The Right Honourable Charles James Fox 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 January 24th, 1749, N. S.
Mr. Fox received his education at Eton; and the favourite studies of the
place had more than ordinary influence over his tastes and literary
pursuits in after-life. Before he left school, his father was so
imprudent as to carry him to Paris and Spa. To his early associations at
the latter place may be ascribed that propensity to gaming, which was
the bane of two-thirds of his life. As the present article is not
designed to be a mere panegyric, we abandon the indulgence of this fatal
passion to the severest censure that can be bestowed upon it by the
philosopher and the moralist: but justice demands it at our hands to
say, that after the adjustment of Mr. Fox’s affairs by his friends,
personal and political, he resolutely conquered what habit had almost
raised into second nature, and abstained from play with scrupulous
fidelity. It may further be remarked, that while the paroxysms of the
fever were most violent, his mind was never interrupted from more worthy
objects of pursuit.
The following anecdote will show the divided empire which discordant
passions alternately usurped over his heart. On a night when he had
sustained some serious losses, his deportment assumed so much of the
character of despair, that his friends became uneasy: they followed him
at distance enough to elude his observation, from the clubhouse to his
home in the neighbourhood. They knocked at his door in time, as they
thought, to have prevented any rash act, and rushed into the library.
There they found the object of their anxiety stretched on the ground
without his coat, before the fire: his hand neither grasping a razor nor
a pistol, but his eyes intently fixed on the pages of Herodotus. The old
historian had engrossed him wholly from the moment when he took up the
volume, and the ruins of his own air-built castles vanished from before
him, as soon as he got sight of the venerable remains of the ancient
world.
At Oxford Mr. Fox distinguished himself by his powers of application, as
well as by the intuitive quickness of his parts. On quitting the
university, he accompanied his father and mother to the south of Europe.
Not finding a good Italian master at Naples, he taught himself that
language during the winter, and contracted a strong partiality for
Italian literature. In a letter from Florence to Mr. Fitz-Patrick, he
conjures that gentleman to learn Italian as fast as he can, if it were
only to read Ariosto; and adds, “There is more good poetry in Italian
than in all other languages I understand put together.” At a later
period of life, if we may judge from the tenor of his correspondence
with eminent scholars, he would have transferred that praise from the
Italian to the Greek tongue. At this time he was very fond of acting
plays, and was in all respects the man of fashion. Those who recollect
the simplicity, bordering on negligence, of his outward garb late in
life, will smile at the idea of Mr. Fox with a powdered toupee and red
heels to his shoes, the hero of private theatricals. During his absence,
in 1768, he was chosen to represent Midhurst, and made his first speech
on the 15th April, 1769. According to Horace Walpole, he spoke with
violence, but with infinite superiority of parts.
Circumscribed as we are as to space, we shall not follow Mr. Fox’s
subaltern career in the House of Commons. It was his breach with Lord
North that raised him into a party leader. He had previously formed an
intimate acquaintance with Mr. Burke. He began by receiving the lessons
of that eminent person as a pupil; but the master was soon so convinced
of his scholar’s greatness of character, and statesman-like turn of
mind, that he resigned the lead to him, and became an efficient
coadjutor in the Rockingham party, of which, in the House of Commons, he
had almost been the dictator. The American war roused all the energies
of Mr. Fox’s 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 the parliamentary opposition. Its duration
exercised their perseverance. Its magnitude and the dangers of the
country called forth their powers. Gibbon says, “Mr. Fox discovered
powers for regular debate, which neither his friends hoped nor his
enemies dreaded.” The following passage, from a letter to Mr.
Fitz-Patrick, written in 1778, illustrates his honourable and
independent character: “People flatter me that I continue to gain rather
than lose estimation as an orator; and I am so convinced this is all I
ever shall gain (unless I choose 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.” In the summer of 1778, he rejected
Lord Weymouth’s overtures to join the ministry, and took his station as
the leading commoner in the Rockingham party, to which he had become
attached on principle long before he enlisted permanently in its ranks.
The conspicuous features of that party, and of Mr. Fox’s public
character, were the love of peace with foreign powers, the spirit of
conciliation in home management, an ardent attachment to civil and
religious liberty.
