one of the most skilful financiers that had ever controlled the purse of the nation. 'The financial administration of Lord North," writes Earl Russell, "had been a mere series of shifts and expedients to supply the wants of years of war and misfortune. Amid the losses of the empire the old corrupt practices had flourished unchecked, if not increased, under that indolent and easy minister. Mr. Pitt with a vigorous hand pruned the luxuriance of prodi the new maxim he had learned in the school of Adam Smith. A reduction of the tea duties checked smuggling and increased consumption; a prudent economy enabled the minister to set apart a million a year as a sinking fund for the redemption of the national debt." Pitt was, in the fullest acceptance of the word, not an agreeable man, perhaps not even a kindly man, but he was most certainly a great man. Living in an age when reform was being closely identified with revolution, he has been blamed for opposing measures which at one time he had warmly advocated. Yet neither to reform nor to the emancipation of the Papists was he ever the foe; he held to the very last, as he frequently stated in the House of Commons, the same views upon the sub-gality, and grafted on the ancient system ject as he had in his earlier years entertained, but with England engaged in an arduous continental war, with Jacobinism preaching its dangerous doctrines both at home and abroad, and with the opportunity lost of propitiating Ireland which had presented itself at the date of the Union, he considered the hour unfavourable to enter upon any schemes which in less agitated times might result in benefit to the nation. In all the aims of the reformers he saw the evil predominating over the good; in reform he saw Jacobinism; in Catholic emancipation he saw behind the mask of religious equality the features of treason and Irish disunion. As with Burke so with Pittthe crimes disclosed by the action of the French republicans made him fearful of tampering with reform in any shape; of the two alternatives he preferred to suffer present ills than adopt changes which might usher in a worse state of things. In the House of Commons, considering his personal unpopularity, Pitt possessed an influence such as few Leaders of the Senate have ever commanded. His eloquence, his disinterestedness, his evident sincerity of purpose, his grasp of the subject with which he was dealing, were seldom displayed in vain, and frequently convinced the majority of the House that what he thought was right and should be adopted. Upon the Continent his name was all-powerful. It was felt in every cabinet of Europe that the only man who could check, by his diplomatic combinations, the onward march of Napoleon was the great English minister. It was Pitt, and Pitt alone, who was incessant in stimu Where his energies were not paralyzed by the spectacle of the French Revolution Pitt proved himself a consummate states-lating the activity of Russia and Austria man and a great administrator. He was one of the most able of chancellors of the exchequer. The plan of commercial exchequer bills, the establishment of the sinking fund, the system of war taxes, and the like, were among the measures he originated to meet the exigencies of his day. Even his enemies acknowledged him to be so as to create a barrier against the advance of France. He failed, not because his combinations were at fault, but because what the civil power designed military incapacity was incompetent to carry out. Had a Wellington been at hand to support what a Pitt created Austerlitz might have been another Waterloo. CHARLES JAMES FOX. CHARLES JAMES Fox, the greatest debater | the only Englishman who visited Paris who whose eloquence the annals of parliamentary oratory have ever had to record, was the third son of that Henry Fox (afterwards Lord Holland) whose unscrupulous conduct we have had already occasion to relate and of Lady Georgina Caroline Fox, the eldest daughter of Charles, second duke of Richmond. He was born in Conduit Street, 24th January, 1749, and like William Pitt early gave signs of splendid parts. "I will not deny," said the future debater, "that I was a very sensible little boy, a very clever little boy, and what I heard made an impression on me, and was of use to me afterwards." Endowed with great vivacity, an amazing quickness in acquiring knowledge, considerable powers of mimicry, and an amiability of disposition which few things ruffled, he was the favourite son of his father, who greatly occupied himself in superintending the early studies of the lad, and, if report speaks truly, subsequently encouraged him in pleasures the avoidance of which most parents are careful to impress upon their children. After receiving the rudiments of education at a preparatory school at Wandsworth kept by a Frenchman, one Pampellone, Charles was sent to Eton. Here, though his health was delicate-indeed at one time it was feared he would have to be taken away from the school-he worked with fair assiduity, and soon gained himself a name among the tutors as a singularly good classic. Having frequently accompanied his father, all boy though he was, in his travels on the Continent young Fox acquired a knowledge of French which few lads possessed, and in after life piqued himself upon the ease and purity of his pronunciation. During the period of the Revolution he was considered could really speak French. Some verses A un fourbe orateur, refusons nos suffrages * "Memorials and Correspondence of Charles James Fox," edited by the late Earl Russell. This biography and the speeches-now rarely to be met with-of Charles Fox are the chief authorities for this sketch. into the university discipline of those accommodating days!" for it is wholly unnecessary to take a step onwards without you, and therefore we shall stop until we have the pleasure of your company. All your acquaintance here which I know are well, but not much happier for your absence." From Eton Charles Fox went up to say this. I expect that you will return Oxford, and was entered at Hertford Col- with much keenness for Greek and for lege, then under the rule of Dr. Newcome, lines and angles. As to trigonometry, it is a distinguished scholar, and afterwards a matter of entire indifference to the other Archbishop of Armagh. As at school so geometricians of the college (who will proat the university the young undergraduate bably continue some time here) whether read hard, and caused all who came in con- they proceed to the other branches of tact with him to prophesy that a brilliant mathematics immediately or wait a term future lay before him. "I am heartily ob- or two longer. You need not, therefore, inliged to you for your advice about French," terrupt your amusements by severe studies," he writes to his friend Macartney, an eccen--what an insight does this caution give us tric Irishman who had been tutor to his eldest brother Stephen Fox, "which I will undoubtedly follow, as I am thoroughly convinced of its utility. I read here much, and like vastly (what I know you think useless) mathematics. I believe they are useful, and I am sure they are "-was ever judgment more whimsical!" entertaining, which is alone enough to recommend them Fox quitted Oxford in the spring of to me. I did not expect my life here could 1766, and few men have ever taken their be so pleasant as I find it; but I really leave of the university more popular with think to a man who reads a great deal there their fellows or more highly considered, by cannot be a more agreeable place." Indeed those who had the charge of their studies, his application was so intense that, acting as one endowed with every gift calculated upon the advice of his father, the young to command celebrity. During the next man crossed the Channel to enjoy a period few months the young man amused himof rest from study. Before starting, how- self by travelling on the Continent and in ever, he informed his tutor, Dr. Newcome, the gratification of those pleasures which of his purpose, and received the following the mistaken leniency of his father had reply. (In after life when Fox, more inter- encouraged. He visited the chief towns ested in the combinations of the card-table in France, Italy, and Holland, and whenthan in the pages of blue-books, was accused ever the occasion presented itself took his of laziness in not making himself familiar seat at the board of green cloth, where he with parliamentary papers and other docu- appears to have invariably lost, if we are ments, he was wont to draw out from his to judge from the letters he addressed to pocket-book Dr. Newcome's letter, in order the most culpably generous of fathers askto show how exemplary a student he had ing for remittances. Still, in spite of cards, been in his younger days.) amateur theatricals-the vices of his day "You judged rightly in thinking," writes and the pleasures of society, he did not the tutor, "I should be much surprised by the information you were so obliging as to give me. But upon reflection I think that you have done well to change the scene in such a manner, and I feel myself inclined to envy you the power of doing it. Application like yours requires some intermission, and you are the only person with whom I have ever had connection to whom I could abandon study. He read hard at modern languages, and in a curious letter which he wrote to his friend Macartney we see him regretting his naturally indolent disposition, and complaining, as so many men have since complained and with scant justice, that a university education is after all but an indifferent training for the practical business of life: |