quick sensibility, his eagerness in the defence of truth, and his
impatience of everything that looked like trick or artifice or
affectation, we shall be able in some measure to account for the
character of his eloquence. His thoughts came crowding in too fast for
the slow and mechanical process of speech. What he saw in an instant,
he could only express imperfectly, word by word, and sentence after
sentence. He would, if he could, 'have bared his swelling heart,' and
laid open at once the rich treasures of knowledge with which his bosom
was fraught. It is no wonder that this difference between the rapidity
of his feelings, and the formal round-about method of communicating
them, should produce some disorder in his frame; that the throng of
his ideas should try to overleap the narrow boundaries which confined
them, and tumultuously break down their prison-doors, instead of
waiting to be let out one by one, and following patiently at due
intervals and with mock dignity, like poor dependents, in the train of
words; that he should express himself in hurried sentences, in
involuntary exclamations, by vehement gestures, by sudden starts and
bursts of passion. Everything showed the agitation of his mind. His
tongue faltered, his voice became almost suffocated, and his face was
bathed in tears. He was lost in the magnitude of his subject. He
reeled and staggered under the load of feeling which oppressed him. He
rolled like the sea beaten by a tempest. Whoever, having the feelings
of a man, compared him at these times with his boasted rival--his
stiff, straight, upright figure, his gradual contortions, turning
round as if moved by a pivot, his solemn pauses, his deep tones,
'whose sound reverbed their own hollowness,' must have said, This is a
man; that is an automaton. If Fox had needed grace, he would have had
it; but it was not the character of his mind, nor would it have suited
with the style of his eloquence. It was Pitt's object to smooth over
the abruptness and intricacies of his argument by the gracefulness of
his manner, and to fix the attention of his hearers on the pomp and
sound of his words. Lord Chatham, again, strove to _command_ others;
he did not try to convince them, but to overpower their understandings
by the greater strength and vehemence of his own; to awe them by a
sense of personal superiority: and he therefore was obliged to assume
a lofty and dignified manner. It was to him they bowed, not to truth;
and whatever related to _himself_, must therefore have a tendency to
inspire respect and admiration. Indeed, he would never have attempted
to gain that ascendant over men's minds that he did, if either his
mind or body had been different from what they were; if his temper had
not urged him to control and command others, or if his personal
advantages had not enabled him to secure that kind of authority which
he coveted. But it would have been ridiculous in Fox to have affected
either the smooth plausibility, the stately gravity of the one, or the
proud domineering, imposing dignity of the other; or even if he could
have succeeded, it would only have injured the effect of his
speeches.[12] What he had to rely on was the strength, the solidity of
his ideas, his complete and thorough knowledge of his subject. It was
his business therefore to fix the attention of his hearers, not on
himself, but on his subject, to rivet it there, to hurry it on from
words to things:--the only circumstance of which they required to be
convinced with respect to himself, was the sincerity of his opinions;
and this would be best done by the earnestness of his manner, by
giving a loose to his feelings, and by showing the most perfect
forgetfulness of himself, and of what others thought of him. The
moment a man shows you either by affected words or looks or gestures,
that he is thinking of himself, and you, that he is trying either to
please or terrify you into compliance, there is an end at once to that
kind of eloquence which owes its effect to the force of truth, and to
your confidence in the sincerity of the speaker. It was, however, to
the confidence inspired by the earnestness and simplicity of his
manner, that Mr. Fox was indebted for more than half the effect of his
speeches. Some others might possess nearly as much information, as
exact a knowledge of the situation and interests of the country; but
they wanted that zeal, that animation, that enthusiasm, that deep
sense of the importance of the subject, which removes all doubt or
suspicion from the minds of the hearers, and communicates its own
warmth to every breast. We may convince by argument alone; but it is
by the interest we discover in the success of our reasonings, that we
persuade others to feel and act with us. There are two circumstances
which Fox's speeches and Lord Chatham's had in common: they are alike
distinguished by a kind of plain downright common sense, and by the
vehemence of their manner. But still there is a great difference
between them, in both these respects. Fox in his opinions was governed
by facts--Chatham was more influenced by the feelings of others
