Page:Hannah More (1887 Charlotte Mary Yonge British).djvu/39

Rh head-gear surpassed at a family party where there were eleven damsels. "I protest I hardly do them justice'" she says, "when I pronounce that they had amongst them, on their heads, an acre and a half of shrubbery, besides slopes, grass plats, tulip beds, clumps of peonies, kitchen gardens and greenhouses."

The Colton family themselves seen to have been good and congenial people; but after some two months, Hannah rejoined the Garricks at Hampton, and went with them to pay a visit to Mr. Wilmot's at Farnborough, where she met Dr. and Mrs. Kennicott. The Doctor was Hebrew Professor at Oxford, and his wife had learnt the language in order to be able to copy for him. This was the beginning of another of Miss More's life friendships. On the Sunday evening, when music was talked of, Garrick turned to her and said "Nine, you are a Sunday woman; retire to your room, I will recall you when the music is over."

The Garricks were both revising Hannah's present undertaking; "A German Commentator will suck an author dry," wrote David, to frighten the authoress when the work was in his wife's hands.

For a successful tragedy was the prime achievement expected of all who, in the language of the day, aspired to be denizens of Parnassus. Hannah had long ago half translated, half imitated, Metastasio's drama of Attilio Regulo, and called her work The Inflexible Captive. It was brought out this summer at the theatre