The milkwoman presently put her slander into a printed shape; and Mrs. Montague, on reading the libel, found one thing for which Mrs. More's letter had not prepared her: here is her comment :

'Mrs. Yearsley's conceit that you can envy her talents gives me comfort, for as it convinces me she is mad, I build upon it a hope that she is not guilty in the All-seeing eye.'

The last allusion Mrs. More herself makes to the behaviour of' Lactilla' is on the occasion of a second publication of hers, in which the admirable patroness was again, after a lapse of two years, maligned and insulted with a cool bitterness that may well be called diabolical-and it is in these words-she is addressing Horace Walpole :-' Do, dear Sir, join me in sincere compassion, without one atom of resentment. If I wanted to punish an enemy, it should be by fastening on him the trouble of constantly hating somebody.' (vol. ii. p. 81.)

We think no one who has read a recent tract entitled Anecdotes of Sir Walter Scott, by the Ettrick Shepherd,' can be at. a loss for a tolerably complete parallel to the whole of this story of Hannah More and the Bristol Milkwoman. The unbounded benevolence on the side of the superior, and the festering vanity and jealousy of the inferior, at length bursting into open outrage against every good feeling and every rule of common decency, are alike in both cases: with this small difference in favour of the milkwoman, that she did not keep silence until the object of her envious spleen was no more; and with this difference also in favour of Hannah, that she was thus enabled to assert her own dignity-as who doubts Sir Walter would, under similar circumstances, have done ?—by the tranquillity of a compassionate forgiveness.

The second and third of these volumes are chiefly occupied with details about the Sunday and other schools established at Cheddar and elsewhere by Hannah and Martha More. In September, 1796, the former says, I think our various schools and societies consist of about sixteen or seventeen hundred.' Some of these were fifteen miles from their residence; and the devotion of the sisters to this wide-spread scheme of benevolence was such, that it may be said to have occupied them for many years as completely as any worldly profession occupies the most diligent and successful individual. Such conduct is above all praise. It is only to be regretted that Mr. Roberts has not followed up the most interesting series of letters in which this part of Mrs. More's history is conveyed, by something like a clear statement of the ultimate result of her exertions. He exposes, very properly, the noxious interference with which, from very small motives, a curate of one of her parishes thwarted and perplexed her; and all that he says

about

about the conduct of the then Bishop of Bath and Wells, who on every occasion supported and countenanced the sisterhood, is satisfactory to the mind; but we are left in the dark as to the great practical question in how far the scheme realized in the issue Hannah More's fervent anticipations; and another scarcely less important, namely, whether the machinery she had arranged was found to be at all effective when advancing years and other circumstances made it impossible for her and her sister to continue their own daily labours in its superintendence. That much good was done it is, however, impossible for us to doubt; and we transcribe this account of the funeral of one of their humble assistants, as in itself a sufficient testimony.

'Cheddar, August 18, 1795.-We have just deposited the remains of our excellent Mrs. Baber, to mingle with her kindred dust. Who else has ever been so attended, so followed to the grave? Of the hundreds who attended, all had some tokens of mourning in their dress. All the black gowns in the village were exhibited, and those who had none had some broad, some little bits, of narrow black ribbon, such as their few spare pence could provide. The house, the garden, and place before the door were full. But how shall I describe it? Not one single voice or step was heard their very silence was dreadful; but it was not the least affecting part to see their poor little ragged pocket-handkerchiefs, not half sufficient to dry their tears-some had none; and those tears that did not fall to the ground, they wiped off with some part of their dress. Though the stones were rugged, you did not hear one single footstep. The undertaker from Bristol wept like a child, and confessed, that, without emolument, it was worth going a hundred miles to see such a sight. I forgot to mention, the children sobbed a suitable hymn over the grave. Here was no boisterous, hysterical grief, for the departed had taught them how to select suitable texts for such occasions, and when to apply the promises of Scripture. I think almost tears enough were shed to lay the dust.'

It is well known that Mrs. More, among other good works, gave a powerful support to the old constitution of these realms by various political tracts, in prose and verse, which she put forth during the revolutionary war. It is impossible to read the letters in which she adverts to the internal danger of her country at that period, without applying her language to the still more alarming condition of England at the present day. What a true picture is the following!

Bath, happy Bath, is as gay as if there were no war, nor sin, nor misery in the world! We run about all the morning, lamenting the calamities of the times, anticipating our ruin, and regretting the general dissipation; and every night we are running into every excess, to a degree unknown in calmer times. Yet it is the fashion to affect to be religious, and to show it by inveighing against the wickedness of France!' As

As to the revolutionary rulers of France themselves, we are sorry to say her indignant denunciation of them is exactly what, if she had now been among us, she could not have hesitated to utter concerning some of our own Reformers.

Judgment, memory, comparison, combination, and deduction, afford human sagacity but slender assistance in its endeavours to develope their future plans. We have not even the data of consistent wickedness on which to build rational conclusions. Their measures, though visibly connected by uniform depravity, are yet so surprisingly diversified by interfering absurdities, such is their incredible eccentricity, that it is hardly extravagant to affirm that improbability is become rather an additional reason for expecting any given event to take place.'-Remarks on the Speech of M. Dupont.

But we must now prepare to shut these volumes. The sisterhood drop away from before us one by one, and the sterling sense and worth of every one of them are successively exhibited in the most touching manner in the details of a Christian death-bed. We have been dealing largely in quotation, but we are sure every reader will thank us for transcribing a page out of the correspondence of the late venerable Bishop of Limerick, just published, in which his lordship gives an account of a visit which he paid at Barley Wood in September, 1817, shortly after the death of Sarah More.

