Charles James Fox was the third son of that Henry Fox, first Lord Holland, to whom we have had frequent occasion to refer in the foregoing pages. His mother was Lady Georgina Caroline, eldest daughter of Charles, second Duke of Richmond; * and he was born in Conduit Street, London, on the 24th of January, 1749. In his childhood attention was drawn to the precocity of his intelligence and the amiability of his disposition. When his son was seven years old, the always fond and indulgent father writes:-" He is all life, spirits, and good-humour. . . . stage-mad, but it makes him read a good deal." Naturally he was of a passionate temper; but he was induced to bring it under control by overhearing a conversation between his parents. "Charles is dreadfully passionate," said Lady Caroline, "what shall we do with him?" "Oh, never mind,” replied his father; "he is a very sensible little fellow, and will learn to cure himself." "I will not deny," remarked Fox, in after life, "that I was a very sensible little boy, a very clever little boy, and what I heard made an impression on me, and was of use to me afterwards."

Having acquired the first rudiments of education at a preparatory school at Wandsworth, he was sent to Eton in 1758. There he had the advantage of studying under the Rev. Mr. Francis, the father of the reputed "Junius," and the translator of Horace. In May, 1763, his father, who strove his utmost to spoil him, carried him off from school to the gaieties of Paris and

* This marriage of a Duke's daughter to a mere Commoner created a great sensation in the Court and fashionable circles of the time.

352

FOX AT OXFORD.

Spa, and initiated him into the mysteries of play. It was then he acquired that fatal passion for gambling which, in after life, proved so disastrous. Returning to Eton, he remained there until the summer of 1764, when he was entered at Hertford College, Oxford, which enjoyed a temporary celebrity from the scholarship of Dr. Newcome, afterwards Archbishop of Armagh. Some extracts from his letters to his friend Sir George, afterwards Lord Macartney, will enable us to form an idea of his character, taste, and habits at this time:

"It is said that Charles Yorke [son of Lord Hardwicke] refused the Attorney-Generalship, because Lord Sandwich would not comply with some of his demands relative to Cambridge... Churchill [the satirist] is dead. His friend Wilkes has publishedaletter to his constituents at Aylesbury; it contains nothing but a justification of his conduct as to the 'North Briton.' He says it was respectful to the King. The Essay on Woman' he calls an idle poem, in which he had ridiculed nothing but a creed which the great Tillotson wished the Church of England fairly rid of. It contains violent abuse of Lord Mansfield I like Oxford well enough. I read there a great deal, and am very fond of mathematics."

Again he writes:-"I read here much, and like vastly (what I know you think useless) mathematics. I believe they are useful, and I am sure they are entertaining; which is alone enough to recommend them to me. I did not expect my life here could be so pleasant as I find it; but I really think, to a man who reads a great deal,

suspect you again of being so devoid of taste as to fall in

though as you have once perhaps be reduced in

love with a woman under forty, begun to give way, you may time to be in love with a tripping milliner girl of fifteen. I hear there is very deep play at Petersburgh.

I hope that will not tempt you to break your resolution against gaming If there were any way of sending you pamphlets, I would send you a new poem, called 'The Traveller,' which appears to me to have a great deal of merit.”

On the whole, the impression derived from these letters is that their writer is a young man of parts, with no great steadiness of principle, but no special inclination for vice. His friends and kinsmen, however, predicted at this early period his future eminence; and in some verses by Lord Carlisle on his companions at Eton, Charles Fox is selected to play the most conspicuous part in the British Senate. It is more singular that his long rivalry with William Pitt, his junior by ten years, should also have been anticipated. It is said that, on one occasion, his mother, Lady Caroline, remonstrating with her husband on his excessive indulgence of his brilliant son, added:-"I have been this morning with Lady Hester Pitt [Lady Chatham], and there is little William Pitt, not 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."

* Lord Macartney was accustomed to say that a woman was never beautiful until she had passed forty.

VOL. I.

23

354

A PAINSTAKING MAN.

The latter part of 1766, and the whole of 1767, he spent in travel on the Continent, occupying himself with the assiduous study of French and Italian literature, and indulging largely in French composition, both prose and verse. He took extraordinary pains to polish his attempts, showing a scrupulous attention to every detail of accent or metre. It has been well said that throughout life he was distinguished by this passion for excellence. Not only would he write and re-write with unwearied iteration every jeu d'esprit which flowed from his fertile pen, but at every little diversion or employment-chess, cards, carving at dinner-he exercised his faculties laboriously until he had attained the degree of perfection aimed at. In later life he was asked how, being so corpulent, he contrived to pick up with such ease the "cut" balls at tennis. His answer explains the secret of his success alike as scholar, statesman, and speaker: "Because I am a very painstaking man." After his appointment as Secretary of State in 1782, he engaged a writing-master, and wrote copies like a schoolboy, because some comment had been made on his bad writing. So, too, when he lived in the country, he worked hard to become a practical gardener; and to qualify himself for carving, he had a small book of instructions in the "art," and the problems set forth in it he carefully solved by imitating upon real joints the lines laid down in the engravings. To this minuteness of labour and closeness of application was due the ease with which he accomplished so many difficult things so well. While bringing together these particulars of his youth and early manhood, it is well to remember that

FOXS FIRST THREE SPEECHES.

355

he had a great passion for acting, and that one of his favourite amusements was taking part in private theatricals. His knowledge of our dramatic literature was extensive; and to the last his love of the stage endured.*

During Fox's absence on the Continent he was returned to Parliament as member for Midhurst ; namely, in May, 1798, when he was only nineteen years and four months old. He did not take his seat until the following November, and his first speech was made on the 9th of March, 1769. He spoke again on the 14th of April, supporting the motion for the expulsion of Wilkes; and his fluency, animation, and knowledge of his subject produced a very favourable impression. His third speech, on the 8th of May, was in opposition to Burke, afterwards his guide, philosopher, and friend. "Charles Fox," says Horace Walpole, "not yet twenty-one, answered Burke with great quickness and parts, but with confidence equally premature." He had not yet thought out his political principles, and not unnaturally, followed in

*During his Continental tour he visited Geneva in company with Uvedale Price (author of the Essays on the Picturesque '), who afterwards gave Rogers an account of their interview with Voltaire :--" I was there,” he said, "travelling with Charles Fox, who wrote to Voltaire to beg he would allow us to come. He very civilly answered, the name of Fox was sufficient, though he received hardly any visitors, et que nous venions pour l'interrer. He did not ask us to dine with him, but conversed a short time, walking backwards and forwards in his garden, gave us some chocolate, and dismissed us. I am sorry to give you so meagre an account; but all I can recollect of his conversation, and that a mere nothing, is that, after giving us a list of some of his works, which he thought might open our minds and free them from any religious prejudices, he said, 'Voilà des livres dont il faut se munir.''