tells us in a preface written in her happiest manner, that she might
ground on such publication her sentiments upon the general tendency of
the drama, and, by including in her view her own compositions, might
involve herself in the general object of her own animadversions.

She makes no apology for the republication of her "Sacred Dramas,"
though they may, perhaps, be regarded as falling within the range of
some of her criticisms on the old Mysteries and Moralities--pieces "in
which events too solemn for exhibition, and subjects too awful for
detail, are brought before the audience with a formal gravity more
offensive than levity itself."

As a general poet, Miss More was, at this period, the very height of
the fashion. Horace Walpole thought himself honored in being
permitted to print some of her pieces in the most lavish style of
expense, at the press of Strawberry Hill. But fashions in literature
are scarcely more lasting than those in dress. Her poems are now
immersed in Lethe, except a few terse couplets, which have floated
down to the present generation on the stream of oral citation, and
are now often in the mouths of people who fancy that they belong
to Swift or Gay. Many of her poems are, however, worthy of a better
fate. They are distinguished by purity and elevation of sentiment,
ease and strength of diction, and harmony of versification. In the
last particular she received great praise from Johnson, who
pronounced her to be "the best versificatrix in the English
language."

We will give a few extracts. The first is from "Sensibility," a poem
in which she claims for that quality the place which Mrs. Grenville,
in a then well-known ode, arrogated for "Indifference."

"Sweet sensibility! thou keen delight!
Unprompted moral! sudden sense of right!
Perception exquisite! fair virtue's seed!
Thou quick precursor of the liberal deed!
Thou hasty conscience! reason's blushing morn!
Instinctive kindness e'er reflection's born!
Prompt sense of equity! to thee belongs
The swift redress of unexamined wrongs;
Eager to serve, the cause perhaps untried,
But always apt to choose the suffering side;
To those who know thee not no words can paint,
And those who know thee know all words are faint.
She does not feel thy power who boasts thy flame,
And rounds her every period with thy name.
As words are but th' external marks to tell
The fair ideas in the mind that dwell,
And only are of