r.\' ■'•-,■ ''';''■-■. '•7*' - .Mmrmm. 3fc'S^r'' < /' •I'',' ".-■'-.' J '5'' -J .-■ . ,^.r' V!>. Jlcabex^ of ^leliciion Edited by H. C. Beeching, M.A. GEOKGE FOX S^eabex^ of ^leligion Edited by H. C. Beechino, M.A. Crown 8vo, cloth extra, u-ith portrait, 3s. 6d. Under the above title Messrs. Methuen are publishing a series of short biographies of the most prominent leaders of religious life and thought. The following are ready — CARDINAL NEWMAN JOHN WESLEY BISHOP WILBERFORCE CHARLES SIMEON CARDINAL MANNING THOMAS CHALMERS LANCELOT ANDREWES WILLIAM LAUD JOHN KEBLE AUGUSTINE OF CANTERBURY JOHN KNOX JOHN HOWE THOMAS KEN GEORGE FOX In Preparation MARTIN LUTHER THOMAS CRANMER HUGH LATIMER JOHN CALVIN JOHN DONNE JOSEPH BUTLER FRANCOIS FENELON ERNEST RENAN C. H. SPURGEON B. H. HxMon J. H. Overton G. W. Daniell H. G. O. Mo^de A. W. Button Mrs. Oliphant R. L. Ottley W. H. Button TV. Lock E. L. Ctitts Florence A. MacGunn E. F. Barton F. A. Clarke Thomas Bodgkin Owen Edwards A. J. Mason A. J. Carlyle W. A. B. Coolidge Augustus Jessopp B. Bashdall Viscount St. Gyres Madame Darmesteter J. Clifford Other volumes will be announced in due coarse GEORGE FOX F}-oin the Portrait by Sir I'eter Lely, in the /lossessioii of the Trustees of S~ivartliiiu>re Collciie GEORGE FOX BY THOMAS HODGKIN, D.C.L. METHUEN & CO. 36 ESSEX STREET, W.C. LONDON 1896 THOMAS HODGKIN AUTHOR OF THEODORIC M Ct 77^5" CO PREFACE Having been asked by my friend, the Editor of this series, to write the life of George Fox, I have completed the work to the best of my ability, though I am aware of the disadvantage under which I labour in not having for some years made that period a subject of special study. The reader will no doubt perceive that I am myself a member of the Society of Friends, to which my ^ ancestors have belonged since its first foundation by George Fox ; but I trust that this fact has not caused me to swerve from that absolute fidelity of portraiture which ought to be the aim of every biographer. There are some lines in the portrait which, out of love to Fox's memory, I would gladly have omitted ; but loyalty to " the Truth," which has ever been the watch- word of the Society of Friends, forbade me to do so. Only I may repeat a remark which has been often made, that his faults (especially his polemic bitterness) were, for the most part, faults characteristic of his age, while his nobler qualities, his courage, his conscientious- ness, and his intense love of truth, were emphatically his own. There is an interesting question, into which I have 335242 vi PREFACE not had space to enter, how far Fox's system was peculiar to himself, and how far it was borrowed from other sects, especially the Baptists and Mennonites. My own impression is that Fox was essentially an original religious thinker, and that few men have ever had less of the Eclectic character than he : but for a careful statement of the other side of the question I may refer my readers to a book frequently quoted in the following pages, Barclay's Intur Life of the Religious Societies of the Gommoniuealth. It only remains to express my thanks to the following gentlemen, who have helped me in various ways in the composition of this little book — Prof. Gardiner, Mr. C. J. Spence (the possessor of the original MS. of George Fox's Journal), Messrs Jno. Fell, J. S. Rowntree, and Alexr. Gordon. It will be seen that I am under many obligations to Mrs. Webb's Fells of Stvarthmoor Hall, which contains ^several letters of the Fell family and of George Fox not elsewhere published. But, beyond all other books, I have been helped by Prof. Masson's Life of Milton, the most valuable work, as it seems to me, which has been written, not only on the literary but also on the religious history of England during the central years of the seventeenth century. Thos. Hodgkin. CONTENTS CHAP. I. INTRODUCTION ... II. BIRTHPLACE III. EARLY LIFE IV. fox's message ... V. MISSIONARY JOURNEYS : MIDLAND COUNTIES AND YORKSHIRE VI. SWARTHMOOR HALL VIL AT LANCASTER AND CARLISLE ... VIII. AT FENNY DRAYTON AND WHITEHALL . IX. LAUNCESTON GAOL X. IN WALES AND SCOTLAND XI. THE END OF THE PROTECTORATE XII. THE STUARTS AND THE QUAKERS : IMPRISONMENTS AT LANCASTER AND SCARBEO" XIII. MARRIAGE XIV. VISIT TO AMERICA XV. THE LAST IMPRISONMENT XVr. CLOSING YEARS ... XVII. CONCLUSION INDEX PAGE 1 8 15 33 45 63 79 102 115 141 157 170 204 222 238 245 273 281 GEORGE EOX CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION " George Fox, the founder of Quakerism." That is the formula which expresses, and will probably always express, Fox's place in religious history. Yet of him, even more emphatically than of the men who have given their nam.es to great sections of the Christian Church, Luther, Calvin, or Wesley, it may be con- fidently affirmed that to found a new sect was the furthest thing from his hopes and aspirations. A religious reformer, at any rate one who desires to Avork in harmony Avith the spirit of Christianity, cannot have sectarian aims. He cannot be satisfied with conquering one little province of the Christian world, and labelling it with his own name. He must believe that he is the bearer of a world-wide message, adapted to all sorts and conditions of men, and that for the whole Christian Church the only hope of health and cleansing lies in the acceptance of that message. Such was most emphatically the belief of George Fox, 2 GEORGE FOX and accordingly in studying his life it is necessary as much as possible to dissever him in thought from the quiet, respectable, unaggressive sect of which he was in fact, though not in intention, the founder. But a man who believes, as Fox believed, that he has a Divine commission to testify against the errors and corruptions of the religion which is professed by those around him, will be the last man to do justice to the germs of a holier and better life underlying every corruption. He will have little or nothing of that sympathetic, eclectic spirit which is perhaps the best quality in the religious life of our generation, and which enables us to deal fairly with schools of thought to which intellectually we are utterly opposed. A man of such intense convictions as dominated the soul of the first Quaker is almost of necessity narrow, and very narrow the reader will probably consider some of George Fox's judgments. Yet if we would understand this man's life in even the least degree, if we are to look upon him as anything more than a wrong-headed and troublesome disturber of the public peace, — that is to say, if we would learn anything of the results produced by his preaching, and the secret of his power, — we must be willing, at least for a time, to place ourselves at his point of view, and look forth upon the Christian world as he, knowing scarce any other book than the English Bible, and imbued with the spirit of a Hosea or a Jeremiah, looked forth ^ upon it. It is difficult for us Englishmen of the nineteenth century to throw ourselves back into the state of feeling as to all religious matters which prevailed among our forefathers at the time of the Civil War. We have INTRODUCTION 3 been always accustomed to the sight of many religious denominations existing side by side, if not in love, at any rate in peace. Round the great Established Church of England revolve in their own orbits the Noncon- formist Churches of Protestantism, while the old his- toric Church of Rome has perfect freedom to worsljip as she pleases, and to make proselytes as she can. How utterly different was the state of things under Elizabeth and James I, ; yes, and even when Charles I. had been vanquished, and Puritanism had gained the upper hand ! The popish " Recusants " were persecuted with a ferocity Avhich is the disgrace of Protestantism, and which is only explained, not justified, by the cruelties which had marked the victorious march of the Counter-Reformation in the Netherlands and Germany, and by the disloyal and even murderous projects of which some of the English Papists were guilty. Within the Protestant camp, from the beginning of Charles's reign, Episcopalian and Presbyterian were contending, not for bare existence, not even for priority of place and possession of old revenues, but for the right absolutely to suppress the defeated party. Not Laud himself was more intolerant of the " Calvinian " lecturers than the adherents of the Solemn Leacrue and Covenant were intolerant of every other form even of Puritan discipline which squared not with their precise notions of Presbyterian orthodoxy. In the minds of some of the Independents, it is true, the great principle of religious toleration had taken root, and had begun to show itself above ground. Great leaders of the sect, such as Roger Williams in America and Cromwell in England, were sacrificing much of their populai'ity in the attempt to persuade the bigots around them to 4 GEORGE FOX bear with other usages than their own ; but entire and absolute religious toleration was still, in the middle of the seventeenth century, a theory and a dream, as much as is the reunion of all Christians in one Church at the close of the nineteenth century. In the years of Fox's childhood and boyhood the Episcopal Church of England was ruling England with absolute sway, and Archbishop Laud was everywhere removing the altars to the eastern end of the churches, insisting on the kneeling posture of communicants, and on the worshippers bowing at the name of Jesus. Ere Fox had completed his seventeenth year, the system of " Thorough " in Church and State had broken down. Strafford's head had fallen on Tower Hill, Laud was in prison, and the immense latent strength of Puritanism was about to manifest itself both on the battle-field and in the Houses of Parliament. It is important to re- member this fact. In the really formative years of Fox's religious development, not Episcopacy, but Presby- terianism was the dominant form of Church govern- ment. Calvin's Institutes, not Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity, was the text-book of the clergy with whom he was brought in contact. It was not high sacramental teaching, nor discourses on Apostolical Succession, from which this young man's soul revolted, but it was the long sermons (reaching to eighteenthly and nineteenthly) on abstruse points of doctrine, the almost equally long and sermon-like prayers, the Calvinistic teaching of the predestined and eternal misery of a large portion of the human race, the superstitious reverence for every letter in that collection of writings by holy men of old made by the Jewish and Christian Churches, to which was given the name of " the Word of God " ; the determina- INTRODUCTION 5 tion to keep the Lord's Day as if it had been a Jewish Sabbath, fencing it round with the same awful sanctions with which that day was encompassed in the legislation of the Pentateuch : these and similar exaggerations of what was then called the Puritan, and has since been called the Evangelical, school, were what first called forth the impassioned protest of the young shepherd of Leicestershire. In 16G0, when Fox had fully reached middle life, and had been for twelve years a zealous missionary preacher, came the restoration of kingship in England, and the downfall of Puritan ascendency. Too soon after this great event, which it was hoped would intro- duce an era of religious peace and mutual toleration, came that cruel and vindictive persecution of Noncon- formity in the name of a perjured and profligate king, which forms the darkest page in the history of the Church of England, one which all who are zealous for her good name would gladly obliterate from her annals. This persecution fell heavily on the followers of Fox, as on all the other Nonconformists : even more heavily on the former by reason of their stern and unbending disposition, than on the latter. The utter failure of the Episcopalians, though armed with the whole power of the State, to suppress or even to diminish the numbers of these dauntless dissenters from the Established Church, was undoubtedly a powerful factor in convincing the nation of the necessity of that general toleration which was the best result of the Revolution of 1G88, But though during this quarter of a century Episcopalian parsons and squires were the chief agents in the perse- cution of Fox and his friends, it can hardly be said that even then they were the chief objects of his religious 6 GEORGE FOX polemics. Still the Calvinistic teaching was that against which he bore his most persistent protest, and when his young disciple Barclay gave literary and logical form to the new sect's teaching, his Ajjology was a veiled attack upon the Westminster Confession, the great manifesto of seventeenth-century Calvinism.^ From this statement it must not be inferred that there was any leaning in the mind of Fox and his friends towards what is called Catholic teaching, whether Anglican or Roman. All that was distinctively char- acteristic of media)val Christianity was condemned by them as belonging to " the dark night of apostacy," and the attempts of the disciples of Laud to re-establish the Anglican Church on a basis which should be Catholic, but not Roman, were not indeed actively opposed) because they were never understood by the early Quakers, bred up as these men had been in a universally ditfused atmosphere of Puritanism. Lastly, there is one characteristic of early Quakerism which must in fairness be noted, and which it shared with every other religious party of the time. This is the extreme bitterness with which they spoke of their opponents, the absolute certainty which they felt that they alone were in the right, and that all who differed from them went wilfully astray. To most of the first generation of Quakers, as to his Presbyterian opponents, might Cromwell have addressed his well-known appeal, " I beseech you, by the mercies of Jesus Christ, think it ^ This relation of Barclay's Apology to the Westminster Con- fession and the Shorter Catechism has not hitherto attracted sufficient attention. Whoever compares the order of Barclay's Propositions with that of the questions in the Shorter Catechism, will, I think, have no doubt that the former document intention- ally follows the latter. INTRODUCTION 7 possible that you may be mistaken." In this, as I have said, they shared that " form and pressure of the times " from which the most original thinkers cannot expect wholly to escape. With us, it may be, the danger is of an opposite kind. New horizons of thought have been opened out to us. The universe presents itself to our minds as an infinitely greater and more wonderful thing than it was supposed to be by those eager combatants of the seventeenth century. We are no longer so abso- lutely sure that our little plummets have sounded its awful depths, that we have mapped out all its vastness. Hence comes doubt ; hence, it may be, sometimes too languid a grasp of the truths which have been revealed to us. But hence also comes mutual tolerance, and a willingness to acknowledge that others who walk not exactly in our paths may have their faces set towards the Heavenly City ; and that is in itself a gain, perhaps a gain which even outweighs the loss that has made it possible. CHAPTEH 11 BIRTHPLACE The little hamlet of Drayton-in-the-Clay (as George Fox styles it in his Journal), or Fenny Drayton, as it is now called by the inhabitants, might in the seven- teenth century have been fitly described by either name. It is situated on the western verge of Leicester- shire, on a clay level, with the rising ground of Market Bosworth on the east, and the pleasant hills of Ather- stone on the west. The road which leads to it from Bosworth is still called Fen Lane, and though the country is now well drained, it is easy to see how two hundred years ago the desolate waters of the Fens must have lain, all the winter through, round about the little hamlet. Fenny Drayton lies about two miles to the east of the main line of the London and North-Western Railway between London and Liverpool. The Wat- ling Street, of which the modern railway here, as so often elsewhere, is the faithful companion, and which forms the modern boundary between the counties of Leicester and Warwick, comes yet nearer, within a mile of Fenny Drayton, and the little village of Man- cetter hard by represents a station which is named 8 BIRTHPLACE 9 in the road-book of the Roman Empire.^ This is not a mere matter of antiquarian interest, for in the seven- teenth century the Roman roads were still the chief available highways of the country. Along the Watling Street doubtless passed in Fox's day the waggons which carried the wool of the north of England up to the markets of London. By the same route may have ridden both Cavaliers and Roundheads towards the battle-field of Marston Moor, and it was along the same road undoubtedly that Henry of Richmond, a century and a half before the time of Fox's boyhood, came to pluck the crown of England from the head of Richard III. The rising ground of Market Bos- worth, as has been already said, is all but within sight of Drayton, and George Fox, in his lonely wanderings over the fields which surrounded his birthplace, must have often passed the site of Henry's camp, perhaps may have drunk sometimes at the well at which Richard is said to have quenched his thirst ere he rushed into the battle." At the present day but little is left to show what Drayton-in-the-Clay looked like two hundred years ago. Uninteresting modern buildings, with shallow windows and slated roofs, have replaced the picturesque, deep-mullioned Jacobean houses, with their thatches of straw, which George Fox must have looked on as a boy. ^ Manduesedum, mentioned in the Antonine Itinerary. - A more modern set of associations, but one which will interest some readers, is connected with a recent novelist. The visitor to Fenny Drayton finds himself in the heart of "George Eliot's countTy." Marian Evans was born at Nuneaton, the capital of this district; and the scenes oi Adam Beck, Janefs Kepentance, Mr. Gilfil, and Amos Barton, are all to be found within a few miles of George Fox's birthplace. 10 GEORGE FOX The house which tradition pointed out as his birthplace has long since disappeared. One antique cottage which stood near to it remained till a few years ago, and was rapidly becoming a little local sanctuary; nay, it was on the point of being transported to the other side of the Atlantic by an enterprising American speculator, and being re-erected as the home of the friend of the founder of Pennsylvania, Apparently, however, in the course of the negotiations the fictitious nature of its claims was made manifest, the proposal was with- drawn, the house tumbled down, and the last vestiges of its fabric have recently disappeared. A little obelisk of Quaker-like simplicity has been erected within a hundred yards or so of the site of the original cottage, to keep alive the memory of George Fox's birthplace. In this utter modernization of the little hamlet, we are driven by the irony of Fate to look for our only links of connection with the past, in that build- ing to which George Fox would only allow the name of " steeple-house," and on which he would never have expected his remotest disciples to gaze with interest. The church of Fenny Drayton is a building chiefly in the late Decorated style, but possesses a rather peculiar Norman doorway somewhat concealed by a modern porch. It has two aisles and a chancel; and the chief objects of interest which it contains are the monuments of the Purefoy family, who were for more than three centuries the territorial aristocracy of Dray- ton. One of these monuments is in the northern aisle, which was apparently a kind of chapel of the Purefoys, with a private door leading out to their closely adjoin- ing manor-house. The other, which lines the northern BIRTHPLACE 11 wall of the chancel, and of which probably only a part is still remaining, Avas erected towards the end of the sixteenth century by " Jocosa " (Joyce) Purefoy, Avho had married her cousin Edward Purefoy of Shawleson, and conveyed to him the lordship of her father's lands. In two long and pompous inscriptions, written in Latin hexameters, the stately lady, or rather the scholar who did her bidding, celebrates the virtues of her deceased husband, and describes how he kept inviolate the " pure faith" from which his family derived their name, and the courage with which some remote ancestor had de- fended his lord on the field of battle with the broken spear which was ever after the family's crest. Hundreds of times during the long prelections of the minister of Drayton must the boyish eyes of Fox have wandered over these mysterious monuments. His education was too imperfect to enable him to comprehend their mean- ing; otherwise we might please ourselves with the thought that he had determined to take for his own the motto of the Squire's family, PURE FOY MA 10 YE ; and we might recall the fact that the great militant Quietist gazed so often in his boyhood on a line fancifully adapted from Horace — "Omne tulit puuctum qui miscixit arma quieti."^ But this, we must admit, is but a caprice of the fancy. The Purefoys of Drayton fell into difficulties in the hard-drinking Hanoverian times, and the representa- tive of the family towards the middle of the eighteenth century obtained a private Act of Parliament enabling him to alienate his estate. Only the funereal monu- ments now remain to attest the family's former great- ^ "He gains all hearts who blendeth war with rest," 12 GEORGE FOX ness. The stately manor-house has vanished from the earth, its site only marked by a slight inequality which shows where the moat once guarded the house. Altogether Fenny Drayton somewhat depresses the visitor by the conviction which it forces upon him of the obliterating power of only two centuries of time. One great natural landmark remains in the quadran- gular belt of solemn yew-trees which still surrounds the parish church, and which probably look very much as they did when Jocosa Purefoy reared her monument. " not for thee the glow, the bloom, Who changest not in any gale, Nor branding summer suns avail To touch thy thousand years of gloom." Even more than the squire, the parson of the parish must have exercised a powerful influence on the boy- hood of the future reformer. The living was in the squire's gift, and George Purefoy, " Jocosa's " son, pre- sented to it^ (probably somewhere about 1640) the Reverend Nathaniel Stephens, M. A., who held it till the year 1662. From the fact that Stephens belonged to the Puritan party in the Church, we may probably infer that his patron was of the same way of thinking, and this conjecture is confirmed by our finding that his cousin, William Purefoy of Caldecote, was a General in the Parliamentary army, and a diligent member of the Court by which Charles I. was sentenced to death. Nathaniel Stephens was the son of a Wiltshire clergy- man, was born in 1606, and received his education as ^ Wood's statement that Stephens was intruded into the living in 1643 in place of an ejected Episcopalian, is shown by Calamy to be erroneous. BIRTHPLACE 13 a " batler " at Magdalen Hall, Oxford. He seems to have been a fair specimen of the Presbyterian divines who came to the front during the ascendency of the Long Parliament. A staunch defender of the right of the clergy to tithes, and of the practice of infant baptism, he fought long paper battles with the Inde- pendents and Baptists on tliese questions. On the other hand, he was great in Apocalyptic literature, composing a Plain and Easy Calculation of the Name, Marl', and Number of the Beast, and was a thorough Calvinist in his teaching as to the utter depravity of man, and in his defence of the doctrine of Election and Reprobation by God's absolute decree. Any one who takes the trouble to glance through his Vindicice Fundamenti, or Threefold Defence of the Doctrine of Original Sin, with its wearisome speculations as to Adam's state before and after the fall, will easily under- stand how little help a tired soul seeking for rest, and longing to hear the voice of the Living God, would derive from this self-satisfied scholastic divine. Thus we shall find that " Priest Stephens " is spoken of with little gratitude in George Fox's Journal, and as this is practically the only rock which raises him ever so little out of the waters of oblivion, he has received from posterity somewhat harder measure than he deserves. It is clear, indeed, that he failed to understand the nature of " the questings and the guessings " of his strange young parishioner; but there is small blame to him, trained as he had been, for such a failure ; and after all, the fact that he went forth from his pleasant rectory on St. Bartholomew's Day in 1662, to spend the remaining fifteen years of his life in obscurity as a Nonconformist preacher at Stoke Golding, shows that 14 GEORGE FOX he was a true man, and willing to suffer for conscience' sake. After this brief sketch of George Fox's birthplace we may proceed to the story of his early years. Our chief authority here and everywhere must be his own Journal, but as that book reaches to a thousand octavo pages, it is obvious that only a few of its more striking passages can be laid under contribution. CHAPTER III EARLY LIFE George Fox was born in July 1624.^ His parents were persons in a humble station, but apparently not in actual poverty, and they probably belonged to the numerous class which conformed to the worship of the national Church, while sympathizing with what was beginning to be known as Puritanism. His own ac- count of them is as follows : — " My father's name was Christopher Fox : he was by profession a weaver, an honest man ; and there was a seed of God in him. The neighbours called him Righteous Christer. My mother was an upright woman ; her maiden name was Mary Lago, of the family of the Lagos, and of the stock of the martyrs." William Penn's statement is that " he was born of honest and sufficient parents, who endeavoured to bring him up, as they did the rest of their children, in the way and worship of the nation : especially his ^ Fox does not seem to have known the exact day of hia birth, and unfortunately the blank cannot be filled up from the parish registers, which have suffered denudation at the hands of a sexton's wife in the last century, requiring paper for her jam- pots. The present Rector of Fenny Draytun tells me, however, that he has found the register of the baptism of George Fox's sister Mary. 15 16 GEORGE FOX mother, who was a woman accomplished above most of her degree in the place where she lived." As to the time of Fox's birth, we note in passing that it was in the year before the death of King James I. The old king, who was in failing health, had practically abandoned the direction of affairs to the Prince of Wales and his brilliant, unstable friend the Duke of Buckingham, who had just returned from that foolish piece of knight-errantry, the journey to Spain. When Fox was born, negotiations were proceeding for Prince Charles's marriage to the daughter of Henry IV. of France, that marriage which was one of the links in the chain of events which drew on the Civil War and the bloody tragedy of Whitehall. However little a man may be affected by the acts and thoughts of his contemporaries, it is always interest- ing to observe who those contemporaries were. In the year before Fox's birth, Blaise Pascal began his frail but wonderful life. John Dryden (born 1631) and John Locke (1632) were his juniors by seven and eight years respectively ; and his birth-year placed him nearly at the middle point between John Milton (1608) and Sir Isaac Newton (1642). Yet, as has been already hinted, the future Quaker apostle dwelt mostly in a sphere apart, very little influenced by the thoughts, philosophical, poetical, or political, of the men of his stirring generation. The Bible seems to have been his only literature, and it may safely be said that Amos, the herdsman of Tekoa, who was separated from him by an interval of twenty-four centuries, had infinitely more influence on his mind than William Shakespeare, who died but eight years before he came into the world. EARLY LIFE 17 So, too, for the political events of his time. Wliile he was passing through his cliiklliood and boyhood, the terrible Thirty Years' War was draining the life- blood of Germany ; and Laud and Strafford by their policy of Thorough Avere gradually alienating the hearts of Englishmen from their king, and preparing them to open " the purple testament of bleeding war." The Civil War began when Fox was in the eighteenth year of his age, and lasted till about the time when he began his missionary journeys. Yet to all these events he makes no allusion, and it may be doubted whether even at the time they greatly moved him. The history of his own soul, his struggles with the power of dark- ness, his Teachings forth after the light and peace of God, seem to have absorbed all his thoughts, and the thunderstorms of war and revolution crashed round him unheeded. The childhood and youth of George Fox are thus described by William Penn : — " But from a child he appeared of another frame of mind than the rest of his brethren : being more religious, inward, still, solid and observing beyond his years, as the answers he would give, and the questions he would put upon occasion, manifested to the astonishment of those that heard him, especially in divine things. " His mother taking notice of his singular temper, and the gravity, wisdom, and piety that very early shined through him, refusing childish and vain sports and company when very young, she was tender and indulgent over him, so that from her he met with little difficulty. As to his employment, he was brought up in country business ; and as he took most delight in sheep, so he was very skilful in them ; an employment 18 GEORGE FOX that very well suited his mind in several respects, both from its innocency and solitude; and was a just figure of his after ministry and service." His own account of this period of his life is given in these words : — " In my very young years I had a gravity and stayed- ness of mind and spirit not usual in children ; insomuch that when I saw old men carry themselves lightly and wantonly towards each other, I had a dislike thereof raised in my heart, and said within myself, ' If ever I come to be a man, surely I shall not do so, nor be so wanton.' " When I came to eleven years of age, I knew pure- ness and righteousness ; for while I was a child I was taught how to walk to be kept pure. The Lord taught me to be faithful in all things, and to act faithfully two ways, viz. inwardly to God, and outwardly to man ; and to keep to Yea and Nay in all things. For the Lord showed me, that though the people of the world have mouths full of deceit, and changeable words, yet I was to keep to Yea and Nay in all things; and that my words should be few and savoury, seasoned with grace ; and that I might not eat and drink to make myself wanton, but for health, using the creatures in their service, as servants in their places, to the glory of Him that hath created them ; they being in their covenant, and I being brought into the covenant, and sanctified by the Word which was in the beginning by which all things are upheld ; wherein is unity with the creation. " But people being strangers to the covenant of life with God, they eat and drink to make themselves wanton with the creatures, wasting them upon their own lusts, and living in all filthiness, loving foul ways, EARLY LIFE 19 and devouring the creation ; and all this in the world, in the pollutions thereof, without God ; therefore I was to shun all such. " Afterwards, as I grew up, my relations thought to make me a priest, but others persuaded to the contrary : whereupon I was put to a man that was a shoemaker by trade, and that dealt in wool, and used grazing, and sold cattle ; and a great deal went through my hands. While I was with him, he was blessed ; but after I left him he broke, and came to nothing. I never wronged man or woman in all that time ; for the Lord's power was with me, and over me to preserve me. While I was in that service, I used in my dealings the word Verily, and it was a common saying among the people that knew me, ' If George says Verily, there is no altering him.' When boys and rude people would laugh at me, I let them alone, and went my way ; but people had generally a love to me for my innocency and honesty." Fox's autobiography constantly reminds us of the experiences of his contemporary John Bunyan, whether as described in G^'ace Abounding, or as allegorized in Pilgrims Progress ; and yet the relation between them is more often one of contrast than of similarity. Thus here his spiritual life does not begin with that intense self-loathing, that agony in the thought of unforgiven sin, which is the keynote of Bunyan's early experience. Fox does not feel that he is born in the City of Destruction, nor does he begin his journey with a heavy burden on his back which will roll off at the sight of the Cross ; yet all the same he is a pilgrim, and a very ardent one, and he will have as little sympathy with Vanity Fair, and will suffer as much 20 GEORGE FOX for his testimony against its wickedness as Bunyan's Cliristian himself. " When I came towards nineteen years of age," he continues, " being upon business at a fair, one of my cousins, whose name was Bradford, a