Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 9.djvu/534

 .02 F X F O X In personal appearance Fox was tall and strongly built, &quot; graceful in countenance, manly in personage, grave in gesture ; &quot; in manner he was courteous and unaffected, &quot;civil, beyond all forms of breeding,&quot; and &quot;tender, com passionate, and pitiful;&quot; essentially, he was &quot;a heavenly- minded man, zealous for the name of the Lord, and preferred the honour of God before all things ; &quot; &quot;a man that God endued with a clear and wonderful depth, a discerner of others spirits, and very much a master of his own.&quot; These and similar characterizations by his friendly contemporaries, who, for the rest, do not pretend that he was in any way remarkable either for grasp of intellect or for profundity in learning, surely deserve some weight as against the somewhat prevalent opinion that Fox was nothing more than a vulgar charlatan whom we have &quot; no reason for placing morally or intellectually above Ludowick Muggleton or Joanna Southcote &quot; (Macaulay). The mere fact that he was able to attract to himself so considerable a body of respectable followers, including such men as Elhvood, Barclay, and Penn, is sufficient to prove that he possessed in a very eminent degree the power of conviction, persuasion, and moral ascendency ; while of his personal uprightness, single-mindedness, and sincerity there ought to be no question. The writings of Fox have been collected in three volumes folio, the first containing his journal, the second Ms correspondence, and the third all that he has written in vindication of his doctrines. flia Journal is especially interesting; of it Sir James Mackintosh has said that &quot;it is one of the most extraordinary and instructive narratives in the world, which no reader of competent judgment can peruse without revering the virtue of the writer.&quot; Of other works attributed to him, perhaps the most curious is that originally published in London in 1660, entitled A battle, door for teachers and professors to learn singular and plural; you to many and ihou to one; singular, one, ihou; plural, many, you. According to the Journal, however, this performance is not to be attributed solely to Fox. &quot; J. Stubbs and Benjamin Furly took great pains in com piling it, which I set them upon, and some things I added to it.&quot; Indeed, it has sometimes been seriously doubted whether he was the real author of any of the publications which have been attributed to him ; but this doubt, which proceeds merely upon the fact of. his very imperfect literary education, seems to be conclusively settled by the clause in his will (which document may be seen in the Ilarlcian Miscellany, vii. 599) referring to bis &quot;Bookes, Episeles, and Papers.&quot; The Journal was originally published in London in 1694, and has frequently been reprinted. A very useful edition is the seventh, with notes biographical and historical by Wilson Armistead, Lon don, 1852. Several Memoirs of Fox have recently appeared, one by J. Marsh in 1846; another by Janney, with dissertations on his views concerning the doctrine, testimonies, and discipline of the Christian church (Philadelphia, 1852); a third by the Rev. John Selby Watson (London, 1860). For details of the principles and history of the Society of Friends, see the article QUAKERS. ( J. S. BL.) FOX, RICHARD, an English prelate, statesman, and diplomatist, bishop successively of Exeter, Bath and Wells, Durham, and Winchester, and founder of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, was born about the close of the reign of Henry VI. He was a native of Ropesley, near Grantham, in Lincolnshire, and his parents are said to have been in humble circumstances. His education, however, was not neglected, for he was sent to school either at Boston or at Winchester, and thence transferred to Magdalen College, Oxford. His studies, in which he gained much distinction, were interrupted by an outbreak of the plague, and he went to continue them at Pembroke Hall, Cam bridge. He next went to Paris, and there pursued the .study of theology and the canon law, At Paris he became acquainted with Morton, bishop of Ely, then an exile, and by him he was introduced to Henry, earl of Richmond, who was preparing his invasion of England. He at once gained Henry s confidence, and managed for him the delicate busi ness of getting assistance in men and money from the king of France. After the victory of Bosworth and accession of the earl as Henry VII., Fox, now a doctor of divinity, was made a orivy councillor, and became one of the most trusted advisers of the king. Honours fell thick upon him. In rapid succession he was made a prebendary of Sarum, ! tary of state, and master of St Cross, Winchester (1487). From this time ho was almost constantly employed by the king in political affairs both at home and abroad. He was several times sent ambassador to Scotland, and several times to France. In 1491 he was translated to the see of Bath and Wells, and three years later to that of Durham. In 1497 he personally defended his castle of Norharnwhen besieged by the Scots, until it was relieved by the earl of Surrey. The same year he negotiatsd a truce for seven years between England and Scotland. He also tcok part in the treaty for the marriage between James IV. of Scot land and Margaret, daughter of Henry VII. In 1500 he was chosen chancellor of the university of Cambridge, and j held the office for two years. The same year he was trans- i lated to the see of Winchester, which he held till his death, a period of twenty-eight years. He was master of Pem broke Hall, Cambridge, from 1507 to 1519. During the reign of Henry VII. his influence was supreme in the state, no important affair being undertaken without consulting him. The king named Fox one of his executors, and espe cially recommended him to his son and successor Henry
 * bishop of Exeter, keeper of the privy seal, principal secre-
 * VIII. But his credit soon declined under the new king,

partly owing to the character of Henry, and partly to the rivalry of the earl of Surrey. Amongst the chaplains of Bishop Fox at this time was Thomas Wolsey ; and in order to counteract the influence of Surrey, Fox introduced Wolsey to the king. In a little while the new comer took precedence of both the rivals. Fox, however, did not sud denly lose the royal favour. In March 1510 he was sent ambassador to France with Surrey and the bishop of Dur ham, and signed the treaty of alliance with Louis XII. In 1513 he attended Henry VIII. in his expedition to France, and was present at the taking of Terouenne. The same year he took part in negotiating a treaty with the emperor Maximilian. Fox was one of the executors of Margaret, countess of Richmond, and in this capacity had a share in completing the settlement of St John s College, Cambridge. Continually mortified by the supremacy of his former pro tege&quot;, Wolsey, and by the insults he had to endure from him, he at length (1515) withdrew from the court and retired to his dioce.se. The rest of his life was devoted to the dis charge of his ecclesiastical duties and to works of charity and munificence. During this period he rendered great service to the cause of liberal education by his foundation of Corpus Christi College, Oxford. His first intention was to make it a monkish seminary, and for this he obtained a licence. But on the advice of Oldharn, bishop of Exeter, he changed his plan, and made it simply a school for the increase of learning. Bishop Oldham contributed largely to the cost of the buildings. Fox was founder also of free schools at Tauuton and at Grantham. He became blind some years before his death, and was pressed by Wolsey to resign his see to him, but this he stoutly refused to do. He died, in a good old age, September 14, 1528. FOXE, JOHN (1517-1587), was born at Boston in Lincolnshire in 1517. At the age of sixteen he entered Brasenose College, Oxford, where at twenty-one he took the degree of B.A., and five years later that of M.A. He fellowship at Magdalen, and wrote several Latin plays on Scriptural subjects, of which the best, the De Ckristo Tri- umphante, was repeatedly published (London, 1551, Basel, 155G, &c.), and was thought worthy of translation into English by Richard Day, the son of the printer. Having become deeply interested in the more advanced religious inquiry of his time, he devoted himself to the study of Hebrew, of the ancient fathers, and of the doctrines of the
 * attained a fair reputation for scholarship, was elected to a