the greatest difficulty
that he could be dragged to London. On one occasion, in the throes of a
political crisis, he was induced to leave St. Anne's Hill on the
understanding that he would have to remain only two nights in town. When
he heard that the debate was postponed owing to Pitt's indisposition, he
was, Lord Holland relates, "silent and overcome, as if the intelligence
of some great calamity had reached his ears. I saw tears steal down his
cheeks; so vexed was he at being detained from his garden, his books,
and his cheerful life in the country." On another occasion, begged to go
to town, Fox answered that he would do so if he thought his going would
be serviceable to the public, but the idea greatly troubled him. "Never
did a letter," he wrote, "arrive at a worse time than yours this
morning. A sweet westerly wind, a beautiful sun, all the thorns and elms
just budding, and the nightingales just beginning to sing; though the
blackbirds and thrushes would have been quite sufficient to have refuted
any arguments in your letter. Seriously speaking, I cannot conceive what
you mean by everybody agreeing that something may be now done. I beg, at
least, not to be included in the holders of that opinion."

Fox's favourite bird was the nightingale; and he used to sit for hours
on a particular seat listening to its song. The St. Anne's Hill garden
is still very much as he left it; the Temple of Peace, in which Ariosto
was his most intimate companion, stands undisturbed, a quaint testimony
to the love of summerhouses in the form of temples which Fox inherited
from his father. Another summerhouse, lined with shells and quartz, is
so like the monstrosity built by the Duke of Newcastle in Oatlands Park
at Weybridge that probably Fox copied it, on a smaller scale; and near
by stands the inscription, carved on stone, of Fox's favourite verses
from Dryden:

"The painted birds, companions of the Spring,
Hopping from spray to spray were heard to sing.
Both eyes and ears received a like delight,
Enchanting music, and a charming sight.

On Philomel I fixed my whole desire,
And listened for the queen of all the quire.
Fain would I hear her heavenly voice to sing,
And wanted yet an omen to the Spring.

* * * * *

So sweet, so shrill, so variously she sung
That the grove echoed, and the valleys rung."

It must remain a problem to discover why such verse should b