shut himself in his room, day after day, where he was heard declaiming for hours.

Pitt's Disinterestedness. - In the diary of the Right Hon. George Rose occurs the following: "March 19, 1801.-With Mr. Pitt alone the whole evening, when a conversation arose about his own situation. On mentioning to him that an intention had been expressed by many friends of bringing forward a motion in the House of Commons respecting a grant to him, he assured me in the most solemn manner of his fixed determination on no consideration whatever to accept anything from the public; rather than do which he would struggle with any difficulties; that if he had had the good fortune to carry the country safe through all its dangers, and to have seen it in a state of prosperity, he should have had a pride in accepting such a grant; but that under all the present circumstances of the situation of the country, and of himself, it was utterly inconsistent with his feelings to receive anything. In all which (notwithstanding the severe pressure I am sure he has upon him) I could not do otherwise than entirely concur with him."

A Reconciliation Prevented. - Lord Brougham relates the following as a "singular instance of the great effects of trivial circumstances." During the co-operation of all parties against Mr. Addington's Government, in the spring of 1804, Mr. Pitt and Mr. C. Long were one night passing the door of Brookes's club-house, on their way from the House of Commons, when Mr. Pitt, who had not been there since the Coalition of 1784, said he had a great mind to go in and sup. His wary friend said, "I think you had better not," and turned aside the wellconceived intention. When we reflect, says Brougham, on the high favour Mr. Pitt was then in with the Whigs, and consider the nature of Mr. Fox as well as his own, we can have little doubt of the cordial friendship which such a night would have cemented, and that the union of the two parties would have been complete.

CHARLES JAMES FOX.

(1749-1806.)

Fox and Pitt in Childhood.-In 1767, Lady Holland, mother of Fox, paid a visit to Lady Chatham, of which she gave the following account to her husband: "I have been this morning with Lady Hester Pitt; and there is little William Pitt, now eight years old, and really the cleverest child I ever saw, and brought up so strictly and so proper in his behaviour that-mark my words-that little boy will be a thorn in Charles's side as long as he lives." A very singular prediction (remarks Earl Russell), showing not only the early cleverness of the two boys, but the cherished ambition of their parents, the wise strictness of Lord and Lady Chatham, and the sagacity of Lady Holland. It is (wrote Walpole) a singular and perhaps a totally novel combination of circumstances that Charles Fox and William Pitt, the second sons of Henry Lord Holland and William Lord Chatham, who themselves were second sons, should

become rivals and the first men in the House of Commons, as their fathers had been a little more than twenty years before.

First Appearance of Fox in Parliament, and his Early Speeches.-Charles Fox was returned for Midhurst in May, 1768, when he was only nineteen years and four months old. He took his seat in the following November.* He made his first speech in the House of Commons on the 9th of March, 1769, when he was little more than twenty years of age. It seems to have been on a point of order-a singular topic for so young a man. On the 8th of May he spoke against the petition of the electors of Middlesex in favour of their right of electing Wilkes. Of this speech Horace Walpole observes: "Charles Fox, not yet twenty-one, answered Burke with great quickness and parts, but with confidence equally premature." Sir Richard Heron, in a letter to Sir Charles Bunbury, says: "Mr. Fox, who, I suppose, was your schoolfellow, and who is but twenty, made a great figure last night upon the petition of the Middlesex freeholders. He spoke with great spirit, in very parliamentary language, and entered very deeply into the question on constitutional principle." Lord Holland, proud of his favourite boy, writes thus to his friend Mr. Campbell, of Cawdor: "I am told (and willingly believe it) Charles Fox spoke extremely well. It was all off-hand, all argumentative, in reply to Mr. Burke and Mr. Wedderburne, and excessively well indeed. I hear it spoke of by everybody as a most extraordinary thing, and I am, you see, not a little pleased with it. I am told Charles could never make a better speech than he did on Monday."Russell's "Life of Fox." Horace Walpole writes to Sir Horace Mann in April, 1772: "I went to the House of Commons the other day to hear Charles Fox, contrary to a resolution I had made never to set my foot there again. It is strange how disuse makes one awkward; I felt a palpitation, as if I were going to speak there myself. The object answered: Fox's abilities are amazing at so very early a period, especially under the circumstances of such a dissolute life. He was just arrived from Newmarket, had sat up drinking all night, and had not been in bed. How such talents make one laugh at Tully's rules for an orator, and his indefatigable application. His laboured orations are puerile in comparison of this boy's manly reason.'

