power of sympathy over fallen nature, and returned women from Lancaster were sent to the ship to the enjoyment of physical existence. A similar 'Brothers' in 1823, iron-hooped round their legs success awaited the efforts of Elizabeth Fry-often and arms, and chained to each other. The comhas she been heard to relate, with modest and plaints of these women were very mournful; they grateful piety, the triumphs of the gospel, in the without the whole being dragged together; some were not allowed to get up or down from the coach cases of hundreds of frantic culprits who, with of them had children to carry; they received no alacrity, submitted to the yoke of truth: but her help or alleviation to their suffering. A woman fame does not rest on private narrative; the coun- from Cardigan travelled with a hoop of iron round try resounded with her deeds; and public testimony her ankle until she arrived at Newgate, where the was displayed, both at home and abroad, in abun-sub-matron insisted on having it taken off. In dant and grateful imitation. driving the rivet towards her leg to do so, it gave tion. She stated that during a lengthened imprisher so much pain that she fainted under the operaonment she wore an iron hoop round her waist; from that a chain connected with another hoop round her leg above the knee-from which a second chain was fastened to a third hoop round her ankle : in the hoop that went round her waist were, she

We cannot affect to concur in her extreme opinions against capital punishments in every case; but no one can ever refuse her the praise of having largely contributed, by her profound sympathy and untiring beneficence, to that change in the general tone of thought and feeling which by and by re

sulted in a most marked abatement of the severity

of our Criminal Code.

Her efforts, in conjunction with the Ladies' Newgate Association, were soon directed to the condition of the women convicts in the next steps of their progress :—

"It was a custom among the female transports to riot previous to their departure from Newgate, breaking windows, furniture, or whatever came within their reach. They were generally conveyed from the prison to the waterside in open wagons, went off shouting amidst assembled crowds, and were noisy and disorderly on the road, and in the boats. Mrs. Fry prevailed on the governor to consent to their being moved in hackney-coaches. She then promised the women, if they would be quiet and orderly, that she and other ladies would accompany them to Deptford, and see them on board; accordingly when the time came, no disturbance took place; the women in hackney-coaches, with turnkeys in attendance, formed a procession, which was closed by her carriage; and the women behaved well on the road."—p. 319.

Mrs. Fry's success in respect of these unhappy females is well known-but still we think it proper to give more details of the system that she found in operation :

"The mode in which they were brought on board long continued to be highly objectionable; they arrived from the country in small parties, at irregular intervals, having been conveyed on the outside of stage-coaches, by smacks or hoys, or any conveyance that offered, under the care of a turnkey. In some instances their children, equally destitute as themselves, accompanied them; in others, their sufferings were increased by sudden separation from their infants. Often did Mrs. Pryor and her friend and companion Lydia I quit those scenes, not to return to their own homes, but to go to Whitehall, to represent such cases, that the necessary letters should be dispatched without the loss of a post, ordering the restoration of these poor nurslings to their mothers before the ship should sail. In addition to these evils, the women were almost invariably more or less ironed, sometimes cruelly so. On board the Mary Anne,' in 1822, the prisoners from Lancaster Castle arrived not merely handcuffed, but with heavy irons on their legs, which had occasioned considerable swelling, and, in one instance, serious inflammation. Eleven

said, two bolts or fastenings, in which her hands

were confined when she went to bed at night, which bed was only of straw.

"Such were a few of the scenes into which Mrs. Fry was introduced in this department of her important labors for the good of the suffering and the sinful of her own sex."-p. 445.

stable of Newgate, she directed her attention to Not content with having cleansed the Augean the gaols in Scotland-which seems to have been even more deserving of the disgraceful epithet. A journey on the concerns of the society, undertaken by herself and her worthy brother, Joseph John Gurney, was improved into a pilgrimage to the abodes of wretchedness allotted to the culprit and the debtor, the sons of crime or misfortune. We shrink from the terrible details of needless suffering, needless either for safety, precaution, or chastisement, inflicted on these victims; they are recorded in some notes published at the time by Mr. Gurney; and may they long endure, and be read, as an historical preface to the victory that humanity has achieved!