The day of triumph came at last, when a resolution against the further
prosecution of the American war was carried in the Commons. The King was
compelled, reluctantly, to part with the supporters of his favourite
principles, and had nothing left but to sow the seeds of disunion
between the Rockingham and Chatham or Shelburne party, united on the
subject of America, but disagreeing on many other points both of
external and internal policy. In this he was but too successful. We have
neither space nor inclination to unravel the web of court intrigue; but
we may remark that Lord Rockingham’s demands were too extensive to be
palatable: they involved the independence of America, the pacification
of Ireland, bills for economical and parliamentary reform, to be brought
into Parliament as ministerial measures. But the untimely death of Lord
Rockingham frustrated his enlightened and enlarged designs, by
dissolving the ministry over which he had presided. Mr. Fox has been
blamed for the precipitancy of his resignation. The tone of sentiment in
a letter before quoted will both account and apologise for the rashness
if it were such; and it is obvious that the sacrifice of personal
feeling, or even of political consistency, could not long have deferred
it, amidst the cabals and clashing interests of party. Mr. Fox’s policy
was to detach Holland and America from France, and to form a continental
balance against the House of Bourbon. Lord Shelburne’s system was to
conciliate France, and to treat her allies as dependent powers. Lord
Shelburne had the ear of the King. He strengthened himself with some of
the old supporters of the American war, to fill the vacant offices, and
made Mr. Pitt, just rising into eminence, his Chancellor of the
Exchequer. There were now three parties in the Commons; the ministerial,
the Whig or Rockingham, and the third consisting of those members of the
late war ministry who had not been invited to join the present. A
coalition of some two of these three parties was almost unavoidable: the
public would have most approved of a reunion among the Whigs; but there
had been too much of mutual recrimination and dispute to admit of
reconciliation. Nothing, therefore, remained but a junction of the two
parties in opposition. A judicious friend of Mr. Fox said, “that to
undertake the government with Lord North, was to risk their credit on
very unsafe grounds. Unless a real good government is the consequence of
this junction, nothing can justify it to the public.” Popular feeling
was strongly against this coalition, mainly on account of some personal
acrimony vented by Mr. Fox, in the boiling over of his wrath during the
American contest, which seemed to bear upon the moral character of his
opponent. It is to be considered, however, that the most amiable
persons, if enthusiastic, are apt in the heat of passion to launch out
into invective far more violent than their natural benevolence would
justify in their cooler moments. The question on which Mr. Fox and Lord
North had been so acrimoniously opposed, had ceased to exist: and
perhaps there existed no solid reason against the union of the two
parties. But the measure was almost universally believed to arise from
corrupt motives: it afforded a fine scope for satire and caricature; and
these have no small influence upon the politics of the multitude. And
while the people were displeased, the King was decidedly unfriendly to
the administration which had forced itself upon him. He considered the
Rockingham party as enemies to his prerogative, as well as friends to
American independence. He was forced to take them in, but resolved to
throw them out again. The unpopular India bill, which Mr. Pitt
afterwards adopted with some modifications, furnished the opportunity.
The offence taken by the people against the coalition, made them lend a
ready ear to the charge of ministerial oligarchy: the King disguised his
sentiments till the last moment, procured the rejection of the bill in
the Lords, and instantly dismissed his ministers.
The coalition was still in possession of the House of Commons; but the
voice of the people supported the minister, a dissolution was resorted
to, and the will of the King was accomplished.
From 1784 to 1792, Mr. Fox was leader of a powerful party in the House
of Commons, in opposition to Mr. Pitt. The Westminster Scrutiny, the
Regency, the abatement of Impeachments by a dissolution of Parliament,
the Libel Bill, the Russian Armament, and the Repeal of the Corporation
and Test Acts, were the topics which called forth his most powerful
exertions. His force as a professed orator was conspicuously displayed
in Westminster Hall, on the trial of Warren Hastings; but the triumph of
his talents is to be found in those masterly replies to his antagonists,
in which cutting sarcasm and close argument, logical acuteness and
metaphysical subtlety were so combined, as to surpass all that modern
experience had witnessed. The constitutional doctrines of Mr. Fox on the
Regency question were much canvassed, and, by many, severely censured.
The fact was, that the case was new; provided for neither by law,
precedent, nor analogy. Lord Loughborough first suggested the Prince’s
claim of right; and it was hastily adopted by Mr. Fox, who had returned
from Italy just as the discussion was pending. Mr. Fox’s Libel Bill
places him among the most constitutional of our legislators. He saved
his country from an unnecessary, unjust, and expensive war, by his
exertions on occasion of the Russian Armament.
The controversy on the Test and Corporation Acts has lost its interest,
from having since been satisfactorily set at rest. But as, in a sketch
like the present, we have more to do with the character of Mr. Fox’s
mind than with his political history, we will here introduce an anecdote
which the writer of this life heard related many years ago, by Dr.
Abraham Rees, well known both in the scientific world, and as a leading
divine in the dissenting interest. We have already spoken of the
intuitive quickness of Mr. Fox’s parts; and the following anecdote will
set that peculiarity in a strong light.
On the day of the debate, Dr. Rees waited on Mr. Fox with a deputation,
to engage his support in their cause. He received them courteously; but,
though a friend to religious liberty, was evidently unacquainted with
the strong points and principal bearings of their peculiar case. He
listened attentively to their exposition, and, with an eye that looked
them _through and through_, put four or five searching questions. They
withdrew after a short conference, and as they walked up St. James’s
Street, Mr. Fox passed them booted, as going to take air and exercise,
to enable him to encounter the heat of the House and the storm of
debate. From the gallery they saw him enter the House with whip in hand,
as just dismounted. When he rose to speak, he displayed such mastery of
his subject, his arguments and illustrations were so various, his views
so profound and statesman-like, that a stranger must have imagined the
question at issue between the high church party and the dissenters to
have been the main subject of his study throughout life. That his
principles of civil and religious liberty should have enabled him to
declaim in splendid generalities was to be expected; but he entered as
fully and deeply into the fundamental principles and most subtle
distinctions of the question, as did those to whom it was of vital
importance, and that after a short conference of some twenty minutes.
