[1] _Bird_ (cognate with _breed_ and _brood_) was originally the
young of any animal, and an early Act of the Scottish parliament
speaks of "Wolf-birdis," i.e. Wolf-cubs.
[2] Like _Deer_ (Dan. _Dyr_, Ger. _Tier_). _Beast_, too, with some
men has almost attained as much specialization.
FOWLER, CHARLES (1792-1867), English architect, was born at Cullompton,
Devon, on the 17th of May 1792. After serving an apprenticeship of five
years at Exeter, he went to London in 1814, and entered the office of
David Laing, where he remained till he commenced practice for himself.
His first work of importance was the court of bankruptcy in Basinghall
Street, finished in 1821. In the following year he gained the first
premium for a design for the new London bridge, which, however, was
ultimately built according to the design of another architect. Fowler's
other designs for bridges include one constructed across the Dart at
Totnes. He was also the architect for the markets of Covent Garden and
Hungerford, the new market at Gravesend, and Exeter lower market, and
besides several churches he designed Devon lunatic asylum (1845), the
London fever hospital (1849), and the hall of the Wax Chandlers'
Company, Gresham Street (1853). For some years he was honorary secretary
of the institute of British architects, and he was afterwards created
vice-president. He retired from his profession in 1853, and died at
Great Marlow, Bucks, on the 26th of September 1867.
FOWLER, EDWARD (1632-1714), English divine, was born in 1632 at
Westerleigh, Gloucestershire, and was educated at Corpus Christi
College, Oxford, afterwards migrating to Trinity College, Cambridge. He
was successively rector of Norhill, Bedfordshire (1656) and of All
Hallows, Bread Street, London (1673), and in 1676 was elected a canon of
Gloucester, his friend Henry More, the Cambridge Platonist, resigning in
his favour. In 1681 he became vicar of St Giles, Cripplegate, but after
four years was suspended for Whiggism. When the Declaration of
Indulgence was published in 1687 he successfully influenced the London
clergy against reading it. In 1691 he was consecrated bishop of
Gloucester and held the see until his death on the 26th of August 1714.
Fowler was suspected of Pelagian tendencies, and his earliest book was a
_Free Discourse_ in defence of _The Practices of Certain Moderate
Divines called Latitudinarians_ (1670). _The Design of Christianity_,
published by him in the following year, in which he laid stress on the
moral design of revelation, was criticized by Baxter in his _How far
Holiness is the Design of Christianity_ (1671) and by Bunyan in his
_Defence of the Doctrine of Justification by Faith_ (1672), the latter
describing the _Design_ as "a mixture of Popery, Socinianism and
Quakerism," a horrid accusation to which Fowler replied in a scurrilous
pamphlet entitled _Dirt Wip'd Off_. He also published, in 1693,
_Twenty-Eight Propositions, by which the Doctrine of the Trinity is
endeavoured to be explained_, challenging with some success the Socinian
position.
FOWLER, JOHN (1826-1864), English inventor, was born at Melksham, Wilts,
on the 11th of July 1826. He learned practical engineering at
Middlesborough-on-Tees, and about 1850 invented a mechanical system for
the drainage of land. In 1852 he began experiments in steam cultivation,
and in 1858 the Royal Agricultural Society awarded him the prize of L500
which it had offered for a steam-cultivator that should be an economic
substitute for the plough or the spade. In 1860 he founded at Hunslet,
Leeds, the firm of Fowler & Co., manufacturers of agricultural
machinery, traction engines, &c. He died at Ackworth, Yorkshire, on the
4th of December 1864.
FOWLER, SIR JOHN (1817-1898), English civil engineer, was born on the
15th of July 1817 at Wadsley Hall, near Sheffield, where his father was
a land-surveyor. At the age of sixteen he became a pupil of John
Towlerton Leather, the engineer of the Sheffield water-works. The
latter's uncle, George Leather, was engineer of the Great Aire and
Calder Navigation Company, of the Goole Docks, and other similar works,
and Fowler passed occasionally into his employment, in which he acquired
a thorough knowledge of hydraulic engineering. The era of railway
construction soon swept both Fowler and his employers into its service,
and one of his first employments was to oppose the route of the Midland
railway, chosen by the Stephensons, which left Sheffield on a branch
line, and was therefore strongly resented by the inhabitants. The
prestige of the Stephensons carried all before it, but in later life Sir
John Fowler had the satisfaction of seeing the opposition of his clients
justified, and Sheffield placed on the main line. In 1838 he went into
the office of John Urpeth Rastrick, one of the leading railway engineers
of the day, where he was employed in designing bridges for the line from
London to Brighton, and also in surveying for railways in Lancashire. In
1839 he went as representative of Mr Leather to take charge of the
construction of the Stockton & Hartlepool railway and remained as
manager of the line after it was finished. In 1844 he began his
independent career as an engineer, and from the first was largely
employed, more particularly in laying out the small railway systems
which eventually were amalgamated under the title of the Manchester,
Sheffield & Lincolnshire. In the course of this work he designed a
bridge known as Torksey Bridge, which was disallowed by the Board of
Trade inspector, Captain (afterwards Field-Marshal Sir) Lintorn Simmons.
