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ftrength and vigour. Animal foods, and fermented and fpirituous drinks, he utterly discarded from his diet. Water and the plainest vegetables fufficed him. Milk, tea, butter, and fruit, were his luxuries; and he was equally fparing in the quantity of food, and indifferent as to the stated times of taking it. Thus he found his wants fupplied in almost every place where man exifted, and was as well provided in the pofadas of Spain and caravanferas of Turkey, as in the inns and hotels of England and France. Water was one of his principal neceffaries, for he was a very Muffulman in his ablutions; and if nicety or delicacy had place with him in any refpect, it was in the perfect cleanliness of his whole perfon. He was equally tolerant of heat, cold, and all the viciffitudes of climate; and, what is more wonderful, not even fleep feemed necessary to him, at leaft at thofe returns and in those proportions in which mankind in general expect it. How well he was capable of enduring fatigue, the amazing journies he took by all modes of conveyance, without any intervals of what might be called repofe (fince his only baiting places were his proper fcenes of action) abundantly teftify. In fhort, no human body was probably ever more perfectly the fervant of the mind

by which it was actuated; and all the efforts of the ftrongeft conftitution, not inured to habits of felf-denial, and moral as well as corporeal exercise, would have been unequal to his exertions *.

With refpect to the character of his understanding, that, too, was as happily adapted to the great business in which he engaged. He had not, in a high degree, that extenfive comprehenfion, that faculty of generalizing, which is faid to diftinguish the man of genius, but which, without a previous collection of authentic materials, is ever apt to lead into erroneous fpeculations. He was rather a man of detail; of laborious accuracy and minute examination; and therefore he had the proper qualities for one who was to lead the way in researches where all was ignorance, confusion, and local cuftom. Who but fuch a man could have collected a body of information, which has made even profeffional men acquainted with interefting facts that they never before knew; and has given the English reader a more exact knowledge of practices followed in Ruffia and Spain, than he before had of thofe in his own country? This minutenefs of detail was what he ever regarded as his peculiar province. As he was of all men the most modest estimator of his

*The following account of his mode of travelling, communicated to me by a gentleman in Dublin, who had much free converfation with him, and the fubitance of which I well recollect to have heard from himself, will, I doubt not, prove interesting. When he travelled in England or Ireland, it was generally on horfeback, and he rode about forty English miles a day. He was never at a lofs for an inn. When in Ireland, or the Highlands of Scotland, he used to flop at one of the poor cabins that fick up a rag by way of fign, and get a little milk. When he came to the town he was to fleep at, he bespoke a fupper, with wine and beer, like another traveller, but made his man attend hiin, and take it away, while he was preparing his bread and milk. He always paid the waiters, poftillions, &c. liberally, because he would have no difcontent or difpute, nor fuffer his fpirits to be agitated for fuch a matter; faying, that in a journey that might coft three or four hundred pounds, fifteen or twenty pounds addition was not worth thinking about. When he travelled on the continent, he usually went poft in his own chaife, which was a German one that he bought for the purpote. He never ficpped till he came to the town he meant to visit, but travelled all night, if neceffary; and from habit could fleep very well in the chaife for several nights together. In the last tour but one he travelle i twenty days and nights together without going to bed, and found no inconvenience from it. He ufed to carry

with him a small tea-kettle, fome cups, a little pot of fweetmeats, and a few loaves. At the post-houfe he could get his water boiled, fend out for milk, and make his repaft, while his man went to the auberge.

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own abilities, he was ufed to fay, I am the plodder, who goes about to collect materials for men of genius to make use of.' Let those who look with faftidiousness upon long tables of rules and orders, and measurements of cells and work-rooms, given in feet and inches, confider, that when a fcheme is brought into practice, thefe fmall circumftances must have their place; and that the moft ingenious plans often fail in their execution for want of adjustment in the nicer parts. Perhaps even the great Frederic of Pruffia was more indebted for fuccefs to the exactness of his difpofitions in every minute particular connected with practice, than to deep and fublime views of general principles.

From a fimilar caft of mind, Mr. Howard was a friend to fubordination, and all the decorums of regular fociety, nor did he diflike vigorous exertions of civil authority, when directed to laudable purposes. He interfered little in difputes relative to the theory of government; but was contented to take fyftems of fovereignty as he found them eftablified in various parts of the world, fatis fed with prompting fuch an application of their powers as might promote the welfare of the respective communities. A ftate of imprisonment being that in which the rights of men are, in great part, at leaft, fufpended, it was natural that his thoughts fhould be more converfant with a people as the fubjects, than as the fource, of authority. Yet he well knew, and properly valued, the ineflimable blefiings of political freedom, as oppofed to defpotifm; and, among the nations of Europe, he confidered the Dutch and Swifs as affording the best examples of a strict and steady police, conducted upon principles of equity and humanity. To the character of the Dutch he was, indeed, peculiarly partial; and frequently afferted, that he fhould prefer Holland for his place of refidence, to any other foreign country. I can add, from undoubted authority, that Mr. Howard was one of

thofe who (in the language of the great lord Chatham) rejoiced that America had refifted,' and triumphed in her final fuccefs; that he was principally attached to the popular part of our conftitution; and that in his own county he diftinguished himself by a fpirited oppofition to aristocratical influence.

