midnight on the 18th of December a royal message was sent to the secretaries of state, demanding the seals of their several departments, and at the same time directing that they should be delivered to the sovereign by the under-secretaries, as a personal interview would be disagreeable. Early next morning letters of dismission, signed Temple, were sent to the other members of the cabinet. In a few days after Pitt was declared first lord of the treasury, and chancellor of the exchequer ; the marquess of Carmarthen and Thomas Townshend, created Lord Sydney, were nominated secretaries of state; Lord Thurlow was reinstated as lord-chancellor, and Earl Gower as president of the council; the duke of Rutland was constituted lord-privy-seal; Lord Howe placed at the head of the admiralty; and the duke of Richmond over the ordnance. The earl of Northington was recalled from his government of Ireland, to which Lord Temple-who had retained the seals of secretary only three days-was again appointed to succeed.

The tide of popularity now set in so strongly against Fox, that at the general election, in 1784, above seventy of his friends lost their seats in the house; and his own return for Westminster was, after a contest of 47 days, only gained by 235 votes, although he was supported by all the influence of the Portland and Devonshire families. From 1784 to 1792 Fox headed a most powerful opposition in the commons, and displayed transcendent genius in all the great questions that came before the house, such as the Westminster scrutiny, the Regency bill, the Libel bill, the trial of Hastings, and the motion for repeal of the corporation and test acts. On two great occasions the talents of Mr Fox proved eminently serviceable to the nation: one, when Mr Pitt, at the instigation of the court of Berlin, wished to wage an unprofitable war with Russia relative to the possession of Oczakow; the other, when, in the wantonness of power, he urged a contest with Spain. In 1788, worn out, and perhaps disgusted with public business, he repaired to the continent, in company with the lady whom he afterwards acknowledged as his wife, and after spending a few days with Gibbon, the historian, at Lausanne, entered the classic regions of Italy. But he was suddenly recalled, in consequence of the alarming illness of the king; and the business of the Regency bill was so ably managed by his rival, who now perceived it to be for his interest to stand on constitutional grounds, that the opposition rather lost than gained popularity

7 Mrs Armstead, a widow, it was believed, who, for some time, had resided in his house at St Anne's hill; and whom, after a lapse of nearly ten years, he acknowledged as his wife. Some accounts state that his marriage with her took place in 1780, while, according to others, it did not occur until 1794. The ceremony was privately performed by special license; and, whatever were his reasons, Fox was evidently very reluctant to the alliance being made public, although she was handsome, accomplished, and evidently attached to him. Fox, on his part, seems to have loved her sincerely. On the 24th of January, 1799, his birth-day, and the completion of his fiftieth year, he presented her, while at the breakfast table, with the following lines, written, as it is said, extemporaneously :

:

Of years I have now half a century pass'd,

And none of the fifty so bless'd as the last.

How it happens my troubles thus daily should cease,

And my happiness thus with my years should increase;

This defiance of Nature's more general laws

You alone can explain, who alone are the cause.'

by this measure. The following letter from Mr Gibbon to Lord Sheffield, is a striking testimony to the conversational merits of Fox :

"LAUSANNE, October 4th, 1788.

"The man of the people escaped from the tumult, the bloody tumult of the Westminster election, to the lakes and mountains of Switzerland, and I was informed that he was arrived at the Lion d'Or. I sent a compliment; he answered it in person, and settled at my house for the remainder of the day. I have ate and drank, and conversed and sat up all night with Fox in England; but it never happened, perhaps it never can happen again, that I should enjoy him as I did that day, alone, from ten in the morning till ten at night. Poor Deyverdun, before his accident, wanted spirits to appear, and has regretted it since. Our conversation never flagged a moment; and he seemed thoroughly pleased with the place and with his company. We had little politics; though he gave me, in a few words, such a character of Pitt as one great man should give of another, his rival; many of books, from my own, on which he flattered me very pleasantly, to Homer and the Arabian nights; much about the country, my garden-which he understands far better than I do—and, upon the whole, I think he envies me, and would do so were he minister. The next morning I gave him

a guide to walk him about the town and country, and invited some company to meet him at dinner. The following day he continued his journey to Berne and Zurich, and I have heard of him by various means. The people gaze on him as a prodigy, but he shows little inclination to converse with them."