The engineering profession espoused Fowler's side in the controversy
which followed, and as a result the verdict of the Board of Trade was
modified. The episode was the beginning of a warm friendship between
these distinguished representatives of civil and military engineering.
Fowler was engineer of the London Metropolitan railway, the pioneer of
underground railways, and noteworthy in that it was mostly made not by
tunnelling, but by excavating from the surface and then covering in the
permanent way; and he lived to be one of the engineers officially
connected with the deep tunnelling "tube" system extensively adopted for
electric railways in London. He was also engaged in the making of
railways in Ireland, and in 1867 he was selected by Disraeli to serve on
a commission to advise the government in respect of a proposal for a
state-purchase of the Irish railway system. He also carried out
considerable works in relation to the Nene Valley drainage and the
reclamation of land at the Norfolk estuary.
In 1865 he was elected president of the Institution of Civil Engineers,
the youngest president who had ever sat in the chair. He was strongly
opposed to the project of a Channel tunnel to France, and in 1872 he
endeavoured to obtain the consent of parliament to a Channel ferry
scheme, whereby trains were to be transported across the strait in large
ferry steamers. The proposal involved the making of enlarged harbours at
Dover and Audresselles on the French coast, and the bill, after passing
the Commons, was thrown out by the casting vote of the chairman of a
committee of the House of Lords. In 1875 he was enabled to render, in
his private capacity, a signal service to the Italian government, which
was much embarrassed by impracticable proposals pressed on it by
Garibaldi for a rectification of the course of the Tiber and other
engineering works. He had several interviews with the Italian patriot,
and persuaded him of the impracticable nature of his plan, thereby
obtaining for the government leisure to devise a more reasonable scheme.
For eight years from 1871 he acted as general engineering adviser in
Egypt to the Khedive Ismail. He projected a railway to the Sudan, and
also the reparation of the barrage. These and many other plans came to
an end owing to financial reasons. But the maps and surveys for the
railway were given to the war office, and proved most useful to Lord
Wolseley in his Nile expedition. For his service Fowler was made
K.C.M.G. (1885). He was created a baronet in 1890 on the completion of
the Forth bridge, of which with his partner Sir Benjamin Baker he was
joint engineer. He died at Bournemouth on the 20th of November 1898.
FOWLER, WILLIAM (c. 1560-1614), Scottish poet, was born about the year
1560. He attended St Leonard's college, St Andrews, between 1574 and
1578, and in 1581 he was in Paris studying civil law. In 1581 he issued
a pamphlet against John Hamilton and other Catholics, who had, he said,
driven him from his country. He subsequently (about ?1590) became
private secretary and Master of Requests to Anne of Denmark, wife of
James VI., and was renominated to these offices when the queen went to
England. In 1609 his services were rewarded by a grant of 2000 acres in
Ulster. His sister Susannah Fowler married Sir John Drummond, and was
mother of the poet William Drummond of Hawthornden. On the title-page of
_The Triumphs of Petrarke_, Fowler styles himself "P. of Hawick," which
has been held to mean that he was parson of Hawick, but this is
doubtful. A MS. collection of seventy-two sonnets, entitled _The
Tarantula of Love_, and a translation (1587) from the Italian of the
_Triumphs of Petrarke_ are preserved in the library of the university of
Edinburgh, in the collection bequeathed by his nephew, William Drummond.
Two other volumes of his manuscript notes, scrolls of poems, &c., are
preserved among the Drummond MSS., now in the library of the Society of
Antiquaries of Scotland. Specimens of Fowler's verses were published in
1803 by John Leyden in his _Scottish Descriptive Poems_. Fowler
contributed a prefatory sonnet to James VI.'s _Furies_; and James, in
return, commended, in verse, Fowler's _Triumphs_.
