THE JOCKEY CLUB IN THE DAYS OF CHARLES JAMES FOX. 241 



which Burke and Sheridan never stepped, and did not seek admission to the highest 



circle because he was a part of it from the first He was " Charles " to all the world, 



including George, Prince of Wales, which, when we remember his immeasurable 



superiority in intellect to the great majority of his contemporaries, is much ; for it is 



easier to forgive many faults than that pre-eminence. What a life it was ! Enjoying 



the most that London and Paris could give him ; deep in a classic and loth to be called 



away ; moving the House of Commons, or a mob, as no one else could move them, 



and going back to Brooks's to keep the bank at Faro ; contentedly potting partridges 



or losing thousands at Newmarket " Charles," writes Hare to Carlisle in December, 



1781, "in the October 



Meeting lost about 



,10,000, the greatest 



part of it in Races and 



the rest to General 



Smith at Picquet." Most 



of it was unwise, but 



"damme! it was life" 



indeed. Much of it was 



inevitable in a period 



when people entered 



politics not because they 



were rich, but because 



they wanted to become 



so. The men who were 



spurred forward by far 



sharper incentives and temptations than are ours, are entitled to a far higher credit 



when they held a straight course than any we can possibly deserve. And whatever 



else may be said of Charles Fox, it could never be said that he broke up any 



man's home or ruined any woman. His immense popularity among the men, 



and the delightful terms of equal friendship on which he stood with such 



women as the Duchess of Devonshire would, otherwise, have been not merely 



unlikely but impossible. " I am a bad hater," he would say, and his sympathy 



did not stop with the fortunate or the great. His heart and his intelligence were 



large enough for every phase of humanity. Burns, who understood him as well 



as he liked Burns, wrote of him : 



VOL. II. K K 



The Kt. Hon. C. J. Fox's 

 " Pyrrhus." (1767.) 



