SPECTATOR'S LIBRARY.

BI001APHT,

Memoirs of the Life of Elisabeth Fry, with Extracts from her Letters and Journals.

Edited by Two of her Daughters. In two volumes. Vol. II Gilpin.

VOYAGES AND THATIEIJ,

Jive Years In China ; from 18.42 to 1847. With an Account of the Occupation of the Islands of Labuan and Borneo by her Majesty's Forces. By Lieut. F. E. Forbes, R.N., Commander of H.M.S. Bonetta Bentley. A. Walk Bound Mont Blanc, &c. By the Reverend Francis Trench, Author of "Travels in France and Spain," &e Bentley.

EDUCATION,

Journal of a Residence at the College of St. Columba, In Ireland. With a Prellice. By the Rev. W. Sewell. B.D., Fellow and Tutor of Exeter College, Oxford.

Parker.

THE LIFE OF MRS. FRY.

TlIE first volume of this work closed with the year 1825; when Eliza- beth Fry had succeeded in making Newgate a fashionable place, and in drawing public and official attention to the gross moral abuses of our prisons, and the still grosser pollution attendant upon the system of fe- male convict transportation. The battle was won ; celebrity was achieved; and henceforth there could be in her life none of the interest of struggle and progress. Yet her career was not without events, or action, or it may be said distress. In 1828, one of the houses in which her husband was a partner failed ; and, in the language of the editor of these Memoirs, " involved Elizabeth Fry and her family in a train of sorrows and per- plexities which tinged the remaining years of her life " : a statement, however, which is scarcely borne out, in the ordinary acceptation of the term, by the narrative. Some of her accustomed luxuries—a carriage, for instance—were missed for a time; but she always appeared to have a handsome competence and to live in a certain degree of style. As a " minister " among the Friends, Elizabeth Fry felt calls to go to Ireland and Scotland : the projects were, as is the custom, laid before "the meet- ing"; and having been approved of, thither she went. On a subsequent occasion she went to Paris ; and was so pleased with the impression she made upon the goodnatured impressible French, and they upon her, that she afterwards revisited the capital, and travelled through the South of France; prison discipline, and the promotion of piety without re- ference to dogmas, being the object of her journies. Under "meeting" authority, she journeyed to Belgium, Hanover, Prussia, Denmark ; and was received with the greatest distinction in each place. King Leopold held "out both his hands" to welcome her; the Majesty of Denmark placed her at dinner between himself and the Queen. At Hanover, the Ring was ill; but she saw the Queen and the rest of the Royal Family ; and she writes to her family at home—" I think I never paid a more interesting visit—my brother Samuel, William Allen, and myself. In the first place, we were received with ceremonious respect ; shown through many rooms to a drawingroom, where were the Queen's Chamberlain and three ladies in waiting to receive us." At the Hague, the reception was as gracious as elsewhere: "The King, a lively, clever, perfect gentleman, not a large man, in regimentals ; the Queen, (sister to the Emperor of Russia,) a fine stately person, in full and rather beautiful morning-dress of white; the Princess much the same. After our presentation, the King began easy and pleasant conversation with me, about my visiting prisons. I told him, in a short lively manner, the history of it. He said he heard I had so many children; how could I do it ?" But the great triumph was in her two visits to Berlin. At the first visit, the late King was on the throne, and coercing the Lutheran churchmen into uniformity. Mrs. Fry stood remarkably well with the Royal Family, and "could not feel justi- fied without endeavouring to bring the subject before the King." " Lord William Russell, our Ambassador, her kind and constant friend, and the Baron Humboldt, discouraged her attempting to do so. She had a stronginclina- tion to consult the Crown Prince, when the unexpected meeting at the Princess William's afforded her the desired opportunity. After earnestly petitioning the best Help, and wisdom from above, she opened the subject. His Royal Highness gave her moat, attentive hearing, and entirely encouraged her to act as she believed to be right. A petition had been beautifully drawn up by William Allen; this was translated into German, and presented through the official channel to his Majesty. It was no light matter doing this; but in faith she committed it to Him who had put it so strongly into her heart to bless the measure. The follow- ing day the King's Chaplain was the bearer of the delightful intelligence, that the petition had been graciously received, and that the King had said that ' he thought the Spirit of God must have helped them to express themselves as they had done.' She told this gentleman what a subject of prayer it had been with her; to which he rejoined, that, like Daniel, her petition had been answered before she had ceased praying.'" At the second visit the Crown Prince had succeeded to the throne; and he received the Friends in a more gracious manner than Wore. It was the personal knowledge acquired on these occasions, and not any mere philanthropic or popularity-hunting, that led to the greatest honour the house of Fry ever received—the visit paid to Upton Lane by the King of Prussia, when he came over to standgodfather to our Queen's eldest son.

