this poor young woman, there are also six men to be hanged, one of whom has a wife near her confinement, also condemned, and seven young children. Since the awful report came down, he has become quite mad, from horror of mind. A strait-waistcoat could not keep him within bounds."--I. 263.

The following passage, occurring in the diary of one of Mrs. Fry's colleagues, refers to the case of this doomed woman:

"Most of the prisoners were collected in a room, newly appropriated for the purpose, to hear a portion of the sacred Scriptures read to them, either by the Matron or by one of the Ladies' Committee, which last is far preferable. They assemble when the bell rings as near nine o'clock as possible, following their monitors or wards-women to the forms which are placed in order to receive them. I think I can never forget the impression made upon my feelings at this sight. Women from every part of Great Britain, of every age and condition below the middle rank, were assembled in mute silence, except when the interrupted breathing of their sucking infants informed us of the unhealthy state of these innocent partakers in their parents' punishment. The matron read; I could not refrain from tears; the women wept also; several were under the sentence of death. Swain, for forging, who had just received her respite, sat next me; and on my left hand sat Lawrance, alias Woodman, surrounded by her four children, and only waiting the birth of another, which she hourly expects, to pay the forfeit of her life, as her husband had done, for the same crime, a short time before."—I. 275.

We again have a trace of this wretched widow, so strangely for a time reprieved:

"23rd.—I found Woodman lying in, in the common ward, where she had been suddenly taken ill; herself and little girl were each doing very well. She was awaiting her execution at the end of the month. What can be said of such sights as these?

“ 24th. I read to Woodman, who is not in the state of mind we could wish for her; indeed, so unnatural is her situation, that one can hardly tell how or in what manner to meet her case. She seems afraid to love her baby, and the very health which is being restored to her produces irritation of mind." I. 279.

"One woman, the day before her execution, said to Mrs. Fry, 'I feel life so strong within me, that I cannot believe that this time to-morrow I am to be dead."I. 308.

It is not surprising that Mrs. Fry, with such impressive and painful opportunities of gaining experience, should form a decided opinion on the subject of capital punishment, or that she should, long before the mass of her countrymen, reach the conclusion that death-punishments tended neither to the security of the people, to the reformation of any party, or to the prevention of crime.

So wonderful was the reformation introduced into Newgate by her labours, that Mrs. Fry became the object of a degree of public attention and celebrity which would have been unmixedly painful to her, had it not been that it enhanced her power of doing good, and prepared the public mind for plans of reformation.

A Committee was obtained in the House of Commons, in the year 1818," on the Prisons of the Metropolis," before which she was called and gave important evidence.

Until this year (1818) it had been the custom to remove female transports from Newgate to ship-board at Deptford in the midst of indecent and riotous publicity, and the last hours of the convicts in Newgate were devoted to noisy and lawless violence. By the influ

ence of Mrs. Fry, and through her watchful benevolence in accompanying these unhappy exiles to the ship, their departure from the midst of their companions became an impressive and improving spectacle. She also made considerable effort to provide for them, during their long and comfortless voyage, innocent and remunerative occupation, and subsequently used all her influence in drawing the attention of the Government to the necessity of doing something for the moral welfare of the female convicts when landed at their new home.

Her labours were greatly increased by the numerous letters for advice and direction from parties, not only in Great Britain, but in foreign countries, anxious to follow in the benevolent track she had marked out. To a St. Petersburg correspondent she wrote thus in 1820:

"We continue to have much satisfaction in the results of our efforts in Newgate: good order appears increasingly established; there is much cleanliness among our poor women, and some very encouraging proofs of reformation in habit and, what is much more, in heart. This in a prison so ill arranged, with no classification, except tried from untried, no good inspection, and many other great disadvantages, is more than the zealous advocates of prison discipline could look for. We find the same favourable result follows the labours of several other Ladies' Associations in this kingdom; as I have the pleasure to state that in England, Scotland and Ireland, many are now established."-I. 382.

"It is wonderful to observe the effects of kindness and care upon some of these poor forlorn creatures-how it tenders their hearts and makes them susceptible of impression. I am of opinion, from what I have observed, that there are hardly any amongst them so hard but that they may be subdued by kindness, gentleness and love, so as very materially to alter their general conduct. Some of the worst prisoners have, after liberation, done great credit to the care taken of them. In two particular instances, young women who had sunk into almost every depravity and vice, upon being liberated conducted themselves with much propriety, as far as we know, and after long illnesses died peaceful deaths. . . Some are settled in service; others, we hope, are doing well in different situations. We wish it were in our power to attend more to the prisoners upon leaving the prisons, as we think this an important part of the duty of such Associations; but in London the numbers are so very great, that it is almost out of our power to do it as we desire, though we endeavour to extend a little care over them."-I. 384.

