She very justly made a charge against the poets without naming herself, as she was sensible she was a minor in the art; for her mischief is all in prose. She certainly has her share in corrupting the people, religiously and morally. She has made herself of some consequence in being noticed by Peter.

Page 149. The alteration in the fashion of visits en masse is ridiculed and lamented, on account of the total suppression of conversation which it occasions; and an opportunity is laid hold of to tell us that she was acquainted with and enjoyed the friendship of the late Bishop Horne, who particularly deplored the loss sustained in the mutual reciprocation of ideas, and the communion of kindred sympathies. Little instruction is here received by the observations of our author; for her sentences, like the objects she pursues, are frivolous, and the ideas, if they be at all comprehensible, are transient and nugatory. On the opportunities she has had of observing life and manners in her visits to London, and she professes herself studious of human character, she expresses herself with flippant wit and unsuccessful humour. A mixture of awkward humour, of wit that escapes before it is embodied with language, and of a mystical, unamiably described religion, characterize her strictures, not only on every moral subject, but on female education. A parallel is attempted between those ladies who ruin their husbands by play, and the few, the rara aves, who, by giving

themselves up to study, shew an indifference towards their husbands, and neglect their children and household. The vanity and pedantry of a literary woman is remarked; and we are told, that she who is vain of her reading, would be foolishly vain of something else if she had read nothing. Considering Mrs. More's low origin, her real literary character as a " Miss Moon," who has borrowed from "kind lads," or stolen from Mrs. Cowley and Mrs. Yearsley, the disposition here censured, arrogant pride, is in no woman more disgusting than in herself. Affecting a superiority to Mrs. Cowley, to whom in no respect she was equal, and to Mrs. Yearsley, to whom she was superior, not in birth or genius, but only in the accidental circumstance of her father's teaching a charity school, from which she derived the advantage of a better education, she extends her presumption to the church, and exhibits her superciliousness to Mr. Bere, in the Blagdon dispute, whose father is known to have served his Majesty in the navy. But of this more hereafter.

Not to enumerate the public pleasures and amusements, the round of which she herself has patroled, there is no great policy, or any very high degree of religious purity, in a total renunciation of them. If she had declaimed against the perpetual pursuit, or the eternal continuity of them by individuals, all wise men would unite with her; but, I conceive, few men, who have intellect sufficient to comprehend the nature of religion and of good government, would think it

political to destroy the upper and lower rooms, pump-room, the public gardens, and the theatres, at Bath, London, and elsewhere. Surely she would spare the play-houses, of which she herself has been so much enamoured, since at the age of threescore and two, with all her piety, she has re-published her own plays! But what consistency can be expected from her non-descript principles, who has waged war with philosophy, the arts and sciences, and declares them hostile to christianity.

She puts me in mind of an old acquaintance, who travelled the country as a player, but with bad success. He at last, when he could not get bread by it, began to think, like H. More, that theatrical spectacles tended to corrupt the morals of the people, and conceived the idea, if not of writing, at least of speaking against the corruptions of the stage. Accordingly he dressed himself in sable," was converted," became a se"rious christian," and preached against the playhouse! This is a fact.

Mrs. More and this gentleman are not the only instances of sinners becoming the apologists of virtue.

Mrs. More forgets that at public places the sexes form an acquaintance, and that afterwards they may see these ladies in the bosom of their own families.

Not only because it is in unison with my own taste, for Lady Mac and myself always disliked cards, but in justice to Mrs. More, and with a view to public utility, I transcribe a paragraph, p. 196.

"I forbear to descant on those serious and interesting "rites, for the more august and solemn celebration of which, "Fashion nightly convenes these splendid myriads to her "more sumptuous temples. Rites which, when en86 gaged in with due devotion, absorb the whole soul, and "call every passion into exercise, except indeed those of “love, and peace, and kindness and gentleness. Inspiring "rites! which stimulate fear, rouse hope, kindle zeal, "quicken dulness, sharpen discernment, exercise memory, "inflame curiosity! Rites in short, in the due per "formance of which all the energies and attentions, all the "powers and abilities, all the abstraction and exertion, all "the diligence and devotedness, all the sacrifice of time, all "the contempt of ease, all the neglect of sleep, all the obli"vion of care, all the risks of fortune: all these are con"centrated to one point; a point in which the wise and "the weak, the learned and the ignorant, the fair and the “frightful, the sprightly and the dull, the rich and the poor, "the patrician and plebeian, meet in one common and uni"form equality; an equality as religiously respected in "these solemnities, in which all distinctions are levelled at "a blow, as it is combated in all other instances."

Now whether Mrs. More's practice in the article of card playing gives the lie to her writing I cannot say, for I have but little knowledge of her personally, and my Lady has never seen her; I, therefore, am willing to give her credit in this respect. But alas! I do not advance far before I meet with cause to lament the infirmities of human nature, and the imbecility of female character. The abhorrence expressed by Peter, when he visited the household of Nero, and his indignation on the sight of the inhuman sports of the arena, are remarked; yet no disapprobation whatever is intimated of the conduct of the professors

of the true and reformed religion of Jesus fitting out large buildings of wood, loaded with men, arms and combustibles, to meet the christian subjects of his most Catholic Majesty, and of the late most Christian King, with eager desire for the glory of "sinking, burning, and destroying" each other; no, nor of the uncharitable practice of sinking, burning and destroying," to all eter nity, our very neighbours, if they happen to break their eggs on the wrong end, or choose not to repeat such a creed as we think proper to make. Το promote war and desolation, she has published many little cheap tracts;" but to encourage charity and peace, she has not spoken a word. Her character is not difficultly ascertained; she has written and acted too much not to be known

as an accomplished hypocrite. If nations professing christianity, and persons affecting a purer system than their neighbours, hate each other, and fight battles, and carry on wars, as often, and as bloodily, as if they were heathens, what are we to think, but that either christianity, at least as they profess it, is not true, or that they are not of the right faith. Yet this is the character and practice of H. More !

In p. 227, there is a long note respecting Mr. Law's" serious call to a devout and holy life," which she strongly recommends to awaken sinners; "but," she adds, " even in this work Law is "not a safe guide to evangelical light." As a preacher of repentance, Law has no superior; "as a preacher of salvation on scriptural grounds,