two friends to death, and thereby made several children fatherless. Colonel Kirby never prospered after. The chief constable, Richard Dodgson, died soon after; and Morent, the petty constable, and the wife of John Ashburnham, the other petty constable, who railed at me in her house, died soon after. William Knipe, the witness they brought against me, died soon after. Hunter, the gaoler of Lancaster, who was very wicked to me while I was his prisoner, was cut off in his young days. The under sheriff that carried me from Lancaster prison towards Scarborough, lived not long after. And Joblin, the gaoler of Durham, who was prisoner with me in Scarborough castle, and had often incensed the governor and soldiers against me, though he got out of prison, the Lord cut him off in his wickedness soon after. When I came into that country again, most of those that dwelt in Lancashire were dead, and others ruined in their estates; so that, though I did not seek revenge upon them, for their actings against me, contrary to law, yet the Lord had executed his judgments upon many of them."

The reader will remark the quiet Satanic triumph over poor Fleming, with his "thirteen or fourteen motherless children," of Hunter "cut off in his young days," of Joblin "in his wickedness." Such "judgments," fortunately, prove nothing, but the bitter and vindictive nature of him that records them; and, too certainly, that a submitting Quaker and inflicting Inquisitor are the same in spirit; the one possessing power inflicts the punishment on the imaginary wrong-doer; while the other, wanting power, delivers him over to the punishment of a Supreme Being, whom his bigotry and intolerance cannot contemplate as a God of mercies, but of vengeance, as a ministering agent to his own vindictive impotence. After much such another passage, Fox observes, "God's vengeance from heaven came upon them, for all such spirits I laid before the Lord, and left him to deal with them, who is stronger than all." Let us not be misunderstood. The question of a special providence is not here considered. We are contending only against that daring impiety, which impudently presumes to understand every act of that providence, and with blind self-will to interpret between God and their fellow-men. This is a presumptuous folly the world is not yet ashamed of, nor will be while fanatics have followers; it is the "clapper-dish" with which Judas fills his bag. The example this volume alone would afford would be ridiculous, but that the present age could equal it in number, which "sinks our laughter in a sigh." Man who knows any thing of man, or of himself, is well aware his best efforts are often unsuccessful, and his best wisdom folly. This is well

when it teaches him charity in judging others, humility in judging himself; impious, and the worst of impiety, when it leads him to judge God, and as a God. That it is the extreme of folly scarcely deserves proof. There is hardly one act of Providence, in judging of which men must not necessarily differ. Take an instance where passion could have no possible influence. One of the earlier Quakers, being on ship-board, speaks of a special providence, in consequence of his wife's prayers, by which the wind suddenly veered to the opposite point of the compass, and saved them from the rocks. Did he agree to this, who, after returning thanks for having the rocky shore to the windward during the first gale, was by this change driven on it, and wrecked? Can a Protestant and a Catholic agree in any one act, as the act of a special providence, in the lives of either Luther or Calvin? Can the French and the Russians agree about that providence by which the frost set in so early and so severely as to destroy the finest army in Europe? The worst means have often led to the most glorious events; the gloom of bigotry to the light of truth; the conduct of bad men to the happiness of good men ; the tyranny of an individual to the freedom of a nation; the vices of Tarquin, and the virtues of Codrus, led to exactly the same consequence, the establishment of a democracy. These may be all instruments in the hands of a superintending providence; but does it become us to consecrate the means, to commend bigotry, to uphold bad men, to applaud tyrants? And if men cannot agree on those great events which in their consequences affect the whole, shall every splenetic, rash, presumptuous fellow presume to judge them; and judge every event in the beggarly detail of his own paltry existence?

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It was a "special providence," according to Sewel, that led Fox into the ministry; for it appears that early in life he had some thoughts of practising physic. Fox and Dogberry, we have shewn, agreed in opinion that "reading and writing come by nature," and nature had not in this particular been bountiful to either; however, it was made up to the former in other things, that it now appears equally "come by nature," such as the knowledge of law, medicine, and divinity. The three great professions in the world," says Sewel, "víz. physic, divinity, (so called), and law, were opened to him; so that he began to deliberate whether he should practise physic for the good of mankind." We think Fox decided wisely. It is indeed notorious enough in the history of fanaticism, religious and medical, whether operating by faith or animal magnetism, that the mind has strange influence; still, palsy, pleurisy, gout, and epilepsy, in ordinary people, are not to be got rid of by these extraordinary remedies; diseases, in the uninitiated and

unbelieving, are, like the patients themselves, stubborn, heterodox, and unyielding, and we fear patient and disease would not unfrequently have been

Damn'd and interdicted

For diabolical and wicked;

and perhaps the same heathen, babylonish rhyme returned as a "retort courteous," to the physician. Not, indeed, that Fox would have quoted any thing so profane, if we may infer his opinion of poetry from his declared judgment of poets. "I was moved," he says, " at Mansfield, to go and speak to one of the wickedest men in the country, one who was a common drunkard, a noted whoremaster, and a rhyme-maker, and I reproved him in the dread of the mighty God, for his evil courses."

