FOX, Charles James, a celebrated statesman and orator, was third son of the Right Honourable Henry Fox, afterwards Lord Holland, and of Lady Georgina Caroline Fox, eldest daughter of Charles, second Duke of Richmond. He was born on the 24th January 1749.

Mr Fox received the first rudiments of his education in a private school of some celebrity, kept by a Mr Pam-pelune at Wandsworth. In 17ã8 he was sent to Eton, where he gave early promise of future eminence. In the beginning of summer 1763 the mistaken indulgence of his father carried him first to Paris, and then to Spa. After wasting idly three months abroad, he was sent home to England, and at his own desire he went back to Eton. He had left school a boy; he returned to it with all the follies and fopperies of a young man. At Spa he had been initiated in play; and his father, whose fondness for him was excessive, had encouraged him in a propensity which was the source of much future unhappiness to both.

In the autumn of 1764 he was removed from Eton and sent to Oxford, where he was placed at Hertford College, under the tuition of Dr Newcome, afterwards primate of Ireland. At Oxford as well as at Elon he distinguished himself not less by his powers of application than by the quickness and superiority of his parts. The following letter, which he preserved with care, and used to show with triumph when reproached for idleness, is a curious document of his diligence in study while he was at college. “You judge rightly,” says Dr Newcome in a letter to his pupil, “in thinking that I should be much surprised by the information which you were so obliging as to give me. But, on reflection, I think you have done well to change the scene in such a manner, and I feel myself inclined to envy you the power of doing it. Application like yours requires some intermission; and you are the only person with whom I have ever had connection to whom I could say this. I expect that you will return with much keenness for Greek, and for lines and angles. As to trigonometry, it is matter of entire indifference to the other geometricians of the college (who will probably continue some time here), whether they proceed to other branches of mathematics immediately, or wait a term or two longer. You need not, therefore, interrupt your amusements with severe studies; for it is wholly unnecessary to take a step onwards without you, and therefore we shall stop till we have the pleasure of your company. All your acquaintances here whom I know are well, but not much happier for your absence.” This letter was probably written in Spring 1765, when Mr Fox made a second excursion to Paris with his mother.

In autumn 1766 he quitted Oxford, and accompanied [7:9:799]his father and mother to the south of Europe, where Lord Holland had been advised to pass the winter on account of his health. He remained with them at Naples during the winter, and not finding a good Italian master there, taught himself that language. In the following spring he attended them as far as Turin in their way to England, and then went to Genoa to meet Lord Fitzwilliam, with whom and Mr Uvedale Price he spent the summer in Italy, chiefly in Tuscany. In the beginning of winter he rejoined his father and mother at Paris, and accompanied them to Nice, where he passed with them the winter of 1767-68. It was during this long residence in Italy that he contracted his strong partiality for Italian literature. In a letter to Mr Fitzpatrick, written from Florence in September 1767, he conjures him to learn Italian as fast as he can, if it were only to read Ariosto. “There is more good poetry in Italian than in all other languages I understand put together.” He appears to have indulged freely at this period in all the pleasures natural to his time of life, but never to have intermitted entirely his application to study. Je travaille toujours le matin, he says, in another letter written from Nice. Acting plays was also at this time one of his favourite passions, though he confesses that the last time he acted he fell far short of his own expectations; “but then,” he adds, “my expectations, .it must be confessed, were very high.” In the course of this journey he made a visit to Voltaire at Fer-nay, in company with Mr Price.

He did not return to England till August 1768; and having been elected one of the burgesses for Midhurst in his absence, he took his seat in the ensuing session, and made his first speech in the House of Commons on the 15th of April 1769, in support of the decision in favour of Colonel Luttrel, on the famous Middlesex election. He spoke, says Horace Walpole, with insolence, but with infinite superiority of parts.

Lord Holland, father to Mr Fox, had begun his political career as an adherent of Sir Robert Walpole, and continued ever after one of the steadiest friends and warmest admirers of that great statesman. The treachery of the Pelhams to his patron excited an early prejudice in his mind against all the members of that family; and the falseness, folly, and fickleness of the Duke of Newcastle added contempt and distrust to his dislike. After a long rivalship with Mr Pitt, he was finally drivea from the cabinet by a coalition of the Pitt and Newcastle parties, and reduced to the subordinate though lucrative employment of paymaster of the forces. In this situation he was found by Lord Bute at the conclusion of the war, and recommended to the king as the only person in the House of Commons who had courage and ability to defend the peace against Mr Pitt and the Newcastle party. It was with great difficulty he was prevailed on by his majesty to undertake this office, but when engaged in it, he performed it most successfully. For his services on this occasion he was rewarded with a peerage; but the part he had taken estranged him for ever from his old friends the Dukes of Cumberland and Devonshire, and other leaders of the Whig party. It was at this period that his son Charles received his first political impressions; and there is still extant a copy of French verses written by him in 1764, in praise of Lord Bute, and full of invective against Mr Pitt. When brought into parliament, he was, therefore, in the first instance, connected with the Duke of Grafton’s administration, which, though originally formed under the auspices of Lord Chatham, had been gradually sinking into a mere court party.

Mr Fox was not of age when returned to parliament, and probably for that reason, after his first speech, he took little part in public debate till January 1770. During this interval he made another excursion to the Continent, where he is chiefly taken notice of for his losses at play. He had, as already mentioned, acquired a passion for play as early as his first journey to Spa; and for many years afterwards, when not engaged in active political business, play and Newmarket were his chief avocations. His losses were such as early to embarrass, and finally to ruin, his private fortune; but so great a hold had these pursuits taken of his mind, that, till the payment of his debts in 1794, he could never prevail on himself to renounce them entirely. From that moment he gave them up for ever.

In February 1770 he was rewarded for his support of government with the place of junior lord of the admiralty, which he retained for two years, and resigned on the 20th of February 1772, partly in consequence of some slight offence he had received from Lord North, and partly because he had resolved to oppose the royal marriage bill, “which, in place" he says, “I should be ashamed of doing but he had no thoughts, he adds, “of going into opposition.” He had an immediate and satisfactory explanation with Lord North; but, to punish him for his speech against the royal marriage act, which was a measure entirely the king’s own, he was suffered to remain a considerable time out of office. At length, in January 1773, he was made one of the lords of the treasury, a situation he continued to fill till his memorable quarrel with Lord North in the following year.

