Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 9.djvu/532

 500 FOX proached him with a vacant grin, and had hardly ever any tiling business-like to say to him.&quot; In the presence of men of strong individuality and of great intellect, such as Chatham, Shelburne, and Fox, the king felt ill at ease, being con scious that his nominal servants were his real superiors. William Pitt pleased him, because Pitt, though a man of supreme talent and haughty to his equals and inferiors, was supple in the presence of his sovereign, and ready to defer to the sovereign s desires, to flatter his prejudices. Instead of impressing him with the opinion of the public on a given question, he professed anxiety to learn what his own view was in order to give effect to it. Once only did Pitt insist upon having his own way ; failing, he resigned. But he returned to power on the clear understanding that he would not press the measure of justice to the Roman Catholics which he previously held to be necessary, and to which the king was sternly opposed. If George ill. had deemed it possible that Fox would have been as submissive and considerate as Pitt, he would never have told George Rose that &quot;he had taken a positive determina tion not to admit Mr Fox into his councils, even at the hazard of a civil war,&quot; nor would he have written to Addington that &quot; Mr Fox is excluded by the express com mand of the king to Mr Pitt.&quot; The wonder is that, despite the hindrances which were thrown in Fox s path, and the slight occasion which he had of proving in office how well fitted he was to discharge the most onerous tasks, he should yet have proved that no statesman of his age was better qualified for conducting the government of England. What Gibbon said of him during the war with the Ameri can colonies is applicable to his entire political career ; he exhibited in the conduct of a party capacity for governing an empire. It is unquestionable that, as a parliamentary orator, Fox has no superiors. Yet, notwithstanding many volumes contain his speeches, there is an insuperable difficulty in setting forth the secret of his oratorical greatness. One speech only is there printed as it was delivered, the single speech which he wrote out beforehand, being a eulogiurn on the deceased duke of Bedford. Another, that on the Westminster scrutiny, is said to have been reported with the accuracy which is now the rule. The records of Warren Hastings s trial comprise verbatim reports of the speeches which he delivered before the House of Lords. But no such evidence suffices to explain the extraordinary effects which his spoken words produced ; hence, it is necessary to rely upon the testimony of contemporaries, and to accept their decision as conclusive. Pitt styled him a magician who laid a spell upon his hearers so long as words issued from his lips. A noble lord, thinking to curry favour with the premier, abused one of Fox s speeches, and received the generous reply from Pitt : &quot; Don t disparage it ; nobody could have made it but himself.&quot; Rogers has recorded that never did he &quot; hear anything equal to Fox s speeches in reply; they were wonderful. Burke did not do himself justice as a speaker; his manner was hurried, and he always seemed to be in a passion. Pitt s voice sounded as if he had worsted in his mouth.&quot; Charles Butler said that Fox had a captivating earnestness of tone and manner ; &quot; the moment of his grandeur was when, after he had stated the argument of his adversary, with much greater strength than his adversary had done, and with much greater than his hearers thought possible, he seized it with the strength of a giant, and tore and trampled it to destruction.&quot; Sir James Mackintosh records that Fox &quot; certainly possessed, above all moderns, that unison of reason, simplicity, and vehemence which formed the prince of orators.&quot; Burke pronounced him &quot; the most brilliant and accomplished debater that the world ever saw.&quot; A man may be accomplished in statecraft and unrivalled in oratory, and yet may want the charm which renders him as worthy of love as of admiration. Few men hose statesmanship is indisputable, and whose pre-eminence as orators is acknowledged, have surpassed Fox in the graces which soften life and attract affection. His friends regarded him with idolatry. At the time of the French Revolution, when his party had become a fragment, Lord Thurlow said, &quot; there are but forty of them, but there is not one of them who is not ready to be hanged for Fox.&quot; Lord Sidmouth, an uncompromising Tory, could not resist the fascination of his nature, and wrote, after knowing him personally, &quot; I never knew a man of more apparent sincerity, more free from rancour, or even severity, and hardly any one so entirely devoid of affectation.&quot; Gibbon, another political opponent, admired in him &quot; the powers of a superior man, as they are blended in his attractive character, with the softness and simplicity of a child. Perhaps no human being was ever more perfectly exempt from the taint of malevolence, vanity, or falsehood. It is unnecessary to supplement these testimonies with the eulogies of enthusi- astis friends. Nor can there be any excess of partiality for him in the decision that Charles James Fox stands con spicuous among the English statemen whose virtues ought to be kept in loving and perpetual remembrance, (w. F. u.) FOX, GEORGE (1624-1 090), the founder of the &quot; Society of Friends &quot; or &quot; Quakers,&quot; was born at Drayton, Leices tershire, in July 1624. His father, Christopher Fox, called by the neighbours &quot; Righteous Christer,&quot; was a weaver by occupation; and his mother, Mary Lago, &quot;an upright woman and accomplished above most of her degree,&quot; came of a family that had suffered much in former days of religious persecution. Both were members of the Church of England, and took great pains in the training of their children. George from his childhood &quot;appeared of another frame than the rest of his brethren, being more religious, inward, still, solid, and observing beyond his years ;&quot; and he him self declares, &quot;When I came to eleven years of age I knew pureness and righteousness ; for while a child I was taught how to walk to be kept pure.&quot; Some of his relations wished that he should be educated for the church ; but his father, after he had barely learned to read and write, lost no time in apprenticing him to a certain shoemaker, who also dealt in wool and cattle. In this service he remained till his nineteenth year, and acquired some proficiency in all the branches of his master s somewhat miscellaneous business ; according to Penn, &quot; He took most delight in sheep,&quot; but he himself simply says, &quot; A good deal went through my hands. . . . People had generally a love to me for my iunocency and honesty.&quot; In 1643, being upon busi ness at a fair, and having accompanied some friends to the village public-house, he was deeply scandalized by a pro posal to &quot; drink healths,&quot; and abruptly withdrew in great grief of spirit. &quot;When I had done what business I had to do I returned home, but did not go to bed that night, nor could I sleep, but sometimes walked up and down, and sometimes prayed and cried to the Lord, who said unto me, Thou seest how young people go together into vanity and old people into the earth ; thou must forsake all, both young and old, and keep out of all, and be a stranger unto all. Then, at the command of God, on the ninth day of the seventh month, 1643, I left my relations and broke off all familiarity or fellowship with old or young.&quot; Thus briefly he describes what appears to have been the greatest moral crisis in his life. Of the four years which followed the &quot; times of the first workings of the Lord in him &quot; he has left but a confused account. They were on the whole years of great perplexity and distress, though sometimes &quot; I had intermissions, and was sometimes brought into such a heavenly joy that I thought I had been in Abraham s bosom.&quot; He did not continue for many months