Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 67, No. 411, January 1850

It was his design to proceed to the south of Italy. He stops at Turin. He is dissatisfied with himself. This life of sight-seeing, this vagrancy of the tourist, does not content him. He will go no further. But we must give the extract itself from his journal. We quote from the more faithful text of Mr Brown – Mr Dixon having the habit of omitting, here and there, a sentence if it does not please his taste, and tricking the whole out with dashes and a novel punctuation.

"Turin, 1769, Nov. 30.– My return without seeing the southern part of Italy was on much deliberation, as I feared a misimprovement of a Talent spent for mere curiosity, at the loss of many Sabbaths, and as many donations must be suspended for my pleasure, which would have been as I hope contrary to the general conduct of my Life, and which on a retrospective view on a death Bed would cause Pain as unbecoming a Disciple of Christ – whose mind should be formed in my soul. – These thoughts, with distance from my dear boy, determine me to check my curiosity and be on the return. – Oh, why should Vanity and Folly, Pictures and Baubles, or even the stupendious (sic) mountains, beautiful hills, or rich valleys, which ere long will all be consumed, engross the thoughts of a candidate for an eternal everlasting kingdom – a worm ever to crawl on Earth whom God has raised to the hope of Glory which ere long will be revealed to them which are washed and sanctified by Faith in the blood of the Divine Redeemer! Look forward, oh! my Soul! how low, how mean, how little is everything but what has a view to that glorious World of Light, Life, and Love – the Preparation of the Heart is of God – Prepare the Heart, Oh! God! of thy unworthy Creature, and unto Thee be all the glory through the boundless ages of Eternity.

"This night my trembling soul almost longs to take its flight to see and know the wonders of redeeming Love – join the triumphant Choir – Sin and Sorrow fled away – God my Redeemer all in all – Oh! happy Spirits that are safe in those mansions."

Accordingly he retraces his steps. He flies back to Holland. He is now at the Hague. It is Sunday evening, 11th February 1770. Here is a portion of his self-communing. Many of these quotations we will not give; we know they look out of place, and produce a strange, and not an agreeable impression, when met with in the walks of polite literature. But, without some extracts, it is impossible to form a correct idea of the character of Howard.

"Oh! the wonders of redeeming love! Some faint hope, even I! through redeeming mercy in the perfect righteousness – the full atoning sacrifice shall, ere long, be made the instrument of the rich free grace and mercy of God through the divine Redeemer. Oh, shout my soul grace, grace – free, sovereign, rich, unbounded grace! Not I, not I, an ill deserving, hell deserving creature! – but where sin has abounded, I trust grace superabounds. * * * *

"Let not, my soul, the interests of a moment engross thy thoughts, or be preferred to my eternal interests. Look forward to that glory which will be revealed to those who are faithful to death. My soul, walk thou with God; be faithful, hold on, hold out, and then – what words can utter! – J. H."

But he could not rest in Holland. "Continuing in Holland," he writes, "or any place, lowers my spirits." He returns to Italy. He visits Genoa, Pisa, Florence, Rome, and extends his tour to Naples.

It was, and may still be, a custom with a certain class of religious people, to make, in writing, a solemn covenant with God, and sign it with their own hand. It is at Naples that Howard retires into his chamber, indites and signs such a covenant. He appears, afterwards, to have carried it with him. With the same sort of formality with which a person republishes a will, he "renews the covenant, Moscow, September 27, 1789."

Through the remainder of this journey we need not follow him. He returns to England, and we see what sort of man has landed on its shores.

Those who are acquainted with the religious world and religious biographies, will bear us out when we say, that the language we have quoted from this journal, and the other extracts which may be read in Brown, would not, of themselves, manifest any extraordinary degree of piety or self-devotion. With a certain class of persons, such language has become habitual; with others, it really expresses nothing but a very transitory state of excitement. Solemn self-denunciations – enthusiastic raptures – we have heard them both, from the lips of the most worldly, selfish, money-loving men we have ever known. It is the after life of Howard which proves that in him such language had its first, genuine, full meaning. These passages from his diary explain his life, and his life no less explains them.

