The Express.
London, England, 1864-06-06 00:00:00

4

WILLIAM JOHNSON FOX.

The late number for Oldham was one of the small
hand of able sad energetic men whom the un-
says-lan *Wier tarried firet into public face,
and then, into adiament. Vidae the majority of
his sasociitas in that movement, Mr. Fox had,
however, acquired a high position both as a speaker
and a Writer before the agitation commenced, and
be simply threw himself into the new effort because
it harmonised so completely with his pre-
vious political convictions, as well as with
the general policy he had for years
advocated. His position he owed entirely to his
own efforts, and his name must therefore be added
to the noble list of those who from the lowest ranks
have risen to high distinction, and done good service
to the State by the sheer force of their natural in-
telligence and resolution. His father wu originally
a small farmer at Uggeshall, near Wrentham, in
Suffolk, where the future advocate of free trade was
born in 1786. Shortly after the boy's birth, how-
ever, his father, being obliged to give up his very
limited husbandry, removed to Norwich, and thence-
forth worked there as a weaver, his son, duritig his
early years, working with him as a factory boy.
This fact Mr. Fox recalled when, in the meridian of
his fame, he wrote a striking series of letters against
the corn laws, under the signature of a "Norwich
Weaver Boy." His parents belonged to a body of
nonconformists of old standing in Norwich, and
the boy having shown signs of superior talents, was
sent by the church to a anal congregational college
at Homerton, then under the presidency of the late
Dr. Pye Smith, a man of cultivated and liberal
mind. After leaving coils e, he entered on the
work of the ministry in the usual way, but
his theological inquiries and speculations having
carried him beyona the dogmatic conclusions of his
own body, he speedily left its communion, and
eventually took up a position, unconnected with any
denomination, as preacher or lecturer at South-
place Chapel, Finsbury. Here his eloquence and
character gained him a crowd of emotive hearers,
including some of the most eminent literary men of
the day. While at Finsbury Mr. Fox took an
active part in public affairs, writing habitually in
the leading political journals as well as in a maga-
rine that he established himself, and helping for-
ward on the platform as well as in the press every
liberal movement of any importance. He joined Sir
William Molesworth, Mr. J. S. Mill, and other lead-
ing philosophical liberals in establishing the West-
minster Review, and is said to have written the first
article in the first number. When the anti-corn-
law agitation was organised, Mr. Fox's power as
a speaker made him a very valuable acquisition to
the active staff of the League, and in the course of
a few months he appeared on the free trade
platforms in most of the large towns of
England, his nervous and cultivated eloquence
contributing, with Mr. Cobden's matchless
lucidity, and Mr. Bright's terse and fervid decla-
mation to carry home conviction even to unwelcome
ears, and thus secure the ultimate triumph of the
movement. On the dissolution of the League in
1847 he was returned to Parliament as member for
Oldham, and, with the exception of a few months,
continued to represent the borough until about a
year and a hall ago, when fading health obliged
him to resign his seat.

Mr. W. J. Fox was an able representative of ad.
vaned liberalism on its more thoughtful, and cul-
tivated side. With more of a turn for original
speculation than usually belongs to the purely
oratorical temperament or order of mind, be com-
bined a firm, practical grail) of the leading political
questions of the day. His published writings suffi-
ciently show that he had carefully investigated the
principles of political science, searching into the
true grounds and ends of government, and that his
inquiries had led bim to adopt and hold fast with
all the strength and sacredness belonging to
vital convictions the main articles of his political
creed. He was throughout his long career
the enlightened and determined champion of civil,
religious, and political liberty in its widest sense.
The spectacle of tyranny or injustice in church or
state stirred him to generous indignation, and
called forth all his powers to the necessary and not
unnatural task of decisive exposure and measured
but pungent reproof. In his more active efforts,
whether written or spoken, he was generally de-
nouncing some evil, laying bare some crying alpine,
or
advocating some needed change ; but
be did this in a tone of moral elevation,
and from an evident sense of imperative duty, not
always found in popular speakers who appealed
to the sympathy of the masses thirty years ago. In
reading his striking and impassioned lectures,
however much you may differ from hie particular
point of view, it is impossible not to feel that the
claims of all he feels to beij ust and true are with him
supreme, and that he is never turned aside even
for a moment from his conviction of the right by
the love of applause, the desire for effect,
or any of the lighter motives which often
powerfully, though perhaps unconsciously,
influence successful speakers. He was the stead-
fast and courageous advocate of popular rights,
most of his published lectures being devoted to
questions, economical, political, or literary, that
affect the masses of the people. But while the
sincere and faithful friend, be was not the flatterer
of the working classes. On the contrary, his
lectures to them abound with passages deploring
their narrow and prejudiced views on many
questions, their low aims, and liability to false
excitements. But justly regarding this as a
misfortune rather than a fault, the result of
ignorance and not of perversity, be was from hie
first entrance into public life to his dying day the
strenuous advocate of popular education. He
desired above all things to assist in inaugurating
some enlightened and effectual scheme of national
education, and there is no cause, not even excepting
free trade, which in and out of parliament he advo-
cated with greater earnestness and persistency.
Though bin published writings have a permanent
value, it was as a public speaker, or rather as a
popular lecturer, that Mr. Fox exercised his great
influence. He was throughout his entire course, on
the Free-trade platform, and even in the House of
Commons itself, essentially a lecturer, and he
certainly possessed a rare combination of powers
for success in this species of intellectual effort.
With a clear and attractive style in the purely ex-
pository part of his address, and logical force in
argument, he combined touches of vivid imagina-
tion, flashes of genuine eloquence, and impassioned
appeals so direct and powerful as to be for the
moment irresistible. He had, moreover, a clear
and musical voice that he had learned to modulate
in the most impressive manner. TheAs were now and
then deep undertones of scorn, or fienrenees of lofty
irony or touching pathos that thrilled every
hearer. Perhaps the strange contrast between the
oddity, if not the insignificance, of the speaker, and
thelunexpected subduing power of his •peaking en-
hanced its effect. Nothing could well be lees pro-
mising in the way of eloquence than Mr. Fox's ap-
pearance on a platform. He was one of the very
shortest, and probably for his height one of the
stoutest of men. When be rose you simply
new a massive head placed on I% broad chest, with-
out the intervention of a neck, both bead and
chest being raised only a few feet above the
floor of the platform. His long, iron-grey Bair,
parted in the middle, and falling over a flat, broad
square-cut collar, on hie sombre dryer', gave him
more the appearance of a sturdy but truncated
Puritan. But when he opened his lips it was fm-
possible not to listen, or to listen long without being
charmed. In the House of Commons he spoke. la -
deed, but seldom, and though always listened to
with respect, ha did not produce much effect. The
truth is that his ordinary style of speaking was not
fitted for the house, and lie entered parliament far
too late to change it. Always rather mannered, his
speaking, when unsupported by the stimulus of a
popular audience, would no doubt tend to become
monotonous. But on the platform, kindled by the
presence of an excited and sympathetic audience,
be sometimes rose to the highest flights of genuine
eloquence, combining play of humour and force of
reasoning with intensity of passion. His writings
will always he read with interest, and his name will
deservedly be held in honour. But much of his
peculiar power will of necessity die with him, and
can, perhaps, hardly be understood by those who
sever Mt it.