The Press.
London, England, 1857-08-15 00:00:00

THE PRESS,

St. John had been in his youthful manhood.
But Bolingbroke was a far more brilliant man,
and had many subtle and exquisite qualities that
were wanted in Fox. He had a capacity for
literary composition, and excelling in it, en•
tirely beyond the powers of Charles Fox,
whose style is wordy, tautologous, and without
the light of imagination. The excesses of
their private lives, and many other traits,
assimilate them to each other. Fox, above all
men, was the politician who was most made to
be the charm of his own circle and to be
beloved by his friends. Grattan said of him,
with something of the double exaggeration of
friendship and genius, " His heart was that of
" a woman, but his mind was adamant : his
" weaknesses wero virtues; they did much to
" relieve him from the hard habits of a politi-
" cian, and assisted nature to make him
" amiable and interesting." From the con-
templation of Fox himself we must proceed to
the shreds and patches here stitched loosely
together by Lord John Russell.

Ono half of this volume is not new. The
long correspondence with Gilbert Wakefield
was printed many years ago, and it was criti-
cised at length in the Quarterly Review by the
late Lord Dudley. The letters to Fox's
secretary, Trotter, were also published before.
The other portions of it, however, are of great
value, and cast considerable light on the
political history of the times during the last
three years of Fox's stormy life. There arc,
also, some valuable letters from the third
Duke of Portland, which wo have read with
much interest. They were lent to the editor
by the present Duke of Portland. There are
not many of them, but they are highly
curious.

The third Duke of Portland was a very re-
markable man. Ho was believed to be too
much of a diplomatist for a leader of parties,
and there were traits in his character which
were to be ascribed either to insincerity or
fluctuation of mind. He was only a mode-
rate Whig, and he broke away from the Foxite
connection at the time of the Burke schism,
consequent on the French Revolution. Mr.
Fox most anxiously endeavoured to keep the
Duke of Portland in his connection in 1792.
After urging his Grace to go to the House of
Lords and make an ultra-Whig speech, Fox
(December 31, 1792) wrote in these pressing
terms :

It is with regard to this declaration to be made to-day,
as I understand, by Lord Titchtield, that I feel myself
incredibly anxious. If it should be in the smallest degree
ambiguous, if it should not be as perspicuous and explicit
as laugusge can make it, the consequences to me will be
very unpleasant indeed, but to you much worse ; if after
to day it should remain a question, whether you are or are
not a supporter of the Ministry—whether you still remain
the head of that Opposition which has so long considered
you as such, I must speak the truth and tell you, that your
name will be bandied about in a manner which I cannot
bear to think of, and possibly it may become necessary for
you to make another explanation and to have the repetition
of these scenes, in which, if I am to judge from myself, you
must have felt much more than is commonly understood
by the words " anxiety " and " distress."

And ho concludes by stating the immediate
object of the letter to be—

To press you by every consideration both of friendship
for me, and regard for yourself, as well as wish for the
preservation of the Whig party, to think justly of the im-
portance of this day ; to see the necessity of being com-
pletely explicit.
But Fox was too violent a politician for an
" Old Whig " like the Duke of Portland. It
was only a month previously that Fox wrote
to the Duke the following "heated " letter:—
My dear Lord,—l send you inclosed a note I have just
received from Adam. If they mention danger of insur-
rection, or rather, as they must do to legalise their pro-
ceedings, of rebellion, surely the first measure all honest
men ought to take is to impeach them fur so wicked and
detestable a falsehood. I fairly own that, if they have
done this, I shall grow savage, and not think a French
lanterne too bad for them. Surely it is impossible—if
anything were impossible for such monsters, who, fur the
purpose of weakening or destroying the honourable con-
nection of the Whigs, would not scruple to run the risk of
a civil war. I cannot trust myself to write any more, for
I confess I am too much heated.—Yours affectionately,
C. J. Fox.
Lord John Russell admits (p. 491) that Fox at
the time of the French Revolution " lust the
national confidence." The state of mind exhi-
bited iu the foregoing letter explains how and
why he forfeited the public support.

