his countenance, gradually assumed a sublime yet tender air. He seemed to regret leaving Mrs. Fox solitary and friendless; and, as he fixed his eyes repeatedly upon her, threw into them such an expression of consolation as looked supernatural: there was also in it a tender gratitude which breathed unutterable things, and, to the last, the disinterested and affectionate, the dying husband mourned for another's sufferings, and strove to make his own appear light. There was the pious resignation of the Christian, who fearlessly abandons his fleeting spirit to a merciful Deity visible throughout the day, the unbeliever who 'came to scoff must have remained to pray.' It was now that Mr. Fox gathered the fruits of his glorious life: his departure was unruffled by remorse, he had sacrificed every thing that was personal to his country's good,-and found his last moments blessed by the reflection, that his last effort had been conformable to the religion he professed, to give peace to an afflicted world. 'I die happy!' said he, fixing again and again his eyes upon Mrs. Fox. He expired betwixt five and six o'clock in the afternoon of the 13th of September, 1806." Fox was buried with great pomp in Westminster Abbey on the 10th of October, the anniversary of his first election for Westminster. His grave is within a few feet of that of Pitt. Sir Walter Scott's beautiful lines on this are well known : "The mighty chiefs sleep side by side. "Twill trickle on his rival's bier; O'er Pitt's the mournful requiem sound, The solemn echo seems to cry 'Here let their discord with them die.' Speak not for those a separate doom, In Parr's celebrated Preface to Bellendenus the following defence is given against the censures which were so often, and with so much effect, urged against Fox's private life during his youth and early manhood: : "Hi sunt eorum assidui et quotidiani sermones. 'Si qui voluptatibus ducuntur, et se vitiorum illecebris dediderunt, missos faciant honores: ne attingant rempublicam.' "Quid igitur agam? quippe magna responsi invidia subeunda CC est, neque mitigari possunt legentium aures. Veniam igitur petere non ausim-perfugiis non utar juventutis aut temporum. Fatebor sane Foxium, cum in lubricas adolescentiæ vias ingrederetur, stuperetque jam insolitis et insanis fulgoribus, tanto mentis robore non fuisse, ut ei æqualium studia, ludique, et convivia displicuerint. Erupisse in eo fatebor illum impetum animi ardoremque, qui, sive ad literas humaniores, sive ad prudentiam civilem, sive ad luxuriam amoresque inclinaret, id unum ageret, id toto pectore arriperet, id universum hauriret. Fatebor a vera illa et directa ratione non gradu eum aliquo, sed præcipiti cursu descivisse; ut patrimonium effuderit, ut fenore trucidatus sit, et naturale quoddam stirpis bonum degeneraverit vitio ætatis. At hæ deliciæ quæ vocantur, etsi ad illas hæserit, nunquam eum occupatum impeditumque tenuerunt diu. At facultate jam florens, et studiis eloquentiæ per intervalla flagrans, cum blandimentis hisce conjunxit plurimum dignitatis. At scelere semper caruit. At in luxum se præcipitavit eum, qui a Tacito dicitur eruditus, itemque a Cicerone habetur homine ingenuo et libero dignior. At revocavit se identidem ad curam reipublicæ. At Petronii instar, vigentem se ostendit, et negotiis parem; effecitque, perinde ac Mutianus, ut, in quo nimiæ essent, cum vacaret, voluptates, in eo, quoties expediret, magnæ elucerent virtutes. At vixit, hodieque idem vivit, amicis carus. At dulcissimus illis semper occurrit, eò quod æqualitas et pares honorum gradus, et studiorum quasi finitima vicinitas, tantum absunt ab invidiæ obtrectatione, ut non modo non exulcerare eorum gratiam, sed conciliare videantur. At dignus est quem numeres inter multos et quidem bonos, qui, cum adolescentiam fere totam voluptatibus dedidissent, emerserint aliquando, probique homines et illustres exstiterint." I fear, however, that neither Parr nor any of the numerous able and attached friends whom Fox left behind him, ever could or ever can wholly wipe off this stain from his character; and an anonymous writer on his career has truly and forcibly pointed out how much his power as a public man was marred by his want of private respectability. That writer truly points out that "by a law, as deep in human nature as any of its principles of distinction between good and evil, it is impossible to give respect or confidence to a man who habitually disregards some of the primary ordinances 6 See a paper on Fox in the Eclectic Review for 1808. It is quoted at length in Mr. Cunningham's Biography of Fox. It well deserves perusal. of morality. The nation never confided in our eloquent statesman's integrity: those who admired every thing in his talents, and much in his qualities, regretted that his name never ceased to excite in their minds the idea of gamesters and bacchanals, even after he was acknowledged to have withdrawn himself from such society. Those who held his opinions were almost sorry that he should have held them, while they saw with what malicious exultation they who rejected them could cite his moral reputation, in place of argument to invalidate them. In describing this unfortunate effect of the character, we are simply asserting known matter of fact. There is not one advocate of the principles or of the man, who has not to confess what irksome and silencing rebuffs he has experienced in the form of reference to moral character: we have observed it continually for many years, in every part of England which we have frequented; and we have seen practical and most palpable proof, that no man, even of the highest talents, can ever acquire, or at least retain, much influence on