" Second Month, 1st, Third-day, (1842.)—Yesterday was a day never to be for- gotten whilst memory lasts. We set off about eleven o'clock, my sister Gurney and myself, to meet the King of Prussia at Newgate. I proceeded with the Lady Mayoress to Newgate; where we were met by many gentlemen. My dear brother and sister Gurney, and Susannah Corder, being with me, was a great comfort. We waited so long for the King that I feared he would not come: how- ever, at last he arrived; and the Lady Mayoress and I, accompanied by the Sheriffs, went to meet the Ring at the door of the prison. He appeared much pleased to meet our little party; and, after taking a little refreshment, he gave me his arm, and we proceeded into the prison and np to one of the long wards, where every- thing was prepared: the poor women round the table, about sixty of them, many of our Ladies Committee, and some others; also numbers of gentlemen following the King, Sheriffs, &a. I felt deeply, but quiet in spirit—fear of man much removed."

After prayer and preaching,

" The King then again gave me his arm, and we walked down together: there Were difficulties raised about his going to Upton, but he chose to persevere. I went with the Lady Mayoress and the Sheriffs; and the King with his own people. We arrived first: I had to hasten to take off my cloak, and then went down to Meet him at his carriage-door, with my husband, and seven of our sons and sons- in-law. I then walked with him into the drawingroom; where all was in beauti- ful order—neat, and adorned with flowers: I presented to the King our eight daughters and daughters-in-law, (R— E— C only away,) our seven sons and eldest grandson, my brother and sister Buxton, Sir Henry and Lady Pelly, and my sister Elizabeth Fry—my brother and sister Gurney he had known before—and afterwards presented twenty-five of our grandchildren. We had a solemn silence before our meal; which was handsome and fit for a King, yet not extravagant—everything most complete and nice. I sat by the King; who appeared to enjoy his dinner, perfectly at his ease, and very happy with us. We went into the drawingroom, after another solemn silence, and a few words which I uttered in prayer for the King and Queen. We found a deputation of Friends with an address to read to him: this was done; the King appeared to feel it mach. We then had to part. " The King expressed his desire that blessings might continue to rest on our house."

Although a more attached and affectionate family could hardly exist than that whose numbers are indicated by the presentations to the King, yet it was in one sense a source of trouble to Elizabeth Fry. Latterly her husband became remiss in the forms of the Friends ; the majority of her children quitted " the connexion" entirely, either by " marrying out," or, like her eldest son William, on the lofty principle that unless con- formity "to the peculiarities of Friends in dress and manners arose from personal conviction of their importance, their practice, however becoming in a very young person under the immediate direction of his parents, was inconsistent with truth in one of more mature years." It seems strange in a person of such catholic views as Elizabeth Fry, but so it was, that she would not be present on the marriage of her children or baptism of her grandchildren if at church, or go to any other place of worship than the meeting. The hardest trial of all, however, must have been when two of her elder grandchildren embarked in "the trade of war," one as a Midshipman, bound for China, the other in the Army. Some of her brief entries on these subjects are worth quoting as indications of character.

