Hannah's other great talent, as a writer, was also early and fully indicated. As a mere child, she would scribble poems and prim essays upon every scrap of available paper, and a story is told of her, that she had one grand ambition constantly before her young life, and that was to be old enough to "possess a whole quire of paper!" As a schoolgirl, Dr. Johnson, the elder Sheridan, and the astronomer Ferguson, seem to have been on terms of some intimacy, and exercised a talented influence upon the strong sense and mental capacity of Hannah More.
England was experiencing change during the younger years of this well-known and justly honoured writer; the upper circles of society were gay and semi-infidel in principle, disposed to laugh at, and ridicule anything of a religious character; the lower were so intensely ignorant that they devoted themselves to indolence and vice. But already Wesley and Whitefield were preaching the simple gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, and, through the influence of His Holy Spirit, awakening numbers to study, appreciate, and rise to the full reception of the truth as it is in Him.
Mrs. Hannah More threw her literary influence and ability into the effort to raise and benefit her fellow-countrymen; though I am not aware that, during her early years, she in any way displayed personal and positive perception of the great love of that Heavenly Father who provided the special salvation and restoration so singularly suited to the wants and capacities of every child of man. But her evident respect for religion is singularly shown in the apparent sorrow that any disregard should be manifested towards God's Word; she once remarked, with emphatic disapproval, "We saw but one Bible in the parish of Cheddar, and that was used to prop a flower-pot!" She died in 1833, at the age of eighty-eight.
THE TOWER OF LONDON.