Page:Hannah More (1887 Charlotte Mary Yonge British).djvu/71

Rh On the whole, however, modern taste prefers the letter sent by Miss More at this time to Mrs. Pepys, with a pair of stockings knitted for one of the children, a cleverer thing in its way than the Bas Bleu:—

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I beg to dedicate the enclosed work, the fruit of a few days' leisure at St. Albans, to either of your little children of whose capacity of receiving it you will be the best judge upon trial, for there is a certain fitness without which the best works are of little value. Though it is so far of a moral cast that its chief end is utility, yet I hope that the child will be able to run through it with pleasure. I may say, without vanity, that it is founded upon the precepts of the great masters of the Epopæa, with but few exceptions. The subject is simple, but it has a beginning, middle, and end. The exordium is the natural introduction by which you are let into the whole work. The middle, I trust, is free from any unnatural tumour or inflation, and the end from any disproportionate littleness. I have avoided bringing about the catastrophe too suddenly, as I know that would hurt him at whose feet I lay it. For the same reason, I took care to shun too pointed a conclusion, still reserving my greatest acuteness for this part of my subject. I had materials for a much longer work, but the art to stop