judgment may be formed of what were his political principles from the circle with whom he associated.

At the head of the Prince of Wales's

political friends was Mr. Fox, a man equally calculated to delight in private and to command in public life.

Be

tween this illustrious statesman and the Prince of Wales, an intimacy commenced at this period, and was followed by a sincere attachment, which continued, on the part of the Prince, without any abatement to the death of Mr. Fox. That great man, then in the prime of life, though not of his glory, stood on a commanding eminence, and the eyes not only of his own nation, but of all the courts of Europe, were turned upon him, as the man above all others in the British dominions best qualified to be at the head of the government. But his bold independent spirit, the firmness with which he re

sisted the encroachments of the crown, and, above all, his sincere and unalterable attachment to the privileges of the people, were insurmountable objections to his reception at court. The king, educated in high tory maxims, was averse to his principles, and dreaded his spirit: the favourites of the court were naturally disgusted with bis integrity, and shrunk beneath his superior talents. In the parliamentary conduct of the man there was nothing to censure, and as a minister he had shown himself incapable of being influenced by the seductions of office, or tempted by the love of power to continue in place when the dictates of conscience and honour told him that he ought to resign.

In the public life of this illustrious man, there was nothing that the most implacable of his enemies could fix upon, that rendered him unfit to oc

cupy the first place in the confidence of the heir apparent to the crown, and therefore, in order to justify the obloquy which was cast upon the Prince of Wales for this attachment, it was necessary that the private character of Mr. Fox should undergo an examination; and the amusements and follies of his lighter hours were made to pass in a severe and malignant review before the public judgment. That Mr. Fox entered largely into the follies and extravagancies of his age, no man will for a moment be so absurd as to deny, but that his soul was capable of any thing dishonourable, mean, base, cruel, or treacherous, the basest of his calumniators have not had the au

dacity to assert. No 'being perhaps ever existed so little capable of acting with injustice towards another as Mr. Fox. Of his splendid, we may say indeed his matchless talents, it is un

necessary for us to speak, neither shall we indulge ourselves in any eulogium on that unconquerable love of freedom which, under the most adverse circumstances, and seducing temptations to desert its banners, he uniformly maintained, and which was characteristic of his heart at every period of his glorious career. Mr. Fox, in his gayer moments, was guilty unquestionably of many of the levities and indiscretions which young men of fashion and fortune are subject to, and like other men in similar circumstances, and of similar pursuits, he not unfrequently experienced great vicissitudes of fortune, but that ever he was concerned in any transaction which could bear the slightest imputation of dishonour, may be most confidently denied.

Could a character of Mr. Fox be drawn, abstracted from all consideration of the political scenes in which he

was engaged, he might well be described as having possessed a soul as full of honour as ever inhabited a mortal tenement, for take the word honour in whatever acceptance it can be applied, it will, from the narrowest scrutiny that can possibly be gone into Mr. Fox's life, be found, that he never, even in the remotest degree, violated the strictest laws of honour. But this, though certainly a shining trait of his character, formed but a small part of the merits of this eminent person. If we take into our consideration the mildness of his nature, the simplicity of his manners, and that tenderness of heart which made him a partner in human sufferings of every kind, and rendered the words of Terence,

Homo sum, nil humanum alienum a me puto,

in his mouth, not a hacknied quota