had made still more hideous with mimic ruins, in order to feed his diseased fancy with an image of the desolation to which he would have condemned the disobedient city, if only he had met with colleagues bold enough to carry out his atrocious designs.

CHAPTER II.

1749-1768.

Lord Holland in his own family-Birth of Charles James Fox-His childhood -Wandsworth-Eton and Paris-Dr. Barnard-The Musæ EtonensesPicture at Holland House-Lady Sarah Lennox-Fox at Oxford-Tour in Italy-Fox's industry and accomplishments-His return to England.

LORD HOLLAND was neither so wicked nor so unhappy as the world supposed him. He had never courted esteem ; and, while his health was still fairly good and his nerves strong, he cared not a farthing for popularity. He looked upon the public as a milch-cow, which might bellow and toss its horns as much as ever it pleased, now that he had filled his pail and had placed the gate between himself and the animal. But, though he had no self-respect to wound, he could be touched through his affection; for this political buccaneer, whose hand had been against every man and in every corner of the national till, was in private a warm-hearted and faithful friend. Lord Holland cannot be called nice in the choice of some among the objects on whom he bestowed his regard; but, once given, it never was withdrawn. He had attached himself to Rigby with a devotion most unusual in an intimacy made at Newmarket, and cemented over the bottle; and his feelings were more deeply and more permanently hurt by the unkindness of

1 "I dined at Holland House," wrote Rigby on one occasion, "where, though I drank claret with the master of it from dinner till two o'clock in the morning, I could not wash away the sorrow he is in at the shocking condition his eldest boy is in,-a distemper they call Sanvitoss dance. damnably."

I believe I spell it

one coarse and corrupt adventurer than by the contempt and aversion of every honest man in the country who read the newspapers. To the end of his life he could not mention his old associate without a touch of pathos, which has its effect even upon those whose reason inclines them to regard his expressions of tenderness as the lamentations of a rogue who has been jockeyed by his accomplice. "I loved him," he says to George Selwyn; "and whether to feel, or not to feel, on such an occasion be most worthy of a man, I won't dispute; but the fact is that I have been, and still am, whenever I think of it, very unhappy." Six years after the breach he was still writing in the same strain. "There is one question which, I hope, will not be asked,

'Has life no sourness, drawn so near its end?'

Indeed it has; yet I guard against it as much as possible, and am weak enough sometimes to think that if Rigby chiefly, and some others, had pleased, I should have walked down the vale of years more easily. But it is weak in me to think so often as I do of Rigby, and you will be ashamed of me."

Whatever Lord Holland suffered by the coldness and treachery of the outside world was amply made up to him within his domestic circle. As will always be the case with a man of strong intelligence and commanding powers, who has the gift of forgetting himself in others, there was no limit to the attachment which he inspired, and the happiness which he spread around him. In all that he said and wrote, his inability to recognise the existence of public duty contrasts singularly with his admirable unconsciousness that he had any claims whatever upon those whom he loved; and, as a sure result, he was not more hated abroad than adored at home. That home presented a beautiful picture of undoubting and undoubted affection; of perfect similarity in tastes and pursuits;

of mutual appreciation, which thorough knowledge of the world, and the strong sense inherent in the Fox character, never allowed to degenerate into mutual adulation. There seldom were children who might so easily have been guided into the strait and noble path, if the father had possessed a just conception of the distinction between right and wrong; but the notion of making anybody, of whom he was fond, uncomfortable for the sake of so very doubtful an end as the attainment of self-control, was altogether foreign to his creed and his disposition. However, if the sterner virtues were wanting among his young people, the graces were there in abundance. Never was the natural man more dangerously attractive than in Lord Holland's family; and most of all in the third son, a boy who was the pride and light of the house, with his sweet temper, his rare talents, and his inexhaustible vivacity.1

Charles James Fox was born on the twenty-fourth January 1749. His father was already tenant of the surburban palace and paradise from which he was to derive his title; but it was a work of no small time and labour to prepare the mansion for its great destinies, and the noise of carpenters and the bustle of upholsterers obliged Lady Caroline to choose a lodging in Conduit Street for the scene of an event which would have added distinction even to Holland House.2 Holland House,

1 Lord Holland had four sons: Stephen; Henry, who died so young that wellinformed writers have called Charles the second son; Charles; and Henry Edward.

་་

2 Fox bought Holland House in 1767. Up to that date he paid for the property a rent less than is asked for five out of six among the hundreds of dwellings which now fringe its northern and eastern outskirts, but which have not been permitted to invade the sacred enclosure. It will be a great pity," wrote Scott, "when this ancient house must come down, and give way to rows and crescents. One is chiefly affected by the air of deep seclusion which is spread around the domain." This was the limit of what Sir Walter would say in favour of a building, which he was perhaps too good a Tory to admire as it deserved. Walpole, writing in 1747, says: "Mr. Fox gave a great ball last week in Holland House, which he has taken for a long term, and where he is making great improvements. It is a brave old house, and belonged to the gallant Earl of Holland, the lover of Charles the First's queen."

however, was the seat of Charles's boyhood; and his earliest associations were connected with its lofty avenues, its trim gardens, its broad stretches of deep grass, its fantastic gables, its endless vista of boudoirs, libraries, and drawing-rooms, each more home-like and habitable than the last. All who knew him at this stage of his existence recollected him as at once the most forward and the most engaging of small creatures. His father worshipped him from the very first. "Dear Caroline," he writes in March 1752, "send me word by the bearer how my dear Charles does. Send John Walker tomorrow morning with another account, for I propose shooting, and not being in till three or four. I can do nothing in the anxiety of not hearing of him." On another occasion Henry Fox thus replies to a complaint that he was too much absorbed in politics to please so loving a wife, and so fond a mother. "I am very sorry to hear of poor dear Thumb's being so bad in his cough. For God's sake have the greatest attention for him. If he is ill, you will see whether my state affairs make me forget domestic affection or no. But I pray God no trial of that kind may ever happen to me." elsewhere, "Ste has his share of favour in a proper way for his age; but I suppose Charles is so continually at home, and Ste so continually abroad, which must give Charles an advantage with those who stay at home. Don't be peevish, pray, with the dear child for that, nor for anything else; neither will you seriously, I know; for he has made you love him as much as all of us."

"I do believe," he says

The father might honestly repudiate a charge of favouritism; for the love which Charles enjoyed was never at the expense of his brothers. "I got to Holland House," wrote Fox, "last night at seven; found all the boys well; but, to say the truth, took most notice of Charles. I never saw him better or more merry. Harry was just gone to bed and fast asleep. I saw him this