some of which were not published till after his death. He found his best
and truest consolation in the exercise of that charity and benevolence
in which his soul had ever delighted. He had established at Beaconsfield
a school for the orphans of those who had perished in the French
Revolution, or the children of poor emigrants; sixty boys in number; and
it is pleasant to learn how, in the society of the little ones he was
befriending, his cheerfulness returned; how the great man, the
distinguished orator, would join in their childish sports, roll with
them on the green turf, and convulse them with laughter by his ‘wretched
puns.’ The visits of some faithful friends at The Gregories gave him
also unfeigned pleasure, and he loved to speak with, or of, his old
associates. Alluding one day to Fox, he said, ‘Ah, that is a man made to
be loved!’ When he felt his end approaching he sent affectionate
messages to his absent friends, gave calm directions respecting his
worldly affairs, and enlarged sorrowfully on the melancholy state of the
country. Fox was much affected when he heard of the death of his former
friend, and proposed that he should be buried in Westminster Abbey. But
the will provided otherwise: ‘A small tablet or flagstone, in
Beaconsfield Churchyard, with a short and simple inscription. I say
this, because I know the partiality of some of my friends; but I have
had too much of noise and compliment in my life.’
Burke left all he possessed to his ‘entirely loved, faithful, and
affectionate wife, with whom I have lived so happily for many years.’
After mentioning several noblemen and gentlemen, whose friendship he
highly valued, and who all followed him to the grave, he adds, ‘If the
intimacy I have had with others has been broken off by political
difference on great questions, I hope they will forgive whatever of
general human frailty, or of my own particular infirmity, has entered
into that consideration; I heartily entreat their forgiveness.’
We insert this short extract, because we think this last of Burke’s
writings gives the best notion of his character, and because we consider
that the feelings which dictated these words are sublime, and their
expression beautiful. He does not forget to recommend his little
emigrants to the continued generosity and patronage of William Pitt and
other influential personages. Edmund Burke was very popular with women,
‘even,’ says the biographer from whom we have already quoted, ‘those who
were angry at his sympathy with American rebels, his unkind words about
the King (this was on the subject of economical reform), and his cruel
persecution of poor Warren Hastings.’ Meantime he contrived to captivate
such different characters as Hannah More, Elizabeth Carter, and Fanny
Burney, who met him at Sir Joshua Reynolds’s on Richmond Hill, and could
not find terms for her admiration of his noble air, commanding address,
clear, penetrating, sonorous voice, powerful, eloquent, copious
language; at home on every subject, she had never seen a more delightful
man. His features are familiar to us from the portraits of Sir Joshua
and Romney, who also painted him.
------------------
_No. 2._
CHARLES JAMES FOX.
_Blue coat. Buff waistcoat. Powder._
BORN 1749, DIED 1806.
BY JACKSON _after_ REYNOLDS.
CHARLES JAMES FOX, third son of the first Lord Holland, was born in
1749.
Lord Holland was the most able and unprincipled of the able and
unprincipled statesmen of the school of Walpole. In private life he
seems to have had something of the generous and sweet-tempered
disposition of his son Charles, towards whom he exhibited a boundless,
but not very judicious, affection. He spoilt him as a child. He gave him
so much money at Eton, as by example to inaugurate a new state of things
at that school, and he was constantly taking him away from his studies
at Oxford to indulge him prematurely in the dissipations of fashionable
life. He brought him into Parliament before he was of age, and
encouraged him from the first to take part in every important debate.
Such were the early circumstances of Charles Fox. His abilities at once
showed themselves to be of the very highest order, and exactly fitted
for the field in which they were to be displayed.
