e in Hannah's company,
and for many years a close friendship was kept up between the two
ladies, although there could be but little intercourse on religious
matters, Mrs. Garrick being a Roman Catholic. Before the actor's death
Miss More had completed another play, _The Fatal Falsehood_, which was
afterwards performed, and which elicited almost as much applause
as _Percy_.

Miss More's experience of fashionable life had now lasted about six
years. As her fame increased, her taste for society declined. The
constant round of dinner-parties, conversation-parties, and assemblies
of intellect and wealth, though at first full of attraction to one of
her disposition, had begun to lose its charm. Her depth of character
and her recognition of the claims of religion demanded a more
satisfactory mode of spending her time and utilising her talents. For
the next five years we find her often the guest of Mrs. Garrick, but
gradually detaching herself from fashionable circles, studying theology,
history, and science, writing poems, and engaged in other literary work.

Her chief literary work during this period consisted of _Sacred
Dramas--Moses in the Bulrushes, David and Goliath, Belshazzar_, and
_Daniel_. She was prompted to this undertaking by a desire to provide,
not plays for the stage, but a substitute for some of the pernicious
literature of the day which fell into the hands of young people, and
also to afford instruction in the common facts of Scripture, The gross
ignorance of the Bible amongst fashionable people astonished her one
day, when Sir Joshua Reynolds told her that on showing his picture of
Samuel to some great patrons they asked him who Samuel was? The work
answered the purpose for which it was intended, and passed through
nineteen editions, receiving high commendation from Bishop Lowth and
others. Her poem _Sensibility_ was also included in this
successful volume.

A poem, _The Bas Bleu, or Conversation_, written in a lively and
facetious strain, owed its origin to the mistakes of a foreigner who
gave the literal designation of the _Bas-Bleu_ to a party of friends who
had been humorously called the "Blue Stockings."

At the King's request a manuscript copy of the poem was sent to him; and
Dr. Johnson went so far in his praise of the effusion as to say that
there was no name in poetry that might not be glad to own it. A little
later Miss More wrote _Florio_, a poem describing the occupation of a
young man of fas