“To speak of him justly as an orator, would require a long essay. Every where natural, he carried into public something of that simple and negligent exterior which belonged to him in private. When he began to speak, a common observer might have thought him awkward; and even a consummate judge could only have been struck with the exquisite justness of his ideas, and the transparent simplicity of his manners. But no sooner had he spoken for some time, than he was changed into another being. He forgot himself and every thing around him. He thought only of his subject. His genius warmed and kindled as he went on. He darted fire into his audience. Torrents of impetuous and irresistible eloquence swept along their feelings and conviction. He certainly possessed above all moderns that union of reason, simplicity, and vehemence, which formed the prince of orators. He was the most Demosthenean speaker since the days of Demosthenes. ‘I knew him,’ says Mr. Burke, in a pamphlet written after their unhappy difference, ‘when he was nineteen; since which time he has risen, by slow degrees, to be the most brilliant and accomplished debater the world ever saw.’ “The quiet dignity of a mind roused only by great objects, the absence of petty bustle, the contempt of show, the abhorrence of intrigue, the plainness and downrightness, and the thorough good nature which distinguished Mr. Fox, seem to render him no unfit representative of the old English character, which if it ever changed, we should be sanguine indeed to expect to see it succeeded by a better. The simplicity of his character inspired confidence, the ardour of his eloquence roused enthusiasm, and the gentleness of his manners invited friendship. ‘I admired,’ says Mr. Gibbon, after describing a day passed with him at Lausanne, ‘the powers of a superior man, as they are blended, in his attractive character, with all the softness and simplicity of a child: no human being was ever more free from any taint of malignity, vanity, or falsehood.’ “The measures which he supported or opposed may divide the opinion of posterity, as they have divided those of the present age. But he will most certainly command the unanimous reverence of future generations, by his pure sentiments towards the commonwealth; by his zeal for the civil and religious rights of all men; by his liberal principles, favourable to mild government, to the unfettered exercise of the human faculties, and the progressive civilization of mankind; by his ardent love for a country, of which the well-being and greatness were, indeed, inseparable from his own glory; and by his profound reverence for that free constitution which he was universally admitted to understand better than any other man of his age, both in an exactly legal and in a comprehensively philosophical sense.” [Illustration] [Illustration: _Engraved by R. Woodman._ BOSSUET. _From the original Picture by H. Rigaud, in the Collection of the Institute of France._