We must now continue our narrative by extracting a few of the anecdotes with which Miss More's letters are so agreeably sprinkled, concerning those persons, the productions of whose genius must ever render them of the greatest interest to the lovers of literature; yet we hardly know how to make our way among the alluring mass of materials with which we are surrounded. We cannot be very wrong in beginning with Mrs. Montagu, 1775

Thus grew Hannah More in the favour of the witty and the wise, of the learned and the fair; living with the Garricks, sipping tea at Mrs. Montagu's, visited by Burke, and complimented by Johnson. In one and the same morning, though fortunately at different hours (as they were all bitter foes), Burke, and Dean Tucker, and Mrs. Macauley, were seen at her levee; Garrick read her very dull poem of Sir Eldred aloud, and Johnson learnt it by heart. Still there was a thorn, then almost unno

We learn from these letters a fact concerning Dr. Johnson, that he seldom cared to speak in mixed parties.' I. p. 64. We have also his opinion of Dean Tucker. I look upon the Dean of Gloucester to be one of the few excellent writers of this period. I differ from him in opinion, and have expressed that difference in my writings; but, I hope, what wrote did not indicate what I did not feel, for I felt no acrimony; no person, however learned, can read his writings without improvement; he is sure to find something he did not know before.' He said, he knew no one, whose style was more perspicuous, manly, and vigorous, or better suited to

ticed, at the breast of this young and innocent songstress. Her early piety soon began to take the alarm, though all appeared actually safe; and as she sate gazing on the brilliant assemblage of beauty and fashion at the Opera, and listening to the syren warbling of Italian airs,' and surrendering herself up to all the fascinations of taste and art,-a voice suddenly smote upon her ear, and said,- What doest thou here, Elijah? The faithful monitor, however, was at her elbow.--Mrs. Montagu said, 'If tender words are the precursors of connubial engagements, we may expect great things; for it is nothing but-child,-little fool,-love,-and dearest.Sometimes the Sage was tender, and then it was,-'I love you both, I love you all five,-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!'-and then he took his leave with so much truth and tenderness, we were quite affected at his manner." At another time, Hannah and Johnson had a violent quarrel," till at length laughter ran so high on all sides, that argument was confounded in noise, and the gallant youth at one in the morning set us down at our lodgings."

Garrick appears very amiable, clever, and condescending throughout the whole correspondence; and with the mixture of grave and gay, which well tempered alone constitutes a perfectly agreeable character." Garrick, (she says in one place) was the very soul of the company, and I never saw Johnson in such perfect good-humour. Sally knows we have often heard that we can never enjoy the company of these two, unless they are together."* There is great truth in this remark, for after the Dean and Mrs. Boscawen were withdrawing, and the rest stood up to go, Johnson and Garrick began a close encounter, telling old stories, e'en from their boyish days,' at Lichfield. We all stood round them above an hour, laughing in defiance of every rule of decorum of Chesterfield. I believe we should not have thought of sitting down or parting, had not an impertinent watchman been saucily vociferous. Johnson outstaid them all, and sate

How

his subject.' Every one remembers Warburton's contemptuous mention of the Dean in his letters. We shall add here a passage from another page. I never saw Johnson really angry with me but once. I alluded, rather flippantly I fear, to some witty passage in Tom Jones. He replied, 'I am shocked to hear you quote from so vicious a book. I am sorry to hear you have read it,-a confession which no modest lady should ever make. I scarcely know a more corrupt work.' I thanked him for his correction. He went so far as to refuse to Fielding the great talents which are ascribed to him, and broke out into a noble panegyric on his competitor Richardson, who, he said, was as superior to him in talents as in virtue, and whom he pronounced to be the greatest genius that has shed its lustre in this path of literature.' the sages differ! It is of this very Richardson whose morality is so lauded by Johnson and Miss More (in vol. iv. p. 144), that Miss Hawkins speaks as of a writer, the loathsome and disgusting licentiousness of whose works should preclude not only women, but even men from reading them. If we had room, we should hope to show how much the faults of both these writers had been exaggerated. From her book on Female Education,' we should judge that Hannah More had read many books more dangerous than these. As we must leave the subject of Johnson, we may add, Hannah More relates, that Johnson told her the King (George III.) in his conversation with him, enjoined him to add Spenser to his Lives of the Poets, a circumstance not mentioned before? Nor were we before aware (v. p. 191) that Mrs. Boscawen got Spence's anecdotes for Johnson. The anecdote, at p. 377, of Dr. Johnson and Mr. Winstanley is quite new to us.