On his return to Cardington, he occupied himself, as before, with plans to improve the condition of his tenantry; building for them better houses, and erecting a school. But at length an event occurred which supplied his self-consuming energy with the noble task it craved. Elected High Sheriff for the county of Bedford, the duties of his office led him to the interior of the prison. He witnessed the sufferings, the extortion, the injustice, the manifold cruelty, which the supineness of the legislature allowed to reign and riot there.

"The distress of prisoners," he tells us, in the preface to his first report, "came more immediately under my notice, when I was sheriff of the county of Bedford; and the circumstance which excited me to activity in their behalf was the seeing some, who, by the verdict of juries, were declared not guilty; some, on whom the grand jury did not find such an appearance of guilt as subjected them to trial; and some, whose prosecutors did not appear against them; after having been confined for months, dragged back to jail, and locked up again, till they should pay sundry fees to the jailor, the clerk of assize, &c. In order to redress this hardship, I applied to the justices of the county for a salary to the jailor in lieu of his fees. The bench were properly affected with the grievance, and willing to grant the relief desired; but they wanted a precedent for charging the county with the expense. I, therefore, rode into several neighbouring counties in search of a precedent; but I soon learned that the same injustice was practised in them; and, looking into the prisons, I beheld scenes of calamity, which I grew daily more and more anxious to alleviate."

These oppressions, these calamities he dragged to light. He may be said to have discovered them – so indifferent, at this time, was one class of the community to the misery of another. His official position gave him just that elevation requisite to make his voice heard. The attention of parliament was roused. He was examined before a committee of the whole House; he received the thanks of parliament; and a bill was passed to remunerate the jailor by a salary, instead of by fees – thus remedying one of the most extraordinary mal-practices that was surely ever endured in a civilised society.

Here, then, was a task to strain all his powers, and absorb all his benevolence. Here was misery to be alleviated, and injustice to be redressed, and a nation to be aroused from its culpable negligence. Benevolent, liberal, systematically and perseveringly charitable, not averse to the exercise of authority and censorship, of restless and untameable energy, and of a singular constancy and firmness of purpose, the task employed all his virtues, and what in some positions of life would have proved to be his failings. Even to his love of travel, his new occupation suited him. What wonder that, with all these aptitudes, the religious man, devoured by his desire to do some good and great work, should have devoted to it his life and his fortune, his days and his nights, and every faculty of his soul. He had now found his path. His foot was on it; and he trod it to his dying hour.

After inspecting the jails of England, Scotland, and Ireland, he, in 1775, took the first of those journeys on the Continent, which had, for their sole object, the inspection of prisons. And henceforward, in all his travels, he is so absorbed in this one object, that he pays attention to nothing else. Not the palace, rich with painting and sculpture; not the beautiful hills and valleys – only the prison and the lazaretto can retain him for a moment. Once he is tempted to hear some fine music – it distracts his attention – he foregoes the music. The language of Burke, in his well-known panegyric, is true as it is eloquent.

"He has visited all Europe – not to survey the sumptuousness of palaces or the stateliness of temples – not to make accurate measurements of the remains of ancient grandeur, nor to form a scale of the curiosity of modern art – not to collect medals or collate manuscripts – but to dive into the depths of dungeons, to plunge into the infection of hospitals, to survey the mansions of sorrow and pain, to take the gauge and dimensions of misery, depression, and contempt, to remember the forgotten, to attend to the neglected, to visit the forsaken, and compare and collate the distresses of all men, in all countries. His plan is original, and it is full of genius as it is of humanity. It was a voyage of discovery, a circumnavigation of charity. Already the benefit of his labour is felt more or less in every country. I hope he will anticipate his final reward, by seeing all its effects fully realised in his own."

