The city of Bristol, although essentially a manufacturing and commercial centre, is not deficient in names which have enjoyed a widespread literary reputation. All through the first half of the present century Bristol was associated with the colossal fame of Hannah More, but the idol is long since forgotten, and now, a little more than forty years after her death, many might ask, Who was Hannah More? She was the daughter of the schoolmaster at Stapleton, near Bristol, and was born on the 2d of February, 1745. She was one of five daughters, who by the education received from their father were enabled to set up in Bristol a boarding-school for young ladies which had the luck to become _fashionable_. Hannah's literary reputation began at the age of seventeen with a pastoral drama, the _Search after Happiness_, written for, and performed by, the young ladies of the boarding-school. On this slender basis she visited London, was so fortunate as to attract the attention of Garrick, and was by him introduced into his brilliant circle. She must have been at that time both witty and pretty, for Mrs. Montagu and the Reynoldses were delighted with her, Dr. Johnson gave her pet names, and Horace Walpole called her Saint Hannah. Her next great success was her tragedy of _Percy_, in which Garrick sustained the principal character, and in which Mrs. Siddons afterward appeared. Later on, Mrs. More published some _Sacred Dramas_, but after the death of Garrick she abandoned dramatic writing, her views leading her to take up what was called, in her day, "strict behavior," of which she now became the apostle. On her literary profits she retired to Cowslip Green, near Bristol, and later on to Barley Wood, where she was joined by her sisters, who were enabled to retire on the handsome profits of their school. But neither "strict behavior" nor anything else could weaken Hannah's hold on her day and generation: her _Estimate of the Religion of the Fashionable World_ went off like hot cakes, and her _Thoughts on the Manners of the Great_ were scrambled for by both great and small--seven large editions in a few months, the second in a week, the third in _four hours_! How many people now-a-days have read _Coelebs_, of which twelve editions were printed in the first year, and in all thirty thousand copies of disposed of in America alone? _Corinne_ appeared when Lucilla, the heroine of _Coelebs_, was at the height of her popularity, and much animated comparison was instituted between Corinne and the rival she has long survived. [Illustration: THE CATHEDRAL]