6

Feeling, as they do very deeply, the sad breach made in their circle, they are wisely, cheerfully, and piously submissive to this appointment of Providence; and neither their talents nor vivacity are in the least subdued. Patty is suffering, with exemplary patience, the most excruciating pain; not a murmur escapes, though, at night especially, groans and cries are inevitably extorted; and, the moment after the paroxysm, she is ready to resume, with full interest and animation, whatever may have been the subject of conversation. Hannah is still herself: she took Charles Foster and me a drive to Brockley Combe; in the course of which, her anecdotes, her wit, her powers of criticism, and her admirable talent of recitation, had ample scope. On the whole, though not unmingled with melancholy, the impression of this visit to Barley Wood is predominantly agreeable,-I might, indeed, use a stronger word: differences of opinion there do, it cannot be denied, exist; but they are differences, on their part, largely the growth of circumstances; differences, too, which will vanish before the earliest beams of eternity: I parted with them, as noble creatures, whom, in this world, I never might again behold; and while I felt some pangs, which I would not willingly have relinquished, it was with deep comfort that I looked forward in hope to an hereafter, when we might meet without any of those drawbacks, in some shape or other, inseparable, perhaps, from the intercourse of mortals.'-Bishop Jebb's Letters, vol. ii. pp. 333,4. 2 G 2

Our

Our readers can hardly need to be reminded of the painful interest with which all orders of people heard, about 1828, rumours that pecuniary distresses were likely to trouble the closing period of Mrs. More's life. Her establishment at Barley Wood had got into sad confusion after the death of her sister Martha, who had through life been the manager of their domestic details,-dishonest and dissolute servants had wasted her substance,-and for a season it was doubtful whether enough remained to secure her the comforts to which she had been accustomed. In the end, however, it turned out that, though she must consent once more to change her place of residence, there would be no necessity for altering, in any essential respect, the style of her household economy. She removed to Clifton; and there, as has been already mentioned, she at last quietly and placidly ceased to breathe' in the September of last year. The account of her latter days, contributed to Mr. Roberts's book by her friend and physician, Dr. Carrick, is so interesting, that we would willingly extract it entire; but we can only give these fragments :

From the time Mrs. More removed to Clifton, her health was never otherwise than in a very uncertain and precarious state, and she seldom continued beyond a few days exempt from some attack of greater or less severity. . .

To the friends and admirers of Mrs. Hannah More, it was painful during her latter years to see those great and brilliant talents, which had justly raised her to the highest pinnacle of celebrity, descending to the level of more ordinary persons. Yet there was this consoling circumstance in the case of this admirable woman; that while the grand and vigorous qualities of her mind submitted to decay, the good, the kind, the beneficent, suffered no diminution nor abatement, to the last moment of consciousness. Age, which of necessity shrinks and impairs the bodily powers, generally blunts sensibility, and narrows the social virtues. The soul which in youth, and in the prime of life, teemed with every liberal and benevolent quality, is not unfrequently observed to grow cold and insensible, parsimonious, and even avaricious, when sinking into the grave. With this remarkable woman it was signally the reverse. Her beneficent qualities not only suffered no abatement, but expanded with her years.

So long as her intellectual faculties remained but moderately impaired, her wonted cheerfulness and playfulness of disposition did not forsake her; and at no period of her declining life did an impatient or querulous expression escape her lips, even in moments of painful suffering.

It seems worthy of remark, that as it pleased the Almighty to protect this distinguished woman to a very advanced period of life, from the infirmities of temper, which often tend to render age both unamiable and unhappy, so it likewise accorded with his goodness to spare her from many of those bodily infirmities, which usually accom

pany

pany length of years. To the very last her eye was not dim: she could read with ease, and without spectacles, the smallest print. Her hearing was almost unimpaired; and until very near the close of life, her features were not shrunk, nor wrinkled, nor uncomely, and her person retained to a considerable degree its wonted appearance, as at a much earlier period. Even to the last, her death-bed was attended with few of the pains and infirmities which are almost inseparable from sinking nature.'-vol. iv. p. 299–304.

Our respect, nay, veneration for the memory of Mrs. More, who perhaps did as much real good in her generation as any woman that ever held the pen, has, whatever Mr. Roberts may think, made us lenient critics of his part in this work. We now leave him with respect for his motives and intentions; with regret for that narrowness of mind and feeling, which it is, we presume, too late to expand; and with a simple expression of our hope that, at some future period, the valuable letters embodied in these volumes may be printed by themselves. We are not aware that Mr. Roberts's connecting narrative has given us any one fact which is not stated in the text of the correspondence, either following or preceding the page where he has chosen to make it the subject of his circumlocutory prose.

ART. VII.-Mémoires ou Correspondance Secrète du Père L'Enfant, Confesseur du Roi pendant les trois années de la Révolution, 1790, 1791, 1792. 2 vols. 2 vols. Paris. 1834.

WE

E notice these volumes only to warn our readers against an imposition-not indeed so gross and shameless as the Memoirs of Louis XVIII. and Madame de Créqui, but yet very dishonest. The title-page announces this work as the Memoirs or Secret Correspondence of the Confessor of the King during three eventful years. The editor's preface adds, that the Père L'Enfant lived at court, and concludes (as he might do if his premises were but true) that these are indeed 'precious memoirs.' Now, the truth is, that the Abbé L'Enfant was not-nor, if he really was the penman of these Memoirs, (which are not memoirs,) does he himself even pretend to have been the king's confessor; that during the three years specified he never was at court at all, and never so much as saw either the king or the queen; that the pretended Memoirs are only a series of letters which, even if genuine, have no claim to the character of a secret correspondence,' for they are chiefly and professedly mere repetitions of the journals of the day; and, finally, that, so far from being precious,' they are so nearly worthless, that we shall not even do them the small

honour