Chapter IX (3)

Without further comment, but with a warm recommendation, we close these three American volumes. It were idle to subject to minute criticism books that make no pretensions to literary merit, and which, professing only to give, in plain language, an account of the writers' personal adventures and experiences, are written in off-hand style, and are wholly free from pedantry and affectation. If they are occasionally somewhat rude in form, like the men and countries they portray, they at least are frank and honest in substance; and they contain more novelty, amusement, and information, than are to be found in any dozen of those vapid narratives of fashionable tourists with which the Bentley and Colburn presses annually cram the nauseated public. We have been much pleased and diverted by the unsophisticated pages of Messrs Johnson, Wise, and Parkman.

HOWARD.[9]

[9] _John Howard and the Prison-World of Europe._ From original and
authentic Documents. By HEPWORTH DIXON.

To add another to the numerous eulogies which have been justly bestowed on the memory of Howard the philanthropist, is not our object. We are far from making the attempt: our aim is to contribute something to the more accurate and familiar knowledge of the man himself--his life, his character, his career, his services.

It not unfrequently happens that the great men of history, whom we have admired in our youth, sink grievously in our estimation, and lose their heroic port and proportions, when we survey them more nearly, and at a season of maturer judgment. They shrink into the bounds and limits of commonplace mortality. We venture even to administer reproof and castigation, where, perhaps, we had venerated almost to idolatry. Such is not the case with Howard. Poets have sung his praises, and his name has rounded many an eloquent period. Howard the philanthropist becomes very soon a name as familiar to us as those of the kings and queens who have sat upon our throne; but the vague admiration, thus early instilled into us, suffers no diminution when, at an after period, we become intimately acquainted with the character of the man. We may approach the idol here without danger to our faith. We may analyse the motive--we may "vex, probe, and criticise"--it is all sound. Take your stethoscope and listen--there is no hollow here--every pulse beats true.

The Howard that poets and orators had taught us to admire loses none of its greatness on a near approach. But it undergoes a remarkable _transformation_. The real Howard, who devoted his life to the jail and the lazaretto, was a very different person from that ideal of benevolence which the verse of Darwin, or the eloquence of Burke, had called up into our minds. Instead of this faint and classic ideal, we have the intensely and somewhat sternly religious man, guided and sustained, every step of his way, not alone, nor principally, by the amiable but vacillating sentiment which passes under the name of philanthropy, but by an exalted, severe, imperative sense of duty. It is Howard the Christian, Howard the Puritan, that stands revealed before us. The form changes, but only to grow more distinct and intelligible. The features have no longer that classic outline we had attributed to them; but they bear henceforth the stamp of reality--of a man who, without doubt, had lived and moved amongst us.

Those who have rested content (and we think there are many such) with that impression of Howard which is derived from the panegyrics scattered through our polite literature, and who accordingly attribute to him, as the master-motive of his conduct, simply a wide benevolence--a sentiment of humanity exalted to a passion--must be conscious of a certain uneasy sense of doubt, an involuntary scepticism; must feel that there is something here unexplained, or singularly exaggerated. Their Howard, if they should scrutinise their impression, is a quite anomalous person. No philanthropist they have ever heard of--no mere lover of his kind, sustained only by the bland sentiment of humanity, not even supported by any new enthusiastic faith in the perfectibility of the species--ever lived the life of this man, or passed through a tithe of his voluntary toils and sufferings. Philanthropists are generally distinguished for their love of speculation; they prefer to think rather than to act; and their labours are chiefly bestowed on the composition of their books. Philanthropists have occasionally ruined themselves; but their rash schemes are more notorious for leading to the ruin of others. As a race, they are not distinguished for self-sacrifice, or for practical and strenuous effort. There must, therefore, to the persons we are describing, be a certain doubt and obscurity hanging over the name of Howard the philanthropist. It must sound like a myth or fable; they must half suspect that, if some Niebuhr should look into the matter, their heroic figure would vanish into thin air.

Let them, however, proceed to the study of the veritable Howard, and all the mystery clears up. The philanthropist of the orator gives place to one who, in the essential elements of his character, may be ranked with Christian missionaries and Christian martyrs. Instead of the half-pagan ideal, or personification of benevolence, there rises before them a character which a rigorous analysis might justly class with those of St Francis or Loyola, or whatever the Christian church has at any time exhibited of exalted piety and complete self-devotion. The same spirit which, in past times, has driven men into the desert, or shut them up in cells with the scourge and the crucifix; the same spirit which has impelled them to brave all the dangers of noxious climates and of savage passions, to extend the knowledge of religion amongst barbarous nations--was animating Howard when he journeyed incessantly from prison to prison, tracking human misery into all its hidden and most loathsome recesses. He who, in another century, would have been the founder of a new order of barefooted monks, became, in Protestant England, the great exemplar of philanthropic heroism. Perhaps he too, in one sense, may be said to have founded a new religious order, though it is not bound together by common rules, and each member of it follows, as he best may, the career of charitable enterprise that lies open before him. The mystery, we say, clears up. Benevolent our Howard was, undoubtedly, by nature, as by nature also he was somewhat imperious; but that which converted his benevolence into a ceaseless motive of strenuous action, of toil, and of sacrifice; that which _utilised_ his natural love of authority, transforming it into that requisite firmness and predominance over others without which no man, at least no reformer, can be rigidly just, and, face to face, admonish, threaten, and reprove; that which constituted the mainspring and vital force of his character, was intense piety, and the all-prevailing sense of duty to his God. The craving of his soul was some great task-work, to be done in the eye of Heaven. Not the love of man, nor the praise of man, but conscience, and to be a servant of the Most High, were his constant motive and desire.