An Artist's Sketch.-Lord Holland relates the following apropos of the personal appearance of Fox: "I have in my possession a singular proof of the figure and impression Mr. Fox made on his first appearance as an orator. A young artist, and I believe a reporter of debates, a Mr. Surtees, of Mainforth, happened to be in the gallery when he first spoke. At that period no stranger was allowed to make notes, or take any paper or note-book into the gallery for that purpose. But this gentleman, struck with the appearance of the youthful orator, tore off part of his shirt, and sketched on it, with a pencil or burnt stick, a likeness of him, which he afterwards tried to finish at his lodgings, and which, owing to

* S. Rogers mentions, on Fox's authority, that he was abroad at the time of his election.

the care of Mr. Sharpe and kindness of Mr. Fletcher, is still preserved in my possession at Holland House, retaining many traits of resemblance to the dark, intelligent, and animated features of Mr. Fox."

Characteristics of his Speeches.-"Conversation" Sharpe relates of Mr. Fox that he sometimes put the arguments of his adversaries in such an advantageous light that his friends were alarmed lest he should fail to answer them. To state one by one the arguments of the Opposition, and one by one to reply to them, was the characteristic of his speaking, and without the aid of this text upon which to hang his comments he could make little progress. The opening of his speeches was almost always bad. Until he got warmed with his subject he hesitated and stammered, and he often continued for long together in a tame and common-place strain. Even in his highest flights he indulged in incessant repetitions, was negligent in his language, and was neither polished nor exact in his style. Notwithstanding these defects, he exercised a prodigious influence over his hearers. "He forgot himself," says Sir James Mackintosh, "and everything around him. He darted fire into his audience. Torrents of impetuous and irresistible eloquence swept along their feelings and convictions."-Quarterly Review. "In the most imperfect relic of Fox's speeches," said Erskine, "the bones of a giant are to be discovered."

The Magician's Wand.-Macaulay mentions that a French gentleman expressed some surprise at the immense influence which Fox, a man of pleasure, ruined by the dice-box and the turf, exercised over the English nation. You have not," said Pitt, "been under the wand of the

magician."

A Curt Dismissal.-Fox took office under the Administration of Lord North in 1770, but, disagreeing with his chiefs on their policy with regard to America, and showing a leaning towards more liberal measures generally, he was dismissed in 1774 by the following laconic letter from the head of the Government: “Sir,-His Majesty has thought proper to order a new commission of the Treasury to be made out, in which I do not perceive your name.-NORTH." Nine years after this, he and North jointly formed the celebrated Coalition Ministry under the Duke of Portland.

The Westminster Scrutiny.-At the general election of 1784 Fox was returned for Westminster, after a contest which lasted from the 1st of April to the 16th of May. Lord Hood was at the top of the poll, Fox being next, with 6233 votes, against 5998 for the defeated Tory can didate, Sir Cecil Wray. The latter demanded a scrutiny, and the high bailiff of Westminster (a member of the Tory party) took upon himself on this account to withhold the return to the writ. Nothwithstanding repeated motions in the House, which were defeated by the Ministerialists, the matter stood over for eight months, Fox being compelled meanwhile to find a seat for a Scotch borough. Soon after the meeting of Parliament in 1785, the high bailiff was called to the bar of the House and examined on the subject, when he gave evidence that the scrutiny would probably take more than two years. Mr. Welbore Ellis moved that

the high bailiff should be commanded to make a return to the writ; but an amendment to the contrary effect was carried by 174 to 35. Motion and counter-motion were repeatedly made, with similar result, until, on the 3rd of March, the Pitt party were beaten by 162 to 124, and the direction to the high bailiff was consequently issued. Hood and Fox were returned, and Fox then brought an action in the Court of Common Pleas against the high bailiff for not returning him in the first instance, laying his damages at £100,000. The action was tried before Lord Loughborough, and the jury gave Fox the verdict, with damages of £2000, which Fox allotted to the charities of Westminster.

Quelling Interruption.-But for the inferiority of the subject (remarks Brougham), the speech upon the Westminster scrutiny, in 1784, might perhaps be placed at the head of all Fox's speeches. A fortunate cry of "Order!" which he early raised in the very exordium, by affirming that "far from expecting any indulgence, he could scarcely hope for bare justice from the House," gave him occasion for dwelling on this topic, and pressing it home with aditional illustration; till the redoubled blows and repeated bursts of extemporaneous declamation almost overpowered the audience, while they wholly bore down any further interruption.