* See p. 146. ' Garrick put Johnson in such good spirits, that I never knew him so entertaining or more instructive. He was as brilliant as himself, and as goodhumoured as any one else.'

with me half an hour."-Bet we must, to use a sportsman's phrase 'draw bit, and restrain ourselves from the temptation of extracting every scrap of information concerning our great Lexicographer, moralist, and critic:-we must take the minor pinks, and pass to the miniature portraits of the gallery-Mr. Richard Berenger, the anthor of the History of Horsemanship, of whom we previously knew less than we ought, was a prime favourite-every body's favourite even Dr. Johnson's. Mr. Corsican Boswell is a very agreeable good-natured man, who perfectly adores Johnson, but who is unfortunately given to the bottle; and when flushed with the Tuscan grape makes impertinent speeches to young ladies.-Lord Camden is likened to an elderly physician, though there is something of genius about his nose. Of Soame Jenyus we read, that there is a fine simplicity about him, and a meek innocent kind of wit, in Addison's manner, which is very pleasant. Of an old friend, Owent Cambridge, an anecdote is enclosed in the following remarks:-" Cumberland's Odes are come out. I tried in vain to prevail on Mr. Cambridge to read them; but could not. He has a natural aversion to an ode, as some people have to a cat; one of them is pretty, but another contains a literal description of administering a dose of James's powders." Mrs. Boscawen comes to see her in the Adelphi, with the Duchess (of Portland) in her gilt chariot and four footmen, and this said Duchess turns out to be Prior's noble lovely little Peggy,' whose MS. Dialogues of the Dead we wish the illustrious House of

In the same strain, she says, at p. 72. Keeping bad company leads to all other bad things. I have got the headache to day by raking out with that gay libertine, Dr. Johnson. Do you know-I did not-that he wrote a greater portion of the Adventurers. De Lolme told me that he thought Johnson's Political Pamphlets were the best things he had ever written.'

+ On a Parody of Lucian by O. Cambridge, in which Wilkes is put for Cæsar, see p. 160. There is a misprint of Lucan for Lucian, p. 207.

On reading this passage, we turned to our copy of Cumberland's Odes, which we had not read for many a year, and found the lines to which Hannah More alludes, in the ode to Dr. James.

Come then, this wonder-working charm receive,

The last command thy father has to give.

"In the margin of the other Ode, 'to the Sun'—we find a note of ours in pencil, written many years since :-"This poem bears a great similarity in many passages, to one of Hannah More's poems- The Complaint.' The former of Cumberland's two odes is turgid and violent, where he meant to be sublime, with too many expressions taken from Gray-the second is flat and tame; they were dedicated to Romney the Painter, (4to 1796), and the dedication is employed in abuse of the Collectors of Antiques, in praise of the Orpheus of Mr. Dance, and the Mars and Venus of Mr. Bacon, which would do credit to Athens in its purest age: a foot note, however, informs us, that no purchaser of them could be found."

Portland would condescend to publish. We learn, " that Garrick* sets the highest value on his time of any body she ever knew. From dinner to tea we laugh, chat, and talk nonsense: the rest of his time is generally devoted to study."-The account of the trial of the Duchess of Kingston, is about as good in its way, as Gray's description of that of the Scotch Lords.

"She was dressed in deep mourning, a black hood on her head, her hair modestly dressed and powdered, a black silk saque, with crape trimmings, black gauze deep ruffles, and black gloves. The Counsel spoke about an hour and a quarter each. Dunning's manner is insufferably bad, coughing and spitting at every word; but his sense and expression pointed to the last degree: he made her Grace shed bitter tears.

*

The fair victim had four virgins in white behind the bar. She imitated her great predecessor Mrs. Rudd, and affected to write very often, though I plainly perceived that she only wrote as they do their love epistles on the stage, without forming a letter. The Duchess has but small remains of that beauty of which Kings and Princes were once so enamoured. She looked very much like Mrs. Pritchard. She is large and ill-shaped. There was nothing white but her face, and had it not been for that, she would have looked like a bale of

bombazeen. I forgot to tell you, that the Duchess was taken ill, but performed it badly.-I have great satisfaction in telling you, that Elizabeth calling herself Duchess-dowager of Kingston, was this very afternoon undignified and unduchessed, and very narrowly escaped being burnt in the hand. All the Peers, but two or three, who chose to withdraw, exclaimed with great emphasis,- Guilty upon my honour'-except the Duke of N[ewcastle], who said-Guilty, erroneously, but not intentionally;' great nonsense, by the bye, but peers are privileged. This morning Lord Camden breakfasted with us, he was very entertaining. He is very angry that the Duchess of Kingston was not burned in the hand. He says, as he was once a professed lover of her, he thought it would look ill-natured and ungallant to propose it: but that he should have acceded to it, most heartily, though he believes he should have recommended a cold iron."

