BOOKS.

DIXON'S MPH or HOWARD.* NOTWITHSTANDING the vast amount of good really accomplished by Howard the philanthropist, and the claims (greater than the reality) put forward by a school, which imitated rather than succeeded him, it may be doubted whether even his name and characteristics are so widely known to this generation as his new biographer assumes them to be. Many of those who know them have learned them from Burke's panegyric, in which artifice and an ungainly use of technical terms are more conspicuous than nature 'Jr eloquence. Nor, strictly speaking, is this to be wondered at. Either man is an ungrateful animal, or so many present things claim his attention, that the mass of us can only find time to look at those heroes of the past whose actions, as the rhetoricians say, " influenced the des- tinies of nations," or whose works, deeply founded in the nature of man, are ever present, interesting and instructing. It is a truth, whether palatable or not, that those who either by word or deed assist in over- throwing an evil are almost as quickly forgotten as the evil itself. If they obtain a " household word" celebrity, it is when they act as well as speak or write, and combine construction with subversion, as in the ease of Luther.

A close consideration, we think, will show that Howard's eminence was as a writer, though no doubt of a peculiar kind ; for he travelled to collect his facts ; those facts were of a new and important nature, and collected with the purpose of improving prison-discipline, by showing the state of prisons throughout Europe. To the praise of first discover- ing the abuses of prisons, or of originating prison-reform, he is not ex- actly entitled. In 1701-2, the Society for Promoting Christian Know- ledge appointed a committee to "visit Newgate and other gaols" ; on which a report was drawn up by Dr. Bray. The report, indeed, was never published, and no known results were produced by it ; but it showed that the subject had attracted the attention of a body of men, and we know not how far the results might spread in an age which did not so readily run into print as ours. In 1728 a Committee of the House of Commons was appointed to inquire into the state of the gaols; and their report excited a general burst of indignation, steeled as the age was to hard usage, and produced an address to the Crown to prosecute some of the offending parties. The comments of the essayists, the pictures of the novelists, albeit not affixing a sermon to their tale, could not have been without great effect on the public mind. In February 1773, before Howard began his tours of inspection, if not before the idea of gaol-re- formation had taken a distinct form in his mind, Mr. Popham had brought in a bill to remedy an urgent practical evil, and the source of many other evils, by abolishing fees and paying the gaoler out of the county-rates. It passed a second reading, but was withdrawn, to be amended and rein- troduced next session. In the interim, Howard had inspected many gaols, had accumulated many facts, had been in communication with Mr. Popham, and was ready to prove to Parliament the absolute need not only of this but further reformation. Great improvements took place, beyond the acts of Parliament, owing, no doubt, to Howard's exposures and to his book descriptive of the state of the gaols ; but still he was fortunate in falling upon the instant of time. The ground was not only ready for the sower, but waiting. We make these remarks to account for the immediate success of Howard, and for the great reputation he attained during his life (which time has failed to support); not with any view of depreciating his cha- racter or exertions. These were very great. He was a man whose la- bours in the cause of humanity were unceasing, and who ever carried his life and his purse in his hand. He was animated by that faith in his ob- ject, and consequent devotion to it, which is the source of all greatness, and perhaps of all success. He might fairly be accounted the first and greatest of the modern "philanthropists," were he not something far better. John Howard possessed prudence to guide his humanity ; he studied the evils he would reform in the life, and rarely if ever proposed a remedy but what had been suggested to him by experience. He eschewed the wild excitement of public meetings, or the more intoxicating incense of noble and courtly attentions. He went forth to hardship and labour, more like an apostle than a platform agitator ; he daily risked his life among the filthy, the diseased, and the infected with the terrible gaol-fever ; and he may be said to have died in the cause of suffering humanity.

We agree with Mr. Hepworth Dixon in thinking that the world should have a better account of the life and labours of such a man than yet ex- isted ; for even when biographies of considerable merit are extant, an age unacquainted with the hero requires more particulars than a contempo- rary is likely to supply, of the state of society in which he lived, the old condition of things on which he worked, and probably some account of his works themselves. Neither are the career and character of IIoward without interest apart from his exertions as a philanthropist, since there is a curious interest in tracing the course of his life, and the manner in which he was thrown by events and led by circumstances into the field of public exertion and celebrity.