Election Pleasantries.-Many stories illustrative of Fox's good temper and ready wit at election times were current in his own day. Among them was one of his canvass at Westminster, where a shopkeeper on the opposite side, whom he asked for his vote and interest, produced a halter, which he said was all he could give him. Fox thanked the man, but said he could not think of depriving him of it, as no doubt it was a family relic.

The King's Dislike to Fox.-When Fox kissed hands on becoming one of the Coalition Ministry in 1783, Lord Townshend said "he saw the King turn back his ears and eyes just like the horse at Astley's when the tailor he had determined to throw was getting on him.”

Good Humour in Defeat.-On the 18th of December, 1783, Mr. Fox was dismissed from office. On the following day Mr. Pitt was made First Lord of the Treasury and Chancellor of the Exchequer. Upon the same day (says Russell) the House of Commons met. At three o'clock Lord North entered the house and took his seat on the Opposition bench. Mr. Fox, who soon followed, finding Mr. Dundas on the same bench, jocularly took him by the arm, saying, "What business have you on this? -go over to the Treasury bench." This incident, raising a laugh in which both parties joined, was a good humoured prelude to one of the most violent party contests of modern times.

The Right of Inquiry into Ministerial Negotiations.-In the spring of 1792, a vote of censure upon Pitt was proposed for his conduct in arming against Russia, while at the same time pursuing negotiations with that power to adjust difficulties respecting Turkey. The speech of Fox on the occasion, against the Minister, is a good example of his style, and at the same time so forcibly conveys ideas repeatedly urged in the House of Commons under almost identical circumstances, that it

might be considered the model on which similar complaints have since been founded. In the opening of his speech Mr. Fox said: "Never was there an occasion in which a minister was exhibited to this House in circumstances so ungracious as those under which he at present appears. Last session of Parliament we had no fewer than four debates upon the question of the armament in which the right honourable gentleman involved this country, without condescending to explain the object which he had in view. The minority of this House stood forth against the monstrous measure of involving the country without unfolding the reason. The minister proudly and obstinately refused, and called on the majority to support him. We gave our opinion at large on the subject, and with effect, as it turned out, on the public mind. On that of the right honourable gentleman, however, we were not successful; for what was his conduct? He replied to us, 'I hear what you say. I could answer all your charges; but I know my duty to my king too well to submit, at this moment, to expose the secrets of the State, and to lay the reasons before you of the measure on which I demand your confidence. I choose rather to lie for a time under all the imputations which you may heap upon me, trusting to the explanations which will come at last.' Such was explicitly his language. However I might differ from the right honourable gentleman in opinion, I felt for his situation. There was in this excuse some shadow of reason by which it might be possible to defend him, when the whole of his conduct came to be investigated. I thought it hard to goad him, when perhaps he considered it as unsafe to expose what he was doing. But when the conclusion of the negotiation had loosed him from his fetters, when he had cast off the trammels that bound him, I thought that, like the horse described by Homer (if I remembered I would quote the lines), exulting in the fresh pastures after he had freed himself from the bridle, the right honourable gentleman would have been eager to meet us with every sort of explanation and satisfaction. I thought that, restrained by no delicacy, and panting only for the moment that was to restore. him to the means of developing and of expatiating upon every part of his conduct that was mysterious; of clearing up that which had been reprobated, of repelling on the heads of his adversaries those very accusations with which they had loaded him the right honourable gentleman would have had but one wish, that of coming forward in a bold and manly manner, and endeavouring to make his cause good against us in the face of the world. Has he done so? Has he even given us the means of inquiring fully and fairly into his conduct? No such thing. He lays before us a set of papers, sufficient indeed, as I shall contend, to found a strong criminal charge of misconduct against him, but evidently mutilated, garbled, and imperfect, with a view of precluding that full inquiry which his conduct demands, and which we had every reason to expect he would not have shrunk from on this day." After a lengthy review of the whole of the circumstances, the speaker concluded as follows: "A right honourable gentleman (Mr. Dundas), in excuse for withholding papers, asked what foreign power would negotiate with an English Cabinet if their secrets were likely to be developed and exposed