The career of John Howard was throughout a striking illustration of
the same power of patient purpose. His sublime life proved that
even physical weakness could remove mountains in the pursuit of an
end recommended by duty. The idea of ameliorating the condition of
prisoners engrossed his whole thoughts and possessed him like a
passion; and no toil, nor danger, nor bodily suffering could turn
him from that great object of his life. Though a man of no genius
and but moderate talent, his heart was pure and his will was
strong. Even in his own time he achieved a remarkable degree of
success; and his influence did not die with him, for it has
continued powerfully to affect not only the legislation of England,
but of all civilised nations, down to the present hour.
Jonas Hanway was another of the many patient and persevering men
who have made England what it is--content simply to do with energy
the work they have been appointed to do, and go to their rest
thankfully when it is done -
"Leaving no memorial but a world
Made better by their lives."
He was born in 1712, at Portsmouth, where his father, a storekeeper
in the dockyard, being killed by an accident, he was left an orphan
at an early age. His mother removed with her children to London,
where she had them put to school, and struggled hard to bring them
up respectably.
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