But the boon – for a great task of this kind was a veritable boon to such a spirit as Howard's – was nearly missed. Before he went abroad on his first journey of philanthropy, he ran the risk of being imprisoned himself, within the walls of the House of Commons, as member for the town of Bedford. The borough had formerly been under the control of the house of Russell. Responding to the cry of "Wilkes and Liberty!" the corporation had risen against their lord. To free themselves from his control, they had boldly created five hundred honorary freemen, coined, in short, five hundred votes, which were to be at their own disposal. The measure seems to have passed undisputed. They were, of course, victorious. Whom they elected, in the first glow of patriotism, we do not know; but, after a few years, the corporation rewarded their own patriotic efforts by selling the borough to the highest bidder. Such, at least, was the accusation brought against them in the town of Bedford itself, where a strong party rose which made strenuous efforts to wrest the election out of their hands. By this party, Whitbread and Howard were put in nomination. The candidates of the corporation were Sir W. Wake and Mr Sparrow. After a severe struggle on the hustings, and in the committee of the House of Commons, the election was decided in favour of Whitbread and Wake. Howard lost his election – happily, we think – by a majority only of four votes.

On his return from the Continent, he published his first report on the state of prisons. We had designed to give some account of this, and the subsequent publications of Howard, but our space absolutely forbids. Perhaps some other opportunity will occur, when we can review the history of our prisons, to which the volumes of Howard form the most valuable contribution. We must content ourselves with a few general remarks on his labours, and with the briefest possible account of this the great and eventful period of his life.

To lead our readers over the numerous, toilsome, and often perilous journeys which Howard now undertook, for this national and philanthropic object of improving our prisons and houses of correction, would be utterly impracticable. But, to give them at once some adequate idea of his incessant activity, we have thrown into a note a summary, taken from Dr Aikin, of what may be considered as his public labours.10

These long, incessant, and often repeated journeys – were they necessary, some will be tempted to ask, for the object he had in view? Surely a few instances, well reasoned on, would have been sufficient to put us on the right track for the reformation of our prisons. But it should be considered, in the first place, that Howard was teaching a people pre-eminently practical in their intellectual character, a people who require to be taught by example and precedent. The most philosophical reasoning, the most eloquent diatribe, would not have availed half so much to stir the public mind, as, on the one hand, these details which Howard threw before it, fact upon fact, unsparingly, repeatedly – details of cruelty and injustice perpetrated or permitted by our own laws; and, on the other hand, this plain statement, brought from abroad, that in Ghent, that in Amsterdam, that even in Paris, many of the evils which we suffered to remain as incurable, were cured, or had never been allowed to exist. It was much to tell the citizen of London that in Flanders, and in Holland, there were prisons and bridewells that ought to put him to the blush.

And, in the second place, let it be considered, that Howard himself was pre-eminently a practical man. He neither wrote books of speculation, nor thought in a speculative manner. It was from detail to detail that his mind slowly advanced to principles and generalisations. These prisons, they were his books; these repeated circuits he made through the jails of Europe, they were his course of reading. He reperused each blotted page of human misery till he was satisfied that he had comprehended all it could teach. He was no Beccaria to enunciate a principle from the recesses of his library, (though it should be mentioned, in passing, that he had read Beccaria – that the man of speculative talent had stimulated the man of administrative talent, and the two were co-operating, all over Europe, on the same great subject of penal legislation;) his eye was ever upon practices, he got wisdom in the concrete, principle and instance indissolubly combined: he so learnt, and he so taught.

Again, in England itself, there was no system that equally regulated all the jails of the country; or, to speak more correctly, there was no uniformity in the abuses which existed amongst them. Arrangements were found in one, no trace of which might be discovered in another. All were bad, but the evils in each were different, or assumed different proportions. In some, there was no separation between the debtor and the criminal; in others, these were properly classified, but the criminal side might be more shamefully mismanaged than usual. In some, there was no attention paid to the sick; in others, the infirmary might be the only part of the jail that was not utterly neglected. There might be a good supply of medicine, and no food. In some, the separation of the two sexes was decently maintained; in others not. It was impossible to make any general statement that would not have called forth numerous contradictions. An accusation strictly just with regard to York, might be repelled with indignation by Bristol; whilst, on some other charge, Bristol might be the culprit, and York put on the show of injured innocence.