In the year 1821, her heart was tried first by the death of her sister Priscilla, next by the marriage of one of her daughters out of the Society of Friends. The rule of discipline which disunites from membership those who marry persons not members of the Society, and the serious disapprobation expressed towards those who promote such connections, struggling with her conviction that the proposed marriage was for her daughter's good, naturally made her very unhappy. She made the trial the occasion for enlarging her charity:

"May it be a lesson to all, not too much to judge others for acting a little out of the usual course."

In the following year, 1822, her eleventh child was born, a circumstance needful to be mentioned, to shew the wonderful energy which enabled her to continue her numerous works of charity at home and abroad. Thus does she record her feelings, on her recovery, to her brother, the celebrated Joseph John Gurney:

"We are going on comfortably here; my darling baby a considerable object

of interest. I am once more moderately launched in public as well as private life; I am therefore much engaged, and although often fagged, yet not really overdone, I take so much care of myself. There has been a feeling of peace in entering meetings and the prison cause again, as if the calling to these things was continued. Now I desire a simple, faithful, watchful walking, with my eye single to the Lord. My path calls for cautious stepping, and peculiarly needs the best light-may it be granted me!"-I. 433.

As an attendant on the sick, she was, notwithstanding her own distrust and humble estimate of herself, remarkably successful and soothing. To herself, it was often a period of bodily and spiritual struggle; but that was known only to herself and her God.

"Mrs. Fry displayed in such cases great presence of mind, a quick perception of the changes taking place in the patient, singular readiness in expedients to meet them, much judgment and skill in the administration of remedies, and the whole combined with a quiet, cheerful manner and most tender sympathy, so as to inspire complete confidence and dependance on herself, in the sufferer as well as the assistants."-I. 434.

In 1822, she had the gratification of seeing, as one of the fruits of her labours, an asylum opened in Westminster for sheltering discharged female prisoners. It began humbly, but has gone on progressively, and now contains 50 young women, and has since its establishment sheltered 667. In 1824, another object dear to her heart was secured, the institution of a school of discipline, for the reception of the vicious and neglected little girls, so numerous in London and early hardened in crime.

In the same year, she was obliged by illness to retire to Brighton. So far from allowing her weak condition to prevent her labours of love, she made the new locality the means of carrying into execution an experiment of the value of Dr. Chalmers' plans for the visiting and elevating the poor. The Brighton District Visiting Society arose through her influence. Its objects were, "The encouragement of industry and frugality among the poor, by visits at their own habitations; the relief of real distress, whether arising from sickness or other causes; and the prevention of mendicity and imposture." Her residence at Brighton was the occasion of her philanthropy being directed also to another channel. The circumstances are beautifully told by her biographers: "In Mrs. Fry's illness at Brighton, she was liable to distressing attacks of faintness during the night and early morning, when it was frequently necessary to take her to an open window for the refreshment of the air. Whether

through the quiet grey dawn of the summer's morning, or by the fitful gleams of a tempestuous sky, one living object always presented itself to her view on these occasions-the solitary blockade-man pacing the shingly beach. It first attracted her curiosity, and soon excited her sympathy, for the service was one of hardship and of danger.”—I. 472.

By the rule of the preventive service, the men, stationed in dreary and almost inaccessible places, harassed with night-watches, exposed to storms and to dangerous affrays with smugglers, are strictly forbidden to hold any communication with strangers. It occurred to Mrs. Fry that such men had peculiarly favourable opportunities for reading, and that they needed especially religious guidance. She therefore obtained for their use a large supply of books, chiefly Bibles and Testaments. She distributed them with her own hands, and most gratefully did the seamen of the coast-guard accept them from her.

In 1825, she was the means of establishing another philanthropic society, the objects of which were domestic servants, particularly the protection of their comfort and morals when out of service.

Hitherto, Mrs. Fry's course had been on the whole one of sunshine and eminent success. The last seventeen years of her life were chequered by disaster and distress. The commercial panic of 1825-26, burst heavily on the firm of which her husband was a member. The house was saved for a time, but fell in the month of November, 1828.

