t would be trite, however, to dwell on the vapid
talk which must almost of necessity mark those who assemble in crowds,
and which we are taught to call society, which really cannot exist
without the free interchange of thought and sentiment. Hence society
only truly shines in small and select circles of people of high
intelligence, who are drawn together by friendship as well as
admiration."

About two years after this work on education appeared,--education in the
broadest sense, pertaining to woman at home and in society as well as at
school,--Hannah More moved from her little thatched cottage, and built
Barley Wood,--a large villa, where she could entertain the increasing
circle of her friends, who were at this period only the learned, the
pious, and the distinguished, especially bishops like Porteus and
Horne, and philanthropists like Wilberforce. The beauty of this new
residence amid woods and lawns attracted her sisters from Bath, who
continued to live with her the rest of their lives, and to co-operate
with her in deeds of benevolence. In this charming retreat she wrote
perhaps the most famous of her books, "Coelebs in Search of a
Wife,"--not much read, I fancy, in these times, but admired in its day
before the great revolution in novel-writing was made by Sir Walter
Scott. Yet this work is no more a novel than the "Dialogues of Plato."
Like "Rasselas," it is a treatise,--a narrative essay on the choice of a
wife, the expansion and continuation of her strictures on education and
fashionable life. This work appeared in 1808, when the writer was
sixty-three years of age. As on former occasions, she now not only
assumed an anonymous name, but endeavored to hide herself under deeper
incognita,--all, however, to no purpose, as everybody soon knew, from
the style, who the author was. The first edition of this popular
work--popular, I mean, in its day, for no work is popular long, though
it may remain forever a classic on the shelves of libraries--was sold in
two weeks. Twelve thousand were published the first year, the profits of
which were L2,000. In this country the sale was larger, thirty thousand
copies being sold during the life of the author. It was also translated
into most of the modern languages of Europe. In 1811 appeared her work
on "Christian Morals," which had a sale of ten thousand; and in 1815 her
essay on the "Character and Practical Writings of Saint Paul," of which
seven thousand copies were sold. Thes