Some gross and scandalous reflections upon the speaker of the House of Commons, written by the celebrated Horne Tooke, having appeared in the Public Advertiser, Mr Woodfall, the printer of that newspaper, was called to the bar of the house, and having there confessed himself publisher of the libel, he was declared guilty of a breach of privilege; on which Mr Herbert moved that he should be taken into the custody of the serjeant-at-arms. The house, unwilling to engage in. a fresh contest with the press and the city, were disposed to acquiesce in this motion; but Mr Fox, thinking the punishment inadequate to the offence, without consulting Lord North, moved, as an amendment, that Mr Woodfall should be committed to Newgate. Lord North found himself compelled by this motion to resist Mr Herbert’s proposition; but though he substituted the Gatehouse for Newgate, as a less objectionable place of confinement, he was left in a minority on the division, the original motion being carried by a great majority. Incensed at this disgrace, and determined to punish his youthful colleague for his temerity, he had a new commission of the treasury made out a few days afterwards, in which the name of Mr Fox was omitted. This happened in February 1774.

Long before his breach with Lord North, Mr Fox had formed an intimate acquaintance with Mr Burke, one of the leading members of the Whig or Rockingham party in the House of Commons; and to the friendship he contracted with that gentleman may, in a great measure, be attributed the decided change in his political character and opinions, which commenced at this time. He had been brought up by his father in the maxims and principles of Sir Robert Walpole; and from this education he derived the love of peace, the good-humoured spirit of conciliation, and ardent attachment to civil and religious liberty, which were afterwards the most conspicuous features of his public character, and are certainly the chief merits of the Walpole school. But the tone and character of Sir Robert Walpole’s policy, though suitable, and perhaps necessary, for the times in which he lived, was no longer adapted to the state of the country. When the Jacobites renounced their idol without changing their creed, and transferred to the house of Brunswick the same allegiance [7:9:800]which they had borne to the Stuarts, the weapons which Sir Robert had employed to preserve the constitution became, in the hands of its enemies, instruments of its destruction. Mr Burke was the first to perceive, or at least the first to explain, the change that had taken place in our internal government, and the first to point out a plan of systematic opposition in parliament, as the only means of preventing, or at least of retarding, what Mr Hume has called the euthanasia of English liberty. In Mr Fox he found a pupil ready to receive his lessons, and prepared by character and turn of mind to act upon them with fortitude and perseverance. From Mr Burke’s example and instructions Mr Fox caught more elevated notions of public principle than had animated the successors of Sir Robert Walpole; and from the writings and conversation of the same great man he learned the necessity of party connections in a mixed government like ours, to counteract the influence of government, and preserve a due balance of power between the crown and the people. The American war roused all the energies of his mind. The discussions to which it gave rise involved all the first principles of free government. The vicissitudes of the contest tried the firmness of its opponents. Its duration exercised their perseverance. Its magnitude and the dangers of the country called forth their powers. The progress of Mr Fox was steady and uninterrupted. So early as the beginning of 1775, we are told by Gibbon that “he discovered powers for regular debate, which neither his friends hoped nor his enemies dreaded."

But, notwithstanding the brilliancy of his talents and the reputation he acquired in the House of Commons, the levity and want of decorum of his private life, the dissipation in which he indulged, and the embarrassments in which he was involved, prevented him, for some years, from obtaining the weight and consideration with opposition, due to his extraordinary abilities and exertions. So late as the beginning of 1778 he was under no engagements with any set of men; but, though not absolutely engaged in party connections with the Whigs, he had determined on no account to abandon their principles; and from a cool consideration of his own character, and a just conception of the prevailing sentiments of the country, he had already fully made up his mind to the fate that ultimately awaited him. “People flatter me,” he says in a letter to Mr Fitzpatrick, written in 1778, “that I continue to gain rather than to lose character as an orator; and I am so convinced this is all I ever shall gain (unless I chuse to be one of the meanest of men), that I never think of any other object of ambition. I am certainly ambitious by nature, but I have, or think I have, totally subdued that passion. I have still as much vanity as ever, which is a happier passion by far, because great reputation, I think, I may acquire and keep; great situations I never can acquire, nor, if acquired, keep, without making sacrifices that I will never make. If I am wrong, and more sanguine people right, tant mieux, and I shall be as happy as they can be; but if I am right, I am sure I shall be happier for having made up my mind to my situation." He expresses great joy at the prospect of Fitzpatrick’s return, who he knew would be of his opinion in certain emergencies that might arise. “I shall be told by prudent friends that lam under no sort of engagements to any set of men. I certainly am not; but there are many cases where there is no engagement, and yet it is dishonourable not to act as if there was one. But even suppose it were quite honourable, is it possible to be happy in acting with people of whom one has the worst opinion, and being on a cold footing (which must be the case) with all those whom one loves best, and with whom one passes one’s life ?” With these sentiments it is not to be wondered at that he rejected overtures made to him by Lord Weymouth, in summer 1778, to join administration; nor, with his powerful talents and unremitted exertions, the inflexible steadiness of his public conduct, and the unexampled force and vehemence of his eloquence, that he gradually acquired the perfect confidence of the Whigs, and came at length to be considered as the leading member of the Rockingham party in the House of Commons. It ought to be recorded to the credit of Mr Burke, that he witnessed with pleasure, unmixed with envy, the progress and elevation of his pupil, and cheerfully resigned to him the station he had so long himself occupied in the party.

The day of triumph at length arrived. A resolution against the further prosecution of the American war was carried in the House of Common. Ministers still lingered in office, but the fears of a direct vote of censure compelled them to resign. The king, whose pertinacity in support of his favourite principles of government had been the chief if not the sole cause of the apparent reluctance of his ministers to retire from office, was compelled at length to yield to the wishes of his Commons; but in the very act of forming a new administration, he contrived to sow the seeds of disunion in its bosom. The opposition to the American war had been composed of two parties, united in their disapprobation of that contest, but disagreeing on many other points of external as well as of internal policy; both calling themselves Whigs, but Whigs of different schools; the one consisting of the old Whig connection, formed and educated in the principles of Mr Burke; the other composed of the friends and followers of Lord Chatham. At the head of the first was the Marquis of Rockingham, whilst the leader of the second was the Earl of Shelburne. His majesty began by sounding Lord Rockingham, through the chancellor. The demands of Lord Rockingham were, to have full power to recognise the independence of America, and authority to bring forward, as ministerial measures in parliament, bills for reducing the influence of the crown, by abolishing offices, excluding contractors from the House of Commons, and depriving revenue officers of their votes at elections; and, with respect to reform in the representation, or limitation of the duration of parliament, he declined to lay himself under restrictions. After taking time to consider this answer, his majesty sent for Lord Shelburne, and had a conference with him at Buckingham house. Two days afterwards he sent for him again, and offered him the treasury, which his Lordship declined, saying that no administration suited to the present emergency could be formed unless Lord Rockingham was at the head of it; on which the king desired him to go to Lord Rockingham with an offer of the treasury, and to add, that he had full powers from his majesty to treat both with respect to men and measures, with one reservation only, that he should himself be one of the secretaries of state. The first impulse of Lord Rockingham was to decline this offer, upon the ground, that if it was the king’s intention to place him at the head of the treasury, his majesty could have no fit objections to conversing with him on the arrangement of the administration; but his friends persuaded him to overlook that objection, lest his refusal should be ascribed to pique or jealousy, at a moment when the public was extremely impatient for the formation of a government. Many fatal consequences ensued from the negotiation taking this course and passing through the hands of Lord Shelburne. No direct communication took place between the king and the Rockingham party, who were to compose the majority of the cabinet, with respect to the measures to be pursued, till after the administration had been formed. Lord Thurlow, a decided partisan of the old system, and an enemy to every species of reform, was retained as lord [7:9:801] chancellor; Mr Dunning having been prevailed upon by his friend Lord Shelburne to waive his pretensions to that office. When this arrangement was communicated to Mr Fox, he told Lord Shelburne plainly, “that he perceived the administration was to consist of two parts, one belonging to the king, the other to the public.” But the worst effect of all was the impression left on the mind of Lord Shelburne, that he alone possessed the confidence of his sovereign, to the exclusion of his colleagues. This persuasion bred distractions in the cabinet, which soon became a theatre of dissension and open division; and these divisions, whispered about, weakened the government whilst it lasted, and contributed materially to its fall.

