plexing negociations between his own and foreign countries. In conducting them, he entered into the feelings and views of other men, without dissembling his own. He compared that which under all circumstances each might demand, with that which each might concede. He rescued concession itself from every debasing appearance of submission. He strengthened his own title to the ultimate attainment, or the undisturbed use, of great and lasting advantages, by the sacrifice of such as are subordinate, fleeting, or dubious; and he averted the odium which attends superior power, by subjecting the exercise of it to the sacred supremacy of reason. He anticipated, and sometimes experienced, the loss of popularity and station, for venturing to sustain the part which alone would make him deserving of either; and he sought for repose in the approbation of his own mind. But if patriotism upon other occasions, and by other men, were thus tempered by justice,25 would governments be less stable, ministers less praiseworthy, subjects less prosperous, or princes less venerable? All profess to admire the same plain rule which he followed, and, misguided by ambition or selfishness, they hastily condemned him for following it openly and constantly. Mr. Fox despised, as I do, the quaint devices of that philanthropy which cast into deep shade the virtue of loving our country, and tricked out in garish confusion the social relations of one people to another. But he cherished that love most sincerely, and he applied it to the best uses, by his

profound knowledge and resolute observance of the duties which those relations prescribe.26

Our friend, as I have often remarked to you, had deeply explored the essential and characteristic properties of mixed governments,27 and upon balancing their comparative conveniences and inconveniences, he avowedly preferred them to the more simple forms. He saw in them more correctives for occasional abuses, and more inherent powers for general co-operation in the maintenance of social order. Yet he was aware that, sometimes from the slow, and sometimes from the sudden, operation of external circumstances, liberty may degenerate into licentiousness, and loyalty into servility, and from temperament, as well as reflection, he avoided, and exhorted others to avoid, both extremes. In the wayward passions and jarring interests of mankind he saw all the latent sources from which "offences must come," and without having recourse to the judicial interpositions of Heaven, he believed that, from the fearful and wonderful efficacy of those unalterable and irresistible laws which govern the affairs of kingdoms, evil, sooner or later, would overtake the real aggressor. Upon controverted questions of war, he said, with more consistency than Johnson, and with more sincerity, perhaps, than some of his contemporaries, "cuncta prius tentanda;" and, separating necessity from convenience, he acted up to his professions upon several trying occasions. But as to peace,28 he loved it, he sought it, he "ensued" it, he was largely gifted

with the "sweetest phrase"* of it, because to himself, as well as to some unknown personage in a work which he read with fondness, peace seemed to include all the constituents of that good 29 which philosophers have vainly sought in other quarters, and speciously represented under other names. Gifted with a faculty of presage not often equalled, in marking the signs of the times, and the bearings of general causes upon particular situations, he wished reform everywhere set up as a barrier against swift and sweeping destruction; and in order to facilitate the attainment of it at home, he enlisted himself, not in a ruffian band of democrats, but in "the noble army" of patriots.

Hence, at a juncture to which my thoughts will often be turned, because it forms a memorable æra in his life, he took the station pointed out to him by his judgment and his feelings. Favoured by little assistance from partizans, and having no other guidance than his own sense of imperious duty, he was reviled by all bad men; and even by some good men he was blamed for unseasonable and unbecoming pertinacity. Yet his candour prevented him from scoffing at the mistakes and prepossessions of other men with rude contempt: his good sense and his good nature did not permit him to slight the censure of those whom he had been accustomed to esteem: he was pierced with sorrow-not paralized by fear-and he journied onward, though wild beasts from the forest yelled

around him, and though "a lion stood in the way."

There is one topic, dear Sir, upon which I should be inclined to be quite silent, if I did not foresee that silence would, in some quarters, expose Mr. Fox to the suspicion of impiety, and myself to the imputation of indifference. Something therefore must be said upon it, and I will endeavour to say it intelligibly and ingenuously.

Of Mr. Fox's religious tenets, then, I cannot speak so fully, as from motives, not of impertinent curiosity, but of friendly anxiety, you may be disposed to wish. But I have often remarked that upon religious subjects he did not talk irreverently, and generally appeared unwilling to talk at all before strangers or friends. When we look back to the studies, and indeed the frailties of his youth, and the employments of his manhood, it were idle to suppose that he was deeply versed in theological lore. Yet, from conversations which have incidentally passed between him and myself, I am induced to think that, according to the views he had taken of Christianity, he did not find any decisive evidence for several doctrines, which many among the wisest of the sons of men have believed with the utmost sincerity, and defended with the most powerful aids of criticism, history, and philosophy. But he occasionally professed, and from his known veracity we may be sure that he inwardly felt, the highest approbation of its pure and benevolent precepts. Upon these, as upon many other topics, he was too delicate to wound the feelings of good

men, whose conviction might be firmer and more distinct than his own. He was too wise to insult with impious mockery the received opinions of mankind, when they were favourable to morality. He preserved the same regard to propriety, the same readiness to attend to information, when it was offered to him without sly circumvention or pert defiance, the same respect for the attainments and the virtues 30 of those who differed from him, and the same solicitude for the happiness of his fellow creatures. Thus much may be said with propriety, because it can be said with truth; and glad should I be if it were in my power to say more upon a point of character, which, in such a man, could not escape the observation of the serious, the misconceptions of the ignorant, and the censures of the uncharitable.

4

We naturally feel, and we ought to feel, satisfaction, from the concurrence of eminent men in our own opinions upon the most interesting of all questions which tend to exercise or improve the human mind. But it may be doubted, whether the real interests of piety be eventually promoted by officious, severe, inquisitorial scrutiny into the origin and extent of speculative scruples, which the persons who unhappily, and it may be unavoidably, experience them, are too discreet to proclaim, and too decorous to disseminate. Learned, sagacious, and truly devout enquirers are, beyond all other men, aware of the difficulties which sometimes surround the "secret things"31 that belong to religion; and perhaps, in many cases, it is for the Searcher of