Men of ardent piety generally apply themselves immediately to the reproduction in others of that piety which they feel to be of such incomparable importance. This becomes the predominant, often the sole object of their lives. It is natural it should be so. In such minds all the concerns of the present world sink into insignificance; and their fellow-men are nothing, except as they are, or are not, fellow-Christians. Howard was an exception to this rule. Owing to certain circumstances in his own life; to the manner of his education; to his deficiency in some intellectual qualifications, and his pre-eminence in others, he was led to take the domain of physical suffering--of earthly wretchedness--for the province in which to exert his zeal. For the preacher, or the writer, he was not formed, either by education or by natural endowment; but he was a man of shrewd observation, of great administrative talent, of untiring perseverance, and of an insatiable energy. The St Francis of Protestant England did not, therefore, go forth as a missionary; nor did he become the founder of a new sect, distinguished by any doctrinal peculiarity; but he girded himself up to visit, round the world, the cell of the prisoner--to examine the food he ate, the air he breathed, to rid him of the jail-fever, to drive famine out of its secret haunts, and from its neglected prey. It was this peculiarity which led men to segregate Howard from the class to which, by the great elements of his character, he belongs. To relieve the common wants of our humanity was his object--to war against hunger and disease, and unjust cruelties inflicted by man on man, was his chosen task-work; therefore was it vaguely supposed that the sentiment of humanity was his great predominant motive, and that he was driven about the world by compassion and benevolence.

His remains lie buried in Russia. Dr Clarke, in his travels through that country, relates that "Count Vincent Potoçki, a Polish nobleman of the highest taste and talents, whose magnificent library and museum would do honour to any country, through a mistaken design of testifying his respect for the memory of Howard, has signified his intention of taking up the body that it might be conveyed to his country seat, where a sumptuous monument has been prepared for its reception, upon a small island in the midst of a lake. His countess, being a romantic lady, wishes to have an annual _fête_ consecrated to benevolence; at this the nymphs of the country are to attend, and strew the place with flowers." There are many, we suspect, of his own countrymen and countrywomen, who would be disposed to honour the memory of Howard in a similar manner. They would hang, or carve, their wreaths of flowers upon a tomb where the emblems of Christian martyrdom would be more appropriate. We need hardly add that the design of the romantic countess was not put into execution.

The vague impression prevalent of this remarkable man has been perpetuated by another circumstance. Howard has been unfortunate in his biographers. Dr Aikin, the earliest of these, writes like a gentleman and a scholar; manifests throughout much good sense, a keen intelligence, and a high moral feeling; but his account is brief, and is both defective and deceptive from his incapacity, or unwillingness, to portray the religious aspect of the character he had undertaken to develop. Dr Aikin's little book may still be read with advantage for the general remarks it contains, but it is no biography. Neither was Dr Aikin calculated for a biographer. He wanted both the highest and the lowest qualifications. Details, such as of dates and places, he had not the patience to examine; and he wanted that rarer quality of mind by which the writer is enabled to throw himself into the character of a quite different man from himself, and almost feel by force of sympathy the motives which have actuated him. This the cultivated, tasteful, but, in spite of his verse, the quite didactic mind of Aikin, was incapable of doing.

The Rev. Samuel Palmer, who had known Howard for thirty years, appended to a sermon, preached on the occasion of his death, some account of his life and career. But this, as well as several anonymous contributions to magazines, and a brief anonymous life which appeared at the same time, can be considered only in the light of materials for the future biographer.

The task lay still open, and Mr Baldwin Brown, barrister-at-law, undertook to accomplish it. He appears to have had all the advantages a biographer could desire. He had conversed with the contemporaries and friends of Howard, and with his surviving domestics--an advantage which no subsequent writer could hope to profit by; he was put in possession of the materials which the Rev. Mr Smith and his family, intimate friends of Howard, had collected for the very purpose of such a work as he was engaged on; Dr Brown, professor of theology at Aberdeen, another intimate friend of Howard, transcribed for him, from his commonplace book, the memoranda of conversations held with Howard, and committed to writing at the time; and, above all, he was furnished with extracts and memoranda from diaries kept by Howard himself, and which fortunately had escaped the general conflagration to which the philanthropist, anticipating and disliking the curiosity of the biographer, had devoted his papers. Several influential men amongst the Dissenters interested themselves in obtaining information for him; and the list of those to whom he expresses obligations of this kind, occupies two or three pages of his preface. Mr Brown was himself a man of religious zeal--we presume, from his work, a Dissenter: he could not fail to appreciate the religious aspect of Howard's character. As a lawyer, he was prepared to take an interest in the subject of his labours--the reformation of our prisons and our penal laws. Thus he brought to his task many peculiar advantages; and the work he produced was laborious, conscientious, and very valuable. Unfortunately, Mr Baldwin Brown was a dull writer, by which we here imply that he was also a dull thinker, and his book will be pronounced by the generality of readers to be as dull as it is useful. Notwithstanding the attractive title it bears, and the many interesting particulars contained in it, his biography never attained any popularity. It was probably read extensively amongst the Dissenters, to whose sympathies it more directly appeals than to those of any other class of readers; but we think we are right in saying that it never had much circulation in the world at large.