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Of the credulity of Fox we have given instances enough; not the least of which is his unquestionable faith in himself. Of his natural shrewdness, instances are not wanting. The following receipt to lay a conjuror will, we think, be always found effective. While I was in Darby gaol," he observes, "there was a wicked ungodly man who was reputed a conjuror. And the gaoler and he falling out, he threatened to raise the devil, and break his house down; so that he made the gaoler afraid. I was moved of the Lord to go in his power and rebuke him, and to say to him, Come, let's see what thou canst do; do thy worst.' I told him, The devil was raised high enough in him already, but the power of God chained him down ;' so he slunk away from me.' Another time, after the Restoration, and during his confinement in Scarborough castle, he was visited by Dr. Cradock, a high-churchman. After answering many questions himself, Fox ventured to ask the doctor, why he had excommunicated so many friends?" to which Cradock replied, "For not coming to church." What follows, we give in the words of the Journal. Why, said I, ye left us above twenty years ago, when we were but young lads and lasses, to the Presbyterians, Independents, and Baptists, many of whom made spoil of our goods, and persecuted us because we would not follow them. We, being but young, knew little of your principles, and the old men that did know them, if ye had intended to have kept them to you, and have kept your princiciples alive, that we might have known them, ye should either 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

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thou hast excommunicated us, young and old,—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.' "Another time," he observes, came Dr. Witty, who was esteemed a great ductor in physic, with lord Falconbridge, the governor of Tinmouth castle, with several knights. I being called to them, Witty undertook to discourse with me, and asked me, What I was in prison for?' I told him, 'Because I would not disobey the command of Christ and swear.' He said, 'I ought to swear my allegiance to the king.' He being a Presbyterian, I asked him, Whether he had not sworn against the king and house of lords, and taken the Scotch covenant? And had he not since sworn to the king? What then was his swearing good for? But my allegiance,' I told him, did not consist in swearing, but in truth and faithfulness.""

If we are not giving to this article so personal an interest and connection as might be expected, the reader must remember that the promulgation of doctrines was the great end of the active life of Fox, and suffering the seal with which he testified to them; but the one, when not extravagant enough to awaken attention, are much better sought for in the authorised version of his followers, and mere endurance has too little variety to enliven a narrative. There were no hair-breadth escapes, no daring but unsuccessful resistance, to give variety to his sufferings; it was only to know that the prison gaped for him, and he walked into it; to know that he was there by authority, and he remained. Some instances of this are really worth recording; and indeed the strict, unshaken, unquestioned veracity of Fox, which they will witness to, is the finest trait in his youthful character, and the glory of his after-life. While he was in his apprenticeship, he observes, "I used in my dealings the word, verily, and it was a common saying among those that knew me, 'If George says verily, there is no altering him." This was so well and so generally known, that being once in prison in Lancashire, and on no less a charge than "endeavouring to raise insurrections, and to embroil the kingdom in blood," as the warrant expressed it; and that too in the ticklish times that followed the Restoration, and just after the mad extravagance of the fifth-monarchy men; the king's warrant came down for his removal to London. Fox refused to give bail for his appearance in London--the sheriff, to avoid expenses, agreed to take his word, and delivered to him the warrant on which he had been committed. Fox, of course, did appear; but at that moment the judges were in a hurry to go and pass sentence on some of the regicides, and not perhaps understanding the serious nature of the charge, or presuming Fox was the gaoler,

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and that he had his prisoner in safe custody, they desired him, father peevishly, to come the next day, which he accordingly did, accompanied by a friend. His own account continues thus: "When we had delivered to the judges the charge against me, and they had read to those words, that I and my friends were embroiling the nation in blood,' &c. they struck their hands on the table. Whereupon I told them, I was the man whom that charge was against, but I was as innocent of any such thing as a new-born child, and had brought it up myself, and some of my friends came up with me, without any guard.' As yet they had not minded my hat, but now, seeing my hat on, they said, What did I stand with my hat on! I told them I did not stand so in any contempt of them. They then commanded me to take it off; and when they had called for the marshal of the King's-bench, they said to him, you must take this man and secure him, but you must let him have a chamber, and not put him amongst the prisoners.' My lord,' said the marshal, ⚫ I have no chamber to put him into; my house is so full that I cannot tell where to provide for him but amongst the prisoners.' 'Nay,' said the judges, you must not put him amongst the prisoners.' But when he still answered he had no other place to put me in, judge Forster said to me, Will you appear to-morrow, about ten of the clock, at the King's-bench bar in Westminster-hall?' I said, 'Yes, if the Lord give me strength.' Then said judge Forster to the other judge, If he says yes, and promises it, you may take his word.' So I was dismissed. The next day I appeared at the King'sbench bar at the hour appointed,"-But, not to pursue this particular case beyond its interest, it will be enough to say he was eventually discharged by order from the king.

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Another time, Fox and his son-in-law, Lower, being in prison, at Worcester, an order came down for the release of the latter, and a habeas corpus to bring up Fox to the King's Bench at Westminster. Upon which the sheriff made Lower undersheriff, and delivered Fox over to him. Fox, appearing at the appointed time, was remanded to Worcester, and returned there. Being brought to an inn the day the trial was expected to come on, he was left there all day, in custody of a child eleven years of age; and, the trial being after all deferred, he was told he must return to prison, which he did, accompanied only by a friend. At the next session, he still refusing to take the oath, and the grand jury having found a bill against him, he traversed, but refused to give bail, though many friends were present; yet he told the justices" he would promise to appear, if the Lord gave him health and strength," and his promise was taken. At the following sessions he appeared again, and was tried, and found guilty, which subjected him to the loss of all his goods,