Of this short-lived administration, the principal measures were the pacification of Ireland and the bills for economical and parliamentary reform, which, though short of the public expectation, are still the most important acquisitions of that description obtained since the accession of the house of Hanover. The death of Lord Rockingham dissolved the ministry over which he presided. The treasury was immediately offered to Lord Shelburne, on pretence that, having refused it before, it naturally devolved on him on Lord Rockingham’s death. His acceptance of it destroyed the former balance of parties in the cabinet, and overset entirely the balance of power in the government. Accordingly Mr Fox and Lord John Cavendish immediately resigned, and, after some interval, they were followed by Lord Keppel. The Duke of Richmond and General Conway remained in office; the latter from simplicity, the former from dissatisfaction at seeing the Duke of Portland preferred to himself as leader of the Whig party. The other members of the cabinet were friends of Lord Shelburne.

Mr Fox has been severely blamed for his precipitancy on this occasion; and, though his resignation was a measure that could not lo<ng have been deferred, the time at which it took place makes it perhaps liable to that imputation. It followed so immediately the appointment of Lord Shelburne to the treasury, as to have the appearance of being the result of disappointed personal ambition, rather than of any difference on public grounds. It reduced his friends who were in office to the alternative of immediately following his example, or of passing for adherents of Lord Shelburne; and, as the whole of his motives could not at that time be explained in public, it gave an opportunity to the Duke of Richmond and others to keep their places without forfeiting their characters. It took place at the close of a session of parliament, and left Lord Shelburne and the court for six months in undisturbed possession of the government. It was a cruel disappointment to the public, which had expected a firm and united administration on the principles of those who had opposed the American war and the system that gave rise to it. But to those who judged rightly, the elevation of Lord Shelburne to the treasury was the utter extinction of these hopes. The Rockingham party had found in Lord Shelburne an active and spirited ally in opposition; but they had never been confidentially united with him; and though ready to co-operate with him in a subordinate office, they were not prepared to act under him as premier. It was not the impatience and dissatisfaction of Mr Fox alone that broke up the administration. As soon as the appointment of Lord Shelburne to the treasury was known in Dublin, the Duke of Portland determined to resign his office of lord-lieutenant of Ireland. Lord John Cavendish could with difficulty be prevailed upon to postpone his resignation for a few days. Mr Burke urged strongly to Mr Fox the impossibility of his remaining long in office as a clerk under Lord Shelburne; and it must be owned that, in the subsequent treatment of his colleagues, that nobleman fully justified the apprehensions then entertained of his future conduct, £lated with the fancied possession of court favour, he from that time forward treated the other ministers as mere ciphers; made additions to his cabinet without consulting or even apprising them of his intentions; and is even said to have settled and concluded the terms of his peace with France, without the advice or participation of his secretaries of state.

There were, besides, before the death of Lord Rockingham, differences of such importance in the cabinet as must have led to a dissolution of the administration. It was the policy of Mr Fox to detach Holland and America from their unnatural connection with France; and the great object of his foreign politics was, to form a continental alliance as a balance against the house of Bourbon. The system of Lord Shelburne was to conciliate France, to cultivate a confidential understanding with her government, and to treat her allies as so many inferior and dependent powers. Mr Fox had recommended and carried in the cabinet (23d May 1782) a resolution to instruct Mr Grenville, his majesty’s plenipotentiary at Paris, to propose the independence of America in the first instance, instead of making it a condition of a general treaty; and this offer, to which his majesty’s consent had been obtained, was actually-communicated by Mr Grenville to Dr Franklin. Lord Shelburne, though obliged to acquiesce in the determination of the cabinet, endeavoured afterwards to represent the offer as only conditional, to be recalled if not accepted as the price of peace; and this explanation having been adopted by a majority of the cabinet after the illness of Lord Rockingham, Mr Fox declared his determination to resign. The discovery of a mysterious negotiation at Paris contributed to strengthen this resolution. It was a great object with Mr Fox, in pursuance of his system of policy, to open a free and unreserved communication with Dr Franklin. Through Mr Grenville he had hoped to accomplish this design, and he had nearly succeeded in his purpose, when he had discovered, to his infinite surprise and indignation, that Lord Shelburne had been carrying on a clandestine intercourse with Franklin through Mr Oswald, and had received from him and made to him important communications, which had not been imparted to his colleagues. This discovery, which was made before Lord Rockingham’s death, destroyed all confidence in Lord Shelburne among the friends of that nobleman, though, from the delicate nature of the transaction, it was impossible at the time to make it the subject of public animadversion, or even allusion.

