ny
fear of overstepping the modesty of Truth in the celebration of Virtue,
so solid and so extensive, that the malevolence of Envy could not
diminish its weight, the fondness of Enthusiasm could not amplify its
effects. But I must not forget that there are professional limits to my
discourse. It is incumbent on me to confine myself to a single object,
and to dwell only on those public services, that peculiarly endear the
name of Howard to the liberal and enlightened community in which I have
the honour to preside.

"It was in the capacity of a Minister to Justice, that the pure spirit,
whom it is my glory to praise, first conceived the idea of those
unrivaled labours that have rendered his memory a treasure to mankind.
In discharging a temporary office, that exposed to him the condition of
criminals, he was led to meditate on the evils which had grievously
contaminated the operations of Justice. He perceived that Law herself,
like one of her most illustrious Delegates (I mean the immortal Bacon),
was grossly injured by the secret and sordid enormities of her menial
servants: that Captivity and Coercion, those necessary supporters of her
power, instead of producing good, often gave birth to mischiefs more
flagrant, and more fatal, than those which they were employed to
correct. He found, even in the prisons of his own humane and enlightened
country, an accumulation of the most hideous abuses: he found them not
nurseries of penitence and amendment, but schools of vice and impiety;
or dens of filth, famine, and disease: not the seats of just and
salutary correction and punishment, but the strong holds of cruelty and
extortion. The irons of the prisoner, which he only beheld, entered into
his soul, and awakened unextinguishable energy in a spirit, of which
companion and fortitude were the divine characteristicks. In the noble
emotions of pity for the oppressed, and of zeal for the honour and
interest of civilized society, he conceived perhaps the sublimest design
that ever occupied and exalted the mind of man, the design to search and
to purify the polluted stream of Penal Justice, not only throughout his
own country, but through the various nations of the world. How low, how
little, are the grandest enterprizes of Heroic Ambition, when compared
with this magnanimous pursuit! How frivolous and vain are the highest
aims of Fancy and Science, when contrasted with a purpose so
beneficently great! But, marvellous as the magnitu