The father of Howard (and doubtless the family, had there been one) belonged to that straitest school of English Dissent which substituted a starched sourness for the unnatural privations of the ascetics of the primi- tive and middle ages. He was engaged in business as a merchant, and re- tired on a fortune sufficiently large to leave his son and daughter an ample competence without any necessity for exertion. The day or year of John Howard's birth is uncertain; a consequence of his father's religious scruples. His monument in St. Paul's gives the date as 1726 ; but Mr. Dixon, who appears to have examined the subject fully, thinks the "balance of evidence is in favour of 1725 or 1726, though personal friends of the philanthropist have named 1724, 1725, 1726, and 1727." His consti- tution was feeble, his health always delicate, and in fact only preserved in

* John Howard, and the Prison-World of Europe. From Original and Authentic Documents. By Hepworth Dixon. Published by Jackson and Walford.

after life by rigid diet. He lost his mother in early infancy ; and was something very like a dunce at school, having no Greek, little Latin, and a very scanty knowledge of letters in the sense of literature.

Old Mr. Howard's determinations were like the laws of the Medes and Persians, and his son on leaving school was apprenticed to a wholesale

grocer in Watling Street, with the large premium of 700/. This pursuit was apparently not much to the embryo philanthropist's liking; for on his father's death, in 1742, he quitted the warehouse : a circumstance which shows the confidence his father's executors bad in his prudence, since, at the very earliest date assigned to his birth, he was not then out of his teens, and according to the monument only in his seventeenth year. His delicate health had probably suffered by the confinement of Watling Street ; for the first use he made of his freedom was to travel in France and Italy. He was absent about two years, and while in Italy gave a good deal of attention to art. As he subsequently spoke French suffi- ciently well to pass for a native, it is probable that he laid the foundation of his knowledge at this early period, when pronunciation is more easily acquired.

On his return to England he lodged at Stoke Newington ; taking care of his health, which was still precarious, and studying natural philosophy and medicine. Having reason to be dissatisfied with his landlady for in- attention during an illness, he shifted his quarters; and having been, as he thought, saved from death by the nursing of his new landlady, he con- sidered it his duty to offer her his hand. The swain was about twenty- five ; the lady fifty-two,—an ordinary-looking woman, a widow, and a confirmed invalid, though she appears to have been " a very kind, atten- tive, and cheerful woman, a good housekeeper, and an admirable nurse." She had also good sense enough to start objections to the proposal; but they were finally overruled by the arguments if not the ardour of the suitor, and Mrs. Loidore became Mrs. Howard. The match was as happy as such a match was likely to be ; but the bride's health soon gave way, and she died in the third year of her marriage.

Her death left a vacuum in Howard's existence which he could not readily fill up. After a little while of undetermined quiet, he resolved to go to Lisbon, then just overwhelmed by the earthquake of 1755. But the Seven Years war was raging ; the packet Howard sailed in was cap- tured by a French privateer ; and he tasted the discomforts of military imprisonment, without any of those courtesies by which the usage of the established services soften the unpleasantness of restraint, especially to civilians.

" Before the captured vessel was carried into the harbour, Howard says he was kept without tood, and even water, for forty hours; to most men an intolera- ble punishment, but his abstemious habits bad well prepared him to bear such a trial—the commencement of a long series—without serious detriment to his health. When they were at length landed, he was confined, with many other prisoners, in the castle of the town, in a dungeon, dark, damp, and filthy beyond description, where they were kept for several additional hours without nourishment. At last a leg of mutten was brought and thrown into the cell—as horse-flesh is thrown into the dens of wild beasts—for the starving captives to scramble for, tear with their teeth, and devour as best they could. In this horrible dungeon, thus fed, they were detained for a week. Six nights were they compelled to sleep—if sleep they could under such circumstances—upon the cold floor, with nothing but a handful of straw to protect them from the noxious damps and noisome fever of their over-crowded room. Thence our countryman was removed to Morlaix, and subsequently to Carpaix, where he resided for two months on parole.

"It has been preferred as a charge against Howard, that he behaved towards his keepers, or at least towards his captors, much a r Anglais,—that is,.with somewhat of contemptuous hauteur, (how singular that the English language should have no word to express that mixture of icy politeness and imperial re- serve which all over Continental Europe has become the recognized characteristic and distinction of Englishmen); and this, though not stated on the best au- thority, is not unlikely in itself. Howard had a very high sense and sentiment of honour, and an unconquerable disdain for the man who could be prevented from doing what was strictly right in itself by any fear of political or conventional consequences. It is more than probable, that a person of his mental and moral constitution would be apt to consider a privateer as nothing more than a tolerated ruffian, and deal with him accordingly. But once on shore, and placed in legal custody, he seems to have inspired every one who came into contact with him with respect and confidence in his uprightness. More than one occasion now this exhibited in a remarkable manner. While at Carpaix, although not an officer, and therefore not entitled to claim any indulgence according to the law of nations and the usages of war between the two countries, he was yet permitted by his gaoler to reside in the town, upon his mere word being given that he would not attempt to escape. A similar kind of confidence was exhibited by the person at whose house he lodged. Though penniless, and a perfect stranger to his host, this man took him in on the strength of his unsupported representations—housed, fed, clothed, supplied him with money, and finally saw him depart with no other guarantee for repayment than his bare promise. Even official persons were not impervious to the charm of this great character; fur, after some negotiation with these, he was permitted by them to return to England, in order that he might with greater chance of success endeavour to induce the Government to make suitable exchange for him, cn simply pledging his honour that if unsuccessful in his attempt he would instantly return to his captivity."

