the cause of popular liberty. He now came out a warm supporter of the Duke of Grafton, with whom his father was closely allied in politics, just after Junius's first attack on the administration of his Grace; and delivered his maiden speech, April 15th, 1769, in support of that flagrant outrage on the rights of the people, the seating of Colonel Luttrell, as a member of the House, in the place of John Wilkes. Horace Walpole speaks of him as distinguished for his insolence" on this occasion, as well as "the infinite superiority of his parts." When Lord North came in as minister, in February, 1770, Mr. Fox, through the influence of his father, was appointed a junior Lord of the Admiralty, and three years after, one of the Lords of the Treasury. His time was now divided between politics and gambling, and he was equally devoted t: both. In the House, he showed great, though irregular power as an orator, and at the gaming-table he often lost from five to ten thousand pounds at a single sitting. Though he differed from Lord North on the Royal Marriage Bill and Toleration Act, he sustained his Lordship in all his political measures, and even went at times beyond him-declaring that, for his part, he "paid no regard whatever to the voice of the people;" urging the imprisonment of Alderman Oliver and the Lord Mayor of London for the steps they took to guard the liberty of the press; and inveighing against Sergeant Glynn's motion respecting the rights of juries in cases of libel, the very rights which he himself afterward secured to them by an act of Parliament' To these views, derived from his father, and confirmed by all his present associates, he might very possibly have adhered through life, except for a breach which now took place between him and Lord North: so much do political principles depend on party connections and private interest. But his Lordship found Mr. Fox too warm and in. dependent in his zeal; he sometimes broke the ranks and took his place as a leader; and in one instance, when Woodfall was brought to the bar of the House for making too free a use of his press, Mr. Fox proposed an amendment to a motion made by his Lordship, and actually carried it against him, under which Woodfall was committed to Newgate a measure never contemplated by the ministry, and only calculated to injure them by its harshness. Such a violation of party discipline could not be overlooked, and it was decided at once to dismiss him. A day or two after (February 28th, 1774), as he was seated on the Treasury bench conversing with Lord North, the following note was handed him by the messenger of the House :

"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. (Signed) NORTH."

The cool contempt of this epistle shows the estimate in which he was held by the ministry, who plainly regarded him as a reckless gambler, whose friendship or hatred, notwithstanding all his talents, could never be of the least importance to any party. There was too much reason for this opinion. His father, after expending an enormous sum in paying his debts (one statement makes it £140,000 in the year 1773 alone), died about this time, leaving him an ample fortune, including his splendid estate in the Isle of Thanet; but the whole was almost immediately gone, sacrificed to the imperious passion which had taken such entire possession of his soul. Paris and London were equally witnesses to its power. The celebrated Madame Duffand, in a letter written at a somewhat later period, speaks of him and his companion, Colonel Fitzpatrick, as objects of curious speculation; but adds, in another letter-" Je ne sanrais m'interesser à eux: ce sont des têtes absolument dérangées et sans espérance de retour." The whole world, in fact, regarded him in very much the same way as Lord North.

It is probable that nothing but a blow like this, showing him the contempt into ! I could not interest myself in them: they are absolutely deranged in their minds, and there is no hope of their recovery.

which he had sunk, rousing all nis pride, and driving him into the arms of new as sociates, whose talents commanded his respect, and whose instructions molded his political principles, could ever have saved Mr. Fox from the ruin in which he was involved. As it was, years passed away before he gained a complete mastery over this terrible infatuation; and it may here be stated, by way of anticipation, that his frier.ds, at a much later period (1793), finding him involved, from time to time, in the most painful embarrassments from this cause, united in a subscription, with which they purchased him an annuity of £3000 a year, which could not be alienated, anc after this testimony of their regard he wholly abstained from gambling.

