During this period of her life--from 1775 to 1785--she chiefly resided
with her sisters in Bristol, but made long visits to London, and to the
houses of famous or titled personages. In a worldly point of view these
years were the most brilliant, but not most useful, period of her life.
At first she was intoxicated by the magnificent attentions she received,
and had an intense enjoyment of cultivated society. It was in these
years she formed the most ardent friendships of her life. Of all her
friends, she seems to have been most attached to Garrick,--the idol of
society, a general favorite wherever he chose to go, a man of
irreproachable morals and charming conversational powers; at whose
house and table no actor or actress was ever known to be invited, except
in one solitary instance; from which it would appear that he was more
desirous of the attentions of the great than of the sympathy and
admiration of the people of his own profession. It is not common for
actors to be gifted with great conversational powers, any more than for
artists, as a general thing, to be well-read people, especially in
history. Hannah More was exceedingly intimate with both Garrick and his
wife; and his death, in 1779, saddened and softened his great
worshipper. After his death she never was present at any theatrical
amusement. She would not go to the theatre to witness the acting of her
own dramas; not even to see Mrs. Siddons, when she appeared as so
brilliant a star. In fact, after Garrick's death Miss More partially
abandoned fashionable society, having acquired a disgust of its
heartless frivolities and seductive vices.

With the death of Garrick a new era opened in the life of Hannah More,
although for the succeeding five years she still was a frequent visitor
in the houses of those she esteemed, both literary lions and people of
rank. It would seem, during this period, that Dr. Johnson was her
warmest friend, whom she ever respected for his lofty moral nature, and