professor,^ and having another professor with him, came to me, and asked me to drink part of a jug of beer with them; and I being thirsty, went in with them, for I loved any that had a sense of good, or that did seek after the Lord, When we had drunk a glass apiece, they began to drink healths, and called for more drink, agreeing together that he that would not drink should pay all. I was grieved that any that made profession of religion should do so. They grieved me very much, having never had such a thing put to me before by any sort of people, wherefore I rose up to go, and putting my hand into my pocket I took out a groat, and laid it upon the table before them, and said, ' If it be so, I will leave you.' So I went away, and when I had done what business I had to do, I returned home, but did not go to bed that night, nor could I sleep, but sometimes walked up and down, and some- times prayed and cried to the Lord, who said unto me, * Thou seest how young people go together into vanity, and old people into the earth ; thou must forsake all, both young and old, and keep out of all, 'and be a stranger unto all.' " Though not struggling under the burden of unforgiven sin. Fox, in these years of dawning manhood, was made miserable by the thought of the evil of the world around him. Perhaps, notwithstanding the absence of all allusion to political events, the miseries and distractions * This word " professor," which is of frequent occurrence in Fox's Jmirnal, may be taken as practically equivalent to Puritan. EARLY LIFE 21 of the great Civil War struck their own harshly jarring note on the Divine harmony for which he longed. At this, as well as some later periods of his career, his words remind us of the utterances of a man of Avhom he probably never heard — Girolamo Savonarola. At the age of nineteen Savonarola was seeking solitude, was composing his poem on the Ruin of the World, had ever on his lips the Virgilian line — " Heu ! fuge crudeles terras, fuge littus avarum ;" and three years later his depression and despair drove him into the cloister, his treatise De Contemptu Mundi being the only legacy left to comfort his sorrowing father for the wreck of the ambitious hopes which had gathered round this favourite son. To Fox the shelter of the convent was of course not accessible, but he broke off his intercourse with his family as completely as if he had turned monk. His narrative proceeds — " Then at the command of God, on the ninth day of the seventh month 1643, I left my relations, and broke off all familiarity or fellowship with old or young." For the next three or four years he seems to have led a wanderinor life, movinsj about throusfh the home counties, but spending several months at Barnet, and afterwards in London. At Barnet, when he was walk- ing solitary in Enfield Chace, the temptation to despair came over him. He thought that his fear of desertion by God might be a judgment upon him for leaving his relations, but he was comforted in the thought that even Christ was also tempted. The " great professors " of London could not help him, nor yet could an uncle of his who belonged to the Baptist community, though, as he says, " they were tender then." He returned into 92 GEOEGE FOX Leicestershire, and his relations, fearing probably for his reason, urged him to marrv, " but I told them I was but a lad and must get wisdom. Others would have had me into the auxihary band among the soldiery " (we have now reached 1645, the year of the battle of ^Naseby), " but I refused : and I was grieved that they profifered such things to me being a tender youth. Then I went to Coventry, where I took a chamber for a while at a professor's house, till people began to be acquainted with me; for there were many tender people in that town." We are already making acquaintance with this word " tender," which is a favourite expression of Fox's throughout the Journal , denoting, not delicacv of the physical frame, for he and his disciples endured hard- ships which might break down the strongest constitu- tion, but delicacy of spiritual perception, unwillingness to be satisfied with the polemical theology of the ordinary Puritan — a desire to get into communion with the Spirit of the Eternal One, and to learn His will. He returned to his native village, and now at length, if not before, had some converse with the parson of his parish, and with some of the neighbouring divines about the state of his soul. To quote again from the Journal : " The priest of Drayton, the town of my birth, whose name was Nathaniel Stevens {sic), came often to me, and I went often to him ; and another priest sometimes came with him ; and they would give place to me to hear me, and I would ask them questions, and reason with them. And this priest Stevens asked me a question, viz. Why Christ cried out upon the cross, ' My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me ? and why He said, ' If it be possible, let this cup pass from Me ; yet not My will, but Thine be done ' ? I EARLY LIFE i3 told him that at that time the sins of all manlriivl were upon Him, and their iniquities and transgresBioiis with which He was wounded, which He was to bear, and to be an offering for, as He was man, but He died not, as He was God : and so, in that He died for aR men, and tasted death for every man, He was an offering for the sins of the whole world. This I sp:;ke, being at that time in a measure sensible of Christ's sufferings and what He went through. And the priest said, ' It was a very good, full answer, and such a one as he had not heard.' At that time he would applaud and speak highly of me to others; and what I said in discourse to him on the week-days, that he would preach on the first-days, for which I did not like him. This priest afterwards became my great persecutor. "After this I went to another ancient priest at Mancetter in Warwickshire, and reasoned with him about the groimd of despair and temptations ; but he was iornorant of mv con I. 282. 2 Fox's Journals supply many vivid illustrations of Macaulay's words, " the prisons were hells on earth, seminaries of every crime and every disease. At the assizes the lean and yellow culprits brought with them from their cells to the dock an atmosphere ot stench and pestilence, which sometimes avenged them signally on bench, bar, and jury" [the well-known "gaol- fever"]. {History of England, Cap. III. ad finem.) 134 GEORGE FOX satisfaction, that it was a paintly woman, the daughter of a Quaker family, who first carried the torch of Christian civilization into the hellish darkness of Newgate,^ At the present day the grim fortress of Launceston Castle has none but pleasant associations for the in- habitants of the little Cornish town. Leased from the Crown by a public-spirited nobleman who has generously handed it over to the public, its round shell-keep rises over a terraced garden planted with noble evergreens, and below this garden is a fine level playground for the school children, which was formerly the courtyard of the Castle. At the north-eastern end of this is a ruined gateway containing a little roofless chamber about twelve feet square, which rightly or wrongly is identified by local tradition with the horrible Doomsdale of Fox's Journal. In this place, foul with indescribable nastiness, the prisoners, whom the gaoler called " hatchet-faced dogs," were kept for many days before he would allow them to clean it, and fed like dogs through a grating. Once a girl brought them a little meat, but he arrested her for house-breaking, sued her in the town court, and put her to so much trouble that none of the other inhabitants, though kindly disposed, durst bring them water or victuals. However, before long the quarter sessions at Bodmin were held, and a statement of the hardships inflicted on the prisoners, drawn up and presented to the magistrates, brought down an order " that Doomsdale door should be opened, and that the prisoners should be allowed to cleanse it and to buy ^ John Howard's work, noble as it was, seems to have been more efficacious on the Continent than in England itself. LAUNCESTON GAOL 13?) their meat in the town." A petition was also sent to the Protector, setting forth the whole history of their arrest and imprisonment, and this was replied to by an order to Captain Fox, governor of Pendennis Castle, to inquire into the grievances complained of Captain Fox, whom his namesake speaks of rather slightingly as " a light, chaffy man," seems in this case to have done his duty faithfully. The abusive soldiers, who had formed the escort party, their commander Captain Keat, and his evil-minded kinsman who had struck Fox in the inn, and tried to throw him, were all severely reprimanded. There were many of the county magnates staying at that time at Pendennis, and they told the bullying kinsman that if the Quaker chose to change his principle, and take the extremity of the law against him, he would probably recover sound damages for the assault. It would seem that after these petitions, and the replies to them, the treatment of the prisoners was somewhat improved, and they were taken out of Dooms- dale. All sorts of people came to visit them — Friends, officers in the army, private soldiers, " professors," and other prisoners — and the encounters between Fox and his visitors were sometimes amusing, sometimes alarm- ing. One Colonel Rouse, a justice of the peace, came one day to see the Friends, bringing a great company with him. " He was as full of words and talk," says Fox, " as ever I heard any man in my life, so that there was no speaking to him." At length, tired of the vain attempt to get in a word edgeways. Fox asked him whether he had ever been at school, and knew what belonged to questions and answers. " At school," said he; "yes." "At school," said the soldiers who were 136 GEORGE FOX among his followers; "doth he say so to our colonel that is a scholar ? " Then said Fox, " If he be so [a scholar] let him be still, and receive answers to what he hath said." "Then I was moved to speak the word of life to him in God's dreadful power, which came so over him that he could not open his mouth ; his face swelled and was red like a turkey ; his lips moved,, and he mumbled something, but the people thought he would have fallen down. I stepped to him, and he said he was never so in his life before; for the Lord's power stopped the evil power in him : so that he was almost choked. This man was ever after very loving to Friends, and not so full of airy words to us, though he was full of pride, but the Lord's power came over him and the rest that were with him." A half-drunken soldier came in to see the prisoners, and when one of the Friends was "exhorting him to sobriety," he began to draw his sword. Quite un- daunted, Fox stepped up to him, and told him what a cowardly thing it was to draw a sword on an unarmed man, and a prisoner, that he was not fit to be trusted with such a weapon, and that some men in their place would have taken his sword from him and broken it to pieces. The tipsy fellow had sense enough left to be ashamed, and reeled out of the room. Drunkenness seems to have been the order of the day in Launceston Castle. One night, at eleven o'clock, the gaoler came half drunk to Fox, and told him he had now got a man to dispute with him. Something about the gaoler's manner made Fox suspicious, and that night he spent not in his own chamber, but sleep- ing on the grass courtyard of the Castle, Still next day the gaoler maundered on about the dispute or debate LAUNCESTON GAOL 137 that was to be held, and the man who was to conduct it. At Icnc^th it turned out that the debater was none other than a man who had been committed to prison as a rogue and a vagabond, for deceiving people by- conjuring trick?, and that his method of argument was with a big clasp-knife. Being called out of his chamber Fox stepped to the top of the stairs, and saw the gaoler's wife standing on the stairs, and the conjurer at the bottom of them, holding his hand behind his back, and in a great rage. He asked him, " Man, what hast thou in thy hand behind thy back ? Pluck thy hand before thee : let us see thy hand, and what thou hast in it." Out came the naked knife, but ere he could do any mischief with it, the gaoler's wife, to whom Fox complained of the meditated outrage, seems to have interfered and prevented further mischief.^ Certainly the English prisons of the seventeenth century, with all their hideousness, must have been more amusing places to be imprisoned in than the monotonous penitentiaries of the nineteenth. All this time the Friends were busily engaged in writing letters and pamphlets setting forth their views, and showing the injustice of their imprisonment. One such document, drawn up by Edward Pyot, who was probably the man of best education among them, was addressed to Chief Justice Glyn.- As it occupies thirteen closely printed octavo pages, it is safe to say that the busy judge never read it. More effectual was the action of a certain Friend named Humphrey Norton,^ who went to the Protector and offered himself ' Fox's account of this adventure is rather obscure, and it is not easy to understand the gaoler's or the conjurer's motives. ^ Dated fourteenth of fifth month [July] 1656. ^ His name is given in the MS. Journal. 138 GEORGE FOX " body for body to lie in Doomsdale, if need were, in Fox's stead." Cromwell was struck by the loyal devotion which Fox had inspired, and turning to his Privy Council said, " Which of you would do so much for me if I were in the same condition ? " It was of course decided that the law would not allow of such a substitution, but from this time Cromwell was evidently determined to put an end to Fox's imprison- ment. Another impulse in the same direction was given by the words of Hugh Peters, fervidest of Puritans, staunchest and j oiliest of army chaplains,^ who shrewdly told his master Cromwell that they could do George Fox no greater service for the spreading of his principles in Cornwall than to keep him shut up in Launceston Castle. The result of these varied agencies was that an order came down to Major-General Desborough for the liber- ation of the Quaker prisoners in Launceston Gaol. Desborough endeavoured to exact a promise that they would go home and preach no more, but this, though they told him that their mission in Cornwall was accomplished, they steadfastly refused to give. Waiving this point at last, he had then to meet the remonstrances of Colonel Bennet, the Puritan lessee of the gaol, the master of the drunken and felonious gaoler, who required payment of the gaoler's fees. There was a wiangle over this question between the Colonel and the prisoners, but they declared " they would give no fees, for they were innocent sufferers, and how could they expect fees from men who had suffered so long wrong- fully?" In the end the Quaker obstinacy triumphed, 1 See Gardiner, History of the Civil War, ii. 326, for a Ufa-like portrait of Hugh Peters. LAUNCI':STON GAOL 139 and Bennet (who had probably received a hint from the Major-General that he would not be supported in his claim) let the prisoners go on September 13, 1656. To complete the story of Launceston Gaol it should be mentioned, that in the year after Fox's imprisonment the wicked gaoler lost his place, and was himself thrown into prison. While there he begged for alms from the Friends, who during Fox's imprisonment had been irathered into a congregation at Launceston, and event- O (DO ually he was actually shut up himself in the horrible Doomsdale, chained, beaten, and told by his successor to " remember the good men whom he had wickedly Avithout any cause cast into that nasty dungeon." He died in prison, and his wife and family came to want. The fine castle-yard at Launceston, which is now, as has been said, a playground for the school-boys, was in Fox's time a bowling-green. Thither came the great ]\Iajor-Gcneral Desborough to play the game which had been so dear to the imprisoned king, and thither came the magnates of the county and the citizens of Launceston to play likewise. We note with some regret that Fox thought himself called upon to protest against this innocent and healthful amuse- ment. He put forth one of his favourite "papers," befrinniuo- " The word of the Lord to all you vain and idle-minded people who are lovers of sports, pleasures, foolish exercises and recreations, as you call them. Consider your ways: what it is you are doing. Was this the end of your creation ? Did God make all things for you, and you to serve your lusts and pleasures?" and so forth. One cannot help feeling that here the Puritan atmosphere in which Fox had grown to manhood 140 GEORGE FOX clouded his spiritual perception. To have distinguished between recreations healthful and harmful had been well, but to condemn, as he virtually does in this paper, all recreation as contrary to the will of God, shows that he had need of further " openings " as to the place of wisely chosen recreation in the Divine economy. CHAPTER X IN WALES AND SCOTLAND After Fox's liberation from Launceston Gaol, he journeyed in a leisurely manner through Cornwall and Devonshire to Bristol. At Exeter he went to see James Naylor, once his loved and trusted companion, now in prison on account of the extravagant proceedings of himself and some of his female followers in the west of England. Fox's own account of the interview is as follows : — "From thence we came to Exeter, where many Friends were in prison, and amongst the rest James Naylor. For a little before we were set at liberty James had run out into imaginations, and a company with him, which raised up a great darkness in the nation. He came to Bristol, and made a disturbance there, and from thence he was coming to Launceston to see me, but was stopped by the way and imprisoned at Exeter. . . . The night we came to Exeter I spoke with James Naylor, for I saw he was out and wrong, and so was his company. Next day being First-day, we went to visit the prisoners, and had a meeting with them in the prison ; but James Naylor and some of them could not stay the meeting. . . . The next day I spoke to James Naylor again, and he slighted what I 141 142 GEORGE FOX said, and was dark and much out ; yet he would have come and kissed me. But I said, ' since he had turned against the power of God I could not receive his show of kindness.' The Lord moved me to slight him, and to set the power of God over him." Shortly after this Naylor was liberated and went to Bristol, where the maddest scene in the whole tragedy was enacted — a male votary leading Naylor's horse bare- headed, while the females spread their handkerchiefs before him, and shouted " Hosannah ! " a manifest and audacious parody of Christ's entry into Jerusalem. Had such an event happened in our day, the chief actors would have been kindly taken care of in the nearest county asylum, and would probably in a few months have come out cured. Puritanism, itself so dour and dark, had no such compassion for the fevered brains of those whom it regarded as wilful blasphemers. Cromwell's second Parliament met on September 17, 1656, and one of its first employments was with the case of James Naylor, upon whom it passed that atrocious sentence, which in the eyes of posterity has caused the folly of the fanatic to be well-nigh forgotten in the thought of the bigot cruelty of his judges. To be pilloried for two hours, to be whipped by the hang- man through the streets from Westminster to the Old Exchange in the City, to be pilloried again two days after for two hours, to have his tongue bored through with a hot iron, and to be branded in the forehead with the letter B, to be again flogged through the streets of Bristol, and then to be committed to prison with solitary confinement and hard labour during the pleasure of Parliament — such was the sentence which these men imagined that tliey honoured Christ by TN WALES AND SCOTLAND 143 inflicting on His crazy imitator. We are rejoiced to find that the cruel severity of the sentence shocked many even of the Puritan party, and that Cromwell showed his utter disapproval of the action of Parliament, though he did not feel strong enough to come to an open rupture with that body.^ The one bright point in the whole dreary business is the fact that in the long hours of his solitary con- finement, Naylor recovered spiritual sanity, and in deep contrition of soul retracted the claim to a kind of Messiahship which the extravagance of his followers had led him to set up. It is the opinion of some of the most careful students of Quaker literature, that this business of Naylor's exercised a certain sobering influence on Fox himself. Pie per- haps saw that the doctrine of the Inward Light, which was the very life of life to his own soul, needed to be cautiously stated and kept always in its due relation to the life and words of the historic Christ, if it was not to work a kind of spiritual intoxication, such as it had produced in Naylor and the mad women who sang their hosannahs round him. It seems to me that in Fox's conflicts with the authorities after this time, we do not hear those charges of blasphemy advanced against him which were common in his earlier career. Probably too the very necessity of defending his doctrine against the disputants who attacked it had given a certain definiteness and coherence to those utterances, which were at first only a wild and mournful cry after the 1 The dates are October 31, 1656, Committee of tlie House of Commons on Naylor's case ; December 16, 1656, dejisiou as to his punishment ; December 18, 27, 1656, sentence executed in London; some time afterwards at Bristdl; SL-ptember 8, 1659, Naylor released from prison by order of tho Rump Parliament. 144 GEORGE FOX livincr God. He himself tells us that one of his hearers, who had listened to him in his earlier days, remarked the change which had of late come over his ministry. Fox's comment is, " the change was in himself;" but it seems probable that there was also a real growth, an increased power and lucidity in the preacher. The year 1656, which we have now reached, was a fruitful one for the new Society. Many thousands had nowjoined it, and there were seldom fewer than one thousand in prison at the same time, " some for non- payment of tithes, some for speaking in the churches, some for refusing to swear, and some for not putting off their hats." All this, it must be remembered, was under the Commonwealth, and under the rule of a man who undoubtedly desired to give as much liberty to religious dissidents as public opinion would allow. It was about this time that Fox had his second inter- view with the great Protector. It happened that when the Friends were entering London on their return from their long western journey, as they came near Hyde Park they saw a great concourse of people, and in the heart of the throng the Lord Protector riding in his coach. Fox spurred his steed and rode up to the carriage. The life-guards who were riding alongside of it were jostling him away, when Cromwell looked forth and said, " Let him come." So he rode alongside as far as the entrance into St. James's Park, discoursing of Cromwell's own spiritual state, of the sufferings of Friends in the prisons of the Commonwealth, and the contrast between all this persecution for matters of religion and the spirit of Christ and His apostles. At parting, Cromwell desired him to visit him at White- hall, and when he returned to his palace, he told one of IN WALES AND SCOTLAND 146 his wife's maida, a Quakeress named Mary Saunders, that he had good news for her — " George Fox was come back to London, and had ridden with him from Hyde Park to St. James's." Shortly after, Fox went with his friend Pyot to call on the Protector at Whitehall. The great Independent John Owen, at this time Dean of Christ Church, and Vice-Chancellor of Oxford University, was closeted with the Protector, and one can see that his presence was not conducive to that open heart-to-heart intercourse which there had once been between the two men. Fox spoke about the Light of Christ. Cromwell got into a theological discussion, whether there were anything more in this than the natural light of conscience. Fox, feeling the Divine ajjlatus strong upon him, urged Cromwell repeatedly, and with strong emotion, " to lay down his crown at the feet of Jesus." Cromwell was in an unsympathetic vein, came and sat upon a high table by Fox's side, and said in a light, joking way, " I will be as high as you are." "Thus he continued speaking against the Light of Christ Jesus, and went away in a light manner. But the Lord's power came over him, so that when he came to his wife and other company, he said, ' I never parted so from them before,' for he was judged in himself." After this interview Fox made a circuit through the home counties, as well as the northern shires of Lincoln and York; he had a large meeting near the battle- field of Edgehill, and he experienced the rudeness of the scholars at Oxford. In these travels he was en- deavouring to fulfil a commission which, as he felt, was entrusted to him while he Avas still cooped up in Launceston Gaol. The first promulgation of his doctrines 146 GEORGE FOX in most parts of England was now accomplished — " the truth was now spread, and finely planted in most places," and his present business was "to answer and remove out of the minds of people some objections which the envious priests and professors had raised and spread abroad concerning us. For what Christ said of false prophets and anti-christs coming in the last days, they applied to us, and said ' We were they.' " Probably we may trace in this passage also some evidence of the effect produced on Fox's own mind by James Naylor's claim to Messiahship, In the next year (1657) Fox broke new ground by making visitations to Wales and Scotland. Wales resembled Cornwall in the strength of its Royalism, as it was to resemble it a century later in the fervour of its Methodism. Apparently, however, Fox's preaching in the Principality was more successful than it had been in Cornwall.^ He was accompanied by a Welsh- man, named John-ap-John, who could speak the Cymric tongue, evidently a fervid and fearless man, and one who, strange to say, surpassed even Fox himself in his power of arousing the opposition of " priests " and magistrates. At several towns we hear of ap-John as being thrown into prison, while Fox is still at liberty, but he appears to have been generally liberated after confinement for a day or two. At Brecknock, John-ap-John preached to the people in the streets, no doubt using the Welsh language. Fox went forth for one of his usual meditative walks in the fields, and when he returned found the whole town in an uproar. His room in the inn was 1 The small number of Friends now to be found in Wales is, I believe, to be accounted for by the very large migrations thence to Pennsylvania. It had a considerable Quaker population at the close of the seventeenth century. f IN WALES AND SCOTLAND 147 full of people, all talkinj:,' Welsh, but who at bis request spoke in English, and much discourse they had together. At nightfall, the magistrates — so Fox believed — gathered a multitude of people together in the streets, and bade them shout, making such a noise as Fox had never before heard. The wild clamour continued for two hours, and reminded Fox of the similar scene enacted by Diana's craftsmen at Ephesus. Probably the fact that many of the people were shouting in Welsh made the noise seem to Fox more meaningless than it really was. He was a true Englishman, and evidently had an instinctive feeling that English was the proper languajie for a reasonable being to use. Thus at Dolgelly, wdien John-ap- John's street preach- ing had gathered a multitude round him, he says, " there being two Independent priests in the town, they came out and discoursed with him together. I went up to them, and finding them speaking in Welsh I asked them, ' What was the subject they spoke upon, and why were they not more moderate, and spake not one by one? For the things of God,' I told them, 'were weighty, and they should speak of them Avith fear and reverence.' Then I desired them to speak in English, that I might discourse with them, and they did so." The discussion turned on the nature of the " light within," which the Independents, like Cromwell their chief, declared to be "a created, natural-made light," while Fox maintained it to be heavenly, divine, and God-enkindled. At Tenby, Fox had a curious argument with an official whom he calls the governor, and who had, as usual, thrown John-ap-John into prison. " Why had he done this ? " Fox asked. 