the writer of this has often seen her repairing apparel, which many ladies who possessed not the power of brandishing the goose-quill,' would have thrown aside in disdain ! and this, too, let it be remembered, at a time, when she was dispensing to the poor with both hands, most freely. Numerous pairs of stockings of her knitting have contributed to keep warm the poor and naked! I will just add, that 'deeply, darkly, beautifully blue,' as she might have been, her accounts were always kept with scrupulous exactness, and that her prudence in managing household concerns, when circumstances called upon her to exert herself in that department, was most marked. Now if all the other perfections of her character fail to attract R. H. F. yet surely her adroitness in sewing will captivate your industrious correspondent.

THE Editor has favoured me with a sight of the foregoing epistle, from an anonymous correspondent, who, in a postscript, intimates that it is not intended for publication. There is nevertheless, (perhaps I should say therefore,) so much heart in it, and likewise so much to awaken a response in English female bosoms, that I prevailed on the aforesaid Editor to insert it here.

And now what shall I say to exculpate myself from the charge? I speak in scorn of Hannah More! No: for it was my blessed privilege to know, to love, and, all unworthy as I was, and ever shall be, to possess the affectionate personal regard of that revered individual. In scorn I would not speak, or write, of the meanest reptile that crawls this

earth knowing that the same hand formed us both, and the same preserving mercy is over us; but from the word, as associated with the name of Hannah More, I recoil with an emotion not one whit less strong than that of the indignant writer above. It will appear, on reference to the paper in question, that I merely quoted the first volumes of Hannah More's correspondence, as showing how, by the occasional dispersion of those female literary stars which formed the metropolitan galaxy, a taste for their deep and sparkling acquirements might naturally be supposed to have spread throughout the land: but no allusion to that gifted woman was thought of, in the passage that follows it.

Besides, Hannah More was not, according to my sense of the word, a Blue. She was like a fair garden, where, though the majestic iris, the graceful convolvulus, the rich campanella, the towering monk's-hood, and the little shining heart's-ease, and others of that tint, lend a richer variety to the wellchosen array of colours, they do but elegantly blend with the rest-not form a blue garden. Nay, I might have found, perhaps, a shorter and more apt illustration in a bank of violets; where, to be sure, if you examine it closely, the prevailing colour is blue : but who thinks of the colour, while inhaling the delicious fragrance that breathes from it, and marking the exquisite modesty that bends its deeply, darkly, beautifully' tinted petals, under the sheltering leaf? Never did I meet with a character more unaffectedly humble than Hannah More. The pen betrayed her, as possessing deep stores of erudition, and as carrying on the process of a mental laboratory, discovered only by the flashes of brilliancy that perpetually

illumined the atmosphere around her; but in manner, in conversation, yea, in her familiar correspondence, she was as far removed from those assumptions which I did and do pronounce to be unsuited to the feminine character as is the babe of yesterday. Oh, she did not devote the time and talents allotted to her, in accumulating knowledge to extend her own means of selfish enjoyment, or to look down from an imaginary eminence upon less aspiring sisters. No: she wrought a work from which our race of blues in general would shrink with dislike and disdain—a political work. She was the Deborah of our Israel, modestly giving wise and prudent counsel to those whom she would have despised, had they, like Barak, encouraged a woman to leave her proper sphere. It is the high praise of Hannah More to have been chosen of the Lord, to oppose the rushing of that democratic and infidel torrent which was sweeping over the land from revolutionary France. We were menaced with destruction in many forms: we had a praying Hezekiah on the throne, by whom the Lord was so entreated, that He would not permit the evil to come on the country in his days. And among the means graciously employed to avert it, the Cheap Repository' tracts of Hannah More were conspicuously eminent. She devoted herself to a task that is now, alas! rejected by women of like principles, and left almost exclusively in the hands of the enemy. She wrote for the people for the lowest among them. While many of the better classes had their minds perverted by the poisonous trash of a Woolstoncraft, the healthful portions provided by a More were quietly producing their healing, renovating effects on the diseased mass

from which greater danger was apprehended. If not alone in the work, she was first in it: and they who, in contemplating her character, neglect to dwell on this feature, do her grievous wrong.

But Deborah was a prophetess; and such also was Hannah More. In all that concerned her country's welfare she felt so keen an interest, took so deep and extensive a view, that rarely have her predictions on that head been falsified by the event. This was indeed her ruling passion-strong to the last. In the year 1829, at the advanced age of eighty-five, she watched the progress of a dreaded measure: and on its completion, when I wrote to her the expression of my own bitter regrets, with a hope that she had not become reconciled to the fatal concession in which so many of God's people had blindly acquiesced, her reply, communicated to me by a noble and endeared mutual friend, to whom she gave the message, breathed alike the energy and the vivacity of her wonderful mind. Tell her,' she said, pointing to a picture which hung with its glass towards the wall,

tell her that, in proof of my unaltered sentiments, much as I honour the great captain of the age, I have turned his portrait to the wall, feeling that he ought just now to be ashamed to show his face.' Too clearly she foresaw the effects of that measure: too truly she predicted the results, now universally apparent. She prayed, while yet there was a may be' as to its rejection and when the blow was struck, she submitted to the Lord's will, rejoicing that she would be gathered to her fathers before the sun of her beloved country should set in darkness.

But perhaps some caviller may object, You spoke scornfully of those among our sex who dashed into

'the deadly breach of politics.' My dear friend, I thought no scorn of any one. I traced the progress of that change which has passed upon the tastes and habits of our country women; and if unwilling to adopt a severe strain, I wrote playfully, am I therefore to be judged sarcastic? A woman myself, (although the Editor's correspondent visits my sins on the superior sex,) there is no object dearer to my heart than the best interests of Englishwomen. I consider that one great bane of our age consists in the habit of regarding each onward step as an ulterior one. In measures affecting the integrity of the British constitution, who does not perceive it? In like manner, when I see how great a matter a little fire has already kindled among our reading ladies, how can I but tremble at the prospect opening to my view, and raise my feeble voice against such headlong haste? Is it necessary to mention the name of a Martineau, in order to show into how dangerous a track the female mind may be led, and made instrumental in leading others? Many branches of science may safely be superadded to a solid foundation of scriptural religion, when that foundation has been evidently owned of God: but this I will maintain, though a host of reprovers should start up against me, that it is most perilous, yea most ruinous, to put such weapons into a female hand, before their right use has been both explained AND UNDERSTOOD. And were the blessed woman, the casual introduction of whose honoured name has given rise to this paper, -were she now alive, I am confident that she would most fully concur with me.

Hannah More was one of those who, had she been a mother, would, after having given attention to every