His peculiar habits of life, and the exclufive attention he bestowed in his later years on a few objects, caused him to appear more averfe to fociety than I think he really was; and it has been mentioned as an unfortunate circumftance, that his fhynefs and referve frequently kept him out of the way of perfons from whom he might have derived much useful information. But it is vain to defire things incompatible. Mr. Howard can fcarcely be denied to have chofen the best way, upon the whole. of conducting his inquiries; and if he had been a more companionable man, more ready to indulge his own curiofity, and gratify that of others, he would no longer have poffeffed one of the chief advantages he brought to his great work. Yet while he alliduously fhunned all engagements which would have involved him in the forms and diffipation of fociety, he was by no means difinclined to enter into conversations on his particular topics; on the contrary, he was often extremely communicative, and would enliven a fmall circle with the most entertaining relations of his travels and adventures.

Mr. Howard had in a high degree that refpectful attention to the female fex which so much characterises the gentleman. Perhaps, indeed, I may here be referring to rules of politenefs which no longer exist. But he was as thoroughly impreffed with the maxim of place aux dames as any Frenchman, though without the ftrain of light and complimentary gallantry which has accompanied it in the individuals of that nation. His was a more ferious fentiment, connected with the uniform practice of giving up

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his own ease and accommodation, for the fake of doing a real kindness to any female of decent character. It is excellently illuftrated by an anecdote related in a magazine, by a perfon who chanced to fail with him in the packet from Holyhead to Dublin, when, the veffel being much crowded, Mr. Howard refigned his bed to a fervant-maid, and took up with the cabin floor for himself. It is likewife difplayed throughout his works, by the warmth with which he always cenfures the practice of putting female prifoners in irons, and expofing them to any harsh and indelicate treatment. He was fond of nothing fo much as the converfation of women of education and cultivated manners, and studied to attach them by little elegant prefents, and other marks of attention. Indeed, his foft tones of voice and gentleness of demeanour might be thought to approach fomewhat to the effeminate, and would furprise thofe who had known him only by the energy of his exertions. In his judgment of female character, it was manifeft that the idea of his loft Harriet was the standard of excellence; and, if ever he had married again, a refemblance to her would have been the principal motive of his choice. I recollect to this purpose a fingular anecdote, which he related to us on his return from one of his tours. In going from one town in Holland to another in the common paffage boat, he was placed near an elderly gentleman, who had in company a young lady of a moft engaging manner and appearance, which very ftrongly reminded him of his Harriet. He was fo much ftruck with her, that, on arriving at the place of deftination, he caused his fervant to follow them, and get intelligence who they were. It was not without fome difappointment that he learped, that the old gentleman was an eminent merchant, and the young lady, his wife.

Mr. Howard's predilection for female fociety, was in part a confequence of his abhorrence of every thing

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grofs and licentious. His own language and manners were invariably pure and delicate; and the freedoms which pafs uncenfured or even applauded in the promifcuous companies of men, would have affected him with fenfations of difguft. For a person poffeffed of fuch feelings, to have brought himself to fubmit to fuch frequent communication with the most abandoned of mankind, was perhaps a greater triumph of duty over inclination than any other he obtained in the profecution of his defigns. Yet the nature of his errand to prisons probably inspired awe and respect in the moft diffolute; and I think he has recorded, that he never met with a fingle infult from the prifoners in any of the gaols he visited.

As Mr. Howard was fo eminently a religious character, it may be expect ed that fomewhat more should be faid of the peculiar tenets he adopted. But, belide that this was a topic which did not enter into our converfations, I confefs, I do not perceive how his general plan of conduct was likely to be influenced by any peculiarity of that kind. The principle of religious duty, which is nearly the fame in all systems, and differs rather in ftrength than in kind in different perfons, is furely fufficient to account, for all that he did and underwent in promoting the good of mankind, by modes which Providence feemed to place before him. It has been fuggefted, that he was much under the influence of the doctrine of predestination; and I know not what of fternnefs has been attributed to him as its natural confequence. For my own part, I am not able to discover in what thofe notions of Providence, general and particular, which make part of the profeffion of all religions, differ effentially from the opinions of the predeftinarians; and, from manifold obfervation, I am certain, that the reception of the doctrine of predestination, as an article of belief, does not neceffarily imply thofe practical confequences which might seem

