_By Sir James Macintosh_.
Mr. Fox 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.
To speak of him justly as an orator would require a long essay.
Every where natural, he carries 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 eloquence swept along their feelings and convictions.
He certainly possesses above all moderns, that union of reason,
simplicity, and vehemence, which formed the prince of orators. He
was the most Demosthenian 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 he has risen, by slow
degrees, to 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 down-rightness, 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 manner 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 actually legal, and in a comprehensive philosophical
sense.