FOX, CHARLES JAMES (1749-1806), British statesman and orator, was the
third son of Henry Fox, 1st Lord Holland, and his wife. Lady Caroline
Lennox, eldest daughter of Charles Lennox, 2nd duke of Richmond. He was
born at 9 Conduit Street, Westminster, on the 24th of January 1749. The
father, who treated his children with extreme indulgence, allowed him to
choose his school, and he elected to go to one kept at Wandsworth by a
French refugee, named Pampelonne. In a very short time he asked to be
sent to Eton, where he went in 1757. At Eton he did no more work than
was acceptable to him, but he had an inborn love of literature, and he
laid the foundation of that knowledge of the classic languages which in
after years was the delight of his life. The vehemence of his temper was
controlled by an affectionate disposition. When quite a boy he checked
his own tendency to fits of passion on learning that his father trusted
him to cure his defects.
That he learnt anything, and that he grew up an amiable and magnanimous
man, were solely due to his natural worth, for no one ever owed less to
education or to family example. The relations of Lord Holland to his
sons would be difficult to parallel. He not only treated them, and in
particular Charles, as friends and companions in pleasure from the
first, but he did his best to encourage them in dissipation. In 1763 he
took Charles for a tour on the continent, introduced him to the most
immoral society of the time and gave him money with which to gamble. The
boy came back to Eton a precocious rake. It was his good fortune that he
did go back, for he was subjected to a wholesome course of ridicule by
the other boys, and was flogged by Dr Barnard, the headmaster. In 1764
Charles proceeded to Hertford College, Oxford. At Oxford, as at Eton, he
read literature from natural liking, and he paid some attention to
mathematics. His often quoted saying that he found mathematics
entertaining was probably meant as a jest at the expense of Sir G.
Macartney, to whom he was writing, and who was known to maintain that it
was useless. His own account of his school and college training, given
in a letter to the same correspondent (6th August 1767), is: "I employed
almost my whole time at Oxford in the mathematical and classical
knowledge, but more particularly in the latter, so that I understand
Latin and Greek tolerably well. I am totally ignorant in every part of
useful knowledge. I am more convinced every day how little advantage
there is in being what at school and the university is called a good
scholar: one receives a good deal of amusement from it, but that is all.
At present I read nothing but Italian, which I am immoderately fond of,
particularly of the poetry.... As for French, I am far from being so
thorough a master of it as I could wish, but I know so much of it that I
could perfect myself in it at any time with very little trouble,
especially if I pass three or four months in France." The passage is
characteristic. It shows at once his love of good literature and his
thoroughness. Fox's youth was disorderly, but it was never indolent. He
was incapable of half doing anything which he did at all. He did perfect
himself in French, and he showed no less determination to master mere
sports. At a later period when he had grown fat he accounted for his
skill in taking "cut balls" at tennis by saying that he was a very
"painstaking man." He was all his life a great and steady walker.
The disorders of his early years were notorious, and were a common
subject of gossip. In the spring of 1767 he left Oxford and joined his
father on the continent during a tour in France and Italy. In 1768 Lord
Holland bought the pocket borough of Midhurst for him, and he entered on
his parliamentary career, and on London society, in 1769. Within the
next few years Lord Holland reaped to the full the reward for all that
was good, and whatever was evil, in the training he had given his son.
The affection of Charles Fox for his father was unbounded, but the
passion for gambling which had been instilled in him as a boy proved the
ruin of the family fortune. He kept racehorses, and bet on them largely.
On the racecourse he was successful, and it is another proof of his
native thoroughness that he gained a reputation as a handicapper. It is
said that he won more than he lost on the course. At the gambling table
he was unfortunate, and there can be little question that he was fleeced
both in London and in Paris by unscrupulous players of his own social
rank, who took advantage of his generosity and whose worthlessness he
knew. In the ardour of his passion Fox took his losses and their
consequences with an attractive gaiety. He called the room in which he
did business with the Jew moneylenders his "Jerusalem chamber." When his
elder brother had a son, and his prospects were injured, he said that
the boy was a second Messiah, who had appeared for the destruction of
the Jews. "He had his jest, and they had his estate." In 1774 Lord
Holland had to find L140,000 to pay the gambling debts of his sons. For
years Charles lived in pecuniary embarrassment, and during his later
years, when he had given up gambling, he was supported by the
contributions of wealthy friends, who in 1793 formed a fund of L70,000
for his benefit.
His public career did not supply him with a check on habits of
dissipation in the shape of the responsibilities of office. He began, as
was to be expected in his father's son, by supporting the court; and in
1770, when only twenty-one, he was appointed a junior lord of the
admiralty with Lord North. During the violent conflict over the
Middlesex election (see WILKES, JOHN) he took the unpopular side, and
vehemently asserted the right of the House of Commons to exclude Wilkes.
