is curious that in a country which had been
ruled for three successive reigns by German sovereigns, the German
language was entirely neglected and the glorious dawn of German
literature entirely ignored. While Fox was still a young man, playing
at love, playing at cards, playing at politics, and through all these
diversions adding to that mighty store of learning, and training his
mind in the finest and most intimate judgments upon the Greek and Roman
poets, Germany had been enriched by the masterpiece of the greatest
critic since Aristotle, and was fostering the golden youth of the
greatest poet since Shakespeare. It would have amazed Fox, as it would
have amazed every English scholar then living, if he could have been
told that the spirit of the antique world was to be renewed in a
country which had given them four generations of phlegmatic princes,
and in a language of which few scholars in England knew a single word.

[Sidenote: 1768--Fox's quarrel with Lord North]

Fox's term of adherence to North and to North's policy was not too
happy a time for the nominal superior. A hot-headed young Lord of the
Admiralty resigned his office in a huff, and was not without difficulty
persuaded to return to office as Commissioner of the Treasury. The
breach between Fox and North was bridged over, but the bridge was
frail. The two men eyed each other with disfavor. Fox asserted his
independence by occasionally voting against the minister, by consorting
with Burke. After the death of Lord Holland, North revenged himself by
dismissing Fox from office in a letter famous for its insolent brevity.
For a time Fox still accorded to the ministry an uncertain support, but
he was drifting in thought and speech and action in the inevitable
direction of his genius. The hour came when he took his seat on the
Opposition benches, and asserted himself as a {146} formidable opponent
of the Government. A quarrel across the Atlantic gave him the
opportunity to prove that the principles which men of to-day would call
Liberal principles had gained one of their greatest and one of their
most eloquent champions.

{147}

CHAPTER LII.

ON THE CHARLES RIVER.

[Sidenote: 1765-74--Lord Hillsborough]

While the battle had been raging over Wilkes at home, the cloud of
trouble had been growing larger and larger abroad. The discontent of
the American colonies increased in direct ratio with the determination
of the home Government to igno