The period at which Mr. Fox now stood was peculiarly favorable to the formation of new and more correct political principles. Hitherto he had none that could be called his own; he had never, probably, reflected an hour on the subject; he had simply carried out those high aristocratic feelings with which he was taught from childhocd to look down upon the body of the people. But a change in the policy of Lord Noth now made America the great object of political interest. Within a few weeks, the Boston Port Bill and its attendant measures were brought forward, designed to starve a town of twenty thousand inhabitants, with the adjoining province, into submission; the charter of that province was violently set aside; a British governor was empowered to send persons three thousand miles across the Atlantic, to be tried in England for supposed offenses in America; and British troops were to be employed ir carrying out these acts of violence and outrage. Mr. Fox was naturally one of the most humane of men ; "He possessed," says Lord Erskine, "above all persons I ever knew, the most gentle and yet the most ardent spirit; he was tremblingly alive to every kind of private wrong or suffering; he had an indignant abhorrence of every species of cruelty, oppression, and injustice." With these feelings, quickened by the resentiment which he naturally entertained against Lord North, it could not require much argument from Burke, Dunning, Barré, and the other leaders of the Opposition, into whose society he was now thrown, to make Mr. Fox enter with his whole soul into all their views of these violent, oppressive acts. He came out at once to resist them, and was the first man in the House who took the ground of denying the right of Parliament to tax the colonies without their consent. He affirmed that on this sub ject, "Just as the House of Commons stands to the House of Lords, so stands America with Great Britain;" neither party having authority to overrule or compel the other. He declared, "There is not an American but must reject and resist the principle an right." He accused Lord North of the most flagrant treachery to his adherents in New England. "You boast," said he, "of having friends there; but, rather than not make the ruin of that devoted country complete, even your friends are to be involved in: one common famine!" His Lordship soon found that he had raised up a most for midable antagonist where he had least expected. Mr. Fox now entered into debate. not occasionally, as before, when the whim struck him, but earnestly and systemat ically, on almost every question that came up; and his proficiency may be learned from a letter of Mr. Gibbon (who was then a member of the House and a supporter of the ministry), in which, speaking of a debate on the subject of America (Febru ary, 1775), he says: The principal men both days were Fox and Wedderburne, on opposite sides the latter displayed his usual talents; the former, taking the vast compass of the question before us, discovered powers for regular debate which neither his friends hoped nor his enemies dreaded."-Misc. Works, ii., 21.

Mr. Fox's sentiments respecting the treatment of America, though springing, perhaps, at first from humane feelings alone, or opposition to Lord North, involved, as their necessary result, an entire change of his political principles. He was now brought, for the first time, to look at public measures, not on the side of privilege of prerogative, but of the rights and interests of the people. From that moment, all

the sympathies of his nature took a new direction, and he went on ide. tiiy.ng him self more and more, to the end of life, with the popular part of the Constitution and the cause of free principles throughout the world. It was the test to which he brought every measure: it was his object, amid all the conflicts of party and personal interest, in his own expressive language, "to widen the basis of freedom-to infuse and circulate the spirit of liberty." As an orator, especially, he drew from this source the most inspiring strains of his eloquence. No English speaker, not even Lord Chat ham himself, dwelt so often on this theme; no one had his generous sensibilities more completely roused; no one felt more strongly the need of a growing infusion of this spirit into the English government, as the great means of its strength and renovation. He urges this in a beautiful passage in his speech on Parliamentary Reform, "because it gives a power of which nothing else in government is capable; because it incorporates every man with the state, and arouses every thing that belongs to the soul as well as the body of man; because it makes every individual feel that he is fighting for himself and not for another; that it is his own cause, his own safety his own concern, his own dignity on the face of the earth, and his own interest in tha identical soil, which he has to maintain. In this principle we find the key to all the wonders which were achieved at Thermopyla: the principle of liberty alone could create those sublime and irresistible emotions; and it is in vain to deny, from the striking illustration that our times have given, that the principle is eternal, and that it belongs to the heart of man."

