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equal sincerity, and with greater pleasure, we bear testimony to her talents, her good sense, and her real piety. There occur, every now and then, in her productions, very original, and very profound observations. Her advice is very often characterised by the most amiable good sense, and conveyed in the most brilliant and inviting style. If, instead of belonging to a trumpery faction, she had only watched over those great points of religion in which the hearts of every sect of Christians are interested, she would have been one of the most useful and valuable writers of her day. As it is, every man would wish his wife and his children to read Colebs; watching himself its effects; separating the piety from the puerility; - and showing that it is very possible to be a good Christian, without degrading the human understanding to the trash and folly of Methodism.

CHARACTERS OF FOX. (E. REVIEW, 1809.)

Characters of the late Charles James Fox. By Philopatris Varvicensis. 2 vols. 8vo.

THIS singular work consists of a collection of all the panegyrics passed upon Mr. Fox, after his decease, in periodical publications, speeches, sermons, or elsewhere, -in a panegyric upon Mr. Fox by Philopatris himself, -and in a volume of notes by the said Philopatris upon the said panegyric.

Of the panegyrics, that by Sir James Mackintosh appears to us to be by far the best. It is remarkable for good sense, acting upon a perfect knowledge of his subject, for simplicity, and for feeling. Amid the languid or turgid efforts of mediocrity, it is delightful to notice the skill, attention, and resources of a superior man, — of a man, too, who seems to feel what he writes,—who does not aim at conveying his meaning in rhetorical and ornamented phrases, but who uses plain words to express strong sensations. We cannot help wishing, indeed, that Sir James Mackintosh had been more diffuse upon the political character of Mr. Fox, the great feature of whose life was the long and unwearied opposition which he made to the low cunning, the profligate extravagance, the sycophant mediocrity, and the stupid obstinacy of the English Court.

To estimate the merit, and the difficulty, of this opposition, we must remember the enormous influence which the Crown, through the medium of its patronage, exercises in the remotest corners of the kingdom, the number of subjects whom it the much greater pays, number whom it keeps in a state of expectation, and the ferocious turpitude of those mercenaries whose present profits and future hopes are threatened by honest,

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and exposed by eloquent men. It is the easiest of all things, too, in this country, to make Englishmen believe that those who oppose the Government wish to ruin the country. The English are a very busy people; and, with all the faults of their governors, they are still a very happy people. They have, as they ought to have, a perfect confidence in the administration of justice. The rights which the different classes of mankind exercise the one over the other are arranged upon equitable principles. Life, liberty, and property are protected from the violence and caprice of power. The visible and immediate stake, therefore, for which English politicians play, is not large enough to attract the notice of the people, and to call them off from their daily occupations, to investigate thoroughly the characters and motives of men engaged in the business of legislation. The people can only understand, and attend to, the last results of a long series of measures. They are impatient of the details which lead to these results; and it is the easiest of all things to make them believe that those who insist upon such details are actuated only by factious motives. We are all now groaning under the weight of taxes: but how often was Mr. Fox followed by the curses of his country for protesting against the two wars which have loaded us with these taxes?-the one of which wars has made America independent, and the other rendered France omnipotent. The case is the same with all the branches of public liberty. If the broad and palpable question were, whether every book which issues from the press should be subjected to the licence of a general censor, it would be impossible to blacken the character of any man who, so called upon, defended the liberty of publishing opinions. But, when the Attorney-General for the time being ingratiates himself with the Court, by nibbling at this valuable privilege of the people, it is very easy to treat hostility to his measures as a minute and frivolous opposition to the Government, and to persuade the mass of mankind that it is so. In fact, when a nation has become free, it is extremely difficult to persuade them that their freedom

is only to be preserved by perpetual and minute jealousy. They do not observe that there is a constant, perhaps an unconscious, effort on the part of their governors to diminish, and so ultimately to destroy, that freedom. They stupidly imagine that what is, will always be; and, contented with the good they have already gained, are easily persuaded to suspect and vilify those friends -the object of whose life it is to preserve that good, and to increase it.

It was the lot of Mr. Fox to fight this battle for the greater part of his life; in the course of which time he never was seduced, by the love of power, wealth, nor popularity, to sacrifice the happiness of the many to the interests of the few. He rightly thought, that kings and all public officers were instituted only for the good of those over whom they preside; and he acted as if this conviction was always present to his mind; disdaining and withstanding that idolatrous tendency of mankind, by which they so often not only suffer, but invite, ruin from that power which they themselves have wisely created for their own happiness. He loved, too, the happiness of his countrymen more than their favour; and while others were exhausting the resources by flattering the ignorant prejudices and foolish passions of the country, Mr. Fox was content to be odious to the people, so long as he could be useful also. It will be long before we witness again such pertinacious opposition to the alarming power of the Crown, and to the follies of our public measures, the necessary consequence of that power. That such opposition should ever be united again with such extraordinary talents, it is, perhaps, in vain to hope.

One little exception to the eulogium of Sir James Mackintosh upon Mr. Fox, we cannot help making. We are no admirers of Mr. Fox's poetry. His Vers de Société appears to us flat and insipid. To write verses was the only thing which Mr. Fox ever attempted to do, without doing it well. In that single instance he seems to have mistaken his talent.

Immediately after the collection of panegyrics which

these volumes contain, follows the eulogium of Mr. Fox by Philopatris himself; and then a volume of notes upon a variety of topics which this eulogium has suggested. Of the laudatory talents of this Warwickshire patriot, we shall present our readers with a specimen.

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Mr. Fox, though not an adept in the use of political wiles, was very unlikely to be the dupe of them. He was conversant in the ways of man, as well as in the contents of books. He was acquainted with the peculiar language of states, their peculiar forms, and the grounds and effects of their peculiar usages. From his earliest youth, he had investigated the science of politics in the greater and the smaller scale; he had studied it in the records of history, both popular and rare - in the conferences of ambassadors in the archives of royal cabinets in the minuter detail of memoirs and in collected or straggling anecdotes of the wrangles, intrigues, and cabals, which, springing up in the secret recesses of courts, shed their baneful influence on the determinations of sovereigns, the fortune of favourites, and the tranquillity of kingdoms. But that statesmen of all ages, like priests of all religions, are in all respects alike, is a doctrine the propagation of which he left, as an inglorious privilege, to the misanthrope, to the recluse, to the factious incendiary, and to the unlettered multitude. For himself, he thought it no very extraordinary stretch of penetration or charity, to admit that human nature is every where nearly as capable of emulation in good, as in evil. He boasted of no very exalted heroism, in opposing the calmness and firmness of conscious integrity to the shuffling and slippery movements, the feints in retreat and feints in advance, the dread of being over-reached, or detected in attempts to over-reach, and all the other humiliating and mortifying anxieties of the most accomplished proficients in the art of diplomacy. He reproached himself for no guilt, when he endeavoured to obtain that respect and confidence which the human heart unavoidably feels in its intercourse with persons who neither wound our pride, nor take aim at our happiness, in a war of hollow and ambiguous words. He was sensible of no weakness in believing that politicians, who, after all, "know only as they are known," may, like other human beings, be at first the involuntary creatures of circumstances, and seem incorrigible from the want of opportunities or incitements to correct themselves; that, bereft of the pleas usually urged in vindication of deceit, by men who are fearful of being deceived, they, in their official dealings with him, would not wantonly lavish the stores they had laid up for huckstering in a

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