last became insane, much attention has been drawn to Mr Howard's mode of educating him in his infancy; some insisting that his conduct as a parent was harsh and injudicious, others going so far as to assert that this man-whom the world reveres as a philanthropist, and whose benevolent soul yearned for the whole human race-was in his domestic relations a narrow and unfeeling tyrant. This last assertion-although, abstractly considered, there is nothing impossible or absurd in it, inasmuch as we may conceive such a thing as real philanthropy on the large scale conjoined with inattention to one's immediate duties as a husband or a father-appears to have absolutely no foundation whatever in Howard's case; and to have originated either in malice, or in that vulgar love of effect which delights in finding striking incongruities in the characters of great men. Nor does the other assertion-that Howard's mode of educating his infant son was harsh and injudicious-appear more worthy of credit. The truth seems to be, that Howard was a kind and benevolent man, of naturally strict and methodical habits, who entertained, upon principle, high ideas of the authority of the head of a family. A friend of his relates that he often heard him tell in company, as a piece of pleasantry, that before his marriage with his second wife he made an agreement with her, that in order to prevent all those little altercations about family matters which he had observed to be the principal causes of domestic discomfort, he should always decide. Mrs Howard, he said, had cheerfully agreed to this arrangement; and it was attended with the best effects. The same principle of the supremacy of the head of a family—a principle much less powerful in society now than it was a generation or two ago→ guided him in his behaviour to his son. 'Regarding children,' says Dr Aikin, 'as creatures possessed of strong passions and desires, without reason and experience to control them, he thought that nature seemed, as it were, to mark them out as the subjects of absolute authority, and that the first and fundamental principle to be inculcated upon them was implicit and unlimited obedience.' The plan of education here described may to some appear austere and injudicious, while others will cordially approve of it, as that recommended by experience and common-sense; but, at all events, the charges of harshness and cruelty which some have endeavoured to found upon it are mere calumnies, refuted by the testimony of all who knew Mr Howard, and were witnesses to his affection for his son.

Sensible of the loss which the boy had sustained by the death of his mother, Mr Howard placed him, in his fifth year, under the care of a lady in whom he had confidence, who kept a boarding-school at Cheshunt in Hertfordshire. This and other arrangements having been made, he went abroad on a fourth continental tour towards the end of 1769. Proceeding through the south of France, and spending a few weeks at Geneva, he visited most of the remarkable places in Italy, some of them for the second time; and returned home through

Germany in the latter part of 1770, having been absent in all abouť twelve months.

When Howard had again settled at Cardington, he resumed his benevolent schemes of local improvement. It appears that the vicinity of Bedford, and Cardington especially, was inhabited by a very poor population, liable to frequent visitations of distress from the fluctuations of the only manufacture which yielded them employment-that of lace; as well as generally from the unhealthy and marshy nature of the soil, rendering ague prevalent. Mr Howard's first care with respect to those to whom he was attached as landlord, was to improve their dwellings. 'At different times,' says his biographer, Mr Brown, 'he pulled down all the cottages on his estate, and rebuilt them in a neat but simple style, paying particular attention to their preservation, as much as possible, from the dampness of the soil. Others which were not his property before, he purchased, and re-erected upon the same plan; adding to the number of the whole by building several new ones in different parts of the village. To each of these he allotted a piece of gardenground sufficient to supply the family of its occupier with potatoes and other vegetables; and generally ornamented them in front with a small fore-court, fenced off from the road by neat white palings, enclosing a bed or two of simple flowers, with here and there a shrub or an evergreen; thus imparting to these habitations of the poor, with their white fronts and thatched roofs, that air of neatness and comfort so strikingly characteristic of everything in which he engaged.' 'These comfortable habitations, which he let at a rent of twenty or thirty shillings a year,' says another biographer, Dr Aikin, he peopled with the most industrious and sober tenants he could find; and over them he exercised the superintendence of master and father combined. He was careful to furnish them with employment, to assist them in sickness and distress, and to educate their children.' In consequence of these exertions of Mr Howard, aided and seconded by those of his friend and relative, Samuel Whitbread, Esq., who possessed property in the same neighbourhood, 'Cardington, which seemed at one time to contain the abodes of poverty and wretchedness, soon became one of the neatest villages in the kingdom-exhibiting all the pleasing appearances of competence and content, the natural rewards of industry and virtue.' Industry and cleanliness were the two virtues which Mr Howard sought by all means to naturalise among the villagers of Cardington. It was his custom to visit the houses of his tenants now and then, conversing with them on the state of their affairs. During such visits, he was particular in requesting them to keep their houses clean; and it was one of his standing advices that they should 'swill the floors well with water.' After talking with the children, he would tell them, at parting, to be 'good boys and girls, and keep their faces and hands clean.'

