"When a poor youth is transplanted from one of those excellent institutions, which do honour to the present age, and give some hope of reforming the next, into the family perhaps of his noble benefactor, who has provided liberally for his instruction; what must be his astonishment, at finding the manner of life to which he is introduced, diametrically opposite to that life to which he has been taught salvation is alone annexed. He has been trained to a wholesome horror of gaming; but now his interests and passions are forcibly engaged on the side of play, since the very profits of his place are made systematically to depend on the card table. He has been taught that it was his bounden duty to be devoutly thankful for his own scanty meal, perhaps of barley bread; yet he sees his noble lord sit down every day, not to a dinner but a hecatomb, to a repast for which every element is plundered and every climate impoverished, for which nature is ransacked and art is exhausted, without even the formal ceremony of a slight acknowledgment. It will be lucky for the master, if his servant does not happen to know, that even the pagans never sat down to a repast, without making a libation to their deities; and that the Jews did not eat a little fruit, or drink a cup of water, without an expression of thankfulness. Next to the law of God, he has been taught to reverence the law of the land, and to respect an act of parliament next to a text of scripture; yet he sees his honourable protector, publicly in his own house, engaged in the evening in playing at a game expressly prohibited by the laws, and against which perhaps he himself had assisted in the day to pass an act."

At the time when this seasonable performance came before the public, the French revolution had roused the attention and astonishment of the whole moral world; and every serious mind contemplated the extraordinary changes that were daily evolving on the European continent with fearful apprehension. The strange doctrines now broached, and industriously propagated, subversive of all that had hitherto been venerated among men, induced most serious persons to turn their thoughts to the best means of arresting the progress of those dangerous principles.

In this important work, none exceeded and few equalled Hannah More, either by the zeal, judgment, or effect of their labours. One of her first exertions in this field had two objects; the defence of religion, and the relief of those who suffered persecution for conscience sake. In the National Assembly of France, an open avowal of atheism, by one of its most distinguished members, had been received with the acclaim of the whole body; the declaration, in consequence, appeared in the official organ of the convention, and from thence it was translated

and published in the English newspapers. The murder of the king, the expatriation of the clergy, the desecration of the churches, and the spreading of general licentiousness throughout France, followed in rapid succession. As the detestable principles which produced these disorders were actively disseminated in this country, not only through the medium of the press, but also by itinerant emissaries employed for the purpose, our author published, at the beginning of 1793, "Remarks on the Speech of M. Dupont in the National Convention, on Religion and Education." In this powerful pamphlet, the folly of atheism is not so much attacked, as its wickedness and dangerous tendency are developed and exposed. The writer exhibits the monster in all its deformity, as bringing with it every misery upon society as well as upon individuals. The entire profits of this judicious and timely publication were appropriated to the benefit of the emigrant clergy of France, who were then dependent upon English benevolence for support; and the sale was such as to gratify the sympathetic feelings of the amiable author, who had the further satisfaction of knowing that her well-meant effort was not without doing some good to her own countrymen.

With a similar view, she printed at the same time a small tract, entitled " Village Politics," in a dialogue between two mechanics, one a loyal and religious subject, and the other a half proselyte to republicanism and infidelity, two evils inseparably allied. By plain and home arguments, level to the meanest capacity, the former, succeeds in bringing his neighbour back to the way of truth and sobriety, from which he had been heedlessly led astray. This tract had also a wide circulation, and was productive of much good. Convinced by experience of the great advantages of the press, for the diffusion of right principles and useful knowledge, the indefatigable and highly accomplished author now devised and carried into execution the plan of the "Cheap Repository;" a monthly publication, for the instruction of the lower orders of the people. It was printed at Bath, under the superintendence of the projector, by whose contributions principally it was enriched and extended. The tales of the "Shepherd of Salisbury Plain-The Two Wealthy Farmers-The Two Shoemakers-Betty Brown the Orange Girl-Black Giles the Poacher-Mr. Fantom the Infidel and his Servant-Hester Wilmot, and the Allegories—all were the productions of Mrs. More's pen, and gave to the Cheap Repository a circulation unparalleled in the annals of printing. Dr. Stonhouse, writing to a friend in July, 1795, just after the commencement of the publication, says, "Seven hundred thousand of Mrs. Hannah More's tracts have been sold, and the demand is still so great, that they cannot be printed fast enough. Hazard (the printer and publisher at Bath) says a million will

"When a poor youth is transplanted from one of those excellent institutions, which do honour to the present age, and give some hope of reforming the next, into the family perhaps of his noble benefactor, who has provided liberally for his instruction; what must be his astonishment, at finding the manner of life to which he is introduced, diametrically opposite to that life to which he has been taught salvation is alone annexed. He has been trained to a wholesome horror of gaming; but now his interests and passions are forcibly engaged on the side of play, since the very profits of his place are made systematically to depend on the card table. He has been taught that it was his bounden duty to be devoutly thankful for his own scanty meal, perhaps of barley bread; yet he sees his noble lord sit down every day, not to a dinner but a hecatomb, to a repast for which every element is plundered and every climate impoverished, for which nature is ransacked and art is exhausted, without even the formal ceremony of a slight acknowledgment. It will be lucky for the master, if his servant does not happen to know, that even the pagans never sat down to a repast, without making a libation to their deities; and that the Jews did not eat a little fruit, or drink a cup of water, without an expression of thankfulness. Next to the law of God, he has been taught to reverence the law of the land, and to respect an act of parliament next to a text of scripture; yet he sees his honourable protector, publicly in his own house, engaged in the evening in playing at a game expressly prohibited by the laws, and against which perhaps he himself had assisted in the day to pass an act."

