11' ELIZABETH FRY, THE EARNEST PHILANTHROPIST. " One I beheld ! a wife, a mother, go To gloomy scenes of wickedness and woe ; She sought her way thro' all things vile and base, And made a prison a religious place : Fighting her way-the way that angels fight With powers of darkness-to let in the light."-CRABBE. SOME seventy years ago, about two miles from Nor- wich, in the centre of a richly-wooded park, and surrounded by shady groves, stood a large, stately, irregularly-built mansion, called Eariham Hall. On the south front extended a noble lawn, shaded by venerable trees, through the openings of which could be seen the clear, winding Wensum ; while on every side extensive and diversified scenery lent dignity and beauty to the magnificent old Hall. The proprietor of the mansion-Mr. Gurney-was a London merchant of large wealth, and of very ancient family: for the lords of Gournay en Brai, in Normandy, the founders of his lineage, had held fiefs in Norfolk as far back as the days of William Rufus. In the latter part of the seventeenth century, his grandfather, a younger son of a younger branch, had embraced the tenets of George Fox ; and from 5
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