In 1772 during the proceedings against Crosby and Oliver--a part of the
"Wilkes and liberty" agitation--he and Lord North were attacked by a mob
and rolled in the mud. But Fox's character was incompatible with
ministerial service under King George III. The king, himself a man of
orderly life, detested him as a gambler and a rake. And Fox was too
independent to please a master who expected obedience. In February 1772
he threw up his place to be free to oppose the Royal Marriage Act, on
which the king's heart was set. He returned to office as junior lord of
the treasury in December. But he was insubordinate; his sympathy with
the American colonies, which were now beginning to resist the claims of
the mother country to tax them, made him intolerable to the king and he
was dismissed in February 1774. The death of his father on the 1st of
July of that year removed an influence which tended to keep him
subordinate to the court, and his friendship for Burke drew him into
close alliance with the Rockingham Whigs. From the first his ability had
won him admiration in the House of Commons. He had prepared to
distinguish himself as an orator by the elaborate cultivation of his
voice, which was naturally harsh and shrill. His argumentative force was
recognized at once, but the full scope of his powers was first shown on
the 2nd of February 1775, when he spoke on the disputes with the
colonies. The speech is unfortunately lost, but Gibbon, who heard it,
told his friend Holroyd (afterwards Earl of Sheffield) that Fox, "taking
the vast compass of the question before us, discovered powers for
regular debate which neither his friends hoped nor his enemies dreaded."
His great political career dates from that day. It is unique among the
careers of British statesmen of the first rank, for it was passed almost
wholly in opposition. Except for a few months in 1782 and 1783, and
again for a few months before his death in 1806, he was out of office.
If he was absolutely sincere in the statement he made to his friend
Fitzpatrick, in a letter of the 3rd of February 1778, his life was all
he could have wished. "I am," he wrote, "certainly ambitious by nature,
but I really 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 situation I never
can acquire, nor if acquired keep, without making sacrifices that I
never will make." His words show that he judged himself and read the
future accurately. Yet it was certainly a cause of bitter disappointment
to him that he had to stand by while the country was in his opinion not
only misgoverned, but led to ruin. His reputation as an orator and a
political critic, which was great from the first and grew as he lived,
most assuredly did not console him for his impotence as a statesman. Of
the causes which rendered his brilliant capacity useless for the purpose
of obtaining practical success the most important, perhaps the only one
of real importance, was his personal character. Lord John Russell
(afterwards Earl Russell), his friendly biographer, has to confess that
Fox might have joined in the confession of Mirabeau: "The public cause
suffers for the immoralities of my youth." His reputation as a rake and
gambler was so well established at the very beginning of his career that
when he was dismissed from office in 1774 there was a general belief
among the vulgar that he had been detected in actual theft. His perfect
openness, the notoriety of his bankruptcies and of the seizure of his
books and furniture in execution, kept him before the world as a model
of dissipation. In 1776, when he was leading the resistance to Lord
North's colonial policy, he "neither abandoned gaming nor his rakish
life. He was seldom in bed before five in the morning nor out of it
before two at noon." At the most important crisis of his life in 1783,
he almost made an ostentation of disorder and of indifference not only
to appearances, but even to decency. Horace Walpole has drawn a picture
of him at that time which Lord Holland, Fox's beloved and admiring
nephew, speaking from his early recollections of his uncle, confesses
has "some justification." Coming from such an authority the certificate
may be held to confirm the substantial accuracy of Walpole. "Fox lodged
in St James's Street, and as soon as he rose, which was very late, had a
levee of his followers and of the gaming club at Brooks's--all his
disciples. His bristly black person, and shagged breast quite open and
rarely purified by any ablutions, was wrapped in a foul linen nightgown
and his bushy hair dishevelled. In these cynic weeds and with Epicurean
good humour did he dictate his politics, and in this school did the heir
of the empire attend his lessons and imbibe them." That this cynic
manner, and Epicurean speech, were only the outside of a manly and
generous nature was well known to the personal friends of Fox, and is
now universally allowed. But by the bulk of his contemporaries, who
could not fail to see the weaknesses he ostentatiously displayed, Fox
was, not unnaturally, suspected as being immoral and untrustworthy.
Therefore when he came into collision with the will of the king he
failed to secure the confidence of the nation which was his only
support. Nor ought any critical admirer of Fox to deny that George III.
was not wholly wrong when he said that the great orator "was totally
destitute of discretion and sound judgment." Fox made many mistakes, due
in some cases to vehemence of temperament, and in others only to be
ascribed to want of sagacity. That he fought unpopular causes is a very
insufficient explanation of his failure as a practical statesman. He
could have profited by the reaction which followed popular excitement
but for his bad reputation and his want of discretion.
