The Collected Letters of Hannah More

Hannah More to Thomas Cadell Junior, November 1823

To: Thos. Cadell Esqr.
Address: Strand
Stamped: None
Postmark: None
Seal: Red wax
Watermarks: SIMMONS 1821
Endorsements:

None
MS: Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge: Perceval General Series
Published: Undetermined

Barley Wood
[November 1823, date from catalogue and context][1]

Dear Sir

I have so many foreign Visitors that I have given away all my books and will beg the favour of you to send me as under

 1 Cœlebs[2]
 3 Practical piety[3]
 4 Christian Morals[4]
 3 Essay on St. Paul [5]
 2 Hints to a Princess[6]
 1 Manners of the Great [7]
 12 Bible Rhymes[8]
 3 Moral Sketches [9]
 3 Small Edit of my Poems [10]
 3 Small Sacred Dramas
 1 My Poems large Edition [11]
Stowell’s New Life of Bishop Wilson[12]

I am thankful to say that my health is greatly improved . If I were a disciple of Prince Hohenloe[13] it would be called a Miracle. I do not go out, but am able to see my friends. Indeed my excellent Physician finds fault that I see too much company, but I cannot well avoid it, tho I suffer upon it . I hope you will recommend my friend Cottle’s ‘Plymouth Antinomians’[14] . It ably exposes the worst heresy that ever infected the Church.

I shall be glad if you will favour me with my Account before the end of November I do not expect to be made very rich by it. My day must be gone by. and I am contented that other and better writers should take my place.

I am so very unfashionable as to be extremely dissatisfied with that which the world is so captivated with. The hearers of Mr. Irving[15] may be fascinated, but I think /some/ /of/ his readers will form another judgment. his style is inflated, verbose, and, to me at least, often unintelligible. There are here and there fine passages, but you pay for them by his laborious English. I believe he is a good and a zealous Man: but some of his sentiments are very censurable – yet I hope he is doing some good.

I hope yourself and family have enjoyed health in this sickly season.

Yours dear Sir
very sincerely
H More

I inclose to Mr. Money

[In another hand is written]

NB: The Books ordered were sent and Mrs M was informed I was then absent from London –

Wrote to Mrs M Novr. 17 /1823/ enclosing a statement of her Account, Proposed settling for the Balance, amounting to £644-0-3 by 5 payments to be made at the same periods as before, Viz in April, June, Septr, Decr next, and March in the succeeding Year –

← Back to letter list


[1]

Dated from the items mentioned in the catalogue and the note at the end of the letter.

[2]

Cœlebs in Search of a Wife (London: Cadell and Davies), first published in 1808, and More’s only novel. Cadell would have sent More later editions.

[3]

More’s Practical Piety (London: Cadell and Davies), first published in 1811.

[4]

More’s Christian Morals (London: Cadell and Davies), first published in 1813.

[5]

More’s Essay on the Character and Practical Writings of Saint Paul (London: Cadell and Davies), first published in 1815.

[6]

More’s Hints Towards Forming the Character of a Young Princess (London: Cadell and Davies), first published in 1805.

[7]

More’s Thoughts on the Importance of the Manners of the Great to General Society (London: Cadell and Davies), first published in 1788.

[8]

More’s Bible Rhymes (London: T. Cadell and Hatchard & Son), first published in 1821.

[9]

More’s Moral Sketches of Prevailing Opinions and Manners, Foreign and Domestic (London: Cadell and Davies), first published in 1819.

[10]

Perhaps Poems (London: T. Cadell and W. Davies, 1816) which, according to the British Library catalogue, was published in duodecimo.

[11]

More mentions the recent publication of a large edition of her Poems in her letter of 15 February 1817 to Sarah Hole.

[12]

Hugh Stowell, The Life of the Right Reverend Father in God, Thomas WIlson, D.D., Lord Bishop of Sodor and Man (London: Rivington, 1819).

[13]

Prince Alexander of Hohenlohe-Waldenburg-Schillingsfürst (1794-1849), Catholic priest and popular preacher. The prince was reputed to have miraculous powers of healing, having supposedly cured a German princess of her long-standing paralysis.

[14]

Joseph Cottle, Strictures on the Plymouth Antinomians (London: Printed for T. Cadell, 1823). (Read online.)

[15]

Possibly Edward Irving (1792-1834), preacher. Ordained in Scotland, Irving worked as assistant at the new parish of St. John’s in Glasgow for a time, where he gained some popularity amongst the labourers resident there. In 1822 he moved to London and became the minister of the Caledonian Chapel at Hatton Garden. There Irving rapidly rose to prominence with crowds queuing to gain seats at his sermons. His first book, For the Oracles of God and the Judgement to Come (London: T. Hamilton), was published in June 1823 and rapidly went through three editions. (Read online.)

Topics in this letter

People in this letter

Places in this letter