I have already drawn attention to the best excuse that can be made for Fox in this respect,-namely, the evil example and the mischievous indulgence that he met with in his early years. "Nor let it," as Lord Brougham has justly observed on this subject in his sketch of Fox, "nor let it be forgotten, that the noble heart and sweet disposition of this great man passed unscathed through an ordeal which, in almost every other instance, is found to deaden all the kindly and generous affections. A life of gambling, and intrigue, and faction, left the nature of Charles Fox as little tainted with selfishness or falsehood, and his heart as little hardened, as if he had lived and died in a farm-house; or rather as if he had not outlived his childish years."

His Lordship here evidently alludes to Gibbon's beautiful expression respecting Fox: "I admired 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 speeches of Fox, as we possess them, do not contain full evidence of the high oratorical powers which we know, from external evidence, that he possessed. We must judge his eloquence by the effect which it produced on those who heard it, and not by that which it produces upon us who read it.

Lord Brougham has well expressed the inaccuracy of Mackintosh, who termed Fox a Demosthenean speaker. His Lordship's critique on Fox's oratory, in his "Historical Sketches of Statesmen," is one of the ablest and most valuable portions of that very able and valuable work. I will only quote the passages in which, after having mentioned how negligent and uneven, and frequently slovenly and confused, Fox was in speaking, Lord Brougham tells us that "Mr. Fox's eloquence was of a kind which, to comprehend, you must have heard himself. When he got fairly into his subject, was heartily warmed with it, he poured forth words and periods of fire that smote you, and deprived you of all power to reflect and rescue yourself, while he went on to seize the faculties of the listener, and carry them captive along with him whithersoever he pleased to rush.

Fox, as he went along and exposed absurdity, and made incon sistent arguments clash, and laid bare shuffling or hypocrisy, and showered down upon meanness, or upon cruelty, or upon oppres

sion, a pitiless storm of the most fierce invective, was ever forging also the long, and compacted, and massive chain of pure demonstration.

Ἐν δ ̓ ἔθετ ̓ ἀκμοθέτῳ μέγαν ἄκμονα, κόπτε δὲ δεσμούς

Αῤῥήκτους, ἀλυτοὺς,—ὄφρ ̓ ἔμπεδον αὖθι μένοιεν.—(Od. Θ.)

"There was no weapon of argument which this great orator more happily or more frequently wielded than wit,—the wit which exposes to ridicule the absurdity or inconsistency of an adverse argument. It has been said of him, we believe by Mr. Frere, that he was the wittiest speaker of his times; and they were the times of Sheridan and of Windham. This was Mr. Canning's opinion, and it was also Mr. Pitt's. There was nothing more awful in Mr. Pitt's sarcasm, nothing so vexatious in Mr. Canning's light and galling raillery, as the battering and piercing wit with which Mr. Fox so often interrupted, but always supported, the heavy artillery of his argumentative declamation.

"Nonne fuit satius, tristes Amaryllidis iras,

Atque superba pati fastidia? Nonne, Menalcan?'

"In debate he had that ready discernment of an adversary's weakness, and the advantage to be taken of it, which is, in the war of words, what the coup d'œil of a practised general is in the field." (Knight's Cyclopædia.- Cunningham's Biography.— Lord Brougham's Historical Sketches, &c.)

LORD NORTH.

Fox found, first, a political chief,-next, a mark for the fiercest political opposition, — and thirdly, a political confederate, in Frederick North, eldest son of Francis Earl of Guilford.

This nobleman was born in 1729. He was educated at Eton and Oxford; and the proofs of the zeal and success with which he studied the classics are still extant. The first copy of verses in the "Musæ Etonenses" is by Lord North; and several others, written by him while at Eton, are included in that well-known collection.

He entered Parliament as member for Banbury. In 1759 he was appointed a Commissioner of the Treasury, and remained in office until 1765. In the following year he was made Joint

Receiver and Paymaster of the Forces, and obtained a seat in the Privy Council. In 1767, on the death of Charles Townshend, he became Chancellor of the Exchequer; and in 1770, First Lord of the Treasury.

When he took the last-mentioned office, the Duke of Grafton, who had previously been at the head of the ministry, had just resigned office, and withdrawn from public life to his favourite amusements, in alarm at the attacks which he experienced in Parliament, and the threatening aspect of public affairs. The King had some difficulty in finding any one, whom he himself approved of and could trust, to undertake the duty of the high position thus suddenly left vacant. Lord North consented to become Premier; and George the Third looked on this as a personal favour to himself, for which he felt deeply grateful.

Until the period of the coalition, Lord North was the King's favourite statesman; and, unfortunately, Lord North thought that the extraordinary degree of favour which the King showed him, bound him in return to the King in an extraordinary manner. He was thus induced to persevere in systems of policy against his own better judgment, because the King desired it; and he continued to hold office towards the end of the American war, for some time after he himself had become fully convinced of the necessity of giving way to the Opposition, through his unwillingness to betray the personal confidence which the King reposed in him.