During the eight years between his expulsion from office in 1774 and the
fall of Lord North's ministry in March 1782 he may indeed be said to
have done one very great thing in politics. He planted the seed of the
modern Liberal party as opposed to the pure Whigs. In political
allegiance he became a member of the Rockingham party and worked in
alliance with the marquis and with Burke, whose influence on him was
great. In opposing the attempt to coerce the American colonists, and in
assailing the waste and corruption of Lord North's administration, as
well as the undue influence of the crown, he was at one with the
Rockingham Whigs. During the agitation against corruption, and in favour
of honest management of the public money, which was very strong between
1779 and 1782, he and they worked heartily together. It had a
considerable effect, and prepared the way for the reforms begun by Burke
and continued by Pitt. But if Fox learnt much from Burke he learnt with
originality. He declined to accept the revolution settlement as final,
or to think with Burke that the constitution of the House of Commons
could not be bettered. Fox acquired the conviction that, if the House
was to be made an efficient instrument for restraining the interference
of the king and for securing good government, it must cease to be filled
to a very large extent by the nominees of boroughmongers and the
treasury. He became a strong advocate for parliamentary reform. In all
ways he was the ardent advocate of what have in later times been known
as "Liberal causes," the removal of all religious disabilities and
tests, the suppression of private interests which hampered the public
good, the abolition of the slave trade, and the emancipation of all
classes and races of men from the strict control of authority.
A detailed account of his activity from 1774 to 1782 would entail the
mention of every crisis of the American War of Independence and of every
serious debate in parliament. Throughout the struggle Fox was uniformly
opposed to the coercion of the colonies and was the untiring critic of
Lord North. While the result must be held to prove that he was right, he
prepared future difficulties for himself by the fury of his language. He
was the last man in the world to act on the worldly-wise maxim that an
enemy should always be treated as if he may one day be a friend, and a
friend as if he might become an enemy. On the 29th of November 1779 Fox
was wounded in a duel with Mr William Adam, a supporter of Lord North's
whom he had savagely denounced. He assailed Lord North with unmeasured
invective, directed not only at his policy but at his personal
character, though he well knew that the prime minister was an amiable
though pliable man, who remained in office against his own wish, in
deference to the king who appealed to his loyalty. When the disasters of
the American war had at last made a change of ministry necessary, and
the king applied to the Whigs, through the intermediary of Lord
Shelburne, Fox made a very serious mistake in persuading the marquess of
Rockingham not to insist on dealing directly with the sovereign. The
result was the formation of a cabinet belonging, in Fox's own words,
partly to the king and partly to the country--that is to say, partly of
Whigs who wished to restrain the king, and partly of the king's friends,
represented by Lord Shelburne, whose real function was to baffle the
Whigs. Dissensions began from the first, and were peculiarly acute
between Shelburne and Fox, the two secretaries of state. The old
division of duties by which the southern secretary had the
correspondence with the colonies and the western powers of Europe, and
the northern secretary with the others, had been abolished on the
formation of the Rockingham cabinet. All foreign affairs were entrusted
to Fox. Lord Shelburne meddled in the negotiations for the peace at
Paris. He also persuaded his colleagues to grant some rather scandalous
pensions, and Fox's acquiescence in this abuse after his recent
agitation against Lord North's waste did him injury. When the marquess
of Rockingham died on the 1st of July 1782, and the king offered the
premiership to Shelburne, Fox resigned, and was followed by a part of
the Rockingham Whigs.
In refusing to serve under Shelburne he was undoubtedly consistent, but
his next step was ruinous to himself and his party. On the 14th of
February 1783 he formed a coalition with Lord North, based as they
declared on "mutual goodwill and confidence." Plausible excuses were
made for the alliance, but to the country at large this union, formed
with a man whom he had denounced for years, had the appearance of an
unscrupulous conspiracy to obtain office on any terms. In the House of
Commons the coalition was strong enough to drive Shelburne from office
on the 24th of February. The king made a prolonged resistance to the
pressure put on him to accept Fox and North as his ministers (see PITT,
WILLIAM). On the 2nd of April he was constrained to submit to the
formation of a new ministry, in which the duke of Portland was prime
minister and Fox and North were secretaries of state. The new
administration was ill liked by some of the followers of both. Fox
increased its unpopularity both in the House and in the country by
consenting against the wish of most of his colleagues to ask for the
grant of a sum of L100,000 a year to the prince of Wales. The act had
the appearance of a deliberate offence to the king, who was on bad terms
with his son. The magnitude of the sum, and his acquiescence in the
grant of pensions by the Shelburne ministry, convinced the country that
his zeal for economy was hypocritical. The introduction of the India
Bill in November 1783 alarmed many vested interests, and offended the
king by the provision which gave the patronage of India to a commission
to be named by the ministry and removable only by parliament. The
coalition, and Fox in particular, were assailed in a torrent of most
telling invective and caricature. Encouraged by the growing unpopularity
of his ministers, George III. gave it to be understood that he would not
look upon any member of the House of Lords who voted for the India Bill
as his friend. The bill was thrown out in the upper House on the 17th of
December, and next day the king dismissed his ministers.
