Of thy bright essence in my dying hour.”
Charles James Fox
Charles James Fox, one of the most brilliant personalities, if not, indeed, the most brilliant personality, that flourished in the last decades of the eighteenth century, was the third son of Henry Fox, afterwards Baron Holland of Foxley, and Lady Georgiana Lennox, daughter of Charles, second Duke of Richmond, a grandson of Charles II. The future statesman was born on 24th January 1749, and as he grew up it was thought that a resemblance to his royal ancestor could be traced in his dark, harsh and saturnine features, that “derived a sort of majesty from the addition of two black and shaggy eyebrows, which sometimes concealed, but more frequently developed, the workings of his mind.” He was a bright, lively and original child, but subject to violent excesses of temper. “Charles is dreadfully passionate,” said his mother. “What shall we do with him?” “Oh, never mind. He is a very sensible little fellow, and he will learn to cure himself,” replied his father, who perceived and was proud of the lad’s unusual ability. “Let nothing be done to break his spirit; the world will effect that business soon enough.”
At a private school at Wandsworth, and subsequently at Eton, where Dr Philip Francis was his private tutor, the lad showed himself both intelligent and diligent. His education was interrupted in 1763, when his father took him to Paris and Spa, and at that early age initiated him into the mysteries of gaming, the passion for which was subsequently to exercise a most adverse influence on him. On his return to Eton his newly acquired knowledge of the world demoralised his companions, and he gave himself airs and thought himself a man until the headmaster birched him, and so brought him down to earth. In 1764 he went to Hertford College, Oxford, preceded by a reputation for Latin verse, a considerable knowledge of French, and a power of oratory unusual in one so young, but which he attributed to the fact that at home he had always been encouraged to think freely, and as freely to express his opinions. At the University he read deeply in classics and history, and the taste then developed endured through life, for, while he indulged in many frivolities, he would in the midst of them steal a few hours to devote to the books of which he never wearied. Towards the end of his days he put his learning into harness, and wrote a history of the reign of James II. and an account of the Revolution of 1688 that do not deserve to be relegated to obscurity.
Much has been written about the faults of Fox, but some of them, at least, should not be held greatly to his discredit, since they were the faults of the age. Wine, women and cards were the occupations of his companions, and not of the unintelligent only. Everybody drank and drank deeply, drank in pursuit of pleasure, drank to drown sorrow.
“I dined at Holland House” (wrote the Right Honourable Charles Rigby upon one occasion to George Selwyn), “where, though I drank claret with the master of it from dinner till two in the morning, I could not wash away the sorrow he is in at the shocking condition his eldest boy is in.”
Fox, Sheridan, Pitt and, notably, Professor Porson were three-bottle men, and it was not unusual for politicians to go to Westminster Hall in a state of insobriety.
“Fox drinks what I should call a great deal, though he is not reckoned to do so by his companions; Sheridan, excessively, and Grey more than any of them; while Pitt, I am told, drinks as much as anybody, generally more than any of his company, and is a pleasant, convivial man at table,”