Encouraged in various ways by numerous friends, on whose judgment she could safely rely, she appears to have taken pains to qualify herself for a literary career.  She studied Latin, Italian, and Spanish, translated from the best compositions, wrote pieces in imitation of celebrated authors, and thus tried to cultivate her mind, and to form the groundwork of a good and pleasing style.

Such literary prospects, however, seemed likely to be exchanged for those of a rural domestic life; for at the age of twenty-two she received and accepted an offer of marriage from a country gentleman of wealth and high character.  The wedding-day was fixed, but was postponed more than once, owing to the bridegroom’s indecision.  At length he lost his chance; for the bride, yielding to the advice of friends, declined to be trifled with any longer, and broke off the engagement.  To make some amends for his treatment, and to compensate for her resignation, at the prospect of marriage, of her interest in the school which she and her sister were conducting at Bristol, he settled upon her an annuity, and at his death bequeathed her a thousand pounds.  The settlement was made without her knowledge; and it was not without the utmost difficulty that her friends prevailed in persuading her to agree to the arrangement.  From this time forward she seems to have set her face against matrimony, for she firmly declined other offers.

A few years afterwards, on arriving at the age of twenty-eight, a long-cherished wish was realised.  Since childhood she had longed to visit London.  As a child her favourite amusement was to make a carriage of a chair, and invite her sisters to ride with her to London “to see bishops and booksellers.”  Through girlhood to womanhood the desire gathered strength.  In 1773 she set off with two of her sisters to pay her first visit to the Metropolis.

II.

IN “VANITY FAIR.”

In order to estimate the complex influences surrounding Hannah More in London, and to appreciate the manner in which she stood the ordeal of passing through “Vanity Fair,” it is necessary to bear in mind the social, moral, and religious aspects of the people about the middle of the eighteenth century.

What are now considered flagrant vices were either unnoticed or tacitly sanctioned.  Of social refinement, as we now understand the term, there was comparatively little.  Coarse jokes, swearing, and profanity were almost as common in “polite society” as in the back streets now.  The literature of the day, excepting the writings of Addison, Johnson, Steele, and a few others, ministered to the low tastes prevalent amongst both the upper and the lower classes.  Religion had well nigh lost all vitality.  With the majority of people it had become the subject either of jest, sceptical hostility, or the utmost indifference.