HANNAH MORE: _Letter to her sister, from Hampton_, 1782, in ‘Memoirs,’ by W. Roberts. * * * * * [Sidenote: Anecdote illustrating her readiness.] With the well-known writer, Dr. Langhorne, when vicar of Blagdon, she long maintained a poetical and literary correspondence. The introduction took place in 1773, while she was recovering from an attack of ague, at Uphill, on the Somersetshire coast. The doctor was at the time taking his recreation at the neighboring and better known watering-place, Weston-Super-Mare. They often rode together upon the sands; Miss More, as the custom then was, on the pillion behind her servant; and when it happened that either chanced to miss the other, a paper was placed in a cleft post near the water, generally containing some quaint remark, or a few verses. On one of these occasions, the doctor committed his wit and gallantry to the sand, on which he inscribed with his cane: “Along the shore Walked Hannah More; Waves! let this record last: Sooner shall ye, Proud earth and sea, Than what she writes, be past. JOHN LANGHORNE.” Miss More, with her riding whip, wrote immediately beneath: “Some firmer basis, polish’d Langhorne, choose, To write the dictates of thy charming muse; Thy strains in solid characters rehearse, And be thy tablet lasting as thy verse. HANNAH MORE.” HENRY THOMPSON: ‘Life of Hannah More.’ Philadelphia: Carey and Hart, 1838. * * * * * [Sidenote: Her early engagement to Mr. Turner.] His residence at Belmont was beautifully situated, and he had carriages and horses and every thing to make a visit to Belmont agreeable. He permitted his cousins to ask any young persons at the school to spend their vacations with them. Their governesses being nearly of their own age, they made choice of the two youngest of the sisters--Hannah and Patty More. The consequence was natural. She was very clever and fascinating, and he was generous and sensible; he became attached, and made his offer, which was accepted. He was a man of large fortune, and she was young and dependent; she quitted her interest in the concern of the school, and was at great expense in preparing and fitting herself out to be the wife of a man of large fortune. The day was fixed more than once for the marriage, and Mr. Turner each time postponed it. Her sisters and friends interfered, and would not permit her to be so treated and trifled with. He continued in the wish to marry her; but her friends, after his former conduct, and on other accounts, persevered in keeping up her determination not to renew the engagement. MRS. SIMMONS: _Letter_ in W. Roberts’ ‘Memoirs of Hannah More.’ * * * * * [Sidenote: Miss More in London.]