an evil influence on his son, in whose dissipation he shared.

For twelve years Howard's energies had been addressed to one great object; he had traversed every country on the Continent, except Turkey, inspected the gaols of all the great cities, travelled upwards of 42,000 miles, and spent on these travels, in relieving the sick and giving liberty to captives, upwards of £30,000. His career thus seemed ended, and he retired to his estates at Cardington in the spring of 1784, but there was no repose for him in the comparitive idleness of ordinary life. He felt that he still had a mission to accomplish. His mind had latterly been much occupied by the subject of that enemy to mankind, the Plague; he wished to investigate the terrors of this disease as well as the conditions of the lazarettos. For this object he determined to undertake a fresh journey, and this time, alone. He started in November 1785. It was a truly sublime and apostolic idea; he wished to confront the deadly pest in its chosen seats, and at the risk of his life to win if possible the secrets of its causes, mode of propagation, and remedy. His plan was, after visiting the quarantine establishments at the Mediterranean ports, to encounter the dreadful contagion bodily in Smyrna and Constantinople, and obtain if practicable a knowledge of its nature.

As the most important quarantine establishment in Europe was at that time at Marseilles, Howard felt it essential that his inquiries should commence at that

port. Through the English Minister of Foreign Affairs he requested authorisation from the French Government to inspect it; but instead of this, Howard was not only refused permission to visit the lazaretto, but was peremptorily forbidden to enter France at all, on pain of being sent to the Bastile, about which he had been once so curious. The reason was that the French Government bore him a grudge on account of the pamphlet he had translated and published, several years before, about that state prison.

In spite of the remonstrances of friends, he chose the path of peril and usefulness; the French police were then the most vigilant in Europe; disguise, secrecy, and swiftness were therefore needful. He travelled by diligence from Brussels to Paris; a spy accompanied him; the police discovered him at once on his arrival in Paris, and visited him in the night, but owing to the absence of the Prefect of Police at Versailles, and his having given orders that no one should be arrested while he was away, Howard succeeded in escaping to the south, disguised as a physician, and after numerous perils and adventures reached Marseilles in safety. Here, though the police were on his track, he was resolved to remain till he had accomplished his end. His inflexible will overcame all contrary counsels; the services of trusty friends were put into requisition; with great tact he got into the lazaretto-though even natives were denied such a favour-obtained plans and drawings of it, as well as a minute account of its practical work

ing. His next difficulty was to get out of France. He at last bribed the captain of a vessel at Toulon to carry him to Nice; he encountered a hurricane on the voyage. From Nice he proceeded to Genoa, thence to Leghorn, where, under the enlightened rule of the Grand Duke Leopold, Howard had no difficulty in visiting the prisons, hospitals, and lazarettos of Tuscany. He was convinced that the Grand Duke was the true father of his country.

At Rome, at the earnest request of the venerable Pope, Howard, stipulating that he should not be obliged to kiss his foot, waited on his Holiness at the Vatican. The Pope and the great philanthropist spent some time together in friendly conversation, a nearer acquaintance more profoundly impressing each with respect for the virtues of the other. At parting the pious pontiff laid his hand on the head of the distinguished heretic, and remarked, good-humouredly, "I know you Englishmen care nothing for these things, but the blessing of an old man can do you no harm."

At Malta, he found the condition of the lazaretto and the hospitals little creditable to the Knights Hospitallers, to whom that island then belonged. The sick were served by dirty, ragged, unfeeling wretches, eight or nine of whom he once saw amusing themselves with the delirium of a dying patient. He offended the Grand Master by telling him plainly what he thought of his hospital. Some of his suggestions were, however, adopted.

Sailing now from Malta, Howard called on his way

at Zante, where he found the gaol abominably filthy; thence he sailed for Smyrna, one of the old plague cities, and trod Asiatic earth for the first time in May 1786. The disease was not virulent at the time of his arrival, but it soon became so. He gave himself out as a physician. He was successful in some cures, which caused him to be courted by all classes of society; but when it was discovered how daringly he intruded into the houses of the dying and the dead, all prudent people shrank from his company.

In Constantinople, where the plague was raging, Howard remained upwards of a month, visiting pesthouses, prisons, and hospitals. The plague was raging there. He refused a home at the English ambassador's palace, and took up his abode at the house of an experienced physician. He saw the smitten fall dead at his side; he penetrated haunts of infection, whither guide, dragoman, and physician refused to follow him. From these fearful visits he always returned with a scorching pain across his temples, which, however, fresh air and exercise invariably removed.

He cured the daughter of a powerful Mussulman of an illness which had baffled all the medical celebrities of Constantinople. As a reward, the father offered him a purse of £900, which, of course, he refused, but accepted a supply of fruit from his sumptuous garden. This incident, and the impunity with which he visited the plague-stricken, invested Howard's simple character with an air of mystery. No human

motive for his acts could be imagined by a race. whose creed was a dreary fatalism. He found few prisoners in the Turkish gaols, for the simple reason that when a crime was committed, the bastinado or bowstring settled the matter-prisons, therefore, were needless.

Howard's intention was to return home overland by the Danube and Vienna; but it suddenly struck him that he had not yet seen and experienced himself the arrangement and discipline of the lazaretto, and that many things of essential importance, might therefore have escaped his notice. He now took one of the boldest steps which mind of man ever conceived for a philanthropic purpose. He decided to go back to Smyrna, where the plague was raging, and return to the Adriatic in a vessel with a foul bill of health, that he might be put into strictest quarantine at Venice, and thus become acquainted with the minutest details of a great lazaretto.

He at once took his passage in a vessel bound for Salonica, where were two famous hospitals to visit. On the voyage a sailor was seized with the plague, on whom Howard-still passing for a physician-was called upon to attend. At Smyrna, where the disease was raging with violence, he soon found a vessel with a foul bill of health bound for Venice. In her he took his passage. The voyage was long, and attended by the gravest perils. Near the coast of the Morea they were borne down upon by a Barbary privateer, which fired into them with great fury. It was a question of