148 GEORGE FOX Governor. " For standing with his hat on in church." G. F. " Had not the priest two caps on his head, a black one and a white one ? Cut off the brims of the hat, and then my friend would have but one ; and the brims of the hat are but to defend him from the weather." Governor. " These are frivolous things." G. F. " Why then dost thou cast my friend into prison for such frivolous things?" Governor. " Do you own Election and Eeprobation ? " G. F. " Yes ; and thou art in the Reprobation," Governor (in a rage). " I will send you to prison till you prove it." G. F. " I will prove it quickly, if thou wilt confess truth. Are not wrath, fury, rage, and persecution marks of reprobation? Did Christ and His disciples ever persecute or imprison any ? " " Then," says Fox, " the governor fairly confessed that he had too much wrath, haste, and passion in him. I told him Esau was up in him, the first birth, not Jacob, the second birth. The Lord's power so reached and came over him that he confessed to truth ; and the other justice came and shook me kindly by the hand. "As I was passing away, I was moved to speak to the governor again, and he invited me to dine with him, and set my friend at liberty. I went back to the other justice's house, and after some time the mayor and his wife, and the justice and his wife, and divers other Friends of the town went about half-a-mile with us to the water-side, and there, when we parted from them, I was moved of the Lord to kneel down with them and pray to tlie Lord to preserve them. So after I had recommended them to the Lord Jesus IN WALES AND SCOTLAND 149 Christ tlieir Saviour and free teacher, we passed away in the Lord's power, and the Lord had the glory. A meeting continues in that town to this day." Fox's opinion of the moral condition of the inhabitants of the Principality was generally somewhat unfavour- able. The people of Haverfordwest, he says, "were a kind of Independents, but it was a wicked town and false. We bade the innkeeper give our horses a peck of oats ; and no sooner had we turned our backs than the oats were stolen from our horses." Again at another great town (the name of which he seems to have forgotten) — "In that inn also I turned but my back to the man that was giving oats to my horse, and looking round again, I observed he was filling his pockets Avith the provender. A wicked, thievish people, to rob the poor dumb creature of his food, I would rather they had robbed me." The scene at the Straits of Menai brings vividly before us the change which has been wrought in that region by the genius of Telford and Stephenson. It need not be said that there was then no bridge across the stormy straits. " Next day being market-day, we were to cross a great water, and not far from the place where we were to take boat, many of the market people drew to us, amongst whom we had good service for the Lord, declaring the word of Hfe and everlasting truth unto them. . , . After the Lord's truth had been declared unto them in the power of God, and Christ the free teacher set over all hireling teachers, I bid John-ap-John get his horse into the boat, which was then ready. But there having got into it a company of wild gentlemen, as they called them, whom we found very rude, and far from gentleness, they with others 150 GEORGE FOX kept his horse out of the boat. I rode to the boat's side and spoke to them, showing them what unmanly and unchristian conduct it was; and told them they showed an unworthy spirit below Christianity or hu- manity. As I spoke, I leaped my horse into the boat amongst them, thinking John's horse would have followed when he had seen mine go in before him ; but the water being deep, John could not get his horse into the boat. Wherefore I leaped out again on horseback into the water, and stayed with John on that side till the boat returned. There we tarried from eleven in the forenoon to two in the afternoon before the boat came to fetch us; and then we had forty-two miles to ride that evening ; and when we had paid for our passage we had but one groat left between us in money." How the difficulty as to their short supply of cash was surmounted Fox does not inform us. The passage above quoted, and several other slight indications of the same kind, make one think that Fox, who had been a country-bred lad, was a skilful and fearless horseman. The word " unmanly " is a favourite word with him when he is denouncing cowardice or cruelty, and everything about him seems to show that with all his almost fastidious conscientiousness he was no tender and unpractical recluse, but a full-blooded, courageous, manly man. I have room for only one more anecdote about this Welsh journey, and it relates to the ridiculous prejudice about his long hair. It was at Wrexham that " one called a lady" sent for him. She kept a domestic chaplain, or as Fox says "a preacher," in her house; but he found both great lady and preacher " very light IN WALES AND SCOTLAND 151 and airy, too light to receive the weighty things of God." In her lightness she carne and asked Fox if she should cut his hair, but received instead a grave admonition to cut down her own corruptions by the sword of the Spirit of God. So the Friends passed away from the house ; but Fox heard afterwards that "she boasted in her frothy mind that she had come behind him and cut off the curl of his hair, but she spoke falsely." Thus ended the Wesh journey. " Very weary we were with travelling so 'hard up and down in Wales: and in many places we found it difficult to get meat either for our horses or ourselves." More than ever welcome, after these rough and hard journeyings, must have been the repose of hospitable Swarthmoor, whither the travellers directed their steps, riding through Cheshire and Lancashire, and over the sands into Furness. After enjoying a few months' respite from travel, George Fox, who " had for some time felt drawings on his spirit to go into Scotland," crossed the border and entered that country. He had with him a friend named Robert Widders, whom he describes as "a thundering man against hypocrisy, deceit, and the rottenness of the priests." His first interview in Scot- land was with an unnamed nobleman, and is described by him in the following words : — " The first night we came into Scotland, we lodged at an inn. The innkeeper told us an Earl lived about a quarter of a mile off who had a desire to see me, and had left word at his house that if ever I came into Scotland he should send him word. He told us there were three drawbridges to his house, and that 152 GEORGE FOX it would be nine o'clock before the third bridge was drawn. Finding we had time in the evening we walked to his house. He received us very lovingly, and said he would have gone with us on our journey, but he was previously engaged to go to a funeral. After we had spent some time with him, we parted very friendly and returned to our inn." It would be interesting to discover who was this friendly nobleman. Was it forgetfulness, or a desire not to expose him to persecution, which prevented Fox from mentioning his name ? ^ Scotland in 1657, held down under the stern rule of Cromwell, outwardly peaceable, but sore at heart, clinging more tightly than ever to its Calvinistic creed and its Presbyterian discipline, was no favour- able ground for the reception of Fox's anti-Calvinistic teaching. Almost immediately on entering the country he became engaged in a dispute with the ministers on the central doctrine of Calvinism. "Now," as he says, "the priests had frightened the people with the doctrine of election and reprobation, telling them that God had ordained the greatest part of men and women for hell, and that, let them pray or preach or sing, or do what they could, it was all to no purpose if they were ordained for hell ; that God had a certain number elected for heaven, let them do what they would, as David, an adulterer, and Paul, a persecutor, yet elected vessels for heaven. So the fault was not at all in the creature less or more, but God had ordained it so." Against this terrible doctrine Fox protested with all ' From the geographical indications I am disposed to suggest Caerlaverock Castle, the abode of the Earl of Nithsdale, as the scene of this interview. IN WALES AND SCOTLAND 153 the energy of his soul, pleading the world-wide character of Christ's commission, " Go preach the gospel to all nations" : which is the gospel of salvation. "He would not have sent them into all nations to preach the doctrine of salvation, if the greater part of men had been ordained for hell ; " pleading also the benefits of Christ's death as a propitiation for the sins of the whole world ; and his own favourite text, " That was the true light which enlighteneth every man that cometh into the world." The tidings of Fox's arrival, and the fear that he would " spoil " their hearers, as they heard that he had " spoiled all the honest men and women in England already," roused the Scottish ministers to strenuous opposition. According to Fox, they drew up a number of curses, which were to be read aloud in all the churches, and to which the people were to thunder out their " Amens," after the manner of the Israelites on Mount Ebal. The first was, " Cursed is he that saith ' Every man hath a light within him sufficient to lead him into salvation ' ; and let all the people say Amen." The second, " Cursed is he that saith ' Faith is without sin' [no doubt an allusion to Fox's teaching about perfection] ; and let all the people say Amen." The third, " Cursed is he that denieth the Sabbath day ; and let all the people say Amen." Fox dryly remarks on the last sentence, " In this last they make the people curse themselves : for on the Sabbath day (which is the seventh day of the week, which the Jews kept by the command of God to them) they kept markets and fairs, and so brought the curse upon their own heads." 154 GEORGE FOX After visiting several other places in the south of Scotland, Fox came to Edinburgh and preached there. Many officers of the army, which was stationed at Leith, came with their wives to hear him, and were convinced by his words. A cry for protection against the new doctrines, and especially against the announce- ment that the Gospel ought to be preached without charge, went up to the Protector's Council in London from the clergy in Edinburgh. The result was an order that he should appear before "his Highness's Council in Edinburgh." He obeyed the summons; the door- keeper took off his hat, and hung it up, and he went in and stood before the Council. " When I had stood awhile," he says, "and they had said nothing to me, I was moved of the Lord to say, ' Peace be amongst you ; wait in the fear of God, that ye may receive His wisdom from above, by which all things were made and created; that by it ye may all be ordered, and may order all things under your hands to God's glory.' " The Council questioned him as to the reason of his visit to Scotland, and he answered, " that he had come to visit the seed of God which had long lain under corruption, and that all in that nation that professed the Scriptures might come to the light. Spirit, and power that they were in who gave them forth." The result of the interview was an order that Fox should " depart the nation of Scotland by that day sen-night," Evidently the Protector's Council, while checking the persecuting tendencies of the Presbyterian clergy, were anxious not to have the precarious peace of Scotland disturbed by the preaching of English " sectaries." Fox, however, stayed on in Scotland, and told his frieuds that he should stay, though the Council issued IN WALES AND SCOTLAND 165 a cart-load of warrants against him. He left Edinburgh, however, and travelled up and down through the Low- lands, having some strange adventures — with robbers lurkino- behind bushes, whom his bold address daunted — w^ith Highlanders " who were so devilish that they ran at us with pitchforks, and had like to have spoiled us and our horses " — with some Baptists, " vain janglers and disputers," who being vanquished in argument went and informed the governor of the town. He sent a whole company of soldiers to march Fox and his three companions out of the place. "As they guarded us out of the town, James Lancaster [one of the three] was moved to sing with a melodious sound in the power of God; and I was moved to proclaim the day of the Lord, and to preach the everlasting gospel to the people. For they generally came forth, so that the streets were filled with them ; and the soldiers were so ashamed that they said, ' they would rather have gone to Jamaica than have guarded us so.' But we were put into a boat with our horses, carried over the water, and then left. The Baptists who were the cause of our being put out of this town were themselves not long after turned out of the army ; and he that was then governor was discarded also when the King came in." Lastly, before leaving Scotland, Fox determined to return to Edinburgh, where he knew that there were warrants out for his apprehension. He and his friend Robert Widders, passing two sentries, rode up the street to the market-place, by the main guard, out at the gate, by the third sentry, and so clear out at the suburbs. "Now I saw and felt," he says, "that we had rode as it were against the cannon's mouth or the 156 GEORGE FOX sword's point; but the Lord's power and immediate hand carried us over the heads of them all." The next day being Sunday, he re-entered the city and had " a glorious meeting at which many officers and soldiers were present." Thence to Dunbar (still trembling at the recollection of another Englishman, who seven years before had refused to depart from the nation of Scotland when summoned to do so by the Committee of Estates), and here Fox had a meeting in the churchyard, while the minister was giving an orthodox " lecture " in the church. " Friends were so full, and their voices so high in the power of God, that the priest could do little in the steeple-house, but came quickly out again, stood awhile, and then went his way." "This," Fox says, "was the last meeting I had in Scotland. The truth and the power of God was set over that nation .... There is since a great increase, and great there will be in Scotland. For when first I set my horse's feet upon Scottish ground, I felt the seed of God to sparkle about me like innumerable sparks of fire. Not but that there is abundance of thick, cloddy earth of hypocrisy and falseness above, and a briery, brambly nature which is to be burned up with God's Word, and ploughed up with His spiritual plough, before God's seed brings forth heavenly and spiritual fruit to His glory. But the husbandman is to wait in patience." ^ ^ The reader may be interested in comparing these words of Fox with the opinions of Cromwell and an unnamed officer of his army on the moral condition of Scotland, as given in Carlyle's Cromwell, Letter cxLix., and Gardiner's History of the Common- wealth, i, 379. CHAPTER XI THE END OF THE PROTECTORATE The three years following Fox's return from Scotlantt (1657-1659) were years of strange, exciting, and per- plexing events in the political world, of which we get litful glances in the pages of his Journal. He himself, except for an interval of some weeks, during which he was laid by with sickness at Reading, was engaged in his usual work, travelling up and down the country, holding religious discussions, addressing meetings of his followers, and putting forth "papers" on various subjects on which he was moved to exhort his fellow- countrymen. (1) Of the discussions, one of the most interesting was that which he held with a Jesuit who was in the train of the Spanish Ambassador. The discussion, which was the result of a challenge from the Jesuit took place in the town mansion of the Earl of New^port, not far from St. Martin's Lane. The challenger at first proposed to meet twelve of the wisest and most learned men among the Quakers ; then he came down to six ; then he sent word that there must be but three, on which, as Fox slyly says, " We hastened what we could, lest, after all his great boast, he should put it quite off at last." There were some of the usual arguments 157 158 ^ GEORGE FOX about transubstantiation, materialist replies to a materialist theory. " Seeing the bread is immortal aud divine ... let a meeting be appointed between some of them (whom the Pope and his cardinals should appoint) and some of us ; and let a bottle of wine and a loaf of bread be brought and divided, each into two parts, and let them consecrate which of these parts they would. And then set the consecrated and the unconsecrated bread and wine in a safe place, with a sure watch upon it, and let trial thus be made : whether the consecrated bread and wine would not lose its goodness, and the bread grow dry and mouldy, and the wine turn dead and sour, as well and as soon as that which was unconsecrated." A more interesting part of the discussion was that which turned on the relative authority of the Scriptures and tradition. It might have been thought that Fox, who had so often argued against the undue exaltation of the Scriptures as the sole guide of life, would here have been at a disadvantage, but he defended the Protestant position not unsuccessfully. The Jesuit distinguished between " the written word," or the Scriptures, and " the unwritten word, those things that the apostles spake by word of mouth, and which are those traditions that we practise." " Scripture proof of this ? " asked Fox. " Read II. Thessalonians ii, 5," said the Jesuit, " When I was with you I told you these things." " That is," said he [in effect, doubtless, not in so many words], " I told you of nunneries and monasteries, and of putting to death for religion, and of praying by beads and to images, and all the rest of the practices of the Church of Rome, which was the unwritten word of the apostles, which THE END OF THE PROTECTORATE 159 they told them, and have since been continued down by tradition unto these times." Fox had not much difficulty in disposing of such an argument as this. He desired his opponent to read that Scripture again, and see how the apostle there alluded not to any such portentous deposit of doctrine outside of the written word, " but to the coming of the Man of Sin, the son of perdition." Fox did not himself press home, as a Puritan divine would have done, the identification of the Man of Sin with the Pope, but undoubtedly the Jesuit understood the significant allusion. Of course neither party in the slightest degree convinced the other, but Fox's comment on the whole is, " Thus we parted, and his subtilty was comprehended by sim- plicity." (2) The most important of the meetings to which I have referred, was one held at Luton ^ in Bedfordshire, and was a gathering of the members of the new sect from all parts of the country. This was called a " General Yearly Meeting," and was either the first or one of the first of a series of Quaker Parliaments, which have since been held without interruption for nearly two centuries and a half.- " The meeting lasted three ^ " At John Crook's house," which we learn from a previous entry in the Journal (I. 225) was at Luton. 2 From a very early date in the history of the Society these annual synods have been held in London, first at Gracechurch St., and of later times at a large meeting-house in Bishopsgate, called Devonshire House. There is one assembly of men, and another of women (the latter of more recent institution than the former), and the numbers vary from two or three hundred to something like two thousand. There is a system of representation, but others besides the regularly appointed representatives are allowed to take ])art in the proceedings. The presiding officer is called the Clerk, and is elected annually, but generally holds office for some years. No expressions of applause or disapproba- 160 GEORGE FOX days, and many Friends from most parts of the nation came to it, so that the inns and towns around were filled. And although," Fox continues, " there was some disturbance by rude people that had run out from truth, yet the Lord's power came over all, and a glorious meeting it was." Fox delivered two long and impressive, though not argumentative sermons, one of which seems to have been intended for those among the hearers who were yet unconvinced of his principles, while the other was addressed to his professed followers, and contained many valuable hints as to the regulation of the ministry (all, of course, voluntary and unpaid), which was beginning to be exercised abundantly in all the meetings of the new Society. " Take heed of many words." "That which cometh from the [Divine] life, and is received from God, reaches to the life, and settles others in the life, for the work is not now as it was at first ; the work now is to settle and stay in the life." " The ministers who travel must for their own particular growth dwell in the life, which doth open, and that will keep down that which would boast." " The minister should first know his own spirit, and then he may know others." " Keep down, keep low, that nothing may reign in you but life itself." "Friends must have patience [with disputers], must wait in patience in the cool life, and he who is in this hath the tasting of the Lamb's power and authority." " There- fore all Friends keep cool and quiet in the power of tion are allowed, and there is no voting, strictly so called. Speakers deliver short statements of their opinions on one side or another, and the Clerk, in deciding on the sense of the meeting, is allowed, and indeed expected to pay some regard to the maxim, "Sen- tentiae ponderantur non nuraerantur." Practically one hardly ever hears of these decisions being called in question. THE END OF THE PROTECTORATE 161 the Lord God, and all that is contrary will be subjected ; the Lamb hath the victory through the [Heavenly] Seed, through the patience [of the saints]." With many such words of cheer and counsel Fox addressed the first Quaker Convocation. (3) Of the " papers" published by Fox at this time, one of the most interesting is that addressed to the wreckers in Cornwall. Like almost all that proceeded from his pen, it has no graces of style, but it is full of that zeal for righteousness, for righteous doing as distinct from pious talking, which is characteristic of all George Fox's utterances, and which certainly had something to do with the opposition which he encountered. Fox's own account of the practices against which he protested is as follows : — " While I was in Cornwall " [this was on his second visit to the county, in 1659] "there were great shipwrecks about the Land's End. Now it was the custom of that country, that at such a time both rich and poor went out to get as much of the wreck as they could, not caring to save the people's lives ; and in some places they call shipwrecks ' God's grace.' ^ These things troubled me : it grieved my spirit to hear of such unchristian actions, considering how far they were below the heathen at Melita, who received Paul, made him a fire, and were courteous towards him, and them that had suffered shipwreck with him. Wherefore I was moved to write a paper and send it to all the parishes, priests, and magistrates, to reprove them for such greedy actions, and to warn and exhort them that, if they would assist to save people's 1 The fouler charge against the Cornishmen, that they actually- caused sliipwrecks by displaying false lights on the sliore, and so forth, is not noticed by Fox, and may probably be set down as a myth of later times. M 162 GEORGE FOX lives, and preserve their ships and goods, they should use diHoence therein ; and consider if it had been their own condition, they would judge it hard if they should be upon a wreck, and people should strive to get what they could from them and not regard their lives." One feels that there is in these words the germ of those noble institutions the Life-boat and the Life-saving Brigade, which are among the best contributions that the nineteenth century has made to the practical exposition of Christianity. At the close of the paper is a postscript addressed more especially to Friends, exhorting them to "keep out of the ravenous world's spirit which leads to destroy, and which is out of the wisdom of God. When ships are wrecked, do not run to destroy and make havoc of ship and goods with the world, but to save the men and the goods for them, and so deny yourselves and do unto them as ye would that they should do unto you." While Fox was thus moving up and down the country, and working according to his light for the extension of the Kingdom of Heaven, the Common- wealth, which, as the Puritan hoped, was to have been the earthly realization of that heavenly state, was falling asunder into ruin, and another kingdom of a very diflferent kind was being set up once more in England. I will collect here the notices, few but interesting, which we find in Fox's Journal of the events which led up to the Restoration. Proposed Kingship of Cromwell. " There was also a rumour about this time" (April — May 1657) "of making Cromwell king : whereupon I was moved to THE END OF THE PROTECTORATE 1H3 go to him, and warned him against it and of divers dangers, which if he did not avoid he would brines a shame and ruin upon himself and his posterity. He seemed to take well what I said to him, and thanked me : yet afterwards I was moved to write to him more fully concerning that matter." Sickness of Lady Claypolc. The story of Oliver's love for this, his favourite daughter, and of his grief for her death, which happened so shortly before his own, is well known. Elizabeth Claypole was his sixth child, and was born in 1629. She was tlierefore five years younger than Fox. She was married when about seventeen to John Claypole, a Northamptonshire gentleman, Avhom his father-in-law made first a baronet and then a lord, whence his wife's title of Lady Claypolc. For many months apparently, in 1658, she lay sick, stricken by a lingering and fatal malady. Fox says — " About this time the Lady Claypole, so called, was sick and much troubled in mind, and could receive no comfort from any that came to her : which when I heard of I was moved to write to her the followino- letter." The letter, which is shorter than many of its kind, as befitted the delicate state of the receiver, is loving and tender, but contains no very strikino- thoughts. Apparently the strident voice of the enthu- siastic preacher is softened, till the speaker himself can hardly recognize it, by the silence of the sick-room. He exhorts the dying lady to be still and cool in her own mind and spirit from her own thoughts, desires, and imaginations, and to be staid in the principle of God within her, that it may raise her mind up to God, whom she will find to be a God at hand, and a very present help in time of trouble. The letter ends, " So 164 GEORGE FOX in the name and power of the Lord Jesus Christ, God Almighty strengthen thee. G. F." "When the foregoing paper," he continues, "was read to Lady Claypole, she said it stayed her mind for the present. Afterwards many Friends got copies of it, both in England and Ireland, and read it to people that were troubled in mind, and it was made useful for the settling of the minds of several." Cromwell's last days. The death of Lady Claypole happened on August 6. A fortnight later ^ Fox, after describing a short detention which he and two of his companions suffered at the hands of two of Colonel Hacker's troopers, and their speedy liberation, continues : — " The same day, taking boat, I went to Kingston, and thence to Hampton Court to speak with the Protector about the sutterings of Friends. I met him riding into Hampton Court Park, and before I came to him, as he rode at the head of his life-guard, I saw and felt a waft of death go forth against him ; and when I came to him, he looked like a dead man. After I had laid the sufferings of Friends before him, and had warned him according as I was moved to speak to him, he bade me come to his house. So I returned to Kingston, and next day went to Hampton Court to speak further with him. But when I came he was sick, and Harvey, who was one that waited on him [groom of the bedchamber], told me the doctors were not willing that I should speak with him. So I passed 1 Friday the twentieth of August 1658 is the date assigned by Carlyle to this interview. He says justly enough, " George dates nothing, and his facts everywhere lie round him like the leather parings of his old shop, but we judge it may have been " the day mentioned above. THE END OF THE PROTECTORATE 165 away and never saw him more." It was a fortnight after this interview, on the well-known date, the 3rd of September, the anniversary of Dunbar and Worcester, that the spirit of that noble and much calumniated Enorjishman went forth from the world. Anarchy after Cromwell's death. That ineffectual cipher of a sovereign, Richard Cromwell, makes as little impression on the pages of Fox's Journal as elsewhere in history. Fox himself, as I have said, was laid up for several weeks with sore sickness at Reading. His countenance was altered ; he looked poor and thin, and was tempted to think that the plagues of God were upon him. Soon, however, he recovered his health and vigorous appearance, and returned to London, where, as he says — " Now there was a great pudder (agitation) made about the image or effigy of Oliver Cromwell lying in state : men standing and sounding with trumpets over his image after he was dead. At this my spirit was greatly grieved, and the Lord I feared was highly offended." ^ He wrote a short paper of protest against this pageant, and told the authorities that " the sober people in these nations stood amazed at their doings, and were ashamed, as if they would bring in Popery." As he truly says, at this time " there was great con- fusion and distraction amongst the people, and powers were plucking each other to pieces." He addressed an earnest warning to his followers to "keep out of all the bustlings in the world, to meddle not with the ^ Cromwell's effigy, robed iu purple, was taken to Westrainster Abbey on the twenty-third of November, seventy-four days after his death. His embalmed body had been buried tliere a short time before. Fox's return to London must therefore have taken place not later than the close of November. 166 GEORGE f OX powers of the earth, but mind the Kingdom, the way of peace." I have already^ quoted the passage in which Fox describes the agitation consequent on Sir George Booth's premature Royalist outbreak (August 1659), and the exhortations which he then addressed to his followers warning them against taking part in such commotions. So, apart from all the " bustlings of the world," Fox moves about his appointed sphere of labour, visits Norwich, where he has a hot dispute with a clergyman named Townsend ; visits Cornwall, where, as we saw, he writes a paper against the wreckers; visits Tewkesbury and Worcester, and groans over the excesses which accompanied the General Election (April 1660). "In all my time," he says, "I never saw the like drunkenness as in the towns, for they had been choosing Parliament-men. At Worcester, the Lord's truth was set over all, people were finely settled therein, and Friends praised the Lord ; nay I saw the very earth rejoiced. Yet great fears and troubles were in many people, and a looking for the King's coming in, and all things being altered. They would ask me what I thought of times and things. I told them the Lord's power was over all, and His light shone over all ; that fear would take hold only on the hypocrites, such as had not been faithful to God, and on our persecutors." About General Monh, the adroit actor in the trans- formation-scene from Republic to Monarchy, Fox had written these words, describing the impression produced upon him by the General during his own visit to Scotland (1657) — " And I saw General Monk that he was as a man that bowed under O. P., and had a covering over 1 p. 44. THE END UE THE PKOTECTORATE 167 him ; and take away that covering and then he was the man as he was before [Royalist], as he did fulfil it in a few years after," ^ After all, the great event of May 29, 1660, the cele- brated Oak Apple Day, when Charles II. recovered the throne of his forefathers, passes absolutely unnoticed in Fox's Journcd. It is only at the time of his next conflict with the authorities, which happened at Lan- caster, that we find he is accused, in the mittimus which commits him to prison, of being "a disturber of the peace of the nation, and an enemy to the King," and then we know that the Restoration is accomplished and that " the King enjoys his own again," Posthumous insults to the Protectm\ Not the worst, but one of the most contemptible actions of the triumphant Royalism was the ghoul-like vengeance wreaked on the bodies of the dead hero and his companions. On Janu- ary 30,1661 (the twelfth anniversary of King Charles's execution), the bodies of Cromwell, Ireton, and Brad- shaw, which had been dug up out of their graves at Westminster, were drawn in sledges to Tyburn, hung there till sunset, and were then beheaded. The " loath- some trunks," says the Royalist scribe, " were thrown into a deep hole under the gallows, and the three heads were set up by the hangman on poles on the top of Westminster Hall," The ghastly sight awoke strange memories in the mind of Fox, who in connection therewith gives us a singular story (unknown, I be- lieve, to any other author), of Oliver's vows on the eve of the battle of Dunbar. 1 This passage, which is in the MS. Journal, was omitted in the printed copies. Probably Ellwood thought it inexpedient to publish it. 168 GEORGE FOX "Though 0. C. at Dunbar fight had promised to the Lord, that if He gave him the victory over his enemies he would take away tithes, etc., or else let him be rolled into his grave with infamy; but when the Lord had given him victory, and he came to be chief, he confirmed the former laws, that if people did not set forth their tithe they should pay treble, and this to be executed by two Justices of Peace in the country, upon the oath of two witnesses. But when the King came in they took him up and hanged him, and buried him under Tyburn, where he was rolled into his grave with infamy. And when I saw him hanging, then I saw his word justly come upon him." 1 On a review of all the notices of Cromwell's actions contained in the Journal, one feels that Fox hardly did justice to his character, and especially to his genuine desire for toleration all round, except to the Roman Catholics. Fox seems to have thought that the Pro- tector had only to say the word, and all the doors of the prisons wherein Friends were confined would fly open. But, autocrat as Cromwell was, he ruled only by the favour of the army and the Independent party, 1 This interesting passage is to be fonnd in the MS. Journal, a little after the account of Fox's release from Lancaster Gaol, but is omitted from all the printed editions. Probably Ellwood and his co-editors thought that it bore too hardly on Cromwell's memory. It comes in just before the sentence, " And there being about seven hundred Friends in prison." Vol. I. p. 490 (ed. 1892). The expression about " being rolled into the grave with infamy " occurs in the celebrated speech addressed to Oliver's first Parlia- ment, September 12, 1654. Fox was probably mistaken in connegling it in any way with the abolition of tithes. The alternative in Cromwell's speech was " the wilful throwing away of this Government so owned of God"; in other words, his abdi- cation of the Protectorate. THE END OF THE PROTECTORATE 169 and though these were in the main disposed to toler- ation, there was always in their eyes a fringe of eccen- tric and heterodox sects outside the circle of respectable Christianity, wliich it was not wise or safe to tolerate. Did the Quakers belong to this zone of intolerable sectaries or no? Cromwell himself, and the more enlightened of his counsellors, probably thought that they did not, but there was many an enthusiastic trooper in his army who thought that they did, and who would have held that great occasion was given to the enemy to blaspheme by announcing that no Quaker was to be molested for preaching the Inward Light, or refusing the oath of fidelity to the Commonwealth. All this limited Cromwell's power to assist a body of men whom he probably thought hot-headed and quarrel- some, but whom he perceived to have a grasp of some spiritual truths, the promulgation of which could not but be of benefit to the nation. Fox, however, who saw the persecution, did not perceive the restraining hand held over it by the Protector. " Wliat's done we partly may complete, We know not what's resisted." CHAPTER XII THE STUARTS AND THE QUAKERS IMPRISONMENTS AT LANCASTER AND SCARBRO' The reign of the Saints was over, and the reign of the Sinners had begun. No more would be heard the psalm chanted by thousands of manly voices on the eve of desperate battle. Such old-world sounds as these were to be replaced by the rattle of the dice-box and the light laugh of the courtesan, for " our most religious and gracious king," Charles Stuart the younger, had set up his harem in Whitehall, where lately Cromwell had dictated his letters to Milton, and his commands to Europe. Before returning to claim his father's throne, Charles II. had published the celebrated " Declaration " from Breda, in which he promised to grant " liberty of conscience, so that no man should be disquieted or called in question for differences of opinion in matters of religion which did not concern the peace of the kingdom, and to consent to such Acts of Parliament as should be offered him for confirming that indulgence." How Charles kept this promise all the world knows. Except when Mary was kindling the fires of Smithfield, or when Elizabeth was waging her most ruthless war against the adherents of the old faith, there is perhaps 170 THE STUARTS AND THE QUAKERS 171 no period of English history in which the rights of conscience were more atrociously invaded, or men and women more tyrannically "called in question for differences of opinion in matters of religion which did not concern the peace of the kingdom," than during the reign of Charles II. Three laws which disgraced the English statute book in this reign stand out in bad pre-eminence as the most conspicuous violations of the virtual compact between the returning King and his subjects. 