A power of close and rapid reasoning, combined with a strength and
passion which would have made even mere declamation effective, a slight
hesitation indeed in his cooler moments, but when he was excited a flow
of language almost too rapid and too copious, and altogether
inexhaustible, a miraculous quickness in perceiving at a glance the weak
points in the speech of an opponent, and a matchless dexterity in taking
advantage of them: these were the characteristics of his extraordinary
eloquence. In no age and no country could he have found an audience more
capable of appreciating his particular gifts than the House of Commons
of that period. On the other hand, no audience could have been more
ready to forgive the total absence of preparation, the occasional
repetition, the want of arrangement and the want of finish, which were
his faults, and which would have seemed very serious faults in the
Athenian Assembly or the Roman Senate.
His private life at the outset, and long afterwards, was stained by
dissipation of every kind. He entered Parliament with no fixed
principles. He was to the last unduly carried away by the spirit of
faction. But there was a goodness as well as a manliness in his nature,
and a justness in his judgment, which were apparent from the very first,
and which more and more asserted themselves till they threw his faults
entirely into the shade. He grew steadily in character and estimation,
till, at the time of his death, he was regarded by a large circle with
an idolatrous attachment, which no other statesman has ever inspired.
More than twenty years after there were people who could not mention his
name without tears in their eyes.
Fox at once took a prominent part in public life. He vehemently defended
the unconstitutional action of the Government against Wilkes, accepted
office, was turned out soon afterwards for speaking against the
Ministry, struck right and left for some time in an irregular manner,
and finally, at the age of six-and-twenty, settled down into steady and
vigorous Opposition to the war with our American colonists, which then
broke out.
This threw him into association with Burke, and with the Whigs, and his
stupendous Parliamentary abilities made him, before the end of the war,
virtually the leader of the Opposition in the House of Commons.
In 1782 Lord Rockingham came in on the question of acknowledging the
independence of America. Fox and Lord Shelburne were the Secretaries of
State. Jealousies and disputes arose between the two last, and when, in
a few months, Lord Rockingham died, open enmity was declared between
them. The King sent for Shelburne. Fox and his supporters formed a
coalition with the old war party, under Lord North. Shelburne had to
resign, and Fox, much to the disgust of the King, became master of the
situation, and with the Duke of Portland for nominal Prime Minister,
exercised complete power. All this seems to us who live in these days
very unprincipled, and though the politicians of that depraved period do
not seem to have been much shocked, the general public took a different
view, as was very shortly made evident.
At first Fox and North seemed to carry everything before them; but
retribution was at hand. The first great measure which they brought
forward was caused by the cruel and unprincipled conduct of the servants
of the East India Company. It was no less a scheme than to vest the
whole Government of India for four years in the hands of a Commission
appointed by Parliament, or, in other words, by the Ministers who
happened at the moment to be in power. A Bill to this effect passed the
House of Commons almost without opposition, but by the personal
influence of the King it was thrown out in the House of Lords, and Fox
and the other Ministers, though they commanded an immense majority in
the House of Commons, were immediately dismissed.
They must speedily have been restored to power, if the House of Commons
had really represented the feelings of the people; but this was not the
case, for public opinion, as I have said, had been thoroughly
scandalised by the unnatural coalition between two such completely
opposite parties as those of Fox and North. But in spite even of this
state of public opinion, it is very doubtful if the unexampled and
absolute personal ascendency which Fox had established in Parliament
would not have ensured his speedy return, if another most extraordinary
man had not appeared upon the scene.
This was William Pitt, at this time only twenty-three years of age. Pitt
had shortly before burst forth upon the world as a full-fledged orator
of the very highest order. He now assumed the lead of the Government in
the House of Commons; fought battle after battle, still defeated, but
steadily increasing his numbers, till he at last succeeded in arriving
within one of a majority. Then, and not till then, did he dissolve
Parliament, with so overwhelming a result, that he remained for many a
long year in complete though not unchallenged possession of supreme
power.