The French revolution is a topic of such magnitude, that we can only
touch upon Mr. Fox’s opinions and conduct with respect to it. After the
taking of the Bastille, he describes it as “the greatest, and much the
best event that ever happened in the world: 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.” But it had not that
consequence; and his views were completely changed by the trial and
execution of the King and Queen of France. But because he did not catch
that contagious disease, made up of alarm and desperate violence, which
involved his country in a disastrous war, he was represented as the
blind apologist of injustice and massacre, as the careless, if not
jacobinical spectator of the downfall of monarchy. Mr. Burke was the
first to quarrel with Mr. Fox, and this quarrel led to the temporary
estrangement from him of many of his oldest and most valuable friends.
But “time and the hour” restored the good understanding between the
members of the party, with the exception of Mr. Burke, who died while
the paroxysm of Antigallican mania was at its height.
Mr. Fox opposed to the utmost the war, into which the minister was
unwillingly forced. But as his passions became heated, and the
difficulties of his situation increased, Mr. Pitt adopted all Mr.
Burke’s views, and the rash project of a _bellum internecinum_. Both the
public principles and the personal character of Mr. Fox were the subject
of daily calumnies; and the warmth of his early testimony in favour of
the French revolution was continually thrown in his teeth, after the
10th of August, the massacres of September, and the success of
Dumourier. But his whole conduct during this struggle was clear and
consistent. At the dawn of the revolution, he felt and spoke as a
citizen of the world; but he was the last man alive to have merged
patriotism in the vague generalities of universal benevolence. When his
own country became implicated in the strife, he no longer felt and spoke
as a citizen of the world, but as a British statesman; and endeavoured
to persuade his countrymen, not for French interests but for their own,
to stand aloof from continental politics, relying, for the maintenance
of a proud independence and dignified neutrality, on their insular
situation and their wooden walls. His advice was not listened to, and
his mind grew indisposed towards public business. He says in a letter,
dated April, 1795, “I am perfectly happy in the country. I have quite
resources enough to employ my mind, and the great resource of literature
I am fonder of every day.” After making a vigorous, but unsuccessful
opposition to the Treason and Sedition bills, he and his remaining
friends seceded from parliament. He passed the years from 1797 to 1802,
principally in retirement at St. Ann’s Hill; and they were the happiest
of his life. His mornings passed in gardening and farming, his evenings
over books and in conversation with his family and friends. During this
period, his attention was much given to the Greek Tragedies and to
Homer, whom he read not only with the ardent mind of a poet, but with
the microscopic eye of a critic. His correspondence with an eminent
scholar of the time was full of sagacious remarks on the suggestions and
explanations of the commentators, as well as on the text of the poem. At
this time also he conceived the plan of that history of which he left
only a splendid fragment in a state fit for publication. He had been
diligent in collecting materials, and scrupulous in verifying them. His
partiality for the Greek classics followed him into this pursuit, and
probably retarded his progress. He is considered to have taken for his
model Thucydides, a writer strictly impartial in his narrative, grave
even to severity in his style. He went to Paris with Mrs. Fox in the
summer of 1802, partly to satisfy their mutual curiosity after so long
an estrangement from the Continent, but principally for the purpose of
examining the copious materials for the reign of James II. deposited in
the Scotch college there. Every thing was thrown open to him in the most
liberal manner, and, as the unflinching friend of peace through good and
evil report, he was received with enthusiasm both by the people and the
government. He had several interviews with Buonaparte: the chief topics
of their conversation were the concordat, the trial by jury, the
freedom, amounting in the opinion of the First Consul to licentiousness,
of the English press, the difference between Asiatic and European
society. On one occasion he indignantly repelled the charge against Mr.
Windham, of being accessory to the plot of the _infernal machine_,
alleging the utter impossibility of an English gentleman descending to
so disgraceful a device. During his stay in France, he visited La
Fayette at his country seat of La Grange.
Our limits will not allow us to enter, ever so cursorily, into his
political career after the renewal of the war. His advice was wise, and
consistent with himself; but it was not accepted. The King’s dislike of
him was not to be overcome. The death of Mr. Pitt, however, made the
admission of Mr. Fox and the Whigs, in conjunction with Lord Grenville,
a matter of necessity. Mr. Fox’s desire of peace induced him to take the
office of Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs; and, before his fatal
illness, he had begun a negotiation for that main object of his whole
life, with every apparent prospect of success. The hopes entertained
from his accession to power were prematurely cut off; but his short
career in office was honourably marked by the ministerial measure,
determined on during his life, and carried after his decease, of the
abolition of the Slave Trade.
The complaint of which he died was dropsy, occasioned probably by the
duties of office, and the fatigue of constant attendance in the House of
Commons, after the comparative seclusion and learned ease in which he
had lived for several years. He expired on the 13th of September, 1806,
with his senses perfect and his understanding unclouded to the last.
We conclude this brief account of Mr. Fox with the character drawn of
him by one who knew him well, and was fully qualified to appreciate
him,—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; by
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 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.”
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[Illustration:
_Engraved by R. Woodman._