H. M. has moreover been accused of fanaticism and jacobinism, of disaffection to church and state. Now it must be acknowledged to be a little hard, that an individual should be accused of failing in those very points and objects, which it has been the study of a laborious and protracted life, to vindicate and promote.
How unjust and unfounded these imputations are, any one may be easily and effectually convinced, who will be at the pains to examine the edition of H. M.’s works, published in eight volumes, in 1801. Let him but pay attention to the story of Fantom, in the beginning of the fourth volume, or to the first chapter of the Fashionable World, vol. 6, with the answer to Dupont, in this same volume, and he will require no other evidence or argument, to convince him of the absurdity and falsehood of such imputations.
Further than this, to impress on the lower classes of people a reverence for the clergy, this excellent writer has laboured with no ordinary sedulousness. This must be obvious from the Fictitious Tales in the 4th and 5th volumes of the edition above-mentioned, where a parish minister is almost constantly introduced as an example of every virtue. It may be expedient also to refer to “Village Politics,” at the end of the first volume.
But this discussion apparently leads to the path which it was determined to avoid. It may therefore be sufficient to terminate this article, by the memorandum of our friend, expressed to this effect in the margin of the manuscript, that he reckoned (he observes) among the most agreeable circumstances of his life, his personal introduction to H. M. He was pleased with the unaffected simplicity of her manners, the spirit of her conversation, which, though instructive, was modest and unobtrusive. He had also the occasional honour of her correspondence, and he felt justified in speaking in the highest terms of her knowledge, sagacity, and judgment.
It ought, however, to be observed, that, during all the virulent attacks made upon her, in the above-mentioned controversy, H. M. preserved a dignified and inviolable silence; never suffering herself to be provoked into contention with those, who so ardently desired to involve her in it. By this prudence, no less than by her real innocence, she finally obtained the victory.
Non ego illam mihi dotem duco esse quæ dos dicitur
Sed pudicitiam, et pudorem et sedatum Cupidinem.