most extravagant buck---while exerting the powers of his oratory to economise the nation, he was ruining his own fortune-while the senate listened with wonder and admiration at the wisdom of his orations, the young and the thoughtless were following him as the leader of their fashions and their follies. In dress he exceeded the most finished fop: he revived the fashion of red heeled shoes, which had been laid aside at the beginning of the last century, by wearing them on a birth-night; and a variety of personal decorations of that time owed their origin to his fancy. During the peace of Amiens, Mr. Fox visited Paris, and was received at the court of the First Consul with marks of the highest respect. This visit, however, did not increase the good opinion entertained of the orator in his own country. The disastrous and unexpected events upon the continent, in 1805, having rendered the great designs of Mr. Pitt, for checking the ambition of France, and restoring the balance of Europe, ineffectual, the nation seemed to droop with disappointment and dismay; and the lamented death of that great man taking place immediately after, left it in a state unknown to the records of history. This was no moment for party contention. The sovereign and the people were actuated by the same mind. It was found that nothing but a combination of the greatest talent in the country could be able to stand against such an accumulation of evils, and direct the helm amid the tempest. All former animosity was forgotten on every side, and the long-rejected Mr. Fox was at this momentous period called to the councils of his sovereign, in conjunction with the most splendid ability of the nation: but the heterogeneous principles which they had professed soon shewed that no good was to be expected from their exertions; and after the death of Mr. Fox, which happened on the 13th of September, 1806, their measures were so absurd, and their conduct so overbearing, that on their dismissal in March last, a general joy diffused itself through the nation. Mr. Fox was always forward to confess the brilliant genius and high attainments of his great rival, and whenever he spoke of his talents, no friend could utter his praises with more enthusiasm. He was equally alive to the sentiments of friendship and of love. In the former, perhaps, his feelings blinded his judgment: they magnified beauties and rendered faults invisible, as in his eulogium on the late Duke of Bedford, in the House of Commons. He as cribed to that nobleman every virtue, every dignity of: man, denying him even a fault; or if he had a fault, that it was the re. sult of virtue. We confess, that we could see nothing of this transcendent virtue or greatness of mind, nothing that raised him above the common standard of his contemporaries, except his great wealth. His constant attachment to Mrs. Armstead is worthy of praise. He led that lady to the altar, we believe, in the year 1794, although he did not avow it for eight years after. "He has faults," said Mr. Burke, "but they are faults, that, though they may, in a small degree, tarnish his lustre, and sometimes impede the march of his abilities, have nothing in them to extinguish the fire of great virtues. In those faults, there is no mixture of deceit, of hypo. crisy, of pride, of ferocity, of complexional despotism, or want of feeling for the distresses of mankind. His are faults which might exist in a descendant of Henry the Fourth of France, as they did exist in that father of his country." Had Mr. Fox lived at the time when it became our lot to prepare the above biographical account of him, it would, indeed, have been less favourable than we have here made it; but we wish not to disturb the ashes of the dead: " De mortuis nil nisi bonum," is a maxim which we always pride ourselves in adopting; and though, in our memoirs of this great character, we have endeavoured, as much as possible, to substitute “verum” for “ bonum,” it must not be supposed that we were amongst his political partisans. On the contrary, we only judged of his abilities by comparison; and, certainly, when compared to those of his immortal opponent, they 'were (as we have observed in a distant part of our present volume) like Time contrasted with Eternity. Nor do we think that his loss to the nation is by any means so great as has been imagined; and his majesty would have aptly answered those who persuaded him that, by the death of Mr. Fox, our country was ruined, had he quoted, in the words of king Henry, a couplet from the old ballad of "Chevy Chase," "I trust I have within my realm LIFE OF MRS. CHARLOTTE SMITH. THREE accounts of the Life and Writings of Mrs. Smith have appeared; one, some years previous to her dissolution, in the third volume of Public Characters, and two since; the first, very im perfectly executed in the European Magazine for the month of November, and the second, in the first number of a work entitled Censura Literaria, by S. E. Bridges, Esq. who has paid a just tri bute to the genius, literary talents, and private virtues of the lady; and the intention of her family has already been announc ed of publishing her Memoirs on a more enlarged plan, with a selection of her correspondence; it would therefore be anticipat ing the pleasure the public are likely to receive from so desir able and interesting a piece of biography, were we here to enter into a minute detail of circumstances. Mrs. Smith was the eldest daughter of Nicholas Turner, Esq. a gentleman of fortune, who inherited considerable estates in the counties of Surry and Sussex. He was a man of very superior talents, remarkable for the brilliancy of his wit, his powers of conversation, and a peculiar vein of humour, which rendered him the delight of society. Her mother, whose maiden name was Towers, was as distinguished by the graces of her mind, as by a person of exquisite beauty; but this lady died in child-bed before her eldest daughter had attained her fourth year, and the care of her person devolved on an aunt, the sister of her deceased mo. ther. Mr. Turner early discovered such indications of genius in the infant mind of his child, that he determined no expence should be spared in the cultivation of those talents which she seemed to have inherited from both her parents; and therefore bestowed on her what was thought the best education. She was placed in one of the most distinguished seminaries in the neighbourhood of London; and, on quitting school, which she did at an early age, she was attended by various masters: and, if expence constituted a good