referred to the proper volume. In the Journals of the Senate for the year '89, the question is discussed, of which only a brief minute remains. The debate lasted a week or more, during which the titles of Excellency and of His Highness, the protector of our Liberties, were proposed, but objected to. The latter title was too much Cromwellian and monarchical perhaps, for even the so-called black-cockade federalist. And, finally, the simple and appropriate address was resolved on of, the President of the United States.

XV.

ESSAYES AND CHARACTERES

OF A

PRISON AND PRISONERS:

BY GEFFRAY MINSHULL, OF GRAYES-INN, GENT.

THE object of this rare treatise, which is rather a collection of several short characters and fragmentary disquisitions, is to paint Life in Prison, and from the internal evidence it affords, no less than the later accounts of Howard, Buxton and Mrs. Fry, we dare affirm it to be a very faithful picture. Though modern philanthropy has effected much for the improvement of prison discipline, and the ameliorated condition of prisoners, yet still, in certain prominent particulars, a description of a prison more than two centuries ago, must answer to a description of the same place, at the present day. Dark, gloomy walls, barred windows, guards, jailors, locks, confinement, silence, are the outward marks of the prison, now as then. To be sure, the buildings are better, may be more elegantly constructed, are much cleaner, less turbulent; still a sense of solitude, a feeling of closeness, reigns within its precincts. The mere personal condition of prisoners is, in many respects, far pre

ferable to what it was once. Yet, in these respects even, what great improvements still remain to be discovered and applied. But in more important points the system is little bettered. The prison chaplain, though (we trust) a different personage from the Newgate ordinary in Fielding's time, is still ill paid, and altogether on a wrong footing. Intellectual light is virtually excluded from prisons, where even freedom of thought might be considered an infringement on the rules and restraints of the place.

In despite of all the works of benevolence, and especially of those deeds that tend to prevent the commission of crime, it is to be feared prisons must ever be filled. There is permanent evil in the world, and certain punishment, ever. Misfortune, poverty, vice, blind impulse, it is probable will always exist. Earth may never again see an Eden (the abode of innocence), till purged from grosser impurities by the last penal fires. Out of a world-conflagration only may universal peace and purity arise. Hence, we must conclude, the co-existence of crime and prisons for ages hereafter.

The prison described in this little volume, is a debtors' prison, the King's Bench.* In our State, imprisonment for debt is now done away; a measure fraught with vast benefit, but, perhaps, accompanied by certain inevitable disadvantages. It is wonderful what enormities were suffered to be executed, until within a very few years, on this class of men, of whom, certainly, a considerable portion were innocent men, brought to that condition by the vices, or imprudence, or frauds of those, who stood in the relation

*Then a prison for debtors: how it is now occupied we are not informed.

of debtors to them. To this suffering, but respectable class of men, the author of this treatise (the fruit of personal observation and experience) does not appear to belong. From what we can gather, he was brought by his impru dence and folly, to become an inhabitant of a prison.* He was a gentleman of good family and liberal education, who was heartily disgusted by the place, its customs and company; and who earnestly advises all not to borrow, and run the chance of coming to the same place. writes with the vigor of a strong character, and with no little elevation of sentiment; he is judicious and virtuous, with considerable erudition and quaint fancy, bottomed on good sense and manly feeling.

He

The composition of these essays and characters afforded the only occupation their author was willing to assume; and was at once his pleasant task and daily solace. The work is of some antiquity; it was first published in 1618, and reprinted twenty years after. The edition before us

is of 1821, a reprint by the famous Edinburgh publishing house of Ballantyne and Co. It is one of a small edition of 150 copies, and perhaps there is not a duplicate of the work in this country. We think it very probable that Sir Walter himself, or one of his antiquarian cronies, selected this remarkable tract for republication, and with the selfish admiration of a virtuoso, limited the impression to enhance its rarity.

We spoke of this volume as presenting a picture of life

* A strong proof of family pride, rather misplaced, is evinced in the fact of the writer having his crest engraved on the title page. The experience the book displays is hardly of that nature a gentleman might be proud to display, even if enamored of his own cleverness as an author.

in prison: it presents, also, its concomitants. The first character is of prisons in general; then of different sorts of prisoners; afterwards, in turn, of the company of visitors of the fare and entertainment: of the keepers, the jailors, the lockers up; and concludes with a relation of some curious local customs and personal observations.

The intention of the writer is expressed in a. sort of proem to the characters. "My purpose is, with cleare water-colours to line me out a heart, yea such a heart, so discontented and oppressed, that I need not be curious in fitting every colour to his place, or to chuse the pleasantest chamber to draw it in, because in it I am to lay downe the bounds of those tempestuous seas in which ten thousands are every day tossed, if not overwhelmed, which is so usual here amongst us, that every one is art's master in this workmanship; and every minute something or other is still added to this distressed picture, whose ponderous weight is so great that the frame is scarce able to bear the effigies." The character of a prison we subjoin entire. "A prison is a grave to bury men alive, and a place wherein a man, for half a year's experience, may learn more law, than he can at Westminster for an hundred pounds. It is a microcosmo, a little world of woe, it is a map of misery, it is a place that will learn a young man more villany, if he be apt to take it, in one half yeare, than he can learn at twenty dicing-houses, bowling allies, brothel houses, or ordinaries; and an old man, more policie than if he had been pupil to Machiavel. It is a place that hath more diseases predominant in it than the pest-house in the plague time, and it stinkes more than the lord mayor's dog house or Paris garden in August.

"It is a little commonwealth, although little wealth be