394

POPULAR BALLADS.

ings, ballads, epigrams, and "posters"; but we can afford room only for a brief extract from a couple of ballads the second of which is entitled 'Paddy's Farewell to Sir Cecil.' It must be premised that Sir Cecil Wray, when in Parliament, had proposed a tax on maid-servants and advocated the abolition of Chelsea Hospital.

The first ballad-monger sings:

66

'Sir Cecil, be aisy, I won't be unshivil,

Now the Man of the People is chose in your stead;
From swate Covent Garden you're flung to the Divil,
By Jasus, Sir Cecil, you've boddered your head.

* A tax on receipts had been proposed by Fox.
+ The Irish chairmen espoused Fox's side.

FOX ELECTED FOR WESTMINSTER.

To be sure, much avail to you all your fine spaiches,
'Tis nought but palaver, my honey, my dear,
While all Charley's voters stick to him like laiches,
A frind to our liberties and our small beer.

Ah! now! pray let no jontleman prissent take this ill,
By my truth, Pat shall nivir use unshivil words;
But my verse sure must plaise, which the name of Sir Cecil
Hands down to oblivion's latest records.

If myshelf with the tongue of a prophet is gifted,

Oh! I see in a twinkling the Knight's latter ind!
Tow'rds the verge of his life div'lish high he'll be lifted,
And after his death, never fear, he'll discind."

395

After a forty days' poll Fox was returned by a majority of 246 votes over Wray.* The High Bailiff, as returning officer, refused to declare the election, because a scrutiny had been demanded; but the populace carried Fox in triumph to Devonshire House, where he was received by the Prince of Wales, the Duke and Duchess, and a large gathering of leading Whigs. The Prince,

it

may be added, had taken so deep an interest in the election as to ride through the streets, wearing Fox's colours, and a sprig of laurel in his hat.

When Parliament met, Fox took his seat as member for Kirkwall, for which borough he had also been returned. The Westminster election became the subject of debate, and on a motion against the scrutiny, which Pitt unwisely and ungenerously supported,† the Whig

* The numbers were: for Lord Hood, 6694; Mr. Fox, 6233; Wray, 5598.

Lord Eldon said to Mr. Farrer :-" When the legality of the conduct of the High Bailiff was before the House, all the lawyers on the ministerial side defended his right to grant the scrutiny. I thought their law bad, and I told them so."-Twiss, 'Life of Lord Eldon, i. 172.

396

END OF THE CONTEST.

chief delivered one of his most splendid speeches. The ministerial party, however, was not to be moved by argument, and a scrutiny was ordered. Eight months were spent upon it; very little real progress was made; and its single result was to revive the Whig leader's popularity, the public, not without reason, regarding him as the victim of persecution. In the session of 1785, a motion requiring the High Bailiff to make an immediate return was carried in spite of Pitt, who displayed throughout these proceedings an unworthy spirit of personal animosity. The High Bailiff then sent in the names of Lord Hood and Mr. Fox as highest on the poll; and the two members accordingly took their seats as members for Westminster.

WE may turn for awhile from Fox in the House of Commons to Fox "at home." The graphic sketch of the swarthy-complexioned statesman drawn by Walpole is probably familiar to many of our readers. He describes him as lodging in St. James's Street, and says that as soon as he rose, which was very late, he held "a levée of his followers, and of the members of the gaming club at Brookes'-all his disciples. His bristly black person and shaggy breast quite open, and rarely purified by any ablutions, was wrapped in a foul linen night-gown, 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 Crown attend his lessons and imbibe them." His nephew, Lord Holland, commenting on the Walpolian portrait, which he calls "a strong caricature," admits that it has much humour, and "I must needs acknowledge," he adds, "from my boyish recollection of a morning in St. James's Street, some truth to recommend it." Of Fox's "Epicurean good humour " the contemporary evidence is abundant, and it is certain that few party chiefs have ever been so warmly beloved by their followers. It sprang partly, perhaps, from his robust constitution, a constitution so strong that it was long before his irregularities could impair it, or the toils of parliamentary life break down its elasticity. It is

398

FOX'S LITERARY TASTES.

related of him that, when twenty-two years of age, he twice swam round the ice-cold mountain-tarn at Killarney, known as "the Devil's Punch-bowl." In later life he was capable of great physical exertion; and after a night spent in the House of Commons would ride to Newmarket, or sit down at the gaming-table, without the slightest symptom of fatigue.

Fox was something more, however, than a man of pleasure or a politician. In his home-life he was a fond and devoted husband, a genial host, a kind master, a faithful friend. His leisure hours, after the fall of the Coalition Ministry, he devoted to the study of the ancient classics and the masterpieces of French and Italian literature. Of the Latin poets he preferred Ovid; of the Greek tragedians, Euripides; of the ancient historians, Herodotus. We have already alluded to his love of the drama: of our old English poets he was an assiduous reader and a judicious critic. He wrote in English verse with much ease and correctness, and the following enigmas are attributed to his

His prose was not so good; and this is characteristic of several great orators, as, for instance, of Chatham and