To Mrs. Fry, straitened circumstances were trying from circumscribing her charities. Happily, her influence did not depend on her setting the example of pecuniary liberality, and her power of doing good by means of others was undiminished. The filial piety of her sons and the generosity of her kinsmen supplied her with all the means of elegant comfort. Concurrently with, perhaps partly in consequence of, this disaster, came the breaking up of her health. Other troubles are hinted at, but not detailed. Her biographers briefly and mysteriously tell us, that circumstances at this painful crisis occurred to weaken her husband's and children's attachment to the Society of Friends (II. 85). In justice to the Society, we submit that the circumstances should be totally suppressed or distinctly detailed. Possibly the fact of an increasing alienation is mentioned to account for the secession which afterwards took place on the part of several of the younger branches of the family from the Society of Friends. These Memoirs conspire, with many other intimations, to raise the fear that eventually this marked and very interesting denomination of Christians may, in England at least, verge towards extinction. The political and philanthropic combinations of the age have drawn Friends into unwonted intercourse with pious and earnest members of other religious bodies, and this circumstance, together with the zealous proselytism of the "Evangelical" Church party, has occasioned serious losses to the Society.

The remainder of Mrs. Fry's life was occupied in sick-bed watchings, in public duties as a minister of religion, and in working out the benevolent schemes already originated. Except in respect to the establishment of libraries, chiefly (and, if the whole case be put before us, too exclusively) of a religious kind, for naval hospitals and seamen, her declining years did not exhibit the exuberant fertility that had marked her maturity in devising new channels of benevolent action.

Her judgment did not accord with the result of the experiments in prison discipline which issued first in the adoption of the silent, and afterwards of the separate, system. Modifications of the separate system have, we believe, latterly taken place, which meet some of Mrs. Fry's objections. The silent system is now generally confessed to be a failure, except that its severity makes prisoners dread, and in some cases avoid, a second punishment.

In the years 1837 and 1839, she enjoyed foreign travel. The doors of prisons opened to her abroad as freely as at home; and she made her intercourse with religious and with distinguished persons the means of disseminating correct principles of philanthropic action.

In 1844, her health seriously gave way. She rallied, but it was evident that her course was nearly run. Her last effort of a social kind was a welcome given to one of her sons at Upton Lane, on the occasion of his bringing home his young bride. The letter of invitation to her

brother Samuel and his wife (II. 507), is the brief but beautiful expression of a Christian heart full of kindly family sympathy.

"She received her guests in a room opening into the flower-garden, and thence was wheeled to the end of the terrace; a very large family circle surrounded her, many connections and others of her friends. It was a beautiful scene-the last social family meeting at which she presided; and, although infirm and broken in health, she looked and seemed herself."

Her death took place at Ramsgate, Oct. 14, 1845. Her remains were interred in the Friends' burying-ground at Barking.

"Her grave was prepared close by that of her little child whom she had loved and lost and tenderly mourned so many years before."

A deep silence, we are told, pervaded the assembled mourners. No funeral oration was needed. The recollections of all would be of a true disciple of the Great Teacher who went about doing good.

REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT AND MOB-CANDIDATES. THE great danger, as it appears to me, of representative government, is lest it should slide down from representative government to delegate government. The welfare of England in great measure depends upon what takes place at the hustings. If, in the majority of instances, there were abject conduct there, electors and elected would be alike debased, upright public men could not be expected to arise from such beginnings, and thoughtful persons would begin to consider whether some other form of government could not forthwith be made out. I have a supreme disgust for the man who, at the hustings, has no opinion beyond or above the clamour round him. How such a fellow would have kissed the ground before a Pompadour, or waited for hours in a Buckingham's anti-chamber, only to catch the faintest beam of reflected light from royalty!-Friends in Council.

HOW THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND TREATS ITS WORKING CLERGY.

A CURATE-there is something which excites compassion in the very name of a Curate! How any man of purple, palaces and preferment, can let himself loose against this poor working-man of God, we are at a loss to conceive-a learned man in an hovel, with sermons and saucepans, lexicons and bacon, Hebrew books and ragged children-good and patient-a comforter and a preacher-the first and purest pauper in the hamlet, and yet shewing that, in the midst of his worldly misery, he has the heart of a gentleman, and the spirit of a Christian, and the kindness of a pastor; and this man, though he has exercised the duties of a clergyman for twenty years, though he has most ample testimonies of conduct from clergymen as respectable as any Bishop, though an Archbishop add his name to the list of witnesses, is not good enough for Bishop ; but is pushed out in the street, with his wife and children, and his little furniture, to surrender his honour, his faith, his conscience and his learning, or to starve.-Sydney Smith's Works, Vol. II. p. 15.