The resignation of Mr Fox and his friends compelled Lord Shelburne to strengthen his government from every quarter where support could be obtained. Mr Pitt, who had declined accepting a subordinate office in the Rockingham administration, became his chancellor of the exchequer. Rigby, Dundas, and Jenkinson, old supporters of the American war, attached themselves to his train. A negotiation was opened with the remaining partisans of Lord North, which only failed of success in consequence of Mr Pitt, with more judgment than feeling, making personal objections to Lord North himself, which wounded the pride, and excited the indignation, of his friends and family. When parliament met after the signing of the preliminaries of peace, there were three parties, nearly of equal strength, in the House of Commons; that of the minister, reinforced by the court, and several of the most objectionable members of Lord North’s administration; the Rockingham party, who had gone into opposition with Mr Fox; and, lastly, Lord North and his friends. That three separate parties, so equally balanced, should continue to act in the House of Commons without some coalition, was not to be expected. A re-union of the [7:9:802]Whigs would have been most acceptable to the public; ' but recent differences, mutual recriminations, and distrust of Lord Shelburne, rendered such a coalition impracticable. The personal objections, so harshly and acrimoniously stated, against Lord North, had exasperated his friends against the ministry. Nothing, therefore, remained but a junction of the two parties in opposition; and this coalition, which time would naturally and imperceptibly have brought about, was hastened and matured by the coincidence of their opinions against the peace. The first step was to concert an amendment to the address of thanks on the preliminary articles signed at Versailles; and this amendment was carried in the Commons by a small majority, but not without great indignation being expressed in the house, and a violent outcry raised out of doors, at the apparent junction of the two parties. No coalition had yet taken place. Lord North was still at liberty to have formed an administration without Mr Fox; and it was the opinion of one of the most judicious friends of the latter, that to undertake the government with Lord North, “was to risk their credit with the public on very unsafe grounds.” On the part of the Whigs there seems to have been a momentary hesitation whether to proceed farther or to step back. “Unless a real good government is the consequence of this junction,” says one of the most sagacious of the party, “nothing can justify it to the public.” “There never was a case of more difficulties and dangers to the real friends of whiggiśm and good principles.” The die was at length cast; and in an evil hour, if we are to judge, not from principles, but from results, the coalition was effected. The united strength of the two parties procured a vote of censure on the peace. Lord Shelburne, who still flattered himself with the possession of court favour, is said to have proposed an immediate dissolution of the parliament. But he had served his turn, and was no longer wanted. His majesty judged rightly, that the· time was not yet come for so bold a measure, and allowed his minister to resign.

A long interval ensued before the coalition administration was formed. Repeated attempts were made to detach Lord North from Mr Fox; and when these had failed, it was stated as an indispensable preliminary to any ministerial arrangement, that Lord Thurlow should be continued as lord high chancellor. But the fatal effects of a secret enemy in the cabinet had been too severely and too recently felt to concede a point of so much importance. A complete change of administration was insisted upon, and was granted at last, but with the worst possible grace, and with every symptom of ill humour and dissatisfaction. It was not merely the triumph of the coalition that filled the royal bosom with such indignation. His majesty considered the Rockingham party as enemies to his just prerogative. Nor could he forgive them for their zeal against the American war, and inflexibility, when they came into office, in insisting on the unconditional acknowledgment of American independence. “The extraordinary and never to be forgotten vote of February 1782, and the hurry for negotiation that after ensued,” had, in his opinion, lowered the spirit of the country, and given confidence to its enemies: and in his own mind had produced such indifference on political subjects, that he felt no anxiety for the arrival of the definitive treaty, or concern for the delays that retarded its conclusion. When it was suggested to him that a w sh on his part to receive a minister from America would be favourably received in that country, and might tend to preserve peace and restore harmony in future, he is said to have replied with bitterness, that to receive a minister from America, he could never say would be agreeable to him; and that he should ever have a bad opinion of any Englishman who could accept being an accredited agent to that revolted state. With such feelings rankling in bis mind, is it to be wondered at that his majesty was hostile to an administration, the majority of which had zealously concurred in the grant of independence to America?

The coalition ministry was hardly settled, when a misunderstanding arose about the establishment of the Prince of Wales; and so skilfully had the affair been managed on the part of the king, that if his royal highness had not submitted entirely to his father’s pleasure, the administration must have been overturned almost as soon as formed. But though no change was attempted before the meeting of parliament, his majesty contrived on every occasion to show ill humour to his ministers, and no one in a situation to observe could doubt for a moment that he only waited for a favourable opportunity to turn them out. The India bill afforded such opportunity. That measure was represented as an invasion of chartered rights, as the establishment of a ministerial oligarchy, independent both of prince and people. The nation, disgusted and offended at the coalition, listened with credulity and favour to these accusations. The king, who had carefully disguised his sentiments to the last moment, procured the rejection of the bill in the Lords, through the agency of Lord Temple, and instantly dismissed his ministers.

The coalition ministry was at an end, but its leaders still possessed the confidence of the House of Commons. The cry of secret influence was raised, and more violent addresses carried to the throne than had ever been presented to any prince of the house of Brunswick. Lord Temple, who had accepted the seals, grew frightened at the storm he had raised, and gave in his resignation. Even Mr Pitt became alarmed in the progress of the contest; and the firmness of the Duke of Richmond alone prevented him from following the example of his kinsman. But, as the struggle proceeded, the voice of the people was every day more unequivocally declared in support of the new administration. Courtiers and reformers, churchmen and dissenters, squires and nabobs, joined in execrating the coalition and applauding the minister, in professions of attachment to the king, and declarations of hostility to the Commons. After the attempt of the country gentlemen to make a new coalition of parties had failed, the majorities of opposition began to diminish; and when some necessary votes had been obtained, this refractory House of Commons was punished by a premature dissolution, for its want of subserviency to the crown.

Our limits will not permit us to follow with the same minuteness the political life of Mr Fox in the subsequent parts of his public career. From 1784 to 1792 he was leader of a powerful party in the House of Commons, in opposition to Mr Pitt. His most remarkable exertions during that period were against the Westminster scrutiny, on the regency, against the abatement of impeachments by a dissolution of parliament, on the libel bill, and on the Russian armament. He never published nor corrected any of his speeches, except the one on moving a new writ for the borough of Tavistock; and of those which appeared in the newspapers, and have since been collected, his speech on the scrutiny is the only one so well reported as to give the reader an adequate notion of his style of speaking. It failed at the moment in procuring justice for the Westminster electors; but the impression it made on the house was such, that in the following year an end was put to that odious and vexatious piece of chicanery, worthy of the pettyfogging genius of its inventor, but disgraceful to the minister who gave it his countenance and support. We have not room to discuss at length the regency question. The case was new and unprovided for.
[7:9:803]

There was no direct precedent, nor legal authority in the 1 kingdom to make one. Constitutional analogy pointed out the heir-apparent as the fittest person to exercise the royal authority during the indisposition of the king; and the same analogy indicated the great council of the realm as the body most competent to declare the incapacity and apply the proper remedy. Strict or legal right there was none on either side. The prince had no legal right to the regency; nor till they chose to declare it themselves, had the two houses of parliament any legal right to elect a regent, or to fetter him, previous to his election, with restrictions. The contrivance to create, first a phantom, and then a regent, was a clumsy piece of machinery, nearly allied to treason. The claim of right advanced for the prince was a flimsy speculation of Lord Loughborough, adopted on his authority, without due examination, by Mr Fox, who returned in haste from Italy, while the discussions on the regency were pending. As explained afterwards, the doctrine, if not true, was at least harmless. But the opportunity was skilfully laid hold of by the minister, for the purpose of making his rival unpopular, and of gaining time for the king’s recovery, which Addington, who had great experience in such maladies, assured him, from the beginning, would certainly take place. In his argument against the abatement of impeachment by a dissolution of parliament, Mr Fox bad the support of Mr Pitt, and never was a more triumphant reply than his answer to the arguments on the other side. Of the libel bill it is unnecessary to say a word. The country still profits by it, and regards it as a most important security to our constitutional freedom. By his exertions on the Russian armament, he had the satisfaction to save his country from at least one unnecessary, unjust, and expensive war. We must hasten to an occasion where his efforts were less successful.