His exchange was effected, and the necessity of returning to France obviated. He then set about calling attention to the sufferings of British prisoners in France, and addressed the Commissioners of the Sick and Wounded upon the subject, depicting the miseries he himself had wit- nessed. Ile was thanked for his information, and steps were taken to act upon it ; but, though the subject must often have recurred to his mind, he seemed to be satisfied with the particular remedy he had found for a particular evil. His mind was not only totally deficient in imagination, but even in that logical invention or rather induction which leads men to conclude the existence of many from that of few. It will be seen pre- sently that the inquiry into the state of prisons was forced upon him. From the period of his release, (which must have taken place in or to- wards 1756,) until 1773, Howard's life was again passed in retirement. He withdrew to his patrimonial property of Cardington, near Bedford, and devoted himself to improving his estate and the condition of his labour- ers ; erecting a school and beginning a system of popular education for the children of the poor. In 1758 he married a second wife, though his first love. He made the stipulation, suggested perhaps by expe- rience, that in all cases of difference hereafter his voice should iflfPkVi-fC97)( aye 'been- Peedk-sii; Afre, -1-4warcT. upitno weri, eonsulted his wishes and forwarded his

u,reaVds married life considerable improvement innstances and character of the poor. His example soine'of the neighbouring gentry ; and HoWard is en-

deAlT411A e e views in every witI was "14ciP Was follovi

titled to the Merit of practically calling attention to that subject, which is new called thes.condition of England" question. As this, however, was only to be carried out by the personal trouble and attention of those who had the control of it, and could neither be delegated to paid agents,

"Settled act of Parliament, nor dealt with in the gross, like slavery, Prisousdieggue or even education so far as reading and writing go, it has, not made so much seeming progress as the last three. Howard also laboured in his, pleasant privacy to make up for the educational de- ficiencies of his youth ; especially applying himself to natural philosophy,

iii

*outing a member of the. Royal Society, and contributing three papers to the Transactions, though of a slight kind. The happiness of this quiet and useful life was put an end to in 1765, by the death of his wife. She was confined with her first and only child on Wednesday the 27th March, and on Sunday the 31st she died suddenly. Howard had gone to church as usual; on his return Mrs. Howard was seized with a fit, and expired in his arms. "No tongue," says hisbiographer, " can tell, no pen describe the awful misery of the bereaved husband. * * • By temperament Howard was calm and un- demonstrative; but there were depths in his nature not easily fathomed. His love for his wife had been an illimitable passion. The day of her death was held sa- cred in his calendar—kept for evermore as a day of fasting and meditation. Everything connected with her memory, how distantly eoever' was hallowed in his mind by the association. Many years after her demise, on the eve of his de- parture on one of his long and perilous journies across the Continent of Europe, he was walking in the gardens with the son whose birth had cost the precious life, examining some plantations which they had recently been making, and ar- ranging a plan for future improvements. On coming to the planted walk, he stood still; there was a pause in the conversation; the old mans thoughts were busy with the past: at length be broke silence—' Jack,' said he, in a tender and solemn tone, ie case I should not come back, you will pursue this work, or not, as you may think proper; bat remember, this walk was planted by your mother; and if you ever touch a twig of it, may my blessing never rest upon you.' " .

For eighteen months after his wife's death Howard remained at Car- dington, struggling to subdue his sorrow in attending to his people and his infant son ; but nature at last gave way. Towards the end of 1766, his medical attendants ordered change of scene as the sole chance of safety. He went to Bath, to London, and in the spring of 1767 to Hol- land. He came back somewhat improved in health ; but as soon as his son was old enough to go to school, he set off for another tour in Italy; whence he returned in 1770, but could not at first go back to Careliagton. When he did, he resumed his old habits of supervision among the poor of the parish, which he always carried on with something of patriarchal authority. In 1773 he was chosen Sheriff of Bedfordshire; an accident (if it may be so called) which towards his fiftieth year opened up to him a new course of life, was destined to benefit mankind, and, in the usual mode of speech, "to immortalize his name."