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deducible from it. The language, at profeffors and minifters of that perleaft, of our lower claffes of people is fuafion. But fuch was his veneraalmost universally founded upon it; tion for true vital religion, that he but when one of them dies of an in- was as ready to pay it honour when fectious disease, notwithstanding the he met with it in the habit of a monk, bystanders all speak of the event as as under the garb of a teacher: and fated and inevitable, yet each, for throughout his works, as well as in himfelf, does not the lefs avoid the converfation, he ever dwelt with great infection, or the lefs recur to medical complacency on the pure zeal for the aid if attacked by it. With refpect good of mankind, and genuine Chrifto Mr. Howard, he never feemed to tian charity, which he frequently adopt the idea that he was moved by difcovered among the Roman cathoan irrefiftible impulfe to his defigns; lic clergy, both regular and fecular. for they were the fubject of much He was no friend to that hafty diffothought and difcuffion: nor did he lution of convents and monafteries confront dangers because he had a which formed part of the multifarious" perfuafion that he should be preferved reforms of the late emperor of Gerfrom their natural confequences, but many. He pitied the aged inmates, because he was elevated above them. male and female, of thefe quiet abodes, This fentiment he has himself more who were driven from their beloved than once expreffed in print; and retreats into the wide world, with a furely none could be either more ra- very flender and often ill-paid pittance tional, or more adequate to the effects for their fupport. 'Why might not produced. Being in the way of my they (he would fay) be fuffered graduty (fays he) I fear no evil.' I dually to die away, and be transplantmay venture to affirm, that thofe of ed from one religious house to another the medical profeffion, whofe fearleff- as their numbers leffened ?' Thofe nefs is not merely the refult of habit, orders which make it the great duty must reafon upon the fame principle, of their profeffion to attend with the when they calmly expose themselves to kindeft affiduity upon the fick and imfimilar hazards. They, for the most prifoned, and who therefore came part, ufe no precautions against con- continually within his notice, feemed tagion: Mr. Howard did ufe fome; to conciliate his good-will to the whole though their effects were probably fraternity; and the virtues of order, trifling compared with that of his ha- decency, fobriety, and charity, fo bitual temperance and cleanlinefs, and much akin to his own, naturally inhis untroubled ferenity of mind. On clined him to a kind of fellowship the whole, his religious confidence with them. He rigorously, however, does not appear to have been of a na- abstained from any compliances with ture different from that of other pious their worship which he thought unmen; but to be fo fteadily and uni- lawful; and gave them his efteem as formly under its influence, and to be men, without the leaft difpofition to elevated by it to fuch a fuperiority to concur with them as theologians, all worldly confiderations, can be the lot of none but those who have formed early habits of referring every thing to the divine will, and of fixing all their views on futurity.

From Mr. Howard's connections with thofe fects who have ever fhewn a particular abhorrence of the frauds and the fuperftitions of popery, it might be fuppofed, that he would look with a prejudiced eye on the

Such were the great lines of Mr. Howard's character-lines ftrongly marked, and fufficient to difcriminate him from any of those who have apFeared in a part fomewhat fimilar to his own on the theatre of the world. The union of qualities which fo peculiarly fitted him for the poft he undertook, is not likely, in our age, again to take place; yet different combinations may be employed to ef

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fect the fame purposes; and, with respect to the objects of police and humanity concerning which he occupied himself, the information he has collected will render the repetition of labours like his unneceffary. To propofe as a model, a character marked with fuch fingularities, and, no doubt, with fome foibles, would be equally

vain and injudicious; but his firm attachment to principle, high fenfe of honour, pure benevolence, unfhaken conftancy, and indefatigable perfeverance, may properly be held up to the view of all perfons occupying important stations, or engaged in ufeful enterprises, as qualities not lefs to be imitated, than admired.'

SELECT PASSAGES FROM SHAKSPEARE.
NUMBER IX.

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For nature fo prepofterously to err,
Being not deficient, blind, or lame of
fenfe,
Sans witchcraft could not.

From the weakness and fuperftition of this accufation, it might feem, in these enlightened times, to have been unbecoming the gravity of the accufer, and the dignity of the council. But the circumitance was not only exactly in character, but urged with the greatest addrefs, as the thing to be principally infifted on: for, by the laws of Venice, the giving of lovepotions was highly criminal, as Shakfpeare, no doubt, perfectly underftood. And Fabian and Speed relate, that, even in our own country, the notion of the efficacy of love-powders was formerly fo prevalent, that, in the parliament which king Richard the third fummoned, on his ufurping the throne, it was urged as a charge against the queen dowager, that, when lady Elizabeth Grey, fhe had betwitched king Edward the fourth, by ftrange potions and amorous charms.

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