The beginning of the French revolution gave universal satisfaction to the friends of liberty in this country. Soon after the taking of the Bastille, Mr Fox describes it “as the greatest, and much the best event that ever happened in the world and adds, “all my prepossessions against French connections for this country will be at an end, and indeed most part of my European system of politics will be altered, if this revolution has the consequence that I expect.” When the king of France was brought back from Varennes, a report having been circulated in England that it was the intention of the national assembly to bring the queen to trial for her life, he composed a letter to Barnave, one of the leading members of the assembly, with whom he was personally unacquainted, exhorting him against such a measure of useless cruelty, which could not fail to bring disgrace on the cause of liberty. The letter was never sent, in consequence of the report proving to be unfounded; but we subjoin some extracts from it, in order to show the spirit in which it was written. After an apology for obtruding his advice on one who was unknown to him, except by reputation, and stating the bad impression that any unnecessary severity to the queen would produce in England; after praising the assembly for the firmness they had displayed on receiving the news of the king’s escape, and urging them to show as much clemency and moderation in prosperity, as they had manifested coolness and resolution in danger; after stating the argument for sending the queen out of the country, or, at most, for confining her in a place of security, he proceeds as follows: “De l’autre coté, si on la juge cette malheureuse femme, qu’on la condamne, et qu’elle subisse son sort, je ne sais que trop bien que ce seraient les ennemis de la liberté qui en triompheront. On la peindra cette liberté comme feroce et cruelle, on tachera de la rendre odieuse, et parmi les âmes faibles on ne réussira peut-etre que trop bien. Le despotisme a toujours eu l’addresse de se servir des passions des hommes pour les subjuguer. Il a eu à ses gages la superstition et l’intérêt personnel, et il seroit bien fâcheux que la pitié, la plus aimable de toutes les faiblesses humaines, se rangeât aussi de son coté. Je ne sais si je me trompe, mais il me parait que vous êtes précisément dans la position où vous pouvez faire one action belle et genereuse sans le moindre danger; c’est-û-dire, que vous êtes dans la prospérité la moins equivoque. Vous avez donné par vos travaux la liberté à votre patrie, et vous trouvez dans elle one recompense aussi touchante que juste. Travaillez actuellement pour le genre humain, et faites aimer la liberté à toutes les nations de la terre, en prouvant qu’elle nourrit dans l’âme non sculement les vertus mâles comme le courage et la justice, mais aussi la douceur, la moderation, et la clemence.” Such were the sentiments and conduct of a man, who was afterwards represented to his countrymen as the blind apologist of all the horrors of the revolution, and indifferent spectator of the calamities of the royal family of France.

As the revolution departed from its original character of justice and moderation, its favourers in this country began to fall off. Mr Burke, scandalized at the confiscation of church property, was the first of the Whig party to declare against it. His violent and outrageous quarrel with Mr Fox in the House of Commons is too well known to need to be here related. No event of his life had ever given such unfeigned sorrow to Mr Fox, as this breach with his old friend and political instructor. But he had soon many other losses of the same sort to deplore. The excesses of the revolution, the democratic form it assumed, the fear lest its example should prove contagious in England, filled with alarm the older, richer, and more aristocratic members of the Whig party. Younger and more ardent spirits, looking to the goodness of the cause, disregarded the unfitness of the instrument used to promote it; and, exulting in the progress of political freedom abroad, thought the occasion favourable for extending and enlarging our constitutional rights at home. A schism was gradually formed in the Whig party, which the formation of the Society of the Friends of the People, and the royal proclamation in May 1792, brought to a public explosion. Mr Fox was eagerly courted on both sides; but if he appeared to hesitate, it was only to keep his friends, if possible, together, and prevent a permanent separation, which he foresaw would invest the minister, as it did, with absolute power. But the revolution of the 10th of August, the massacres of September, the success of the French arms under Dumourier, the violence and indiscretion of the friends of reform at home, spread a panic terror over the land; and the minister who had trifled and temporised till it was too late, found himself unwillingly forced into a war, which he had not wisdom to avert or genius to conduct.

We cannot follow Mr Fox in his opposition to this disastrous war, nor in his subsequent efforts for the restoration of peace. On no occasion was the vigour of his intellect, the sagacity of his foresight, the firmness and resolution of his character, more conspicuous than during the struggle he maintaiued against overwhelming majorities from 1792 to 1797. Till the Duke of Portland, and other alarmists of the Whig party, joined administration in 1794, he always flattered himself with the hope of renewing his connection with his old friends, when their fears should have subsided; and at every harsh or violent act of the government his letters express surprise that the men with whom he had acted so long should support such measures. When finally separated from his old aristocratic connections, and convinced by fatal experience that [7:9:804]the House of Commons had sunk into the passive instrument of ministerial power, his opinions became gradually more inclined to parliamentary reform, from utter despair of seeing the revival of those party connections to which he had been accustomed to look for the preservation of public liberty. But if he appealed to the constituent body against their representatives, he only followed the example which the court and his great opponent had given in the memorable dissolution of 1784. Nothing indisposed him so much against the House of Commons as the indifference it manifested on every occasion where liberty was infringed, or injustice committed by the government. “Arguments against the war and our alliances,” he observes, in a letter written in 1794, “are favourably heard in the House of Commons, though they do not get us a vote; but sentiments of liberty, and complaints of oppression, are very little attended to, however well founded. In short, liberty is not popular; and of those who are attached to it there are too many who have wild and impracticable schemes of government, to which the miserable state we are in, both with respect to foreign affairs and our constitution, gives more plausibility and credit than they are by their own merit entitled to. The country seems divided (very unequally I admit) between the majority, who are subdued by fears or corrupted by hopes, and the minority, who are waiting sulkily for opportunities for violent remedies. The few who are neither subdued enough to be silent through fear, nor desperate enough to give up regular opposition, in expectation of more violent measures, are weak both in numbers and weight; but, though weak, we are right, and that must be our comfort.” But, however changed the sentiments of the country, his own opinions of the value of political liberty were not altered. “I believe,” says he, in another letter to the same correspondent, “the love of political liberty is not an error; but if it is one, I am sure I shall never be converted from it, and I hope you never will. If it be an illusion, it is one that has brought forth more of the best qualities and exertions of the human mind than all other causes put together; and it serves to give an interest in the affairs of the world, which without it would be insipid.” “We live,” he observes on another occasion, “in times of violence and of extremes; and all those who are for creating, or even for retaining, checks upon power, are considered as enemies to order. However, one must do one’s duty, and one must endeavour to do it without passion.” After relating the final junction of his old friends with administration, he adds, “You will easily imagine how much I feel the separation from persons with whom I had been so long in the habit of agreeing; it seemed in some way as if I had the world to begin anew; and, if I could have done it with honour, what I should best have liked would have been to retire from politics altogether; but this could not be done, and therefore there remains nothing but to get together what remains of our party, and begin, like Sisyphus, to roll up the stone again, which, long before it reaches the summit, may probably roll down again.”