The condition of the insane did not escape her eye; nor would it, indeed, have been possible in one who thought and felt so much for the welfare of the human race. "Nothing," say the biogramind, as the state of the poor lunatic in the cell at phers, "left so melancholy an impression on her Haddington." Here was before her view an instance of the system that then prevailed, through nearly the whole of Europe, in the treatment of the insane! Until keys and chains and whips garnished the person of the keeper, he could not be considered as fitly equipped for his ferocious work, which, in his utter and brutal ignorance, and aided by the strait-waistcoat, periodical scourgings, and the dark and filthy dungeon, he performed with all the zeal and conviction of an inquisitor. Scotland now possesses many excellent institutions in which science and benevolence have produced most happy results: there is still, however, a lamentable deficiency of rightful provision for the pauper lunatic. But the excellent first report of the Scotch poorlaw commissioners gives us reason to hope that all such neglect has received its doom.

It is interesting to trace, at this period of her career, her discovery and estimate of those princi

ples of management which have now become the the Society of Friends. In no one instance does standing rules of every English asylum for the care her Catholic spirit shine more brightly but her of the insane. It is due to her fame, and to the Journal shows that she keenly felt the displeasure efforts of the Quaker body in this behalf, not to of the brotherhood, with whom "it is a rule of pass in silence her sagacious and humane observa-discipline to disunite from membership those who tions addressed to Mr. Venning, at Petersburg marry persons not members of the society. It is ("quæ regio in terris," she might well have said, very strictly enforced; and to promote such con"nostri non plena laboris ?") for the conduct of an nections is looked upon as an act of delinquency establishment in that capital. She saw clearly and on the part of parents and guardians!" (p. 405.) experienced the power of love over the human This fact alone would be sufficient reason for the heart, whether corrupted, as in the criminal, or form of biography adopted by the editors. It stupefied, as in the lunatic. She saw that the would have been difficult for members of the benighted and wandering madman possessed and cherished the remnants of his better mind, and that he clung to nothing so much as to that which all seemed to deny him-some little semblance of respect. Sympathy is the great secret to govern the human race; and, whether it be in a prison, a ragged school, a madhouse, or the world at large, he that would force men's hearts to a surrender, must do so by manifesting that they would be safe if committed to his keeping.

The narrative of the present volume terminates with the year 1825, and closes the account of her benevolent activity down to this date by mentioning the commencement of her service for the benefit of the coast guard. A simple incident, simply told, paints the lifelong watchfulness :—

Church of England, however delicately and affectionately alive to the merits of their deceased parent, to have composed a narrative satisfactory, in all its bearings, to the sensitive apprehensions of the Society of Friends. She has been made her own historian; and the result is a record which, exhibiting all the workings and triumphs of an ardent faith, and abounding in lessons of patient experience, is sure to be studied and prized by all who have any share in the spirit of Mrs. Fry.

The rest of the work will not, we hope, be long deferred. Trials of a heavy kind, we know, awaited her-increased embarrassments of fortune, and the loss of her excellent son William, the joy and prop of his mother, tested and matured the "In Mrs. Fry's illness at Brighton," say her spirit that could solemnly declare to her daughter biographers," she was liable to distressing attacks in her last illness :-" I can say one thing; since of faintness during the night and early in the morn- my heart was touched at the age of seventeen, I ing, when it was frequently necessary to take her believe I never have awakened from sleep, in sickto an open window for the refreshment of the air.ness or in health, by day or by night, without my Whether through the quiet grey dawn of the sum- first waking thought being how best I might serv mer's morning, or by the fitful gleams of the temmy Lord." (p. vii.) pestuous sky, one living object always presented itself to her view on these occasions; the solitary blockade-man pacing the shingly beach."-p. 472.

From the Spectator. D'AUBIGNE'S GERMANY, ENGLAND, AND SCOT

LAND.

