On the 10th of September, 1806, died Charles James Fox, a man of such talents that perhaps his age did not produce his equal. He was born in 1749, and was the second son of Lord Holland, who spoilt his child by letting him have his own way in everything. At nine years of age, Charles was in the habit of reading his father’s dispatches, Lord Holland being then a Secretary of State; and one day Charles crumpled up the dispatch, saying calmly, ‘Too feeble!’ and threw the paper into the fire. Lord Holland, far from rebuking him, merely re-wrote the dispatch.

Perhaps no child ever received so bad an education from his father as did Charles James Fox. The result was that Charles grew up into a most confirmed gamester, losing immense sums at cards and on the turf.

He was always extreme in all he undertook. As a young man at college, he walked fifty-six miles in one day for a wager, and, when in Ireland, swam twice round the Devil’s Punch-bowl, at Killarney. In dress, too, he was always noticeable, at first as a great dandy and a member of the famous ‘Maccaroni’ clique, who wore red-heeled shoes, carried muffs, and seemed only to live to make themselves talked about; and later on, in the days when he sympathised with the Republican movement in France, Fox affected great simplicity in dress, and at last became such a sloven that he did not even wear clean shirts.

But these were but the foibles of genius, for, notwithstanding all his fast life and many vices, Fox was hardly surpassed as a scholar, an orator, and a linguist; and, as a politician, Pitt himself, a life-long rival, frankly admitted that ‘Fox was a magician, who laid a spell upon his hearers as long as the words issued from his lips.’

Once, in 1793, Burke was passionately addressing the House of Commons on the necessity of placing foreigners, who were then flocking into our country from France, under strict police supervision. It was the time of the French Revolution, and Fox, though regretting the crimes then committed, was yet in favour of the Republican Government for that country, as offering greater freedom, and was very firm against declaring war with France.

Burke, however, went on to declare that these foreigners would soon infect Great Britain with their revolutionary ideas, and (hoping to produce a startling effect) he finally drew a dagger from his bosom, and flung it on the floor of the House, saying: ‘That is what you are to expect from an alliance with France!’

For a moment the House was startled, but Fox, with a readiness that never failed him, turned towards his opponent with a mocking smile, and, pointing to the dagger, said jestingly: ‘The Honourable Member has given us the knife; will he kindly favour us with the fork?’

The House burst into peals of laughter, and the incident, which Burke meant to be so solemn, ended in making him a laughing-stock.

Perhaps the last years of Fox were his best years; he settled down and married, living very happily with his wife, and taking great delight in gardening.

On the death of Pitt, Fox was chosen a member of the ‘Ministry of all the Talents,’ but he did not survive his great rival by many months. He was a dying man when he made his last supreme effort to address the House on the suppression of the Slave Trade.

‘If,’ said the dying statesman, ‘if this Bill becomes law, and I had done that, and that only, I could retire from public life with comfort, feeling I had done my duty.’ He was never again able to leave his room, but his friends did not realise that his end was so near.

One nobleman called on him, and said he was making up a party for Christmas, and hoped he might have the honour of including Fox amongst his guests. ‘It will be a new scene, sir, and I think you will approve,’ he said, persuasively.

‘I shall indeed be in a new scene by Christmas,’ said Fox, quietly, and then he went on, ‘My lord, what do you think of the immortality of the soul?’

The nobleman hardly knew what answer to make, and Fox continued, calmly: ‘I shall know by next Christmas.’

A few days later he was dead, and, after a most imposing funeral, his body was laid to rest in Westminster Abbey, but eighteen inches from the spot where, but a few months before, had been laid the body of his great rival, Pitt.

Taken from The Chatterbox, 1906

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It is quite true, as stated in several accounts of him, that Fox, when a very young man, was a prodigious dandy wearing a little odd French hat, shoes with red heels, &c. He and Lord Carlisle once travelled from Paris to Lyons for the express purpose of buying waistcoats ; and during the whole journey they talked about nothing else.

from: Powell, G.H.:Reminiscences and Table-Talk of Samuel Rogers. London: Johnson, 1903.