The last of these extracts shows that, notwithstanding the defection of some of the friends he most loved and esteemed, he was still convinced of the necessity of party connections, in order to maintain the cause of liberty in this country. He argues the question at length with his correspondent, and concludes by saying, “But the decisive argument upon the subject appears to me to be this: Is there any other mode or plan in this country by which a rational man can hope to stem the power and influence of the crown? I am sure that neither experience nor any well reasoned theory has ever shown any other. Is there any other plan which is likely to make so great a number of persons resist the temptations of titles and emoluments; and, if these things are so, ought we to abandon a system from which so much good has been derived, because some men have acted inconsistently; and because, from the circumstances of the moment, we are not likely to act with much effect ?” It was with great reluctance, however, and with great violence to his own wishes, that he persevered in this fruitless struggle. “I am quite sick of politics,” he says in August 1794, “and attend to them only because I think it a duty to do so, and that it would be unbecoming my character to quit them at such a moment.” His desire to retire from public life became stronger in the following year. “I grow every day to think less of public affairs,” he says in April 1795; “I wish I could be persuaded that it was right to quit public business, for I should like it to a degree that I cannot express; but I cannot yet think that it is not a duty to persevere. I am so sure that secession is the measure a shabby fellow would take in our circumstances, that I think it can scarcely be right for us; but, as far as wishes, no man ever wished any thing more. I am perfectly happy in the country. 1 have quite resources enough to employ my mind, and the great resource of literature I am fonder of every day. However, events and circumstances may happen which may make that right, which I am sure would be pleasant, and I think it not unlikely but they may.”

The popular spirit manifested against the treason and sedition bills, in winter 1795, revived his public zeal, but was far from giving satisfaction to his mind. “My view of things,” he writes in November 1795, “is, I own, very gloomy, and I am convinced that in a very few years this government will become completely absolute, or that confusion will arise of a nature almost as much to be deprecated as despotism itself. Ministers mean to bring on the first of these evils, and I cannot disguise from myself that there are but too many who wish for the second.” After his success at the Westminster meeting against the bills, he says, “It is clear we have the popularity, and I suspect we shall have it universally among the lower classes. I need not tell you how I dislike this state of things, but I cannot submit quietly to Mr Hume’s euthanasia, which is coming on very fast.” As he became more persuaded of the existence of a strong spirit of liberty among the lower classes, he became more inclined to the popular doctrines of parliamentary reform. In 1796 he expresses himself in the following manner upon that subject: “Perhaps, instead of saying now that the power of the House of Commons ought to be first restored, and its constitution considered afterwards, it would be better to invert the order, and to say parliament should first be reformed, and then restored to its just influence. You will observe that I state this opinion as being mine now, in contradistinction to those times when the Whig party was only beaten, but not dispersed, and when I certainly was of a different opinion. At present I think we ought to go further towards agreeing with the democratic or popular party than at any former period, for the following reasons: We, as a party, I fear can do nothing, and the contest must be between the court and the democrats. These last, without our assistance, will either be too weak to resist the ∞urt, and then comes Mr Hume’s euthanasia, which you and I think the worst of all events; or, if they are strong enough, being wholly unmixed with any aristocratic leven, and full of resentment against us for not joining them, will go probably to greater excesses, and bring on the only state of things which can make a man doubt whether the despotism of monarchy is not the worst of all evils.”

The time at length arrived when the state of things to [7:9:805]which he alluded in his letter of April 1795 came to pass. His remaining political friends were persuaded that it was useless to persevere longer in their parliamentary exertions, and that it was even “in some degree hurtful, as tending to deceive the country into an opinion that the House of Commons was still a place in which it was worth while to try the effect of argument and reason.” When he found that no good was to be done in parliament, that no beneficial impression was to be made on the country, and that the friends for whom he was ready to sacrifice his time and inclinations wished him to retire from public life, with doubt and hesitation in his mind as to the propriety of the measure, he gave his consent to the secession; resolving no longer to attend his duty in the House of Commons, unless particularly called upon to do so by his own constituents.

Having once retired to St Anne’s, he found such enjoyment in the calmness and tranquillity of a country life, that it was with the utmost difficulty he could now and then be brought back to the House of Commons. The happiest years of his life were those which he passed in retirement from 1797 to 1802. He still took a lively interest in public concerns, and applauded and encouraged the exertions of his friends when they returned to parliament, but he could seldom be induced to follow their example. His time passed placidly and agreeably in books, conversation, and the society of his family. He had always been fond of gardening, and his residence in the country gave him a turn for farming. Of the amusements of his early years the love of shooting was the only one in which he continued to indulge, and the exercise it gave him preserved his health. His passion for literature, which had never subsided entirely, revived and became stronger than ever. Poetry and criticism were his favourite pursuits, and history his amusement. He applied with ardour to the study of the Greek tragedians, and as his proficiency increased, he found an agreeable occupation for his mind in the niceties and difficulties of that noble language. Some time after his retreat he conceived the plan of writing a History of the Revolution of 1688. He had many years before expressed himself in the following manner, of the work of our great historian: “1 think Mr Hume’s History of Charles I. the most mischievous book that ever was written. It is written with infinitely more art than any other part of his work, and is, 1 think, in that view a masterpiece. I do not think any answer to it or comment on it would do much good, or at least not so much as another history of the times written with his art, or even with the half of it, in the opposite view.” But, though his opinion of the utility of a new history of the civil war, as an antidote to Hume, may possibly have first turned his thoughts to a work on English history, the period he selected for his own labours shows that he had no intention to set himself up as a rival to that great historian. His sole object seems to have been, to tell the story of the Revolution, to explain how it was brought about, and to show in what its constitutional value consisted. Had he lived to complete his plan, the criticisms on Hume, in his introduction, would have formed but a small part of his book.

Mr Fox went abroad with Mrs Fox in summer 1802, partly from curiosity to see France after the extraordinary changes that had taken place in that country, and partly to collect documents for his history. As the constant friend of peace, he was received with enthusiasm where-ever he went by the French people, and treated with distinguished civility and attention by their government. He had several long conversations with the first consul, in which the latter talked to him with the utmost freedom on a variety of topics; on the concordat then recently made, on the trial by jury, on the licentiousness of the English newspapers, on the difference between Asiatic and European society. On one occasion Napoleon having insinuated that Mr Windham was concerned in the assassination plots against his person, Mr Fox vindicated his old friend with warmth against so odious and unfounded an imputation. Having finished his labours at Paris, during which he collected a large mass of materials for his history, he went to La Grange, the country seat of his friend La Fayette, and after passing some days there most agreeably, returned to England.

