Ν MRS. FRY. IN the good old days when George the Third was king, and as late as the beginning of the present century, a quadrangular enclosure within the jail of Newgate, measuring something less than two hundred superficial yards, was occupied by the female prisoners, averaging about three hundred in number, inclusive of children, under the supervision of one man and a boy, without any attempt at classification;prisoners under sentence-presumedly innocent, because untried captives, wretches convicted or accused of atrocious felonies others, whose real or imputed offences were comparatively venial,-all herded promiscuously together there, without bedding or other covering than the verminous rags which revealed their nakedness. The common speech of those miserable outcasts was made up of curses and obscene blasphemy, except when visitors to the prison, passing hurriedly along by the low wall which on one side gave to view the fetid den of shame and guilt, were assailed by clamorous prayers for money, which, if obtained, was instantly despatched to the regular prison-tap for drink. Many years had passed since Howard's visits to Newgate, and the reforms effected by that illustrious philanthropist, who as yet had no successor, had long since become a tradition only in the dreary sepulchres of breathing men and women, into which he had for a time succeeded in admitting some rays of hope and healthier life. The stern, custom-hardened officials of the jail smiled with superior scorn at any suggestion pointing to the possible reformation of their prisoners. "They are utterly irreclaimable," a principal officer of Newgate was, one day in the autumn of 1804, peremptorily assuring a party of "Friends," who had just before looked shudderingly in upon the wretches in the quadrangle,-" They are utterly irreclaimable, be assured; sunk in depravity and crime beyond the power of rescue.' "Thou dost not surely mean," replied a voice of singular sweetness, "that they are beyond the reach and power of God?" The startled official looked sharply at the speaker, who, he saw, was a tall, youthful matron, richly habited as "a plain Quaker," with light flaxen hair, and a mild, expressive countenance, lit up at the moment into more than usual animation by the newly-kindled zeal which shone in her gentle, suffused eyes; and it was some moments before he rather confusedly replied, "that, of course, he could not mean that; but he, at all events, knew very well that the chaplain of the jail could do nothing with them." The Friends soon left, and a few days afterwards the youthful matron returned alone; was, of course, received with the respect which character and social position always command, and to the indescribable astonishment—almost consternation—of those who heard her, requested admittance to the quadrangle, and to be left alone there with the female prisoners. Vainly did governor, chaplain, turnkeys, strive to dissuade her from the disgusting-in some degree dangerous, and altogether hopeless-task upon which she appeared so strangely bent. The calm reply to every argument and objection was, that she was in the hands of God, in whose fear she felt no other. The lady's firm persistence at last prevailed, and she was presently standing alone in the midst of the denizens of the quadrangle-her only shield her faith and purity-her sole weapons the charity that hopeth all things, believeth all things, and a copy of the New Testament opened in her hand at a previously-selected chapter more especially addressed to the manifestly fallen and lost ones of the earth. The reprobate crowd, momently stricken dumb by the sudden apparition, quickly recovered their accustomed audacity, and clamorously petitioned-demanded rather-money,-money to purchase food, meaning thereby beer and tobacco. Those Babel-cries so far disconcerted the visitor, that the few introductory sentences she intended to deliver passed from her memory, and she instantly commenced reading, in the clear, thrilling tones peculiar to her, from the sacred volume in her trembling hands. As she read, the tumult gradually stilled, and the greater portion of the ruffian auditory listened with breathless surprise and eagerness to the Divine words, by many of them heard for the first time, and now but dimly comprehended, we may be But the most hardened, brutified minds there could not but feel that the strange accents to which they listened wonderingly, were uttered by a compassionate, sympathising woman, and one, too, evidently of that superior class, who, when seen flashing in their splendour past the end of the miserable court or alley in which they, the pariahs of civilization, burrowed, when theoretically free, in chains and bondage as crushing and hopeless as those of Newgate, seemed beings of a higher sphere and life,—not, as it now confusedly broke upon them, children of the same Father, and heritors with no higher title than the meanest there possessed, of the same immortal destiny. "Hush!" exclaimed a woman, in whose eyes glittered the fire of incipient fever, as some slight interruption occurred,-" hush !—the angels have lent her their voices!" sure. rated the prison-teachings that have rendered the name of Elizabeth Fry a household word throughout Great Britain, and illustrious wherever true heroism, unostentatious selfsacrifice, is recognised and held in honour. It was no sudden impulse of undisciplined enthusiasm-no passing spasm of fanatical excitement-that constrained the footsteps of that young and wealthy wife and mother to those abodes of suffering and shame-that nerved a delicately-nurtured lady to hold personal communion with those moral lepers. Nor did Elizabeth Fry at all resemble what is understood by a strong-minded woman-a setter-up of new schemes of life and governance, rummaging, with averted head and shrinking nostril, amidst the offal of society in quest of striking platform or pamphlet statistics. The world's applause she had not dreamt of; and when it came, it so dismayed, so pained her, that she was half tempted to abandon a work which drew after it such unwelcome notoriety. Over Elizabeth Fry, vulgar, worldly incentives had no power; her sole spring of action being an imperious sense of duty derived from the teachings of the Divine Book-in which she herself moreover, strangely as it may sound, did not once entirely believe. The simple story of her youth will inform the reader how dark and blinding in other respects were the mists of doubt, pride, irresolution, from which Elizabeth Fry at last emerged to a true perception of the lofty mission assigned to her, and which, once clearly discerned, she pursued with the elevation of a martyr, the energy and zeal of a seraph! Elizabeth Fry, third daughter of John Gurney and Catherine Bell, was born in the city of Norwich, on the 21st of May, 1780. The Gurneys-or Gourveneys, as the ladybiographers to whom we are indebted for many interesting details of their honoured mother's private history carefully inform the world-date as a family of importance from the highly-respectable antiquity of the William Rufus epoch, if, indeed, they are not entitled to the higher ancestral glory of having come in with the Conqueror; whilst Catherine Bell, the daughter of a London merchant, was a lineal descendant, on the maternal side, of Robert Barclay, the Apologist of the Quakers. Both parents were fortunately possessed of more tangible advantages than such shadowy honours confer; John Gurney being a man of large wealth, and his wife a lady of great beauty, talent, and worth. Elizabeth was one of a family of twelve children, nine of whom reached maturity, the eldest being seventeen and the youngest two years old when their mother died, in 1792. Eight years previous to that event, the Gurneys left St. Clement's parish, Norwich, for Earlham Hall, about two miles distant from that city,a stately old mansion of the middle ages, once belonging to the Verulam family, charmingly situated in the midst of a finely-wooded park, past which meanders the silver Wensum. Elizabeth, though not so handsome as her two older sisters, is described as a tall, graceful, flaxen-haired, blue-eyed girl, with a very sweet expression of face, and withal of such a timid, fearful temperament, that she would burst into tears if only earnestly looked at, appearing to be always dominated by a vague feeling of terror, which, with the development of her intellectual faculties, settled for a time into a morbid anxiety relative to the phenomena of life and death. Often, when but seven or eight years of age, she would watch her mother, whilst asleep, with breathless apprehension, lest she might never wake again; and a passionate wish would frequently arise in her mind, when |