Mr. Fox opposed to the utmost the war, into which the minister was unwillingly forced. But as his passions became heated, and the difficulties of his situation increased, Mr. Pitt adopted all Mr. Burke’s views, and the rash project of a _bellum internecinum_. Both the public principles and the personal character of Mr. Fox were the subject of daily calumnies; and the warmth of his early testimony in favour of the French revolution was continually thrown in his teeth, after the 10th of August, the massacres of September, and the success of Dumourier. But his whole conduct during this struggle was clear and consistent. At the dawn of the revolution, he felt and spoke as a citizen of the world; but he was the last man alive to have merged patriotism in the vague generalities of universal benevolence. When his own country became implicated in the strife, he no longer felt and spoke as a citizen of the world, but as a British statesman; and endeavoured to persuade his countrymen, not for French interests but for their own, to stand aloof from continental politics, relying, for the maintenance of a proud independence and dignified neutrality, on their insular situation and their wooden walls. His advice was not listened to, and his mind grew indisposed towards public business. He says in a letter, dated April, 1795, “I am perfectly happy in the country. I have quite resources enough to employ my mind, and the great resource of literature I am fonder of every day.” After making a vigorous, but unsuccessful opposition to the Treason and Sedition bills, he and his remaining friends seceded from parliament. He passed the years from 1797 to 1802, principally in retirement at St. Ann’s Hill; and they were the happiest of his life. His mornings passed in gardening and farming, his evenings over books and in conversation with his family and friends. During this period, his attention was much given to the Greek Tragedies and to Homer, whom he read not only with the ardent mind of a poet, but with the microscopic eye of a critic. His correspondence with an eminent scholar of the time was full of sagacious remarks on the suggestions and explanations of the commentators, as well as on the text of the poem. At this time also he conceived the plan of that history of which he left only a splendid fragment in a state fit for publication. He had been diligent in collecting materials, and scrupulous in verifying them. His partiality for the Greek classics followed him into this pursuit, and probably retarded his progress. He is considered to have taken for his model Thucydides, a writer strictly impartial in his narrative, grave even to severity in his style. He went to Paris with Mrs. Fox in the summer of 1802, partly to satisfy their mutual curiosity after so long an estrangement from the Continent, but principally for the purpose of examining the copious materials for the reign of James II. deposited in the Scotch college there.