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    The Fatal Falsehood: "Depart from discretion when it interferes with duty"
    The Fatal Falsehood: "Depart from discretion when it interferes with duty"
    The Fatal Falsehood: "Depart from discretion when it interferes with duty"
    Ebook112 pages1 hour

    The Fatal Falsehood: "Depart from discretion when it interferes with duty"

    By Hannah More

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    Hannah More was born on February 2nd, 1745 at Fishponds in the parish of Stapleton, near Bristol. She was the fourth of five daughters. The City of Bristol, at that time, was a centre for slave-trading and Hannah would, over time, become one of its staunchest critics. She was keen to learn, possessed a sharp intellect and was assiduous in studying. Hannah first wrote in 1762 with The Search after Happiness (by the mid-1780s some 10,000 copies had been sold). In 1767 Hannah became engaged to William Turner. After six years, with no wedding in sight, the engagement was broken off. Turner then bestowed upon her an annual annuity of £200. This was enough to meet her needs and set her free to pursue a literary career. Her first play, The Inflexible Captive, was staged at Bath in 1775. The famous David Garrick himself produced her next play, Percy, in 1777 as well as writing both the Prologue and Epilogue for it. It was a great success when performed at Covent Garden in December of that year. Hannah turned to religious writing with Sacred Dramas in 1782; it rapidly ran through nineteen editions. These and the poems Bas-Bleu and Florio (1786) mark her gradual transition to a more serious and considered view of life. Hannah contributed much to the newly-founded Abolition Society including, in February 1788, her publication of Slavery, a Poem recognised as one of the most important of the abolition period. Her work now became more evangelical. In the 1790s she wrote several Cheap Repository Tracts which covered moral, religious and political topics and were both for sale or distributed to literate poor people. The most famous is, perhaps, The Shepherd of Salisbury Plain, describing a family of incredible frugality and contentment. Two million copies of these were circulated, in one year. In 1789, she purchased a small house at Cowslip Green in Somerset. She was instrumental in setting up twelve schools in the area by 1800. She continued to oppose slavery throughout her life, but at the time of the Abolition Bill of 1807, her health did not permit her to take as active a role in the movement as she had done in the late 1780s, although she maintained a correspondence with Wilberforce and others. In July 1833, the Bill to abolish slavery throughout the British Empire passed in the House of Commons, followed by the House of Lords on August 1st. Hannah More died on September 7th, 1833.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherStage Door
    Release dateJul 1, 2017
    ISBN9781787373983
    The Fatal Falsehood: "Depart from discretion when it interferes with duty"
    Author

    Hannah More

    Hannah More (1745-1833) was one of the defining Christian female voices of Georgian Britain. An influential Evangelical writer, her vast literary output included essays, hymns, plays, poems, popular tracts (her Cheap Repository Tracts sold millions of copies) and a novel, while her philanthropic spirit established schools for children, woman's clubs and improved the conditions of the poor.She was a member of The Blue Stockings Society of England, and was connected with many notable figures of her era, including Edmund Burke, David Garrick, Samuel Johnson, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Horace Walpole, and the abolitionist William Wilberforce, whose campaign to end the British slave trade was greatly aided by her poem Slavery.Hannah steadfastly supported piety, traditional Christian values and education - her zeal even taking on Thomas Paine and the French Revolution.As England began to grapple with its industrial and scientific revolutions, More helped prepare British society for the challenges of the 19th century by promoting Biblical values and Evangelical social reforms. She was a paragon of her age, and a beacon for Christ.

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      Book preview

      The Fatal Falsehood - Hannah More

      The Fatal Falsehood by Hannah More

      Hannah More was born on February 2nd, 1745 at Fishponds in the parish of Stapleton, near Bristol. She was the fourth of five daughters.

      The City of Bristol, at that time, was a centre for slave-trading and Hannah would, over time, become one of its staunchest critics.

      She was keen to learn, possessed a sharp intellect and was assiduous in studying.  Hannah first wrote in 1762 with The Search after Happiness (by the mid-1780s some 10,000 copies had been sold).

      In 1767 Hannah became engaged to William Turner.  After six years, with no wedding in sight, the engagement was broken off.  Turner then bestowed upon her an annual annuity of £200.  This was enough to meet her needs and set her free to pursue a literary career. 

      Her first play, The Inflexible Captive, was staged at Bath in 1775. The famous David Garrick himself produced her next play, Percy, in 1777 as well as writing both the Prologue and Epilogue for it.  It was a great success when performed at Covent Garden in December of that year.