More parsonic than the parsons, our lawyer-divine can resist no opportunity for sermonising. The eloquence of a Dissenting pulpit, and that when it is but indifferently _supplied_--the tedious repetition, and the monotonous unmodulated periods of his legal text-books--these combine, or alternate, through the pages of Mr Brown. Yet those who persevere in the perusal of his book will be rewarded. He is judicious in the selection of his materials. He presents us with the means of forming an accurate conception of Howard; though, in so doing, he seems to reveal to an attentive reader more than he had well understood himself.

Tedious or not, this is still the only biography of Howard. A Mr Thomas Taylor has written what appears to be an abridgment of the work. His book is more brief, but it is still more insipid. What notion Mr T. Taylor has of biography may be judged of from this, that he thinks it necessary, in quoting Howard's own original letters, to amend and improve the _style_--preserving, as he says, the sense, but correcting the composition. He is apparently shocked at the idea that the philanthropist should express himself in indifferent English, even though in a hasty letter to a friend.

Very lately Mr Hepworth Dixon, whose work has recalled us to this subject, has presented us with a life of Howard. It cannot be said of Mr Dixon's book that it is either dull or insipid; it has some of the elements of popularity; but we cannot better describe it in a few words than by saying that it is a _caricature_ of a popular biography. Its flippancy, its conceit, its egregious pretensions, its tawdry _novelistic_ style, are past all sufferance. It is too bad to criticise. But as, in the dearth of any popular biography of Howard, it has assumed for a time a position it by no means merits, we cannot pass it by entirely without notice. For, besides that Mr Dixon writes throughout with execrable taste, he has not dealt conscientiously with the materials before him. His notion of the duty of a biographer is this--that he is to collect every incident of the least piquancy, no matter by whom related, or on what authority, and colour it himself as highly as he can. Evidently the most serious preparation he has made, for writing the life of Howard, has been a course of reading in French romances. It is with the spirit and manner of a Eugene Sue that he sits down to describe the grand and simple career of Howard.

Mr Dixon has not added a single new fact to the biography of Howard, nor any novelty whatever, except such as he has drawn from his own imagination. Nor does he assist in sifting the narrative; on the contrary, whatever dust has the least sparkle in it, though it has been thrice thrown away, he assiduously collects. That he should have nothing new to relate is no matter of blame; it is probable that no future biographer will be able to do more than recast and reanimate the materials to be found in Brown and Aikin. But why this pretence of having written a life of Howard from "original documents?" We beg pardon: he does not absolutely say that he has written _the Life of Howard_ from original documents--the original document, for there is but one, may apply to the "_prison-world of Europe_," of which also he professes to write. This "earliest document of any value connected with the _penology of England_," which, with much parade, he prints for the first time, relates to the state of prisons before the labours of Howard. Impossible to suppose, therefore, that Mr Hepworth Dixon meant his readers to infer that, by the aid of this document, he was about to give them an original Life of Howard.

Let us look at Mr Dixon's preface--it is worth while. It thus commences:--

"Several reasons combined to induce the writer _to undertake the
work of making out for the reading world_ a new biography of
Howard; the chief of them fell under two heads:--

"_It lay in his path._ Years ago now, circumstances, which do
not require to be explained in this place, called his attention
to the vast subject of the _prison-world_."

We must stop a moment to admire this favourite magniloquence of our author. Howard wrote a report on the state of prisons; Mr Dixon writes on nothing less than the _prison-world_ of Europe! He heads his chapters--"The Prison-world of the Continent," "The Prison-world of England." If Mr Dixon, in his patriotic labours, should turn his attention to the nuisance of Smithfield market, he would certainly give us a treatise on "The _Butcher-world_ of Europe," with chapters headed, with due logical gradation, "The Butcher-world of England," and "The Butcher-world of London."

"It lay in his path," was one reason why he wrote his biography. "It needed to be done," was the other. We agree in the last of these reasons, whatever demur we make to the first. A more popular biography than Mr Brown's would certainly be a useful book. But what can Mr Dixon mean by saying, that, "although Howard was the father of prison-science, the story of his life has hitherto been made out without reference to that fact?" Messrs Brown and Aikin were not, then, aware that the excitement of the public attention to the great subject of prison-discipline was the chief result, and the direct and ostensible aim of the labours of Howard!

But now we arrive at Mr Dixon's statement of his own peculiar resources for writing the Life of Howard, and the valuable contributions he has made to our better knowledge of the man; in short, his claims upon our gratitude and confidence:--

"It has been the writer's study to render this biographical
history of Howard as worthy of its subject, and of the
confidence of the reader, as the nature of the materials at
his disposal would allow. He has carefully collated every
document already printed--made, and caused to be made, numerous
researches--conversed with persons who have preserved traditions
and other memorials of this subject--travelled in his traces
over a great number of prisons--examined parliamentary and
other records for such new facts as they might afford--and, in
conclusion, has consulted these several sources of information,
and interpreted their answers by such light as his personal
experience of the prison-world suggested to be needful. The
result of this labour is, that some new matter of curious
interest has turned up--_amongst other things_, a manuscript
throwing light on the early history of prison reforms in this
country, found in the archives of the Society for Promoting
Christian Knowledge, and for which he is indebted to the
courtesy of the secretary, the Rev. T. B. Murray; and the
writer is assured _that no other papers_ exist in any known
quarter. The material for Howard's life is therefore _now fully
collected_; whether it is herein finally used, will entirely
depend upon the verdict of the reader."