Some prisons were private property; they were rented to the jailor, and he was to extract the rent and his profit, by what extortion he could practise on his miserable captives. These were prisons belonging to liberties, manors, and petty courts, of the existence of which few people were aware. In some of these the prisoner lay forgotten by his creditor – lay there to starve, or live on the scanty and precarious charity of those who gave a few pence to "the starving debtor." In many cases the jailor – for all remuneration and perquisite – was allowed to keep a tap. Of course, whatever was doled out to the prisoner by charity, was spent in drunkenness. The abuses were of all kinds, strange, and numberless. Howard tracked them out, one by one – recorded them – put them in his book – published them to the world.

Add to all this, that, after some time, he became invested with the character of censor of the prisons. He looked through them to see that, when a good law had been made, it was obeyed. There was never a commissioner so universally respected. Men are not so bad but they all admired his great benevolence, and his justice equally great. No bribery, no compliments, and no threats, could avail anything. In vain the turnkey suggested to him, that the jail-fever was raging in the lower wards: the crafty official had so deterred many a visiting magistrate, who had thanked him politely for his warning, and retired. Howard entered, and found no jail-fever; but he found filth and famine, that had been shut up there for years from the eyes of all men. No danger deterred him. The infected cell, where the surgeon himself would not enter – from which he called out the sick man to examine him – was the very last he would have omitted to visit. This character of public censor he carried with him abroad, as well as at home. Foreign potentates courted his good opinion of their institutions – consulted him – shrank from his reproof – a reproof all Europe might hear. The Grand-duke of Tuscany, the Emperor of Germany, the Empress of Russia, were all anxious to see and hear him. He had no flattery for them; the report he gave was as faithful as a page out of his note-book.

As a popular misconception has prevailed upon the character of Howard, attributing benevolence to him as almost a sole motive, so a like popular misconception has prevailed, as to the nature and objects of that benevolence. He is sometimes spoken of as if to visit the sick and the captive, and relieve them individually, was the main object of his charitable journeys, and his unremitting inquisitions. If, indeed, he had done nothing more than seek out those unhappy men, who, at the bottom of their infected dens, lay abandoned by all the world, he would have been entitled to our admiration, and to all the merits of a heroic charity. But he did more than this. He aimed at a permanent improvement of the condition of the prisoner. He aimed farther still. His object was the same which excites so much attention at the present moment: by a good system of imprisonment, both to punish and reform the criminal. "To make them better men," is a phrase often in his mouth, when speaking of prisoners; and he thought this might be effected by combining imprisonment with labour, with perfect abstinence from intoxicating drinks, and other good regulations. Those who will read his reports with attention, will be surprised to find how often he has anticipated the conclusions to which a wider experience has led the reflective men of our own age. There is a note of his upon Solitary Confinement which might be adopted as a summary of those views which enlightened men, after many trials of various systems, have rested in. No false sensibility accompanied the benevolence of Howard. In some respects he was a sterner disciplinarian than would be generally approved of.

Upon this aspect of his character there remains only one remark to add: his mind was never absorbed in the great objects of a public philanthropy to an oblivion of his near duties and his private charities: he was to the last the just, considerate, benevolent landlord, quite as much as he was Howard the philanthropist.

"During his absence in one of his tours," says Dr Aikin, "a very respectable-looking elderly gentleman on horseback, with a servant, stopt at the inn nearest Mr Howard's house at Cardington, and entered into conversation with the landlord concerning him. He observed that characters often appeared very well at a distance, which could not bear close inspection; he had therefore come to Mr Howard's residence in order to satisfy himself concerning him. The gentleman then, accompanied by the innkeeper, went to the house, and looked through it, with the offices and gardens, which he found in perfect order. He next inquired into Mr Howard's character as a landlord, which was justly represented; and several neat houses which he had built for his tenants were shown him. The gentleman returned to his inn, declaring himself now satisfied with the truth of all he had heard about Howard. This respectable stranger was no other than Lord Monboddo; and Mr Howard was much flattered with the visit, and praised his lordship's good sense in taking such a method of coming at the truth, since he thought it worth his trouble."