That she should have been exposed to various illnesses, the result of her toil and persevering anxiety, can surprise no one who reads her memoir. IN the spring of 1845, the historian of the "Mrs. Fry's time was occupied," we are told, Reformation, Dr. Merle D'Aubigné, was deputed, "to an extent of which none but those who lived with two other Protestant ministers of the contiwith her can form any idea. The letters she re-nent, to visit Germany and Great Britain. The ceived from all parts of the country were numer-object was to endeavor to effect a union among ous. These letters required long and careful Christians of all denominations, except Papists, and answers." Had she lived in the days of the penny-post, her life would have been an astonishment to her?"Poor people, thinking her purse as boundless as her good-will, wrote innumerable petitions praying for assistance; others sought for counsel, or desired employment, which they imagined she could obtain for them." We know it well; the wealth of Croesus and the patronage of two prime ministers rolled into one, would not suffice to pay even one per cent. of the demands on any one who has acquired the name of an active philanthropist. Incessant anxieties and cares, watchings, and journeyings, made up in fact the sum of her devoted existence; and her health | although such interchange of courtesies must tend could not but pay the penalty.

She was subjected to some trial (pp. 404, 407, 408) by the preference her daughter manifested to a member of the Church of England over one of

(as we infer) the state church of Scotland, or the tractarian and "Canterbury" part of the Anglican church-meaning by "Canterbury" those who uphold the apostolical succession. Individually the ministers, especially D'Aubigné, were received with much attention and hospitality, from the bishop of London and the royal commissioner of the Presbyterian church, downwards: they were welcomed as new planets at the different "May meetings" they attended in England, and at a free kirk gathering in Scotland. It is not necessary to open the eyes very widely to ascertain how they succeeded in the main end of their mission;

to soften asperities, and somewhat diminish theological rancor, and is therefore to be encouraged. On D'Aubigné's return to Geneva, his friends and flock requested him to furnish an account of what

view.

he had seen; and in the winter of 1845-46 he Of the Romanist schism that originated with appears to have given a course of lectures or Ronge he has little hope, partly from the secret addresses on his tour, confining himself to the rationalism that prevails among the educated present time. Not satiated by what they had Romanists, partly from German mysticism, and the heard, the audience renewed their request; and in" scientific" manner in which religion is handled the following winter the author recurred to the in Germany. A few anecdotes will illustrate his past, taking a survey of the Scottish church from its popish period down to the late schism. These discourses form the basis of the book before us, if indeed they are not the book itself; which, in obedience to the original plan, is divided into two parts, under the titles of "Travelling Recollections," and "Historical Recollections."

"At Manheim, the new church, now in a flourishing condition, was just forming when I passed through it. It is a gay and worldly town. Why,' said some one to a Roman Catholic, do not you, who are opposed to the priests and the pope, join the German Catholic church? For two reasons,' was the reply. The first, because I should have the second, that I should have to give money, and to go to church, and I had rather amuse myself: I had rather keep it.' These are some of the motives that keep the adherents of the pope faithful to their standard.

"While I was at Heidelberg, the new church had neither priest nor minister; the members celebrated divine worship among themselves. I must time (a month ago) when I joined the German own to you,' said one of these, that up to the Catholic church, I had never opened the Bible; but I read it now.' This person, who had been reading the Bible for a month,' was a teacher in these meetings!

6

The Travelling Recollections differ from travels in general by giving no regular narrative of the journey. The principal places alone are mentioned, not the intermediate tour; unless the very curt account of the run from London to Edinburgh may stand as an exception. There is as little of description, which forms so staple an article with ordinary tourists: the dense population, business, and activity of London-the striking site and romantic beauties of Edinburgh-are the fullest passages of this kind, and they are not very ample. Observation, partly social, though chiefly religious, is one great feature of the book; but its main characteristic is disquisitional. D'Aubigné glances "At Stutgard, the capital of Wurtemberg, I at the history of each country he visited; estimates attended, at seven o'clock on Sunday morning, the the character of the people; looks more particu-There were very few women, but many men; worship of this new church in the Reformed chapel. larly at the state of religion, and the causes that several, no doubt, strangers like myself. I observed have produced it. In Germany, for example, very little seriousness before the service began; almost his sole topics are rationalism, the new they were standing in groups, and even talking movement under Ronge, and the writer's hopes somewhat loudly. It was more like the commenceof a revival of Christian faith in that country; ment of a political or literary meeting than of one for religious worship. although, if we understand him rightly, there are but three places at present where faith is preached in the churches. In England, tractarianism and the general state of the church, with some glances at dissenters, occupy much of his attention; but varied by sketches of social and national traits, with accounts of meetings, and so forth. In Scotland there is a similar intermixture; but as the free kirk movement was then at its height, and the deputation took a part in it, religion predominates still more in the visit to that country than in the visit to England.

extreme.