From all this mystification, the reader is at least to conclude that something very important has been done, and contributions very valuable have been made, for a final biography of Howard. Documents collated--researches made, and caused to be made--then a discovered manuscript, which now is, and now is not, appertaining to the subject--assurance "that no other papers exist in any known quarter!"--"materials _now_ fully collected!" Oh, Admirable Crichton! Our author has done all this for us! Our author has read the memoirs of Baldwin Brown--and that not very attentively: if he has done more it is a pity, because there is not the least trace of it in his book. Our author has read the memoirs of Baldwin Brown, and travestied his narrative, and then writes this preface, as a travesty, we presume, of erudite prefaces in general. The book altogether does not belong to literature, but is a sort of parody upon literature.

We may as well give our readers the benefit of the rest of the preface:--

"The mental and moral portraiture of Howard attempted in this
volume is new." [Fortunately, and to the recommendation of
the volume, it is not new, but a transcript of that which his
predecessor had drawn.] "As the writer's method of inquiry and
of treatment was different to that ordinarily adopted, so his
result is different. His study of the character was earnest,
and, he believes, faithful. After making himself master of all
the facts of the case which have come down to us, biographically
and traditionally, his plan was to _saturate himself with
Howardian ideas_, and then strive to reproduce them _living,
acting, and suffering_ in the real world."

How the Howardian ideas _suffered_ from this process, we can somewhat guess. The rest of the sentence is not so plain:--

"The writer lays down his pen, not without regret. Long
accustomed to contemplate one of the most noble and beautiful
characters in history, he has learnt to regard it with a human
affection; and at parting with his theme--the mental companion
of many hours, and the object of his constant thoughts--_he
feels somewhat like a father who gives away his favourite
daughter in marriage_. He does not lose his interest in his
child; but she can be to him no longer what she has been. A
touch of melancholy mingles with his joy. He still regards his
offspring with a tender solicitude--_but his monopoly of love is
ended_."

Oh, surely no!

We propose, as far as our limits will permit, to retrace the chief incidents in the biography of Howard. A brief sketch of his life and character may not be unacceptable to our readers. Such strictures as we have passed upon his latest biographer, Mr Dixon, we shall have abundant opportunities to justify as we proceed.

The well-known monument in St Paul's Cathedral, which, from the circumstance of the key held in the hand of the statue, has been sometimes taken by foreigners for the representation of the apostle St Peter, bears inscribed on the pedestal that Howard "was born in Hackney, in the county of Middlesex, September 2, 1726." But both the place and the year of his birth have been differently stated by his biographers. The Rev. S. Palmer, who had known him long, writes that he was born at Clapton; Dr Aikin, that he was born at Enfield. To the authority of the Doctor, on such a point as this, we attach no weight; it is plain to us that he gave himself little trouble to determine whether he was born at Clapton or Enfield. It was probably at Clapton; but Clapton is in the parish of Hackney, so that there is really no discrepancy between Mr Palmer's statement and that on the monument. The year 1726 seems also to be generally received as the most probable date of his birth. After all the discussion, we may as well adhere to the inscription on the pedestal of the statue.

The father of Howard had acquired a considerable fortune in business as an upholsterer and carpet warehouseman in Long Lane, Smithfield. He was a dissenter, of Calvinistic principles; and, it is presumed, an Independent. The question has been raised, whether our Howard was descended from any branch of the noble family of that name; but his biographers generally agree in rejecting for him the honours of such a pedigree. Nor can any one be in the least degree solicitous to advance such a claim. The military achievements of a Norman ancestry would diffuse a very incongruous lustre over the name of our Christian philanthropist. Thus much, however, is evident, that at one time there existed some tradition, or belief, or pretence, in the family of the citizen Howard, that they were remotely connected with the noble family whose name they share. "The arms of the Duke of Norfolk, and of the Earls of Suffolk, Effingham, and Carlisle, are placed at the head of the tombstone which Howard erected to the memory of his first wife, on the south side of Whitechapel churchyard." Such is the assertion of the anonymous biographer in the _Universal Magazine_, (vol. lxxxvi.) who stands alone, we believe, in maintaining the validity of this claim. And Mr Brown, after quoting these words, adds--"From actual inspection of the mouldering monument, I can assure those of my readers who may feel any curiosity on the subject, that this description of its armorial bearings is correct; and am further enabled to add, on the authority of his relative, Mr Barnardiston, that the distinguished individual by whom that monument was erected, occasionally spoke of Lord Carlisle as his relative; thus claiming at least a traditional descent from the Howards, Earls of Suffolk." That such a man as Howard should have used these arms _once_ is significant; that he should have used them only once, is equally so. He was one of the last men, if we have read his character correctly, who would have assumed what he did not, at the time, think himself entitled to; and one of the last who would shrink from claiming a right where his title was clear.

