Page:A happy half-century and other essays.djvu/23

 Rh Sir William Pepys confessed that "Percy" "broke his heart"; and that he thought it "a kind of profanation" to wipe his eyes, and go from the theatre to Lady Harcourt's assembly. Four thousand copies of the play were sold in a fortnight; and the Duke of Northumberland sent a special messenger to Miss More to thank her for the honour she had done his historic name.

As a novelist, Hannah was equally successful. Twenty thousand copies of "Cœlebs in Search of a Wife" were sold in England, and thirty thousand in America. "The Americans are a very approving people," acknowledged the gratified authoress. In Iceland "Cœlebs" was read—so Miss More says—"with great apparent profit"; while certain very popular tracts, like "Charles the Footman" and "The Shepherd of Salisbury Plain," made their edifying way to Moscow, and were found by the missionary Gericke in the library of the Rajah of Tanjore. "All this and Heaven, too!" as a reward for being born in 1745. The injustice of the thing stings us to the soul. Yet it was the unhesitating assumption of Heaven's