It was happy for Mr. Fox, in coming out so strongly against Lord North at the early age of twenty-five, that he enjoyed the friendship of some of the ablest men in the empire among the Whigs, on whom he could rely with confidence in forming his opinions and conducting his political inquiries. To Mr. Burke he could resort, in common with all the associates of that wonderful man, for every kind of knowl edge on almost every subject; and he declared, at the time of their separation from each other in 1791, that if he were to put all the political information which he had learned from books, all he had gained from science, and all which any knowledge of the world and its affairs had taught him, into one scale, and the improvement which he had derived from his right honorable friend's instruction and conversation were placed in the other, he should be at a loss to decide to which to give the prefer ence." Mr. Dunning (afterward Lord Ashburton) was another leader among the Whigs, who, though less generally known as an orator from the imperfection of his voice and manner, was one of the keenest opponents in the House of those arbitrary acts into which George III. drove the Duke of Grafton and Lord North; and it can hardly be doubted that he had great influence with Mr. Fox at this time (though they were separated at a later period) in weaning him from his early predilections for the royal prerogative, and inspiring him with those sentiments which the Whigs expressed in their celebrated resolution (drawn up by Mr. Dunning himself), that "the influence of the Crown has increased, is increasing, and ouGHT TO BE DIMIN

• The reader will be interested in the following beautiful tribute to the memory of Lord Ashburton as an orator, from the pen of Sir William Jones: His language was always pure, always elegant, and the best words dropped easily from his lips into the best places with a fluency at all times astonishing, and, when he had perfect health, really melodious. That faculty, however, in which no mortal ever surpassed him, and which all found irresistible, was his wit. This relieved the weary, calmed the resentful, and animated the drowsy; this drew smiles even from such as were the objects of it, and scattered flowers over a desert, and, like sunbeams sparkling on a lake gave spirit and vivacity to the dullest and least interesting cause. Not that his accomplishment as an advocate consisted principally of volubility of speech or liveliness of raillery. He was en dued with an intellect sedate yet penetrating, clear yet profound, subtle yet strong. His knowi edge, too, was equal to his imagination, and his memory to his knowledge."- Works, vol. iv, p. 577

The ambition of Mr. Fox was now directed to a single object, that of making himself a powerful debater. A debater, in the distinctive sense of the term, is de scribed by a lively writer, as "one who goes out in all weathers"-one who, instead of carrying with him to the House a set speech drawn up beforehand, has that knowledge of general principles, that acquaintance with each subject as it comes up, that ready use of all his faculties, which enables him to meet every question where ae finds it to grapple with his antagonist at a moment's warning, and to avail him self of every advantage which springs from a perfect command of all his powers and resources. These qualities are peculiarly necessary in the British House of Corn. mons, because the most important questions are generally decided at a single sitting; and there is no room for that pernicious custom so prevalent in the American Congress, of making interminable speeches to constituents under a semblance of address. ing the House. In addition to great native quickness and force of mind, long-continued practice is requisite to make a successful debater. Mr. Fox once remarked to a friend, that he had literally gained his skill "at the expense of the House," for he had sometimes tasked himself, during an entire session, to speak on every question that came up, whether he was interested in it or not, as a means of exercising and training his faculties. He now found it necessary to be intimately acquainted with the history of the Constitution and the political relations of the country; and though he continued for some years to be a votary of pleasure, he had such wonderful activity of mind and force of memory, that he soon gained an amount of information on these topics such as few men in the House possessed, and was able to master every subject m debate with surprising facility and completeness. In all this he thought of but one thing-not language, not imagery, not even the best disposition and sequence of his ideas, but argument: how to put down his antagonist, how to make out his own His love of argument was, perhaps, the most striking trait in his character. Even in conversation (as noticed by a distinguished foreigner who was much in his society), he was not satisfied, like most men, to throw out a remark, and leave it to make its own way, he must prove it, and subject the remarks of others to the same test; so that discussion formed the staple of all his thoughts, and entered to a great extent into all his intercourse with others. With such habits and feelings, he rose, says Mr. Burke, "by slow degrees to be the most brilliant and accomplished debater the world ever saw." There was certainly nothing of envy or disparagement (though charged upon him with great bitterness by Dr. Parr) in Mr. Burke's selecting the term "debater" to express the distinctive character of Mr. Fox. The character i one which gives far more weight and authority to a speaker in Parliament, than the most fervid oratory when unattended by the qualities mentioned above. It was not denied by Mr. Burke, but rather intimated by his use of the word " brilliant," that Mr. Fox did superinduce upon those qualities an ardor and an eloquence by which (as every one knows) he gave them their highest effect. It is emphatically true, also, notwithstanding Dr. Parr's complaint of the expression, that Mr. Fox did rise "by slow degrees" to his eminence as an orator, an eminence of so peculiar a kind that no human genius could ever have attained it in any other way; and it is equally true, that whenever the name of Mr. Fox is mentioned, the first idea which strikes every mind is the one made thus prominent by Mr. Burke-we instantly think of him as "the most brilliant and accomplished debater the world ever saw." So much, indeed, was this the absorbing characteristic of his oratory, that nearly all his faults lay in this direction. He had made himself so completely an intellectual gladiator, that too often he thought of nothing but how to obtain the victory.