Fox now entered upon what was destined to be a long career of
opposition. He was the acknowledged leader of the Whig party in the
House of Commons. Supported by Burke and Sheridan and Windham, he waged
ceaseless and desperate war against the young Prime Minister. Never,
perhaps, in the whole course of our Parliamentary history was there a
brighter display of eloquence than at this period, though the speakers
were few in number, for this simple reason, that none but the very best
speakers could obtain a hearing. Pitt and Fox towered conspicuously
above these brilliant few.
This sketch would be far too long if I were to attempt to give any
account, however brief, of the subjects of discussion during the next
few years, nor will I pretend to say which of these great men was
oftenest in the right or in the wrong. Fox, however, certainly seems to
lay himself open to the charge that whatever Pitt brought forward he
steadily and systematically opposed.
I will now come to the beginning of the French Revolution. This
tremendous occurrence so completely filled the minds of all parties in
England as to cause every other subject to be forgotten. The first news
of the destruction of the Bastile seems to have been received on the
whole with satisfaction, for the tyranny and corruption of the _ancien
régime_ were well known, and justly reprobated in this country. But as
things went on, the upper classes began to become seriously alarmed. The
Tories, of course, led the way; and the brilliant and forcible pen of
Burke, the most richly gifted and learned statesman, though not the most
successful Parliamentary orator, among the Whigs, expressed and inflamed
the rising passion of the people. The execution of the King, and still
more that of the Queen, were received with an outburst of horror and
indignation. Then came the Reign of Terror. By this time there was a
wild panic among owners of property. The just hatred of the cruelty
which was daily being perpetrated rose to frenzy. The old national
animosity against France intensified the public fury. In short, the tide
of English feeling ran with such overwhelming force against everything
connected with the French Revolution, as to sweep away from power and
popularity every man who had in the smallest degree identified himself
with any of its principles. Fox had done this. At the outset he had
expressed his exultation, in his usual vehement manner, and afterwards,
when others had begun to stand aghast, he in the main adhered to his
opinion. Nobody inveighed more strongly against the Royal murders, and
the other atrocities, but he still clung to the belief that the ultimate
result would be good. He strongly opposed the interference of Europe,
and particularly of England, with the internal concerns of France. He
denied that there was any necessity for our going to war, and during the
war he continued on every possible occasion to urge the Government to
make peace. The opinion of later generations has, I think, on the whole,
decided that he was right, though people are still divided upon the
subject. But, be this as it may, it is impossible not to admire his
conduct during these years. His once proud and powerful party was
scattered to the winds. His ‘darling popularity,’ as Burke had formerly
called it, altogether disappeared. Friends of long standing became
estranged, and he was one who felt acutely the dissolution of
friendship. Still, however, he remained firm to his principles. Session
after session, though he stood almost alone, he continued to advocate
his views with such masterly ability as to extort the applause even of
his enemies. But at last, so hopeless did he find it to contend any more
against the stream, that, though he retained his seat, he almost ceased
to attend Parliament.
Fox now retired to his house at St. Ann’s Hill. He had become the most
domestic of men, and in company of the only woman he ever really loved,
and whom he soon afterwards married, he gave himself up to all the
pleasures of literary ease. In spite of the dissipation of his youth,
and the activity of his maturity, he had contrived to acquire a large
amount of information, and such was the constitution of his mind, that
whatever he learned he learned thoroughly. He was an accomplished and
accurate classical scholar, well acquainted with modern languages, and
well versed in the history and the poetry of all countries and all
times. His letters at this period to his nephew, Lord Holland, throw a
very pleasing light upon his pursuits and character, and enable us to a
certain extent to realise the fascination which he possessed in his
middle age for those who were just entering upon manhood. Every subject
is treated of in turn in the easiest and most spontaneous manner; Greek
and Latin authors are critically examined, and their corresponding
passages compared, or a canto of Ariosto is discussed, or a couplet from
one of Dryden’s plays is pointed out as capable of being happily quoted
in a speech on current politics. Nor are the deeper lessons of history
forgotten, nor the public events of the moment; and all this in the
simple and familiar language of a man of the world, frequently
illustrated by similes drawn from racing or other sport. So far is there
from being any touch of pedantry or condescension, that it seems as if
he was asking his nephew’s advice upon all these matters, rather than
giving any opinion of his own. It was at this time he wrote his book
upon the reign of James II. These years in which, as a public man, he
was almost totally eclipsed, were perhaps the happiest in his life. On
the rare occasions when he was persuaded by his few remaining political
friends to appear in Parliament, and to make a speech, he left home with
the most intense reluctance, and returned there with all the pleasure of
a schoolboy at the end of the half.
