CHARACTERS. 
‘distinguished themselves in parlia- 
_ ment, were the duke of Leinster, 
the earls of Fitzwilliam and Carlisle ; 
| iperom the latter of whom he received 
the following pleasing testimony of 
| ane promise of his future abilities. 
pew will my Fox alone, by strength of 
a parts, 
"Shake the loud senate, animate the hearts 
Of fearful statesmen! while around you 
a stand, 
_ Both peers and commons, listening your 
/ command; 
| While Tully’s sense its weight to you 
f; affords, 
H, ‘His nervous sweetness shall adorn your 
words, 
What praise to Pitt, to Townshend e’er 
was due, 
In future times, my Fox, shall wait on 
m.* you. 
Mr. Fox left Eton with the highest 
_ credit, and was entered of Hertford 
' college, in Oxford. Here his time 
_ was so divided between learning and 
' dissipation, that of him it might be 
said, ‘“to have seen him in either one 
or the other, it must have been sup- 
, ‘posed that each was his peculiar 
study.” 
It has been recorded of him, with 
_ no apparent partiality, that, at-this 
_ time, ‘* he read Aristotle’s Ethics 
_ and Poetics, with an ease uncom- 
--mon.in those who have principally 
writers. His favourite authors were 
-Longinus and Homer, with the 
latter of whom he was particularly 
conversant; he could discuss the 
_ works of the Ionian bard, not only 
as aman of exquisite taste, and as a 
_ philosophical critic, which might be 
_ expected from a mind like his, but 
also as a grammarian. He was in- 
deed capable of conversing with 
- Longinus, on the beauty, sublimity, 
and pathos of Homer ; with Aristo- 
tle, on his delincations of man ; with 
_ a pedagogue on dactyls, spondees, 
and anapests, and abl the arcana of 
\ 
cultivated the study of the Greek ° 
891 
language. History, ethics, and pe- 
litics, were, however, his particular 
studies.” 
Completing his studies, he accom- 
panied his father to Spa, then the 
fashionable resort on the continent, 
and afterwards made the grand tour 
alone, visiting every scene of impor- 
tance or celebrity, and entering, 
with his usual eagerness, into every 
pleasure which they offered. For 
the vivacity of Mr, Fox, the man- 
ners of France and Italy must have 
possessed no common charm ; in the 
season of gaiety, is it then to be 
wondered if he exceeded the bounds 
of propriety. 
Lord Holland procured for him 
a seat in parliament, at the general 
election of 1768, as representative 
of Midhurst, ia Sussex, anticipating 
the age of parliamentary compe- 
tency “by at least more than twelve 
months. 
The maiden speech of Mr. Fox 
took place on the discussion of Mr. 
Wilkes’s petition, to ** take his seat 
and satisfyjhis constituents,” being, 
at the same time, a knight of the 
shire for the county of Middlesex,and 
confined in the king’s-bench prison. 
This speech was not on the popular 
side of the question, which was, at 
the same time, strongly argued to 
be that of justice ; nor was it indeed 
to be expected that he was to make 
his first appearance in the senate in 
opposition to the gevernment, of 
which his own father was in the 
particular confidence. 
Mr. Wilkes had been outlawed, 
for not appearing to a conviction for 
a libel in the North Briton, No. 45, 
and expelled the house of commons 
for an indecent poem, to which the 
name of bishop Warburton had been 
in levity attached; he had, after a 
tedious exile, obtained the reversal 
of his outlawry, and an election for 
the 