Fox now went into opposition again. The remainder of his life may be
divided into four portions--his opposition to Pitt during the session of
1784; his parliamentary activity till his secession in 1797; his
retirement till 1800; his return to activity and his short tenure of
office before his death in 1806. During the first of these periods he
deepened his unpopularity by assailing the undoubted prerogatives of the
crown, by claiming for the House of Commons the right to override not
only the king and the Lords but the opinion of the country, and by
resisting a dissolution. This last pretension came very ill from a
statesman who in 1780 had advocated yearly elections. He lost ground
daily before the steady good judgment and unblemished character of Pitt.
When parliament was dissolved at the end of the session of 1784, the
country showed its sentiments by unseating 180 of the followers of Fox
and North. Immense harm was done to both by the publication of a book
called _The Beauties of Fox, North and Burke_, a compilation of their
abuse of one another in recent years.
Fox himself was elected for Westminster with fewer votes than Admiral
Lord Hood, but with a majority over the ministerial candidate, Sir Cecil
Wray. The election was marked by an amazing outflow of caricatures and
squibs, by weeks of rioting in which Lord Hood's sailors fought pitched
battles in St James's Street with Fox's hackney coachmen, and by the
intrepid canvassing of Whig ladies. The beautiful duchess of Devonshire
(Georgiana Spencer) is said to have won at least one vote for Fox by
kissing a shoemaker who had a romantic idea of what constituted a
desirable bribe. The high bailiff refused to make a return, and the
confirmation of Fox's election was delayed by the somewhat mean action
of the ministry. He had, however, been chosen for Kirkwall, and could
fight his cause in the House. In the end he recovered damages from the
high bailiff. In his place in parliament he sometimes supported Pitt and
sometimes opposed him with effect. His criticism on the ministers' bill
for the government of India was sound in principle, though the evils he
foresaw did not arise. Little excuse can be made for his opposition to
Pitt's commercial policy towards Ireland. But as Fox on this occasion
aided the vested interests of some English manufacturers he secured a
certain revival of popularity. His support of Pitt's Reform Bill was
qualified by a just dislike of the ministers' proposal to treat the
possession of the franchise by a constituency as a property and not as a
trust. His unsuccessful opposition to the commercial treaty with France
in 1787 was unwise and most injurious to himself. He committed himself
to the proposition that France was the natural enemy of Great Britain, a
saying often quoted against him in coming years. It has been excused on
the ground that when he said France he meant the aggressive house of
Bourbon. A statesman whose words have to be interpreted by an esoteric
meaning cannot fairly complain if he is often misunderstood. In 1788 he
travelled in Italy, but returned in haste on hearing of the illness of
the king. Fox supported the claim of the prince of Wales to the regency
as a right, a doctrine which provoked Pitt into declaring that he would
"unwhig the gentleman for the rest of his life." The friendship between
him and the prince of Wales (see GEORGE IV.) was always injurious to
Fox. In 1787 he was misled by the prince's ambiguous assurances into
denying the marriage with Mrs Fitzherbert. On discovering that he had
been deceived he broke off all relations with the prince for a year, but
their alliance was renewed. During these years he was always in favour
of whatever measures could be described as favourable to emancipation
and to humanity. He actively promoted the impeachment of Warren
Hastings, which had the support of Pitt. He was always in favour of the
abolition of the slave trade (which he actually effected during his
short tenure of office in 1806), of the repeal of the Test Acts, and of
concessions to the Roman Catholics, both in Great Britain and in
Ireland.
The French Revolution affected Fox profoundly. Together with almost all
his countrymen he welcomed the meeting of the states-general in 1789 as
the downfall of a despotism hostile to Great Britain. But when the
development of the Revolution caused a general reaction, he adhered
stoutly to his opinion that the Revolution was essentially just and
ought not to be condemned for its errors or even for its crimes. As a
natural consequence he was the steady opponent of Pitt's foreign policy,
which he condemned as a species of crusade against freedom in the
interest of despotism. Between 1790 and 1800 his unpopularity reached
its height. He was left almost alone in parliament, and was denounced as
the enemy of his country. On the 6th of May 1791 occurred the painful
scene in the House of Commons, in which Burke renounced his friendship.
