Page:Hannah More (1887 Charlotte Mary Yonge British).djvu/183

Rh several of the Cheap Repository Tracts were translated into Russian, and widely circulated by a Princess with the formidable name of Metchersky. The Shepherd of Salisbury Plain, the Two Wealthy Farmers, and, still more, Charles the Footman, must have been a curious study in Russia in the days of unmitigated serfdom.

Some of these Tracts were also translated into Cinghalese and Tamil, and the Chief Justice of Ceylon, Sir Alexander Johnstone, sent the authoress a specimen of her drama of Moses in the Bulrushes written in Cinghalese on a Palmyra leaf and enclosed in a beautifully carved and painted case. He further informed her of the abolition of slavery in Ceylon, and asked for a ballad, that might be translated to be used at a festival to be held on the 19th of August 1816, after which day every new-born child would be free. She produced a little poetical dialogue called the Feast of Freedom, one verse of which it would be well to make a stock quotation in our schools— Then let our masters gladly find A free man works the faster; Who serves his God with heart and mind Will better serve his master.

The poem was translated by two Buddhist priests whom Sir Alexander had sent to England for education, and who were at Liverpool with Dr. Adam Clarke, and it was set to music by Dr. C. Wesley.