“Coelebs in Search of a Wife,”—­not much read, I fancy, in these times, but admired in its day before the great revolution in novel-writing was made by Sir Walter Scott.  Yet this work is no more a novel than the “Dialogues of Plato.”  Like “Rasselas,” it is a treatise,—­a narrative essay on the choice of a wife, the expansion and continuation of her strictures on education and fashionable life.  This work appeared in 1808, when the writer was sixty-three years of age.  As on former occasions, she now not only assumed an anonymous name, but endeavored to hide herself under deeper incognita,—­all, however, to no purpose, as everybody soon knew, from the style, who the author was.  The first edition of this popular work—­popular, I mean, in its day, for no work is popular long, though it may remain forever a classic on the shelves of libraries—­was sold in two weeks.  Twelve thousand were published the first year, the profits of which were L2,000.  In this country the sale was larger, thirty thousand copies being sold during the life of the author.  It was also translated into most of the modern languages of Europe.  In 1811 appeared her work on “Christian Morals,” which had a sale of ten thousand; and in 1815 her essay on the “Character and Practical Writings of Saint Paul,” of which seven thousand copies were sold.  These works were followed by her “Moral Sketches of Prevailing Opinions and Manners,” of which ten thousand were sold, and which realized a royalty of L3,000.

At the age of eighty, Hannah More wrote her “Spirit of Prayer,” of which nearly twenty thousand copies were printed; and with this work her literary career virtually closed.  Her later works were written amid the pains of disease and many distractions, especially visits from distinguished and curious people, which took up her time and sadly interrupted her labors.  At the age of eighty, though still receiving many visitors, she found herself nearly alone in the world.  All her most intimate friends had died,—­Mrs. Garrick at the age of ninety-eight; Sir William Pepys (the Laelius of the “Bas Bleu"); Dr. Porteus, Bishop of London; Dr. Fisher, Bishop of Salisbury; Bishop Horne, Bishop Barrington; Dr. Andrew, Dean of Canterbury; and Lady Cremon, besides her three sisters.  The friends of her earlier days had long since passed away,—­Garrick, Johnson, Reynolds, Horace Walpole.  Of those who started in the race with her few were left.  Still, visitors continued to throng her house to the last, impelled by admiration or curiosity; and she was obliged at length to limit her levee to the hours between one and three.

Hannah More lived at Barley Wood nearly thirty years in dignified leisure, with an ample revenue and in considerable style, keeping her carriage and horses, with a large number of servants, dispensing a generous hospitality, and giving away in charities a considerable part of her income.  She realized from her pen L30,000, and her sisters also had accumulated a fortune by their school in Bristol.  Her property must have been considerable, since on her death she bequeathed in charities nearly L10,000, beside endowing a church.  She spent about L900 a year in charities.