and then insidiously throw in some extraneous matter to make them overlook the studied violation of the order before proposed, to catch the credulous by surprise, and to let the unwary imagine that a difficulty had been solved, because the intention of solving it had been confidently announced. His transitions were indeed abrupt, but not offensive. They exercised our judgment, but did not perplex or mislead it. Artless and eager he pushed onwards where inferior speakers would have been anxiously employed in anticipating petty cavils, in deprecating perverse interpretations, in stimulating the dull, and flattering the attentive. If a vivid conception sprung up in his mind, he chaced it till he had seized and laid open every property which belonged to his subject, and upon quitting it he without effort returned to the leading points of the debate.

Considered as a leader of opposition who was to investigate the reasons assigned for public measures, Mr. Fox seldom put forth his strength in reply, and perhaps they who engage in it sometimes find themselves exposed to inconveniences which more than counterbalance the advantages of arbitrary selection. A speaker may be compelled to pursue the track pointed out by his antagonist, or to irritate a weary and impatient audience by detailing the circumstances which induce him to strike into another path. He may be required to embody what is scattered in the mass of speeches previously delivered by other men; to restore to its right place what had been pushed aside from it by a crafty, or headstrong, or blundering disputant;

to separate what had been confounded; to elucidate what had been darkened; to bring forward what had been overlooked; to lay bare the unsoundness of premises already admitted, and the fallacy of conclusions already approved; to strip the mask from specious imposture, and to break the spells of misapplied eloquence. Thus arduous is the task of reply; and it were useless to inquire whether Mr. Fox was prevented from frequently undertaking it by the warmth of his temper, by the consciousness of his ability to develope truth in another form, or by his fearlessness of sophistry however dexterous, and declamation however splendid. But that he was thoroughly qualified for performing such a task we have better testimony than the eulogies of his admirers or the concessions of his enemies, and we may find that testimony in the general practice of his keen-eyed competitor. Even Mr. Pitt, though he was himself eminently skilful in reply, seems indirectly to have given Mr. Fox credit for equal skill. Hence with every advantage in his favour from popular opinion and official information, he rarely delivered his own sentiments till his impetuous, and sometimes incautious antagonist had enabled him to discern what to attack or to defend, to enforce or to disguise. Great, I allow, under any circumstances, and in any large assembly, must be the fascination of such a speaker as Mr. Pitt, from the fulness of his tones, the distinctness of his articulation, the boldness of his spirit, the sharp ness of his invectives,35 the plausibility of his statements, and the readiness, copiousness, and brilliancy

of his style. But I suspect that he was indebted for much of his success to the deliberate and habitual reservation of his strength to undermine what he could not overthrow, to crush by contradiction what he could not distort by misrepresentation, to expatiate on the weaker side of the arguments adduced by his opponents, to thrust back the stronger from the view of his hearers, and to efface the conviction left upon their minds by a mighty rival, when having risen professedly as an answerer he could without detection and without resistance employ every ingenious artifice, and every vehement struggle in making the last impression by his own last words.

You have sometimes complained to me of the annoyance you had suffered from persons who are fond of raising metaphysical mists around the ordinary topics of conversation, who impede the easy movements of common sense by throwing logical obstacles in its way, and who indulged their ill-dissembled vanity, or too well-dissembled spleen, by expatiating upon specious but frivolous distinctions, which confound the unlearned, and mislead the unwary. "The talents of Mr. Fox (say these critics) are not only overrated but misunderstood. He never struck out any new lights, but gave us now and then a more distinct perception of old ones. He thought only what many other men have often thought before him, but he was expert enough in saying it better than it usually is said." Be it so. In politics as in the general science of ethics, it were absurd at this time of day to look for the

discovery of principles in the strict and philosophical sense of the word. Combination, arrangement, improvements in the choice of terms, 36 and above all promptitude, firmness, and integrity in the application of truths long known to ever varying exigencies in the interests of society, and to infinitely diversified contingencies in human life; these are almost the only objects to which the ingenuity of man can be usefully directed in his speculative researches, or his practical pursuits. Here indeed a wide field opens itself for numerous and important differences between different writers, different statesmen, different communities, and different ages. Mr. Fox was not weak enough to pretend to abstract discoveries. He was wise enough to know that in the opinion of Cicero and other great writers, and in the practice of himself and other great speakers, the most powerful effects are wrought in popular assemblies by the adaptation of matter, and if possible even of language to the common judgments of men, founded as they always are upon the common or uncommon occurrences of the world. He aspired only to the praise of understanding clearly, and directing honestly, those political rules which good sense had suggested to the minds of our fathers, and which in reality had been perceived, disseminated, and approved even "in the old time before them." Happy were it for mankind if his knowledge so acquired and so employed, had never been thwarted by sophistry, never overborne

by declamation, nor finally baffled by contrary notions, 37 which eventually have contributed very little to the honour of our government, or the safety of our country. I have long seen through the specious disguise which at first was thrown over those notions, and I now feel very unpleasant forebodings of their ultimate tendency. But whatsoever errors they might involve, and whatsoever mischiefs they may have produced, I do not forget that they were once adopted by some well-meaning and well-informed men, whose opinions I shall ever disdain to vilify by comparison with those swarms of new and pestilential theories which lately darkened the face of the continent, and compelled every star in the intellectual firmament to "withdraw its shining."

The masculine understanding of Mr. Fox led him to explore and to discriminate most carefully the various sources of those evils, which by ordinary politicians are huddled together into one common lump, and which are ascribed to a few prominent causes, when they in truth are the results of many other causes, less observed indeed, but not less real, nor in their aggregate less efficacious.

He was aware that in the progress of knowledge, men are led, not merely by vague and wanton curiosity, but by the connexion of the subject with their own personal happiness, to enquire into the forms and effects of the government under which they live-that by confused and painful perceptions of wrongs, they are pushed on to frame distinct and indistinct notions of rights-that even in this state