tenderness in friendship, which invariably marked Mr. Fox through life, as well as in those which faintly pourtray his love for his country, his zeal for public liberty, and his thirst for knowledge!

Your Royal Highness did not admit him to that distinguished share of your confidence and friendship, which soothed his moments of pain, without fully appreciating all his amiable and noble qualities!

Your Royal Highness will, I hope, indulgently pardon any warmth of expression, issuing from those feelings of enthusiasm and sensibility, which unavoidably grow out of the subject upon which I have treated, and which is still too affecting, even after a lapse of five years, to admit of the calm

ness which is necessary to enable an author to submit himself to public criticism.

I am bound also to intreat your Royal Highness's pardon, for thus intrüding upon your Royal Highness, while engaged in the midst of so many public cares, and afflicted by so much domestic sorrow!

Your Royal Highness will, however, I trust, impute my presumption to its just cause; to my Knowledge of your refined, and constant attention to a dying friend,of your anxiety for his repose, in moments when the world are too apt to neglect the departing sufferer,—of that interesting sensibility, which endears you so much to those who are acquainted t h you in the private circle, and of your public virtues, which are

drawing upon you the love, admiration, and blessings of this great empire!

I am, Sir,

With every sentiment of duty,

Of profound respect,

And unfeigned gratitude,

Your Royal Highness's

Devoted and dutiful Servant,

JOHN BERNARD TROTTER.

Montalta, near Wicklow, August, 1811.

PREFACE.

IN laying before the Public a work, purporting to consist of Memoirs, or Biographical Sketches, of a considerable part of the Life of the late RIGHT HONOURABLE CHARLES JAMES Fox, I have no claim to approbation for a complete and entire work, as my acquaintance with that illustrious character did not commence till the evening of his days. Consequently, I have not attempted to give a full account of his actions or life: others may hereafter accomplish that task; mine is at present a less important and less extensive one.

I knew Mr. Fox, however, at a period when his glories began to brighten,-when a philosophical and noble determination had, for a considerable time, induced him to renounce the captivating allurements and amusements of fashionable life, and when, resigning himself to rural pleasures, domestic retirement, and literary pursuits, he became a new man, or rather, more justly may I say, he returned to the solid enjoyment of a tranquil, yet refined, rural life, from which he had been awhile withdrawn, but had never been alienated.

The more we consider the nature of Mr. Fox's education, (which, according to modern views, might be deemed by many an excellent one, but had too much of incitement, and too little of discipline,) the more we must wonder at, and respect the firmness and self-correction which he evinced during the last half of his life. Educated by a father who early saw, and ad