At the time when this seasonable performance came before the public, the French revolution had roused the attention and astonishment of the whole moral world; and every serious mind contemplated the extraordinary changes that were daily evolving on the European continent with fearful apprehension. The strange doctrines now broached, and industriously propagated, subversive of all that had hitherto been venerated among men, induced most serious persons to turn their thoughts to the best means of arresting the progress of those dangerous principles.

In this important work, none exceeded and few equalled Hannah More, either by the zeal, judgment, or effect of their labours. One of her first exertions in this field had two objects; the defence of religion, and the relief of those who suffered persecution for conscience sake. In the National Assembly of France, an open avowal of atheism, by one of its most distinguished members, had been received with the acclaim of the whole body; the declaration, in consequence, appeared in the official organ of the convention, and from thence it was translated

and published in the English newspapers. The murder of the king, the expatriation of the clergy, the desecration of the churches, and the spreading of general licentiousness throughout France, followed in rapid succession. As the detestable principles which produced these disorders were actively disseminated in this country, not only through the medium of the press, but also by itinerant emissaries employed for the purpose, our author published, at the beginning of 1793, "Remarks on the Speech of M. Dupont in the National Convention, on Religion and Education." In this powerful pamphlet, the folly of atheism is not so much attacked, as its wickedness and dangerous tendency are developed and exposed. The writer exhibits the monster in all its deformity, as bringing with it every misery upon society as well as upon individuals. The entire profits of this judicious and timely publication were appropriated to the benefit of the emigrant clergy of France, who were then dependent upon English benevolence for support; and the sale was such as to gratify the sympathetic feelings of the amiable author, who had the further satisfaction of knowing that her well-meant effort was not without doing some good to her own countrymen.

With a similar view, she printed at the same time a small tract, entitled "Village Politics," in a dialogue between two mechanics, one a loyal and religious subject, and the other a half proselyte to republicanism and infidelity, two evils inseparably allied. By plain and home arguments, level to the meanest capacity, the former, succeeds in bringing his neighbour back to the way of truth and sobriety, from which he had been heedlessly led astray. This tract had also a wide circulation, and was productive of much good. Convinced by experience of the great advantages of the press, for the diffusion of right principles and useful knowledge, the indefatigable and highly accomplished author now devised and carried into execution the plan of the "Cheap Repository;" a monthly publication, for the instruction of the lower orders of the people. It was printed at Bath, under the superintendence of the projector, by whose contributions principally it was enriched and extended. The tales of the "Shepherd of Salisbury Plain-The Two Wealthy Farmers-The Two Shoemakers-Betty Brown the Orange Girl-Black Giles the Poacher-Mr. Fantom the Infidel and his Servant-Hester Wilmot, and the Allegories-all were the productions of Mrs. More's pen, and gave to the Cheap Repository a circulation unparalleled in the annals of printing. Dr. Stonhouse, writing to a friend in July, 1795, just after the commencement of the publication, says, "Seven hundred thousand of Mrs. Hannah More's tracts have been sold, and the demand is still so great, that they cannot be printed fast enough. Hazard (the printer and publisher at Bath) says a million will

have been sold before the end of next month. She is, I am sorry to say, in a very indifferent state of health."

Three years after this, the Bishop of London, in his charge to the clergy of his diocese, thus noticed the success of the tracts. "The spirit of religion, excited by the impressive admonitions of Mr. Wilberforce, Mr. Bowdler, Mr. King, and many other pious and able writers, was certainly very considerable. And to these it would now be injustice not to add the name of another highly approved author, Mrs. Hannah More, whose extraordinary and versatile talents can equally accommodate themselves to the cottage and the palace; who, while she is diffusing among the lower orders of the people an infinity of little religious tracts, calculated to reform and comfort them in this world and to save them in the next, is at the same time applying all the powers of a vigorous and highly cultivated mind to the instruction, improvement, and delight of the most exalted of her own sex. I allude more particularly," continues the Bishop, "to her last work on female education, which presents to the reader such a fund of good sense, of wholesome counsel, of sagacious observation, of a knowledge of the world and of the female heart, of high-toned morality and genuine Christian piety-and all this enlivened with such brilliancy of wit, such richness of imagery, such variety and felicity of allusion, such neatness and elegance of diction-as are not, I conceive, easily to be found so combined and blended together in any other work in the English language.

"Of the above-mentioned little tracts, no less than two millions were sold in the first year; and they contributed, I am persuaded, very essentially to counteract the poison of those impious and immoral pamphlets which were dispersed over the kingdom in such numbers by societies of infidels and republicans."

The capital work so highly eulogized by the Bishop, was published in two volumes in 1799, under the title of "Strictures on the Modern System of Female Education, with a View of the Principles and Conduct prevalent among Women of Rank and Fortune." Notwithstanding, however, the admitted merits of this treatise, as a course of general instruction on the various subjects of which it embraces, and the commendation bestowed upon it by persons most competent to judge of its soundness as a guide in education, objections were raised against the book on account of the religious principles which it inculcated. The attack was made first in one of the reviews; but the most serious blow came from a quarter that could least have been suspected.

Archdeacon Daubeny, one of the earliest friends of Mrs. More at Bristol, and now her near neighbour at Bath, affected to be alarmed by certain opinions advanced in the "Strictures