respecting those facts. Fox endeavoured to find out what the
consequences of any measure would be; Chatham attended more to what
people would think of it. Fox appealed to the practical reason of
mankind; Chatham to popular prejudice. The one repelled the
encroachments of power by supplying his hearers with arguments against
it; the other by rousing their passions and arming their resentment
against those who would rob them of their birthright. Their vehemence
and impetuosity arose also from very different feelings. In Chatham it
was pride, passion, self-will, impatience of control, a determination
to have his own way, to carry everything before him; in Fox it was
pure, good nature, a sincere love of truth, an ardent attachment to
what he conceived to be right; all anxious concern for the welfare and
liberties of mankind. Or if we suppose that ambition had taken a
strong hold of both their minds, yet their ambition was of a very
different kind: in the one it was the love of power, in the other it
was the love of fame. Nothing can be more opposite than these two
principles, both in their origin and tendency. The one originates in a
selfish, haughty, domineering spirit; the other in a social and
generous sensibility, desirous of the love and esteem of others, and
anxiously bent upon gaining merited applause. The one grasps at
immediate power by any means within its reach; the other, if it does
not square its actions by the rules of virtue, at least refers them to
a standard which comes the nearest to it--the disinterested applause
of our country, and the enlightened judgment of posterity. The love of
fame is consistent with the steadiest attachment to principle, and
indeed strengthens and supports it; whereas the love of power, where
this is the ruling passion, requires the sacrifice of principle, at
every turn, and is inconsistent even with the shadow of it. I do not
mean to say that Fox had no love of power, or Chatham no love of fame
(this would be reversing all we know of human nature), but that the
one principle predominated in the one, and the other in the other. My
reader will do me great injustice if he supposes that in attempting to
describe the characters of different speakers by contrasting their
general qualities, I mean anything beyond the _more_ or _less_: but it
is necessary to describe those qualities simply and in the abstract,
in order to make the distinction intelligible. Chatham resented any
attack made upon the cause of liberty, of which he was the avowed
champion, as an indignity offered to himself. Fox felt it as a stain
upon the honour of his country, and as an injury to the rights of his
fellow-citizens. The one was swayed by his own passions and purposes,
with very little regard to the consequences; the sensibility of the
other was roused, and his passions kindled into a generous flame, by a
real interest in whatever related to the welfare of mankind, and by an
intense and earnest contemplation of the consequences of the measures
he opposed. It was this union of the zeal of the patriot with the
enlightened knowledge of the statesman, that gave to the eloquence of
Fox its more than mortal energy; that warmed, expanded, penetrated
every bosom. He relied on the force of truth and nature alone; the
refinements of philosophy, the pomp and pageantry of the imagination
were forgotten, or seemed light and frivolous; the fate of nations,
the welfare of millions, hung suspended as he spoke; a torrent of
manly eloquence poured from his heart, bore down everything in its
course, and surprised into a momentary sense of human feeling the
breathing corpses, the wire-moved puppets, the stuffed figures, the
flexible machinery, the 'deaf and dumb things' of a court.
I find (I do not know how the reader feels) that it is difficult to
write a character of Fox without running into insipidity or
extravagance. And the reason of this is, there are no splendid
contrasts, no striking irregularities, no curious distinctions to work
upon; no 'jutting frieze, buttress, nor coigne of 'vantage,' for the
imagination to take hold of. It was a plain marble slab, inscribed in
plain legible characters, without either hieroglyphics or carving.
There was the same directness and manly simplicity in everything that
he did. The whole of his character may indeed be summed up in two
words--strength and simplicity. Fox was in the class of common men,
but he was the first in that class. Though it is easy to describe the
differences of things, nothing is more difficult than to describe
their degrees or quantities. In what I am going to say, I hope I shall
not be suspected of a design to under-rate his powers of mind, when in
fact I am only trying to ascertain their nature and direction. The
degree and extent to which he possessed them can only be known by
reading, or indeed by having heard his speeches.
His mind, as I have already said, was, I conceive, purely
_historical_; and having said this, I have I believe said all. But
perhaps it will be necessary to explain a little farther what I mean.
