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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 Rockingbam 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officers were disqualified from voting at elections; all the proceedings with respect to the Middlesex election were rescinded; while a reform bill abolished a number of useless offices.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 name 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 commous, and he himself was forced into a long and tur

bulent contest for the city of Westminster. He had, as we have seen, been originally returned for that place by the voice of the inhabitants, in opposition to the influence of the crown; but his junction with lord North had now lost him the affections of a considerable number of his voters, and although he ultimately succeeded, it was at an expence to his friends which some of them felt for many years afterwards. He lost also, what, we are persuaded, must have affected him more than all, the support of that class without doors of independent men, and able writers on constitutional questions, who had revered him during the American war as the patron of liberty. Still, although in the new parliament which met in 1784, Mr. Pitt had a decided majority, Mr. Fox made his appearance at the head of a very formidable opposition, and questions of general political interest were for some years contested with such a display of brilliant talents, as had never been known in the house of commons.

In 1788, Mr. Fox repaired to the continent, in company with the lady who was afterwards acknowledged as his wife, and after spending a few days with Gibbon, the historian, at Lausanne, departed for Italy, but was suddenly recalled home, in consequence of the king's illness, and the necessity of providing for a regency. On this memorable occasion, Mr. Fox, and his great rival, Mr. Pitt, appeared to have exchanged systems; Mr. Pitt contending for the constitutional measure of a bill of limitations, while Mr. Fox was equally strenuous for placing the regency in the hands of the heir apparent, without any restrictions; and powerful as he and his party were at this time, and perhaps they never shone more in debate, Mr. Pitt was triumphant in every stage of the bill, and was supported by the almost unanimous voice of the nation. Yet the ministers must have retired, as it was well known. that Mr. Fox and his party stood high in favour with the future Regent, and Mr. Pitt had actually meditated on the economy of a private station, when the intemperance of Mr. Burke, who was never less loyal than at this crisis, delayed the passing of the bill, on one pretence or another, until by his majesty's recovery, it became happily useless. On this great question Mr. Fox had again the misfortune to forfeit the regard of those who have been considered as the depositories of constitutional principles, and consequently appeared to have traversed the system of

which he had been considered as the most consistent and intrepid advocate. In 1790 and 1791 he recovered some of the ground he had lost, by opposing with effect a war with Spain, and another with Russia, for objects which he thought too dearly purchased by such an experiment; and in 1790 he appeared again the friend of constitutional liberty, by his libel bill respecting the rights of juries in criminal cases. This, although strongly opposed, terminated at last in a decision that juries are judges of both the law and the fact. But the time was now arrived when he was, by a peculiarity in his way of thinking, to be for ever separated from the political friends who had longest adhered to him, and many of whom he loved with all the ardour of affection.

When the revolution took place in France, Mr. Fox perhaps was not singular in conceiving that it would be attended with great benefit to that nation; in some of his speeches he went farther; and continued an admirer of what was passing in France long after others had begun to foresee the most disastrous consequences. While Mr. Fox

perceived nothing but what was good, Mr. Burke predicted almost all, indeed, that has since happened, and an accidental altercation in the house of commons, (See BURKE,) separated these two friends for ever. "This," says one of his biographers, "was a circumstance that affected Mr. Fox more than any other through life; he had seen his plans for the public good disappointed; he had been deserted by a crowd of political adherents; a thousand times his heart and his motives had been slandered, still he had abundant resources in himself to bear up against the tide setting in against him. No opposition, no injuries could excite in him the spirit of revenge, or the principles of acrimony; even when his friend, on whom he bung with almost idolatrous regard, broke from him in the paroxysm of political madness, and with furious cruelty explored, in his attack on him, every avenue to pain, far from repelling enmity with enmity, he discovered his sensibilities of wrong only with tears, and he subsequently wept, with a pertinacity of affection almost without example, over the sepulchre of that very man, who had unrelentingly spurned all his offers of reconciliation, and who, with reference to him, had expired in the bitterness of resentment." We have little scruple in adopting these sentiments; for whatever may be thought of Mr. Fox's opi

nions, there are few, we hope, whose hearts would have permitted them to act the part of Mr. Burke in this interesting scene.

The policy of the war which followed, belongs to history. On its concluision in 1801, after the resignation of Mr. Pitt, when Mr. Addington, (since lord Sidmouth,) concluded the treaty of Amiens, Mr. Fox and his friends. gave him his support. When hostilities were again meditated, Mr. Fox at first expressed his doubts of their necessity; but when, on the death of Mr. Pitt, in 1806, he came again into power, as secretary of state for the foreign department, in conjunction with the Grenville party, he found it necessary to support the war by the same means and in the same spirit as his predecessor. Some measures of a more private nature, which he was obliged to adopt in order to satisfy the wishes of the new coalition he had formed, served rather to diminish than increase his popularity; but his health was now decaying; symptoms of dropsy appeared, and within a few months he was laid in the grave close by his illustrious rival. He died Sept. 13, 1806, without pain and almost without a struggle, in the 58th year of his age.

The present lord Holland has said, in the preface to Mr. Fox's historical work, that although "those who admired Mr. Fox in public, and those who loved him in private, must naturally feel desirous that some memorial should be preserved of the great and good qualities of his head and heart;" yet, "the objections to such an undertaking at present are obvious, and after much reflection, they have appeared to those connected with him insuperable." Such a declaration, it is hoped, may apologize for what we have admitted, and for what we have rejected, in this sketch of Mr. Fox's life. We have touched only on a few memorable periods, convinced that the present temper of the times is unfavourable to a more minute discussion of the merits of his long parliamentary life. Yet this consideration has not had much weight with those who profess to be his admirers, and soon after his death a number of "Characters" of him appeared sufficient to fill two volumes 8vo, edited by Dr. Parr. Of one circumstance there can be no dispute. Friends and foes are equally agreed in the amiable, even, and benign features of his private character. "He was a man," said Burke, "made to be loved," and he was loved by all who knew him.