In this volume, as in the preceding parts,
Sheridan is disparaged and sneered at. In
1803 Fox wrote to Dennis O'Brien :--

I will not say anything of public affairs, but Sheridan
has outdone his usual outdoings. Folly beyond all the
past; but what degree of folly will not extreme levity and
vanity be capable of producing? The Prince's otter, and
the refusal of it, ought, I repeat, to be noticed more than
it is. Cannot you, without troubling yourself, give a hint
to some friend that it should be done ?
Had Charles James Fox himself no "
no " levity," no " vanity "? On three of the
most critical occasions in Fox's life Sheridan
gave him advice, which if Fox had followed
he would not have forfeited the " national
confidence."

There are several letters to Dennis O'Brien
in this volume. He was a pamphleteer and
political writer of considerable power. Lord
John Russell has a note on O'Brien, thus
describing him:—

A gentleman connected with the press. He was a warm
adherent of Mr. Fox, but much distrusted by many of his
friends.

The noble editor might have stated something
more. At one time O'Brien was connected
with the first Marquis of Lansdowne, and was
even spoken of as " Lord Lansdowne's man."
He was the author of the once-famous pam-
phlet " Utrum Horum ?" There is a complete
absence of reserve in the familiar letters of
Fox to O'Brien.

There are some striking letters in 1806 from
Fox to John Duke of Bedford, Lord Lieutenant
of Ireland, and wo are surprised that so little
reference is made in any of them to Grattan.
In one of them Fox writes :
I hear great complaints of the bat example shown in
retaining Marsden, who is represented as a man willing,
and, from his situation, capable of doing all manner of
mischief to you and your friends ; but of this I know
nothing; in my brother's business he certainly behaved
very ill. There are, besides, complaints of many torturers
and persecutors being left in power, but of this you must
be able to get far better information than J. My advice is,
if you cannot steer quite even, rather to risk offending
those attached to the old system than our real friends.

Their revolutionary friends, no doubt, gave
much trouble to the Whigs in Ireland iu 1806.
" The advent of the Whig Viceroy was hailed
" by the voices that had before hailed the
" coming of the French. To his first levee
" crowded, in the levelling audacity of their
" joy, persons of every rank except the
" highest—of every description but the loyal ;
" from their concealment or exile suddenly
" emerged the unexecuted patriots of 1798,
" &c. &c." (Croker's " Sketch of Ireland.")
We can judge by Fox's letters to the Duke of
Bedford that these " unexecuted patriots "
wanted to be elevated in a fashion beyond
their deserts. In place of being hanged, they
wished to be gazetted, and to be commemo-
rated in the "Red Book," and not the "New-
gate Calendar."
Of the celebrated orator, Curran, Fox
writes :

Particularly in regard to Curran I know that he, more
than anybody, feels the necessity of marking strongly the
favour of Government to him. I am afraid what you say
is true, that Curran's private character does not stand so
high as one might wish, but his public conduct, his resist-
ing of temptations, his support of the cause of justice and
humanity, when few, very few dared support it, are merits
which cannot be overlooked without disgrace to us, more
especially as the reasons against making him Attorney-
General (very weak ones in my judgment) cannot be
alleged. I most anxiously hope, therefore, that the nego-
tiation you allude to will soon be brought to bear.
Wo think that Curran was treated hardly by
his party. He desired to be Attorney General
of Ireland, and to have a seat in the English
House of Commons. The Irish Lord Chan-
cellor (Mr. George Ponsonby) would not
consent to that arrangement, and succeeded
iu making Curran Master of the Rolls—a place
for which he was entirely unsuited. We
suspect that Mr. Ponsonby was jealous of
Curran's superior fame and genius. Curran
was bitterly disappointed at the way in which
the Whigs behaved to him. It is really re-
markable how nearly all the celebrated Whig
orators quarrelled with their party.
The ardour and zeal of Fox as a political
leader are very conspicuous in these letters.
He is always urging on his friends to be active,
and not to neglect their duty. Even in 1805
he writes to " Young One " (Lord Holland)
about " the dreadful power of the Crown."
Towards Pitt, even when there was a prospect
of junction with him, his feelings were ranee-

rous and jealoug. The death of Nelson is
alluded to in the following frigid style :