After the Peace of Amiens he went to Holland and France, and was
received everywhere with respect and admiration.
On the renewal of the war, his Parliamentary attendances became more
frequent. He gathered round him a gradually increasing body of devoted
personal adherents, drawn largely from the new generation. In his
vigorous denunciation of the manner in which the war was conducted, he
frequently found himself supported by the most extreme members of the
war party. Many of these, like Windham, had originally been Whigs, and
the remembrance of old friendship assisted in cementing the new
alliance. There seems also to have been at this time a growing feeling
that one who divided with Pitt, and with Pitt alone, the reputation of
being the ablest and most illustrious statesman of the day, should no
longer be excluded from the service of the State. On the death,
therefore, of his great rival, in 1806, when Lord Grenville became Prime
Minister, Fox was at once, and with general applause, made Secretary for
Foreign Affairs.
His efforts were immediately directed towards carrying out what had long
been his wish,—the making of an honourable peace. But he found that this
was no easy matter. It had suited the purpose of his political opponents
to represent him as being deficient in patriotism, and this charge has
been since repeated. There is nothing in his public speeches to justify
this odious accusation, and those passages in his private letters which
seem to lend some colour to it exult, it is quite true, in the victories
of the French arms, but only over the Austrians and the Prussians. He
writes with all the feelings of an Englishman at the news of the battle
of Trafalgar, though he cannot help lamenting that one of the effects of
that brilliant victory will be to confirm the Government in what he
considers a mistaken policy. But the chief answer to the charge which I
have mentioned may be found in his conduct, now that for the first time
he was installed in a responsible position. Notwithstanding his ardent
and avowed desire for peace, the French soon discovered that they had to
deal with a man who could be as tenacious as Pitt himself, when the real
interests and the honour of his country were concerned. Negotiations
were protracted, and he was not destined to effect his object.
But we are within sight of the end. Fox was still in what we should now
call middle age. He had long renounced the vices and excesses of his
youth. The factiousness and the ambition of later years were also
extinct. His intellect, without losing the smallest portion of its
power, had acquired a calm serenity. Never did he stand higher with the
public, and never was a statesman surrounded by a more faithful and
admiring band of supporters. It seemed as if at last his mighty talents
were to have free scope, and that his renown as an orator was to be
equalled by his success as a ruler of men. But it was not to be. Nature
cannot be overstrained with impunity, and he had tried his constitution
very severely in his earlier days. He was in bad health when he took
office, he was soon found to be suffering from dropsy, and he sank
rapidly. He died in September 1806, attended by his wife, his nephew,
and his niece, with all the affection due to such a man.
His vigorous mind was still unclouded, and he retained his high courage
and his sweet temper to the last.
C.
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_No. 3._
CARDINAL DE RETZ.
_Cardinal’s robes. Red skull-cap._
BORN 1614, DIED 1679.
BY LE BRUN.
JEAN FRANÇOIS PAUL DE GONDI was born at Montmirail en Brie. His father,
Emmanuel de Gondi, served as General under Louis XIII., and subsequently
became a recluse at the Oratory of Notre Dame. The family was originally
Florentine, and the first who settled in France was Albert Gondi, son of
a Tuscan banker, who was Marshal of France under Catherine of Medicis.