"At length the priest, having put on his canonicals in a corner of the building, came and stood before the altar, which was somewhat shabbily ornamented with garlands, tapers, and a picture. He was a tall, stout, red-faced man, with a drawling tone and coarseness of manner which are not uncommonly found in the Romish clergy. He told us he knew the papacy well, for he had been a to be seen. priest twenty-five years; which was plain enough

As the gravest like to look in the glass, if it is only to see how they look, we will take our remaining extracts from that part which relates to this country.

"On approaching the capital, [on the Dover railway,] my wondering eyes looked down from the carriage into innumerable narrow streets of small houses, all of uniform and mean appearance, blackened with coal-dust and shrouded by a smoky leads to the delightful parks of the metropolis, its atmosphere. Such is the gloomy avenue which superb squares, magnificent bazaars, and rich palaces.

This mode of making use of travels as a theme for discussion has not so dry or heavy an effect as might be anticipated. The author is earnest in his subject, thoroughly imbued with it, and he deals only with leading points. His genius is vital though not vivacious; his manner is spirited, and novel from its foreign air, without being strange or In touching on history, as he often must do, there is none of the stiff and borrowed air of the compiler or the book-stuffer. D'Aubigné recurs to it because it is essential to his argument; "What crowds in the streets, what bustle, what and then leaves it. In like manner, his religious hurry! These carriages, public and private, almost views are distinct and philosophical; but full of as numerous as the foot-passengers; that dazzling life, and devoid of cant. He animates his disqui- display of every production of British industry, and sition by pictures of meetings and of men, as well of the most distant lands; those forests of ships, motionless in their immense docks; the steamas by personal reminiscences; for D'Aubigné has boats, which, like a weaver's shuttle, incessantly been in England before, and is well acquainted ply up and down the Thames with inconceivable with Germany. rapidity, taking up and setting down at every pier

32

sociability, and a regard for their inferiors in the social scale, which win every heart. There is among the English, especially among the aristocracy, a physical beauty celebrated all over the world, and with which the moral beauty of the mind is often in harmony. These nobles have not merely, like those of some other nations, an external polish, but there is within them an internal grace, a politeness of the soul.

a.fresh cargo of breathless passengers; everything is but the keystone of the aristocracy. This arisyou behold tells you that you are now in the cap- tocracy, also, wears its greatness well. There is ital of the commercial world. in the manners of the great ones of England a noble"If the German feeds upon the ideal, the prac-ness, a grace, a simplicity, an exquisite perfume of tical is the characteristic of Great Britain; I say, Britain, because most of what I say here of England is applicable to Scotland also. Reality, action, business, bear sway in the politics, the industry, the commerce, and, I will even say, in the religion of the English. Yet this practical tendency which characterizes England is not selfish, as might have been expected. The large scale on which the people work gives a certain scope and grandeur to the imagination. The habit which the English have of forming into parties, and of looking constantly at themselves as a nation, is opposed to a narrow selfishness; and a more elevated sentiment struggles with this vice in a large portion of the people.

"Perhaps one of the things that strikes a stranger the most on his arrival in London is, not the nobility, but the common people; their strength, their energy, their quickness, their skill, their civility, and, above all, their calmness and silence during their unceasing activity. They are all alive to what they are about, and they are clever at it; you can see this in the carriages, the ships, and especially in the railroads. The skill with which an English coachman drives you through the streets of London, among thousands of vehicles, without ever jostling you, is inconceivable.

