pe those tears away?
If thou hast felt, and hast resisted these,
Then thou may'st curse my weakness; but if not,
Thou canst not pity, for thou canst not judge."

Encouraged by the success of "Percy," and urged by Garrick, Miss More
composed a second tragedy, called the "Fatal Falsehood." The whole was
completed, and four acts had been revised by Garrick, when death
deprived her of that warm and disinterested friend. Miss More pays the
following tribute to his memory: "I never can cease to remember with
affection and gratitude so warm, steady, and disinterested a friend; I
can most truly bear this testimony to his memory, that I never
witnessed, in any family, more decorum, propriety, and regularity,
than in his; where I never saw a card, or ever met--except in one
instance--a person of his own profession at his table. All his
pursuits and tastes were so decidedly intellectual, that it made the
society and the conversation which was always to be found in his
circle, interesting and delightful."

The success of the "Fatal Falsehood" was great, but not equal to that
of "Percy." We must content ourselves with making one extract, in
which she characterizes "Honor," as it is technically called:--

"Honor! O yes, I know him. 'Tis a phantom,
A shadowy figure, wanting bulk and life,
Who, having nothing solid in himself,
Wraps his thin form in Virtue's plundered robe,
And steals her title. Honor! 'tis the fiend
Who feeds on orphans' tears and widows' groans,
And slakes his impious thirst in brothers' blood.
Honor! why, 'tis the primal law of hell!
The grand device to people the dark realms
With noble spirits, who, but for this cursed honor,
Had been at peace on earth, or blessed in heaven.
With this _false_ honor Christians have no commerce;
Religion disavows, and truth disowns it."

One more tragedy, the "Inflexible Captive," completes Miss More's
labors in this department of literature. She arrived at the conclusion
that, by contributing plays, however pure, to the existing stage, she
should be using her powers to heighten its _general_ attraction as a
place of amusement; and, considering the English theatre as, on the
whole, the most profligate in the world, she resolved to abjure it and
all its concerns forever--an instance of self-love sacrificed to
principle hardly to be paralleled. When her works were collected, the
tragedies were allowed to take their place, in order, as the author