In 1792 there was some vague talk of a coalition between him and Pitt,
which came to nothing. It should be noted that the scene with Burke took
place in the course of the debate on the Quebec Bill, in which Fox
displayed real statesmanship by criticizing the division of Upper from
Lower Canada, and other provisions of the bill, which in the end proved
so injurious as to be unworkable. In this year he carried the Libel
Bill. In 1792 his ally, the duke of Portland, and most of his party left
him. In 1797 he withdrew from parliament, and only came forward in 1798
to reaffirm the doctrine of the sovereignty of the people at a great
Whig dinner. On the 9th of May he was dismissed from the privy council.
The interval of secession was perhaps the happiest in his life. In 1783
he formed a connexion with Elizabeth Bridget Cane, commonly known as Mrs
Armstead or Armistead, an amiable and well-mannered woman to whom he
was passionately attached. In company with her he established himself at
St Anne's Hill near Chertsey in Surrey. In 1795 he married her
privately, but did not avow his marriage till 1802. In his letters he
spoke of her always as Mrs Armistead, and some of his friends--Mr Coke
of Holkham, afterwards Lord Leicester, with whom he stayed every year,
being one of them--would not invite her to their houses. It is hard to
explain this solitary instance of shabby conduct in a thoroughly
generous man towards a person to whom he was unalterably attached and
who fully deserved his affection. Fox's time at St Anne's was largely
spent in gardening, in the enjoyment of the country, and in
correspondence on literary subjects with his nephew, the 3rd Lord
Holland, and with Gilbert Wakefield, the editor of Euripides. His
letters show that he had a very sincere love for, and an enlightened
appreciation of, good literature. Greek and Italian were his first
favourites, but he was well read in English literature and in French,
and acquired some knowledge of Spanish. His favourite authors were
Euripides, Virgil and Racine, whom he defends against the stock
criticisms of the admirers of Corneille with equal zeal and insight.
Fox reappeared in parliament to take part in the vote of censure on
ministers for declining Napoleon's overtures for a peace. The fall of
Pitt's first ministry and the formation of the Addington cabinet, the
peace of Amiens, and the establishment of Napoleon as first consul with
all the powers of a military despot, seemed to offer Fox a chance of
resuming power in public life. The struggle with Jacobinism was over,
and he could have no hesitation in supporting resistance to a successful
general who ruled by the sword, and who pursued a policy of perpetual
aggression. During 1802 he visited Paris in company with his wife. An
account of his journey was published in 1811 by his secretary, Mr
Trotter, in an otherwise poor book of reminiscence. It gives an
attractive picture of Fox's good-humour, and of his enjoyment of the
"species of minor comedy which is constantly exhibited in common life."
His main purpose in visiting Paris was to superintend the transcription
of the correspondence of Barillon, which he needed for his proposed life
of James II. The book was never finished, but the fragment he completed
was published in 1808, and was translated into French by Armand Carrel
in 1846. Fox was not favourably impressed by Napoleon. He saw a good
deal of French society, and was himself much admired for his hearty
defence of his rival Pitt against a foolish charge of encouraging plots
for Napoleon's assassination. On his return he resumed his regular
attendance in the House of Commons. The history of the renewal of the
war, of the fall of Addington's ministry, and of the formation of Pitt's
second administration is so fully dealt with in the article on Pitt
(q.v.) that it need not be repeated here.
The death of Pitt left Fox so manifestly the foremost man in public life
that the king could no longer hope to exclude him from office. The
formation of a ministry was entrusted by the king to Lord Grenville, but
when he named Fox as his proposed secretary of state for foreign affairs
George III. accepted him without demur. Indeed his hostility seems to a
large extent to have died out. A long period of office might now have
appeared to lie before Fox, but his health was undermined. Had he lived
it may be considered as certain that the war with Napoleon would have
been conducted with a vigour which was much wanting during the next few
years. In domestic politics Fox had no time to do more than insist on
the abolition of the slave trade. He, like Pitt, was compelled to bow to
the king's invincible determination not to allow the emancipation of the
Roman Catholics. When a French adventurer calling himself Guillet de la
Gevrilliere, whom Fox at first "did the honour to take for a spy," came
to him with a scheme for the murder of Napoleon, he sent a warning on
the 20th of February to Talleyrand. The incident gave him an opportunity
for reopening negotiations for peace. A correspondence ensued, and
British envoys were sent to Paris. But Fox was soon convinced that the
French ministers were playing a false game. He was resolved not to treat
apart from Russia, then the ally of Great Britain, nor to consent to
the surrender of Sicily, which Napoleon insisted upon, unless full
compensation could be obtained for King Ferdinand. The later stages of
the negotiation were not directed by Fox, but by colleagues who took
over his work at the foreign office when his health began to fail in the
summer of 1806. He showed symptoms of dropsy, and operations only
procured him temporary relief. After carrying his motion for the
abolition of the slave trade on the 10th of June, he was forced to give
up attendance in parliament, and he died in the house of the duke of
Devonshire, at Chiswick, on the 13th of September 1806. His wife
survived him till the 8th of July 1842. No children were born of the
marriage. Fox is buried in Westminster Abbey by the side of Pitt.
