T

let us now turn to Mr. Fox at St. Anne's Hill, letter-writing and letters-loving; Always with a glad and eager heart he turned his steps thitherward,

"And shook to all the liberal air The dust and din and steam of town.

"O joy to him in this retreat,

Immantled in ambrosial dark,

To drink the cooler air, and mark, The landscape winking through the heat. "O sound to rout the brood of cares,

The sweep of scythe in morning dew, The gust that round the garden flew, And tumbled half the mellowing pears !*. that garden which grew the flowers he used to boast of to Lord Sidmouth-his geraniums especially, to the subject of which he could always return, as Mr. Plumer Ward says,† with soothed interest, amidst the most violent storms of party rage.

"Here I am perfectly happy," he writes to

Lord Holland in 1794.

summer, and about four in the winter months; then, with a "refresher" in the form of wine and coffee, read aloud again, or wrote, till near ten at night. A light supper ensued, and thereupon-to bed, to bed, to bed. He systematically "kept up" his acquaintance with the classics-not after the stinted fashion of those who "keep up" their Greek by reading a chapter of the Greek Testament daily-but with the same cordial care and energy of good will which he cherished towards any other old friend. Moreover, for the sake of those old friends Latin and Greek, with whom early study had made him acquainted, and out of respect to such established cronies as Homer and Virgil, he desired, now that he had leisure, to form new acquaintances among the ranks of their less illustrious contemporaries or successors. We find him writing to Gilbert Wakefield: "If. "Idleness, fine weather, Ariosto, a little Spanish, and the constant company of a person whom I love, I think, more and more every day and every hour, make me as happy as I am capable of being, and much more so than I could hope to be if politics took a different turn." In 1795: "Indeed you are right, for I believe if ever there was a place that might be called the seat of true happiness, St. Anne's is that place." And again, in a letter defending the principle and practice of his secession from parliament: "I am perfectly happy in the country. I have quite resources enough to employ my mind; and the great resource of all, literature, I am fonder of every day; and then the Lady of the Hill is one continual source of happiness. I believe few men, indeed, ever were so happy in that respect as I." In this retreat Fox has been described as spending his days "like a philospher; " rising, in summer, between six and seven; in winter, before eight; breakfasting about nine; after which he usually read some Italian author with Mrs. Fox, and spent the interval till dinner in studying the Greek classics; dined between two and three in Tennyson: In Memoriam.

"He had never been more furious than one day in haranguing in Palace-yard, on what was called the gagging bills. Half an hour afterwards he came to the house, reeking from the mob, and went up to the speaker, who expected some violent motion, to tell him how sorry he was that his geraniums (some cuttings of which he had promised him) had been blighted at St. Anne's-hill." ("Tremaine." Ch. 27, note.)

you would advise me, in regard to the Greek poets in general (of the second and third order, I mean), which are best worth reading, and in what editions, you I wish would do me a great service. to read some more, if not all of the Greek poets, before I begin with those Latin ones that you recommend; especially as I take for granted that V. Flaccus (one of them) is, in some degree, an imitator of Apollonius Rhodius. Of him or Silius Italicus I never read any; and of Statius but little. Indeed, as during the greater part of my life the reading of the classics had been only an amusement and not a study, I know but little of them beyond the works of those who are generally placed in the first rank; to which I have always more or less attended, and with which I have always been as well acquainted as most idle men, if not better. My practice has generally been multum potius quam multos legere. Of late years, it is true that I have read with more critical attention, and made it more of a study; but my attention has been chiefly directed to the Greek language and its writers, so that in the Latin I have a great deal still to read; and I find it a pleasure which grows upon me every day."

