prologue and epilogue (which are excellent), he desired I would pay him. Dryden, he said, used to have five guineas a piece, 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 beefsteak and a pot of porter; and at about twelve we sat down to some toast and honey, with which the temperate bard contented himself.

Mr. Garrick’s study, Adelphi; ten at night.—He himself puts the pen into my hand, and bids me say that all is just as it should be. Nothing was ever more warmly received. I went with Mr. and Mrs. Garrick; sat in Mr. Harris’s box, in a snug, dark corner, and behaved very well; that is, very quietly. The prologue and epilogue were received with bursts of applause; so, indeed, was the whole; as much beyond my expectation as my deserts!

I am just returned from the second night, and it was, if possible, received more favorably than on the first. One tear is worth a thousand hands, and I had the satisfaction to see even the men shed them in abundance.

The critics (as is usual) met at the Bedford last night, to fix the character of the play. If I were a heroine of romance, and was writing to my confidante, I should tell you all the fine things that were said; but as I am a real living Christian woman, I do not think it would have been so modest.

Hannah More: Letters to her sisters, London, 1777, in ‘Memoirs,’ by W. Roberts.

I am very much pleased to find that ‘Percy’ meets with your approbation. It has been extremely successful, far beyond my expectation, and more so than any tragedy has been for many years. The profits were not so great as they would have been, had it been brought out when the town was full; yet they were such as I have no reason to complain of. The author’s nights, sale of the copy, etc., amounted to near six hundred pounds (this is entre nous); and as my friend Mr. Garrick has been so good as to lay it out for me on the best security, and at five per cent., it makes a decent little addition to my small income. Cadell gave £150—a very handsome price, with conditional promises. He confesses (a thing not usual) that it has had a very great sale, and that he shall get a good deal of money by it. The first impression was near four thousand, and the second is almost sold.

Hannah More: Letter to Mrs. Gwatkin, Hampton, 1778, in ‘Memoirs,’ by W. Roberts.

“I went,” she says, “yesterday with the Wilmots to pay a visit to the coffin. The last time the same party met in the room was—to see him perform Macbeth! ... there was room for meditation till the mind burst with thinking. His new house is not so pleasant as Hampton, nor so splendid as the Adelphi; but it is commodious enough for all the wants of the inhabitant. Besides it is so quiet, that he never will be disturbed till the eternal morning; and never till then will a sweeter voice than his be heard.” From this moment Hannah More appears to have resolved on the entire dedication of all her mental powers and acquirements, of all her influence, her time, her efforts, to the attainment of a crown which should not wither on her tomb.

Just returned from the house; the applause was as great as her most sanguine friends could wish. Miss Young was interrupted three different times, in the speech on false honor, with bursts of approbation. When Rivers, who was thought dead, appeared in the fifth act, they quite shouted for joy. The curtain fell to slow music,—and now for the moment when the fate of the piece was to be decided! The audience did her the honor to testify their approbation by the warmest applause that could possibly be given; for when Hull came forward to ask their permission to perform it again, they did give leave by three loud shouts, and by many huzzaings.

——[2] More: Letter to her sisters, London, 1779, in “Memoirs of Hannah More,” by W. Roberts.

Mrs. Garrick and I read to ourselves sans intermission.... We never see a human face but each other’s. Though in such deep retirement, I am never dull, because I am not reduced to the fatigue of entertaining dunces, or of being obliged to listen to them. We dress like a couple of Scaramouches, dispute like a couple of Jesuits, eat like a couple of aldermen, walk like a couple of porters, and read as much as two doctors of either university.

Hannah More: Letters to her sisters, Hampton, 1780, in ‘Memoirs,’ by W. Roberts.

We go to-morrow to smell the lilacs and syringas at Hampton. I long for the sweet tranquillity of that delicious retreat.

Hannah More: Letter to Mrs. Gwatkin, London, 1776, in ‘Memoirs,’ by W. Roberts.

