PREFACE. IN the fourth volume of the "Correspondence of Charles James Fox" I have said: "I shall endeavour, in a separate form, to place in a connected narrative the relation of Mr. Fox's political career and an account of his Times. In that manner the great events of his life will be prominently set forth, and his public policy fully discussed." I have found it impossible to perform this task without entering very fully into the Parliamentary History of the Times. A great leader, who took a prominent part in the main discussions of the House of Commons from 1775 to 1806, is identified with that which is the life of Englandher free debate in Parliament. Lord Holland had intended to give a description of Mr. Fox's domestic life, and such fragments of his conversation as the memory of his friends could supply. In these respects my work must be very deficient. On the other hand, many volumes published of late years, such as the "Memoirs of the Marquis of Rockingham," "The Court and Cabinets of George III.,” and other lives and memoirs, have furnished materials for history of which Lord Holland was not possessed. I have, therefore, attempted rather to follow the political career than to portray the private life of Mr. Fox. Such mighty events as the American War, the French Revolution, and the French Revolutionary Wars, deserve to be studied in all their different aspects. They are the great elevations from which the streams of modern history must flow towards the ocean of time. I have ventured to give many extracts from the speeches of Mr. Fox. I am aware how imperfectly these reported speeches, uncorrected by the great orator, represent his fire, his force, his language. But the following pages, from Lord Erskine's letter to the Editor of his collected Speeches, give a measure of the value of the treasure which is lost, while they show a just appreciation of the grandeur of the remains which we possess. "This extraordinary person, then," says Lord Erskine, "in rising generally to speak, had evidently no more premeditated the particular language he should employ, nor frequently the illustrations and images by which he should discuss or enforce his subject, than he had contemplated the hour he was to die; and his exalted merit as a debater in Parliament did not, therefore, consist in the length, variety, or roundness of his periods; but in the truth and vigour of his conceptions; in the depth and extent of his information; in the retentive powers of his memory, which enabled him to keep in constant view, not only all he had formerly read and reflected on, but everything said at the moment, and even at other times, by the various persons whose arguments he was to answer; in the faculty of spreading out his matter so clearly to the grasp of his own mind, as to render it impossible he should ever fail in the utmost clearness and distinctness to others; in the exuberant fertility of his invention, which spontaneously brought forth his ideas at the moment, in every possible shape by which the understanding might sit in the most accurate judgment upon them; whilst, instead of seeking afterwards to enforce them by cold, premeditated illustrations, or by episodes, which, however beautiful, only distract attention, he was accustomed to repass his subject, not methodically, but in the most unforeseen and fascinating review, enlightening every part of it, and binding even his adversaries in a kind of spell for the moment of involuntary assent. "The reader must certainly not expect to be so carried away by the sketches now before me. Short-hand alone, secured too at the moment, against the numerous imperfections inseparable from following the career of so rapid and vehement an elocution, could have perpetuated their lustre and effect; but still the correct, and often the animated, substance remains, which preserves from oblivion more that is worthy of preservation, than by such means would apply to almost any other speaker in the world. Eloquence which consists more in the dexterous structure of periods, and in the powers and harmony of delivery, than in the extraordinary vigour of the understanding, may be compared to a human body, not so much surpassing the dimensions of ordinary nature as remarkable for the symmetry and beauty of its parts. If the short-hand writer, like the statuary or painter, has made no memorial of such an orator, little is left to distinguish him; but in the most imperfect relics of Fox's speeches THE BONES OF A GIANT ARE TO BE DISCOVERED. "This will be found more particularly to apply to his speeches upon sudden and unforeseen occasions, when certainly nothing could be more interesting nor extraordinary than to witness, as I have often done, the mighty and unprepared efforts of his mind, when he had to encounter with the arguments of some profound reasoner, who had deeply considered his subject, and arranged it with all possible art, to preserve its parts unbroken. To hear him begin on such occasions, without method, without any kind of exertion, without the smallest impulse from the desire of distinction or triumph, and animated only by the honest sense of duty, an audience who knew him not, would have expected but little success from the conflict; as little as a traveller in the East, whilst trembling at a buffalo in the wild vigour of his well-protected strength, |