Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 20.djvu/126

 the meeting-house at Swarthmoor, which bears the inscription ‘Ex Dono: G: F. 1688;’ his ‘tryacle’ bible (1541) is here preserved.

The quaker organisation was thus gaining in cohesion and stability during a period of repressive legislation which was fatal to the continuity of corporate life in the other nonconformist sects. Fox waited for no indulgence, and regarded no conventicle act. ‘Now is the time,’ said Fox, ‘for you to stand … go into your meeting-houses as at other times.’ Throughout the interval between the restoration of 1660 and the toleration of 1689 the Friends kept up regular meetings, and their numbers increased. When the preachers were carried to prison, the people met in silence; the lawyers were puzzled to prove such meetings illegal. The meeting-places were nailed up or demolished; they assembled outside or amid the ruins. At Reading (1664) and Bristol (1682) nearly all the adult members were thrown into gaol; the meetings were punctually kept by the children. Equal firmness was shown in the matter of oaths and marriages. Fox's admirable system for the registration of births, marriages, and burials began in 1652, and was probably suggested by the practice of the baptist churches. There was no indiscriminate almsgiving, but a constant effort to improve the condition of the poorer members.

The persistent fidelity of Fox's personal labours can hardly be exaggerated. On his missionary journeys, continued from year to year until his death, he visited nearly every corner in England and Wales. He travelled to Scotland in 1657, to Ireland in 1669, to the West Indies and North America in 1671–1672, to Holland in 1677, and again in 1684. Eight times he suffered imprisonment, the longest period of his incarceration being at Lancaster and Scarborough (1663–6), and the latest at Worcester for nearly fourteen months (1673–4). Among the many public services rendered by the early Friends, that of compelling attention to the hideous condition of the common gaols must not be forgotten. In addition to his work as a preacher Fox found time for a constant stream of publications, sometimes all his own, sometimes produced in conjunction with others. He early perceived (or, as seems probable, Margaret Fell perceived for him) the power of the press as a missionary agency. On 18 Feb. 1653 Margaret writes to her husband begging him to see after the printing of tracts by Fox, Nayler, and John Lawson, which she encloses (, Fells, 2nd edit., 1867, p. 41). In an age of pamphlet-writers the quakers were the most prolific, and in some respects the most virulent, in others the most impressive of pamphleteers. Admitting no weapon but the tongue, they used it unsparingly. In Fox's own pamphlets, though his emotion sometimes renders him inarticulate, there is often a surprising elevation of thought, and an unstudied dignity of expression.

Fox died at the house of Henry Gouldney, in White Hart Court, Gracechurch Street, on Tuesday, 13 Jan. 1691. He was interred on 16 Jan. in Whitecross Street (or Chequer Alley) burying-ground (present entrance in Roscoe Street), near Bunhill Row ( and, London Friends' Meetings, 1869, p. 329). Eleven Friends took part in the funeral service at the meeting-house; four delivered testimonies at the graveside, amid a concourse of four thousand people. A headstone was placed over the grave, but this was removed about 1757, when the body was reinterred in order to facilitate the enlargement of the burial-ground. A stone about six inches square, bearing the initials ‘G. F.,’ was then built into the wall. This also became displaced, and was knocked to pieces as ‘nehushtan’ by Robert Howard (d. January 1812) (ib. p. 331;, Fells, p. 322). When the old graveyard was laid out as a garden (1881) an inscribed headstone, about two feet high, was placed on the supposed site of Fox's grave. In 1872 a small obelisk, with an incorrect inscription, was erected at Drayton, by C. H. Bracebridge of Atherstone Hall.

Fox had no issue of his marriage on 18 Oct. 1669 to Margaret Fell; she was ten years his senior, and had been eleven years a widow. Her ‘testimony’ to him draws a vivid picture of his character. Fox's will (dated October 1688, proved 30 Dec. 1697) disposes of little more than papers and keepsakes. This ‘will’ consists of three distinct autograph papers of direction; in the Spence collection are other signed papers, giving orders for the disposal not only of a thousand acres in Pennsylvania, assigned to Fox by William Penn, but of ‘land and sheep’ (to his brother John Fox of Polesworth), and of money laid out ‘in ships and trade.’ In 1767 his heirs-at-law were the descendants, in Pennsylvania, of his brother John (, Fells, p. 321). Of his ‘bulky person,’ his abstemious ways and little need of sleep, his manners, ‘civil beyond all forms of breeding,’ his ‘awful, living, reverent frame’ in prayer, we have glimpses in Penn's preface to the ‘Journal.’ Leslie speaks of his ‘long, straight hair, like rats' tails’ (Theol. Works, 1721, ii. 357). A painting ascribed to William Honthorst, 1654 (engraved by Holmes), is said to represent Fox at the age of thirty; the face is too young for that age (yet compare the