her religious views; yet, when we recollect her unfeigned sincerity and practical benevolence—her exertions to instruct the poor miners and cottagers—and the untiring zeal with which she laboured, even amidst severe bodily infirmities, to inculcate sound principles and intellectual cultivation, from the palace to the cottage, it is impossible not to rank her among the best benefactors of mankind.
The great success of the different works of our authoress enabled her to live in ease, and to dispense charities around her. Her sisters also secured a competency, and they all lived together at Barley Grove, a property of some extent, which they purchased and improved. "From the day that the school was given up, the whole sisterhood appears to have flowed on in one uniform current of peace and contentment, diversified only by new appearances of Hannah as an authoress, and the ups and downs which she and the others met with in the prosecution of a most brave and humane experiment—namely, their zealous effort to extend the blessings of education and religion among the inhabitants of certain villages situated in a wild country some eight or ten miles from their abode, who, from a concurrence of unhappy local and temporary circumstances, had been left in a state of ignorance hardly conceivable at the present day." These exertions were ultimately so successful, that the sisterhood had the gratification of witnessing a yearly festival celebrated on the hills of Cheddar, where above a thousand children, with the members of female clubs of industry, (also established by them,) after attending church service, were regaled at the expense of their benefactors.
Hannah More died on the 7th. of September, 1833, aged eighty-eight. She had made about £30,000 by her writings, and she left, by her will, legacies to charitable and religious institutions amounting to £10,000.
In 1834, "Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Mrs. Hannah More," by William Roberts, Esq., were published in four volumes. In these we have a full account by Hannah herself of her London life, and many interesting anecdotes.
MORGAN, SYDNEY LADY,
Whose maiden name was Sydney Owenson, was born in Dublin, about 1783. Her father, Mr. Robert Owenson, was a respectable actor at the Theatre Royal, Dublin, and gave his daughter the best advantages of education he could command. He was a man of decided talents, a favourite in the society of the city, and author of some popular Irish songs. His daughter, Sydney, inherited his predilection for national music and song. Very early in life, when she was a mere child, she published a small volume of poetical effusions; and soon after, "The Lay of the Irish Harp," and a selection of twelve Irish melodies, set to music. One of these is the well-known song of "Kate Kearney;" probably this popular lyric will outlive all the other writings of this authoress. Her next work was a novel, "St. Clair, or the Heiress of Desmond," published when she was about sixteen. It was soon followed by "The Novice of St. Dominick;" and then her most successful work, "The Wild Irish Girl," which appeared in the winter of 1801.
The book had a prodigious sale. Within the first two years, seven editions were published in Great Britain, besides two or three in America. It gained for Miss Owenson a celebrity which very
