rship; and, when the
truth came out, innumerable were the thanks and congratulations which
bore cordial testimony to the merit of a performance, by which the
tact and intelligence of a single female had turned the tide of
misguided opinion. Many affirmed that it contributed essentially to
prevent a revolution; so true was the touch, and so masterly the
delineation, which brought out, in all its relief, the ludicrous and
monstrous cheat, whereby appetite, selfishness, and animal force, were
attempted to be imposed under the form of liberty, equality, and
imprescriptible right.

The success of "Village Politics" encouraged Miss More to venture on a
more extensive undertaking. The institution of Sunday schools, which
had enabled multitudes to read, threatened to be a curse instead of a
blessing; for, while no healthy food was furnished for their minds,
the friends of infidelity and vice carried their exertions so far as
to load asses with their pernicious pamphlets, and to get them
dropped, not only in cottages and in the highways, but into mines and
coal-pits. Sermons and catechisms were already furnished in abundance;
but the enemy made use of the alluring vehicles of novels, tales, and
songs, and she thought it right to meet them with their own weapons.

She therefore determined to produce three tracts every month, written
in a lively manner, under the name of the "Cheap Repository." The
success surpassed her most sanguine expectations. Two millions were
sold in the first year--a circumstance, perhaps, new in the annals of
printing. But this very success, she tells us, threatened to be her
ruin; for, in order to supplant the trash, it was necessary to
undersell it, thus incurring a certain loss. This, however, was met by
a subscription on the part of the friends of good order and morals.

The exertion which it required to produce these tracts, to organize
her plan, and to conduct a correspondence with the committees formed
in various parts of the kingdom, materially undermined her health. She
continued them, however, for three years. "It has been," she writes,
"no small support to me, that my plan met with the warm protection of
so many excellent persons. They would have me believe that a very
formidable riot among the colliers was prevented by my ballad of 'The
Riot.' The plan was settled; they were resolved to work no more; to
attack the mills first, and afterwards the gentry. A gentleman gained
their confidence, a