all hearts alone to determine either the merit of assent, or the demerit of suspense. Be this as it may, the spirit of Christianity does not warrant us in passing harsh judgment upon the thoughts of individuals, when they are unaccompanied by presumptuous words, or immoral deeds. Common justice forbids us to confound the unoffending sceptic with the loquacious and profane scoffer, and in times like the present, common prudence seems to require that he "who is not against us," should in some degree be considered as "for us." He at least has not availed himself of that impunity which, in order to guard against the encroachments of persecution, is granted, even in Christian countries, to the avowal of unbelief. He does not aspire to that praise which some men arrogantly claim, when they set up their infidelity as a proof of their own intellectual vigour, their extensive researches, and their glorious elevation above the credulity of the vulgar, and the terrors of the superstitious. Contemplating with reverence, and sometimes with amazement, the moral government of the world, he may feel, in common with many enlightened and pious believers, that "clouds and darkness are around" the Deity, while he acknowledges the force of many consolatory proofs that "Righteousness and Judgment are the habitation of his seat." If the rank and the talents of Lord Bolingbroke gave undue weight to the dangerous opinions which, after his death, but by his direction, were sent into the world, it is of importance for you and me to remind our countrymen that other persons adorned by rank equal or nearly equal, and endowed with talents not unequal, have more or less countenanced other and better opinions. Within our own memories, Lord North, Mr. Burke, Mr. Pitt, and Mr. Fox, were the great political luminaries of this country. But however they may have differed from each other in matters of "doubtful disputation," and however any of them might have erred in other matters, which to our apprehensions are clear; yet, as Englishmen, we have reason to rejoice that they were too well principled, and too well disposed, to prostitute their abilities in the service of infidelity -that they did not misemploy their authority, in bringing contempt upon the established religion of their country-that they avoided the guilt which the nobles of a neighbouring country are known to have incurred, when, misled by their vanity, they encouraged the common people to look with distrust and disrespect upon the guides of their faith, and the guardians of their virtue. I leave it to historians to bestow similar commendation upon three or four distinguished but discarded statesmen who are now living, and whom I forbear to name, lest my testimony, though well-founded, and perhaps well-timed, should be imputed to any unworthy motive. It is for my superiors in station and fortune to profit by their example, and it is for myself to pay the homage of my heart to their unostentatious virtues and noiseless piety. "Parco nominibus viventium veniet Eorum Laudi Suum tempus: ad posteros enim durabit Virtus, non pervenit invidia."* *Vid. Quintilian, lib. iii. cap. 1. Let us pass on to other topics, which concern the orator rather than the man. The most severe and fastidious critic would hardly withhold the praise of originality from the manner of Mr. Fox's eloquence, and perhaps no public speaker has an equal claim to the encomium which Quintilian bestowed upon the philosophical writings of Brutus: "Scias eum sentire quæ dicit."* Systematically Mr. Fox imitated 32 no man, and to no man who is not endowed with the same robustness of intellect and the same frankness of disposition, is he a model for imitation. The profuse imagery of Mr. Burke, and the lofty sententiousness of Mr. Pitt, have produced many followers among the "tumidos, ac sui jactantes, et ambitiosos institores eloquentiæ." But the simple and native grandeur of Mr. Fox is likely to stand alone in the records of English oratory. Every man of taste would abandon the hope of resembling him in the rapidity of his elocution, in the quickness and multiplicity of his conceptions, in the inartificial and diversified structure of his diction, in the alertness of his escapes from objections which we should have pronounced insuperable, in the fresh interest he poured into topics which seemed to be exhausted, and in the unexpected turn he gave to parliamentary conflicts, which had already exercised the prowess of veteran combatants. Every man of sense, if he reflects upon these transcendental excellencies, will cease to wonder at the complaints which hearers in * Vid. Quintilian, lib. x. cap. 1. ↑ Vid. lib. xi. cap. 1. the gallery, and hearers on the floor of the senate, have so often made of their inability to follow Mr. Fox through all his impetuous sallies, his swift marches, and his sudden evolutions-to calculate at the moment all the value of arguments acute without refinement, and ponderous without exaggeration-to discern all the sources and all the bearings of one observation, when, without any respite to their attention, they were called away to listen to another, equally apposite, sound, and comprehen sive. The openings of his speeches were, I grant, sometimes slovenly and uninteresting, and sometimes he seemed to be deserted by words, when his mind was oppressed by crowds of thought which outran his powers of utterance, and which it was impossible for any resolution to repress, or any ingenuity to methodize, instantaneously. But as he advanced, he never failed to summon up growing strength with the growing importance of the subject-never slackened his pace for the sake of momentary relief to himself from intense exerertion-never digressed designedly for the mere purpose of amusing or deceiving his audience, nor ever stumbled without the power of rising from his fall with increased vigour and increased speed. In the close, he rarely professed to assist the indolent by recapitulation, or endeavoured to soothe the captious by apology: he disdained to catch applause by a glittering sentiment or a sonorous period: he said what at the instant appeared fittest to be said, and according to the different states of his own mind, or the different characters of the question, he was temperate without languor, earnest without turbulence, pithy without quaintness, or solemn without grimace. The luminousness and regularity of his premeditated speeches 33 are, I believe, universally acknowledged, and yet in preparing even them, however convinced he might be with Cleanthes "artem esse potestatem, quæ viam et rationem efficiat," he seemed never to forget "desinere artem esse, si appareat."* But they who impute a frequent and unbecoming neglect of method to his extemporaneous effusions should be reminded, that in arrangement, as well as expression, genius may sometimes "snatch a grace beyond the reach of art." Mr. Fox was not accustomed, like Hortensius, " argumenta diducere in digitos, et propositionum ac partitionum leporem captare," and for this, as well as other reasons, the speeches of Mr. Fox, when we read them, are not exposed to the remark which a critic of antiquity made upon Hortensius, "apparet placuisse aliquid eo dicente, quod legentes non invenimus." Mr. Fox did not bestrew his exordiums with technical phrases coined in the mint of rhetoric. He did not tacitly compliment the sagacity of his hearers, nor entrap them into admiration of his own precision, by loud and reiterated professions of solicitude to be precise. He did not begin with requiring their at-. tention to a long and elaborate series of divisions,34 * Vid. Quintil. lib. ii. cap. 18, and lib. iv. cap. 2. |