Sketches of Reforms and Reformers, of Great Britain and Ireland

by Henry B. Stanton

Mrs. Elizabeth Fry—Mrs. Amelia Opie—Lady Noel Byron—Miss Harriet Martineau—Mrs. Mary Howitt.

It would do injustice to my own feelings and the facts of history, to leave it to be inferred, from my silence, that the Women of England have not furnished some of the brightest names in the galaxy of Modern Reformers.

Looking ever so casually in this direction, what figure so promptly meets the eye as that of Elizabeth Fry—the friend of the prisoner, the bondman, the lunatic, the beggar—who has been aptly named "the female Howard"? Mrs. Fry hardly deserved more credit for the benevolent impulses of her heart, than for the dignity and urbanity of her manners. They were natural, for they were born with her. The daughter of John, and the sister of Joseph and Samuel Gurney, could hardly be else than the embodiment of that charity which never faileth, that philanthropy which embraces every form of human misery, and that amenity which proffers the cup of kindness with an angel's grace. In youth, her personal attractions, and the vivacity of her conversation, made her the idol of the social circle, and severe was her struggle in deciding whether to become the reigning belle of the neighborhood, or devote her life to assuaging the sorrows of a world of suffering and crime. Happily, she resolved that Humanity had higher claims upon her than Fashion. Her resolution once formed, she immediately entered upon the holy mission to which, for nearly half a century, she consecrated that abounding benevolence and winning grace, which, in her girlhood, were the pride of her parents and the delight of her companions.

Though her eye was ever open to discover, and her hand to relieve, all forms of sorrow, it was to the inmates of the mad-house and the penitentiary that she mainly devoted her exertions. Wonderful was her power over the insane. The keenest magnetic eye of the most experienced keeper paled and grew feeble in its sway over the raving maniac, compared with the tones of her magic voice. Equally fascinating was her influence over prisoners and felons. Many a time, in spite of the sneers of vulgar turnkeys, and the positive assurances of respectable keepers, that her purse and even her life would be at stake if she entered the wards of the prison, she boldly went in amongst the swearing, quarreling wretches, and, with the doors bolted behind her, encountered them with dignified demeanor and kindly words, that soon produced a state of order and repose which whips and chains had vainly endeavored to enforce. Possessing peculiar powers of eloquence, (why may not a woman be an "orator?") she used to assemble the prisoners, address them in a style of charming tenderness all her own, win their assent to regulations for their conduct which she proposed, shake hands with them, give and receive a blessing, return to the keeper's room, and be received by him with almost as much astonishment and awe as Darius exhibited toward Daniel, when he emerged from the den of lions.

In this way, Mrs. Fry made frequent examinations of the prisons of England. She pursued her holy work on the Continent, visiting prisons in France, Holland, Belgium, Denmark, Germany, and Prussia. In the early part of her career, she encountered both at home and abroad some rudeness, and many rebuffs. But her ever-present dignity, tact, and kindness, at length won the confidence and plaudits of the great majority of her own countrymen, and of many philanthropists and titled personages in other lands. She was a favorite of the Kings of Prussia and Denmark—the former, when in England, paying her a complimentary visit at her own house. She sought frequent occasions to press, in person, the subject of her mission upon the attention of crowned heads and ministers of state. She accomplished a great work in the cause of Prison Reform, in ameliorating the Penal Code, and improving the condition of convict ships and penal colonies. Her special mouthpiece in Parliament was her brother-in-law, Mr. Buxton—her measures were supported by Mackintosh and other illustrious Senators—and it is the highest tribute to the dignity which her rare excellences threw over her enterprises, that they got the better of Sydney Smith's love of ridicule, and drew from him two or three articles in their favor in the Edinburgh Review. This greatly useful and greatly beloved woman died in 1845, at the age of sixty-six. To her may be applied with equal propriety Burke's beautiful tribute to Howard:

"She 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 curiosities of modern art; not to collect medals, nor 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 guage 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 miseries of all men in all countries. Her plan was original: it was as full of genius as of humanity. It was a voyage of discovery; a circumnavigation of charity. Already, the benefit of her labor is felt more or less in every country."

