of Parliament. It treated professedly of subjects upon which the writer was daily in the habit of speaking, with his usual force of argument and variety of illustration. Notwithstanding these circumstances, no political tract of any note in our language, is in form or style less oratorical, or, with the exception of one passage, more free from those peculiarities, which the practice of public speaking seems calculated to produce. Such a strict observance of these principles must have cost him great trouble and attention. He was so apprehensive that his writings might retain some traces of that art, in the exercise of which he had employed the greater part of his life, that he frequently rejected passages, which in any other author would not have appeared liable to such an objection. He seems even to have distrusted his own judgment upon this subject; and after having taken the greatest pains, he was never sufficiently satisfied of his own success. If we except the account of the Earl of Argyle, the Introductory Chapter is unquestionably the most correct and finished part of the present publication. He did not, however, conceive it to be entirely exempt from a defect to which he apprehended that his works must be peculiarly exposed. He says to his correspondent, "I have at last finished my Introduc❝tion, which after all is more like a speech than it should 66 be."

Simplicity, both in expression and construction, was the quality in style which he most admired, and the beauty he chiefly endeavoured to attain. He was the most scrupulously anxious to preserve this character in his writings, because he thought that the example of some great writers had, in his own time, perverted the taste of the public, and that their imitators had corrupted the purity of the English language.

D

Though he frequently commended both Hume's and Blackstone's style, and always spoke of Middleton's with admiration, he once assured me, that he would admit no word into his book, for which he had not the authority of Dryden.

He was scarcely less nice about phrases and expressions. It is indeed possible, that those of his readers, who have formed their taste upon Johnson or Gibbon, or taken their notions of style from the criticisms of late years, may discover, in the course of the work, some idioms which are now seldom admitted into the higher classes of composition. To speak without reserve upon a subject in which his judgment, as an author, may be called in question, it appears to me more likely, that such phrases should have been introduced upon system, than that they should have escaped his observation, and crept in through inadvertence. The work is indeed, “ incomplete and unfinished;" but it is not with reference to any phrases, which may be supposed to be too familiar, or colloquial, that such a description has been given of it. Such was the Author's abhorrence of any thing that savoured of pedantry or affectation, that if he was ever reduced to the alternative of an inflated or homely expression, I have no doubt but he preferred the latter. This persuasion, in addition to many other considerations, has induced me religiously to preserve, in the publication of this Work, every phrase and word of the Original Manuscript. Those who are disposed to respect his authority, may have the satisfaction of knowing, that there is not one syllable in the following Chapters, which is not the genuine production of Mr. Fox. That there are several passages, (especially in the latter end of the text,) which he might that there are some, which he obviously would, have corrected, is unquestionable; but, with the knowledge of such

scrupulous attention to language in an author, to have substituted any word or expression, for that which he had written, would not have been presumption only but injustice.

The manuscript book from which this Work has been printed is, for the most part, in the hand-writing of Mrs. Fox. It was written out under the inspection of Mr. Fox, and is occasionally corrected by him. His habit was seldom or ever to be alone, when employed in composition. -He was accustomed to write on covers of letters or scraps of paper, sentences which he, in all probability, had turned in his mind, and, in some degree formed in the course of his walks, or during his hours of leisure. These he read over to Mrs. Fox; she wrote them out in a fair hand in the book; and before he destroyed the original paper he examined and approved of the copy. In the course of thus dictating from his own writing, he often altered the language, and even the construction of the sentence. Though he generally tore the scraps of paper as soon as the passages were entered in the book, several have been preserved; and it is plain, from the erasures and alterations in them, that they had undergone much revision and correction before they were read to his Amanuensis.

It is necessary to observe, that I am indebted to Mr. Laing both for advice and assistance in the division of the paragraphs, the annexing of marginal notes and references, the selection of the Appendix, and the superintendance of the press. From his judgment and experience, I have dee rived great benefit; and his friendship in undertaking the task has afforded me the further satisfaction of reflecting, that I have been guided throughout by that advice to which

the Author himself would have wished me on such an occasion to have recourse.

The Appendix consists, with some few exceptions, of such part of Barillon's correspondence from the death of Charles the Second to the Prorogation of Parliament in 1685, as Sir John Dalrymple omitted to publish. As the letters of a subsequent date, however curious and interesting, have no relation to the short period of history included in the following Chapters, they have not been annexed to the present publication.

This account will be sufficient to explain all the circumstances attending the design, progress, and state of the Work, as well as the manner in which it is now brought before the public. If any should object to my having entered into so much detail respecting those points, I have no other excuse to offer, than the nature of the task I had undertaken, and the extreme anxiety, that no fault or omission of the Editor should by any possibility be attributed to the Author. Perhaps it may be necessary to forestall an observation of a very different description. Those who admired Mr. Fox in public, and those who loved him in private, must naturally feel desirous that some memorial should be preserved of the great and good qualities of his head and heart. Some among them may think that the present account should not have been confined to such matters only as relate to the unfinished work to which it is prefixed. It is true that, at the melancholy period of his death, advantage was taken of the interest excited by all that concerned him, to impose upon the public a variety of memoirs and anecdotes, (in the form of pamphlets,) as unfounded in fact, as they were painful to his friends, and injurious to

his memory. The confident pretensions with which many of those publications were ushered into the world, may have given them some little circulation at the time; but the internal evidence of their falsehood was sufficiently strong to counteract any impression which their contents might be calculated to produce. It is not, therefore, with a view of exposing such misrepresentations, that any authentic account of the life of Mr. Fox can be deemed necessary. On the other hand, the objections to such an undertaking at present are obvious; and after much reflection, they have appeared to those connected with him to be insuperable. A compilation of his speeches, or of such transactions of his public life as are well known, might be, and probably has already been, executed with as much fidelity and success by others, as it could be by those who had the advantage of a closer intimacy or nearer connection with him. If more were attempted, either many interesting passages of his life must be omitted, and truth in some instances suppressed, or circumstances which might wound the feelings of individuals yet living, must be unnecessarily and wantonly disclosed to the public. No allusion is here made to any particular period, transaction, or person. The observation is general; it applies to the memoirs of every public man, and must therefore be true in the instance of Mr. Fox.

These considerations have induced his family and friends to relinquish, for the present, any such design. It is, however a duty to the public, as well as to the memory of any great and good man, to preserve with the utmost diligence, all the materials which may enable a future biographer to do justice to the events of his life, and the merits of his character. With this view, the private letters of Mr. Fox have been carefully collected; and I am already indebted