" It is proposed that my dear son William's marriage should take place in little more than a week. I cannot help feeling deeply giving him np. To have this dear child married, and not be able to be with him, is very affecting to me. With three children likely to marry out of the Society, and the life of one of them very uncertain, I have mach, very much to feel." * " Dagenham, Tenth Month, &I.—Here am I sitting in solitude, keeping silence before the Lord, on the wedding-day of my beloved son William. As I could not conscientiously attend the marriage, I believed it right to withdraw for the day. Words appear very inadequate to express the earnestness—the depth of my sup- plications for him and for his, that the blessing of the Most High may rest upon them." • " We then went to our dear friends the --s; where I had a warm re- ception: they very sweetly bear with my scruples; for it must appear odd, very odd to them, my not feeling it right to attend the wedding of such a son: but my heart is full of love to them."

" Upton Lane, Eleventh Month, 58&—Last fourth-day, the 31st of the tenth month, my dearest H— was married to W— C— S—. The morning was bright, the different families collected: of course I was notpresent at the ceremony. The bride and bridegroom went to Ham House to take leave of their dear party; they then came home, and we soon sat down to breakfast, about thirty in number. There appeared a serious and yet cheerful feeling over ns. I felt prayer for them, but saw no opportunity vocally to express it. As we arose to leave the table, William Streatfeild, the Vicar of East Ham, returned thanks for the blessings received; when, quite unexpectedly to myself, there was such a solemn silence, as if all were arrested, that I was enabled vocally to ask a bles- sing upon them." s • Upton, Sixth Month, 10th.—Alone in my little room, my whole family gone to church to the wedding. I feel solitary, but I believe my Lord is with me. Oh gracious Lord I at this moment be with my child; pear out Thy Spirit upon her that she may not only make solemn covenant with her husband, but with her God. Help her to keep these covenants; be with, help, and bless her and her's." * • * " Our beloved daughter L was confined on fourth-day. The babe, a lovely girl, breathed for twenty-four hours, and then died. They had the child named and baptized. I happened to be present: and certainly some of the prayers were very solemn, and such as I could truly unite with; but part of the ceremony appeared to me superstitions, and having a strong savour of the dark ages of the Church."

Mrs. Fry did not very long survive the visit of the King of Prussia in 1842 ; her death took place in 1845. She was not young, having reached the age of sixty-five; but her family seem to think that her in- cessant exertions helped to shorten her days. This is probable ; or, per- haps, her foreign excursions, by changing the mode of exertion at an advanced age, contributed still more to the breaking up of her constitu- tion. She had also, in the last few years of her life, to endure family af- flictions in the loss of her eldest son, several of her grandchildren, and other near connexions. The decease of William Fry was unexpected, and it was thought would have been fatal to his mother. Some of her children exclaimed, "Can our mother bear this and live?" But she struggled through it, and similar afflictions, in the way which deeply re- ligious people often do, so as almost to appear insensible to those of a more worldly and less submissive frame of mind.

The present volume exhibits in the editors all the merit of the first,— their quiet, close, accomplished narrative, when connecting the passages from the journal and letters ; their genuine liberality of sentiment, and their love of truth. It is from the necessity of the case less various, and rather less interesting. The numerous extracts from Mrs. Fry's journal become more encumbering than before, because they have not the charac- ter of the doubts of her early youth, or her early Quakerism. The foreign tours are attractive from the reciprocal operation of the foreign view of Elizabeth Fry and Elizabeth Fry's view of the foreigners ; but they touch upon no new biographical subject, like her first experiences in the ministry, or prison discipline, briefly as those two topics were handled in comparison with mere effusions of sentiment or opinion. As a con- tinuation upon the same scale as the first volume, a free use of the journals in this volume was perhaps necessary ; but it might have been curtailed without affecting the uniformity of the work, to the great benefit of the reader. In the case of a new edition, the Memoirs might be very greatly condensed, by omitting all that does not relate to matters of fact, or is not characteristic of the writer beyond a mere wordy form of reverie or prayer, of which" a few specimens might suffice.