Mr Dixon not only rejects the claim, but is highly indignant that it should ever have been suggested. "Howard sprang from a virgin and undistinguished soil;"--why the upholsterer's should be peculiarly _a virgin soil_ we do not see. "Attempts, however, have not been wanting to _vulgarise_ his origin--to rob its greatness of its most natural charm--by circling his brows with the _distant glitter_ of a ducal crown; by finding in his simple lineaments the trace of noble lines, and in his veins the consecrated currents of patrician blood." Strange waste of eloquent indignation! But he does not keep quite steady in his passion. "No," he exclaims, "let Howard stand alone. His reputation rests upon a basis already broad enough. _Why should we pile up Pelion on Olympus?_" There was, then, a Pelion to pile upon Olympus? We had thought not. Our author should have kept these red and purple patches at a greater distance: they do not harmonise.

Meanwhile the father of Howard had so little of what is commonly called aristocratic pride, that although he had retired from business, and had a good property--and property, too, in land--to leave to his son, he yet wished that son to tread in his own footsteps. He apprenticed him to a wholesale grocer in Watling Street.

The education of young Howard was such as is, or was, generally given to a lad of respectable parents intended for trade. He was at two schools. Of the first, Howard himself is reported to have said, that, having been there seven years, "he left it not fully taught in any one thing." He left it when a boy, and what boy ever left his school "fully taught in any one thing?" The remark is rather characteristic of the speaker than condemnatory of John Worsley, the schoolmaster in question. His second school was kept by a Mr Eames, a man of acknowledged ability. But how long he remained there is not known. At this school he made the friendship of one Price, afterwards that Dr Price who remains, to all posterity, impaled in Burke's _Letter on the French Revolution_. The great orator thrust his spear through his thin texture, and pinned him to the board; and never, but in this rich museum, will any one behold or think of Dr Price. Perhaps he deserved a better fate, but his case is hopeless now. Yet, if it can heal his memory to connect his name with one who was not a _revolutionary philanthropist_, let him have all the benefit of the association. Howard had never acquired the art of writing his own language with ease and correctness, and therefore it will be directly understood how valuable to him, in the preparation of his reports, was the help of a literary friend. That literary friend he found in Dr Price. In a letter to him, Howard writes, "It is from your kind aid and assistance, my dear friend, that I derive so much of my character and influence. I exult in declaring it, and shall carry a grateful sense of it to the last hour of my existence."

After his father's death, Howard purchased his freedom from the wholesale grocer's in Watling Street, and travelled upon the Continent. He was not without taste for the arts; and it was at this time, Mr Brown supposes, that he brought with him from Italy those paintings with which he afterwards embellished his favourite seat at Cardington.

On returning from this tour, he took lodgings at Stoke Newington, in the house of Mrs Loidore, a widow, upwards of fifty, of rather humble station in life, and a perpetual invalid. She, however, nursed him with so much care, through a severe illness, by which he was attacked while residing under her roof, that, on his recovery, he offered her marriage. "Against this unexpected proposal," says Mr Brown, "the lady made remonstrances, principally upon the ground of the great disparity in their ages; but Mr Howard being firm to his purpose, the union took place, it is believed, in the year 1752, he being then in about the twenty-fifth year of his age, and his bride in her fifty-second. Upon this occasion, he behaved with a liberality which seems to have been inherent in his nature, by settling the whole of his wife's little independence upon her sister. The marriage, thus singularly contracted, was productive of mutual satisfaction to the parties who entered it. Mrs Howard was a woman of excellent character, amiable in her disposition, sincere in her piety, endowed with a good mental capacity, and forward in exercising its powers in every good word and work."

Thus runs the sober narrative of Mr Brown. Not so does Mr Dixon let pass the opportunity for fine descriptive writing. Read and admire:--

"As he became convalescent, his plan ripened into form. When
the danger had entirely passed away, his health was restored
to its accustomed state; he offered her, as the only fitting
reward of her services--a toy? an ornament? a purse? a house?
an estate? or any of those munificent gifts with which wealthy
and generous convalescents reward their favourite attendants?
No. He offered her his hand, his name, his fortune! Of course,
the good lady was astonished at the portentous shape of her
patient's gratitude. She started objections, being older, and
having more worldly prudence than her lover. It is even said
that she seriously refused her consent to the match, urging
the various arguments which might fairly be alleged against
it,--the inequality in the years, fortune, social position of
the parties, and so forth--but all to no purpose. Howard's mind
was made up. During his slow recovery, he had weighed the matter
carefully--had come to the conclusion that it was his duty to
marry her, and nothing could now change his determination. The
struggle between the two must have been extremely curious: the
sense of duty on both sides, founded upon honest convictions,
no doubt,--the mutual respect without the consuming fire,--the
cool and logical weighing of arguments, in place of the rapid
pleading of triumphant passion; the young man without the
ordinary inspirations of youth, on the one hand; the widow,
past her prime, yet simple, undesigning, unambitious, earnestly
struggling to reject and put aside youth, wealth, protection,
honour, social rank,--the very things for which women are
taught to dress, to pose, to intrigue, almost to circumvent
heaven, on the other;--form together a picture which has its
romantic interest, in spite of the incongruity of the main
idea. Humble life is not without its heroic acts. _Cæsar
refusing the Roman crown_, even had he been really serious, and
without after-thought in its rejection, _is a paltry piece of
magnanimity, compared with Mrs Loidore's refusal of the hand
of Howard_. At length, however, her resistance was overcome by
the indomitable will of her suitor. One of the contemporary
biographers has thrown an air of romance over the scene of
this domestic struggle, which, if the lady had been young and
beautiful--that is, if the element of passion could be admitted
into the arena--would have been truly charming. As it is, the
reader may receive it with such modifications as he or she may
deem necessary. 'On the very first opportunity,' says this grave
but imaginative chronicler, 'Mr Howard expressed his sentiments
to her in the strongest terms of affection, assuring her that,
if she rejected his proposal, _he would become an exile for ever
to his family and friends_. The lady was upwards of forty [true
enough! she was also upwards of fifty, good master historian,]
and therefore urged the disagreement of their years, as well as
their circumstances; but, after _allowing her four-and-twenty
hours for a final reply_, his eloquence surmounted all her
objections, and she consented to a union wherein gratitude was
to supply the deficiencies of passion!' Criticism would only
spoil the pretty picture--so let it stand."