On his arrival in London he found great irritation in England against the consular government, and an absurd cry for war raised by the newspapers, and re-echoed by aD who expected in any way to profit by that calamity. Ministers were apparently undecided, and, in the hopes of confirming them in a pacific disposition, he resolved for a short time to renew his attendance in parliament. “I shall attend on the address," he says, “because, though, if the ministry is warlike, I have no hope of dissuading them; on the other hand, if they are pacific, I may serve in some degree to encourage them.” Besides his general objections to war, where it could be avoided with honour, he thought there was “in this case a moral certainty of failing in our object, and of aggrandizing France still more than we had done.” Peace should be preserved, “if it could be done with honour and he had no doubt it might, provided our government was so disposed. If Pitt, who had not yet declared himself, should be for peace and Addington, there would be no occasion for the old opposition taking an active part; but if he should join the war party, or “hold a conduct between peace and war,” then Addington will want support, “and the support given him will be both useful and honourable.” He had been told that he should “be as much abused for pacific language now as he had been ten years before, but being in parliament, he was determined not to blink such a question and, on making the trial, found “his speech in favour of peace better received by the house than any he had made since the Russian armament.” The country in general, he was persuaded, was inclined to peace; and while there was “hope of contributing to prevent war, he felt himself in a manner bound” not to discontinue his attendance in the House of Commons. When the short session before Christmas closed, he still thought ministers sincerely desirous of maintaining peace. “If 1 have any fears,” he says on the 29ιh of December 1802, “it is only from a suspicion of a want of courage in ministers to speak out what they really think, and if they should long continue to be afraid of speaking bold pacific language, ill humours may arise, and war begin without any wish for it in either government.”

It has been invidiously said, that Mr Fox, after his return from Paris, was unwillingly dragged from his retirement by the importunity of his friends, in order to support their views in parliament, and that his health and comfort were sacrificed to their party objects. The fact is directly the reverse. It was he who urged them to attend, not they who solicited him. His return to public life was his own spontaneous act, unsolicited and unexpected by his friends. His object, in the first instance, was to assist in the preservation of peace; and when the message in March 1803 bad opened his eyes to the real intentions of the ministry, his indignation at the hollowness and duplicity of their conduct made him persevere in his parliamentary attendance. From the state of parties in the House of Commons he began also to entertain hopes of the revival of a Whig opposition, such as had existed before the fatal schism in 1792; and with his opinions of the necessity of party connections, as the only [7:9:806]means of maintaining public liberty in this country, there was no personal sacrifice he was not willing to make for the attainment of such an end. The revival of his former connection with his old friends was the object nearest to his heart; and in Lord Grenville, though a new associate, he found, as he had formerly done in Lord North, an honourable coadjutor, with whom he could act in perfect confidence, though they had differed warmly on points that were no longer the subjects of public discussion. He was even ready to form a junction with Mr Pitt, till he discovered that Pitt, though willing to join in opposing particular measures of administration, would not break with the court by going into regular opposition. It is a certain fact, that, of all his party, Mr Fox was the person most anxious to form a coalition with Lord Grenville; and that, whatever difficulties occurred to retard that junction, they arose not from him, but from his friends. He considered then, as he had done from the time of the American war, the influence of the crown to be the most dangerous enemy to good government in this country; and the violence expressed for war, after the royal message, contrasted with what he conceived to have been previously the general disposition for peace, he regarded as a strong confirmation of all his apprehensions. “The king’s minister,” he says in March 1803, “be he who he may, is in peace, at last, all powerful; whether or not, in case of a war, the universal apprehension of mischief from the weakness of those men could do any thing, may be more of a question, but even in that case I think the crown in earnest would beat us all.” This influence, he contended, not only governed men’s actions, but even swayed their opinions. “I should not be surprised,” he says in January 1804, “if in a short time the present minister is reckoned the ablest man in the kingdom; or, if that cannot be compassed, it will be thought and maintained, that a minister without abilities is the best for this country.” He was anxious for a junction of parties, not from motives of personal ambition, but in order to counteract this servility. “A stand should be attempted, which, though unsuccessful at present, will keep something alive against other times. To temporise is certain, absolutely certain, confirmation of the evil; no nation ever did, or ever can, recover from slavery by such methods.”

The first distinct overture for a formal coalition of what were then called the new and old opposition, was made in January 1804, and came from the friends of Lord Grenville. It was proposed to co-operate in a systematic opposition, for the purpose of overturning Mr Addington’s administration, and of substituting in its place one upon the most comprehensive basis possible. To this proposal Mr Fox was willing to have acceded at once; but, owing to some repugnance on the part of his friends, it was settled that the two parties should co-operate and concert together the measures to be brought forward in parliament, in order to give to their debates and divisions all the strength they could, without any formal or compact engagement in case of success. The same proposition had been made to Mr Pitt, whó owned that the present ministry was weak and inadequate to the crisis, that their dismission would be a benefit to the country, and that, in case of such an event, an administration should be formed on the broadest possible basis. If his majesty, on such an occasion, were to send for him, he should think it right to endeavour to comprehend in the arrangement all parties, and even those who had been most hostile to him; but though, on many points, he would support the new opposition if it took place, he was determined never to engage with any set of men in systematic opposition. Such was the state of parties at the meeting of parliament in February 1804. As the session advanced Mr Pitt grew more hostile to ministers; and, after the Faster recess, the three parties in opposition acted in concert with so much vigour, that Mr Addington thought it prudent to resign. Mr Pitt, who was sent for to form a new administration, had previously declared that he would endeavour to form one in conjunction with Lord Grenville and Mr Fox; but if he found his majesty impracticable, he should feel himself bound to try one by himself. The result is well known. His majesty was found to be impracticable on the subject of Mr Fox. Lord Grenville, though unfettered by engagements, refused to concur in an administration from which Mr Fox was excluded; and, by his conduct on this occasion, “satisfied those" persons of the old opposition, “who had been most prejudiced” against a junction of the two parties. Mr Pitt, abandoned by all, except his personal friends and adherents, was compelled to coalesce with the wrecks of the administration he had contributed to destroy.

After various ineffectual attempts, during the recess, to strengthen the government, Mr Pitt found himself obliged, before the meeting of parliament, to take back Mr Addington into office. A fresh quarrel ensued; and, at the close of the session, Mr Addington (now Lord Sidmouth) and his friends again resigned. Insinuations were then thrown out of an intention to negotiate with opposition; but, if such overtures had been made, the new engagements contracted on the Continent, independent of other reasons, must have put a stop to the negotiation. Russia, offended at the arrogance of Napoleon, had expressed her desire to form a closer connection with Great Britain. It had been the advice of Mr Fox that advantage should be taken of this disposition to propose reasonable terms of peace to France, under the mediation of Alexander, and, if these were refused, to conclude a defensive alliance with Russia, but on no account to provoke afresh Continental war, which must ruin Austria if unsuccessful. Unhappily this advice was not taken. Austria was seduced, or rather bribed, into a declaration of hostilities. The war was pre-eminently unfortunate, and all hope for a time extinguished of any balance to the power of France upon the Continent.