Even from his boyhood's days, however, Charles had shown a tolerably expansive taste in literature-threatening now and then to grow into absolute omnivoracity. At sixteen, for instance, we hear of him "studying very hard at Oxford," together with his col

I saw the sun go down!-Ah, then 'twas thine

Ne'er to forget some volume half divine, Shakspeare's or Dryden's-through the cheq uered shade

Borne in thy hand behind thee as we strayed;
And where we sate (and many a halt we
made)

To read there with a fervor all thy own,
And in thy grand and melancholy tone,
Some splendid passage not to thee unknown,
Fit theme for long discourse-

With his years grew his appetite for the an-
cients, and for such of the moderns as modelled
their form and style on that of the ancients
"to whose religion in matters of taste," he
writes in 1804, "I grow every day more and
more bigoted." Of Homer he says in 1795,
"In short, the more I read the more I admire

him. There are parts of Virgil (and among
those too imitated from Homer) which I
think fully equal to Homer, but then he has

lege chum Dickson, afterwards Bishop of Down, their relaxation consisting in reading together" all the early dramatic poets of England." For this purpose the youngsters spent their evenings in the bookseller's shop; "and I think I have heard Mr. Fox say," his nephew remarks, "that there was no play extant, written and published before the Restoration, that he had not read attentively." Italian was by far his favorite among foreign languages. At eighteen he was already an enthusiast in the study of it. In 1767 he bids Fitzpatrick "for God's sake learn Italian as fast as you can, if it be only to read Ariosto. There is more good poetry in Italian than in all other languages that I understand put together. In prose, too, it is a very fine language. Make haste and read all these things, that you may be fit to talk to Christians." It was in accordance with this taste that he so much preferred Spenser not in any degree approaching to his master that freedom of manner which I prize so to Milton. As may be supposed he was a pronounced admirer of Racine, and impatient much; and Milton, who has some passages of what he accounted the twaddle of Racine's as sublime as possible, is in this respect still detractors. Thus, in 1804, he writes in allu- more deficient, or rather he has no degree of sion to Godwin's Life of Chaucer: "I observe it whatever. Ariosto has more of it than SO as to vie in this that he takes an opportunity of showing his any other poet, even stupidity in not admiring Racine. It puts me quite in a passion, je veux contre eux faire un jour un gros livre, as Voltaire says. Even Dryden, who speaks with proper respect of Corneille and Molière, vilipends Racine. If ever I publish my edition of his works, I will give it him for it you may depend." But Charles never did one day make one big book ("as Voltaire says") against the depreciators of France's glorieux Jean. Nor did he ever publish his edition of the works of England's Glorious John. He contented himself with reading their works aloud to his friends, and, if Mr. Rogers, a tolerable judge in such a cause, be a trustworthy witness, increasing the admiration of his hearers for the authors thus

particular merit with Homer himself, and possibly it may be that my excessive delight in him, is owing to my holding in higher estimation than others do, the merit of freedom and rapidity." At this date he inclines to underrate the Odyssey, the inferiority of which to the Iliad he declares, after deliberate study, to be greater than he had imagined,

66 or

than I believe is generally allowed.' Some ten years later, the Odyssey evidently gains ground, as the reader's taste mellows and softens with time. From Cheltenham he writes in 1804: " I have no classical book here but the Odyssey,' which I delight in more and more." The letters abound, first and last, with eulogies of his favorite fare. "You see I have never done with Homer," he writes to his nephew in 1797; " and, indeed, if there was nothing else, except Virgil and Ariosto, one should never want reading." Thee at St. Anne's so soon of Care be- In 1798: "I like Polybius exceedingly; by guiled,

recited, by the emphasis and discretion of his manner of reading them :

Playful, sincere, and artless as a child!
Thee, who wouldst watch a bird's nest on the

the way what a complete telegraph his was!
I have been reading Orpheus' Argonautics,
and think there are some very pretty pas
sages in them. Is it known by whom they
were written, or when? I think I have heard
about Solon's time. I have been rearling,.
too, the "Aons attributed to Hesiod, which is