the public mind in the character of remonstrant and reformer, without the reality, or at any rate the invulnerable reputation, of virtue, in the comprehensive sense of the word, as comprising every kind of morality prescribed by the highest moral code acknowledged in a Christian nation. Public men and oppositionists may inveigh against abuses, and parade in patriotism, as long as they please; they will find that even one manifest vice will preclude all public confidence in their principles, and therefore render futile the strongest exertions of talent. It has been said, that a man may maintain nice principles of integrity in the prosecution of public affairs, though his conscience and practice are very defective in matters of private morality. But this would never be believed, even if it were true: the universal conviction of mankind rejects it, when it is attempted, in practical cases, to be made the foundation of confidence. So far is this from being believed, that even a conspicuous and complete reformation of private morals, if it be but recent, is still an unsatisfactory security for public virtue; and a very long probation of personal character is indispensable, as a kind of quarantine for a man once deeply contaminated to undergo, in order to engage any real confidence in the integrity of his public conduct; nor can he ever engage it in the same degree, as if an uniform and resolute virtue had marked his private conduct from the beginning." I have already drawn attention to the best excuse that can be made for Fox in this respect,—namely, the evil example and the mischievous indulgence that he met with in his early years. "Nor let it," as Lord Brougham has justly observed on this subject in his sketch of Fox, "nor let it be forgotten, that the noble heart and sweet disposition of this great man passed unscathed through an ordeal which, in almost every other instance, is found to deaden all the kindly and generous affections. A life of gambling, and intrigue, and faction, left the nature of Charles Fox as little tainted with selfishness or falsehood, and his heart as little hardened, as if he had lived and died in a farm-house; or rather as if he had not outlived his childish years." His Lordship here evidently alludes to Gibbon's beautiful expression respecting Fox: "I admired 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 speeches of Fox, as we possess them, do not contain full evidence of the high oratorical powers which we know, from external evidence, that he possessed. We must judge his eloquence by the effect which it produced on those who heard it, and not by that which it produces upon us who read it. Lord Brougham has well expressed the inaccuracy of Mackintosh, who termed Fox a Demosthenean speaker. His Lordship's critique on Fox's oratory, in his "Historical Sketches of Statesmen," is one of the ablest and most valuable portions of that very able and valuable work. I will only quote the passages in which, after having mentioned how negligent and uneven, and frequently slovenly and confused, Fox was in speaking, Lord Brougham tells us that "Mr. Fox's eloquence was of a kind which, to comprehend, you must have heard himself. When he got fairly into his subject, was heartily warmed with it, he poured forth words and periods of fire that smote you, and deprived you of all power to reflect and rescue yourself, while he went on to seize the faculties of the listener, and carry them captive along with him whithersoever he pleased to rush. "Fox, as he went along and exposed absurdity, and made inconsistent arguments clash, and laid bare shuffling or hypocrisy, and showered down upon meanness, or upon cruelty, or upon oppres sion, a pitiless storm of the most fierce invective, was ever forging also the long, and compacted, and massive chain of pure demonstration. Ἐν δ ̓ ἔθετ ̓ ἀκμοθέτῳ μέγαν ἄκμονα, κόπτε δὲ δεσμούς Αῤῥήκτους, ἀλυτοὺς,—ὄφρ ̓ ἔμπεδον αὖθι μένοιεν. (Οd. Θ.) "There was no weapon of argument which this great orator more happily or more frequently wielded than wit,-the wit which exposes to ridicule the absurdity or inconsistency of an adverse argument. It has been said of him, we believe by Mr. Frere, that he was the wittiest speaker of his times; and they were the times of Sheridan and of Windham. This was Mr. Canning's opinion, and it was also Mr. Pitt's. There was nothing more awful in Mr. Pitt's sarcasm, nothing so vexatious in Mr. Canning's light and galling raillery, as the battering and piercing wit with which Mr. Fox so often interrupted, but always supported, the heavy artillery of his argumentative declamation. "Nonne fuit satius, tristes Amaryllidis iras, Atque superba pati fastidia? Nonne, Menalcan?' "In debate he had that ready discernment of an adversary's weakness, and the advantage to be taken of it, which is, in the war of words, what the coup d'œil of a practised general is in the field." (Knight's Cyclopædia.- Cunningham's Biography.— Lord Brougham's Historical Sketches, &c.) LORD NORTH. Fox found, first, a political chief,-next, a mark for the fiercest political opposition, and thirdly, a political confederate, in Frederick North, eldest son of Francis Earl of Guilford. This nobleman was born in 1729. He was educated at Eton and Oxford; and the proofs of the zeal and success with which he studied the classics are still extant. The first copy of verses in the "Musæ Etonenses" is by Lord North; and several others, written by him while at Eton, are included in that well-known collection. He entered Parliament as member for Banbury. In 1759 he was appointed a Commissioner of the Treasury, and remained in office until 1765. In the following year he was made Joint |