tase.

Notwithstanding the irregularities of his private life, to which Mr. Fox sti un fortunately clung, he gradually rose as a speaker in Parliament, until, at the end of Lord North's administration, he was the acknowledged leader of the Whig party in

the House. In many respects, he was peculiarly qualified for such a station. He had a fine, genial spirit, characteristic of the family, which drew his political friends around him with all the warmth of a personal attachment. "He was a man," said Mr. Burke, soon after their separation from each other," who was made to be loved." His feelings were generous, open, and manly; the gaming-table had not made him as it does most men, callous or morose; he was remarkably unassuming in his manners, yet frank and ardent in urging his views; he was above every thing like trick or duplicity, and was governed by the impulses of a humane and magnanimous disposition. These things, in connection with his tact and boldness, qualified him preeminently to be the leader of a Whig Opposition; while his rash turn of mind, re sulting from the errors of his early training, would operate less to his injury in such a situation, and his very slight regard for political consistency would as yet have no opportunity to be developed.

It was with these characteristics, that, at the end of the long struggle which drove Lord North from power, Mr. Fox came into office as Secretary of State under Lord Rockingham, in March, 1782. This administration was terminated in thirteen weeks by the death of his Lordship, and Mr. Fox confidently expected to be made prime minister. But he had now to experience the natural consequences of his reckless spirit and disregard of character. The King would not, for a moment, entertain the idea of placing at the head of affairs a man who, besides his notorious dissipation, had beggared himself by gambling, and was still the slave of this ruinous pas sion. Nor was he alone in his feelings. Reflecting men of the Whig party, whe were out of the circle of Mr. Fox's immediate influence, had long been scandalized by the profligacy of his life. In 1779, Dr. Price, who went beyond him in his devo tion to liberal principles, remarked with great severity on his conduct, in a Fast Ser mon which was widely circulated in print. "Can you imagine," said he," that a spendthrift in his own concerns will make an economist in managing the concerns of others? that a wild gamester will take due care of the state of a kingdom? Treach ery, vanity, and corruption must be the effects of dissipation, voluptuousness, and im piety. These sap the foundations of virtue; they render men necessitous and sup ple, ready at any time to fly to a court in order to repair a shattered fortune and procure supplies for prodigality." In addition to this, Mr. Fox had made himself personally obnoxious to George III., by another exhibition of his rashness. He had treated him with great indignity in his speeches on the American war, pointing directly to his supposed feelings and determinations in a manner forbidden by the theory of the Constitution, and plainly implying that he was governed by passions unbecoming his station as a King, and disgraceful to his character as a man. It is difficult to understand how Mr. Fox could allow himself in such language (whatever may have been his private convictions), if he hoped ever to be made minister; and it was certainly to be expected, for these reasons as well as those mentioned above, that the King would never place him at the head of the government while he could find any other man who was competent to fill the station. He accordingly made Lord Shelburne prime minister early in July, 1782, and Mr. Fox instantly resigned.

This step led to another which was the great misfortune of his life. Parties were so singularly balanced at the opening of the next Parliament, in December, 1782, that neither the minister nor any of his opponents had the command of the House. According to an estimate made by Gibbon, Lord Shelburne had one hundred and forty adherents, Lord North one hundred and twenty, and Mr. Fox ninety, leaving a considerable number who were unattached. Early in February, 1783, a report crept abroad, that a coalition was on the tapis between Mr. Fox and Lord North. The story was at first treated as an idle tale. A coalition of some kind was indeed ex pected, because the government could not be administered without an amalgamation