"8

With the first movements in the French revolution Fox sympathized as a sincere lover of the liberties of mankind. The last session of the parliament elected in 1784 opened on the 21st of January, 1790. The speech from the throne slightly glanced at the affairs of France. His majesty observed that "the internal situation of the different parts of Europe had been productive of events which had engaged his most serious attention." Lord Valletort, in moving the address, took occasion to contrast the tranquil and prosperous situation of England with the anarchy and licentiousness which, he said, now reigned in France, and to stigmatize the revolution in that country as an event the most disastrous and fatal to the interests of the French which had ever taken place since the foundation of their monarchy. This language was highly applauded by the old prerogative phalanx, and was a tolerable indication of the light in which the recent transactions in France were viewed by the British court. The subject was resumed upon the debate which took place on February the 9th relative to the army-estimates. Mr Burke observed, "that on a review of all Europe, he did not find that politically we stood in the smallest degree of danger from any one state or kingdom it contained; or that any foreign powers, but our own allies, were likely to gain a preponderance in the scale. The French had shown themselves the ablest architects of ruin that had hitherto appeared in the world. In one short summer they had completely pulled down their monarchy, their church, their nobility, their law, their army, and their revenue! Were we absolute conquerors,

4to. Edition, vol. i, of Memoirs, p. 192.

and France to lie prostrate at our feet, we should blush to impose upon them terms so destructive to all their consequence as a nation, as the durance they had imposed upon themselves. Our danger, from the example of a people whose character knew no medium, was, with regard to government, a danger from licentious violence, a danger of being led from admiration to imitation of the excesses of an unprincipled, plundering, ferocious, bloody, and tyrannical democracy,-of a people whose government is anarchy, and whose religion is atheism ! He declared he felt great concern that this strange thing, called a revolution in France, should be compared with the glorious event commonly called the revolution in England. In truth, the circumstances of our revolution, as it is called, and that of France, were just the reverse of each other in almost every particular, and in the whole spirit of the transaction. What we did was, in truth and substance, not a revolution made but prevented. We took solid securities; we settled doubtful questions; we corrected anomalies in our law. In the stable fundamental parts of our constitution we made no revolution; no! nor any alteration at all. We did not impair the monarchy. The nation kept the same ranks, the same subordinations, the same franchises; the same order in the law, the revenue, and the magistracy; the same lords, the same commons, the same corporations, the same electors. The church was not impaired. Her estates, her majesty, her splendour, her orders and gradations continued the same. She was preserved in her full efficiency, and cleared only of that intolerance which was her weakness and disgrace. Was little done then because a revolution was not made in her constitution? No! every thing was done; because we commenced with reparation, not with ruin. The state flourished; Great Britain rose above the standard of her former self; all the energies of the country were awakened; and a new era of prosperity commenced, which still continues, not only unimpaired, but is receiving growth and improvement under the wasting hand of time." After this philippic, Mr Fox, notwithstanding his personal regard and friendship for Burke, thought it necessary, in justice to his own character, to declare "his total dissent from opinions so hostile to the general principles of liberty; and which he was grieved to hear from the lips of a man whom he loved and revered, by whose precepts he had been taught,-by whose example he had been animated to engage in their defence. He vindicated the conduct of the French army in refusing to act against their fellowcitizens from the aspersions of Burke, who had charged them with abetting an abominable sedition by mutiny and desertion; declaring, that if he could view a standing military force with less constitutional jealousy than before, it was owing to the noble spirit manifested by the French army, who, on becoming soldiers, had proved that they did not forfeit their character as citizens, and would not act as the mere instruments of a despot. The scenes of bloodshed and cruelty that had been acted in France, no man could hear of without lamenting. But when the grievous tyranny that the people had so long groaned under was considered, the excesses they had committed in their efforts to shake off the yoke could not excite our astonishment so much as our regret. And as to the contrast Mr Burke had exhibited, respecting the mode in which the two revolutions of England and France were conducted, it must be remembered, he said, that the situation of the two kingdoms

was totally different. In France a new constitution was to be created; in England, it wanted only to be secured. If the fabric of government in England suffered less alteration, it was because it required less alteration; if a general destruction of the ancient constitution had taken place in France, it was because the whole system was radically hostile to liberty, and that every part of it breathed the direful spirit of despotism."

