works is thereby enhanced. But let us wait a little. Johnny Bull and Tommy Bull have not yet had a good night's rest. They have not had time to blink at each other's black eyes,

"So politic, as if one eye

"Upon the other were a spy; '

“That, to trepan the one to think

"The other blind, both strove to blink."

to bind up their wounds, and count the money in their pockets, When they shall have done this, with how much pleasure will they read "Cheap "Tracts," written manifestly to popularize war. This then is "seriousness," " pure christianity, " evangelical virtues, self-abasement, secret habits ❝of self-controul, secret combat and silent victory, "vital christianity !”

Having been furnished with matter for a longer paragraph than usual, by duelling and single combat (p. 27) this re-christianizer of the British nation has a hard scratch (p. 33) at "General History, "Natural History, Travels, Voyages, Lives, Ency"clopædias, Criticisms, and Romances," determined to make them all non-descripts, at all hazards.

"In animadverting farther on the reigning evils which "the times more particularly demand that women of rank " and influence should repress, Christianity calls upon them ❝ to bear their decided testimony against every thing which " is notoriously contributing to the public corruption. It "calls upon them to banish from their dressing-rooms, (and “oh, that their influence could banish from the libraries of "their sons and husbands!) that sober and unsuspected mass "of mischief, which, by assuming the plausible names of "Science, of Philosophy, of Arts, of Belles Lettres, is

gradually administering death to the principles of those "who would be on their guard, had the poison been labelled "with its own pernicious title. Avowed attacks upon re❝velation are more easily resisted, because the malignity is "advertised. But who suspects the destruction which lurks "under the harmless or instructive names of General History, Natural History, Travels, Voyages, Lives, En"cyclopædias, Criticism, and Romance."

Ye Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, of St. Andrews, Glasgow, Aberdeen, Edinburgh, and Dublin! O Eton and Westminster, Ye Royal and Antiquary Societies, Royal Academy and Institutes, Ye Walkers, Kirwans, and Beddoes! What is to become of you, and all your pupils and eleves! Ye Arts and Sciences, ye are now by Hannah More, for the nation is to follow the suggestions of her paper-kite strictures, or she will have her fits and scratch! Ye are to be dismissed for and non-descript preachers, H. Young, and Mr. Harward, the holy fathers of the desart, the nine parsons, are to take your places. You are" avowed enemies," she says, " to revelation !"

"Who," she adds, "will deny that many of these works "contain much admirable matter; brilliant passages, im"portant facts, just descriptions, faithful pictures of nature, "and valuable illustrations of science? 'But while the "dead fly lies at the bottom,' the whole will exhale a "" corrupt and pestilential stench."

Gentlemen! The British ladies are called upon by H. More, to

"Banish by their influence from their sons and husbands, libraries, that sober and unsuspected mass of mischief, un"der the plausible names of Science, of Philosophy, of Arts, "of Belles Lettres, &c. Avowed attacks upon revelation

"are more easily resisted, because the malignity is ad "vertised."

It will be an "Annus mirabilis" indeed, to see the Masters, Heads and Fellows of Colleges, turned non-descript, field and itinerant preachers! And Sir Joseph Banks, at the head of the Royal and Antiquary Societies, going on missions to Sierra Leone and elsewhere! She then has a hit at Rousseau; he and she both enthusiasts in their way.

British novels are condemned wholesale; yet her own sisters, with her help, produced one or two. Now, I ask this lady, when was it she read all the novels, for they are numerous? It was not before her conversion; for that did not take place till after her fruitless walks to church when she was young. It could not be since the reformation; for that would be a heinous sin. Did she know them intuitively? No! she certainly read them since she became a saint. Now if she has read them without guilt, why may not others; but perhaps, to instruct others, a woman must herself be wicked? i. e. " knowing good and evil." Innocence and much knowledge do not go together. H. More, therefore, is either innocent and ignorant, or knowing and wicked. Dr. Priestley's works were publicly disapproved of, and the clergy read them; Mrs. More forbids novels and Rousseau, and the ladies will, therefore, read them both. I once saw a man hanged, who at his execution, declared he had always lived honestly, and was guilty of no other felonious act but that for which he was about to suffer, and that he

would not have committed that act, had he not heard a certain pious preacher describe the manner houses were broke into!

She next endeavours to stop the deluge of German plays into this country, which she describes as" uniting the taste of the Goths with the mo"rals of Bagshot;"

Gorgons and Hydra's, and Chimeras dire!"

1

And makes an observation, though new, yet not fact," that those who most earnestly deny the immortality of the soul, are most eager to in"troduce the machinery of ghosts." The lady should be consistent. She should either not read plays, or allow them innocent; but she dispraiseth the drama, and yet publisheth dramatic works! It must be a calumny to charge the French infidels with sending us German plays, to instil the principles of illuminism, with a view to overturn christianity (the arts and sciences will do that!) and that Englishmen have been employed to translate French works, omitting the bolder passages, in order that the mind may be brought, though more slowly, to receive the poison at another period. She alledgeth the application of the infidels to the English males has not been so successful as wished for, and that now they apply to the ladies, to influence their sons and husbands!

"For this purpose, not only novels and romances have "been made the vehicles of vice and infidelity, but the same "allurement has been held out to the women of our country, which was employed by the first philosophists to the "first sinner-Knowledge. Listen to the precepts of the

K

"new German enlighteners, and you need no longer remain "in that situation in which Providence has placed you! "Follow their examples, and you shall be permitted to in"dulge in all those gratifications which custom, not religion, has tolerated in the male sex.'

66

Thus it would seem there is a jealousy between H. M. and the Illuminati; the one struggling to seduce the nation to a religious, and the other to a political mania. But the British are a sensible people. Mrs. More ought not to have admitted such observations. She says

"It is not only awfully true, that since the new principles have been afloat, women have been too eagerly in"quisitive after these monstrous compositions; but it is "true also that, with a new and offensive renunciation of "their native delicacy, many women of character make

little hesitation in avowing their familiarity with works "abounding with principles, sentiments, and descriptions, "which should not be so much as named among them." "By allowing their minds to come in contact with such “contagious matter, they are irrecoverably tainting them; "and by acknowledging that they are actually conversant "with such corruptions, they are exciting in others a most "mischievous curiosity for the same unhallowed gratifica"tion. Thus they are daily diminishing in the young and "the timid those wholesome scruples, by which, when a "tender conscience ceases to be intrenched, all the subse"quent stages of ruin are gradually facilitated."

Mrs. More's "Strictures" seem to be calculated rather to corrupt than improve the sex. Her own mind at least is not very pure. Her strictures ought to be publicly burnt.

Ladies are again warned against the theatre (all but her own plays) and she gives (p. 49) a few