GARDENS OF CELEBRITIES 



" Double snowdrops ... to remind him in March to sow candy- 

 tuft, Rock stuff, Venus' looking glass," etc. 



Though in some respects, as we have seen, Henry Fox dis- 

 regarded his mother's dying advice, his runaway marriage with 

 Lady Caroline Lennox proved a happy one. He was an affec- 

 tionate, but over- indulgent father, gratifying every foolish whim 

 of his children. On one occasion a wall having been pronounced 

 unsafe, it was to come down, and he had promised Charles James 

 Fox that he should witness its fall. By some chance the boy was 

 absent on the day of its destruction, and rather than disappoint 

 him the father had the wall rebuilt, and again demolished in his 

 son's presence. Another time the child wanted to break a watch. 

 The parent protested. " But I must," persisted the lad. " Oh, 

 if you must you must," replied the father, and the watch was 

 smashed. 



The folly of this sort of bringing-up, and particularly of the 

 teaching he had given to the boy at the Continental gaming- 

 tables, probably came home to Henry Fox when he afterwards 

 had to pay his son's gambling debts, amounting to one hundred 

 and forty thousand pounds. Charles James had certainly learnt 

 his lesson well. 



Nevertheless, to his credit be it told that he never touched a 

 card while in office but, unfortunately, most of his life was spent 

 in opposition. His friends who were devoted to him, once collected 

 a sum of money for his benefit, and then, considering the matter 

 rather a delicate one, " wondered how he would take it." ' Take 

 it ! " exclaimed his father's friend, George Selwyn the wit, " why, 

 quarterly, of course ! 5: Of Selwyn it is told, that he had an extra- 

 ordinary passion for looking upon the dead. When Lord Holland 

 was dying he gave instructions with regard to Selwyn' s admission, 

 *' If Mr. Selwyn calls again, let him in ; if I am alive I shall be 

 very glad to see him, if I am dead he will be very glad to see me." 



Lord Holland was clever in repartee and epigram. From the 

 " Life and Times of Charles James Fox," we learn that having 

 stipulated|for an earldom and received only a barony, Henry Fox 

 reproached Lord Bute for so great a breach of faith ! "It was 

 only a pious fraud," protested Lord Bute ; said Fox, " I perceive 

 the fraud, my lord, but not the piety." He had the faults of 

 his class and time the same may be said of his famous son ; but 



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