I mean then, that his memory was in an extraordinary degree tenacious
of facts; that they were crowded together in his mind without the
least perplexity or confusion; that there was no chain of consequences
too vast for his powers of comprehension; that the different parts and
ramifications of his subject were never so involved and intricate but
that they were easily disentangled in the clear prism of his
understanding. The basis of his wisdom was experience: he not only
knew what had happened, but by an exact knowledge of the real state of
things, he could always tell what in the common course of events would
happen in future. The force of his mind was exerted on facts: as long
as he could lean directly upon these, as long as he had the actual
objects to refer to, to steady himself by, he could analyse, he could
combine, he could compare and reason upon them, with the utmost
exactness; but he could not reason _out of_ them. He was what is
understood by a _matter-of-fact_ reasoner. He was better acquainted
with the concrete masses of things, their substantial forms and
practical connections, than with their abstract nature or general
definitions. He was a man of extensive information, of sound
knowledge, and clear understanding, rather than the acute observer or
profound thinker. He was the man of business, the accomplished
statesman, rather than the philosopher. His reasonings were, generally
speaking, calculations of certain positive results, which, the _data_
being given, must follow as matters of course, rather than unexpected
and remote truths drawn from a deep insight into human nature, and the
subtle application of general principles to particular cases. They
consisted chiefly in the detail and combination of a vast number of
items in an account, worked by the known rules of political
arithmetic; not in the discovery of bold, comprehensive, and original
theorems in the science. They were rather acts of memory, of continued
attention, of a power of bringing all his ideas to bear at once upon a
single point, than of reason or invention. He was the attentive
observer who watches the various effects and successive movements of a
machine already constructed, and can tell how to manage it while it
goes on as it has always done; but who knows little or nothing of the
principles on which it is constructed, nor how to set it right, if it
becomes disordered, except by the most common and obvious expedients.
Burke was to Fox what the geometrician is to the mechanic. Much has
been said of the 'prophetic mind' of Mr. Fox. The same epithet has
been applied to Mr. Burke, till it has become proverbial. It has, I
think, been applied without much reason to either. Fox wanted the
scientific part. Burke wanted the practical. Fox had too little
imagination, Burke had too much: that is, he was careless of facts,
and was led away by his passions to look at one side of a question
only. He had not that fine sensibility to outward impressions, that
nice _tact_ of circumstances, which is necessary to the consummate
politician. Indeed, his wisdom was more that of the legislator than of
the active statesman. They both tried their strength in the Ulysses'
bow of politicians, the French Revolution: and they were both foiled.
Fox indeed foretold the success of the French in combating with
foreign powers. But this was no more than what every friend of the
liberty of France foresaw or foretold as well as he. All those on the
same side of the question were inspired with the same sagacity on the
subject. Burke, on the other hand, seems to have been beforehand with
the public in foreboding the internal disorders that would attend the
Revolution, and its ultimate failure; but then it is at least a
question whether he did not make good his own predictions: and
certainly he saw into the causes and connection of events much more
clearly after they had happened than before. He was however
undoubtedly a profound commentator on that apocalyptical chapter in
the history of human nature, which I do not think Fox was. Whether led
to it by the events or not, he saw thoroughly into the principles that
operated to produce them; and he pointed them out to others in a
manner which could not be mistaken. I can conceive of Burke, as the
genius of the storm, perched over Paris, the centre and focus of
anarchy (so he would have us believe), hovering 'with mighty wings
outspread over the abyss, and rendering it pregnant,' watching the
passions of men gradually unfolding themselves in new situations,
penetrating those hidden motives which hurried them from one extreme
into another, arranging and analysing the principles that alternately
pervaded the vast chaotic mass, and extracting the elements of order
and the cement of social life from the decomposition of all society;
while Charles Fox in the meantime dogged the heels of the allies (all
the while calling out to them to stop) with his sutler's bag, his
muster roll, and army estimates at his back. He said, You have only
fifty thousand troops, the enemy have a hundred thousand: this place
is dismantled, it can make no resistance: your troops were beaten last
year, they must therefore be disheartened this. This is excellent
sense and sound reasoning, but I do not see what it has to do with
philosophy. But why was it necessary that Fox should be a philosopher?
Why, in the first place, Burke was a philosopher, and Fox, to keep up
with him, must be so too. In the second place, it was necessary in
order that his indiscreet admirers, who have no idea of greatness but
as it consists in certain names and pompous titles, might be able to
talk big about their patron. It is a bad compliment we pay to our idol
when we endeavour to make him out something different from himself; it
shows that we are not satisfied with what he is. I have heard it said
that he had as much imagination as Burke. To this extravagant
assertion I shall make what I conceive to be a very cautious and
moderate answer: that Burke was as superior to Fox in this respect as
Fox perhaps was to the first person you would meet in the street.