The death of Mr Pitt dissolved the administration he had formed. Lord Grenville was sent for by the king, and had no difficulty in persuading his majesty to accept of the advice and services of Mr Fox. When the different parts of the new administration were to be cast, his hope and desire of peace induced Mr Fox to take the office of secretary of state for foreign affairs; and, before his fatal illness, he had begun a negotiation for peace, with every apparent prospect of success. The short time he was in office prevented him from realizing the sanguine expectations which his friends and the public had conceived from his past conduct and principles of government. It ought to be remembered, however, that it was to his firmness Mr Windham was indebted for the success of his limited service bill; a measure that had to encounter every opposition which power and prejudice could raise against it; and that to his exertions, and to those of Lord Grenville, was owing a resolution of both houses of parliament to abolish the slave trade, which Mr Pitt, in the plenitude of his power, had failed to obtain.

Mr Fox had inherited an uncommonly vigorous constitution; but, about two years before his death, he had an illness at Cheltenham, which probably laid the foundation of the malady that occasioned his death. His attendance on Lord Nelson’s funeral, in January 1806, brought on a complaint to which he was ever after occasionally liable. The duties of office, and the fatigue of constant attendance on the House of Commons, did not tend to restore[7:9:807] or confirm his health. About the middle of June he had symptoms of dropsy, both general and local, and soon afterwards his complaint had made such alarming progress as to excite the greatest fears for his life. The universal interest excited in his fate afforded the surest evidence of his great popularity. From the remotest corners of the kingdom letters arrived daily to his family, expressing the deepest concern in his situation, and recommending remedies of all sorts for his disease. His malady, in the mean time, gained ground daily, and his physicians were at length compelled to have recourse to the common surgical operation for dropsy of the belly. The relief obtained, as usual, was but temporary. The operation was repeated, and sopn after he fell into a state of languor, from which he never recovered He expired on the 13th of September 1806, having retained his senses and understanding to the last. It has been said that his death was accelerated by the exhibition of digitalis, administered in the vain hope of effecting a perfect cure of his disease; but the story is utterly false and unfounded, and has been publicly contradicted by his physicians. The cause of his complaint was ascertained to be a schirrous affection of the liver.

“Mr Fox,” to use the words of one who knew him well during the last fifteen years of his life, and who has delineated his character with equal truth, force, and discrimination,^[1. Character of Mr Fox, by Sir James Mackintosh. Published in Dr Parr’s Collection, entitled Characters of Mr Fox, by Philopatris Varicencis. ] “united, in a most remarkable degree, the seemingly repugnant characters of the mildest of men and the most vehement of orators. In private life he was gentle, modest, placable, kind, of simple manners, and so averse from dogmatism, as to be not only unostentatious, but even something inactive in conversation. His superiority was never felt but in the instruction which he imparted, or in the attention which his generous preference usually directed to the more obscure members of the company. The simplicity of his manners was far from excluding that perfect urbanity and amenity which flowed still more from the mildness of his nature than from familiar intercourse with the most polished society of Europe. The pleasantry perhaps of no man of wit had so unlaboured an appearance. It seemed rather to escape from his mind than to be produced by it. He had lived on the most intimate terms with all his contemporaries distinguished by wit, politeness, or philosophy, or learning, or the talents of public life. In the course of thirty years he had known almost every man in Europe whose intercourse could strengthen, or enrich, or polish the mind. His own literature was various and elegant. In classical erudition, which by the custom of England is more peculiarly called learning, he was inferior to few professed scholars. Like all men of genius, he delighted to take refuge in poetry, from the vulgarity and irritation of business. His own verses were easy and pleasant, and might have claimed no low place among those which the French call vers de société. The poetical character of his mind was displayed by his extraordinary partiality for the poetry of the two most poetical nations, or at least languages, of the west, those of the Greeks and of the Italians. He disliked political conversation, and never willingly took any part in it.”^[2. This is true of Mr Fox in the latter part of his life only. Till his separation from his old friends in 1793 his mind was too full of political subjects not to take an eager part in political conversation even in private; and, when a young man, instead of being somewhat inactive in conversation, he was very much the reverse. Dr Johnson was mistaken in supposing him habitually silent when in company, and has assigned a reason for his supposed taciturnity quite inconsistent with his real character. ]

“To speak of him justly as an orator would require a long essay. Everywhere natural, he carried into public something of that simple and negligent exterior which belonged to him in private. When he began to speak, a common observer might have thought him awkward; and even a consummate judge could only have been struck with the exquisite justness of his ideas, and the transparent simplicity of his manners. But no sooner had he spoken for some time than he was changed into another being. He forgot himself and every thing around him. He thought only of his subject. His genius warmed and kindled as he went on. He darted fire into his audience. Torrents of impetuous and irresistible eloquence swept along their feelings and conviction. He certainly possessed above all moderns that union of reason, simplicity, and vehemence, which formed the prince of orators. He was the most Demosthenean speaker since the days of Demosthenes. ‘ I knew him,’ says Mr Burke, in a pamphlet written after their unhappy difference, ‘ when he was nineteen; since which time he has risen, by slow degrees, to be the most brilliant and accomplished debater the world ever saw.’

“The quiet dignity of a mind roused only by great objects, the absence of petty bustle, the contempt of show, the abhorrence of intrigue, the plainness and downrightness, and the thorough good nature, which distinguished Mr Fox, seem to render him no unfit representative of the old English character, which, if it ever changed, we should be sanguine indeed to expect to see it succeeded by a better. The simplicity of his character inspired confidence, the ardour of his eloquence roused enthusiasm, and the gentleness of his manners invited friendship. ‘ I admired,’ says Mr Gibbon, after describing a day passed with him at Lausanne, ‘ the powers of a superior man, as they are blended, in his attractive character, with all the softness and simplicity of a child; no human being was ever more free from any taint of malignity, vanity, or falsehood.’

“The measures which he supported or opposed may divide the opinion of posterity, as they have divided those of the present age. But he will most certainly command the unanimous reverence of future generations, by his pure sentiments towards the commonwealth; by his zeal for the civil and religious rights of all men; by his liberal principles, favourable to mild government, to the unfettered exercise of the human faculties, and the progressive civilization of mankind; by his ardent love for a country of which the well-being and greatness were, indeed, inseparable from his own glory; and by his profound reverence for that free constitution which he was universally admitted to understand better than any other man of his age, both in an exactly legal and in a comprehensively philosophical sense.” (u. q. «.)