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pace with the ardour of public expectation.— That war, originally occasioned by measures in which he had no concern, was undertaken by him with hesitation and reluctance. All resistance being ineffectual, he was impelled to arms— to arms already stained with unexpiated bloodby the combined efforts of the sovereign, the senate, and the people.

He has left us an impressive but melancholy example how little the remembrance of past liberality benefits the generous donor; but how essentially noble minds may be injured by incautious credulity, and the imputation of imagined criminality. He possesses, however, in the sacred recesses of his heart, what enables him to support with complacency the heaviest oppressions of calamity. Whenever, with conscious rectitude, his memory dwells on that acrimony of reproach which has pursued his character; whenever he calls to mind the faithlessness, the ingratitude, of that gaudy tribe, whom he led by the hand to honours and to wealth; he will remember also, and exclaim in the language of Lycurgus, “What manner of citizen do you suppose me to be, who, having so long conducted public affairs, have perhaps given money for the prevention of injustice, but never received any thing to promote it?" DR. PARR*.

* One of the three books of Bellendenus" De Statu" is also inscribed by Dr. Parr to Lord North, in the following animated panegyric:-" In testimony of the profoundest reverence, attachment, and admiration, this book is dedicated to the most honourable Frederic Lord North, who, in that species of eloquence steady to its object, whilst temperate in

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He was a man of admirable parts; of general knowledge; of a versatile understanding fitted for every sort of business; of infinite wit and pleasantry; of a delightful temper; and with a mind most perfectly disinterested. But it would be only to degrade myself by a weak adulation, and not to honour the memory of a great man, to deny that he wanted something of the vigilance, and spirit of command, that the time required.

BURKE.

When in process of time I saw and knew Lord North in his retirement from all public affairs, patient, collected, resigned to an afflicting visitation of the severest sort, when all but his illuminated mind was dark around him, I contemplated an affecting and an edifying object that claimed my admiration and esteem; a man who, when divested of that incidental greatness which high office for a time can give, self dignified and independent, rose to real greatness of his own creating, which no time can take away; whose genius gave

its means, is confessedly unrivaled; who, in every social intercourse of life, preserves the truest dignity, neither tinged with gloom, nor debased by severity, but marked by affability and the sweetest humour; who, possessing claims to the partial regards of the first both of men and citizens, with simple and unaffected candour has shown himself able to forget enmities; who, when deserted by the faithless train of ungrateful followers, suffered no resentment to pursue them; who, in defending the laws and constitution of his country, was uniformly vigilant; who, in times replete with danger, and involving his own security, rested unappalled on the noble consciousness of virtue."

a grace to every thing he said, and whose benignity shed a lustre upon every thing he did; so richly was his memory stored, and so lively was his imagination in applying what he remembered, that after the great source of information was shut against himself, he still possessed a boundless fund of information for the instruction and delight of others.

CUMBERLAND.

THE RIGHT HON. C. J. FOX.

MR. Fox united in a most remarkable degree the seemingly repugnant characters of the mildest of men and the most vehement of orators. In private life he was gentle, modest, placable, kind, of simple manners, and so averse from dogmatism, as to be not only unostentatious, but even something inactive in conversation. His superiority was never felt but in the instruction which he imposed, or in the attention which his generous preference usually directed to the more obscure members of the company. The simplicity of his manners was far from excluding that perfect urbanity and amenity which flowed still more from the mildness of his nature, than from familiar intercourse with the most polished society of Europe. The pleasantry, perhaps, of no man of wit had so unlaboured an appearance. It seemed rather to escape from his mind than to be produced by it. He had lived on the most intimate terms with all his contemporaries distinguished for politeness, or philosophy, or learning, or the talents of public life. In the course of thirty VOL. II.

FF

years he had known almost every man in Europe whose intercourse could strengthen, or enrich, or polish the mind. His own literature was various and elegant. In classical erudition, which by the custom of England is more peculiarly called learning, he was inferior to few professed scholars. Like all men of genius, he delighted to take refuge in poetry from the vulgarity and irritation of business. His own verses were easy and pleasant, and might have claimed no low place among those which the French call vers de société. The poetical character of his mind was displayed by his extraordinary partiality for the poetry of the two most poetical nations, or, at least, languages of the West, those of the Greeks and of the Italians. He disliked political conversation, and never willingly took any part in it. To speak of him justly as an orator would require a long essay. Every where natural, he carried into public something of that simple and negligent exterior which belonged to him in private. When he began to speak, a common observer might have thought him awkward; and even a consummate judge could only have been struck with the exquisite justness of his ideas, and the transparent simplicity of his manners. But no

sooner had he spoken for some time than he was changed into another being: he forgot himself and every thing around him: he thought only of his subject: his genius warmed and kindled as he went on. He darted fire into his audience. Torrents of impetuous and irresistible eloquence swept along their feelings and conviction. He certainly possessed above all moderns that union

of reason, simplicity, and vehemence which formed the prince of orators. He was the most Demosthenean speaker since the days of Demosthenes. "I knew him," says Mr. Burke, in a pamphlet written after their unhappy difference, "when he was nineteen; since which time he has risen by slow degrees to be the most brilliant and accomplished debater that the world ever saw." The quiet dignity of a mind roused only to great objects, but the absence of petty bustle, the contempt of show, the abhorrence of intrigue, the plainness and downrightness, and the thorough good nature which distinguished Mr. Fox, seem to render him no unfit representative of the old English character, which, if it ever changed, we should be sanguine indeed to expect to see it succeeded by a better. The simplicity of his character inspired confidence, the ardour of his eloquence roused enthusiasm, and the gentleness of his manners invited friendship. "I admired,” says Mr. Gibbon, "the powers of a superior man, as they are blended, in his attractive character, with all the softness and simplicity of a child: no human being ever was more free from any taint of malignity, vanity, or falsehood." From these qualities of his public and private character it probably arose, that no English statesman ever preserved, during so long a period of adverse fortune, so many affectionate friends, and so many zealous adherents. The union of ardour in public sentiment, with mildness in social manners, was in Mr. Fox an hereditary quality. The same fascinating power over the attachment of all who came within his sphere is

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