The traveller who undertook all these philanthropic journeys was a man of slight form, thin, and rather beneath the average height. Every feature, and every movement, proclaimed energy and determination. "An eye," says Dr Aikin, "lively and penetrating, strong and prominent features, quick gait and animated gestures, gave promise of ardour in forming, and vivacity in executing his designs." "Withal there was a bland smile," says another of his biographers, "always ready to play upon his lips." "I have," continues Aikin, "equally seen the tear of sensibility start into his eyes, on recalling some of the distressful scenes to which he had been witness; and the spirit of indignation flash from them, on relating instances of harshness and oppression." In his dress and person he was remarkably neat, and in his ablutions, we are told, punctilious as a Mussulman; – far more so, we suspect. For the rest, he had reduced his wants to the lowest possible scale. Water and the simplest vegetables sufficed. Animal food, and all vinous and spirituous liquors, he had utterly discarded. Milk, tea, butter, and fruit were his luxuries; and he was equally sparing in the quantity of food, and indifferent as to the stated times of taking it.

From the prisoner, and the subject of prison-discipline, it is well known that the attention of Howard was directed to measures for arresting the plague. It was a grand idea this – that he would lead the way to some general scheme to be adopted throughout Europe, and the contiguous parts of Asia, for checking the incursions of, and perhaps finally exterminating, the plague. For no object did he suffer so much, or expose himself to so great dangers; embarking purposely in a vessel with a foul bill of health, and undergoing the perilous confinement of the lazaretto, that every practice of the quarantine might be thoroughly known to him. Nowhere was his conduct more heroic. It cannot be said here, however, that his object was equally well chosen, or that his labours were attended with any good result. Whilst it would be difficult to over-estimate the value of his service as inspector-general of the prisons of Europe, we can detect nothing in this latter scheme but an unfortunate waste of heroic benevolence. In dealing with jails and houses of correction, he was dealing with evils, the nature of which he, and all men, could well understand; but, in dealing with the pestilence, he was utterly in the dark as to the very nature of the calamity he was encountering. It is very probable that, had he realised his utmost wishes, and built a lazaretto on the most improved plan, combining every valuable regulation he had observed in every lazaretto of Europe, it would only have proved an additional nuisance.

This period of his life is more full of striking incidents than any other, but we must hurry rapidly over it.

"The point," says Mr Brown, "at which he wished to commence his new investigations was Marseilles; but the extreme jealousy of the French government respecting their Levant trade, had long kept the lazaretto of that port carefully concealed from the eye of every foreigner; but, as Mr Howard's object was such as ought to have awakened neither political nor commercial jealousy in any one, Lord Caermarthen, then secretary of state for foreign affairs, made an application to the French minister for permission for him to view this celebrated building. After waiting some time at the Hague, in expectation of its arrival, he went to Utrecht to visit his friend Dr Brown, at whose house he received a letter from his lordship, informing him, not only that the request he preferred had been peremptorily refused, but that he must not think of entering France at all, as, if he did, he would run a risk of being committed to the Bastille. Howard, however, was not to be deterred. He started immediately for Paris. At Paris, "having gone to bed, according to his usual custom, about ten o'clock, he was awaked between twelve and one, by a tremendous knocking at his room door, which, starting up, in somewhat of an alarm, he immediately opened; and, having returned to bed, he saw the chambermaid enter with a candle in each hand, followed by a man in a black coat, with a sword by his side, and his hands enveloped in an enormous muff. This singular personage immediately asked him if his name was not Howard. Vexed at this interruption, he hastily answered, 'Yes – and what of that?' He was again asked if he had not come to Paris in the Brussels diligence, in company with a man in a black wig? To this question he returned some such peevish answer, as that he paid no attention to such trifles; and his visitor immediately withdrew in silence. Not a little alarmed at this adventure, though losing none of his self-possession, and being unable to compose himself to sleep, Mr Howard got up; and, having discharged his bill the night before, took his small trunk, and, removing from this house, at the regular hour of starting took his seat in the diligence, and set off for Lyons."