A hundred years ago last Thursday died Charles James Fox.
In spite of the fact that Mr. Fox charmed all his con- temporaries, irrespective of their political views, and that at
his death Wordsworth and Scott bewailed a great English- man, we cannot join in the panegyrics that have been heaped upon him during the week, notably in a very remarkable leading article in the Times of Thursday. Fox was first too frivolous, and then too factious, to earn the praise which belongs to the patriot. He was neither a true friend of his country nor a true friend of liberty. He was willing to sacri- fice, not only any cause, but the nation's dearest concerns, to party considerations, and his so-called love of freedom was nothing but a wild and disordered homage paid to an abstrac- tion which he believed to be unpopular with his political opponents. We have no desire to condemn Fox because of the excesses of his life, and we are aware that profligates have by no means always been incapable of making sacrifices for high causes. In Fox's case, however, the unbridled indulgence of his passions had "hardened all within and petrified the feeling," to such an extent that he bad become incapable of great actions, though, we admit, not of great speeches. When it was proposed to Cromwell that Charles IL should marry his daughter, and as his successor unite the warring elements in the State, Cromwell cut short the pro- posal with the remark : "He is so damnably debauched that he would undo us all." Had the control of Britain ever come into the hands of Charles James Fox, we do not doubt that the result would have been that prophesied by the Protector in regard to the man who, as Burke once reminded Fox, was his great-great-grandfather. Fox was no more a Liberal or a democrat than "old Rowley."
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