He himself returned safely to England, and has left us the portrait of
the man he served, the portrait of a brave, kindly Christian gentleman,
one of the most gallant of the army of pioneers who have heard the
'everlasting whisper' which calls men into unknown lands.

A HUNDRED YEARS AGO.

True Tales of the Year 1806.

VII.--CHARLES JAMES FOX.

[Illustration]

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