Four Biographies from 'Blackwood' are Jane Taylor, Elizabeth Fry,
Hannah More, and Mary Somerville. Perhaps it is too much to say that
Jane Taylor is remarkable. In her day she was said to have been 'known
to four continents,' and Sir Walter Scott described her as 'among the
first women of her time'; but no one now cares to read Essays in Rhyme,
or Display, though the latter is really a very clever novel and full of
capital things. Elizabeth Fry is, of course, one of the great
personalities of this century, at any rate in the particular sphere to
which she devoted herself, and ranks with the many uncanonised saints
whom the world has loved, and whose memory is sweet. Mrs. Walford gives
a most interesting account of her. We see her first a gay, laughing,
flaxen-haired girl, 'mightily addicted to fun,' pleased to be finely
dressed and sent to the opera to see the 'Prince,' and be seen by him;
pleased to exhibit her pretty figure in a becoming scarlet riding-habit,
and to be looked at with obvious homage by the young officers quartered
hard by, as she rode along the Norfolk lanes; 'dissipated' by simply
hearing their band play in the square, and made giddy by the veriest
trifle: 'an idle, flirting, worldly girl,' to use her own words. Then
came the eventful day when 'in purple boots laced with scarlet' she went
to hear William Savery preach at the Meeting House. This was the turning-
point of her life, her psychological moment, as the phrase goes. After
it came the era of 'thees' and 'thous,' of the drab gown and the beaver
hat, of the visits to Newgate and the convict ships, of the work of
rescuing the outcast and seeking the lost. Mrs. Walford quotes the
following interesting account of the famous interview with Queen
Charlotte at the Mansion-House:

Inside the Egyptian Hall there was a subject for Hayter--the
diminutive stature of the Queen, covered with diamonds, and her
countenance lighted up with the kindest benevolence; Mrs. Fry, her
simple Quaker's dress adding to the height of her figure--though a
little flushed--preserving her wonted calmness of look and manner;
several of the bishops standing near; the platform crowded with waving
feathers, jewels, and orders; the hall lined with spectators, gaily
and nobly clad, and the centre filled with hundreds of children,
brought there from their different schools to be examined. A murmur
of applause ran through the assemblage as the