The striking personal appearance of Fox has been rendered very familiar
by portraits and by innumerable caricatures. The latter were no doubt
deliberately exaggerated, and yet a comparison between the head of Fox
in Sayer's plate "Carlo Khan's triumphal entry into Leadenhall," and in
Abbot's portrait, shows that the caricaturist did not depart from the
original. Fox was twice painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds, once when young
in a group with Lady Sarah Bunbury and Lady Susan Strangeways, and once
at full length. A half-length portrait by the German painter, Karl Anton
Hickel, is in the National Portrait Gallery, where there is also a
terra-cotta bust by Nollekens.
AUTHORITIES.--The materials for a life of Fox were first collected by
his nephew, Lord Holland, and were then revised and rearranged by Mr
Allen and Lord John Russell. These materials appear as _Memoirs and
Correspondence of C.J. Fox_ (London, 1853-1857). On them Lord John
Russell based his _Life and Times of C.J. Fox_ (London, 1859-1866);
Sir G.O. Trevelyan's _Early History of C.J. Fox_ (London. 1880) brings
new evidence; _Charles James Fox, a Political Study_, by J.L. Le B.
Hammond (London, 1903), is a series of studies written by an extreme
admirer. His _Speeches_ were collected and published in 1815. The
newspaper articles (e.g. in _The Times_) published on the occasion of
the centenary of his death contain interesting appreciations. See also
Lloyd Sanders, _The Holland House Circle_ (1908). (D. H.)
FOX, EDWARD (c. 1496-1538), bishop of Hereford, was born about 1496 at
Dursley in Gloucestershire; he is said on very doubtful authority to
have been related to Richard Fox (q.v.). From Eton he proceeded to
King's College, Cambridge, and after graduating was made secretary to
Wolsey. In 1528 he was sent with Gardiner to Rome to obtain from Clement
VII. a decretal commission for the trial and decision of the case
between Henry VIII. and Catherine of Aragon. On his return he was
elected provost of King's College, and in August 1529 was the means of
conveying to the king Cranmer's historic advice that he should apply to
the universities of Europe rather than to the pope. This introduction
led eventually to Cranmer's promotion over Fox's head to the
archbishopric of Canterbury. After a brief mission to Paris in October
1529, Fox in January 1530 befriended Latimer at Cambridge and took an
active part in persuading that university and Oxford to decide in the
king's favour. He was sent to employ similar methods of persuasion at
the French universities in 1530-1531, and was also engaged in
negotiating a closer league between England and France. In April 1533 he
was prolocutor of convocation when it decided against the validity of
Henry's marriage with Catherine, and in 1534 published his treatise _De
vera differentia regiae potestatis et ecclesiae_ (second ed. 1538,
English transl. 1548). Various ecclesiastical preferments were now
granted him, including the archdeaconry of Leicester (1531) and the
bishopric of Hereford (1535). In 1535-1536 he was sent to Germany to
discuss the basis of a political and theological understanding with the
Lutheran princes and divines, and had several interviews with Luther,
who could not be persuaded of the justice of Henry VIII.'s divorce. The
principal result of the mission was the Wittenberg articles of 1536,
which had no slight influence on the English Ten Articles of the same
year. Bucer dedicated to him in 1536 his _Commentaries on the Gospels_,
and Fox's Protestantism was also illustrated by his patronage of
Alexander Aless, whom he defended before Convocation. Fox is credited
with the authorship of several proverbial sayings, such as "the surest
way to peace is a constant preparedness for war" and "time and I will
challenge any two in the world." The former at any rate is only a
variation of the Latin _si vis pacem, para bellum_, and probably the
latter is not more original in Fox than in Philip II., to whom it is
usually ascribed. Fox died on the 8th of May 1538 and was buried in the
church of St Mary Mounthaw, London. His chief distinction is perhaps
that he was the most Lutheran of Henry VIII.'s bishops, and was largely
responsible for the Ten Articles of 1536.
See _Letters and Papers of Henry VIII._, vols. iv.-xiv.; Cooper's
_Athenae Cantabrigienses_; _Dict. Nat. Biogr._; R.W. Dixon's _Church
History_; G. Mentz, _Die Wittenberger Artikel von 1536_ (1905).
(A. F. P.)