T

really a very fine poem, if you do not mind first book, Telamon's and Jason's quarrel gross plagiarism from Homer.. How and reconciliation. It is capital, can you, who read Juvenai, talk of Demosthenes being difficult? difficult or not, you must read him,” if only for purposes of Parliamentary debate. "I am reading Aristotle's 'Poetics,' and find a great deal very obscure, and some parts (if one dared say it) rather confused." 66 I am now [1799] reading Lucretius regularly; what a grand poet he is, where he is a poet! I shall not so easily leave him for letter-writing, as I did Aristotle's ' 'Poetics." "I think in parts of Lucian there is a great deal of eloquence as well as wit." "I have read Medea' again, and like it as well as before; I am clear it is the best of all the Greek tragedies upon the whole, though the choruses are not so poetical as in some others." "Hooke's Roman History, which I am reading to Mrs. A., has led me lately to neglect my Greek and read nothing but Cicero, whom I admire (I do not mean his conduct upon all occasions) more than ever; one cannot read him too much." "I have not finished the first book of Apollonius; some of it is very fine, some very prosaic, a dreadful fault with me; and there seems to be a general want of that spirit and enthusiasm which I rank so high among the beauties of poetry; but I cannot yet judge, perhaps, quite fairly. Pray read the eighteen or twenty lines from V. 540 or thereabouts,"-describing the departure of the ship Argo from the Pagasaan Gulf,they are grand as well as beautiful, and should, I think, exempt him from the charge [character ?] of equality and mediocrity given him by Quintilian and Longinus."

In 1800, still to his nephew, the noble Young One, and now travelled thane: "I am very glad you are reading Euripides; but I had rather you had begun almost any other play than the Hippolytus. ... The plot I think vile.... In short, of all of Euripides' plays, I think it the one the most below its reputation. The Cyclops, in a style of its own, is very well worth reading. It is so Shakesperic. The worst of all, I think, is Andromache." 66 I have read but little of Apollonius since I wrote last, my opinion continues the same. He is a good poet, certainly, but, like Tasso, someway he does not get hold of me right. However, there are passages both in Tasso and him, that are great exceptions to this. Pray read in the

....

and not, I think, taken from any former
poet. I have not yet perceived that Virgil
has taken much from him.
.... If Jason's
adventure at Lemnos is the prototype of
Æneas at Carthage, and Dido is taken from
Hypsipyle, it is indeed a silk purse out of a
sow's ear." "I am very glad you grow to
find Greek so easy, and I think if you get
deep into Euripides, you will grow to like as
I do his very faults. . .
I suppose Evan-
der's [Eneid, VIII.] relating his having had
Hercules for his guest, and sending his son.
with Æneas, is taken from Lycus, in Apollo-
nius, but it is so superior that Apollonius
looks quite like the imitation. I admire
Virgil more than ever, for his power of giv
ing originality to his most exact imitations."
"I have been reading Lycophron, and have
been very much pleased, partly with him and
partly with the innumerable stories which
his scholiast Tzetzes gives for the purpose of
explaining him." "I do not wonder you
like the Odyssey better than ever; it is the
most charming reading of all.
It is
all delightful, and there is such variety, which
I am afraid the Iliad cannot boast of." A
pretty entire recantation, this, from Uncle
Charles' profession of faith (previously quot-
ed) in 1795. A long letter filled with minu-
tim of verbal criticism, which exemplifies the
care and attention with which Mr. Fox
studied his author, line upon line, and one
winged word after another, closes with the
avowal : "Well, here is Homer criticism
enough; but it is a subject upon which I
never tire." Another long letter in 1801, is
occupied throughout with information, or
conjecture, as the case may be, about the
authorship of Aristides the Sophist, Aboul-
feda, the dates of the Exodus and of the
Trojan war and its blind old bard—the Pyra-
mids, the library at Alexandria, and a com-
parison between Lucretius and Virgil. Some-
times to a miscellaneous epistle is appended
a postcript on the Odes of Horace, and their
relative beauties—or a political missive is in-
terspersed with comments on Juvenal and
his translators. Criticism was a game at
which he liked to give and take, whether in
table-talk or familiar correspondence; a
brisk opponent at the game won his heart at
once by taxing his head. "Rogers, the
poet, has been here," he writes to Fitzpat-

and Milton, of the Orlando, or the Jerusa lem, or the Divine Comedy, or of

-aught else great bards besides In sage and solemn tunes have sung Of tourneys, and of trophies hung, Of forests and enchantments drear, Where more is meant than meets the ear,"at any rate the picture is a pleasant one of such a statesman becoming a genial embodi ment, totum atque rotundum, of