1. The Act of Uniformity (May 19, 16G2), by which all clergymen were compelled to declare their unfeigned assent and consent to all and everything contained in the Book of Common Prayer, on pain of forfeiting all their " spiritual promotions." In obedience to this Act, as every one knows, about two thousand Puritan ministers were ejected from their parsonages on St. Bartholomew's Day (August 24, 1662), and had to begin the world anew, without even the slender provision of one-fifth of their late incomes which had been left to the Anglican clergy by the Long Parliament when they were ejected for refusing to take the Covenant. 2. The Conventicle Act (May 17, 1664), which is thus described in the words of its promoters — " The first offence of being in a Conventicle or meeting of more than five persons in addition to members of a family for any religious purpose not in conformity with the Church of England, we have made punishable only with a small fine of £5, or three months' imprisonment, and £10 for a peer. The second oftence with £10, or six months' imprisonment, and £20 for a peer. But for the third offence — the party convicted shall be trans- ported [for seven years] to some of youi Majesty's 172 GEORGE FOX foreign plantatious, unless he redeem himself by laying down £100." 3. The Five Mile Act (October 31, 1665) is perhaps the meanest and most spiteful of all the persecuting edicts that ever received the sanction of an EngHsh sovereign. As the ministers ejected on St. Bartholo- mew's Day still continued to earn a subsistence, however scanty, by turning school-master in their old aoe, it was enacted that no Nonconformist ex-minister or teacher, of what denomination soever, who had not taken the oath of passive obedience, should, " unless only in passing upon the road," come within five miles of any city or town corporate, or borough sending members to Parliament, or within the same distance of any parish or place where he had formerly preached or taught, under a penalty of £40 for every offence. And what was this oath of passive obedience ? Not only to the effect that it is not lawful upon any pretence whatever to take arms ao-ainst the King, but that the swearer would not at any time endeavour any alteration of government in Church or State. Almost all the Nonconformist ministers felt that they could not conscientiously make any such promise. Of these three miserable Acts, the first and the last, as they affected primarily the beneficed clergymen of the Puritan party, did not greatly concern the Quakers.^ ^ In fact, George Fox's reflections on the religious revolution of St. Bartholomew's Day are almost like Isaiah's song of triumph over Babylon. " There was a secret hand in bringing this day [the Restoration] upon that hypocritical generation of professors, who being got into power, grew proud and haughty and cruel beyond others, and persecuted the people of God without pity. (I. 501.) I was moved to write to them [the fallen Puritans, who said ' it was all on account of us ' ]. Did we ever resist them 1 Did we not give them our backs to beat, and our cheeks to pull off the hair, and our faces to spit on 1 Had not their priests that prompted them on to such work, pulled them with themselves THE STUARTS AND THE QUAKEHS 173 The second (the Conventicle Act) was the chief battle- ground on which the State came forth to fight them, and on which they eventually beat the State. Some of the other Nonconformists endeavoured by a harmless artifice to evade this cruel law. When they came to their meetings they would have "candles and tobacco- pipes, flagons of drink, cold meat and bread and cheese upon the table," and so when the officers of justice entered the room, it would be no religious conventicle, but a social party of jovial Englishmen that was going forward.^ But the Quaker would stoop to no such artifice. And his worship, from its very simplicity and into the ditch ? Why then would they say ' It was all on account of us,' when it was owing to themselves and their priests, their blind prophets, that followed their own spirits, and could foresee nothing of these times and things that were coming upon them, which we had long forewarned tliem of, as Jeremiah and Christ had forewarned Jerusalem ? They had thought to weary us out and undo us, but they undid themselves." (I. 502.) "Many warn- ings of many sorts were Friends moved .... to give to that generation, which they not only rejected, but abused Friends, ciilling us giddy-headed Quakers ; but God brought His judg- ments upon those persecuting priests and magistrates. For when the King came in, most of them were turned out of their places and benefices [St. Bartholomew's Day], and the spoilers were spoiled, and then we could ask them, 'Who were the giddy heads now ? ' Then many confessed we had been true prophets to the nation, and said, ' Had we cried against some priests only, they should have liked us then, but crying against all made them dislike us.' JBut now they .saw those priests which were then looked upon to be the best were as bad as the rest. For indeed some of those that were counted the most eminent were the bitterest, and the g^eate^^t stirrers up of the magistrates to perse- cution ; and it was a judgment upon them to be denied the free liberty of their consciences when the King came in, because when they were uppermost, they would not luxve liberty of conscience granted to others." (I. 504.) ^ See the description of these Presbyterian oijapne in Fox's Journal, II. 86. 174 GEORGE FOX apparent baldness, was peculiarly hard to extirpate. There was no chalice, or Geneva gown, or hour-glass, or Bible, the removal of which would spoil the service. Professor Masson has well described the perplexity of the persecutors when brought face to face with " a Quaker's meeting, where men and women were wor- shipping with their hearts, and without implements, in silence as well as by speech. You may break in upon them, hoot at them, roar at them, drag them about; the meeting, if it is of any size, essentially still goes on till all the component individuals are murdered. Throw them out at the door in twos and threes, and they but re-enter at the window, and quietly resume their places. Pull their meeting-house down, and they re-assemble next day most punctually amid the broken walls and rafters. Shovel sand or earth down upon them, and there they still sit, a sight to see, musing immovably among the rubbish. This is no description from fancy. It was the actual practice of the Quakers all over the country. They held their meetings regularly, persever- ingly, and without the least concealment, keeping the doors of their meeting-houses purposely open, that all might enter, informers, constables, or soldiers, and do whatever they chose. In fact, the Quakers behaved magnificently. By their peculiar method of open viola- tion of the law, and passive resistance only, they rendered a service to the common cause of all the Nonconformist sects, which has never been sufficiently acknowledged. The authorities had begun to fear them as a kind of supernatural folk, and knew not what to do with them but cram them into gaols, and let them lie there. In fact the gaols in these days were less places of punish- ment for criminals, than receptacles for a great proper- THE STUARTS AND THE QUAKERS 175 tion of what was bravest and most excellent in the manhood and womanhood of England."^ In addition to these three Acts, which were aimed at all who dissented from the worship of the Church of England, one was passed (May 2, 1662) which was specially directed against the Quakers, By this Act, Avhich became law two years before the general Conven- ticle Act, it was provided that all Quakers, or other persons refusing to take an oath required by law, or maintaining the unlawfulness of oaths; and particularly all Quakers meeting for worship to the number of five or more, should be fined £5 for the first offence, and £10 for the second, with an alternative of three or six months' hard labour, and for the third offence should be banished to the Plantations. And yet, notwithstanding all this oppression and tyranny, notwithstanding these scandalous violations of the promises which Charles II. had made at Breda, the hearts of his Quaker subjects still clung strangely to the restored King. This was partly because they believed, and rightly believed, that his own heart was not in the work of persecution. But beside this, there was the personal charm of the King's manner, the fascination which, good-for-nothing fellow that he was, he managed to throw over all who came in contact with him. Fox seems to have felt this charm, and to have been to some extent blinded by it. It is im- possible to read the Journal without feeling that Charles II. receives much more favourable measure from the writer than Oliver Cromwell ; and it is with a feeling of something like amusement that we find ^ Massou's jLt/e o/ Ju\iM Milton aitd Hisioi-y of his Tirtie, vi. 387-8. 176 GEOKGE FOX George Fox writing to the King on his accession, not only to exhort him to exercise mercy and forgiveness towards his enemies (an admirable piece of advice), but also "to warn him to restrain the profaneness and looseness that had got up in the nation on his return." Charles II. restraining any exhibition of profaneness and looseness would indeed have been an instance of " the devil rebuking sin." But on a review of the whole position of the Quakers at the time of the Restoration, and observing the persistent bitterness of their tone towards the promi- nent members of the old Calvinistic, Puritan party, one is brought to the conclusion that it required only a very little gentleness and reasonable consideration for their scruples, to have made of the new Society a real bulwark of the Stuart throne. They would have been not Royalists only, but (like William Penn) Jacobites also, if they had had any chance of developing their strong germs of loyal sentiment towards the throne. Members of the Church of England they could never have been, but they would have been the most amicable of dissenters from her communion, if they had not been harried with Conventicle Acts and penalties of Praemunire. Only the blind fury of the Cavalier squire and the Episcopalian parson turned these peaceable and loyal-hearted people into Hanoverian Whigs and " political dissenters." Of this most unnecessary and ill-advised persecution, from men in whom he might reasonably have hoped to find friends, Fox was to have an early experience. It was probably in the very same month of May (1660), in which Charles II. entered London in triumph, that Fox once more sought the shelter of hospitable Swarth- THE STUARTS AND THE QUAKERS 177 moor. The kiudly master of the house had died nearly two years previously,^ but his widow and her daughters were ready to give him whom they regarded as their spiritual father a loving welcome. Before he had been there many days, the chief constable and three petty constables tramped into the house with a warrant from Major Porter, Justice of the Peace and Mayor of Lancaster, for George Fox's apprehension. They marched him off to Ulverston, and deposited him for the night in the constable's house. There they sat, fifteen or sixteen rude, loud-talking men, keeping close watch upon their prisoner, and refusing to allow him any communication with his numerous friends in Ulvers- ton, some of whom w^ould gladly have brought him provisions for the night. So superstitious were these Lancasliire peasants that some of the guard went and sat in the chimney-corner to prevent Fox flying away up the chimney ! They bragged to one another about the capture they had effected, as if it had been an exploit of great bravery. "I did not think," said Constable Ashburnham, "that a thousand men could have taken this man prisoner." " Ah ! " said Constable Mount, a very wicked man, " I would have served Judge Fell himself so, if he had been alive, and I had had a warrant to take him." Evidently these braggart constables were the men who would stick oak-leaves in their hats and cry, "Down with the Roundheads and the Rump." Next morning at six. Fox, who was to be dragged off to a neighbouring justice, was putting on his boots and spurs, but the rough constables pulled off the spurs, picked his pocket of a knife, put him on another horse 1 Judge Fell died October 8, 1658. K 178 GEORGE FOX than his own, and set off, attended by many horsemen and a rabble of followers. About a quarter of a mile from Ulverston, some Friends with the Swarthmoor ladies in their company came forth to meet them. The stupid horsemen gathered round him in mad rage and fury, crying out, " Will they rescue him ? will they rescue him ? " Upon this Fox said, " Here is my hair ; here is my back ; here are my cheeks ; strike me ! " With these words their anger was a little assuaged. Then they brought a little horse, and clumsily lifting Fox, set him upon it behind the saddle, with nothing to hold on by, and led the horse by the halter. When they had got some distance out of the town, says Fox, " they beat the little horse, and made him kick and gallop; whereupon I slipped off him, and told them ' They should not abuse the creature.' They were much enraged at my getting off, and took me by the legs and feet and set me upon the same horse behind the saddle again, and so led it about two miles till they came to a great water. By this time my own horse was come to us, and the water being deep, and their little horse scarce able to carry me through, they let me get upon my own, through the persuasion of some of their own company, leading him through the water. One wicked fellow kneeled down, and lifting up his hands, blessed God that I was taken. When I was come over the sands, I told them I heard I had liberty to choose what justice I would go before ; but Mount and the other constables cried, ' No, I should not.' Then they led me to Lancaster, about fourteen miles, and a great triumph they thought to have had ; but as they led me I was moved to sing praises unto the Lord in His triumphing power over all." THE STUARTS AND THE QUAKERS 179 When Fox was come to Lancaster, the spirits of the people being, as he says, " mightily up," in other words much excited, he stood and looked earnestly upon them, and they cried, " Look at his eyes ! " This is one of many indications that there was something peculiarly piercing and even awful in the glance of Fox's eyes when he was in one of his high-wrought moods. To tell the story of Fox's examination before " Justice Porter" would be to repeat much of what has been already said as to previous examinations. Enough that he was committed to prison, and put in the " Dark House " in Lancaster Castle, a miserable dunseon evidently, but not so liorribly filthy as Doomsdale at Launceston. The head-gaoler seems to have been a reasonable man, but the under-gaoler was rude and cruel, and often would let him have no food but such as could be pushed in to him under the door. However, Fox's imprisonment this time was not so long as on some previous occasions, lasting as it did only twenty weeks, from June 3 to October 25, 1660; and these twenty weeks included a journey up to London to plead for himself in the Court of King's Bench. Two causes combined to produce this com- paratively early liberation — the courage of Margaret Fell, and the cowardice of "Justice Porter." The brave lady of Swarthmoor put forth a spirited protest " to all magistrates, concerning the wrongful taking up and imprisoning of George Fox at Lancaster." And not only so, but she went up to London in company with a Friend named Ann Curtis of Reading, whose father, when Sheriff of Bristol, had been hung before his own door for engaging in a Royalist conspiracy.^ * The person here alluded to was no doubt Robert Yeamans, 180 GEORGE FOX Such intercession as this the newly-returned King could not disregard, and he ordered the issue of a Avrit of habeas corpus, which resulted in George Fox's before- mentioned journey to London, and ap])earance before the Court of King's Bench, True, " Justice Porter " went also, with no little bounce and swagger, to London, declaring " that he would meet Mistress Fell in the gap." But when he got there he met some old Cavaliers whose houses he had plundered when he was a zealous Parliamentarian, and heard from them some disagreeable truths. Fox himself also wrote him a letter, in which he reminded him of stout words which he had used in old times against those that favoured the King, declaring that he would leave them neither dog nor cat if they did not bring him provision to Lancaster Castle. He asked him also, " Whoso great buck's horns those were that were in his house, and where he had both them and the wainscot from, that he ceiled his house withal ? Had he them not from Hornby Castle ? " These allusions were too painful to a man who was only too anxious to obey the Apostolic precept about " forgetting the things that were behind." He quickly had enough of the Court, and returned into the country. It was during this interval of Fox's detention in London that he witnessed the disgusting sight of the burning of the disentombed bodies of the dead regicides. The trial of the living regicides was still going forward, and when Fox was taken to the judge's chambers for an examination into his case. Sir Thomas Mallet, who Sheriflf of Bristol in 1641-2, who in 1643 was hung opposite to his house in Wine Street for conspiring to deliver up the city to Prince Rupert. THK STUARTS AND THE QUAKERS 181 was the judge chosen, was putting on his red gown iu order to go into court and sit on the trial of some of these men. He was " very peevish and froward " — perhaps, though a staunch Royalist, he did not hke the work on Avhich he was engaged — and told Fox he might come another time. Eventually the trial took place before (1) the Chief Justice Sir Robert Foster, a harsh, narrow, black-letter lawyer, who had taken an active part in the disgraceful trial of Sir Harry Vane ; (2) Judge Twisden, a learned lawyer and honest man, but extremely passionate ; and (3) the above-mentioned Judge Mallet. The trial was a pretty fair one, though Judge Twisden lost his temper, and tried to scold Fox, as a year later he scolded John Bunyan ; but Fox appealed, not unsuccessfully, to Foster and Mallet for protection. The critical point of the trial was the appearance of a Gentleman of the Bedchamber named Marsh, who signified to the judges the King's pleasure " that Fox should be set at liberty, seeing no accuser came up against him." By this time apparently Major Porter had returned crestfallen to his house at Lan- caster. Accordingly Sir Thomas Mallet drew up an order for the prisoner's release, and on October 25, 1660, Fox was once more a free man. Tlic foolish outbreak of Venner and the Fifth Monarchy men (January 6, 1661) seems to have been a particularly feeble and frantic aifair, one by which no strons: jrovernment need have been troubled for an hour; yet it was made, most unjustly, a pretext for practically revoking all the promises of toleration con- tained in the King's Declaration from Breda. Fox himself was in London on the memorable Sunday night when this mad rush of the Fifth Monarchy men 182 GEORGE FOX set all Loudon in an uproar. He heard tlie midnight cry, " Arm ! arm ! " and went with early morning through Whitehall to Pall Mall, where there was a meeting of Friends, and near which he had, it seems, a temporary lodging. He stayed here several days, often molested by the soldiers, who were bursting roughly into the houses of the citizens searching for arms. Probably he would have been again committed to prison, or cut down by the sword of some hot-headed trooper, had not the friendly courtier, whom he calls "Esquire ]\Iarsh," actually come and taken up his quarters in Fox's lodging in order to protect him, and obtained his liberation when the soldiers took him into temporary arrest. Though Fox was earnest in his appeals to Friends not to get mixed up in the movements of the Fifth Monarchy fanatics, and addressed paper after paper to the Government to assure it of the absolute peace- ableness of his followers, this outbreak was made the pretext for a raid of exceptional severity upon the Quakers. One such paper, addressed to the King, probably early in 1662, gives us some much-desired statistics as to the extent of the persecution. The results are these. " Under the changeable powers before thee " (as Fox styles the Commonwealth and the Protectorate), 3173 Friends had been arrested and imprisoned. Of these 32 had died in prison, 73 were still in confinement under process issued in the name of the Commonwealth, the rest had been liberated before or at the Restoration. But that was the account of a persecution spreading over something like ten years (1650 — 1660). Now in the space of less than two years from King Charles's accession there had THE STUARTS AND THE QUAKERS 183 been imprisoned in his name, and by those who thought to ingratiate themselves with him, 3068 persons. " Besides this, our meetings are daily broken up by men with clubs and arms, though we meet peaceably according to the practice of" God's people in the primitive times, and our friends are thrown into waters and trod upon, till the very blood gushes out of them, the number of which abuses can hardly be uttered." The appeal to Charles II. was not altogether in vain. Though his was certainly not one of the "tender con- sciences" about which so much was said, he probably felt both the shame and the impolicy of flagrantly violating the compact made at Breda. Moreover, being himself a Roman Catholic at heart, he was conscious of a certain languid desire to obtain for his oppressed brother Romanists that little measure of toleration which, as he knew, could only be obtained by jumbling up their case with that of the Protestant Noncon- formists. Accordingly, on December 26, 1662, he put forth a Declaration, in which, reminding himself of his promises from Breda, he " renewed to his subjects con- cerned in those promises of indulgence, the assurance that he would make it his especial care, without invading the freedom of Parliament, to incline their wisdom to join with him in making some Act for the relief of those, who living peaceably did not conform to the Church of England, through scruple or tender- ness of misguided conscience." Unfortunately the religious rancour of the Cavalier Parliament, whose members in the abused name of the Christian religion were indulging all those passions of hatred and revenge which Christ came to banish from the earth, would not 184 GEORGE FOX allow the King to frame any effectual Toleration Act, but it Avas something that the weight of his name should thus be thrown on the side of mercy. It is probably not a mere coincidence that Fox's imprison- ment (the sixth of the series), which took place at Leicester this year, was of exceptionally short duration. It was severe enough while it lasted, for the gaoler was " a very wicked, cruel man," but some little mitigation was obtained by appealing to the avarice of his wife, who though lame, and almost confined to her chair, was undoubted master, and " would beat her husband with her crutch " when he came within her read), if he did not do as she would have him. However, when the case came on for trial, it was clearly proved that no offence even against the Conventicle Act had at the time specified in the indictment been committed by Fox and his friends, and they were liberated without the usual device of requiring them to take the oaths of allegiance and supremacy. But the days of fairness and moderation were soon over, Charles was too indolent, or too much hampered by his own extravagance, to make any sustained effort on behalf of toleration. George Fox's next imprison- ment was the longest, though not perhaps the most cruel of any, and lasted for nearly three years, from the beginning of 1664 to near the end of 1666. The chief actors in this persecution were no doubtful Royalists (such as Justice Porter), but two staunch Westmoreland Cavaliers, Colonel Kirkby of Kirkby Hall, and his cousin Daniel Fleming (afterwards Sir Daniel Fleming) of Rydal Hall. In this instance we have the opportunity, so rarely granted us, of hearing both sides of the question, of THE STUARTS AND THE QUAKERS 185 knowing what both persecutors and persecuted thought of one another. This opportunity is afforded us by the publication of an unusually rich collection of manu- scripts belonging to the Fleming family.^ Here we see Daniel Fleming of Rydal, one of a numerous band of cousins, Curwens, Lawsons, and so on, to which Colonel Kirkby also belongs. All these Cumberland and Westmoreland squires are jubilant over the King's return, but they rejoice with trembling. They are perpetually hearing of plots and rebellions ; Colonel Lambert is said to have escaped from prison, and to be marching from Scotland with 30,000 men; the "fanatics," as they call all the Puritan Nonconformists, are astir ; till the fanatics are suppressed there will be no peaceable enjoyment of their estates by the West- moreland lakes for squires loyal to Church and King. And with these alarms, as we can now see, the name of the Quaker sect was honestly, but most ignorantly connected. Thus, if these rural magistrates were, as they certainly seem to have been, both cruel and un- just in their magisterial proceedings against the Friends, their conduct is to be accounted for not merely by religious bigotry and arrogant Episcopalian scorn of Puritan sectaries, but also by that fruitful parent of cruelty, fear. Among these persecuting squires we find with regret Daniel Fleming of Rydal taking the lead. That name, Rydal, brings to our minds Wordsworthian calm and repose, and a remembrance of the soothing ministra- tions of Nature. Yet from Rydal Hall, in the years immediately following the Restoration, went forth ^ Historical Manuscripts Commission : Twelfth Report. Ap- pendix, Part vii. 186 GEORGE FOX many a warrant that broke up the happiness of an honest dalesman's home, sending the father or the mother of the family to endure the foulness of a pesti- lential prison, for no crime but that of worshipping God according to their conscience. " Oh, fye, Justice Fleming," was the remonstrance of William Wilson of Stangend, " that ever this report should be sounded in our ears, that within thy liberties such plundering should be amongst thy neighbours. We never had the like in our parish since the Scots was amongst us, nor never expected that our own justices should have made such work, as set men on robbing and spoiling true men's goods, who dare not spoil themselves, nor do any hurt to any man."^ George Fox also wrote to him, " Oh Justice Fleming, dost thou not hear the cry of the widows and the cry of the fatherless, who were made so through perse- cution ? . . . One more is dead whom thou sent to prison, having left five children, both fatherless and motherless. , . . Again, Justice Fleming, consider, when John Stubbs was before thee, having a wife and four small children, and little to live on but what they honestly got by their own diligence, as soon as he appeared thou criedst out, ' Put the oath to that man.' And when he confessed that he was but a poor man thou hadst no regard, but cast away pity, not hearing what he would say. . . . Consider also thy poor neigh- bour William Wilson' [the writer of the previous letter], ' who was known to all the parish and neighbours to be an industrious man, and careful to maintain his wife and children, yet had little but what he had got with his hands in diligence and travels to supply himself. 1 Fleming MSS. 580. THE STUARTS AND THE QUAKERS 187 How should his wife maintain her children, when thou hast cast her husband into prison, and thereby made him incapable of working for them ? " To all such appeals no doubt the Justice would have answered, that these poor people should have thought about wife and children before venturing to break the Act of 1662 against Quakers' meetings. It is true that the right to " obey God rather than men " was once claimed by some Galilean fishermen, but it was out- rageous that it should be asked for by the dalesmen of Westmoreland. What adds to our regret in having to leave the lord of Rydal pilloried as a tyrant and persecutor is, that he was evidently a man of some little culture, an antiquary in his way, a friend of Sir William Dugdale's, and a buyer of his books.^ But he had made up his mind that the " rabble of fanaticks " who met at Mrs. Fell's house must be suppressed. He looked upon the Quakers as " vermin," and when he and his brother squires were once in full cry after their prey, they showed more of the ardour of the huntsman than of the patient impar- tiality of the judge. Thus then it was that towards the end of 1663 the squirearchy of Cumberland and Westmoreland began to bestir themselves for the more effectual suppression of the Quaker teachers. In this work Fleming was the most active. In his report to Sir Henry Bennet,- the Secretary of State, be said, " it was necessary to spurr on the majestrates of Kendal to the good work of * It is amusing to find Daniel Fleming's two sisters Frances and Bridget writing to him (February 21, 1662) to thank him for making choice of them for his valentines, and to ask him for some account of " Don Qizxote and Sankca Pankca." Fleming MSS. 477.) - Afterwards Lord Arlington. 188 GEORGE FOX the prosecution of the Quakers." ^ At Quarter Sessions at Kendal he offered a reward of £5 to any one who would apprehend George Fox; and so great was his zeal, that his cousin and fellow-persecutor Kirkby said that there was not such a man as Justice Fleming in all those parts ; his whole time was taken up with the Quakers; he had holed the Fox and staid his Ham- brough Quaker from travelling.^ Yet outwardly Colonel Kirkby still preserved some appearance of civility to the Friends. On some rumour of warrants being issued for his apprehension Fox, as his manner was, determined to march into the lion's den, and started off for a five-miles walk to Kirkby Hall. He found the Hall full of the Flemings and others of the cousinry, who had come to take leave of the Colonel (as they might now take leave of one going to India) on the eve of his departure to take his seat in Parliament. For some time Fox sat in the parlour among the uncongenial squires, but they said little to him nor he much to them. When the Colonel entered. Fox said that, having heard of Kirkby's desire to arrest him, he had come to visit him and hear what he had to say against him. Said Kirkby before all the company, "As I am a gentleman I have nothing against you. But Mistress Fell must not keep great meetings at her house, for they meet contrary to the Act." Fox aroued that the Act was meant for turbulent and seditious persons, not for those who met at Margaret Fell's bouse, the Colonel's own neighbours, whom he well knew to be peaceable people. Kirkby repeated that he had nothing against Fox, and shook him by the 1 Fleming MSS. 601. ^ Ibid. 580. I cannot explain the last allusion. THE STUARTS AND THE QUAKERS 189 hand at parting ; he then went up to Westminster to take his place in the Cavalier Parliament. Scarcely had Kirkby departed when a private meeting of Justices and DeiDuty-Lieutenants was held at Justice Preston's house, Holker Hall, to concert measures for the suppression of the Quakers. A warrant was issued, and an officer came with sword and pistols to arrest Fox. He had been on the point of leaving that part of England for a time, but fearing that the brunt of the persecution would fall upon his followers if he were absent, he did not avail himself of an opportunity to escape, bat went with the officer to Holker Hall, and his faithful ally Margaret Fell accompanied him. When they were brought into the justice-room, they found Justices Preston and Rawliuson, both members of the Fleming kinship,^ besides many more, unknown to Fox. It was rather a strange thing that among these magistrates who were going to put the strict letter of the law in force against a Protestant Noncon- formist, there was a certain Sir George Middleton, who as a Papist and a recusant was the object of laws almost as fierce and as intolerant as those that were aimed against the Quakers. The examination turned chiefly on " the plot," that is apparently the so-called insur- rection of Farnley Wood in Yorkshire, which broke out, or rather which made a feeble puff of smoke, in the autumn of 1663, and which was so futile and so obviously doomed to failure that many persons believed it to have been no genuine plot at all, but a " trepan," as it was called, prepared by the agents 'provocateurs of the Duke of Buckingham. However, against this plot, whatever was its reality, Fox had put forth one of his 1 See Fleming MSS. 3143, 3144, and p. 380. 190 GEORGE FOX "papers," urging his followers to have nothing to do with any such revolutionary proceedings, but the magistrates were not ashamed to use the monstrous argument that he must have had a guilty know- ledge of the plot, otherwise be could not have written against it. The evidence, however, was beginning to prove in- sufficient, and then the ready expedient of tendering the oath was resorted to. Middleton, who had already had an altercation with Fox, in which he had got the worst of it, cried out, "Bring the book, and put the oaths of allegiance and supremacy to him." The oaths were those which he himself, as a Papist, had refused to take and which were meant for him, and not for the Puritan sectaries. It certainly must have required a good deal of modest assurance on the part of a magis- trate, himself a recusant, to press that argument against his enemy. Fox was ready with the inevitable tu quoque; some of Middleton's brother magistrates seem to have felt the iniquity of the proceeding, and eventually, instead of making out the mittimus and sending him at once to Lancaster Gaol, they ordered Fox to appear at the next Quarter Sessions at Lancaster, and meanwhile he was allowed to return quietly with Marsfaret Fell to Swarthmoor. During the short respite thus obtained, of course the meetings at Swarthmoor went on as of old. One day (probably a Sunday) Colonel Kirkby, having returned from Westminster, appeared with the constables at his heels. He walked in to where the Friends were sitting in silence, and " How now, Mr. Fox ! " he cried ; " you have a fine company here." " Yes," said Fox, " we meet to wait upon the Lord." Kirkby then began to THE STUARTS AND THE QUAKERS 191 take down the names of Friends, and if any did not readily tell him their names, he committed them into the constables' hands, and declared that they should go to prison. The constables were unwilling to take them without a warrant, upon which the fuming magistrate " threatened to set the constables also by the heels, but the men knew the law better than their master, and one of them told him, he could keep them so long as they were in his presence, but after he was gone he could not keep them without a warrant." Now began a tedious and evidently much bungled judicial campaign against Fox, in which the faithful Margaret was also included. The Quarter Sessions at Lancaster, January 11, 1664, the Assizes at the same city in March and August of the same year, and in March 1665, were successive stages of the affair. During all this time Fox was kept in durance at Lancaster Castle, for Fleming, Rawlinson, and the other Justices at the Quarter Sessions, had committed him to prison for not taking the prescribed oaths, thus purposely laying the foundation for the much more serious pro- cedure which was to be put in operation before the Judges of Assize. This procedure was none other than the invocation of the terrible penalty of Praemunire on George Fox, and on Margaret Fell likewise. This penalty, at first attached by Plantagenet kings to ecclesiastics who were trying to override the royal prerogative by appeals to Rome, caused the offender " to be out of the king's protection, to be attached in his body, to lose his lands, tenements, and chattels." After the Reformation this old penalty was sharpened up and applied with remorse- less severity to all adherents of the old religion who 192 GEORGE FOX should receive or publish bulls from Rome, bring in or receive to wear an Agnus Dei, or send relief to a Jesuit beyond sea. By a statute passed in the third year of James I., in the first spasm of terror caused by the discovery of the Gunpowder Plot, it was enacted that if any person above eighteen, being not noble, should refuse the oath of allegiance ^ when tendered by a bishop or by the Justices of the Peace at their Quarter Sessions, such person should be liable to the penalties of a Praemunire^ and these penalties as explained and expanded by the black-letter lawyers amounted to confiscation of all property real and personal, to loss of the king's protection, and to perpetual imprisonment during the king's pleasure. Now, with malicious ingenuity, the lawyers and magistrates of the Restoration discovered that this dreaded penalty of Praemunire, invented and perfected solely as a weapon of defence against the wide-reaching arm of Rome, might be used to rid themselves of a much humbler enemy, the troublesome and disrespectful Quaker. It was true that he was utterly at variance with the men against whom all that array of statutes had been aimed ; true that if he might only have sub- stituted a solemn promise for an oath, he would have promised, and have kept as true allegiance to the re- stored King as the most devout preacher of Divine Right could desire. Still the Act said—" If any person not noble, and above eighteen, shall refuse the oath of allegiance." The Quakers would refuse that and every other oath. Therefore they could be deprived of every penny of their property, and shut up in prison for the 1 The oath of supremacy is not mentioned in this statute. » See Gardiner, Ristory of England, i. 288 (Ed. 1883). THE STUARTS AND THE QUAKERS 193 rest of their natural lives, if the King would only consent so to prolong their captivity. And all this was done in the name of religion. " Shall the throne of iniquity have fellowship with thee, which frameth mischief by a law ? " The judges who came on the Northern Circuit at the three before-nientionetl Assizes, were Twisden and Turner, and by one or other of these Fox was suc- cessively tried. We have already seen something of Judge Twisden's little infirmities of temper, and there was an amusing illustration of these in the trial at the March Assizes of 1664. When the judge pressed him to swear, Fox pleaded the King's Declaration from Breda, in which he said that no man should be called in question for matters of religion so long as he lived peaceably. " If thou ownest the King," said Fox, " why dost thou call me into question, and put me upon taking an oath, which is a matter of relijjion, seeing: neither thou nor any one else can charge me with unpeaceable living ? " " Upon this he was moved, and looking angrily at me said, ' Sirrah ! will you swear ? ' I told him I was none of his sirrahs ; I was a Christian ; and for him, an old man and a judge, to sit there and give nicknames to his prisoners, it did not become either his grey hairs or his office. ' Well,' said he, ' I am a Christian too.' ' Then do Christian works,' said I. ' Sirrah ! ' said he, ' thou thinkest to frijxhten me with thy words.' Then catching himself and looking aside, he said, ' Hark, I am using the word [sirrah] again,' and so checked himself. I said, ' I spoke to thee in love ; for that language did not become thee, a judge. Thou oughtest to instruct a prisoner in the law, if he were ignorant and out of the way.' 'And I speak in o 194 GEORGE FOX love to thee too,' he said, ' But,' said I, ' love gives 110 nicknames.' Then he roused himself and said, ' I will not be afraid of thee, George Fox ; thou speakest so loud, thy voice drowns mine and the court's ; I must call for three or four criers to drown thy voice ; thou hast good lungs.' ' I am a prisoner here,' said I, ' for the Lord Jesus Christ's sake ; for His sake do I suffer, for Him do I stand this day ; and if my voice were five times louder, I should lift it up and sound it for Christ's sake, for whose cause I stand this day before your judgement-seat in obedience to Christ, who commands not to swear; before whose judgement-seat you must all be brought, and must give an account.' " The judge, in answer to Fox's repeated attempts to draw him into a discussion as to the meaning of Christ's command not to swear, answered that he was a servant of the King, sent there not to dispute with any one, but to put the laws in execution, insisted on tendering the oa,th of allegiance to Fox, and on his refusal to take it ordered him off to prison, to be kept till the next Assizes. Margaret Fell's case was dealt with in a similar manner. In the interval between this and his next appearance in court, Fox employed part of the long leisure of the prison in writing a paper to all judges and other magistrates who professed themselves to be Christians, arguing against the custom then far too prevalent, of addressing abusive language from the bench to the prisoners in the dock. According to his usual practice, he draws all his arguments from the Bible. Joshua said to the offending Achan, not " Sirrah ! you rascal, knave, and rogue ! " but, " My son : give glory to the God of Israel." " Even Nebuchadnezzar called Shadrach, THE STUARTS AND THP] QUAKERS 195 Meshach, and Abetlnego by their names, not adding any opprobrious epithets ; and shamefully as Paul and Silas were entreated at Philippi, at least they were called ' men/ anil not ' sirralis, rogues, and knaves ' by tlie magistrates." The clerk of the magistrates at Lancaster must have done his work with disgraceful carelessness, for Fox was able at the August Assizes to point out several blunders as to dates and the like, both in his and in ^Margaret Fell's indictments, but apparently these ad- mitted errors only procured the delay of his sentence till the next Assizes, which -were held on March 16, 1665. The indictment, according to Fox's account, was still but a bungled business, but the judge carried matters through with a high hand ; the undoubted fact that the prisonei^s had refused the oath of allegiance was proved to the satisfaction of the jury, and both George Fox and Mars^jaret Fell received the sentence of Praemunire with all its terrible consequences, out- lawry, confiscation, j^erpetual imprisonment. According to Fox's statement, he was not even present when sentence was passed upon him, much less asked in the usual form what he had to urge in mitigation of the penalty, the object being to stop his mouth and prevent him from pointing out any more flaws in the indictment. For the fourteen months which had already elapsed since Fox's committal to prison, he had been confined in Lancaster Castle. At first his imprisonment was not a very close one, but after the Assizes of August 1664, in which he exposed the blunders of the magis- trates who were persecuting him, Colonel Kirkby, he says, " gave orders to the gaoler to keep me close, and 196 GEORGE FOX suffer no flesh alive to come at me, for I was not fit to be discoursed with by men. Then I was put into a tower, where the smoke of the other prisoners came up so thick that I could hardly see the candle when it burned ; and I being locked under three locks, the under-gaoler, when the smoke was great, would hardly be persuaded to come up to unlock one of the upper- most doors, for fear of the smoke, so that I was almost smothered. Besides, it rained in upon my bed, and many times when I went to stop out the rain in the cold winter season, my shirt was wet through with the rain that came in ujDon me while I was labouring to stop it out. And the place being high, and open to the wind, sometimes as fast as I stopped it, the wind blew it out again. In this manner did I lie all that long, cold winter till the next assize ; in which time I was so starved with cold and rain, that my body was greatly swelled, and my limbs much benumbed." In April 1665, Colonel Kirkby and his confederate Justices decided that Fox's continued detention at Lancaster was doing them harm, and worked hard to get him removed to some distant place, so that he might be forgotten, and sympathy with him might die out in Lancashire. They talked about getting him sent "beyond sea," but eventually, six weeks after the sentence of l^raemunire had been passed, they obtained an order from the King and Council for his removal from Lancaster to Scarbro'. He was so weak with lying for so many months in that cold, wet, and smoky prison, that he could hardly stand. However, the sheriff's officers dragged him out of prison, not telling him whither they were taking him. "They hurried me away," he says, " about fourteen miles to Bentham, THE STUARTS AND THE QUAKERS 197 though I was so very weak I was hardly able to sit on horseback ; and my clothes smelt so of smoke that they were loathesonie to myself. Tlie wicked gaoler, one Hunter, a young fellow, would come behind and give the horse a lash with his whip, and make him skip and leap, so that I being weak had difficulty to sit him ; and then he would come and look me in the face and say, ' How do you, Mr. Fox ? ' I told him it was not civil in him to do so. The Lord cut him ofif soon after." At York the treatment of the prisoner was somewhat improved. Lord Frescheville (a lo3'aI Cavalier who had just received his patent of peerage from Charles II.) commanded the cavalry stationed there, "and was very civil and loving." " I gave him," says Fox, " an account of my imprisonment, and declared many things to him relating to truth. Tliey kept me at York two days, and then the marshal and four or five soldiers were bent to convey mc to Scarbro' Carstle. Indeed these were very civil men, and carried tliemselves civilly and lovingly to me. When we were come to Scarbro' they had me to an inn, and gave notice to the governor, who sent six soldiers to be my guard that night." Such extraordinary precautions seem to show that, absurd as the suggestion sounds, the author- ities really looked upon Fox as a somewhat dangerous conspirator, and believed in the possibility of an attempt at rescue. Weak as he was at this time, and subject to fainting fits, he was put into a room in the Castle which was open to the rain, and the chimney of which was always smoking. The governor. Sir J. Crossland, came one day to see his prisoner, and as Fox knew him to be a Roman Catholic, he told him that it was his Purgatory 198 GEORGE FOX to which he had been consigned. The prisoner spent fifty shillings out of his own pocket in order to make the room somewhat tolerable, and then they removed him to another worse room without a fire-place, and much exposed to the weather. " Being," as he says, " to the seaside, and lying much open, the wind drove in the rain forcibly so that the water came over my bed and ran about the room, that I was fain to skim it up with a platter. And when my clothes were wet I had no fire to dry, so that my body was benumbed with cold, and my fingers swelled, that one was grown as big as two." Besides all these hardships he seems to have been left for some time without food, and had to pay a woman to bring him some necessaries out of the town, who when she came back was forced to run the gauntlet of the soldiers trying to snatch the food out of her hand. At last he had to hire a soldier to bring liim his provisions, which were truly anchorite's fare. A three-penny loaf Avould last him for three weeks or even longer, and his drink was for the most part water with wormwood steeped in it. Once in the bitter winter weather, having taken a violent cold, he sent out for a little " elecampane beer." ^ The soldiers heard of it, and by way of a practical joke, feigned a message for Fox to go and wait upon the deputy- governor, and in his absence drank up his cordial. "When I came back," he says, "one of the soldiers came to me in a jeer, and asked me for some strong beer. I told him they had played their pretty trick ; and so I took no further notice of it," Assuredly, when we compare the prison discipline of the Stuart period ^ "Elecampane," says the Imperial Dictionary, "is an aromatic bitter, and was formerly regarded as an expectorant.'' THE STUARTS AND THE QUAKERS 109 ■\vitli tlie prison discipline of the Victorian age we shall not be Leiiipted to say, '' The iormer days were b< tter than these." It was felt as a great grievance by Fox that the governor would not allow tlie Friends of Scarbro' to visit him; and with his usual habit of quot- ing a Biblical precedent for everything, he reminded the authorities of what was done in the case of St. Paul at Rome, how the heathen rulers of that day allowed him, though in prison, to see his friends, and to preach Jesus Christ with all confidence, no man forbidding him. " So you that go under the name of Christians are worse in this respect than those heathen were." Though the Friends were not permitted to visit their apostle, all other sorts and conditions of men were allowed to come and gaze at one whom the governor seems to have looked upon as an interesting specimen added to his collection. Lord Falconbridge (or Faucon- berg), the Lord Lieutenant of the North Riding, and in hi^rh favour with Charles IL, notwithstanding his marriafre with Cromwell's daughter; old Lord Fairfax's widow, and other members of the Yorkshire aristocracy, came thus at various times to gaze or to dispute. There came a Presbyterian physician, Avho argued against the universality of the Light of Christ ; and there came also Papists — once in great numbers — to argue about the infallibility of the Pope,^ and Christ's descent into Hades. But the most interesting of these interviews, as it seems to me, and one to which sufficient attention lias not yet been called, was one which he had with a certain Doctor of Divinity named Cradock, who called ^ In this cliscuppion Fox qnoted the case of Pope ^rarcellinus, ■who is alleged to liave fallen away under tlie stress of Diocletian's persecution. 200 GEORGE FOX upon him together with three other clergymen, the governor and his wife, and some other distinguished visitors. After the cause of Fox's imprisonment had been stated, and the usual arguments about swearing had been exchanged, " ' Why,' said Fox, ' dost thou excommunicate my friends ? ' (for he had excommuni- cated abundance both in Yorkshire and Lancashire). He said, ' For not coming to church.' ' Why,' said I, 'ye left us above twenty years ago, when we were but young lads and lassies, to the Presbyterians, Independ- ents, and Baptists, many of whom made spoil of our goods, and persecuted us, because we would not follow them. Nor we, being but young, knew little then of your principles; and if ye had intended to keep the old men that did know them, tu )0u and y^nir principles alive, that we might have known them, ye should eitlier not have fled from us as ye did, or ye should have sent us your epistles, collects, homilies, and evening songs, for Paul wrote epistles to the saints, though he was in prison. But they and we might have turned Turks or Jews for any collects, homilies, or epistles we had from you all this while. And now thou hast excom- municated us, both young and old, and so have others of you done ; that is, ye have put us out of your church before you have got us into it, and before ye have brought us to know your principles.' " In these words Fox concisely sums up the whole early history of Quakerism, fighting as it did with Calvinism, with Puritanism, with much that the Anglican spirit was also opposed to, but getting no help, no guidance or counselling words, from the dismayed and silenced Anglican clergy. St. Dominic and men of that mould might bo said to have earned the hateful THE STUARTS AND THE QUAKERS 201 right to persecute others by the courage with which they bore persecution when their enemies had the upper hand. Even so with tlie Roman Catholics under Elizabeth, and with the Scottish Covenanters under Charles II., but not so with the timid Church which lay so low during the years of Puritan ascendency from 1640 to 166U. The liberty thus given to the prisoner to converse with those who differed from his religious views, and who probably expected easily to vanquish him in argu- ment, did not extend to his brethren in the faith, as to whom he says he was " as a man buried alive." Rumours of an unpleasant kind as to the probable termination of his case filtered through into his prison cell. The officers of the garrison oiten threatened "that he should be hanged over the wall," and the deputy- governor once informed him that he was being kept there as a kind of hostage — " the King knowing I had a great interest in the people, had sent me thither, that if there should be any stirriiig in the nation, they should hang me over the wall to keep the nation down." All which shows the utter ignorance of the Government as to the true character of the Quaker movement. What- ever the faults of the early Friends might be, insurrection and armed resistance to the Government were thin£[3 that for them never came within the region of the possible, and no rebellion against the Stuart King would have been either retarded or promoted for a day by either the imprisonment of their founder or by " hanging him over the wall." There was a wedding at the house of a neighbouring Papist, and during the merry-making that followed, there was much pleasant discourse of the speedy execution of the prisoner in 202 GEOEGE FOX the Castle. Either the wedding guests, in the lightness of their heart, came to taunt Fox with what they had heard, or in some other way the news was conveyed to him. Brave at heart for all his worn-out body, he replied — " If this be what ye desire, and if it be per- mitted you by the Lord, I am ready. I have never feared death or sufferings in my life, but have been well known for an innocent and peaceable man, free from all stirrings and plottings, and seeking the good of all men." After a time Governor Crossland, having got into trouble himself over a mismanaged privateer of his that had made some illegal captures, was softened in spirit, and showed a kindlier bearing towards his patient prisoner. The ever faithful " Esquire Marsh," who said " he would go a hundred miles barefoot for George Fox's freedom," exerted his influence at Court on his behalf, and presented a petition, drawm up by some London Friends, setting forth the sufferings already endured by their founder. In the end, Charles II. was persuaded of the peaceable character of the prisoner at Scarbro', or rather probably was persuaded to take the trouble to gfive five minutes' attention to his case. An order was signed stating that the King was certainly informed that George Fox was a man principled against plotting and fighting, and ready at all times to discover plots rather than to make them, and signifying thereupon the royal pleasure that he should be released from his imprisonment. The order was brought down to Scar- bro' by a zealous Quaker minister, named John White- head, who had been one of the most active in procuring it, and on September 1, 1666, Fox obtained his discharge. He had been deprived of liberty since January 11, 1664, three years all but three months. THP: STUARTS AND TIIR QT^AKKRS 203 After his release he wislied to make Governor Cross- land a present for the civility and kindness he had lately showed him, but the governor refused to receive it, saying that he would gladly do anything that he could for him and his friends. Ever after, when the mavor of Scarbro' sent up to him for soldiers to break up the meetings of Friends, if he appeared to comply, he privately gave his soldiers a charge not to meddle, and this friendly attitude he retained till his dying day.^ Much also was the bearing of the officers and soldiers of the garrison changed from what it had been at first. When George Fox's name was mentioned in their presence, they would often say, " He is as stiff as a tree, and as pure as a bell, for we could never move him. ^ Wlien Fox visited Scaibro' three years after his liberation, Sir Jordan Crossland sent liim a message, "Surely yon will not he 8o unkind as not to come and see me and my wife." Fox accor<1ingly, after his meeting with Friends, went up to the Castle and had a coiu-teous and even loving reception from his former gaoler. CHAPTER XIII MARRIAGE While Fox had been shut up in prison great and terrible events had been branding themselves on the page of English history. In 16G5 had begun the dis- astrous war with Holland, but far more calamitous was the Great Plague ol London, which began in the early part of 1G65, and which was at its height from April to October of that year, or during the first six months of Fox's imprisonment at Scarbro'. And now, on September 2, 1665, the very day after his release, broke oat the memorable Fire of London, which lasted for five days, and destroyed thirteen thousand houses. On the last day of the fire, " Justice " Fleming's brother Alexander, who was living in London, wrote as follows from the Pied Lion in Grub Street, to his brother at Rydal — " The fire is almost quenched. The houses are laid so flat to the ground, that the City looks just like our [Westmoreland] fells, for tliere is nothing to see but heaps of stones. You may stand where Cheapside was and see the Thames." ^ Of this calamity Fox deemed that he had received a Divine warning when he was a prisoner at Lancaster. " As I was walking in my chamber," he says, " with my ^ Fleming MSS. 41-2. 204 MARRIAGE 205 eye to the Lord, I saw the angel of the Lord, with a slitterinir drawn sword stretched southward, as thoujrli the court liad been all on fire. Not long after, the wars broke out with Holland, the sickness broke forth, and afterwards the fire of London : so the Lord's sword was drawn indeed." Soon after his release, Fox visited London, and walked for awhile among the ruins, " taking good notice of them, and beheld the city lying according as the word of the Lord had come to mc concerning it several years before." For Fox personally those three years of prison hard- ship had evidently been one of the turning-points in his life. He was but forty-two years old when he obtained his release, but we can see that he came forth an old and broken man, having left his youth behind him in the gloomy fortresses to which he had been confined. " I was weak," he says, " with lying almost three years in cruel and hard imprisonments ; my joints and my body were so stiff and benumbed that I could hardly get on my horse or bend my joints; nor could I well bear to be near the fire or to eat warm meat, I had been kept so long from it." He still travelled frequently about the country; nay, as Ave shall see, America and Germany were to be the scenes of some of his future labours; but the manly frame was bowed, the once expert and active horseman was for some time only able with great difficulty to mount on horseback, and there were evidently some long spaces in his life when he was altogether laid by through sickness. But the years of imprisonment had not been all wasted. He had evidently, in the dungeon vaults of Lancaster and Scarbro', been meditating deeply on the necessities and the dangers of the new Society which 206 georgp: fox ho had founded. He saw that some tighter bond of discipline than had yet prevailed must be introduced, or the Quaker churches scattered over the land would slide downward into " the anarchy of the Ranters." There was a necessity also, in view of the many hot- headed and excitable persons who had joined the Society, of some organ which could say with distinct and authoritative voice, " These are, and these are not acts and words of which we as a Society are willing to bear the responsibility." For this purpose, led as he believed by the Divine Spirit of wisdom and truth, he framed that scheme of church government which has lasted for two hundred and thirty years in the Society of Friends. This consists of Yearly, Quarterly, and Monthly Meetings, with some smaller organizations which need not be noticed here. The Yearly Meeting, to which allusion has already been made, is the par- liament or convocation of the whole kingdom; the Quarterly Meeting is virtually the synod of the county; the Monthly Meeting is the vestry of the parish or of a cluster of neighbouring parishes. The respective rights and duties of these various bodies were carefully defined ; and the system as a whole, blending as it did congregational liberty with national unity, showed a practical sagacity which has been attested by its suc- cessful working for more than two centuries. Probably Fox may have been assisted in the working out of his scheme by some of the educated and thoughtful men who had by this time joined the new Society, but the main idea seems to have been clearly his own; and the really statesmanhke qualities which he showed, both in its original conception and in securing its establishment among all the widely-scattered com- MARRIAGE 207 munities of the Quakers, are the best refutation of the absurd statement of a recent historian, that " there was uo reason for phicing liim morally or intellectually above Ludovick Muggleton or Joanna Southcote." For the next few years after his release from prison, Fox was chiefly employed in journeying through England, Wales, and Ireland, confirming liis followers in their faith, and everywhere persuading them to adopt the new organization. His life from this point onward became more and more identified with the history of Quakerism ; and from various causes (partly that premature advent of old age to which I have alluded) it yields less of individual interest to the biographer than its earlier chapters. But we notice with interest some of the indications afforded by this part of the Journal, of the increasing number of thoughtful and influential men who, notwithstandnig the bitter persecution to which it was subjected, came out boldly and joined the new Society. Isaac Penning- ton and Thomas Ell wood had been for some years Quakers; 1 Robert Barclay, a lad of nineteen, in 1667 was girding himself up to write his great "Apology"; and William Penu, the courtier and the friend of the Duke of York, in 1668 finally cast in his lot with the despised and harassed Quakers. But besides these well-known instances, we meet in the pages of the Journal with an "ex-sheriff of Lincoln," "Walter Jenkins, who had been a Justice of the Peace in Mon- mouthshire," and a Friend who had been sheriff of Nottingham about the year 1649, and had had George Fox for his prisoner. All these, besides several other ^ Their conversion to Quakerism was in the years 1658 and IGGO respectively. 208 GEORGE FOX magistrates, and some clergymen, had joined the new- Society. In this connection, and as an evidence that Fox, notwithstanding his own very imperfect education, did not despise culture, we note that in 1667, when he was hard at work establishing Monthly Meetings, he also laboured at " the setting up of a school at Walthara for teaching boys," and a girls' school at Shacklewell, "for instructing them in whatsoever things were civil and useful in the creation." In one of his many visits to London, Fox called on his old friend and protector the courtier whom he calls " Esquire Marsh." He happened to be at dinner with several aristocratic guests, and asked Fox to join the party. The shy Quaker declined, but joined in the conversation though not in the repast. There was " a great Papist " there, with whom he had an argument about Baptism, Purgatory, and persecution for religion. " What is it that brings salvation in your Church ? " said Fox. "Good works," said the great Papist. " Not so," answered the Quaker ; " the grace of God, which bringeth salvation, teaches to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts, and to live soberly, righteously, and godly. So it is not the good works, nor the good life that brings salvation, but the grace." " What ! " said the Papist, "doth this grace that brings salvation appear unto all men ? " " ' Yes,' said I. ' Then,' said he, ' I deny that.' I replied, ' All that deny that are sect-makers, and are not in the universal faith, grace, and truth which the apostles were in.' " A good deal more discussion followed, in which happily neither of the parties seems to have lost his temper. At the end, " Oh !" said Esquire Marsh to the Papist, "you do not MARRIAGE 2C9 know tliis maa; if he would but come to church now and then he would be a brave man." After a time Fox went aside into another room to speak with "Esquire Marsh," who as a Middlesex magistrate in high repute, had often to deal with Quaker recusants. "How," said Marsh, "am I to distinguish between you and the Independents, Baptists, and Fifth Alonarchy men, who also say they cannot swear, and refuse the oatli of allegiance ? " " Very easily," said Fox. " All the members of those sects will swear readily enough if their cows or horses have been stolen, whereas our people will not swear even to get their private wrongs righted. In fact, it has happened that a Quaker, from whom two beasts had been stolen, appeared in court, refused to swear in his own matter, had the oaths of allegiance and supremacy tendered to him, and was ' praemunired ' and cast into prison, while the thief went free." " The judge who so decided," said Marsh, "was a wicked man." In many cases, after this conversation, " Justice Marsh " was able to interpose to prevent Friends from being "praemun- ired," and when he could not avoid sending them to prison, he sent them for a few hours, or for one night. '•' At length," says Fox, '•' he went to the King and told him he had sent some of us to prison contrary to his conscience, and he could do so no more. Wherefore he removed his family from Lirnehouse, where he lived, and took lodgings near St. James's Park. He told the King that if he would be pleased to give liberty of conscience, that would quiet and settle all, for then none would have any pretence to be uneasy. And indeed he was a very serviceable man to Truth and Friends in his day." 2l0 GEORGE FOX On October 18, 1669, three years after Fox's liber- ation from Scnrbro' Castle, came an event to which those who knew him had been for some time looking forward — his marriage to Margaret, widow of Thomas Fell. As we have seen, the good old Judge had died in November 1658, a few 'months after the great Protector. "Happy in the opportunity of his death," he had not lived to see the ruin brought upon the cause of Puritanism and the Parliament which he loved, nor the indisjnities offered to the remains of his old friend and patron Bradshaw, whose death followed his own after nearly a year's interval (October 31, 1659). We have also seen how bravely the widowed mistress of Swarthmoor Hall had held on her way, opening her house for the reception of travelling Friends, placing its large hall at their disposal for their weekly meetings, (despising the Act by which their thus assembling them- selves together was forbidden under heavy penalties,) frowned upon and conspired against by the bigoted Cavalier squires of Kydal and Kirkby, and at last, to- gether with George Fox, deprived of property and liberty loy the infamous sentence oi Praeriiunire. This sentence Avas passed in March 1665, when she had already been fourteen months in prison, owing to the blunders in the indictment, and the necessity of adjourning the trial through three assizes. Strangely enough, though the head and front of Margaret Fell's offending was the support which she had given to George Fox, she was not liberated from Lancaster in September 1666, when he walked forth from Scarbro' Castle. In the year 1667, we read in the Journal — " To this meeting in Lancashire Margaret Fell, being a prisoner, got liberty to come, and went with me to Jane Milner's in Cheshire, MAKRIAGE 211 where we parted." Apparently she returned to prison soon afterwards, for in a letter written to her in May 16G8 by Thomas Salthouse (formerly steward at Swarthmoor), the writer says, " Doctor Lower hath improved his interest of late with some lords of the Royal Society to plead with the King on thy behalf for liberty, but Pharaoh's heart is so hard." ^ However, soon after this (June 1668) she was re- leased, on what terms we know not, but it is clear from subsequent events that the Praemunire still hung over her, and that she was liable to be re-committed to prison at any time. This first spell of imprisonment had lasted four and a half years (January 1664 — June 1668). Having obtained her liberty, the noble-hearted woman, after a short visit to her home (still hers, for tlie King seems to have interfered to prevent the sentence of confiscation from being carried into effect), spent her first year of freedom in visiting the prisons throughout England, and doing all that lay in her power to alleviate the sufferings of the Friends confined therein. In this interval she also visited her youngest daughter Rachel, who was a pupil at that school at Sliacklewell which we have seen established by George Fox. After her circuit of the prisons was ended, she paid a visit to her third daughter Isabel, who five years previously had married William Yeamans of Bristol. This son-in-law of Margaret Fell's was son of that ex- sheriff of Bristol who, as Ave have already said, was hung before his own door in 1G43, for endeavouring to betray the city to Prince Rupert. The remembrance of this display of premature Royalism was probably » Quoted by Mrs. Webb, Fells of Sxmrthmoor Hall, p. 245. 212 GEORGE POX some iirotectioii to William Yeamans and all his circle of friends at Bristol. It was during this visit (October 27, 1669) that the long friendship of George Fox and Margaret Fell ripened into matrimony. The bride was nine years older than the bridegroom, she being in the fifty-fifth year of her age, and he in the forty-sixth of his ; but though she, as well as he, had now had sad experience of a seventeenth-century prison, one may conjecture from such slight indications as are afforded us, that in mind, manner, and appearance she was the younger of the two. But such an important event in Fox's life as his marriage must be told in his own words, though the extract is a rather long one. " After this meeting in Gloucestershire was over, we travelled till we came to Bristol; where I met with Margaret Fell, who was come to visit her daughter Yeamans.^ I had seen from the Lord a considerable time before, that I should take Margaret Fell to be my wife. And when I first mentioned it to her, she felt the answer of life from God thereunto. But though the Lord had opened this thing to me, yet I had not received a command from the Lord for the accom- plishing of it then. AVherefore I let the thing rest, and went on in the work and service of the Lord as before, according as He led me, travelling up and down in this nation and through Ireland. But now, being at Bristol, and finding Margaret Fell there, it opened in me from the Lord that the thing should be accom- plished. After we had discoursed the matter together, I told her, 'if she also was satisfied with the accom- * Yeomans in the Journal. MARRIAGE 213 plishing of it now, she should first send for her children/ which she did. When the rest of her daughters were come, I asked both them and her 8ons-in-hi\v ' if they had anytliing against it or for it,' and they all severally expressed their satisfaction therein. Then I asked Margaret ' if she had fulfilled and performed her husband's will to her children.' She replied, 'The children knew that.' Whereupon I asked them ' whether, if their mother married, they should not lose by it.' And I asked Margaret ' whether she had done anything in lieu of it, which might answer it to the children.' The children said ' she had answered it to them, and desired nie to speak no more of it.' I told them I was plain, and would have all things done plainly, for I sought not any outward advantage to myself. So after I had thus acquainted the children with it, our intention of marringe was laid before Friends, both privately and publicly, to their full satis- faction, many of whom gave testimony thereunto that it was of God. Afterwards, a meeting being appointed for the accomplishing thereof in the meeting-house of Broad Mead in Bristol, we took each other, the Lord joining us together in the lionourable marriage state in the Everlasting Covenant, and immortal Seed of Life. In the sense whereof, living and Aveighty testimonies were borne thereunto by Friends, in the movings of the heavenly power which united us together. There was a certificate relating both to the proceedings and the marriage openly read and signed by the relations, and by most of the ancient Friends of that city, besides many others from divers parts of this nation." Though expressed in somewhat archaic language, the preceding extract describes the manner in which 214 GEORGE FOX marriages have been solemnized by members of the Society of Friends for nearly two centuries and a half. Rejecting all sacraments, they have of course not called marriage a sacrament, but they have always insisted strongly on the religious character of the covenant plighted (as the old phrase ran) "in the fear of the Lord and in the presence of this assembly." But they have contended with equal zeal that the presence of no priest or minister is necessary to hallow the union, which, like all the other acts of Quaker worship, is believed to be hallowed by the unseen but spirit-felt presence of Christ. One point for which Fox had especially laboured in settling the discipline of the new Society had been "tliat widows should make provision for their first husband's children before they married again," in order "that all things might be kept pure and clean, and be done in righteousness to the glory of God." It was in accordaiice therefiioor llall, pp. 302-3. 8 258 GEORGE FOX visited thee, and also by some of thy letters which I have seen. It is indeed a great thing for a person of thy quality to have such a tender mind after the Lord and His precious truth, seeing so many are swallowed up with voluptuousness and the pleasures of this world ; yet all make an outward profession of God and Christ one way or other, but without any deep inward sense and feeUug of Him." When we remember that the Princess was first cousin to Charles 11., and that most of her kindred were more or less hanoers- on to the pleasure-loving Court at Whitehall, the hint about " voluptuousness " is seen to be singularly appropriate, and in truth, the contrast between that Court and the old Abbey of Herford must have been about as striking as any that Europe could exhibit. The Princess sent the following reply to Fox's letter — "Dear Friend, "I cannot but have a tender love to those that love the Lord Jesus Christ, and to whom it is given, not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for Him ; therefore your letter and your friends' visit have been both very welcome to me. I shall follow their and your counsel as far as God will aflford me light and unction, remaining still your loving friend, "Elizabeth. " Herford,'the 80th of August, 1677." Soon afterwards Penn and Barclay paid their second visit to Herford, and were received with even more cordiality than on their first. The royal Abbess of Herford seems indeed to have become virtually a CLOSING YEARS 259 Friend, and during the few remaining years of her life (she died in 1680) she kept up a pretty fre- quent correspondence with the leading members of the Society, exerting what influence she could with her relatives at Whitehall on behalf especially of the Scottish Friends who were suffering imprison- ment. Fox's Continental journey extended to North Germany as well as Holland. He visited Emden, Oldenburg (" lately a great and famous place, but then burnt down, and but few houses left standing in it"), Bremen, Hamburg, and penetrated some way into " the Duke of Holstein's country." The whole visit occupied him three months (July 25 to October 23, 1677), and it was repeated on a smaller scale seven years afterwards (June 4 to July 17, 1684). He occasion- ally had an argument with a Calvinist divine, or a Baptist teacher, but his visit was chiefly directed to those who were already Friends, and it may be suggested that the necessity of speaking through an interpreter, and the impossibility of exchanging quick theological repartee with the travellers by the wayside, somewhat cramped his energies, and prevented him from undertaking a wider and longer campaign. At this time there was a considerable number of adherents to the new Society in many parts of Central Europe. There was also a tolerably large congregation of Friends at Dantzic, who were cruelly oppressed by the Lutheran magistrates of that city. Their sufferings lay very heavy on Fox's heart, and he several times addressed long letters, both to their nominal sovereign, John III., King of Poland, and to the city magistrates, pleading for some respite to the persecuted and im- 260 GEORGE FOX prisoned Quakers, The Quakers in Holland seem to have been largely drawn from the very similar body of the Mennonites, and this chiefly under the preacliing of William Caton, that young Swarthmoor convert of George Fox's, of whom some description has been given in an earlier chapter.^ It is interesting to note that in the interval between Fox's two visits to the Continent, one of the most celebrated Meunonite teachers entirely changed his attitude towards Quakerism, and from an opponent became a supporter of the new teaching. This was Dr. Galenus Abrahams, a Mennonite with some tendency towards Socinianism. At Fox's first visit there was a five hours' discussion between this man and Fox, assisted by Penn. Abrahams maintained a favourite thesis of the English " Seekers," " that there was no Christian Church ministry or commission Apostolical now in the world." One might have thought that this was an argument to be held rather against a stout champion of Apostolical Succession than against a theological free-lance such as Fox; but he also contended — and here we see how his doctrine would cut at the root of Fox's ministry — " that nobody now-a-days could be accepted as a messenger of God, unless he confirmed the same by miracles." The discussion was not a very satisfactory one, having all to be conducted through an interpreter, but it seems to have been generally considered that the Quakers had the best of it. The greatest share of the argument on their side was taken by William Penn. George Fox, as we are told by the Quaker historian Sewel (himself a friend and former disciple of Abrahams), " spake also 1 See p. 73. CLOSING YEARS 261 somethinfjj to the matter, but he, being somewhat short- breathed, went several times away, which some were ready to impute to a passionate temper; but I well know that herein they wronged him." But evidently Abrahams thought that his opponent was too fierce, and shrank, as others had done before him, from the still undiramed lustre of those flashing eyes. " He was then," says Fox, speaking of the earlier visit and the disputation which was held between them — "he was then very high and shy, so that he would not let me touch him nor look upon him by his good-will, but bid me ' keep my eyes off him, for/ he said, ' they pierced him.' But now he was verv lovincj and tender, and confessed in some measure to Truth. His wife also and daughters were tender and kind, and we parted from them very lovingly." ^ After Fox's return from his first Continental journey (1677), with the exception of one year (1G79), spent in retirement at Swarthmoor, he passed most of his time in London and its suburbs, sometimes making short excursions into the home counties. It is not very clear where he abode when actually in London, but the hospitable shelter of Kingston-on-Thames, where dwelt his son-in-law, the West Indian merchant, John Rous, with his wife Margaret (daughter of Margaret Fox), was ever ready to receive him when pining for the fresh air of the country. His relation to this worthy couple, as to all his wife's daughters and their hus- bands, seems to have been most friendly and cordial, nor is there ever a sign of a welcome out-stayed at ^ For some account of Galenus Abraliains, consult, besides G. F.'s Journal, Sewel's History of Friends, iv. 26 ; and Barclay's Rdigtovs Societies of the (hmmonivealth, pi>. 174, 251. 262 GEORGE FOX their hospitable houses. In 1683, he records a special visit of a week paid to Kingston, the occasion being that " my son Rous's daughter Margaret lay very sick and had a desire to see me." The young grand-daughter, like her ancestress, felt the power of goodness in the preacher of the Inward Light, and longed to clasp his hand if she was about to fare forth into the Unknown.^ One reason why these latter years of Fox's life were for the most part spent in London and its neighbour- hood was that his presence there was still needed, in order to counteract the efforts of the Separatists Wilk- inson and Story, allusions to whom are frequent in this part of the Journal. Another was, that from the year 1681 onwards, after the defeat of the Exclusion Bill and the dissolution of the Oxford Parliament, there was a spasm of fresh and fierce persecution against Friends under the Conventicle Act, which had been perhaps growing somewhat rusty under the Whiggish Parliaments of 1679 and 1681. The pages of the Journal give us a vivid picture of the scenes enacted under this monstrous statute. " One First-day it was upon me to go to Devonshire House meeting in the afternoon, and because I had heard Friends were kept out there that morning I went sooner, and got into the yard before the soldiers came to guard the passages; but the constables were there 1 The young Margaret did not die at this time. Perhaps it would have been better for her if she had, for there were storms of some kind or other in her after-life. In her father's will, dated October 20, 1692, there is a bequest of ten pounds only "unto my daughter Margaret, who hath several ways disobliged me," with power to her mother to appoint her a further sum of ^500" if after my decease she shall by her obedient and dutiful carriage oblige " her said mother. Fdls of Swarthmoor Hall, p. 390. CLOSING YEARS 263 before me and stood in the doorway with their staves. I asked thein to let me go in ; they said, they could not nor durst not, for they were commanded the contrary, and were sorry for it, I told them I would not press upon them. So I stood by, and they were very civil. I stood till I was weary, and then one gave me a stool to sit down on, and after a while the power of the Lord began to spring up among Friends, and one began to speak. The constables soon forbade him, and said he should not speak, and he not stopping, they began to be wroth. But I gently laid my hand upon one of the constables, and wished him to let him alone. The constable did so, and was quiet, and the man did not speak long." Fox himself then rose and spoke, telling the intruders that they need not come with swords and staves against them, for they Avere a peaceable people, not met to plot against the Government, but to worship God under the spiritual presidency of Christ. His short sermon ended, he knelt down to pray. "The power of the Lord," continues Fox, "was over all The people, the con- stables, and the soldiers all put off their hats. When the meeting was ended and the Friends began to pass away, the chief constable put off his hat, and desired the Lord to bless us: for the power of the Lord was over him and the people and kept them under." Another Sunday, Fox goes to the meeting at Grace- church Street, and finds three constables there keeping the Friends out, and accordingly they meet in the court- yard. After some time of silence, Fox stands up to preach. After he has spoken some time, one of the constables comes and takes him by the hand, telling him he must come down. " Be patient," says Fox, and con- 264 GEORGE FOX tinues his sermon ; but after a little while the constable pulls him down, and marches him off into the meeting- house. " Are you not weary of this work ? " asks Fox ; and one of them answers, " Indeed we are." If space allowed, several other passages of this kind could be quoted, most of which show both magistrates and police heartily ashamed of the foolish and tyrannical acts which the wisdom of Parliament had ordered them to perform. In reading page after page of this legalized lawlessness, one feels it to be a marvel that the English people should now possess that character which is in truth theirs, of a law-abiding people. When the sky is a little lightened it is from an unexpected quarter. These last two years of the reign of James II., which the constitutional historian sees to have been full of peril to the civil, and eventually to the religious liberties of England, were nevertheless to the cruelly harried Nonconformists years of surcease of pain and recovery of freedom. The Kjng's Declaration of Indulgence, publised on April 4, 16^, expressed sentiments which, had there been no sinister design lurkinof behind them, would have done honour to Milton or Locke. " It is, and hath been of long time, our constant sense and opinion that conscience ought not to be constrained, nor people forced in matters of religion. It has ever been directly contrary to our inclination, as we think it is to the interest of Govern- ment, which it destroys by spoiling trades, depopulating countries, and discouraging strangers ; and finally, it has never obtained the end for which it was employed. And in this we are the more confirmed by the reflections we have made upon the conduct of the last four reigns; for after all the frequent and pressing endeavours that CLOSING YEARS 265 Avere used in each of them to reduce this kingdom to an exact conformity in religion, it is visible the success has not answered the design, and the difficulty is invincible." These Avords are true, whoever uttered them, and the Declaration of Indulgence, however un- constitutional, marked a victory won for the cause of Toleration, which no efforts of ecclesiastical bigotry have ever been able thoroughly to reverse. In the early part of 1686, a year before the Declara- tion of Indulirence, there had been some relaxation of the severities practised upon Friends. Fox writes thus in the Jourmd — " I came back to London in the First Month (March), 1686, and set myself with all diligence to look after Friends' sufferings, from which we had now some hope of getting relief The sessions came on in the Second Month (April), at Hicks's Hall, where many Friends had appeals to be tried ; with whom I was from day to day, to advise and see that no oppor- tunity were slipped, nor advantage lost, and they generally succeeded well. Soon after also, the King was pleased, upon our often laying our sufferings before him, to give order for the releasing of all prisoners for conscience' sake that were in his power to discharge, whereby the prison-doors were opened, and many hundreds of Friends, some of whom had been long in prison, were set at liberty. Some of them, who had for many years been restrained in bonds, came now up to the Yearly Meeting, which was in the Third Montii (May) this year. This caused great joy to Friends, to see our ancient, faithful brethren again at liberty in the Lord's work, after their long confinement. And indeed a ])recious meeting we had, the refreshing presence of the Lord appearing plentifully with us and amongst us." 266 GEOEGE FOX It was soon observed that the liberty granted to Nonconformists was shared (most justly according to our present views) by the Roman Catholics. "As it was a time of general liberty," says Fox, " the Papists appeared more open in their worship than formerly; and many unsettled people going to view them at it, a great talk there was of their praying to saints and by beads, etc., whereupon I wrote a short paper concerning prayer." The paper begins — " Christ Jesus, when He taught His disciples to pray, said unto them, ' When ye pray, say, Our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, etc' Christ doth not say that they should pray to Mary the mother of Christ ; nor doth He say that they should pray to angels or to saints that are dead. Christ did not teach them to pray to the dead, nor for the dead ; neither did Christ or His apostles teach the believers to pray by beads, nor to sing by outward organs, but the apostle said he would sing and pray by the Spirit, for the Spirit itself maketh intercession,' and the Lord that searcheth the heart knoweth the mind of the spirit." Next year (May 1687), the Declaration of Indulgence having been issued, the result of the general toleration and liberty now granted was seen in a very large attendance of the Yearly Meeting. At the close of it. Fox addressed a very wise "Word of counsel and caution to Friends to walk circumspectly in this time of liberty." The Lord having been pleased to incline the King's heart towards them, to open the prison- doors and to stop the spoilers of their goods, he had an anxious desire " that none of them might abuse this liberty nor the mercies of the Lord, but prize them, for CLOSING YEARS 207 there is great danger in time of liberty, of getting up into ease, looseness, and false liberty. And now," he continued, " seeing that ye have not the outward per- secutors to war with in sufferings, with the spiritual weapons keep down that which would not be subject to Christ, that He, the Holy One, may reign in your hearts, that your lives, conversations, and words may preach righteousness and truth, that ye all may show forth good ensamplcs of true believers in Christ, in virtue and holiness, answering that which may be known of God in all people, that ye are the sons and daughters of God." And now the time was drawing on for the great Revolution of 1688, the last cataclysm that has befallen the English State, The reader shall see just how much and how little mark it makes in Fox's Journal, and shall conjecture for himself what his secret feelings may have been concerning it. (September 1688.) " I had not been long in London before a great weight came upon me, and the Lord gave me a sight of the great bustles and troubles, revolution and change, which soon after came to pass. In the sense whereof, and in the movings of the Spirit of the Lord, I wrote a general Epistle to Friends, to forewarn them of the approaching storm, that they might all retire to the Lord, in whom safety is. . . . About this time great exercise and weight came upon me (as had usually done before the great revolutions and changes of government), and my strength departed from me : so that I reeled and was ready to fall as 1 went along the streets. At length I could not go abroad at all, I was so weak for some time, till I felt the power of the Lord to spring over all, and had 268 GEOl^GE FOX received an assumnce from Him that He would preserve His faithful people to Himself through all" (March 5, 1689: the "Glorious Revolution" already accomplished : William HI. at Whitehall, and James II. at St. Germains.) " It was now a time of much talk, and people busied their minds and spent their time too much in hearing and telling news. To show them the vanity thereof, and to draw them from it, I wrote the following lines : — ' In the low region, in the airy life, all news is uncertain ; there nothing is stable ; but in the higher region, in the Kingdom of Christ, there all things are stable and sure, and the news always good and certain. For Christ, who hath all power in heaven and earth given unto Him, rules in the kingdoms of men. . . . His power is certain and changes not, by which He removes the mountains and hills, and shakes the heavens and the earth. Leaky, dishonourable vessels, the hills and mountains, and the old heavens and the earth, are all to be shaken and removed and broken to pieces, though they do not see it nor him that doeth it; but His elect and faithful both see it and know Him and His power, that cannot be shaken, and which changeth not. " About the middle of the first month (March), 1689, I went to London, the Parliament then sitting, and engaged about the bill for Indulgence. Though I was weak in body and not well able to stir about, yet so great a concern was upon my spirit on behalf of Truth and Friends, that I attended continually for many days, with other Friends, at the Parliament house, labouring with the members that the thing might be done com- prehensively and effectually." The end of Fox's long labours " for the cause of CLOSING YEARS 269 Truth " was now approachiug. Through these later years, as has been said, his old energy had greatly abated, and he had seldom travelled more than twenty miles from London. Swarthmoor Hall was out of the question for him, with his enfeebled frame, racked by rheumatism and neuralgia, and actually it was his wife, though ten years older than he, and now seventy-six years of age, who made the long journey up from Lancashire in order to accomplish their last meeting. Their contemporaries, like modern readers, were evi- dently surprised that this faithful couple, strongly attached, as they certainly were, to one another, should have been willing to spend so much of their life apart. We will hear Margaret Fox's account of this last meeting, an account which bears somewhat of the character of an Apologia for their long separation. " Though the Lord had provided an outward habit- ation for him [by his marriage], yet he was not willing to stay at it, because it was so remote and far from London, where his service most lay. And my concern for God and His holy eternal truth was then in the North, where God had placed and set me, and likewise for the ordering and governing of my children and family : so that we were very willing, both of us, to live apart for some years on God's account, and His truth's service, and to deny ourselves of that comfort which we might have had in being together, for the sake and service of the Lord and His truth. And if any took occasion, or judged hard of us because of that, the Lord will judge them : for we were innocent. And for my own part, I was willing to take many long journeys, for taking away all occasion of evil thoughts ; and though I lived two hundred miles from London, yet have I 270 GEORGE FOX been nine times there upon the Lord and His truth's account; and of all the times that I was in London, this last was most comfortable, that the Lord was pleased to give me strength and ability to travel that great journey, being seventy-six years of age, to see my dear husband, who was better in his health and strength than many times I had seen him before. I look upon it that the Lord's special hand was in it that I should go then, for he lived but about half-a-year after I left him, which makes me admire the wisdom and goodness of God in ordering my journey at that time." The last years and months of George Fox's Hfe were busily occupied in writing Epistles to the Friends in various stations, to Friends in Barbadoes and America, to the persecuted congregation at Dantzic, to the magis- trates of that city, and so forth. These documents suffer from that tendency to diffuseness which was characteristic both of the author and the age, and though they are full of beautiful Christian feeling, it cannot be said that the expositions of Scripture in which they abound are particularly luminous or helpful. But there are many grains of gold in the mass, expressions which come straight from the heart of the writer, and help one to understand the power which his spoken discourses had on the hearts of his hearers. In one of the years of persecution (1685) he comforted his suffering Friends, by speaking to them of Christ, " in whom the promises are Yea and Amen ; who is the First and the Last, the Becfinninsf and the Ending — the Eternal Rest. So keep and walk in Christ, your rest, every one that hath received Him." Into that Eternal Rest the struggling, toiling soul CLOSING YEARS 271 was now to enter. On January 10, 1691, he wrote a letter to the Friends in Ireland, who had been suffering from the Civil War between James and William, wacred ill that country. The next day (Sunday) he went to the Friends' meetincj at Gracechurch Street ; no need now to meet in the courtyard, nor fear of constables coming to arrest the preacher. There he preached a long and powerful sermon, and the meeting ended, he went to the house of a Friend named Henry Goldney, in White Hart Court, near the meeting-house. "Some Friends going with him thither, he told them he thought he felt the cold strike to his heart as he came out of the meeting; 'yet,' he added, 'I am glad I was here. Now I am clear ; I am fully clear.* " He still complained of cold, " and his strength sensibly decaying, he was soon obliged to go into bed, where he lay in much contentment and peace, and very sensible to the last." " Divers Friends came to visit him in his illness, to some of whom he said, ' All is well : the Seed of God reigns over all, and over death itself. And though I am weak in body, yet the power of God is over all, and the Seed reigns over all disorderly spirits.' " " Thus lying in a heavenly frame of mind, his spirit wholly exercised towards the Lord, he grew weaker in his natural strength, and on the third day of the week [Tuesday], between the hours of nine and ten in the evening, he quietly departed this life in peace, and sweetly fell asleep in the Lord, whose blessed truth he had livingly and powerfully preached in the meeting but two days before." On the day appointed for the interment of George Fox, a very great concourse of Friends assembled at Gracechurch Street Meeting-house about noon. After 272 GEORGE FOX a solemn meeting, which lasted about two hours, the body was boroe by Friends, accompanied by very great numbers, to the Friends' burial-ground near Bunliill Fields, " where after a solemn waiting upon the Lord, and several living testimonies borne, recommending the company to the guidance and protection of that Divine Spirit and power by which this holy man of God had been raised up, furnished, supported, and preserved to the end of his day, his body was committed to the earth ; but his memorial shall remain and be everlast- ingly blessed among the righteous." CHAPTER XVII CONCLUSION We have heard Fox's friends tell in their own simple language the story of his death and burial. From the doges dedicated to his memory by his widow, his six step-daughters and their husbands, his friends William Penn and Thomas Ellwood, I will extract a few sentences which may help us to imagine the man as he appeared to his contemporaries. Margaret Fox. — " It hath pleased Almighty God to take away my dear husband out of this evil, trouble- some world, who was not a man thereof, being chosen out of it ; who had his life and being in another region, and whose testimony was against the world, that the deeds thereof were evil, and therefore the world hated him " And now he hath finished his course and his testi- mony and is entered into his eternal rest and fehcity. I trust in the same powerful God that His holy arm and power will carry me through, whatever He hath yet for me to do ; and that He will be my strength and support and the bearer-up of my heart unto the end and in the end. For I know His faithfulness and goodness and I have experience of His love, to whom be glory and powerful dominion for ever. Amen."^ * Margaret Fox survived her second husband nearly twelve years, and died at Swarthmoor in her eighty-eighth year. 273 T 274 GEORGE FOX The six daughters and their husbands. — " Neither days nor length of time with us can wear out the memory of our dear and honoured father, George Fox, whom the Lord hath taken to Himself .... Though of no great literature nor seeming much learned, as to the outward (being hid from the wisdom of this world), yet he had the tongue of the learned and could speak a word in due season to the conditions and capacities of most, especially to them that were weary and wanted soul's rest, being deep in the divine mysteries of the Kingdom of God. " And the word of life and salvation through him reached unto many souls, whereby many were convinced of their great duty of inward retiring to wait upon God ; and as they became diligent in the performance of that service, were also raised up to be preachers of the same everlasting gospel of peace and glad tidings to others; who are as seals to his ministry both in this and other matters, and may possibly give a more full account thereof. Howbeit we, knowing his unwearied diligence, not sparing, but spending himself in the work and service whereunto he was chosen and called of God, could not but give this short testimony of his faithfulness therein, and likewise of his tender love and care towards us ; who, as a tender father to his children, (in which capacity we stood, being so related to him,) never failed to give us his wholesome counsel and advice." William Fenn (himself, it is to be remembered, a courtier and something of a scholar). — " He was a man that God endued with a clear and wonderful depth, a discerner of others' spirits and very much a master of his own. And though the side of his understanding CONCLUSION 275 which lay next to the world, and especially the ex- pression of it, might sound uncouth and unfashionable to nice ears, his matter was nevertheless very profound, and would not only bear to be often considered, but the more it was so, the more weighty and instructive it appeared. And as abruptly and brokenly as sometimes his sentences would fall from him about divine things, it is Avell known they were often as texts to many fairer declarations. And indeed it showed beyond all con- tradiction that God sent him ; that no art or part had any share in the matter or manner of his ministry, and that so many great, excellent, and necessary truths as he came forth to preach to mankind had there- fore nothinsf of man's wit or wisdom to recommend them; so that as to man he was an original, being no man's copy. "He had an extraordinary gift in opening the Scriptures. He would go to the marrow of things and show the mind, harmony, and fulfilling of them, with much plainness and to great comfort and edifi- cation. " But above all he excelled in prayer. The inwardness and weight of his spirit, the reverence and solemnity of his address and behaviour, and the fewness and fulness of his words have often struck even strangers with admiration, as they used to reach others with consolation. The most awful, living, reverent frame I ever felt or beheld, I must say, was his in prayer. And truly it was a testimony he knew [more] and lived nearer to the Lord than other men : for they that know Him most will see most reason to approach Him with reverence and fear. " He was of an innocent life, no busy-body nor self- 276 GEORGE FOX seeker, neither touchy nor critical : what fell from him was very inoffensive if not very edifying.^ So meek, contented, modest, easy, steady, tender, it was a pleasure to be in his company. He exercised no authority but over evil, and that everywhere and in all; but with love, compassion, and long-suffering. A most merciful man, as ready to forgive as unapt to give or take an offence. Thousands can truly say he was of an ex- cellent spirit and savour among them, and because thereof the most excellent spirits loved him with an unfeigned and unfading love. . . . And truly I must say that though God had visibly clothed him with a divine presence and authority, and indeed his very presence expressed a religious majesty, yet he never abused it, but held his place in the Church of God with great meekness and a most engaging humility and moderation. ... I write my knowledge and not report, and my witness is true, having been with him for weeks and months together on occasions, and those of the nearest and most exercising nature, and that by night and by day, by sea and by land, in this and in foreign countries ; and I can say I never saw him out of his place or not a match for every service or occasion. For in all things he acquitted himself like a man, yea, a strong man, a new and heavenly-minded man, a divine and a naturalist, and all of God Almighty's making. I have been surprised at his questions and answers in natural things : that whilst he was ignorant of useless and sophistical science, he had in him the foundation of useful and commendable knowledge and cherished it, everywhere. Civil, beyond all forms of breeding, in ^ This looks like dispraise. I imagine that Penn means, "even when it was not very edifying." CONCLUSION 277 his behaviour ; very temperate, eating Uttle and sleeping less, though a bulky person. "Thus he lived and sojourned among us; and as he lived so he died : feeling the same eternal power that had raised and preserved him, in his last moments. So full of assurance was he that he triumphed over death, and so even in his spirit to the last, as if death were hardly worth notice or a mention." Lastly, we may take a few words from Tliomas Elhcood, the friend of Milton, the suggester of Paradise Eegained, and the editor of George Fox's Jmornal. "I knew him not till the year 1G61 ; from that time to the time of his death I knew him well, conversed with him often, observed him much, loved him dearly and honoured him truly; and upon good experience I can say, he was indeed a heavenly-minded man, zealous for the name of the Lord, and preferred the honour of God before all things. He was valiant for the truth, bold in asserting it, patient in suffering for it, unwearied in labouring in it, steady in his testimony to it, immovable as a rock. Deep he was in Divine knowledge, clear in opening heavenly mysteries, plain and powerful in preaching, fervent in prayer. He was richly endued with heavenly wisdom, quiet in discerning, sound in judgment, able and ready in giving, discreet in keeping counsel ; a lover of right- eousness, an encourager of virtue, justice, temperance, meekness, purity, chastity, modesty, humility, charity, and self-denial in all, both by word and example. Graceful he was in countenance, manly in personage, grave in gesture, courteous in conversation, weighty in communication, instructive in discourse, free from atfectation in speech or carriage, a severe reprover of 278 GEORGE FOX hard and obstinate sinners ; a mild and gentle admo- nisher of such as were tender and sensible of their i'ailings; not apt to resent personal wrongs, easy to forgive injuries ; but zealously earnest, where the honour of God, the prosperity of truth, the peace of the Church were concerned. Very tender, com- passionate, and pitiful he was to all that were under any sort of affliction ; full of brotherly love, full of fatherly care, for indeed the care of the churches of Christ was daily upon him, the prosperity and peace whereof he studiously sought." I have thought it better to give these descriptions of Fox with some fulness, lest in condensing I should in any way alter the proportions of the picture. They of course are the work of loving friends and admir- inof followers, and are to be taken with all needful allowances on that score. But even so, I think it will be admitted that we have here the portrait not only of a strong, but of a lovable man. That keen and piercing eye of his was not always sparkling with indignation against hypocritical "professors" — it could also shed tears of sympathy with the sorrowful, and there was something in his face which little children loved. To sum up in fewest possible words the impression made by his words and works upon one who studies them across the level of two centuries: he was a man of lion-like courage and adamantine strength of will, absolutely truthful, devoted to the fulfilment of what he believed to be his God-appointed mission, and with- out any of those side-long looks at worldly promotion and aggrandizement which many sincere leaders of Church parties have cast at intervals of their journey. The chief defect in Fox's character will perhaps be CONCLUSION 279 best described in the Avords of Carlyle—" Cromwell found George Fox'g enormous sacred self-confidence none of the least of his attainments." It is to be re- membered that Fox preached the doctrine of Christian perfection as a thing of possible attainment in this life ; nor is he any the less welcome as a teacher because he does not indulge in that cant of exaggerated self-con- demnation which was one of the signs of degenerating Puritanism. Still it is difficult for a reader of the Journal not to feel that Fox is too confident of the absolute Tightness of his own conduct, and the utter wickedness of all who oppose him. This is of course the usual note of the Prophet, and one of the things whereby he is most distinguished from the Philosopher, at least the true Philosopher. It is the spirit of Hosea rather than of Marcus Aurclius, and, paradoxical as it may sound, if Fox's education had been such as to give him a little less of the teaching of the Minor Prophets, and a little more — he probably had none — of the teach- ing of the best of the Greek philosophers, the result miffht have been a fuller manifestation of " the meek- ness and gentleness of Christ." But the beauties or the blemishes of the man's indi- vidual character are not after all the chief point for consideration by the student of his career. He believed, and his whole life was moulded by the belief, that he had a message from God to deliver to mankind. The important question is, whether this was in any sense true, or whether it was a mere delusion. Different readers of this little book will no doubt answer that question differently. To some the question will seem to be negatived beforehand by the simple fact that Fox received no commission to preach from those 280 GEORGE FOX whom they regard as the successors of the Apostles, Others, perhaps a more numerous class, will consider that the mistakes and failings, the eccentricities, per- haps the symptoms of mental excitement which occa- sionally showed themselves in the earlier parts of his career, equally remove the question from the zone of rational discussion. But if we admit the existence of any Divine revelation whatever, it may be worth while to ask ourselves — and the question has a much wider reach than to the individual instance now before us — "Through what manner of men has the Being whom we must believe to be All-wise, as well as Almighty, generally spoken to mankind ? Speaking now of the servants, not of the Son, have they as a rule been men fallible or infallible ? " We know that Stephen in his dying speech made a strange blunder as to the burial-place of Jacob, that Peter at Antioch was guilty of base compliance with the Judaizing party : yet do we not in spite of these errors, intellectual and moral, rightly regard them as message-bearers from the Most High ? INDEX Abraham, Daniel ami Rachel, 221 Abrahams, Galenus, 260-261 America, visit to, 226-237 Ap-John, John, 146-150 Arlington, Lord, 218 Ashburnham, Constable, 177 Askew, Anne, 66 Audland, Jolin, 69 Baltimore, Lord, 231 Baptists, 21, 103, 119, 239 Barbadoes, Address to Governor of 229 230 Barclay, Robert, 6, 207, 250, 254, 256, 258 Barebones Parliament, 51, 101 Barton, Colonel, 43, 51 Bennet, Sir Henry (Lord Arling- ton), 187 Bennet, Col. (Launceston), 132, 138, 139 Bennet, Justice (of Derby), 42, 53 Benson, CoL Gervase, 75, 81, 86, 92, 101 Bible, authority of, 85, 111, 158 Blasphemy Act (1650), 79 Blasphemy Ordinance (1648), 53 Booth, Sir George, 166 Bradden, Captain, 130-132 Bradshaw, President, 75, 167, 210 Buckingham, Duke of, 189 Bunyan, John, 19, ISl Burnyeat, John, 253 Bush.'l (a TtanterV 62 Carlyle, Thomas, 279 Gary (of Devonshire), 119 Caton, WilUam, 73, 260 Ceely, Peter, 121, 130-132 Charles II., 167, 170, 175, 176, 183 "Children of the Light," 54, 246 Claypole, Lady, 163 Conventicle Act, 171, 217, 222, 238, 241, 249, 252, 262 Corbet (barrister), 243, 244 Cornwall, Fox's visit to, 120-127 Cradock, Dr. (of Coventry), 23, 24 Cradock, Dr. (Episcopalian), 199, 200 Craven, Robert (Sheriff of Lin- colnshire), 102 Cromwell, Oliver, 43, 108-114, 117, 137, 144, 145, 154, 162- 165, 167-169 Cromwell, Richard, 165 Crook, John, 117, 159 Crosland, Sir Jordan, 197, 202, 203 Crowder, Dr., 241, 242 Curtis, Ann, 179 Daniel, book of, hats mentioned in, 128, 129 Dautzic, Quakers at, 259, 270 Declaration of Indulgence, 264- 266 Desborough, Major-General, 124- 126, 138, 139 Dolly Bray, 240 " Donmsdale " in Launceston Gaol, 133-139 282 INDEX Drayton. Hce Fenny Drayton Drury, Captain, 43, 109, 110, 112 Dugdale, Sir William, 187 Elecampane beer, 198 Elizabeth, Princess (Palatine), 255-259 Ellwood, Thomas, 33, 58, 167, 168, 207, 250, 277, 278 Endicott, John, 232 Fairfax, Lady, 199 Falconbridge (or Fauconberg), Lord, 199 Fanisworth, Rev. Richard, 74 Fell, George, 73, 83, 215, 217, 219, 221 Fell, Judge (Thomas), 65, 74, 75, 86, 92, 177, 214 Fell, Leonard 88 Fell, Margaret (afterwards Mar- garet Fox), 66-74, 179, 180, 188-190, 194-196, 210-221, 226, 239, 240, 251, 269, 270, 273 Fell family, 211, 219-221, 274 Fenny Drayton, 9-14, 103-107, 116 Fire of London, Great, 204 Five Mile Act, 172 Fleming, Sir Daniel, 184-191, 204 Foster, Sir Robert (Chief Justice), 181 Fox, Captain, 124, 135 Fox, Christopher, 15, 107 Fox, George, parentage, 15; birth- place, 9-14; "leather breeches," 33 ; message, 34-44. Imprison- ment at Nottingham, 48-51 ; at Derby,51-56;atCarlisle,97-101; at Launceston, 126-139 ; at Lan- caster, 179-181 ; at Leicester, 184 ; at Lancaster and Scarbro', 191-203; at Worcester, 240-244. "Alchemy" buttons, 113 ; long hair, 122, 150 ; attitude to- wards Cromwell, 168; reflec- tions on St. Bartholomew's Day, 172 ; marriage, 210-214 ; visit to America, 226-237 ; to Holland and Germany, 254- 261 ; death and funeral, 271, 272 ; character of, 273-280 Fox, John (Presbyterian minis- ter), 223 Fox, Mary, 15, 239 Frescheville, Lord, 197 Glyn, Chief Justice, 127-131 Goldney, Henry, 271 Hacker, Colonel, 43, 108-110, 164 Hains (clergyman), 239 Hale, Chief Justice, 243, 244 Harvey (valet of Oliver Cromwell), 110, 164 " Hat-worship," 39-41, 128-131 Holland, visit to, 254-259 Hooton, Elizabeth, 231 Hotham, Justice, 60, 62, 75 Howgill, Francis, 69, 77 Hubberthorn, Richard, 88 Hunter (gaoler), 197 Independents, 114, 147 Indians, North American, 234- 236 Ireland, 271 Ireton, 167 Jackus (Lancashire clergyman), 85 Jamaica, 155, 231 .Tames II., 264-268 Jenkins, Walter, 207 Jesuit, discussion with, 157-159 John III., King of Poland. 259 Keat, Captain, 124, 126, 135 Keith, George, 254 Mrs 257 Kirkby, Colonel, 184, 188, 189, 190, 195, 196, 217, 225, 252 Labadie, Jean, 256 Lambert, Colonel, 185 Lampitt, Rev. William, 69-75, 82, 252, 253 Larkham (clergyman of Cocker- mouth), 94 Lawson, Wilfred, 98 INDEX 283 Lichfield, "the bloodv city of," 57-58 "Light Within," 34-37, 119, 126, 145, 147, 234-235, 246- 249 Lower, Dr., F.R.S., 211, 220, 241 Lower, Thomas, 220, 221, 238, 239-244 Macham (or Machin), Rev. J., 24 Major-Generals, Cromwell'-s, 125 Mallet, Sir Thomas, 180, 181 Maicelliniis, I'ope, 199 Marshall (clergj'man of Lancas- ter), 84, 85 Marsh, " E-squire," 181, 182, 202, 208, 209 Maryland, visit to, 231-235 Meade, William, 220, 225 Mennonites, 260 Middleton, Sir George, 189, 190 Milner, James, 88 ,, Jane, 210 Monk, General, 166 Montague, Lady, 103 Moss-troopers, 100 Mount, Constable, 178 Myer, Richard, 88 Naturalism, 46 Naylor, Jas. 59, 74, 76, 87, 88, 141-144, 247 Negro slavery, 228, 229, 230, 231 Newport, Earl of, 157 Nimeguen, Peace of, 255 Nithsdale, Earl of, 152 Norton, Humphrey, 137 Oaths, forbidden to Christians, 37- 39 Oaths, substitute for, tendered by Fox, 243 Owen, Dr. John, 145 Parker (magistrate), 239-242 Parker, Alexander, 108 Parnell, James, 104 Pearson, Anthony, 75-78, 81, 99, 101 Penn, William, 15, 17, 207, 219, 220, 225, 238, 239, 254, 256, 258, 260, 274-277 Pennington, Isaac, 207 Perfection, Cliristian, 36 Perrot, John, 247 Peters, Hugh, 138 Porter, Major, 177, 179, 181 Praemunire, penalty of, 191, 192, 243, 244 Preston, James, 234, 236 Prisons, English, 133 Purefoy.s, of Drayton, 10-12 Pursloe, Captain, 60, 62 Pyot, Edward, 117-139, 145 Quakers (first use of the name), 54 Actofl662 against, 175; numbers of, imprisoned, 1650- 1662, 182 ; Fox's scheme of Church government for, 206, 246 ; schism of Wilkinson and Story, 246-250 Ranters, 62, 79, 103, 116, 249, 250 Eawlinson (magistrate), 191 Reckless, John, 49 Revolution of 1688, 267, 268 Rhode Island, 232, 233 Ripan, Major (Mayor of Lan- caster), 86 Robinson (Yorkshire magistrate), 74 Rogers, William, 250 Roman Catholics, 28, 158, 208, 266 "Roundheads," 123 Rous, John, 218, 219, 226, 228, 238, 261, 262 Rous, Margaret, 262 Rouse, Colonel, 135 Rump Parliament, dissolution of, 92 Rupert, Prince, 255, 257 Salt, W., 121-140 Salthouse, Thomas, 72, 211 " Saul's errand to Damascus," 89 Saunders, Mary, 145 Savile, Henry, 241 Savonarola, 21, 59 Sa^v^ey (magistrate of Ulverston), 72, 75, 82 284 INDEX Scotland, George Fox's visit to, 151-156 Sewel (Quaker historian), 33, 122, 247, 260 Sheldon, Archbishop, 217 Socinians, 239, 260 Starling, Samuel (Lord Mayor), 224-225 Stephens (or Stevens), Rev. Na- thaniel, 12-14, 22-23, 103-107 Story, John, 248-250, 262 Stubbs, John, 186 Swavthmoor Hall, 63-08, 151, 221, 251-253, 261 Swarthraoor Meeting-house, 68 Taylor (clergyman, convert to Quakerism), 104 Tithes, proposed abolition of, 168 Townsend (clergyman of Nor- wich), 166 Trelawney, Elizabeth, 119, 220 Triers, the, 115 Turner, Judge, 193 Twisden, Judge, 181, 193 Uniformity, Act of, 171 Venner (Fifth Monarchy man), ISl Wales, Fox's visit to, 146-151 War, unlawful for Christians, 41- 44 West, Colonel, 86 Whitehead, John, 202 Whittier, J. G., 46, 47 Widders, Robert, 151, 155 AVilkinson, John, 248-250, 262 Williams, Roger, 232, 253 Wilson, William, 186 Windsor, Lord, 241 Worcester, battle of, 55, 56 Wreckers, Cornish, 161 Wrey, Sir Richard, 103 Yearly Meeting of Friends, 159 160 Yeamans, Isabel, 211, 255, 257 Robert, 179, 180, 211 William, 211, 220 >> Richard Clo.y d: Sons, Limited, London Js Bungay. A CATALOGUE OF BOOKS AND ANNOUNCEMENTS OF METIIUEN AND COMPANY PUBLISHERS : LONDON 36 ESSEX STREET W.C. CONTENTS PAGE FORTHCOMING BOOKS, . 3 POETRY, 9 ENGLISH CLASSICS, 11 ILLUSTRATED BOOKS, . 12 HISTORY, ... »3 BIOGRAPHY, 15 GENERAL LITERATURE, I? SCIENCE, .... 20 THEOLOGY AND l-HILOSOPHY, . 20 LEADERS OF RELIGION, 22 FICTION, 22 BOOKS FOR BOYS AND GIRLS, . 32 UNIVERSITY EXTENSION SF.RIES, 33 SOCIAL QUESTIONS OF TO-DAY 35 CLASSICAL TRANSLATIONS, . 36 EDUCATIONAL BOOKS, 37 MAY 1896 May 1896. Messrs. Methuen's ANNOUNCEMENTS Poetry and Belles Lettres LANG AND CRAIGIE THE POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. Edited by Andrew Lang and W. A. Craigie. With Portrait. Detny Svo. Also 50 copies on hand-made paper. Demy 8vo. 21s. net. This edition will contain a carefully collated Text, numerous Notes, critical and textual, a critical and biographical Introduction, and a Glossary. The publishers hope that it will be the most complete and handsome edition ever issued at the price. W. M. 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Crown Zvo. 6s. A story of Scotland and British Columbia. M. A. OWEN THE DAUGHTER OF ALOUETTE. By Mary A. Owen. Cro'vn Svo. 6s. A story of life among the American Indians. RONALD ROSS THE SPIRIT OF STORM. By Ronald Ross, Author of ' The Child of Ocean. ' Crown Svo. 6s. A romance of the Sea. J. A. BARRY TALES OF THE SEA. By J. A. Barry. Author of ' Steve Brown's Bunyip.' Crcwn Sz'O. 6s. H. A. MORRAH A SERIOUS COMEDY. By H. A. MORRAH. Crown Svo. 6s. \ A LIST OF Messrs. Methuen's PUBLICATIONS Poetry Rudyard Kipling. BARRACK-ROOM BALLADS ; And Other Verses. By Rudyard Kipling. Ninth Edition. Crown Svo. 6s. Mr. Kipling's verse is strong, vivid, full of character. . . . Unmistakable genius rings in eveiy line.' — Times. 'The disreputable lingo of Cockayne is henceforth justified before the world ; for a man of genius has taken it in hand, and has shown, beyond all cavilling, that in its way it also is a medium for literature. You are grateful, and you say to yourself, half in envy and half in admiration : " Here is a book \ here, or one is a Dutchman, is one of the books of the year." ' — National Ofiserz'er. '"Barrack-Room Ballads" contains some of the best work that Mr. Kipling has ever done, which is saying a good deal. " Fuzzy-Wuzzy," " Gunga Din," and "Tommy," are, in our opinion, altogether superior to anything of the kind that English literature has hitherto produced.' — Atheiufuni. 'The ballads teem with imagination, they palpitate with emotion. We read them with laughter and tears ; the metres throb in our pulses, the cunningly ordered words tingle with life; and if this be not poetry, what is?' — Pall Matt Gazette. Henley. LYRA HEROICA: An Anthology selected from the best Enghsh Verse of the l6lh, ijlh, iSlh, and 19th Centuries. By William Ernest Henley. Cro-tm 8vo. Biukram., gilt top. 6j. Mr. Henley has brought to the task of selection an instinct alike fur poetry and for chivalry which seems to us quite wonderfully, and even unerringly, right.' — Guardian. A 2 10 Messrs. Methuen's List "Q." THE GOLDEN POMP : A Procession of English Lyrics from Surrey to Shirley, arranged by A. T. Quiller Couch. Crown 8<"0. Buckram. (>s. 'A delightful volume : a really golden ^^Vam^."''— Spectator. ' Of the many anthologies of "old rhyme" recently_ made, Mr. Couch's seems the richest in its materials, and the most artistic in its arrangement. Mr. Couch s notes are admirable; and Messrs. Methuen are to be congratulated on the format of the sumptuous volume.' — Realm. " Q." GREEN BAYS : Verses and Parodies. By " Q.," Author of ' Dead Man's Rock,' etc. Second Edition. Crown 8vo. y. 6d. ' The verses display a rare and versatile gift of parody, great command of metre, and a very pretty turn of humour.' — Times. H. C. Beeching. LYRA SACRA : An Anthology of Sacred Veise. Edited by H. C. Beeching, M.A. Crown 8vo. Buckram, gilt top. 6s. ' An .-inthology of high excellence.'— /I //ie»vo. Buckram. 6s. grandfathers.' the stories that are commonly regarded as merely " old fashioned." As to the form of the book, and the printing, which is by Messrs. Constable, it were difficult to commend overmuch. — Saturday Revieiv. S. Baring Gould. OLD ENGLISH FAIRY TALES. Col- lected and edited by S. Baring Gould. With Numerous Illustra- tions by F. D. Bedford. Second Edition. Crown 2>vo. Buckram. 6s. This volume consists of some of the old English stories which have been lost to sight, and they are fully illustrated by Mr. Bedford. ' Nineteen stories which will probably be new to everybody, who is not an antiquarian or a bibliographer. A book in which children will revel.' — Daily Telegraph. ' Of the fairy tales, first place must be given to the collection of " Old English Fairy Tales" of Mr. S. Baring Gould, in introducing which the author expresses his surprise that no collection had before been attempted and adapted to the_ reading of children of the old delightful English folk-tales and traditionary stories. He has gone to the most ancient sources, and presents to young readers in this volume a series of seventeen, told in his own way, and illustrated by F. D. Bed- ford. We can conceive of no more charming gift-book for children than this volume.'— /"vo. ^s. A collection of the best verse inspired by the birth of Christ from the Middle Ages to the present day. Mr. Walter Crane has designed several illustrations and the cover. A distinction of the book is the large number of poems it contains by modern authors, a few of which are here printed for the first time. '"A Book of Christmas Verse," selected by so good a judge of poetry as Mr. Beeching, and picturesquely illustrated by Mr. Crane, is likely to prove a popular Christmas book, more especially as it is printed by Messrs. Constable, with their usual excellence of typography.' — Athencenin. ' A very pleasing anthology, well arranged and well edited.' — Manchester Guardian. ' .\ beautiful anthology-.' — Daily Chronicle. '.\n anthology which, from its unity of aim and high poetic excellence, has a better right to exist than most of its fellows.' — Guardian. ' As well-chosen and complete a collection as we have seen.' — Spectator, History Flinders Petrie. A HISTORY OF EGYPT, from the Earliest Times to the Present Day. Edited by W. M. Flinders Pktrie D.C. L., LL.D., Professor of Egjptology at University College. Fidly llhistrated. In Six Volumes. Cioivn Zi>o. 6j. each. Vol. I. Prehistoric to Eighteenth Dynasty. \V. M. F. Petrie. Second Edition. 'A historj- written in the spirit of scientific precision so worthily represented by Dr. Petrie and his school cannot but promote sound and accurate study, and supply a vacant place in the English literature of Eg>"ptology.' — Tivtes. 14 Messrs. Methuen's List Flinders Petrie. EGYPTIAN TALES. Edited by W. M. Flinders Petrie. Illustrated by Tristram Ellis, In Two Volumes, Crown 2>vo. 35. bd. each. 'A valuable addition to the literature of comparative folk-lore. The drawings are really illustrations in the literal sense of the word.' — Globe. ' It has a scientific value to the student of history and z.x<^7e.o\o^.'— Scotsman. 'Invaluable as a picture of life in Palestine and Egypt." — Daily News. Flinders Petrie. EGYPTIAN DECORATIVE ART. By W. M. Flinders Petrie, D.C.L. With 120 Illustrations. Crown Svo. 3 J. 6d. ' Professor Flinders Petrie is not only a profound Egyptologist, but an accomplished student of comparative archaeology. In these lectures, delivered at the Royal Institution, he displays both qualifications with rare skill in elucidating the development of decorative art in Egypt, and in tracing its influence on the art of other countries. Few experts can speak with higher authority and wider knowledge than the Professor himself, and in any case his treatment of his sub- ject is full of learning and insight.' — Times. S. Baring Gould. THE TRAGEDY OF THE C^SARS. The Emperors of the Julian and Claudian Lines. With numerous Illustrations from Busts, Gems, Cameos, etc. By S. Baring Gould, Author of 'Mehalah,' etc. Third Editioti. Royal Zvo. \^s. ' A most splendid and fascinating book on a subject of undying interest. The great feature of the book is the use the author has made of the existing portraits of the Caesars, and the admirable critical subtlety he has exhibited in dealing with this line of research. It is brilliantly written, and the illustrations are supplied on a scale of profuse magnificence.'- — Daily Chronicle. ' The volumes will in no sense disappoint the general reader. Indeed, in their way, there is nothing in any sense so good in English. . . . Mr. Baring Gould has presented his narrative in such away as not to make one dull page.' — AthencEum. Clark. THE COLLEGES OF OXFORD : Their History and their Traditions. By Members of the University. Edited by A. Clark, M.A., Fellow and Tutor of Lincoln College, ^vo. 12s. 6d. 'A work which will certainly be appealed to for many years as the standard book on the Colleges of Oxford.' — Athena»V^ Chronicle. ' A study, the most concise, the most lucid, the most critical that has been produced." — Birminghatn Mercury, 'A careful and precise study, a fair and impartial criticism, and an eminently read- able book.' — Admiralty ami Horse Guards Gazette. George. BATTLES OF ENGLISH HISTORY. By II. B. George, M.A., Fellow of New College, O.xford. IVtth numerous Plans. Scxond Edition, Crown 2>vo. bs. • Mr. George has undertaken a very useful task— that of making milit-iry affairs in- telligible and instructive to non-military readers — and has executed it with laud- able intelligence and industrj', and with a large measure of success.'— 7V;w.f. 'This book is almost a revelation ; and we heartily congratulate the author on his work and on the prospect of the reward he has well deserved for so much con- scientious and sustained labour.' — Daily Chronicle. Browning. A SHORT HISTORY OF MEDIAEVAL ITALY A.D. 1 250- 1 530. By Oscar Browning, Fellow and Tutor of King's College, Cambridge. Second Edition. In Two Volumes. Crown Svo. 5 J. each. Vol. I. 1250-1409. — Guelphs and Ghibellines. Vol. II. 1 409- 1 530. —The Age of the Condottieri. A vivid picture of mediaeval Italy.' — Standard. ' Mr. Browning is to be congratulated on the production of a work of immense labour and learning.' — ll'cstminsicr Gazette. O'Grady. THE STORY OF IRELAND. By Standish O'Grady, Author of ' Finn and his Companions.' Cr. 8vo. 2s. 6d, 'Most delightful, most stimulating. Its racy humour, its original imaginings, make it one of the freshest, breeziest \'o\ames.'— Methodist Times. A survey at once graphic, acute, and quaintly written.' — Times. Biography Robert Louis Stevenson. VAI LI MA LETTERS. By Robert Louis Stevenson. With an Etched Portrait by William Strang, and other Illustrations. Second Edition. Crown Svo. Buckram, ys. 6d. Also 125 copies on hand-made paper. Demy %vo. z^s. net. ' The book is, on the one hand, a new revelation of a most lovable personality, and, on the other, it abounds in pass.iges of the most charming prose — personal, de- scriptive, humorous, or all three ; e-xquisite vignettes of Samoan scenery, passages of joy in recovered health, to be followed— alas, too soon— by depression, physical and mental ; little revelations of literary secrets, such as of the origin of "David Balfour," or of the scheme of the books not yet published ; amusing stories about the household, and altogether a picture of a character and surroundings that have never before been brought together since Britons took to writing books and travelling across the seas. The Vailima Letters are rich in all the varieties of that charm which have secured for Stevenson the afTcction of many others besides "journalists, fellow-novelists, and boys."' — The Times. ^ ' Few publications have in our time been more eagerly awaited than these " Vailima i6 Messrs. Methuen's List Letters," giving the first fruits of the correspondence of Robert LouisStevenson. But, high as the tide of expectation has run, no reader can possibly be disappointed in the result.' — Si. James's Gazette. ' For the student of English literature these letters indeed are a treasure. They are more like " .Scott's Journal " in kind than any other literary autobiography.' — National Obsewcr. ' One of the most noteworthy and most charming of the volumes of letters that have appeared in our time or in our language.' — Scotsman. ' Eagerly as we awaited this volume, It has proved a gift exceeding all our hopes— a gift, I think, almost priceless. It unites in the rarest manner the value of a familiar correspondence with the value of an intimate journal.' — A. T. Q. C, in Speaker. Collingwood. THE LIFE OF JOHN RUSKIN. By W. G. COLLINGWOOD, M.A., Editor of Mr. Ruskin's Poems. With numerous Portraits, and 1 3 Drawings by Mr. Ruskin. Second Editioti. 2 vols. Svo. 325. ' No more magnificent volumes have been published for a long time. . . .'—Times. ' It is long since we have had a biography with such delights of substance and of form. Such a book is a pleasure for the day, and a joy for ewe:t.'— Daily Chronicle. ' A noble monument of a noble subject. One of the most beautiful books about one of the noblest lives of our century.' — Glasgow Herald. Waldstein. JOHN RUSKIN : a Study. By Ch.\rles Wald- STEIN, j\I.A., Fellow of King's College, Cambridge. With a Photo- gravure Portrait after Professor Hp:rkomer. Post %vo. $s. 'A thoughtful, impartial, well-written criticism of Ruskin's teaching, intended to separate what the author regards as valuable and permanentfrom what is transient and erroneous in the great master's writing.' — Daily Chronicle. W. H. Hutton. THE LIFE OF SIR THOMAS MORE. By W. H. Hutton, M.A., Author of ' William Laud.' JVith Portraits. Crown Svo. $s. ' Mr. Wm. Holden Hutton has in a neat volume of less than 300 pages, told the story of the life of More, and he has placed it in such a well-painted setting of the times in which he lived, and so accompanied it by brief outlines of his principal writings, that the book lays good claim to high rank amon^ our biographies. The work, it may be said, is excellently, even lovingly, written.' — Scotsman. ' An excellent monograph.' — Times. ' A most complete presentation.' — Daily Chyoniclc. Kaufmann. CHARLES KINGSLEY. By M. Kaufmann, M.A. Crown Svo. Buckram. 5 J. A biography of Kingsley, especially dealing with his achievements in social reform. ' The author has certainly gone about his work with conscientiousness and industry.'— Sheffield Daily Telegraph. Messrs. Methuen's List 17 Robbins. THE EARLY LIFE OF WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. By A. F. Robbins. With Portraits. Crown ^vo. 6s. 'Considerable labour and much skill of presentation have not been unworthily expeniledon this interesting v/oik.'—Ti/ues. Clark Russell. THE LIFE OF ADMIRAL LORD COL- LIXGWOOD. By W. Ci.ark Russell, Aulhor of 'The Wreck of the Grosvenor.' With Illustrations by F. Brangwyn. Second Edition. Cro'tun Svo. 6s. ' A most excellent and wholesome book, which we should like to see in the hands of every boy in the country.' — St. James's Gazette. ' A really good book.' — Saturday Review. Southey. ENGLISH SEAMEN (Howard, Clifford, Hawkins, Drake, Cavendish). By ROBERT Southey. Edited, with an Introduction, by David IIannay. Crown Svo. 6s. ' xVdmirablc and well-told stories of our naval history.'— ^1 riiiy and Navy Gazette. ' A brave, inspiriting "hooV.'— Black and White. 'The work of a master of style, and delightful all through.'— ZPaj/y Chronicle. General Literature S. Baring Gould. OLD COUNTRY LIFE. By S. Baring Gould, Author of 'Mehalah,' etc. With Sixty-seven Illustrations by W. Parkinson, F. D. Bedford, and F. Masey. Large Crown %vo, cloth super extra, top edge gilt, \os. 6d. Fifth and Cheaper Edition. 6s. ' " Old Country Life," as healthy wholesome reading, full of breezy life and move- ment, full of quaint stories vigorously told, will not be excelled by any book to be published throughout the year. Sound, hearty, and English to thecore.'— /Ki)r/rf. S. Baring Gould. HISTORIC ODDITIES AND STRANGE EVENTS. By S. Baking Gould, Author of ' Mehalah,' etc. Third Edition. Crown Svo. 6s. ' A collection of exciting and entertaining chapters. The whole volume is delightful reading. ' — Times. S. Baring Gould. FREAKS OF FANATICISM. By S. Baring Goui.D, Author of 'Mehalah,' etc. Third Edition. CrownSvo. 6s. ' Mr. Baring Gould has a keen eye for colour and effect, and the subjects he has chosen give ample scope to his descriptive and analytic faculties. A perlectly fascinating book.' — Scottish Leader. A3 i8 Messrs. Methuen's List S. Baring Gould. A GARLAND OF COUNTRY SONG : English Folk Songs with their Traditional Melodies. Collected and arranged by S. Baring Goulu and H. Fleetwood Sheppard. Detny i,to. ()S S. Baring Gould. SONGS OF THE WEST: Traditional Ballads and Songs of the West of England, with their Traditional Melodies. Collected by S. Baring Gould, M.A., and H. Fleet- wood Sheppard, M. A. Arranged for Voice and Piano. In 4 Parts (containing 25 Songs each), Parts /., //., ///., 3^. each. Part IV. t 5 J. In one Vol., French morocco, 155. 'A rich collection of humour, pathos, grace, and poetic fancy.'— 5'ai'z^r^aj' Review. S. Baring Gould. YORKSHIRE ODDITIES AND STRANGE EVENTS. Fourth Edition. Crown %vo. 65. S. Baring Gould. STRANGE SURVIVALS AND SUPER- STITIONS. With Illustrations. By S. Baring Gould. Crown %vo. Second Edition, bs. We have read INIr. Baring Gould's hook from beginningtoend. It is full of quaint and various information, and there is not a dull page in it.' — Notes and Queries. S. Baring Gould. THE DESERTS OF SOUTHERN FRANCE. By S. Baring. Gould, With numerous Illustrations by F. D. Bedford, S. Hutton, etc. 2 vols. Demy 8vo. 325. This book is the first serious attempt to describe the great barren tableland that extends to the south of Limousin in the Department of Aveyron, Lot, etc., a country of dolomite cliffs, and caiions, and subterranean rivers. The region is full of prehistoric and historic interest, relics of cave-dwellers, of mediseval robbers, and of the English domination and the Hundred Years' War. 'His two richly-illustrated volumes are full of matter of interest to the geologist, the archaeologist, and the student of history and manners.' — Scotsman. ' It deals with its subject in a manner which rarely fails to arrest attention. — Times. W. E. Gladstone. THE SPEECHES AND PUBLIC AD- DRESSES OF THE RT. HON. W. E. GLADSTONE, M.P. Edited by A. W. Hutton, M.A., and H. J. Cohen, M.A. With Portraits. 2>vo. Vols. IX. and X. 1 2s. 6d. each. Henley and Whibley. A BOOK OF ENGLISH PROSE. Collected by W. E. Henley and Charles Whiuley. Cr. Svo. 6s. ' A unique volume of extracts — an art gallery of early prose.' — Birminsham Post. An admirable companion to Mr. Henley's "Lyra llcroicz.."'— Saturday Review. 'Quite delightful. The choice made has been excellent, and the volume has been most admirably printed by Messrs. Constable. A greater treat for those not well acquainted with pre-Restoralion prose could not be Imagxrvid.'— A ihenauiit. Messrs. Metiiuen's List 19 Wells. OXFORD AND OXFORD LIFE. By Members of the University. Edited by J. Wells, M.A., Fellow and Tutor of Wadham College. Crown Svo. y. 6c/. This work contains an account of life at Oxford — intellectual, social, and religious — a careful estimate of necessary expenses, a review of recent changes, a statement of the present position of the University, and chapters on Women's Education, aids to study, and University Extension. • We congratulate Mr. Wells on the production of a readable and intelligent account of Oxford as it is at the present time, written by persons wlio are possessed of a close acquaintance with the system and life of the University.'— /I ///^Wi^ww/. W. B. Worsfold. SOUTH AFRICA : Its History and its Future. By W. Basil Worsfold, M.A. IFii/i a Map. Crown %vo. 6s. ' An intensely interesting book.' — Daily Chronicle. ' A monumental work compressed into a very moderate compass. The early history of the colony, its agricultural resources, literature, and gold and diamond mines arc all clearly described, besides the main features of recent Kaffir and IJoer campaigns ; nor (to bring his record quite up to date) does the author fail to devote a chapter to Mr. Cecil Rhodes, the Chartered Company, and the Boer Conven- tion of 1884. Additional information from sources not usually accessible is to be found in the notes at the end of the book, as well as a historical summary, a statistical appendix, and other matters of special interest at the present moment.' — World. Ouida. VIEWS AND OPINIONS. By Ouida. Crown Zvo. Second Edition. 6s. ' Ouida is outspoken, and the reader of this book will not have a dull moment. The book is full of variety, and sparkles with entertaining matter.' — Speaker. J. S. Shedlock. THE PIANOFORTE SONATA : Its Origin and Development. By J. S. Shedlock. Crown Svo. 55. ' This work should be in the possession of every musician and amateur, for it not only embodies a concise and lucid history ot the origin ofoneof the most im- portant forms of musical composition, but, by reason of the painstaking research and accuracy of the author's statements, it is a very valuable work for reference.' — .4 i/ienaurn. Bowden. THE EXAMPLE OF BUDDHA: Being Quota- tions from Buddhist Literature for each Day in the Year. Compiled by E. RL Bowden. With Preface by Sir Edwin Arnold. T/n'rd Edition, \6ino, 2s. 6d. BushiU. PROFIT SHARING AND THE LABOUR QUES- TION. By T. W. BusHlLL, a Profit Sharing Employer. Crown ?>V0. 2S. 6d. John Beever. PRACTICAL FLY-FISHING, Foundefl on Nature, by John Beever, late of the Thwaite House, Coniston. A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author by W. G. Collingwood, M.A. CrozvnSvo. 2>^. 6d. A little book on Fly-Fishing by an old friend of Mr. Ruskin. 20 Messrs. Methuen's List Science Freudenreich. DAIRY BACTERIOLOGY. A Short Manual for the Use of Sludcnts. By Dr. Ed. von Freudenreich. Translated from the German by J. R. AiNSWORTH Davis, B.A., F. C. P. Croron "ivo. 2s. 6il Chalmers Mitchell. OUTLINES OF BIOLOGY. By P. Chalmers Mitchell, M.A., F.Z.S. Fully Illustrated. Crown %vo. 6s. A text-book designed to cover the new Schedule issued by the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons. Massee. A MONOGRAPH OF THE MYXOGASTRES. By George Massee. With 12 Coloured Plates. Royal ?>vo. \Zs.net. 'A work much in advance of any book in the language treating of this group of organisms. It is indispensable to every student of the Myxogastres. The coloured plates deserve high praise for their accuracy and execution." — Nature. Theology and Philosophy Driver. SERMONS ON SUBJECTS CONNECTED WITH THE OLD TESTAMENT. By S. R. Driver, D.D., Canon of Christ Church, Regius Professor of Hebrew in the University of Oxford. Crown 8vo. 6s. 'A welcome companion to the author's famous 'Introduction.' No man can read these discourses without feeling that Dr. Driver is fully alive to the deeper teaching of the Old Testament.' — Guardian. Cheyne. FOUNDERS OF OLD TESTAMENT CRITICISM : Biographical, Descriptive, and Critical Studies. By T. K. Cheyne, D.D., Oriel Professor of the Interpretation of Holy Scripture at Oxford. Large crown 8vo. Js, 6d. This important book is a historical sketch of O. T. Criticism in the form of biographi- cal studies from the days of Eichhorn to those of Driver and Robertson Smith. It is the only book of its kind in English. ' A very learned and instructive work.' — Times. Prior. CAMBRIDGE SERMONS. Edited by C. H. Prior, ]\L A., Fellow and Tutor of Pembroke College. Croiun Svo. 6s. A volume of sermons preached before the University of Cambridge by various preachers, including the Archbishop of Canterbury and Bishop Westcott. ' A representative collection. Bishop Westcott's is a noble sermon.' — Gtiardian. Beeching. SERMONS TO SCHOOLBOYS. By H. C. Beeching, M.A., Rector of Yattendon, Berks. With a Preface by Canon ScOTT Holland. Crown 2>vo. 2s. 6d. Seven sermons preached before the boys of Bradfield College. Messrs. Metiiuen's List 21 Layard. RELIGION IN BOYHOOD. Notes on the Reli- gious Training of Boys. With a Preface by J. K. Illingworth. By E. B. Layaud, M.A. iSmo. is. C. J. Shebbeare. THE GREEK THEORY OF THE STATE AND THE NONCONFORMIST CONSCIENCE: a Socialistic Defence of some Ancient Institutions. By Charles John Sheb- beare, B. A., Christ Church, Oxford. C>vwnSo-o. 2s. 61/. F. S. Granger. THE WORSHIP OF THE ROMANS. By F. S. Granger, M.A., Litt.D., rrofcssor of I'liilosophy at Univer- sity College, Nottingham. Crown 8w. 6s. The author has atteiiipteil to delineate that group of beliefs which stood in close con- nection with the Roman religion, and among the subjects treated are Dreams, Nature Worship, Roman Magic, Divination, Holy Places, Victims, etc. Thus the book is, apart from its immediate subject, a contribution to folk-lore and com- parative psychology. ' A scholarly analysis of the religious ceremonies,beliefs, and superstitions of ancient Rome, conducted in the new instructive light of comparative anthropology." — Times. ' This is an analytical and critical work which will assist the student of Romish history to understand the factors which went to build up the remarkable charac- teristics of the old Romans especially in matters appertaining to religion.' — Oxford Revieiu. 2Dct]otional 25oofe0» With Full-page Illustrations. Fcap. Zvo. Biickravi. 3^-. 6d. Padded morocco, <,s. THE IMITATION OF CHRIST. By Thomas a Kempis. \Yith an Introduction by Dean Farrar. Illustrated by C. M. Gere, and printed in black and red. 'Amongst all the innumerable English editions of the "Imitation," there can have been few which were prettier than this one, printed in strong and handsome type by Messrs. Constable, with all the glory of red initials, and the comfort of buckram binding." — Gl.%sgvo. 6s. ' The story is a very sad and a very beautiful one, exquisitely told, and enrichedvvith many subtle touches of wise and tender insight. Mrs. Clififord's gentle heroine is a most lovable creature, contrasting very refreshingly with the heroine of latter- day fiction. The minor characters are vividly realised. " A Flash of Summer' is altogether an admirable piece of work, wrought with strength and simplicity. It will, undoubtedly, add to its author's reputation — already high — in the ranks of novelists.' — Sfcakcr. ' We must congratulate Mrs. Clifford upon a very successful and interesting story, told throughout with finish and a delicate sense of proportion, qualities which, indeed, have always distinguished the best work of this very able writer.' — Manchester Guardia7i. Emily Lawless. MAELCHO : a Sixteenth Century Romance. By the Hon. Emily Lawless, Author of 'Crania,' 'Hurrish,' etc. Second Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s. ' A really great book.' — Spectator. ' There is no keener pleasure in life than the recognition of genius. Good work is commoner than it used to be, but the best is as rare as ever. All the more gladly, therefore, do we welcome in " Maelcho " a piece of work of the first order, which we do not hesitate to describe as one of the most remarkable literary achievements of this generation. Miss Lawless is possessed of the very essence of historical genius.' — Manchester Guardian. E. F. Benson. DODO : A DETAIL OF THE DAY. By E. F. Benson. Sixteenth Edition. Crown 8vo, 6s. ' A delightfully witty sketch of society.' — Spectator. ' A perpetual feast of epigram and paradox.' — Speaker. ' By a writer of quite e.vceptional ;ibility.' — Athenceum. ' Brilliantly wuU^n.'—lf^orld. Messrs. Metiiuen's List 25 E. F. Benson. THE RUBICON. By E. F. Benson, Author of ' Dodo.' Fifth Edition. Crown ^vo. 6j. ' Well written, stimulating, unconventional, and, in a word, characteristic. ' — lUrmiiighaiH Post. ' An exccptioii.il achievement ; a notable advance on his previous work.' — National Obsei-vcr. M. M. Dowie. GALLIA. By Menie Muriel Dowie, Author of 'A Girl in the Carpathians.' lliird Edition. Crown Zi'o. 6j. 'The style is generally admirable, the dialogue not seldom brilliant, the situations surprising in their freshness and originality, while the subsidiary as well as the principal characters live and move, and the story itself is readable from title-page to colophon.' — Satufitay Reviczv. ' A very notable book ; a very sympathetically, at times delightfully written book. — Daily Graphic. MR. BARING GOULD'S NOVELS 'To say that a book is by the author of " Mehalah" is to imply that it contz^ins a story cast on strong lines, containing; dramatic possibilities, vivid and sympathetic descriptions of Nature, and a wealth of ingenious imagery.' — Speaker. ' That whatever Mr. Baring Gould writes is well worth reading, is a conclusion that may be verjr generally accepted. His views of life are fresh and vigorous, his language pointed and characteristic, the incidents of which he makes use are striking and ori^jinal, his characters are life-like, and though somewhat excep- tional people, are drawn and coloured with artistic force. Add to this that his descriptions of scenes and scenery are painted with the loving eyes and skilled hands of a master of his art, that he is always fresh and never dull, and under such conditions it is no wonder that readers have gained confidence both in his power of amusing and satisfying them, and that year by ye.Tr his popularity widens.' — Cotirt Circular. Baring Gould. URITH : A Story of Dartmoor. By S. Baring Gould. Third Edition. CrounZvo. 6s. 'The author is at his best.' — Times. ' He has nearly reached the high water-mark of " Mehalah." ' — National Ohserrer. Baring Gould. IN THE ROAR OF THE SEA: A Tale of the Cornish Coast. By S. Baring Gould. Fifth Edition. 6s. 'One of the best imagined and most enthralling stories the author has produced.' — Saturday Rez'ie~.v. Baring Gould. MRS. CURGENVEN OF CURGENVEN. By S. Baring Gould. Fourth Edition. 6s. ' A novel of vigorous humour and sustained power.' — Graphic. ' The swing of the narrative is splendid.' — Susse.t Daily A'aos. Baring Gould. CHEAP JACK ZITA. By S. B.^ring Could. Third Edition. Crown Svo. 6s. ' A powerful drama of human passion." — U'estiitinster Gazrtte. 'A story worthy the author.' — National Obsttvtr. 26 Messrs. Methuen's List S. Baring Gould. THE QUEEN OF LOVE. By S. Baring Gould. Fourth Edition. Crown %vo. ds. The scenery is admirable, and the dramatic incidents are most Striking.' — Glaz^ow Herald. Strong, interesting, and clever.' — Westminster Gazette. ' You cannot put it down until you have finished it." — Punch. ' Can be heartily recommended to all who care for cleanly, energetic, and interesting fiction.' — Sussex Daily News. S. Baring Gould. KITTY ALONE. By S. Baring Gould, Author of 'Mehalah,' 'Cheap Jack Zita,' etc. Fourth Editioji. Crown %vo. bs. ' A strong and original story, teeming with graphic description, stirring incident, and, above all, with vivid and enthralling human interest.' — Daily Telegraph. 'Brisk, clever, keen, healthy, humorous, and interesting.' — National Observer, ' Full of quaint and delightful studies of character.' — Bristol Mercury. S. Baring Gould. NOEMI : A Romance of the Cave-Dwellers. By S. Baring Gould. Illustrated by R. Caton Woodville. Third Editio7t. Crown 8vo. 6s. ' " Noemi " is as excellent a tale of fighting and adventure as one may wish to meet. All the characters that interfere in this exciting tale are marked with properties of their own. The narrative also runs clear and sharp as the Loire itself.' — Pall Mall Gazette. ' Mr. Baring Gould's powerful story is full of the strong lights and shadows and vivid colouring to which he has accustomed us.' — Standard. Mrs. Oliphant. SIR ROBERTS FORTUNE. By Mrs. Oliphant. Crown ?)V0. 6s. ' Full of her own peculiar charm of style and simple, subtle character-painting comes her new gift, the delightful story before us. The scene mostly lies in the moors, and at the touch of the authoress a Scotch moor becomes a living thing, strong, tender, beautiful, and changeful. The book will take rank among the best of Mrs. Oliphant's good stories.'— Pall Mall Gazette. W.RNorris. MATTHEW AUSTIN, By W. E. Norris, Author of ' Mademoiselle de Mersac,' etc. Fourth Edition. CrownZvo. 6s. ' "Matthew Austin " may safely be pronounced one of the most intellectually satis- factory and morally bracing novels of the current year.' — Daily Telegraph. W. E. Norris. HIS GRACE. By W. E. Norris, Author of ' Mademoiselle de Mersac. ' Third Edition, Crown Svo. 6s. Mr. Norris has drawn a really fine character in the Duke of Hurstbourne, at once unconventional and very true to the conventionalities of life, weak and strong in a breath, capable of inane follies and heroic decisions, yet not so definitely por- trayed as to relieve a reader of the necessity of study on his own behalf.' — A then'body with a soul for romance will thoroughly enjoy "The Trail of the Sword." ' — St. James's Gazette. ' A rousing and dramatic tale. A book like this, in which swords flash, great sur- prises are undertaken, and daring deeds done, in which men and women live and love in the old straightforward passionate way, is a joy inexpressible to the re- viewer, brain-weary of the domestic tragedies and psychological puzzles of every- day fiction ; and we cannot but believe that to the reader it will bring refreshment as welcome and as keen.' — Daily Chronicle. Gilbert Parker. WHEN VALMOND CAME TO PONTIAC : The Story of a Lost Napoleon. By Gilbert Parker. Third Edition. Crown Svo. 6s, ' Here we find romance — real, breathing, living romance, but it runs flush with our own times, level with our own feelings. Not here can we complain of lack of inevitableness or homogeneity. The character of Valmond is drawn unerringly ; his career, brief as it is, is placed before us as convincingly as history itself. The book must be read, we may say rc-rcad, for any one thoroughly to appreciate Mr. Parker's delicate touch and innate sympathy with humanity.' — J'all Mall Gazette. 'The one work of genius which 1895 has a.s yet produced.' — New Age. 28 Messrs. Methuen's List Gilbert Parker. AN ADVENTURER OF THE NORTH: The Last Adventures of ' Pretty Pierre.' By Gilbert Parker. Crown Svo. 6s. ' The present book is full of fine and moving stories of the great North, and it will add to Mr. Parker's already high reputation.' — Glasgow Herald. ' The new book is very romantic and very entertaining — full of that peculiarly elegant spirit of adventure which is so characteristic of Mr. Parker, and of that poetic thrill which has given him warmer, if less numerous, admirers than even his romantic story-telling gift has don^.'— Sketch. H. G. Wells. THE STOLEN BACILLUS, and other Stories. By II, G. Wells, Author of 'The Time Machine.' Croivn ?>vo. 6s. ' The ordinary reader of fiction may be glad to know that these stories are eminently readable from one cover to the other, but they are more than that ; they are the impressions of a very striking imagination, which it would seem, has a great de:il within its reach.' — Saturday Review. Arthur Morrison. TALES OF MEAN STREETS. By Arthur Morrison. Third Edition. Crown 2,vo. 6s. ' Told with consummate art and extraordinary detail. He tells a plain, unvarnished tale, and the very truth of it makes for beauty. In the true humanity of the book lies its justification, the permanence of its interest, and its indubitable triumph.' — A tliemeum. ' A great book. The author's method is amazingly effective, and produces a thrilling sense of reality. The writer lays upon us a master hand. The book is simply appalling and irresistible in its interest. It is humorous also ; without humour it would not make the mark it is certain to make.' — World. J. Maclaren Cobban. THE KING OF ANDAMAN : A Saviour of Society. By J. Maclaren Cobban, Author of ' The Red Sultan,' etc. Second Edition. Crown Svo. 6s. ' An unquestionably interesting book. It would not surprise us if it turns out to be the most interesting novel of the season, for it contains one character, at least, who has in him the root of immortality, and the book itself is ever exhaling the sweet savour of the unexpected. . . . Plot is forgotten and incident fades, and only the really human endures, and throughout this book there stands out in bold and beautiful relief its high-souled and chivalric protagonist, James the Master of Hutcheon, the King of Andaman h'lmstU.'— Pall Mall Gazette. A most original and refreshing story. The supreme charm of the book lies in the genial humour with which the central character is conceived. James Hutcheon is a personage whom it is good to know and impossible to forget. He is beautiful withinand without, v/hichever way we take him.' — Spectator. '"The King of Andaman " has transcended our rosiest expectations. If only for the brilliant portraits of 'the Maister,' and his false friend Fergus O'Rhea, the book deserves to be read and remembered. The sketches of the Chartist move- ment are wonderfully vivid and engrossing, while the whole episode of James Hutcheon's fantastic yet noble scheme is handled with wonderful spirit and sympathy. "The King of Andaman," in short, is a book which does credit not less to the heart than the head of its author.' — Athenceuin. ' The fact that Her Majesty the Queen has been pleased to gracefully express to the author of " The King of Andaman" her interest in his work will doubtiess find for it many readers.'— Vanity I'air. Messrs. Metiiuen's List 29 Julian Corbett. A BUSINESS IN GREAT WATERS. By Julian Corbett, Author of * For God and Gold,' ' Kophetua Xlllth.j'etc. Crvo. 6s. ' Mrs. Pinsent's new novel has plenty of vigour, variety, and good writing. There are certainty of purpose, strength of touch, and clearness oi\\&\on.'—Athcnauiit. Clark Russell. MY DANISH SWEETHEART. By W. Clark Russell, Author of 'The Wreck of the Grosvenor,' etc Illustrated. Third Edition. Crown 2,vo. 6s. 30 Messrs. Methuen's List G. Manville Fenn. AN ELECTRIC SPARK. By G. Manville Fenn, Author of ' The Vicar's Wife,' ' A Double Knot,' etc. Second £dition. Crozvii Svc. 6s, 'A simple and wholesome story.' — Blanches ter Guardian. Pryce. TIME AND THE WOMAN. By Richard Pryce, Author of ' Miss Maxwell's Affections,' 'The Quiet Mrs. Fleming,' etc. Second Edition. Croivn Zz'O. 6s. ' Mr. Prj'ce's work recalls the style of Octave Feuillet, by its clearness, conciseness, its literary reserve.' — At/ie>ia:zim. Mrs. Watson. THIS MAN'S DOMINION. By the Author of ' A High Little World.' Second Ediiio7i. Crown Zvo. 6s. Marriott Watson. DIOGENES OF LONDON and other Sketches. By II. B. Marriott Watson, Author of * The Web of the Spider.' Crown 8vo. Bteciram. 6s. ' By all those who delight in the uses of words, who rate the exercise of prose above the exercise of verse, who rejoice in all proofs of its delicacy and its strength, who believe that English prose is chief among the moulds of thought, by these Mr. Marriott Watson's book will be welcomed.' — National Ubserver. Gilchrist. THE STONE DRAGON. By Murray Gilchrist. Crown %vo. Btickrani. 6s. 'The author's faults are atoned for by certain positive and admirable merits. The romances have not their counterpart in modern literature, and to read them is a unique experience.' — National Observer. THREE-AND-SIXPENNY NOVELS Edna Lyall. DERRICK VAUGHAN, NOVELIST. By Edna Lyall, Author of ' Donovan,' etc. Foiiy-Jirst Thousand. Crown Svo. y. 6d. Baring Gould. ARM I NELL : A Social Romance. By S. Baring Gould. JVew Edition. Crown Zvo. 35. 6d. Baring Gould. MARGERY OF QUETHER, and other Stories. By S. Baking Gould. Crown Svo. 35. 6d. Baring Gould. JACQUETTA, and other Stories. By S. Baring Gould. Crown Zvo. 35. 6d. Miss Benson. SUBJECT TO VANITY. By Margaret Benson. With numerous Illustrations. Second Edition. Crown %vo. 35. 6d, ' A charming little book about household pets by a daughter of the Archbishop of Canterbury.' — Speaker. ' A delightful collection of studies of animal nature. It is very seldom that we get anything so perfect in its kind. . . . The illustrations are clever, and the whole book a singularly delightful one.' — Guardian, Messrs. Methuen's List 31 Mary Gaunt. THE MOVING FINGER: Chapters from the Romance of Australian Life. By Mary Gaunt, Author of ' Daves Sweetheart.' Crown %vo. 3^. f>d. ' Rich in local colour, and replete with vigorous character sketches. They strike us as true to the life.' — Times. ' Unmistak.ibly powerful. Tragedies in the bush and riot in the settlement are portrayed Tor us \n vivid colour and vigorous outline." — Vyestminsler Gazette. Gray. ELSA. A Novel. By E. M'Queen Gr.\y. Crown Zvo. y. ed. J. H. Pearce. JACO TRELOAR. By J. H. Pe.\rce, Author of 'Esther Pentreath.' Nciv Edition. Crown Svo. y.6d. The Spectator' speaks of Mr. Pearce ?^^' a^uriterof exceptional powcr'\ the 'Daily Telegraph' calls the book ' poxverful and picturesqxte ' ; the ' Birmingham Post' asserts that it is 'a novel of hish quality.' X. L. AUT DIABOLUS AUT NIHIL, and Other Stories. By X. L. Second Edition. Crown ?>vo. 3^. dd. ' Distinctly original and in the highest degree imaginative. The conception is almost as lofty as Milton's.' — Spectator. 'Original to a degree of originality that may be called primitive — a kind of passion- ate directness that absolutely absorbs us.' — Saturday Review. ' Of powerful interest. There is something st.irtlingly original in the treatment of the themes. The terrible realism leaves no doubt of the author's power.' — Atlunceum. O'Grady. THE COMING OF CUCULAIN. A Romance of the Heroic Ap;e of Ireland. By Standish O'Grady, Author of * Finn and his Companions.' Illustrated. Croivn Zvo. y. 6d. ' The suggestions of mystery, the rapid and exciting action, are superb poetic effects.' — Speaker. ' For light and colour it resembles nothing so much as a Swiss dawn.' — Manchester Guardian. Angus Evan Abbott. THE GODS GIVE MY DONKEY WINGS. By Angus Evan Abbott. Crown ?,vo. '^s. 6d. ' What a relief to turn to a book like " The Gods give my Donkey Wings." There is nothing but praise for this delightful storj-— excepting, perhaps, that it is too short, and demands a sequel. Mr. Angus Evan Abbot is not set down as the rnaker of other books; but assuredly there in no trace of the 'prentice hand in this. It is the work of an artist from first to last. The quaint vernacular, so easily sustained, the originality of the plot, the deft unravelling of ihemysterj-, the hurnour, the exquisite setting, the person.-ility of the packman-biographer, the vivid and differentiated personalities that make the storj', and the distant kinship to other writers, should give Mr. Abbot his rank at once, and make his next book eagerly awaited. One cannot imagine this writer deteriorating, and it is difEcult to guess how he can improve. He seems to have crystalised once for all ; and there is no flaw in the crystal.' — Vanity Fair. Fenn. THE STAR GAZERS. By G. Manville Fenn, Author of ' Eli's Children,' etc. New Edition. Cr. Svo. 35. 6d. ' A stirring romance.' — IVestem Mornin;: Nnvs. 'Told with all the dramatic power for which Mr. Fenn is conspicuous." — T.rad/ord Observer. 32 Messrs. Methuen's List Dickinson. A VICAR'S WIFE. By Evelyn Dickinson. Crown ?>vo. ji. 6d, Prowse. THE POISON OF ASPS. By R. Orton Prowse. Crown Siu. 3^. 6d. R. Pryce. THE QUIET MRS. FLEMING. By R. Pryce. Crown 8vo. 2^. 6d. Lynn Linton. THE TRUE HISTORY OF JOSHUA DAVID- SON, Christian and Communist. By E. Lynn LiNTON. Eleventh Edition. Post 8vo. is. HALF-CROWN NOVELS A Series 0/ Novels by popular Authors 2/6 J 1. THE PLAN OF CAMPAIGN. By F. Mabel Robinson. 2. DISENCHANTMENT. By F. Mabel Robinson. MR. BUTLER'S WARD. By F. Mabel Robinson. 4. HOVENDEN, V.C. By F. Mabel Robinson. 5. ELI'S CHILDREN. By G. Manville Fenn. 6. A DOUBLE KNOT. By G. Manville Fenn. 7. DISARMED. By M. Betham Edwards. 8. A LOST ILLUSION. By Leslie Keith. 9. A MARRIAGE AT SEA. By W. Clark Russell. 10. IN TENT AND BUNGALOW. By the Author of ' Indian Idylls.' 11. MY STEWARDSHIP. By E. M'Queen Gray. 12. A REVEREND GENTLEMAN. By J. M. Cobban. 13. A DEPLORABLE AFFAIR. By W. E. NORRIS. 14. JACK'S FATHER. By W. E. NORRIS. 15. A CAVALIER'S LADYE. By Mrs. Dicker. 16. JIM B. Books for Boys and Girls A Series of Books by well-kno-wn Authors, well illustrated. Crotvn %vo. 3)6 THE ICELANDER'S SWORD. By S. Baring Gould. TWO LITTLE CHILDREN AND CHING. By Edith E. CUTHELL. TODDLEBEN'S HERO. By M. M. Blake. 4. ONLY A GUARD ROOM DOG. By Edith E. Cuthell. J Messrs. Mkthukn's List 33 5. THE DOCTOR OF THE JULIET. By Harry Colling- \VOOI>. 6. MASTER ROCKAFELLAR'S VOYAGE. By W. Clark Russell. 7. SYD BELTON : Or, The Boy who would not go to Sea. By G. Manville Fenn. 3/6 The Peacock Library A Series of Books for Girls by well-known Authors, handsomely bound in blue and silver, and well illustrated. Crown ^vo. 1. A PIN'CH OF EXPERIENCE. By L. B. Walford. 2. THE RED GRANGE. By Mrs. MOLESWORTH. 3. THE SECRET OF MADAME DE MONLUC. By the Author of ' Mdle Mori.' 4 DUMPS. By Mrs. Parr, Author of 'Adam and Eve.' 5. OUT OF THE FASHION. By L. T. Meade. 6. A GIRL OF THE PEOPLE. By L. T. Meade. 7. HEPSY GIPSY. By L. T. Meade. 2^-. 6d. 8. THE HONOURABLE MISS. By L. T. Meade. 9. MY LAND OF BEULAH. By Mrs. Leith Adams. University Extension Series A series of books on historical, literary, and scientific subjects, suitable for extension students and home-reading circles. Each volume is com- plete in itself, and the subjects are treated by competent writers in a broad and philosophic spirit. Edited by J. E. SYMES, M.A., Principal of University College, Nottingham. Crown Zvo. Price {with some exceptions) 2s. 6d. The following volumes are ready : — THE INDUSTRIAL HISTORY OF ENGLAND. By H. de B. GiBBiNS, M.A., late Scholar of Wadham College, Oxon., Cobden Prizeman. Fourth Edition. With Maps and Plans. 3-f. 'A compact and clear story of our industrial development. A study of this concise but luminous book cannot fail to give the reader a clear insight into the principal phenomena of our industrial history. The editor and publishers are to be congrat- ulated on this first volume of their venture, and we shall look with expectant interest f.ir the succeeding volumes of the series.'— University Extension Journal. 34 Messrs. Methuen's List a history of english political economy. by L. L. Price, M.A., Fellow of Oriel College, Oxon. Second Edition. PROBLEMS OF POVERTY : An Inquiry into the Industrial Conditions of the Poor. By J. A. Hobson, M.A. Second Edition. VICTORIAN POETS. By A. Sharp. THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. By J. E. Symes, M.A. PSYCHOLOGY. By F. S. Granger, M.A., Lecturer in Philo- sophy at University College, Nottingham. THE EVOLUTION OF PLANT LIFE : Lower Forms. By G. Massee, Kew Gardens. With Illustrations. AIR AND WATER. Professor V. B. Lewes, M.A. Illustrated. THE CHEMISTRY OF LIFE AND HEALTH. By C. W. KiMMlNS, M.A. Camb. Illustrated. THE MECHANICS OF DAILY LIFE. By V. P. Sells, M.A. Illustrated. ENGLISH SOCIAL REFORMERS. H. de B. Gibbins, M.A. ENGLISH TRADE AND FINANCE IN THE SEVEN- TEENTH CENTURY. By W. A. S. Hewins, B.A. THE CHEMISTRY OF FIRE. The Elementary Principles of Chemistry. By M. M. Pattison Muir, M.A. Illustrated. A TEXT-BOOK OF AGRICULTURAL BOTANY. By M. C. Potter, M.A., F.L.S. Illustrated, -^s. 6d. THE VAULT OF HEAVEN. A Popular Introduction to Astronomy. By R. A. Gregory. With numerous Illustrations. METEOROLOGY. The Elements of Weather and Climate. By H. N. Dickson, F.R.S.E., F.R. Met. Soc. Illustrated. A MANUAL OF ELECTRICAL SCIENCE. By George J. BURCH, M.A. With numerous Illustrations. 35. THE EARTH. An Introduction to Physiography. By Evan Small, M.A. Illustrated. INSECT LIFE. By F. W. Theobald, M.A. Illustrated. ENGLISH POETRY FROM BLAKE TO BROWNING. By W. M. Dixon, M.A. ENGLISH LOCAL GOVERNMENT. By E Jenks, M.A., Professor of Law at University College, Liverpool. Messrs. Metiiuen's List 35 Social Questions of To-day Edited by H. de B. GIBBINS, M.A. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d. A series of volumes upon those topics of social, economic, and industrial interest that are at the present moment fore- most in the public mind. Each volume of the series is written by an author who is an acknowledged authority upon the subject with which he deals. 2/6 The following Volumes of the Series are ready : — TRADE UNIONISM— NEW AND OLD. By G. Howell, Author of * The Conflicts of Capital and Labour.' Second Edition. THE CO-OPERATIVE MOVEMENT TO-DAY. By G. J. HOLVOAKE, Author of ' The History of Co-operation.' MUTUAL THRIFT. By Rev. J. Frome Wilkinson, M.A., Author of * The Friendly Society Movement.' PROBLEMS OF POVERTY : An Inquiry into the Industrial Conditions of the Poor. By J. A. IIOBSON, M.A. Second Edition. THE COMMERCE OF NATIONS. By C. F. Bastable, M.A., Professor of Economics at Trinity College, Dublin. THE ALIEN INVASION. By W. H. 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