I am very sorry for poor Nelson; for though his conduct
at Naples was atrocious, I believe he was at bottom a good
man, and it is hard he should not enjoy (and no man
would have enjoyed it more) the popularity and glory of
this last business. •

Mrs. Fox occupied a most peculiar position
in his circle. A sort of circuitous recognition
of her was tolerated by the Whig ladies. They
occasionally inquired about her health, some-
times accepted flowers from her, and sent her
messages through third parties. In that light
she is made to appear in these pages.
The historian will know how to make use of
the materials in this volume, but the general
reader will not be much interested by it. To
appreciate it fully a reader should be already
conversant with the topics and familiar with
the times. We are inclined to believe that
these " Memorials " will not raise the post.
humour fame of Fox. His forte was as an
orator; with the pen in his hand, he was
mediocre. He was a fine scholar, but he was
no philosopher; he was a brilliant debater, but
he was not a deep thinker ; he was a fascinat-
ing man, but he was a dangerous statesman ;
he was an extraordinary public character, but
he was too factious for a true patriot, and too
reckless for a great Englishman ; but his frank
nature, his personal courage, and his generous
soul will always give attractiveness to his
name.

Letters from Hiyh Latitudes. Being Some
Account of a Voyage in the Schooner-Yacht
Foam, 85 0.m., to Iceland, Jan M:tyen, and
Spitzbcrgen, in 1856. By Lord Dufferin.
London : Murray.
WHAT can be more delightful, when the ther-
mometer is ranging between 70 deg. and 80 deg.
in the shade, than to encounter a book which
transports you, even in imagination, to regions
where the quicksilver goes to sleep in its bulb
for the greater part of the year, and is only
coaxed out occasionally by the sun staying up
through the whole twenty-four lieurs ? Under
the guidance of Lord Dufferin, let us quit
dusty streets, grinding organs, and the whole
gamut of metropolitan noises, for a sail in the
tautest of schooners, under the pleasantest of
captains, to lands of primitive simplicity or
unadorned nature—to tracts which echo back
no sound of animal life but the cry of the
ptarmigan, and waters which are only broken
by the splash of the toppling iceberg. It is
much, in a book of travel, to have almost un-
trodden ground and almost unploughed
waters ; it is much more to have the features
of both sketched for us by so genial a spirit
and so keen an observation as that of the
writer of these letters, alive to all the scientific
aspects of his voyage, yet free from the
slightest trace of scientific pedantry, and dis-
posed to make the reader a sharer in all his
own enjoyment and in none of his own peril.
The book has all the glow and colour of the
Sheridan blood; it sparkles with wit, good
spirits, good humour, and a daring love of
adventure, without the faintest mixture of
conceit or offensive levity, and is altogether as
welcome a volume as could just now be laid
before us. Its subject is cool, and its treat-
ment is fresh.
Lord Dufferin left Greenock in the Foam on
the 3rd of June, 1856, and sailed, via the
Hebrides, to Iceland, which he reached on
the 21st of the same month. He was accom-
panied by a native of the island, and seems to
have shared to the utmost in its somewhat
exuberant hospitality ; but " nobility obliged,"
and he acquitted himself at table with as
much credit as Thor, when he drank from the
cup which Utgard Loke offered him, and
which proved to be the deep ocean. This was
at Reykjavik, at the Governor's. Other enter-
tainments were on a more moderate scale.
Here is a glimpse of an Icelandic " gentleman-
farmer's " :
Fresh frore the neat homesteads of England that we
had left sparkling in the bright spring-wea'ber, anti
sheltered by immemorial elms—the scene before us
looked inexpressibly desolate. In front rose a cluster of
weather beaten wooden buildings, and hut); like ice-
houses, surrounded by a scanty plot of grass, reclaimed
from the craggy plain of broken lava that stretched—
the
.home of ravens and foxes—on either side to the
horizon. Beyond lay a low black breadth of moorland,