rick, in 1803; "I like him very well, but he is too complaisant (a fault of the right side) to have so much critical conversation with him as I like. I do not know how it is, but criticism is always my rage at this [winter] time of the year." Upon literature in any of its sections, classical or current, from Herodotus to Cowper, from Homer's Iliad to Currie's Burns, he was always ready to express and glad to elicit an opinion. Freely he "retired Leisure outpours his own preferences and indifferenThat in trim gardens takes his pleasure," ces. "Dryden wants a certain degree of listening to the nightingales, how they sing easy playfulness that belongs to Ariosto, Par- and, considering the lilies, how they grow, nell is too grave, and Prior does not seem to that toil not, neither do they spin; or ponme to have the knack (perhaps only because dering the sentences of Demosthenes and he did not try it) of mixing familiar and seri- Cicero, the irony of Lucian, the speculations ous, though he does very well in each re- of Lucretius, and, above all, the never-pallspectively." "I will read Griselda;' I do ing lines of Homer, whether concerned with not remember it in Boccace, but it will be the siege of Troy or the Wanderings of nearly a single instance if any of his stories Ulysses. In this aspect of the man, he is are mended by the imitator. 'Minutolo,' allowed to be winsome and engaging, even which is one of La Fontaines best tales, is by political adversaries the most pronounced very inferior to Boccace, and Dryden, with and protesting. "I'm afraid you did not like all his grand and beautiful versification in Mr. Fox," says Tremaine to Evelyn, when 'Sigismunda,' hardly comes up to the origi- the two are disputing together as to the adnal." Pope's "early works are his best by vantages and pleasures of retirement. "I far in my judgment, as well as yours. A liked Mr. Pitt's politics better," the rector detractor (as I have been very falsely accused replies; "but to say I did not like a man of being) might say that having little genius whose uncommon force of mind, added to he soon got au bout de son Latin, but there the most amiable temper and cultivated are other reasons. The chief of which ap- taste, made him the admiration and delight pears to me to be that latterly (except in the of his friends, would imply a want of candor case of Homer, and that is an exception also to which I cannot plead guilty. But why do to our remark,) he chose subjects not only "He retired," says mention him? you less adapted to poetry in general, but to his Tremaine. "I doubt it," says Evelyn. The particular genius also, for with all his osten- Man of Refinement rejoins, " And yet he was tation upon these matters, such as 'from perfectly happy." "From the account of words to things,' &c., I think he is as miser- him, I believe so," the Doctor of Divinity able a moralist and as faulty a reasoner as continues: "but it was because I also think ever existed, and that all the merit of his he did not retire, that I believe it." "You satires consists in his poetry and his wit, of surely forget St. Anne's Hill?" both which he had a good share. Add to all; but St. Anne's Hill was but twenty miles this, that most of his early works, and from town, and a debate called him whenever among them his best, are translations and [query as to that] his party pleased." "You The Rape of the Lock, forget," says Tremaine, "Mr. Fox's novels beautiful as it is, consists very much of paro- and geraniums." "And you," answers Evedies which are certainly not of the highest lyn, "his great pursuit in Greek. Now order of the productions of genius, and all great pursuit is business; he therefore earned these seem to have been the species of poe- his novels and geraniums." Both of which he delighted in with an appetite unknown try most adapted to his talents." and geranium-growers, who are that, and for the most part to systematic novel-readers nothing greater, or nothing else.

imitations.

But here we must stay our hand. Agree we or not with the letter-writer's critical appreciations of Pope and Cowper, of Spenser

"Not at

PHILIP FRANCIS AND POPE GAN- not profess to have any great skill in such

transcendental matters, and have, therefore, IN the Memoir of Sir Philip Francis which appeared in the Mirror in 1810, and which, nation of what was called evidence; but we always confined ourselves to a simple examithere can be no doubt, was written either by will here say that, to us, this letter reads Sir Philip himself or by Du Bois from inforlike a plain, sober, matter-of-fact narrative,— mation furnished by Sir Philip, it was stated inferior to what we should have expected that Francis passed the greater part of the from Francis, to say nothing about Junius ; year 1772 in travelling on the Continent; and but Francis, be it remembered, was ́but just that "during his residence at Rome, he went emancipated from a life of mere ministerial to Castle Gondolfo, where he was introduced drudgery. It was after this that he was first to Pope Ganganelli, and had a curious conrequired to think and act on his own responference with his holines of near two hours, sibility. We submit the letter to the judgthe particulars of which are, it is said, pre-ment of the reader: