s CHARACTERS. 
like Burke, of their injuries, of 
their countries desolated by mer- 
chant conquerors, as unfeeling as 
the ouran outang and the tyger, 
would bid no accordant string to 
vibrate in their breasts ; but, direct 
them to Leadenhall-street and St. 
Stephen’s chapel, and they were at 
home; they could understand him, 
and they could feel with him. There 
needs no better example of his 
knowledge of man, and his skill as 
an orator. His real artifice lay in 
the skilful choice of his topics, 
-and in discussing those which he 
selected with the most natural and 
energetic simplicity. To affect 
the feelings of his audience, he 
used every means which nature 
“supplies to art, he argued him- 
self into a fervour of passion; 
he declaimed with vehemence, he 
spoke in sententious apophthegms, 
in sudden exclamations, in broken 
_ sentences and in tears. 
He has been compared to Demos- 
thenes, and the comparison is just, 
He will be remembered as the Demos. 
thenes of England. One point of si. 
milarity has, perhaps, not yet been 
noticed. Demosthenes acquired his 
style by frequent copying of the his- 
torian Thucidydes. The English De- 
mosthenes, it is true, had no Thuci- 
dydes of his own nation to copy ; but 
by historical studies he formed his 
eloquence upon the rigorous and 
chaste model of an historical 
_ style ; and hence, perhaps, may be 
found one source of his great re- 
semblance to the Grecian orator 
in the characteristics of simpli- 
city, natural dignity, and senten- 
tious energy. 
OF his political character as a mi- 
nister, considering that he held the 
reins of government for a_ short 
time only, it is difficult to speak. 
915 
As a leader of opposition he was the 
most powerful; but those who 
watch the proceedings of the Bri- 
tish parliament, will observe that a 
leader of opposition is often obliged 
to condemn, is rarely at liberty to 
praise, and has many opportunities 
of gaining popular favour, without 
much risk of reputation. Yet Fox 
often praised the financial skill of 
his opponent, and it is much to his 
credit ‘for foresight, as a politi- 
cian, that from the first he predicted 
the evils of a coalition against 
France, that he always sighed for 
peace, and that our warfare has 
failed of its desired object, and led 
to the subjugation of Europe, 
through the aggrandizement of 
France. 
in private life, we have already 
said, he was most amiable.—He had 
follies, indeed, or if the love of 
pleasure and of gaming be vices in 
youth, he had vices too, which it 
would be weakness to conceal. 
But, with an ardent passion for 
these destructive habits, he quitted 
them entirely for a modest re- 
tirement, when he could ne longer 
enjoy them without risking the 
independence which. his _ friends 
had given him, from public spirit, 
in order to preserve him for the 
service of his country; and, though 
he had been profuse of his own 
fortune, he was neither greedy nor 
enyious of another’s ; non alieni ap. 
petens, sui profusus. His virtues too 
were not less admirable because they 
shone through, and in the end pu- 
rified and corrected the transient 
defects of his character. He had both 
a natural and acquired urbanity,.a 
gentlemanly feeling, which thought 
and acteds with the greatest kind. 
ness towards every fellow man, 
however humble. Even in the ar- 
3N2 dour 
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