I did not think there could have been so beautiful a place [as Wimbledon Park] within seven miles of London; the park has as much variety of ground, and is as un-Londonish as if it were a hundred miles off; and I enjoyed the violets and the birds more than all the marechal powder and the music of this foolish town.

Hannah More: Letter to her sister, from London, 1780, in ‘Memoirs,’ by W. Roberts.

The cottage, except by the growth of the trees then planted, is little altered from its appearance in 1785, when Miss More first took possession of it. It is only one story high; the roof is thatch; a smooth lawn, with a few shrubs and trees, fronts the window of the drawing-room, which looks toward the south. A border of flowers runs nearly round the walls. Situate in the midst of the bright and fertile vale of Wrington, Cowslip Green commands a variety of exquisite views. On one side of the lawn rises the abrupt hill on which the noble mansion of Aldwick Court has since been erected. To the south spreads the rich and sylvan valley, bounded by the dark outline of the Mendips, with their warm-tinted herbage and dusky woods, casting out in bold relief the picturesque village of Blagdon, and the “Magick Garden” of Mendip Lodge with its noble terraces of

while between them the cottage roofs and venerable tower of Burrington shelter in the leafy skirts of their bold and rocky coomb.

Her ingratitude to Miss More has been superlative. The latter labored unweariedly to collect subscriptions for her, and was at expense herself for the publication; and lest the husband, who is a dolt, should waste the sum collected, placed it out at interest for her as trustee, besides having washed and combed her trumpery verses, and taught them to dance in tune. The foolish woman’s head, turned with the change of fortune and applause, and concluding that her talent, which was only wonderful from her sphere and state of ignorance, was marvellous genius, she grew enraged at Miss More for presuming to prune her wild shoots, and, in her passion, accused her benevolent and beneficent friend of defrauding her of part of the collected charity.... Am I in the wrong, madam, for thinking that these parish Sapphos had better be bound ’prentices to mantua-makers, than be appointed chambermaids to Mesdemoiselles the Muses?

Horace Walpole: Letter to the Countess of Ossory, 1786, in ‘The Letters of Horace Walpole, Earl of Oxford.’ London: Henry G. Bohn, 1861.

Perhaps it is the best answer to your question, to describe the origin and progress of one of our schools, detached from the rest. And I select Cheddar, which you were the immediate cause of our taking up. After the discoveries made of the deplorable state of that place, my sister and I went and took lodging at a little public-house there, to see what we could do, for we were utterly at a loss how to begin. We found more than two thousand people in the parish, almost all very poor; no gentry; a dozen wealthy farmers, hard, brutal, and ignorant. We visited them all, picking up at one house (like fortune-tellers) the name and character of the next. We told them we intended to set up a school for their poor. They did not like it. We assured them we did not desire a shilling from them, but wished for their concurrence, as we knew they could influence their workmen. One of the farmers seemed pleased and civil; he was rich, but covetous, a hard drinker, and his wife a woman of loose morals, but good natural sense; she became our friend sooner than some of the decent and formal, and let us a house, the only one in the parish at £7 per annum, with a good garden. Adjoining to it was a large ox-house; this we roofed and floored, and, by putting in a couple of windows, it made a good school-room. While this was doing, we went to every house in the place, and found every house a scene of the greatest ignorance and vice. We saw but one Bible in all the parish, and that was used to prop a flower-pot. No clergyman had resided in it for forty years. One rode over, three miles from Wells, to preach once on a Sunday, but no weekly duty was done, or sick persons visited, and children were often buried without any funeral service. Eight people in the morning and twenty in the afternoon, was a good congregation. We spent our whole time in getting at the characters of all the people, the employment, wages, and number of every family; and this we have done in our other nine parishes. On a fixed day, of which we gave notice in the church, every woman, with all her children above six years old, met us. We took an exact list from their account, and engaged one hundred and twenty to attend on the following Sunday. A great many refused to send their children, unless we would pay them for it; and not a few refused, because they were not sure of my intentions, being apprehensive that at the end of seven years, if they attended so long, I should acquire a power over them, and send them beyond sea. I must have heard this myself in order to believe that so much ignorance existed out of Africa. While this was going on, we had set every engine at work to find proper teachers.... For the first year these excellent women had to struggle with every kind of opposition, so that they were frequently tempted to give up their laborious employ. They well entitled themselves to £30 per annum salary, and some little presents. We established a weekly school of thirty girls, to learn reading, sewing, knitting, and spinning. The latter, though I tried three sorts, and went myself to almost every clothing town in the county, did not answer—partly from the exactions of the manufacturer, and partly from its not suiting the genius of the place. They preferred knitting after the school hours on week-days. The mother and daughter [the teachers employed by Miss More] visited the sick, chiefly with a view to their spiritual concerns; but we concealed the true motive at first; and in order to procure them access to the houses and hearts of the people, they were furnished not only with medicine, but with a little money, which they administered with great prudence. They soon gained their confidence, read and prayed to them; and in all respects did just what a good clergyman does in other parishes. At the end of a year we perceived that much ground had been gained among the poor; but the success was attended with no small persecution from the rich, though some of them grew more favorable. I now ventured to have a sermon read after school on a Sunday evening, inviting a few of the parents, and keeping the grown-up children. It was at first thought a very Methodistical measure, and we got a few broken windows; but quiet perseverance carried us through.