      Hannah turned to religious writing with Sacred Dramas in 1782; it rapidly ran through nineteen editions. These and the poems Bas-Bleu and Florio (1786) mark her gradual transition to a more serious and considered view of life.

      Hannah contributed much to the newly-founded Abolition Society including, in February 1788, her publication of Slavery, a Poem recognised as one of the most important of the abolition period. 

      Her work now became more evangelical.  In the 1790s she wrote several Cheap Repository Tracts which covered moral, religious and political topics and were both for sale or distributed to literate poor people.  The most famous is, perhaps, The Shepherd of Salisbury Plain, describing a family of incredible frugality and contentment. Two million copies of these were circulated, in one year.

      In 1789, she purchased a small house at Cowslip Green in Somerset. She was instrumental in setting up twelve schools in the area by 1800.

      She continued to oppose slavery throughout her life, but at the time of the Abolition Bill of 1807, her health did not permit her to take as active a role in the movement as she had done in the late 1780s, although she maintained a correspondence with Wilberforce and others.

      In July 1833, the Bill to abolish slavery throughout the British Empire passed in the House of Commons, followed by the House of Lords on August 1st.

      Hannah More died on September 7th, 1833.

      Index of Contents

      DRAMATIS PERSONAE

      SCENE

      PROLOGUE

      THE FATAL FALSEHOOD

      ACT I

      SCENE—An Apartment in Guildford Castle

      ACT II

      ACT III

      SCENE—A Garden

      ACT IV

      SCENE—An Apartment

      ACT V

      SCENE—The Garden

      SCENE—Another Part of the Garden.

      SCENE—Another Part of the Garden

      SCENE—The Pavilion

      EPILOGUE

      HANNAH MORE – A SHORT BIOGRAPHY

      DRAMATIS PERSONÆ

      Earl GUILDFORD,                    Mr. Clarke.

      RIVERS, his Son,                    Mr. Lewis.

      ORLANDO, a young Italian Count,    Mr. Wroughton.

      BERTRAND,                           Mr. Aickin.

      EMMELINA,                           Miss Younge.

      JULIA,                               Mrs. Hartley.

      SCENE—Earl Guildford's Castle

      PROLOGUE

      Our modern poets now can scarcely choose

      A subject worthy of the Tragic Muse;

      For bards so well have glean'd th' historic field,

      That scarce one sheaf th' exhausted ancients yield;

      Or if, perchance, they from the golden crop

      Some grains, with hand penurious, rarely drop;

      Our author these consigns to manly toil,

      For classic themes demand a classic soil,

      A vagrant she, the desert waste who chose,

      Where Truth and History no restraints impose.

      To her the wilds of fiction open lie,

      A flow'ry prospect, and a boundless sky;

      Yet hard the task to keep the onward way,

      Where the wide scenery lures the foot to stray;

      Where no severer limits check the Muse,

      Than lawless fancy is dispos'd to choose.

      Nor does she emulate the loftier strains

      Which high heroic Tragedy maintains:

      Nor conquests she, nor wars, nor triumphs sings,

      Nor with rash hand o'erturns the thrones of kings.

      No ruin'd empires greet to night your eyes,

      No nations at our bidding fall or rise;

      To statesmen deep, to politicians grave,

      These themes congenial to their tastes we leave.

      Of crowns and camps, a kingdom's weal or woe,

      How few can judge, because how few can know!

      But here you all may boast the censor's art;

      Here all are critics who possess a heart.

      Of the mix'd passions we display to-night,

      Each hearer judges like the Stagyrite.

      The scenes of private life our author shows,

      A simple story of domestic woes;

      Nor unimportant is the glass we hold,

      To show th' effect of passions uncontroll'd;

      To govern empires is the lot of few,

      But all who live have passions to subdue.

      Self-conquest is the lesson books should preach,

      Self-conquest is the theme the Stage should teach.

      Vouchsafe to learn this obvious duty here,

      The verse though feeble, yet the moral's clear.

      O mark to-night the unexampled woes

      Which from unbounded self-indulgence flows.

      Your candour once endur'd our author's lays,

      Endure them now—it will be ample praise.

      THE FATAL FALSEHOOD

      ACT I

      SCENE—An Apartment in Guildford Castle

      Enter BERTRAND

      BERTRAND

      What fools are serious melancholy villains!

      I play a surer game, and screen my heart

      With easy looks and undesigning smiles;

      And while my plots still spring from sober thought,

      My deeds appear th' effect of wild caprice,

      And I the thoughtless slave of giddy

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