Criticism had already spoilt the picture, such as it is. But this matters not to Mr Dixon. The quotation he has thought fit to embellish his pages with, is taken from an anonymous pamphlet published in 1790, under the title of _The Life of the late John Howard, Esquire, with a Review of his Travels_. Mr Dixon, however, evidently extracts it second-hand from the note in Mr Brown, where it is quoted, with some other passages from the same performance, for the express purpose of refutation and contradiction. This is what Mr Dixon would call _artistic_--the picking up what had been discarded as worthless, and, with a gentle shade of doubt thrown over its authenticity, making use of it again.

A note of Mr Brown's, in the same page of his memoirs, (p. 634,) will supply us with another instance of this ingenious procedure. That note runs thus:--

"We are informed in the memoirs of Mr Howard, published in
the _Gentleman's Magazine_, that, during the period of his
residing as a lodger in the house of Mrs Loidore, he used to
ride out in the morning for a few miles with a book in his
pocket, dismount, turn his horse to graze upon a common, and
spend several hours in reading. 'On a very particular inquiry,
however,' says the author of the _Life of Mr Howard_, inserted
in the _Universal Magazine_, 'of persons very intimate, and who
had often rode out with him, we are assured that they never saw,
nor ever _heard_ of such a practice.'"

Mr Dixon makes use of the first part of the note, ignoring the second.

"It is said," he writes, gravely suspending his judgment on
the authenticity of the fact--"it is said, in a contemporary
biographical notice, that he would frequently ride out a mile
or two in the country, fasten his nag to a tree, or turn him
loose to browse upon the way-side; and then, throwing himself
upon the grass, under a friendly shade, would read and cogitate
for hours. This statement, if true, would indicate more of a
romantic and poetical temperament in Howard, than the generally
calm and Christian stoicism of his manner would have led one to
expect."

That Mr Dixon never consulted the memoir itself, in the _Gentleman's Magazine_, we shall by-and-by have an opportunity of showing. That memoir, worthless as an authority, has become notorious for the calumny it originated. But this collator of documents, this inquirer after traditions, this maker of unimaginable researches, has never turned over the pages of the _Gentleman's Magazine_ for that obituary which, owing to its slanderous attack, has excited so much controversy in all the biographies of Howard, his own included.

This wife, so singularly selected, died two or three years after her marriage. Howard is again free and solitary, and again betakes himself to travel. We are in the year 1755, and the great earthquake of Lisbon has laid that city in ruins. He goes to see the grand and terrific spectacle. Dr Aikin calls it a sublime curiosity. We presume that no other motive than curiosity impelled him on this occasion; it would be certainly very difficult to suggest any other. No difficulties, however, daunt Mr Dixon. According to him,--"Howard, attracted by reports of the unexampled sufferings of the survivors, no sooner found himself at his own disposal, than he determined to haste with all possible speed to their assistance!" Single-handed, he was to cope with the earthquake.

Lisbon, however, he was not fated to reach. The vessel he sailed in was taken by a French privateer, and he, with the rest of the passengers and crew, carried into Brest, and there retained prisoner of war. The calamities of imprisonment he here endured himself, and under no mild form: afterwards, when other circumstances had drawn his attention to the condition of the prisoners, the remembrance of his own sufferings came in aid of his compassion for others. "Perhaps," he says, in the preface to his first report, "what I suffered on this occasion increased my sympathy with the unhappy people, whose case is the subject of this book."

Released upon parole, he returned to England, obtained his exchange, and then sat himself down on his estate at Cardington. Here he occupied himself in plans to ameliorate the condition of his tenantry. Scientific studies, and the study of medicine, to which, from time to time, he had applied himself, also engaged his attention. It was at this period he was elected a member of the Royal Society, not assuredly, as Mr Thomas Taylor presumes, from the "value attached" to a few communications upon the state of the weather, but, as Dr Aikin sensibly tells us, "in conformity to the laudable practice of that society, of attaching gentlemen of fortune and leisure to the interests of knowledge, by incorporating them into that body."

