vail with Sir A. Elton, already damned in prose, to break out into poetry, that he also may be "damned in verse."

leads his tools.

So the devil always mis

Instead of candidly acknowledging her error, as became a good, an ingenuous or great mind, or contriving some method of conciliation by the intervention of friends and neighbours; submitting the dispute to the arbitration of proper persons, as the only way to preserve any degree of reputation, she employs herself in tempting the Curate to lose sight of the main question, by involving him in personal contradictions with her disciples, or in meditating and executing some scheme of vengeance against those who had courage to despise her and Sir A's. system of terror, and with firmness defended the cause of the established church, in supporting the interests of the cruelly treated Mr. Bere. In all these paltry and detestable means, similar to her accusations against Mrs. Yearsley, she affects a consequential superiority, which only renders her contemptible, to which she is entitled neither by birth, merit, excellence, or rank in society. In God's name, who is H. More, who arrogates so much, takes the liberty to insult, to injure, and retires into her room, and dares not or cannot vindicate her conduct? She is the daughter of J. More, first a menial servant to Mr. Berkeley, then a teacher of a charity school, at 251. a year; then herself and sisters keep a school, which they open on the produce of a subscription; then

a play-wright, &c. &c. &c. But all this is no disgrace to Mrs. More, more than it would have been to Mr. Bere to have been (if what she says were true) the son of a publican. It is the malicious disposition of her heart to calumniate, to injure and ruin others, under a robe of religious sanctity, that disgraceth her. Her genealogy is a fact in biography proper to be recorded, but would not have been repeated in this page, had it not been for the foolish, mean, malevolent purpose, with which in her and the "damned

"

poet's" "Animadversions," she laid a false account of Mr. Bere before the public, as I am well assured. Malevolence rankles in her heart. I weep for her. She is incurable. She did triumph over poor Mrs. Yearsley, and hoped for a victory over the church; but she has been defeated with irremediable disgrace, and, therefore, she and her sorry defenders are now become desperate. It is very remarkable, that there has not yet been any thing published on her side, excellent in argument, or decent of temper.

Respecting the true character of H. More, the world, till lately, has been ignorant. In the Course of my remarks on her writings, or writings ascribed to her, I have had occasion at times to notice the complexion of her heart, as well as her literary talents. Let me then, here, briefly re-capitulate her character as a writer, and as a

woman.

By great application, much reading, and ob servation on life and manners, she has acquired literary abilities to cast the sentiments she culls here and there into verse; but there is no poetry. In prose she writes mechanically, and where she has conceived, brings forth decently, and " as "well as can be expected;" but her births are frequently without conception, and her pages, therefore, often impalpable inanity. Her sacred novels are not her worst productions. She has abilities, but no genius.

As a woman, her chief virtue is prudence and cunning; she is charitable, i. e. gives away small gifts, the property oftener of others than her own, and thus has the credit of extensive charity. With strangers she talks but little, unless she thinks it her interest to be loquacious. She is moderate in eating and drinking; and rather regular as to her time of going to rest and rising. She has acquired a very soft, whispering, insinuating manner of speaking. She can be pleasant, although she hates you; and profess kindness, attachment, and friendship, without meaning any thing by it. She is impatient of, and never forgives contradiction; and, if possible, will remove any obstacle to the accomplishment of her pur pose; and if she can evade the law, or public censure, is not scrupulous about the means. When offended, she knows no forgiveness, and every thing must submit to the violence and im placability of her temper. She works, however,

as not to be easily discovered to be of this temper. She can preach extempore, and, like Hester Wilmot, pray without book or pre-meditation; and can invent and propagate, falsehoods, hate and calumniate, with seldom a possibility of detection.

In her religion all the graces and virtues of the gospel are put in requisition, yet these are not enough. Her religion is this, that; and it is neither this nor that. There is a mixture of mysticism, insidiousness, and paradox in her doctrines, but ill explained, which excites a doubt respecting her principles, and renders the existence of her religion very questionable. She refines and abstracts, without any rational philosophy, so much as to run in a circle. She would have us be" serious," neither laugh, dance nor sing, and, it is supposed, like Lackington's virgin after marriage, so "pure" as to refuse her husband marital rights and rites. Salvation is limited to those only of her way of thinking; and she believes all who do not agree with her to "perish everlastingly." Her benevolence and charity are confined to a sect; she is ignorant of that spirit that Jesus displayed in his conversation with the woman of Samaria; and is constantly keeping alive the invidious distinction of Jew and Samaritan. To apply the term panacea to the words "genuine piety," perpetually dropping from her mouth and pen, is indeed an appropriate epithet; but she vends it too cheaply as a nostrum, without

proving its having, alas! cured any disease of her own heart. All that the theology of her cast seems to have done for her, is, to make her more cunning, artful, temporizing, and ostentatiously pious, than her neighbours.

In politics, from the hope of reward, or a want of fortitude to vindicate a righteous cause, she uniformly approves of the minister of the day, and whatever she may think, declares no opposite opinion. If virtue and religion were in a mean habit, or in discredit with the great, she would deny both; for without their notice, and some smiles from them, she cannot exist.

"Way for my Lord; Virtue stand by and bow."

Although to superiors she is fawning, and to inferiors tyrannical, to promote her schemes she can associate, eat and drink, and converse with the meanest of the mean, and indefatigably labour to puritanize their minds. If she were thirty years younger, I have no doubt but she might live to see two thirds of the nation non-descripts, calling out and voting for the abolition of a liturgy in the churches. It was the extempore praying lecturers who began the mischief in the time of Charles the first, and arrogated to themselves exclusive holiness. I have conversed with some of the modern non-descripts, since I have begun to write this critique, and they tell me it is impossible to be saved but by believing as they do. They dismiss Curates who do not unite in their scheme; they refuse their pulpits to the regular Clergy. "The plague is begun.”