From Oxford, where, as was the custom with young men intended for public life, he did not remain long enough to accumulate degrees, he repaired to the continent. In his travels it is said that he acquired more of the polish of foreign intercourse than those who knew him only in his latter days could have believed, and returned a fashionable young man, noted for a foppish gaiety of dress and manner, from which he soon passed into the opposite extreme. As his father intended him to rise in the political world, he procured him a seat for the borough of Midhurst, in 1768, before he had attained the legal age ; a circumstance which, if known, appears to have been thenoverlooked. Two years afterwards, his father's interest procured him the office of one of the lords commissioners of the admiralty; but in May 1772, he resigned that situation, and in January 1773, was nominated a commissioner of the treasury. At this time it cannot be denied that his political opinions were in unison with those of his father, who was accounted a tory, and were adverse to the turbulent proceedings of the city of London, which at this time was deluded by the specious pretences to patriotism displayed by the celebrated Wilkes. It was in particular Mr. Fox's opinion, in allusion to the public meetings held by the supporters of "Wilkes and liberty," that "the voice of the people was only to be heard in the house of commons." That he held, however, some of the opinions by which his future life was guided, appears from his speech in favour of religious liberty, when sir William Meredith introduced a bill to give relief from subscription to the thirty-nine articles; and perhaps other instances may be found in which his natural ingenuousness of mind, and openness of character, burst through the trammels of party; and although it must be allowed that the cause he now supported was not that which he afterwards espoused, it may be doubted whether he was not even at this time, when a mere subaltern in the ministerial ranks, more unrestrained in his sentiments than at some memorable periods of his subsequent life.

After having displayed his talents to the greatest advantage in favour of the minister for about six years, the latter (lord North) procured his dismissal from office in a manner not the most gracious, and which, if it did not leave in Mr. Fox's mind some portion of resentment, he must have been greatly superior to the infirmities of our nature,

a pre-eminence which he never arrogated. It is said, that on Feb. 19, 1774, while he was actually engaged in conversation with the minister on other subjects in the house of commons, he received the following laconic note by the hands of one of the messengers of the house:

"His Majesty has thought proper to order a new commission of Treasury to be made out, in which I do not see your name. NORTH."

This event was not occasioned by any opposition on the part of Mr. Fox to lord North's measures, but to a difference of opinion as to the best mode of carrying them into effect, and that in an instance of comparatively small importance. This was a question respecting the committal of Mr. H. S. Woodfall, the printer of the Public Advertiser, who had been brought to the bar of the house for inserting a letter supposed to have been written by the rev. J. Horne, afterwards J. Horne Tooke, in which most unjustifiable liberties had been taken with the character of the speaker, sir Fletcher Norton, with a coarse virulence of language peculiar to Tooke. Mr. Woodfall having given up the author, and thrown himself on the mercy of the house, it was moved by Mr. Herbert that he should be committed to the custody of the serjeant at arms. Mr. Fox, at that period a zealous advocate for the privileges of the house, declared that the punishment was not sufficiently severe, and moved " that he be committed to Newgate, as the only proper place to which offenders, should be sent; though hints," he said, "had been thrown out that the sheriffs would not admit him." To this lord North replied, that he was very sorry that hints had been thrown out of what the sheriffs would or would not do; he hoped there were no persons who would dispute the power of that house; he therefore moved that the printer be committed to the Gate-house, as he thought it imprudent to force themselves into a contest with the city; but Mr. Herbert carried his motion in opposition both to lord North and Mr. Fox, by a majority of 152 to 68, to the great displeasure of lord North, who asserted that it was entirely owing to the interference of Mr. Fox, that he was left in a minority.

To this trifling dispute, we are left to refer the whole of Mr. Fox's subsequent conduct, and as he appears to have immediately commenced hostilities with the minister and his friends, it has been recorded, as peculiarly fortu

nate for him, that he had no occasion to degrade his consistency by opposing any of the measures he had formerly supported, in detail at least; and that a new era of political hostility had just commenced on which he could enter with all the apparent earnestness of honest conviction. This, we need scarcely add, originated in the dispute between Great Britain and her American colonies. During the whole of this period, and of the war which followed, Mr. Fox spoke and voted in direct opposition to the ministerial system, which ended at last in the separation of the colonies from the mother state. It was now that Mr. Fox's talents appeared in their fullest lustre, and that he took the foremost rank among the speakers of the house, although it could at that time, and in his own party, boast of a Burke, a Barré, and a Dunning.