Howard now entered into matrimony a second time. On the 25th April 1758, he married Henrietta Leeds, second daughter of Edward Leeds, Esq. of Croxton, in Cambridgeshire. This alliance is pronounced by all his biographers to be in every respect suitable. Parity of age, harmony of sentiment, and, on the part of the lady, the charms of person and amiability of temper, everything contributed to a happy union. And it was so. Unfortunately, the happiness was as brief as it seems to have been perfect. His second wife also expired after a few years,--"the only years," Howard himself has said, "of true enjoyment he had known in life."

On this occasion, Mr Dixon, after infusing into Howard "the bland and insinuating witchery of a virgin passion," proceeds to describe his Henrietta in the most approved language of the novelist: "Although her features were not cast in the choicest mould of Grecian beauty, she was very fair--had large impressive eyes, an ample brow, a mouth exquisitely _cut_," &c. Shall we never again get the chisel out of the human face?

Connected with this second marriage of Howard, his biographers relate a trait of character which will be differently estimated by different minds--we relate it in the words of Mr Dixon:--

"We must not omit an incident that occurred before the ceremony,
which is very significant of Howard's frankness and firmness
at this epoch. Observing that many unpleasantnesses arise
in families, from circumstances trifling in themselves, in
consequence of each individual wishing to have his own way
in all things, he determined to avoid all these sources of
domestic discord, by establishing his own paramount authority
in the first instance. It is just conceivable that his former
experience of the wedded life may have led him to insist upon
this condition. At all events, he stipulated with Henrietta,
_that, in all matters in which there should be a difference of
opinion between them, his voice should rule_. This may sound
very ungallant in terms, but it was found exceedingly useful in
practice. Few men would have the moral honesty to suggest such
an arrangement to their lady-loves at such a season; though, at
the same time, few would hesitate to make the largest mental
reservations in their own behalf. It may also be, that few young
belles would be disposed to treat such a proposition otherwise
than with ridicule and anger, however conscious _they_ might
be, that as soon as the hymeneal pageantries were passed, their
surest means of happiness would lie in the prompt adoption of
the principle so laid down.

"Would that men and women would become sincerer with each other!
The great social vice of this age is its untrustfulness."

And Mr Dixon thereupon launches into we know not what heroics upon etiquette, upon English law, morals, and the constitution, all _à propos_ of Henrietta's obedience! For our own part, we do not look with much respect upon this stipulation which calls forth the admiration of Mr Dixon, and apparently meets with his cordial sympathy. Such a stipulation would probably be a mere nullity; with, or without it, the stronger will would predominate; but if we are to suppose it a really binding obligation, forming the basis of the conjugal union, it presents to us anything but an attractive aspect. It was the harsh feature in Howard's character, or the mistaken principle that he had adopted--this love of an authority--this claim to a domestic absolutism--which was to give no reasons, and admit of no questioning.

In justice to the character of Howard, we must not leave this matter entirely in the hands of Mr Dixon. Everything he draws is, more or less, a caricature. The authority on which his narration is founded is the following statement of the Rev. S. Palmer, given in Brown, p. 55:--

"The truth is," says Mr Palmer, in his manuscript memoir of his
distinguished friend, "he had a high idea (some of his friends
may think, too high) of the authority of the head of a family.
And he thought it right, because most convenient, to maintain
it, for the sake of avoiding the unhappy consequences of
domestic disputes. On this principle I have more than once heard
him _pleasantly relate_ the agreement he made with the last
Mrs Howard, previous to their marriage, that, _to prevent all
altercation about those little matters_ which he had observed to
be the chief grounds of uneasiness in families, he should always
decide. To this the amiable lady readily consented, and ever
adhered. Nor did she ever regret the agreement, which she found
to be attended with the happiest effects. Such was the opinion
she entertained, both of his wisdom and his goodness, that
she perfectly acquiesced in all that he did, and no lady ever
appeared happier in the conjugal bonds."

Here the matter has a much less repulsive aspect than in Mr Dixon's version, who has, in fact, exaggerated, in his zeal, a trait of Howard's character, which his best friends seem always to have looked upon with more or less of regret and disapproval.

As the only other circumstance connected with Howard's domestic life which we shall have space to mention, has also a peculiar reference to this trait in his character, we will depart from the chronological order of events, and allude to it here. His last wife left him one child, a son. This son grew up a dissolute youth; his ill-regulated life led to disease, and disease terminated in insanity. To this last malady, Mr Brown tells us he is authorised to say that there was a hereditary predisposition--we presume he means upon the mother's side.

Immediately on the death of Howard, there appeared, amongst the obituaries of the _Gentleman's Magazine_, a memoir of the deceased, in which the miserable fate of the son is directly charged upon the severity of the father. The whole memoir is full of errors. For this, the extreme haste in which it was necessarily written forms an excuse. But no excuse can be given for the perverse and malignant spirit it betrays. The very next number of the magazine opens with four or five letters addressed to Mr Urban, all remonstrating against, and refuting this baseless calumny; and every biographer has felt himself compelled to notice and repel the slander.

The fact is, that the writer or writers of the memoir--for several were engaged in concocting this very hasty and wretched performance--were quite ignorant, both of the education the son had received, and of the profligate course, and the consequent derangement of his health into which he had fallen. They knew only that the son was in a lunatic asylum, and that the father was a severe disciplinarian; and they most unwarrantably combined the two together, in the relation of cause and effect. "All prospects," they say, speaking of the youth, "were blasted by paternal severity, which reduced the young man to such an unhappy situation as to require his being placed where he now is, or lately was."