There is, in fact, hardly an instance of imagination to be met with in
any of his speeches; what there is, is of the rhetorical kind. I may,
however, be wrong. He might excel as much in profound thought, and
richness of fancy, as he did in other things; though I cannot perceive
it. However, when any one publishes a book called The Beauties of Fox,
containing the original reflections, brilliant passages, lofty
metaphors, etc., to be found in his speeches, without the detail or
connection, I shall be very ready to give the point up.
In logic Fox was inferior to Pitt--indeed, in all the formalities of
eloquence, in which the latter excelled as much as he was deficient in
the soul of substance. When I say that Pitt was superior to Fox in
logic, I mean that he excelled him in the formal division of the
subject, in always keeping it in view, as far as he chose; in being
able to detect any deviation from it in others; in the management of
his general topics; in being aware of the mood and figure in which the
argument must move, with all its nonessentials, dilemmas, and
alternatives; in never committing himself, nor ever suffering his
antagonist to occupy an inch of the plainest ground, but under cover
of a syllogism. He had more of 'the dazzling fence of argument,' as it
has been called. He was, in short, better at his weapon. But then,
unfortunately, it was only a dagger of lath that the wind could turn
aside; whereas Fox wore a good trusty blade, of solid metal, and real
execution.
I shall not trouble myself to inquire whether Fox was a man of strict
virtue and principle; or in other words, how far he was one of those
who screw themselves up to a certain pitch of ideal perfection, who,
as it were, set themselves in the stocks of morality, and make mouths
at their own situation. He was not one of that tribe, and shall not be
tried by their self-denying ordinances. But he was endowed with one of
the most excellent natures that ever fell to the lot of any of God's
creatures. It has been said, that 'an honest man's the noblest work of
God.' There is indeed a purity, a rectitude, an integrity of heart, a
freedom from every selfish bias, and sinister motive, a manly
simplicity and noble disinterestedness of feeling, which is in my
opinion to be preferred before every other gift of nature or art.
There is a greatness of soul that is superior to all the brilliancy of
the understanding. This strength of moral character, which is not only
a more valuable but a rarer quality than strength of understanding (as
we are oftener led astray by the narrowness of our feelings, than want
of knowledge), Fox possessed in the highest degree. He was superior to
every kind of jealousy, of suspicion, of malevolence; to every narrow
and sordid motive. He was perfectly above every species of duplicity,
of low art and cunning. He judged of everything in the downright
sincerity of his nature, without being able to impose upon himself by
any hollow disguise, or to lend his support to anything unfair or
dishonourable. He had an innate love of truth, of justice, of probity,
of whatever was generous or liberal. Neither his education, nor his
connections, nor his situation in life, nor the low intrigues and
virulence of party, could ever alter the simplicity of his taste, nor
the candid openness of his nature. There was an elastic force about
his heart, a freshness of social feeling, a warm glowing humanity,
which remained unimpaired to the last. He was by nature a gentleman.
By this I mean that he felt a certain deference and respect for the
person of every man; he had an unaffected frankness and benignity in
his behaviour to others, the utmost liberality in judging of their
conduct and motives. A refined humanity constitutes the character of a
gentleman. He was the true friend of his country, as far as it is
possible for a statesman to be so. But his love of his country did not
consist in his hatred of the rest of mankind. I shall conclude this
account by repeating what Burke said of him at a time when his
testimony was of the most value. 'To his great and masterly
understanding he joined the utmost possible degree of moderation: he
was of the most artless, candid, open, and benevolent disposition;
disinterested in the extreme; of a temper mild and placable, even to a
fault; and without one drop of gall in his constitution.'
1807.
FOOTNOTE:
[12] There is an admirable, judicious, and truly useful remark in the
preface to Spenser (not by Dr. Johnson, for he left Spenser out of his
poets, but by _one_ Upton), that the question was not whether a better
poem might not have been written on a different plan, but whether
Spenser would have written a better one on a different plan. I wish to
apply this to Fox's _ungainly_ manner. I do not mean to say, that his
manner was the best possible (for that would be to say that he was the
greatest man conceivable), but that it was the best for him.
ESSAY XIV
ON THE CHARACTER OF MR. PITT