Mrs. Fry having been a member of the Society of Friends, we easily turn to Mrs. Amelia Opie, also belonging to that venerable body. As Mrs. Opie wrote the celebrated work on Lying, we must tell the truth if we say anything of this excellent lady. When I saw her, though the sun and shade of more than sixty years had flitted across her path, her conversation and manners retained much of the sprightliness of youth, and would have been very agreeable, had she not affected more juvenility than she really possessed. Nearly half a century before, she had sent to press a volume of poems, marked by graceful versification, sweetness, and pathos; and a domestic tale, "The Father and Daughter," which was distinguished, amongst the mass of sentimental nonsense which floated all around, by lively narrative, and a high moral tone. This novel run through several editions, and still holds its place in libraries. Since then, numerous works of fiction have flowed from her pen, which bear the same literary impress, are elevated in their moral aim, and tend to soften the heart, and make us love mankind better than before. Some of Mrs. Opie's best gifts have been laid on the altar of humanity. She has been the warm friend, both in youth and in old age, of enterprises for the improvement of man, without respect to clime, creed, or color.

I have said that Mrs. Opie was a Quakeress. In doctrine, she belongs to the straitest of the sect, while she talks of Barclay's Apology and Byron's Childe Harold, of George Fox's preaching and Walter Scott's novels, in the same sentence, and with equal delight. Suppose her thee and thou did sound oddly in such company, and her tongue trip occasionally when repeating some of Tom Moore's champagne jokes at Lord Holland's dinners; and suppose her dress is juvenile in style, and fastidious in arrangement, dazzling the eyes as it throws back in disdain the envious brilliancy of the blazing chandelier, showing that no belle in the room has toiled more hours at her toilet this evening, than she; still she is good Mrs. Opie, is not "a birth-right member" of the plain-speaking and plain-dressing sect, but joined them "on convincement," while far advanced in life, with habits firmly fixed, and after passing the line when it is easier to change one's creed than one's manners. Under that glossy satin dress, there beats a heart whose every avenue is open to truth, and whose sympathies gush out in streams that return not to their fountain, till they have swept the entire circle of human want and woe. Suppose this worthy Christian philanthropist is rather fond of telling her auditors (and are they not fond of hearing?) the fine things Sir Walter Scott said to her in Melrose Abbey, or the flat joke that some flatter earl cracked in her ear when leading her into the drawing-room of Lord Fitzfoozle, or what Campbell said to her at her own house, when she was participating in a discussion with Wordsworth and Sir Thomas Lawrence, about the relative merits of poetry and painting, or how she used up all her stock of French the day she dined with Lafayette—she is only one of a great crowd of book writers and book readers on both sides of the Atlantic, who are fond of insinuating that they have shone as conspicuous spangles in more than one comet's luminous tail.

In her declining years, Mrs. Opie has occasionally sent into the world some effusion of her benevolent pen, on religious and charitable subjects—lives in a neat style at Norwich—shows her visitors rooms lined with rare paintings, partly the product of her husband's lively pencil—is active in all works of love and mercy—was on familiar terms with the late warm-hearted Bishop of Norwich—and delights to guide her friends through the long aisles of the aged cathedral, when the organ sounds its sweetest notes.

The circumstances under which I first saw Mrs. Opie remind me to say a few words of Lady Noel Byron, the widow of the poet. She appeared as mild as the blue sky of an Italian summer evening. Edified by her intelligent conversation, and charmed with the softened grace of her manners, one could not but say to himself—Can it be that that mild blue eye, that mellow voice, that bland mien belonged to the Lady Byron, the wife of the wild genius, whose erratic fire, while it startled the round world with its glare, withered all that was sweet and lovely within its own domestic circle, nor paled till it had consumed its owner by the intensity of its own volcanic hell? Hidden under that pale cheek and quiet countenance, there may lie the smoldering embers of passions that once shot their flames through the very veins of the bard, and made him the mad suicide he was. But they now slumber so profoundly, that one must disbelieve they ever existed. The mystery must die with the parties.