Page:Hannah More (1887 Charlotte Mary Yonge British).djvu/59

Rh the other day," writes Hannah, "that he hated to hear people whine about metaphysical distresses when there was so much want and hunger in the world. I told him I supposed, then, he never wept at any tragedy but Jane Shore, who had died for want of a loaf. He called me a saucy girl, but did not deny the inference."

Meeting him a day or two later at the Bishop of Chester's (Porteus), she was asked to sit next him and make him talk; and she writes: "You would have enjoyed seeing him take me by the hand and repeat, with no small enthusiasm, many passages from The Fair Penitent, &c. I urged him to take a little wine; he replied: 'I can't drink a little, child, therefore I never touch it. Abstinence is easy to me; temperance would be difficult.' He was very good-humoured and gay. One of the company happened to say a word about poetry. 'Hush, hush!' said he; 'it is dangerous to say a word of poetry before her; it is talking of the art of war before Hannibal.'"

Then followed a breakfast where Hannah had a discussion with that strange person, the Scotch Lord Monboddo, who complained that everything was degenerating.

"Men are not so tall as they were; women not so handsome. Nobody can write a long period." (What would he have said in the present day?)

Miss More said that, though long periods were