It was easy to trace his Southern descent in the warm blood that raced
through the veins of Jean François de Gondi. Two members of the family
had already sat on the Archiepiscopal throne of Paris; Emmanuel destined
his son to be the third, and with that view he caused him to be educated
as a priest, under the auspices of Vincent de Paul, the pious confessor
of Anne of Austria. Assuredly the pupil did not follow in the master’s
footsteps. It was said of the two men by a contemporary, ‘Il en fit un
saint, comme les Jésuites firent de Voltaire un dévot.’ No vocation in
the world could have been less fitted for the wild, worldly, and
ambitious spirit of the young acolyte,—a fact which he vainly
endeavoured to force on his father’s mind by the irregularities of his
conduct. He not only indulged in every excess, but gloried in making his
behaviour known to the world: a duellist, he had already had two hostile
meetings, he spoke openly of his _affaires d’honneur_; a man of
gallantry, he boasted of his _affaires de cœur_,—indeed, among many
others, he relates how at one time he was on the point of carrying off
his beautiful cousin, Mademoiselle de Retz; a conspirator, he had gone
so far as to plot against the life of Richelieu. He had contrived to
incur the enmity of the Minister by crossing his path, both in love and
friendship, and they hated each other cordially. When only eighteen, De
Retz had shown his predilection for secret conspiracy by writing a
panegyric on the Genoese Fiesco. But with all these warring and
tumultuous propensities, he could not shuffle off the clerical habit
which weighed so heavily on his young shoulders. He took an abrupt
resolution, made a virtue of necessity, preached brilliant sermons,
wrote fervent homilies, became remarkable for his deeds of charity, and
paid court to the higher members of the Church,—and, crowning glory, he
invited a learned Protestant to a polemical conference, and brought him
home safely into the fold of Mother Church. This conversion made such a
noise in Paris as to reach the ears of the old King, Louis XIII., then
on his deathbed, who immediately named Gondi Coadjutor to his kinsman,
the Archbishop of Paris, a post that was usually a stepping-stone to the
Archiepiscopal See itself. Gondi now preached sermons, the eloquence of
which made him the theme of conversation, more especially the very
flowery discourse which he delivered on his first appearance at Court;
but his growing popularity among the citizens of Paris, during this time
of strife between the Parliament and the Regency, made him an object of
suspicion to the Queen. He lavished enormous sums of money in largesses
to the lower classes in Paris, which caused him to become too popular
with one party not to excite the fears of the other. Being one day
reproached for his prodigality, Gondi, who always took the ancient
Romans as his models, said flippantly, ‘Why should I not be in
debt?—Cæsar at my age owed six times as much as I do.’ In the growing
struggle between the popular party and the Court, he temporised and
coquetted with both. He refused to join the cabal of ‘Les Importans’
against Mazarin, the Prime Minister, whom he much disliked, and on the
breaking out of the revolt, on the day of the first barricades he
exerted himself to protect the Queen and her surroundings. Habited in
full pontificals, the Coadjutor mixed with the crowd, exhorted them to
respect the building of the Palais-Royal, and exposed himself so far as
to be thrown down and bruised by a stone, which was hurled at him. Yet,
when in the course of the evening he sought the Royal presence, in the
expectation of receiving thanks for his conduct, Anne’s reception was
cold and haughty. ‘Allez-vous reposer, Monsieur,’ she said, ‘vous avez
beaucoup travaillé.’
The slights put upon him by the Court, and a further offence given him
by the Queen, determined Gondi to co-operate with the opposite faction.
We have given a full account of the history of the Fronde in the notice
of Marshal Turenne, and shall therefore only allude to the personal
actions of Gondi, who became, if not at first the nominal leader,
assuredly the moving spirit, of the malcontents. He had expressed his
opinion some time before, that it required higher qualities to be leader
of a party faction than to be emperor of the universe, and he now
resolved to show his qualifications for that position. ‘Before noon
to-morrow,’ he said, ‘I _will_ be master of Paris.’