CHARACTER OF CHARLES JAMES FOX.
By Sir James Macintosh.
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 imparted, 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 by wit, politeness, or philosophy, or learning, or the talents of public life. In the course of thirty 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 carries 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 eloquence swept along their feelings and convictions. He certainly possesses above all moderns, that union of reason, simplicity, and vehemence, which formed the prince of orators. He was the most Demosthenian 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 he has risen, by slow degrees, to the most brilliant and accomplished debater the world ever saw."
The quiet dignity of a mind roused only by great objects, the absence of petty bustle, the contempt of show, the abhorrence of intrigue, the plainness and down-rightness, 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 manner invited friendship. "I admired," says Mr. Gibbon, after describing a day passed with him at Lausanne, "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 was ever more free from any taint of malignity, vanity, or falsehood."
The measures which he supported or opposed may divide the opinion of posterity, as they have divided those of the present age. But he will most certainly command the unanimous reverence of future generations, by his pure sentiments towards the commonwealth, by his zeal for the civil and religious rights of all men, by his liberal principles, favourable to mild government, to the unfettered exercise of the human faculties, and the progressive civilization of mankind; by his ardent love for a country of which the well-being and greatness were, indeed, inseparable from his own glory; and by his profound reverence for that free constitution, which he was universally admitted to understand better than any other man of his age, both in an actually legal, and in a comprehensive philosophical sense.