education, she may be said to have received the best that could have been given; but Mrs. Smith frequently regretted, that' in the conduct of it so little judgment was shewn, and that the time lost in the attainment of superficial accomplishments was not employed in more useful studies, in the acquirement of languages, and still more, that so little attention was paid to enforce those important principles which fortify the mind, and enable it to struggle against the inevitable evils of life. Her father was himself a poet, and encouraged this talent in his daughter, who, as she tells us in one of her last works, composed verses at a very early age; but her aunt had imbibed an opinion, that learning disqualified women for their own peculiar duties, and was in general unfavourable to their establishment in life, and observed with great disapprobation this turn of mind, and the passion of her niece for reading, and prohibited her from so employing her time, without however taking any effectual measure to prevent her gratifying this taste; so that she had always the power of carrying on her contraband studies, and every book that came in her way, she devoured with avidity, and with little discrimination. By this means she acquired a mass of desultory knowledge, which, by exciting her curiosity, led her on at a subsequent period in pursuit of more perfect information. Her father, having sold his Surry estates, divided his time between his house in Sussex and one he took in London; and his daughter was early introduced into society, partook of all the amusement and dissipation her father and aunt engaged in, and entered into them with that eager. ness natural to a young person; and as her very fine form had attained the stature of a woman, she wore the dress of one, and it has been said that her father received proposals for her, at the early age of thirteen, from a gentleman who had seen her at a public assembly, and was struck with the charms of her figure--an offer which was declined on account of her extreme youth. It had been happy, had a reason so substantial operated a few years longer; but before she was sixteen, she was married to the younger son of Richard Smith, Esq., who was a West India merchant of much eminence, and this son was associated in the father's business. After having been accustomed to the most bound. less indulgence from her own family, (and to her aunt every wish and caprice of her's was a law,) she was suddenly involved in household cares, and had many other canses to regret the union. From this marriage, which had been brought about by the offici ousness of friends, and which was by no means the effect of attachment on either side, all the future misfortunes of the subject of these pages originated: an uncle of Mrs. S. was the only person of the family who saw, and foretold all the misery that would result from an union, in which neither the habits, nor the temper of the parties had been considered; when neither were arrived at a time of life, to ascertain or appreciate the character of each other; but he had not suflicient weight to induce those, who saw this connection in a different view, to break it off. Mr. Turner was on the point of marrying a second wife, who although she exacted much consideration in consequence of her large fortune, had little claim to it from her personal qualities, and whose authority a grown-up daughter, who had never been accustomed to controul, would most probably have resisted: he consequently felt no reluctance in closing with proposals, which relieved him from the apprehensions he entertained, and this marriage took place on the 22d of February, 1765! The residence of the young people was in a very disgusting part of the city, from whence they removed in the course of two years; the death of their first child, and the b effect this first affliction had on a young mother, so endangered her health, and that of her second child, whom she nursed, and who was born on the same day its brother expired, that it was found necessary to remove them to purer air. The village of Southgate was chosen for this purpose, where Mrs. Smith recovered from her indisposition; and her understanding in time subdued the sorrow which she had first given way to, with excess. In this quiet spot, she had now more command of her time, and the use of a good library, and the power, from being much alone, of following those pursuits to which she was attached, enabled her to form her taste and devote her thoughts to intellectual improvement: but this produced one unfortunate result, it opened her eyes to those defects she had hitherto been unwilling to see; yet, although she could no longer be blind to them herself, she endeavoured to conceal them from the observation of others, and, in her own beha. viour towards her husband, tried to give him consequence. His inattention to business was extremely displeasing to his father, and the increase of the family making a larger house necessary, their next residence was within five miles of London; and soon after Mr. Smith's father purchased an estate called Lys Farm, Hampshire. But he had no sooner removed thither, than he began enlarging the house, and making additions to the garden and offices on an extensive plan; his agricultural pursuits became ex. pensive and ruinous in proportion to his inexperience; and Mrs. Smith soon found, that her domestic comforts were by no means increased, and she had only hartered one species of misery for another. Here she lost her eldest son, a boy of very superior in. tellect, and who promised to partake much of his mother's genius: this was a deep affliction to his mother; he did not long survive his grandfather, the father of Mr. Smith, whose death was far from being an advantage to his daughter-in-law, for in him she lost a steady and affectionate friend, who had always her interest and happiness at heart. He left a very large property among his grandchildren, of which there were several, besides the eight. children of his youngest son; but his will was so extremely prolix and confused, that no two lawyers understood it; so that the trustees appointed by it refused to act, and Mr. Smith became, as principal executor, possessed of the entire management of these extensive concerns, in the conduct of which he acted with so little caution, and so little to the satisfaction of the several collateral branches of the family concerned, that they felt themselves compelled to appeal to the law. The consequences were disastrous; but Mrs. Smith did not in the hour of distress desert her husband, |