Acquaint thyself with God, if thou wouldst taste Thou shalt perceive that thou wast blind before. Till then unfelt, what hands divine have brought.' Happy who walks with Him! whom what he finds The poems of Hannah More (1744 1833) derive, no doubt, their chief value from the spirit which animates them. They are the verses of a refined and most benevolent woman, whose influence was great, and whose talents were exerted with a Christian-hearted purpose of doing good. Her poetical were almost as popular as her prose works. It is true their sale was in many instances very much promoted by the zeal of some good people, who believed that in the excited and anxious times which witnessed the outbreak of the French Revolution, her writings, full as they are of high principle, tact, and sound sense, were calculated to be of great service. In any case, they were widely read and much admired. Her poem, for instance, on 'Sensibility,' although weighted rather than not by the Sacred Dramas' with which, in 1783, it was published, went through nineteen editions." Sensibility, in her meaning of the word, was a quickness of moral perception especially to those simple but precious virtues of domestic life which Christian charity demands. The poem is chiefly addressed to girls growing up to womanhood. Yet it is not so much a poem as an essay written in pleasing verse. 'The Task,' book v. near close. Hannah More's Memoirs, by W. Roberts, i. 184 (note). 2 Id. vi. Among her devotional poetry may be mentioned a hymn for midnight, and a pleasant though rather prosaic Christmas hymn, in nineteen stanzas, beginning: Oh how wondrous is the story Of our blest Redeemer's birth! Leaves His heaven to visit earth.1 The following sensible and characteristic lines occur in one of the Solitary Musings,' of which the first line is, 'Lord, when dejected I appear.' O wayward heart! thine is the blame; Is the fixed tenor of my mind To Christ and righteousness inclined ? 2 Nor should her religious tales and ballads be passed over without notice. Many of them were adapted to popular tunes, and widely dispersed as tracts and broadsheets. The following is a part of the conversation entitled, "Turn the Carpet,' or 'The Two Weavers :' Says John, Thou say'st the thing I mean, As when we view these shreds and ends, No plan or pattern can we trace, But when we reach that world of light, Then shall we see the whole design, Some of Hannah More's best verses were written in 1788, upon the slave trade. They were verses well calculated to stir the conscience of her readers. Especially she inveighed against the proud philosophy,' which affected to deny to the negro race a common share in the powers of our joint humanity. And earnestly she pleaded against the iniquitous inconsistency of slavery in a land of liberty— Shall Britain, where the soul of freedom reigns, There is much religious pathos in the following: And if some notions, vague and undefin'd, In fact, the better poetry of the age was all, greatly to its credit, on the side of freedom and humanity-prompt alike to animate Wilberforce in his exertions, and to console and encourage him under the partial failure which at first awaited his efforts. James Hurdis, in 1788, entreated his countrymen to put away from them a guilt which would surely bring righteous vengeance upon them. In 1792, Cowper 2 Id. xi. 119. 1 Hannah More's Works, 17. 3 • Id. 117. Hurdis, Jas., Poems, iii. 92. addressed a noble sonnet to Wilberforce, bidding him not to be disheartened Friend of the poor, the wronged, the fetter-gall'd, Mrs. Barbauld dedicated a poem to him on the same occasion.2 James Montgomery not only wrote, but suffered imprisonment in the cause, through the offence which his unguarded vehemence had given.3 Southey, in 1794, dedicated to the subject some of his early sonnets and lyricsverses glowing with indignation. Coleridge, in the same year, denounced the wrath that must thunder from the Holy One: where hideous Trade Loud laughing packs his bales of human anguish.5 Campbell, in the last year of the century, wrote a fine apostrophe to Nature outraged by the wicked institution : Eternal Nature! when thy giant hand Had heav'd the floods, and fixed the trembling land, To call upon his country's name and weep! 6 James Hurdis (1763-1801), whose verses on slavery have been referred to, was a Fellow of Magdalene College, and curate of Burwash in Sussex; afterwards vicar of Bishopstone, and Professor of Poetry at Oxford. His gentle refinement, his 1 Cowper's Poems, 'Sonnet to William Wilberforce.' 2 Barbauld's Works (Aikin), i. 173, Epistle to W. Wilberforce.' Montgomery, Jas., Memoirs of, by J. Holland and Jas. Everett, 166, and pref. to Poetical Works, i. xxvii. • Southey's Poetical Works, Poems concerning the Slave Trade' (1794), ii. 56. S. T. Coleridge's Poetical Works, 'Religious Musings,' i. 87. cultivated love of Nature, his bright unclouded piety, make him one of the most charming of eighteenth-century poets. He was not, in the stricter sense of the word, a writer of sacred poetry, but a vein of pure Christian feeling runs through all he wrote; as when musing on the resuscitation of all Nature in the spring, he exclaims But I shall live again, And still on that sweet hope shall my soul feed. A medicine it is, which with a touch Heals all the pains of life; a precious balm, Anna Lætitia Barbauld2 (1743-1825) might have been spoken of among the hymn writers. Her hymns are only twelve in number, occupying a few pages at the end of her poetical works. But all of them are good of their kind, considered as devotional poems, not intended for congregational use. She published only those which she thought the best, acting, in this instance at least, on the excellent principle, 'I had rather it be asked of twenty pieces why they are not here, than of one why it is.' Four of them, one for Easter Sunday, one on 'Pious Friendship,' and those beginning, 'Praise to God, immortal praise,' and 'Awake my soul! lift up thine eyes,' may be found in Sir Roundell Palmer's selection. The following is upon the text, 'Come unto me all ye that are weary,' &c. : 3 Come, said Jesus' sacred voice, Come and make my paths your choice; I will guide you to your home; Weary pilgrim, hither come! 1 Hurdis, Jas., Poems, The Village Curate.' 2 Mrs. Barbauld was three years older than her brother Dr. Aikin. Their father was a dissenting clergyman, a friend of Doddridge. Mr. Barbauld's grandfather was a French Protestant who, as a boy, had been smuggled to England inside a cask. His father was an English clergyman. He himself had been intended for the same profession, but had imbibed Nonconformist principles in Dr. Aikin's school. Mrs. Barbauld's celebrity as a teacher is well known.(L. Aikin's Memoirs.) • Works of Anna L. Barbauld, with Memoir, by Lucy Aikin, i. Ix, |