The seeds of the disastrous differences with America had been sown by Charles Townshend and George Grenville, before Lord North was Premier; but it was during his administration that the attempts to put down discontent among the colonists by force were made, which immediately led to the outbreak of war, first, between this country and her colonists, and then between us on the one side, and the colonists and all our European enemies on the other. Lord North firmly believed that we had both the right and the power to tax America; and in this conviction he recommended, and long advocated, our attempts to coerce her into submission. As before mentioned, his good sense showed him the hopelessness of the attempt some time before the end of the war, but the personal entreaties of his Sovereign withheld him from altering his system or resigning his place.

The circumstances under which he at last yielded to the Oppo

sition, his temporary retirement from office, his coalition with Fox for the purpose of destroying the Shelburne ministry, and his brief return to office in joint tenancy with Fox, have been alluded to in the memoir of that statesman. After the dismissal of the coalition ministry, Lord North retired from active life. He succeeded to the earldom of Guilford on the death of his father in 1790, and died in 1792.

Lord North's ability in long maintaining the struggle against the Opposition, during the American war, has often been remarked. His imperturbable good humour, his shrewd common sense, and his ready and pleasant wit were the great elements of his effectiveness as a parliamentary leader. A contemporary writer, who in 1776 drew a series of very clever and graphic sketches of the chief public men of the day, thus concludes a bitterly satirical description of Lord North's career up to that time:

"It is difficult to speak of his Lordship's political abilities with any degree of confidence or precision. If he be the mere puppet of the interior cabinet-the mere child of favouritism,-it is impossible to try him fairly as a minister acting on his own judgment. We must in that case consider him merely as possessed of good talents, but basely sacrificing them to the meanest and most sordid motives. Perhaps it may be said, his principles lead him that way, and his inclination and interest unite in urging him to promote the views and wishes of the prince, in preference to those of the people. Be it so: the question in that light is at an end. He cannot be a proper minister in a mixed or popular government, who would endeavour to give the first magistrate more power than is allowed by the constitution; or unite the executive and legislative powers of the state in the same person. On the other hand, supposing Lord North to be really the minister, as much as Walpole, Pelham, or Pitt were severally when they bore the character -which we will as soon believe, till we receive some substantial proof of it, as that he is Mufti or Turkish high-priest—we can by no means allow him fitted either by nature, habit, or inclination, for so great and arduous an undertaking. It would be an invidious task to assign our reasons, nor would it be less tedious and disgusting. His Lordship is, however, a man of sound judgment, well-trained in business, of great parliamentary dexterity, and equalled by no man in Britain in plausibility, in a strong appearance of candour, in avoiding explanations in debate, and knowing

how to recede from engagements without incurring a breach of promise. His enemies allow him no merit. This is merely the voice of party. His lordship was called to the helm at a most critical season,-in a storm of faction or national resentment, call it which you please. He rode it out with great resolution and no small degree of military skill; and whether his conduct on that occasion may be imputed unto him as righteousness, there is little doubt that he encountered some perils and many disagreeable circumstances; and, like an able pilot, brought the political bark safe into port.

"Lord North is certainly a very able speaker. His judgment in conducting a debate is admirable. He is possessed of a vast fund of information relative to almost every subject that comes under discussion. He has a prodigious, sound, accurate memory, arranges his matter judiciously, and never fails to push the strongest part of his argument into the most conspicuous point of view. If he seldom produces anything new himself, he has a peculiar knack at transferring other people's sentiments, both in print and debate, into his speeches; and that with so much art as not to be easily observed; and never fails to press his antagonists where they are weakest and least capable of resistance. But if he has many equals, and some superiors in this line, there is one in which he peculiarly and clearly excels all his contemporaries in both houses, that is, in reply. He receives the attacks of opponents frequently like an electric shock; and after haranguing for an hour rather dully, he rises a second time, and levels his adversary in a few words, either in a flow of keen satire or the most sound and pointed argument. His Lordship's voice is extremely disagreeable, his elocution still worse, and his manner execrably awkward. He is frequently tedious and unintelligible, abounds in useless repetitions, and scarcely ever places his emphasis with propriety, much less with grace."

Others thought more favourably of Lord North's oratory. Let us hear the great Doctor Parr. The Doctor gives Lord North one very important commendation,-that of knowing not merely what to say, but what to leave unsaid. This is a rare merit, and perhaps even rarer at the bar than in the senate.

"Habet Northius a natura plurimum acuminis, quod etiam arte limavit. Habet cum gravitate mistos sales, tum facetos, qui in narrando aliquid venuste versantur, tum dicaces, quorum, in