Among Mr Howard's other benefactions to the locality of Cardington, he established schools for the education of the boys and girls of the neighbourhood in the rudiments of knowledge. Of these it was strictly required that they should regularly attend some place of worship on Sundays; whether the Established Church, or any other, was indifferent, provided it was a church at all. His anxiety on this point also led him to convert one of his cottages into a preaching Station, where the neighbouring clergymen of different persuasions, or occasionally a clergyman from a distance passing through the village, might officiate to such as chose to attend; and very rarely was the little congregation without at least one sermon a week. Mr Howard, when at Cardington, was invariably present at these meetings. His regular place of worship was the Old Meeting-house at Bedford, of which the Rev. Mr Symonds was pastor from 1766 to 1772. In the latter year, however, when Mr Symonds declared his adherence to the theological tenets of the Baptists, Mr Howard seceded along with a considerable part of the congregation, and established a new meeting-house. The truth is, however, that, with all his piety, and indeed on account of the very strength and sincerity of it, the theological differences of sects occupied very little space in his attention, and did not in the least affect his schemes of philanthropy; and though a dissenter of a particular denomination himself, dissenters of all other denominations, as well as members of the Established Church, were equally the objects of his respect and his benevolent solicitude.

The following recollections of Mr Howard's habits at this period, by the Rev. Mr Townsend, who resided with him at Cardington for a short period, in the interval between the secession from the Old Meeting-house and the erection of the new one, may be interesting. "He found him,' he said, 'not disposed to talk much; he sat but a short time at table, and was in motion during the whole day. He was very abstemious; lived chiefly on vegetables, ate little animal food, and drank no wine or spirits. He hated praise; and when Mr Townsend once mentioned to him his labours of benevolence'-not those general ones for which he is now so celebrated, but his exertions for the improvement of the condition of the people in his neighbourhood-'he spoke of them slightingly, as a whim of his, and immediately changed the subject.' 'He was at all times,' adds his biographer, Mr Brown, 'remarkably neat in his dress, but affected no singularity in it. Though he never thought it right to indulge in the luxuries of life, he did not despise its comforts. Wine or fermented liquors of any kind he himself never drank; but they were always provided, and that of the best quality, for his friends who chose to take them. He always maintained an intercourse of civility with some of the most considerable persons in the county, and was on visiting terms with the greater part of the country-gentlemen around him, and with the most respectable inhabitants of the town

of Bedford, churchmen and dissenters. His aversion to mix much with promiscuous assemblies was the result of his religious principles and habits, which taught him that this was no very profitablemethod of spending his time; yet however uncomplying he might be with the freedoms and irregularities of polite life, he was by no means negligent of its received forms; and though he might be denominated a man of scruples and singularities, no one would dispute his claim to the title of a gentleman.

APPOINTED HIGH-SHERIFF OF BEDFORD-COMMENCES AND
COMPLETES HIS SURVEY OF BRITISH PRISONS.