"The day after my arrival in London, I visited the ancient seat of our friend M-, built in the time of Elizabeth. The railroad took me a certain distance, where I had to find a carriage to take me on to L-Park; but what on the continent might perhaps have occupied an hour, was here done in an instant. In less than a minute all our luggage was lifted from the train into the carriage, and the fly was winging its way towards the park.

"In other respects the English aristocracy appears to me no less admirable. When we behold elsewhere the frightful tyranny which radicalism sets up, we can understand the mischief it would do in England if ever it were triumphant; and we are inclined to regard the aristocracy, which there exercises such strength, as one of the necessary guarantees for freedom.

"Duty is an idea but too much forgotten among us, while in England it is all-important. This nation, so powerful and so haughty, bows before the thought of duty. It was Nelson's signal to his fleet at Trafalgar, England expects every man to do his duty'-and every man did it.

"The Duke of Wellington, being asked if he had seen a French criticism on the fourteen volumes of his Despatches, replied in the negative; and inquired, What do the French say of them?' He was told that the reviewer remarked the word glory did not once occur, but that duty frequently did.”

These complimentary sketches might be extended; and there are some drawbacks, but not perhaps so many in the book as in the reality. The views of D'Aubigné, well read as he is in "I observed in England one thing, that the peo- minuter points as regards this country, either from history, cannot always be implicitly received upon ple talk much less of liberty than we do on the continent, but practise it more. This is quite natural; haste or bias. He says that "Popery is less a when we possess a thing, we mention it less fre- religion than a state;" which is true, with the quently than when we are in search of it. The qualification that religion is used by the Romish young men who play so important a part in Ger-priesthood as a means to acquire temporal power. many, and even in France and other countries, do He also says, that on the Reformation, not so in England. It is not for want of spirit in the English youth-they have even rather too much; but it is confined in the preparatory sphere of schools and colleges, and does not display itself in public business. Influential institutions satisfy this people. The young men know that their turn will come, and they wait quietly. Among a people deprived of public institutions, vigor is often misplaced; it is forced forward in youth and exhausted in riper years. In England, on the contrary, it is disciplined in youth and exerted in manhood. On the continent, paternal authority is much shaken; in Britain, the parents, generally speaking, know how to keep their children at a respectful distance; and this is a great element of strength for a nation. When the Bible would pronounce a threat against a people, it says, 'I will give them children to be their princes, and babes shall rule over them.' This curse has been but too well fulfilled among many

"Many Protestant churches, depriving the pope of the supremacy he had usurped, consented that the magistrate or the king should take upon him that jurisdiction, and thus maintain, under another form, that confusion of civil and religious things which is to be found in popery. The church of Scotland, on the contrary, asserting that it was the place of Christ himself which the pope had usurped, resisted every effort made by the political power to take possession of it."

Such is, no doubt, literally true; but, however averse the kirk might be to submit to the state, it had not the least objection to play the pope over the state; and it made several struggles to that end. However opposed to Episcopacy, the Preswould not have had the slightest objection to make byterian priesthood, at least under the Stuarts, "In Britain, of all the countries in the earth, the the government a dean and chapter, with a congé nobility have the most power. The king or queen d'élire accompanied by a letter-missive.

nations.

Thirty-five unpublished Letters of Oliver Cromwell. | unnatural. Still had so vivid a sense of those sad Communicated by Thomas Carlyle to Fraser's divisions survived and lingered among them, that Magazine. Parker.

THE following correspondence has been sent to us by Mr. Blakely, with a request that it should appear in the Examiner :