At the general election in 1780, Mr. Fox became candidate for the city of Westminster, in which, after a violent contest, he succeeded, though opposed, as we are told, by the formidable interest of the Newcastle family, and by the whole influence of the crown. Being now the representative of a great city, it is added, "he appeared in parliament in a more dignified capacity, and acquired a considerable increase of consequence to his political character. In himself he was still the same: he now necessarily lived and acted in the bosom of his constituents; his easiness of access, his pleasant social spirit, his friendly disposition and conciliating manners, which appeared in all he said, and the good temper which predominated in all he did, were qualities that rendered him the friend and acquaintance, as well as the representative, of those who sent him into parliament; his superior talents, and their powerful and frequent application to popular pur poses, made him best known among political men, and gave him a just claim to the title so long applied to him, of The man of the people."" Notwithstanding all this, it might not be difficult to prove that Mr. Fox was upon the whole no great gainer by representing a city in which the arts of popularity, even when most honestly practised, are no security for its continuance; and indeed the time was not far distant when he had to experience the fatal effects of preferring a seat, which the purest virtues only can neither obtain nor preserve, and in contesting which, corruption on one side must be opposed by corruption on the other.

The subjects of debate in the new parliament affording the opposition opportunities for the display of their eloquence, they now became formidable by an increase of numbers. Ministers were assailed in the house by arguments which they could neither repel nor contradict, and from without they were overwhelmed by the clamours of that same people to whom the war was at first so acceptable; till at length lord North and his adherents were obliged to resign, and it was thought, as such vengeance had been repeatedly threatened both by Mr. Fox and Mr. Burke, that they would have been made responsible for all the mischiefs and bloodshed that had occurred during their calamitous administration. The Rockingham party, however, who came into power in the spring 1782, and whose resentments the attainment of that object seems to have softened, contented themselves with the defeat of their opponents. Mr. Fox obtained the office of secretary of state for foreign affairs, and the marquis of Rockingham was nominated the first lord of the treasury. Still the expectation of the nation was raised to the highest pitch; with this party, they hoped to see an end to national calamity, and the interests of the country supported and maintained in all quarters of the globe. Much indeed was performed by them considering the shortness of their administration. Though they had succeeded to an empty exchequer, and a general and most calamitous war, yet they resolved to free the people from some of their numerous grievances. Contractors were excluded by act of parliament from the house of commons; custom and excise officers were disqualified from voting at elections; all the proceedings with respect to the Middlesex election. were rescinded; while a reform bill abolished a number of useless offices. A more generous policy was adopted in regard to Ireland; a general peace was meditated, and America, which could not be restored, was at least to be conciliated. In the midst of these promising appearances, the marquis of Rockingham, who was the support of the new administration, suddenly died, an event which distracted and divided his party. The council board was instantly torn in pieces by political schisms, originating in a dispute respecting the person who should succeed as first lord of the treasury. The candidates were, lord Shelburne, afterwards marquis of Lansdowne, and the late duke of Portland; the former, supposed to have the ear of

the king, and a majority in the cabinet; was immediately entrusted with the reins of government; and Mr. Fox retired in disgust, declaring that " he had determined never to connive at plans in private, which he could not publicly avow." What these plans were, we know not, but he now resumed his station in opposition, and joined the very man whose conduct he had for a series of years deprecated as the most destructive to the interests of his country, and most baneful to the happiness of mankind; while his former colleague, the earl of Shelburne, was busied in concluding a peace with France, Spain, Holland, and the United States of America. But as this nobleman, though by no means deficient in political wisdom, had omitted to take those steps which preceding ministers had ever adopted to secure safety, a confederacy was formed against him by the union of the friends of Mr. Fox and lord North, known by the naine of "The Coalition," which proved in the event as impolitic, as it was odious to the great mass of the people. Never indeed in this reign has any measure caused a more general expression of popular disgust; and although it answered the temporary purpose of those who adopted it, by enabling them to supplant their rivals, and to seize upon their places, their success was ephemeral; they had, it is true, a majority in the house of commons, but the people at large were decidedly hostile to an union which appeared to them to be bottomed on ambition only, and destitute of any common public principle. It was asserted, with too much appearance of truth, that they agreed in no one great measure calculated for the benefit of the country, and the nation seemed to unite against them as one man. Their conduct in the cabinet led the sovereign to use a watchful and even jealous eye upon their acts; and the famous India bill proved the rock on which they finally split, and on account of which they forfeited their places. Mr. Fox had now to contend for the government of the empire with William Pitt, a stripling scarcely arrived at the age of manhood, but who nevertheless succeeded to the post of premier, and maintained that ⚫ situation with a career as brilliant as that of his opponent, for more than twenty years.

The tide of popularity had set in so strongly against Mr. Fox, that at the general election about seventy of his most active friends and partizans lost their seats in the house of commons, and he himself was forced into a long and tur