To superintend the prison and the prisoners is a part of the duty of Sheriffs, though not always properly performed, if at all. Howard was not a man to neglect his duty, and he soon found one great evil which he could not remedy. He saw, he said in his introduction to his work on Prisons, some persons "who by the verdict of juries were declared not guilty--some on whom the grand jury did not find such appear- ance of guilt as subjected them to a trial—and some whose prosecutors did not appear against them, after being confined for months, dragged back to gaol, and locked up again until they should pay sundry fees to the gaoler, the clerk of assize, &c. In order to redress this hardship, I applied to the Justices of the county for a salary to the gaoler, in liea of his fees." Had this been granted, it is probable that Howard would have been satisfied, as in the case of the prisoners of war, and stopped. But the Bench, though "properly affected with the grievance, and willing to grant the relief desired, wanted a precedent." In search of one, the philan- thropist journeyed into the neighbouring counties. He did not find the precedent he sought, but he found the prisons in a terrible state; and by dint of constant iteration the whole subject grew up in his mind. "The first stage of his inquiries was Cambridge; the prison of which town he found very insecure, and without a chaplain: here, in addition to the fee to the Leder, the prisoner bad to pay another to the sheriff, before he could obtain his liberty. .ue extended his journey to Huntingdon; the gaol of which he likewise inspected. He returned to Cardington powerfully affected by the miseries which he had seen, but without having found the precedent of which he was in search. These glimpses, however, into the state of prisons, rather whetted his appetite for fur- ther investigation than allayed it; and he had not been many days at Cardington after his return before he commenced a much wider range of inspection—taking in his route the large cluster of Midland counties. His first point of observation on this second journey was Northampton; where he found that the gaoler, instead of receiving a salary for his services, actually paid forty pounds a year for his situation! This fact was not an unfair index to the material condition of the prison. The felons' court-yard was close and confined; and prisoners had no straw allowed them to sleep on. Beds for prisoners were never thought of in those days. Leicester was next visited: the situation of the gaol received his explicit condemnation; it was pronounced incapable of being rendered either con- venient or healthy. When debtors were unable to pay for accommodation—and it will be remembered that this would always be the case with honest insolvents, who had given everything up to their creditors—they were confined in a long dungeon, which was damp and dark, being under ground, and had only two small boles, the largest not more than twelve inches square, to let in light and air. The felons were kept in an under-ground dungeon—night and day; but they were provided with the luxury of coarse mats to sleep on. Altogether the place was close and offensive; the court-yard was small; there was no chapel; and the governor had no salary, except what he could wring from Ms victims. At Not- tingham, thigs were in much the same condition: the gaol was built on the decliv47 oan hill; down about five-and-twenty steps were three rooms for such could pay for them; the poorer and honester prisoners were compelled to de- scend twelve steps more, into a series of cells cut in the solid rock for their recep- tion only one of which was in use at the time,—a cavern, twenty-one feet long, Wily broad, and seven feet high ; in this horrible hole human beings were some- times immured for years."

Derby, Stafford, Warwick, Worcester, Gloucester, the counties of Herts, Wilts, Berks, Dorset, Hants, Sussex, with York Castle, and indeed