The vindication of Howard from this slander is complete; the origin of the son's malady is clearly traced; his affection for his child is amply demonstrated, and his unceasing anxiety to train him to virtue and piety is made equally manifest. But his most intimate friends entertained the opinion that his conduct towards his son was not _judicious_, and that his method of training up the youth was by no means so wisely, as it was conscientiously adopted. This is the sole charge, if such it can be called, to which the father is obnoxious; nor, from this, do we pretend to acquit him.

"It is agreed, on all hands," says Mr Brown, "that Howard entertained the most exalted notions of the authority of the head of a family--notions derived rather from the Scriptural history of patriarchal times than from any of our modern codes of ethics, or systems of education." Accordingly, we are told that he trained up his child from earliest infancy to an implicit obedience. Without once striking the child, but by manifesting a firmness of purpose which it was hopeless to think of shaking, he established such an authority over him that Howard himself, on one occasion, said, that "if he told the boy to put his finger in the fire, he believed he would do it." When he was an infant, and cried from passion, the father took him, laid him quietly in his lap, neither spoke nor moved, but let him cry on till he was wearied. "This process, a few times repeated, had such an effect, that the child, if crying ever so violently, was rendered quiet the instant his father took him." When he grew older, the severest punishment his father inflicted was to make him sit still in his presence, without speaking, for a time proportioned to the nature of the offence. But this impassive, statue-like firmness must have precluded all approach to companionship or confidence on the part of the son. It was still the obedience only of fear. "His friends," we quote from Mr Brown, "and amongst the rest the most intimate of them, the Rev. Mr Smith, thought that in the case of his son he carried those patriarchal ideas rather too far, and that by a lad of his temper (the son is described as of a lively disposition) he would have been more respected, and would have possessed more real authority over him, had he attempted to convince him of the reasonableness of his commands, instead of always enforcing obedience to them on his parental authority." We therefore may be permitted to say, that we look upon this aspect of Howard's character as by no means estimable. As a husband he claimed an unjust prerogative, and as a parent he divorced authority from persuasion, nor allowed obedience to mingle and ally itself with filial affection.

Mr Dixon does not, of course, omit his tribute of indignation against the calumny of the _Gentleman's Magazine_. We said that he had not given himself the trouble to look at the memoir itself which he denounces. Here is the proof:--

"The atrocious slander to which reference is made," says Mr
Dixon, "was promulgated in the _Gentleman's Magazine_, in an
obituary notice of the philanthropist. The charge was made _on
the strength of one asserted fact_--namely, that Howard had
once locked up his son for several hours in a solitary place,
put the key into his pocket, and gone off to Bedford, leaving
him there till he returned at night. On the appearance of this
article, the friends of the illustrious dead came forth publicly
to dispute the fact, and to deny the inferences deduced from it.
Meredith Townsend, one of Howard's most intimate friends, sifted
the story to the bottom, and gave the following account of its
origin."

The charge was _not_ made on the strength of this one asserted fact--nor on any fact whatever--it was made on the mere authority of the writer. The story alluded to is _not to be found_ in the obituary of the _Gentleman's Magazine_. The writers of that obituary had never heard of the story, or we may be sure they would have made use of it. The friends of the illustrious dead could not, therefore, have come forward, in refutation of this article, to "dispute the fact and deny the inferences." If Mr Dixon had but read Brown's memoirs attentively he would not have fallen into this blunder, which shows how little else he can have read.

The story alluded to had been circulated during the life of Howard, and when he was absent on one of his journeys. The Rev. Mr Townsend, "many years Mr Howard's pastor at Stoke Newington," took the first opportunity _he_ had of mentioning it to Howard himself, who contradicted it, and related to him the incident which he supposed must have given rise to the report. On the death of Howard the story was again revived, where, or by whom, Mr Brown does not tell us. The Rev. Mr Palmer thereupon obtained from Mr Townsend the explanation which he had received from Howard himself. The letter which the latter gentleman addressed to the Rev. Mr Palmer is given at length in Brown, (note, p. 645.) This letter the Rev. Mr Palmer communicates to the _Editor of the Universal Magazine_, and mentions that extracts from it, unauthorised by him, had found their way into the _Gentleman's Magazine_.

The explanation of the story there given, is briefly this. Howard was engaged one day with his child in the root-house, which served also as a summer-house, when the servant came in great haste, to say that a gentleman on horseback wished to speak to him immediately. Not to lose time, he told the little fellow to sit quiet, and he would soon come to him again. To keep him out of mischief he locked the door. The gentleman kept him in conversation longer than he expected, and caused his forgetting the child. Upon the departure of the guest, recollecting where the child had been left, he flew to set him at liberty, and found him quietly sleeping on the matting of the floor.

It was on the 31st March 1765 that Howard lost his second wife. After spending some time in the now melancholy retirement of Cardington, he again quits England for the Continent. Travel is still with him, as with so many others, the mere relief for unavailing sorrow, or for the wasting disease of unemployed energies. It is during this journey to Italy that we are able to trace, more distinctly than usual, the workings of Howard's mind. Some memoranda, and fragments of a diary which he kept, have given us this insight.