Mr Burke, says Moore in his 'Life of Sheridan,' "had published his celebrated Reflections' in the month of November, 1790; and never did any work, with the exception, perhaps, of the Eikon Basilike,' produce such a rapid, deep, and general sensation. The Eikon was

the book of a king, and this might, in another sense, be called the Book of Kings. Not only in England, but throughout all Europe,— in every part of which monarchy was now trembling for its existence,this lofty appeal to loyalty was heard and welcomed. Its effect upon the already tottering whig party was like that of the voice,' in the ruins of Rome, 'disparting towers.' The whole fabric of the old Rockingham confederacy shook to its base. Even some, who afterwards recovered their equilibrium, at first yielded to the eloquence of this extraordinary book,-which, like the era of chivalry, whose loss it deplores, mixes a grandeur with error, and throws a charm round political superstition, that will long render its pages a sort of region of royal romance, to which fancy will have recourse for illusions that have lost their last hold on the reason. The undisguised freedom with which Mr Fox and Mr Sheridan expressed every where their opinions of this work and its principles had, of course, no small influence on the temper of the author, and, while it confirmed him in his hatred and jealousy of the one, prepared him for the breach which he meditated with the other. This breach was now, indeed, daily expected, as a natural sequel to the rupture with Mr Sheridan in the last session; but, by various accidents and interpositions, the crisis was delayed till the 6th of May, when the recommitment of the Quebec bill,‚—a question, upon which both orators had already taken occasion to unfold their views of the French revolution,-furnished Burke with an opportunity, of which he impetuously took advantage, to sever the tie between himself and Mr Fox for ever. This scene, so singular in a public assembly, where the natural affections are but seldom called out, and where, though bursts of temper like that of Burke are common, such tears as those shed by Mr Fox are rare phenomena,—has been so often described in various publications, that it would be superfluous to enter into the details of it here. The following are the solemn and stern words in which sentence of death was pronounced upon a friendship, that had now lasted for more than the fourth part of a century. certainly,' said Mr Burke, 'was indiscretion at any period, but especially at his time of life, to provoke enemies, or to give his friends occasion to desert him; yet, if his firm and steady adherence to the British constitution placed him in such a dilemma, he would risk all, and as public duty and public prudence taught him, with his last words exclaim, Fly from the French constitution." [Mr Fox here whispered, that there was no loss of friendship.'] Mr Burke said, 'Yes, there was a loss of friendship;-he knew the price of his conduct;-he had done his duty at the price of his friend;—their friendship was at an

'It

end.' In rising to reply to the speech of Burke, Mr Fox was so affected as to be, for some moments, unable to speak :-he wept, it is said, even to sobbing; and persons who were in the gallery at the time declare, that, while he spoke, there was hardly a dry eye around them."

On the opening of parliament on the 13th of December, 1792, it was intimated in the speech from the throne that "his majesty had judged it necessary to embody a part of the militia, and to call the parliament together within the time limited for that purpose," and the grounds of these strong measures were stated to be "the seditious practices which had been discovered, and the spirit of tumult and disorder shown in acts of riot and insurrection which required the interposition of a military force in support of the civil magistrate. The industry employed to excite discontent on various pretexts, and in different parts of the kingdom, appeared," it was added, "to proceed from a design to attempt the destruction of our happy constitution and the subversion of all order and government; and this design had evidently been pursued in connection and concert with persons in foreign countries. I have," said his majesty, "carefully observed a strict neutrality in the present war on the continent, and have uniformly abstained from any interference with respect to the internal government of France; but it is impossible for me to see without the most serious uneasiness the strong and increasing indications which have appeared there, of an intention to excite disturbances in other countries,-to disregard the rights of neutral nations, and pursue views of conquest and aggrandizement, as well as to adopt towards my allies, the states-general, measures which are neither conformable to the law of nations, nor to the positive stipulations of existing treaties." Under these circumstances his majesty thought it right to have recourse to those means of prevention and internal defence with which he was intrusted by law, and to make some augmentation of his naval and military force. On moving the address, in answer to the speech, a memorable debate arose; and never did the strength and superiority of Fox's genius appear so conspicuous as in this moment of national infatuation.

He began by observing, "that his majesty's speech contained a variety of assertions of the most extraordinary nature. It was the duty of that house to inquire into the truth of these assertions; and in discharging this part of his duty, he should consider the speech from the throne as the speech of the minister, which his majesty's confidential servants had advised him to deliver; and as they were responsible for that advice, to them every observation of his should be addressed. I state it, therefore," said Fox, "to be my firm opinion and belief that there is not one fact asserted in his majesty's speech which is not false; not one assertion or insinuation which is not unfounded. Nay, I cannot be so uncandid as to believe that ministers themselves think them true! The leading and prominent feature of the speech is a wanton and base calumny on the people of Great Britain; an insinuation of so black a nature that it demands the most rigorous inquiry, and the most severe punishment. The next assertion is, that there exists at this moment an insurrection in this kingdom. An insurrection !-Where is it? Where has it reared its head? Good God! an insurrection in Great Britain? The speech goes on in the same strain of falsehood and ca