Our readers would not forgive us, if we omitted to introduce to them an old and valued acquaintance-as one risen from the dead-Yesterday good and dear Mrs. Boscawen came herself to fetch me to meet at dinner a lady I have long wished to see. This was Mrs. De'any. She was a Granville, and niece to the celebrated poet Lord Lansdown. She was the friend and intimate of Swift. She tells a thousand pleasant anecdotes relative to the publication of the Tatler; as to the Spectator, it is almost too modern for her to speak of it. She was in the next room, and heard the cries of alarm, when Guiscard stabbed Lord Oxford. In short, she is a living library of knowledge; and time, which has so highly matured her judgment, has taken very little from her grace or her liveliness. She has invited me to visit her, a singular favour from one of her years† and character."

The death of Garrick‡ in 1779, with whose family Hannah More had been so long and so happily domesticated, formed, as the biographer justly observes, an æra in her life. From that time to her retreat at Cowslip

There is an interesting account of Garrick's representation of Hamlet, well worth perusal, but too long for our pages, at p. 86-7.

+ A little after, H. More speaks of a tender friendship existing between Mrs. Delany and Mrs. Dashwood, of seventy years standing! This Mrs. Dashwood was the Delia of Hammond's Love Elegies. See a very pretty copy of verses written by Mrs. Delany at 24 years of age, in vol i. p. 392.

We do not know what the Malones and Giffords of the present day will say to the following passage of H. More:-"The gentlemen of the Museum came on Saturday to fetch poor Mr. Garrick's legacy of the old plays and curious black letter books, though they were not things to be read, and are only valuable to antiquaries for their age and scarcity." It does not appear that Garrick knew much about them-how he got many of them is a mystery.

GENT. MAG. VOL. III.

C

green, an interval of about five years, she gradually proceeded in redeeming her time, and detaching herself from all her engagements, which, however agreeable to her taste and talents, "kept her from answering the higher vocation which summoned her to the service of the soul, and to labour of love!" Not only the "gaiety of nations was eclipsed," by the death of this very singularly accomplished person, but the brilliancy of the domestic hearth had faded away. Hannah More still resided with the good and charming Mrs. Garrick and the even tenour of her days is thus described." My way of life is very different from what it used to be, you must not therefore expect much entertainment from my letters. After breakfast I go to my own apartment for several hours, where I read, work, and write. I almost look on a morning visit as an immorality. At four, we dine; at six, we have coffee; at eight, tea, when we have sometimes a lounger or two of quality; at ten, we have sallad and fruits. Each has her book, which we read without any restraint, as if we were alone, without apologies or speech-making. Again, "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 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 any two doctors of either University." We had expected, we hardly knew why, to have found not a little concerning Miss Burney in this book, as well as those whose characters are of such interest in her Memoirs-but her name is almost a blank, though it appears that Hannah More was well acquainted with her. In 1779, she says, 'I was asked yesterday to meet Dr. Burney and Evelina at Mrs. Reynolds's, but was engaged at home. This Evelina is an extraordinary girl. She is not more than twenty, of a very retired disposition; and how she picked up her knowledge of nature and low life, her Brangtons, and her St. Giles's gentry, is astonishing!"

We could not help laughing at quite a new Commentary that has appeared on the well-known Couplet of Pope.

And thou, brave Cobham, to thy latest breath
Shall feel the ruling passion strong in death.

"I dined at Mrs. Boscawen's the other day, very pleasantly, for Beranger was there, and was all himself, all chivalry and blank verse, and anecdote. He told me some curious stories of Pope, with whom he used to spend the summer at his uncle's, Lord Cobham, of whom Pope asserts, you know, that he would feel the ruling passion strong in death, and

that 'Save my country, Heaven!' would be his last words. But what shows that Pope was not so good a prophet as a poet, was, that in his (Lord Cobham's last moments, not being able to carry glass of jelly to his mouth, he was in such a passion, feeling his own weakness, that he threw jelly, glass, and all into Lady Cobham's face, and expired! "

Before we leave our favourite Poet of Twickenham, we will endeavour to remove one weed from off his grave.-Hannah More mentions, that dining with Lord Bathurst, he entertained her with anecdotes of Bolingbroke and Pope. "He entirely exculpated Pope from any evil intention in printing the Patriot King, which excited Bolingbroke's hatred so much after Pope's death:" to this opinion, which is of weight, we most fully join our's, though it is but as a feather in the scale: if this act of Pope's was an act of perfidy, then all his enthusiastic and unbounded expressions of admiration of Bolingbroke, were all-one lie. We know nothing which could persuade us to such a belief.