Finding the distresses of these poor people uncommonly great (for their wages are but 1s. per day), and fearing to abuse the bounty of my friends by too indiscriminate liberality, it occurred to me that I could make what I had to bestow go much further, by instituting clubs or societies for the women, as is done for men in other places. It was no small trouble to accomplish this; for though the subscription was only three half-pence a week, it was more than they could always raise; yet the object appeared so important, that I found it would be good economy privately to give widows and other very poor women money to pay their club.... In some parishes we have one hundred and fifty poor women thus associated.... We have an anniversary feast of tea, and I get some of the clergy, and not a few of the better sort of people, to come to it. We wait on the women, who sit and enjoy their dignity.

Hannah More: Letter to Mr. Wilberforce, 1791, in ‘Memoirs,’ by W. Roberts.

I visited Hannah More, at Cowslip Green, on Monday last, and seldom have I lived a pleasanter day. She knew my opinions, and treated them with a flattering deference; her manners are mild, her information considerable, and her taste correct. There are five sisters, and each of them would be remarked in a mixed company. They pay for and direct the education of one thousand poor children.

Robert Southey: Letter, Oct., 1795, in ‘Life and Correspondence,’ edited by Rev. C. C. Southey, M. A. London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longman’s, 1849.

We have in hand a new and very laborious undertaking, on account of its great distance from home. But the object appeared to me so important, that I did not feel myself at liberty to neglect it. It is a parish, the largest in our county or diocese, in a state of great depravity and ignorance. The opposition I have met with in endeavoring to establish an institution for the religious instruction of these people would excite your astonishment. The principal adversary is a farmer of £1000 a year, who says the lower classes are fated to be wicked and ignorant, and that as wise as I am I cannot alter what is decreed. He has labored to ruin the poor curate for favoring our cause, and says he shall not have a workman to obey him, for I shall make them all as wise as himself. In spite of this hostility, however, which far exceeds anything I have met with, I am building a house, and taking up things on such a large scale, that you must not be surprised if I get into jail for debt (even should I escape it for my irregular proceedings, which is the most to be feared).... Providence, I trust, will carry me through the business of this new undertaking; for, in spite of the active malevolence we experience, I have brought already between three and four hundred under a course of instruction: the worst part of the story is, that thirty miles there and back is a little too much these short days; and when we get there, our house has as yet neither windows nor doors; but if we live till next summer, things will mend, and in so precarious a world as this is, a winter was not to be lost!