From these details, our readers will be able to fancy Mr Howard as he was in the year 1773-a widower country-gentleman of plain, upright, methodical habits, aged about forty-six; devout and exemplary in his conduct, and a dissenter by profession, but without any strong prejudices for or against any sect; temperate and economical, but the very reverse of parsimonious; fond of travelling, and exceedingly attentive to what fell under his observation; of a disposition overflowing with kindness at the aspect of a miserable object, and prompting him to go out in search of wretchedness, and to distribute over his whole neighbourhood the means of comfort and happiness. Such was Mr Howard in the year 1773; and if he had then died, his name would never have been so celebrated as it is over the world, but would only have been remembered in the particular district where his lot was cast, as the names of many benevolent landlords and good men are locally remembered all over the country. Fortunately, however, a circumstance happened which opened up for this unostentatious benefactor of a village a career of world-wide philanthropy. This was his election, in the year 1773, to the important office of high-sheriff of the county of Bedford. Regarding the special circumstances which led to his election to such a post, we have no information. It may be mentioned, however, that, in accepting the office, he subjected himself to the liability of a fine of £500-the laws which disqualified dissenters from holding such offices not having been yet repealed, although they were practically set at defiance by the increasing liberality of the age. A story was indeed once current that Mr Howard, on his nomination to the office, stated to Earl Bathurst, then Lord Chancellor, his scruples about accepting it, arising from the fact of his not being a member of the Church of England; and that Lord Bathurst, in reply, gave him an assurance of indemnification, in case any malicious person should endeavour to put the law in force against him. This story, however, does not appear to have been well founded.

The duties of a high-sheriff in England are important and various. 'To him are addressed the writs commencing all actions, and he

returns the juries for the trial of men's lives, liberties, lands, and goods. He executes the judgments of the courts. In his county, he is the principal conservator of the peace. He presides in his own court as a judge; and he not only tries all causes of forty shillings in value, but also questions of larger amount. He presides at all elections of members of parliament and coroners. He apprehends all wrong-doers, and for that purpose, in criminal cases, he is entitled to break open outer doors to seize the offender. He defends the county against riot, or rebellion, or invasion. The sheriff takes precedence of all persons in the county. He is responsible for the execution of criminals. He receives and entertains the judges of assize, on whom he is constantly in attendance whilst they remain in his shire. To assist him in the performance of his duties, the sheriff employs an under-sheriff, and also a bailiff and jailers, from whom he takes securities for their good conduct.'* Such was the office to which, fortunately for society, Mr Howard was appointed at the annual election of sheriffs in the year 1773.

The office of high-sheriff became a different thing in the hands of such a man as Howard from what it had been before. It was no longer a mere honourable office, all the drudgery of which was performed by the under-sheriff; it was no longer the mere right of going in state twice a year to meet the judges, and of presiding during the gaieties of an assize-week; it was a situation of real power and laborious well-doing. Already alive to the existence of numerous abuses in prison management-as well by his general information respecting the institutions of the country, as by his own experience of prison-life in France seventeen years before he had not been a month in office before all the faculties of his heart and soul were engaged in searching out and dragging into public notice the horrible corruptions and pollutions of the English prison-system.

Within Mr Howard's own cognisance as sheriff of Bedfordshire, there were three prisons-the county jail, the county bridewell, and the town jail, all in Bedford; and, as a matter of course, it was with these that his inquiries commenced. Various abuses struck him in their management, particularly in that of the county jail, the accommodations of which, whether for the purposes of work, health, or cleanliness, he found very deficient. But what roused his sense of justice most of all was to find that the jailer had no salary, and depended for great part of his income on the following clause in the prison regulations: All persons that come to this place, either by warrant, commitment, or verbally, must pay, before being discharged, fifteen shillings and fourpence to the jailer, and two shillings to the turnkey.' The effect which this and similar exactions from prisoners in the Bedford jail made upon him, will be best learned from his own statement prefixed to his Account of the State of Prisons. 'The

* Art. 'Sheriff,' Penny Cyclopædia.