the greater part or England; vi-ere vim to succession ; the prisoner's condition, as well sAtejtillitlif of his detention, becoming forcibly impressed upon Howerff. enrtUrefore, he came into con- nexion with Mr. Popham aboutto reintroduce his bill, Howard had col- lected a mass of factiratkic'Ort6laii9e Rilk'opDoiretlithic too shocking to be neglected.: The Himae of Coramons4eSoltesel7 ltielf -litteseammittee ' Howard was exattlined at..the bar ; on ilaisefloitteqrststreeing,iheiteiseiveti. what was equivalent to iriefliaisks- iffkliSPeaker atidbtwe were the result. - • '.ss !enss ciii ass!, bssds,. "The first of these enaCtmentsclassed:tetlith Ngiat Aie MarelviirlAstleedares that all prisoners against whmatimeillenfiedieetnient%lbell beetiesolitetbegralid jury, or wheshall be discharged by,proolamaticiatfer afpromergioe; abalt be immediately set at large ia open, court, witteeti ayinepf ofAny retpc sum of money to the sheriff or gaoler in respect of such' diseharge; tadj-illsoliAing all such fees for the futnre,-it didiets the payment,' iirlien4iNliefic oTalitnisot ex- ceeding 13s. 4d. out of the county-rate---orons of the public sto'cl6tteitievtowns, and hamlets not contributing to. such • rate—for every. piaonar, 'discharged in either of the cases provided for by the statute, The other bill, which became law on the 2d of June, t. e. while Howard was resting from his lahoure at 9,Kdi...g.ton, authorizes and requires the justices to see that the walls and cenks all pri- sons within their respective jurisdictions-be seraped and whiteWashed once a year at least; that the rooms be tigularly washed and ventilated; that infirma- ries be provided for the sick, and proper care taken-ofthe same; to order clothes for the prisoners when they see occasion; to prevent their being, kept in under- ground dungeons, whenever they can; and, generally, to take such measures as shall tend to restore and preserve their health." . Except an election attempt in 1775, to free Bedford from the shackles of the Corporation, which having overthrown the power of Jeniutes,Duke, then jobbed the borough—and two years wasted in 1779-1780, as the supervisor of a proposed penitentiary, during which time Howard could not get a refractory colleague to agree upon a site—his life was henceforth devoted to prisons and imprisonment. He revisited the:gaols of England ; he went to Scotland and Ireland,—whose prisons he found, strange to say, in a tolerable state; he travelled oftener than once through France, Flanders, Holland, Prussia, and Germany ; he visited Denmark, Sweden, St. Petersburg, and Moscow ; he traversed Portugal and Spain, and again revisited Italy. The fads which he gathered. on these journies he gave to the world, with the conclusions hedrew from them, When he had exhausted " the prison-world of Europe," he turned to the less loath- some but more seemingly dangerous subjects of the plague'aud the lazar- ettos. He visited the lazaretto of Marseilles in disguise, as in disguise he had traversed the whole of France; for the Government, sillily sore at some of Howard's observations on the Bugle., had refused hint permis- sion, though officially made. Besides exploring the lazarettos of Italy and Malta, he went to Smyrna and Constantinople, exposing himself to the dangers of the plague, and the certainty of detention as a probably infected person. Returning to England in safety, he found his son a lunatic, the victim of profligate habits; ; for, absorbed in his own great mission, Howard had somewhat neglected his domestic duties, and left his son too much to himself and bad companions. There was nothing in hope or reflection to cheer him at home, and employment had- become habitual. In 1789, he left England with the impression that this journey would be the last ; and so. it was. He died is the January of the follow- ing year, at Cherson in South Russia, With Et feeble constitution, and between sixty and seventy, it is true enough to say that he fell a martyr to humanity, for his health was broken by his labours. In strict matter of fact, however, he died of a fever, caught, he imagined, from attending a young lady, contrary to his usual rule, which was to give his medical assistance only to the poor. It was his wish to be buried privately in a spot he had pointed out ; but the local government, the military, and the people, followed him in long procession. His decease sounded like a knell through Europe; but perhaps the, best proof of the sensation it caused is the fact that, though a private person, his death was announced in the London Gazette. The man who can overcome the stilted formalism of English bureaucracy must be a Hercules-indeed. The life and character of such a man deserves to be brought before a generation that was forgetting all but his name and some, vaguely pomp- ous idea of his doings. In this, point of view the task has been exceed- ingly well performed by Mr. Hepworth Dixon. The new materials he has collected have not perhaps all the value he ascribes to them ; but new materials (unless of a remarkable kind)were not needed. Enough existed to indicate the great characteristics of Howard's private life; his public life was accessible in his own works, and in printed records, What the age required was a book to supply its wants after its own fashion; for Brown's, however authentic, was dull, and Aiken's though of a higher kind, does not tell enough, at least in the way our reading world likes to be told. This is done in John Howard and the Prison-World of Europe. The state of prisons and the condition of prisoners before Howard's time are succinctly yet sufficiently placed before the reader ; the facts connected with Howard's personal life have been diligently collected, and are well brought out ; enough of Howard's public autobiography (for such in fact were his explorations and his works) is exhibited to convey an idea of the nature and extent of his labours ; the whole is well planned, and well executed, though in too artificial a style. Mr. Dixon belongs to the platform school, and that style is hardly fitted for a book. The necessity of saying a good deal when the matter does not furnish much to say, involves a mode of frequent comment,—an improvement of the sub- ject, which rather overlays the matter. A similar need induces digression ; a passing or subordinate topic is dwelt upon till it carries the reader away and back again. Above all, "who peppers the highest is surest to please." Hence the tendency to an unnatural exaggeration inpraise, and a sneering depreciation of opponents- " So over violent, or over civil, That every man with them is god or devil." There is more of these traits in Mr. Dixon than is desirable on the score of perfect good taste, or a good "style of biographical composition. But having chosen his tools, he uses them with effect; and in two great points of biography he is very successful he keeps up the reader's at- tention, and impresses the life and labours of the hero upon his mind.