the subject from father to son appears to have become an interdicted one. "At present all united in kindly oblivion of those old sorrows and animosities; but capable yet of blazing up into one knew not what fierce contradictions, should the THORPE HAMLET, near Norwich, Dec. 30, 1847. Does the reader find that DEAR SIR,-Having attentively read your "Life question be renewed." of Oliver Cromwell," and being anxious to meet family picture incredible? We do not. For let with any further relics of that great man, I was us keep all the circumstances in mind. Crommuch delighted to find a long article in "Fraser" well's whitewashing has been of very recent date. for December, containing a number of his letters, It is not five-and-twenty years since a worthy gensaid to have been communicated to you in a very tleman applied for permission to superadd the name romantic manner, and the whole account bearing of Cromwell to that of Field, and was flatly reyour signature. Since reading that article, to which I myself gave implicit credence, I have fused permission by George the Fourth, that prince heard the matter frequently discussed, and even of gentlemen. It is hardly as many months since pronounced to be a clever joke of the editor's. it was decided down at Whitehall, by a party of This has induced me to trouble you upon the point, educated people, that though Cromwell might be and if it is not making too great a demand upon tolerated as a "general," ears polite or senatorial your valuable time, I should esteem it a great honor had nothing to do with him as "Lord Protector." to receive a communication from yourself on the subject. Don't let us be too incredulous of dozing dwellers by ancient cathedrals. The world outside dozes over greatness, too, and with a dulness quite as amazing. This family we have been describing were not in the least likely to set the safer or greater store by such old family papers as had been preserved among them, because it happened that, in the course of those moth-eaten, dusty, dreary, old brown papers, Oliver Cromwell's name occurred pretty frequently.

I have the honor to remain, yours faithfully,
EDW. T. BLAKELY.

To T. Carlyle, Esq., Chelsea.

CHELSEA, 1st January, 1848. SIR-I am sorry any person whatever should fancy I would put my name, publicly or privately, to a fiction, and, giving it out as a fact, call the operation a good "joke."

Your first impression, which I think is more honorable to your sense of veracity, was the correct one, and will have to become the universal and final

one.

The thing I printed and put my name to, is true; deliberately set forth as my record of a fact, and meant to be accepted by all the world as such. I remain, yours very truly,

To Mr. Edw. T. Blakely.

T. CARLYLE. Whatever hereafter may be said for or against the authenticity of the letters in question, Mr. Carlyle here settles the question of his own authenticity. He is neither forger, nor abettor of forgery. He is the first most flagrant dupe, if any imposition has been practised. On this latter head we have a few remarks to offer. We shall preface them with an account of how the letters came to be printed, and what they chiefly contain.

Matters stood thus when Mr. Carlyle's noble collection of Cromwell's (elucidated) Letters and Speeches appeared, and found its way into the cathedral close aforesaid. The family were at this time represented by a worthy and honorable gentleman of middle age, whom we shall call A. B. How further to describe A. B. is not easy. In very truth a gentleman, we gather from the various facts of the case; a simple, honorable, not in any manner literate or wise, but robust and honest man; inheriting strongly the family peculiarities hinted at, with others of his own grafted on them; hunted by the shadows, the Eumenides that had plagued his race, yet occasionally turning round with lion-face to hunt them; and on the whole, as Mr. Carlyle published them six weeks ago in with all the clearness the courtesies will allow he Fraser's Magazine, with a very explicit testimony is characterized by Mr. Carlyle, of the kind called to their genuineness from himself, and as explicit" half-mad." We are to suppose the effect, upon a narrative as he could give of the "singular cir- such a mind sunk in such strata of habit and speccumstances and conditions" under which they had come into his hands. Our account is scrupulously drawn from the materials thus furnished by Mr. Carlyle, and of course rests on the assumption of their perfect veracity.

ulation, of the revealments in Mr. Carlyle's book; and the reader must do this as he can, for we have not time to help him. What concerns us here are the results through which it showed itself. Moved by that sincere strong will which was clearing off It would seem, then, that there has been living the blinding mists from the figure of a herofor several generations, in one of our cathedral which so strangely was substituting for the rebelcities, a certain family of respectable condition lious bugbear that had haunted our family of A. which had actively engaged itself, in the persons B.'s, an august great soul radiant with heavenly of its then representatives, both on the Royalist splendors shall we wonder if the moth-eaten and the Roundhead side, in the great civil war. contents of the family chest were turned to with In this family those feuds had left many sorrowful a feeling, not hitherto suggested, and with even traditions, as was natural; and these had descended the wish to ascertain what exact part the A. B. to even the present day, as with worthy people liv-ancestors had taken in those past rebellious transing in a venerable cathedral close was perhaps not actions. Then came into light those dreary