Portraits of Illustrious Personages of Great Britain Volume 12; With Biographical and Historical Memoirs of Their Lives and Actions (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.1834 Excerpt: ... CHARLES JAMES FOX. 1 He Right Honourable Charles James Fox was third son of Henry Fox, first Lord Holland, and of Lady Caroline Lenox, eldest daughter of Charles, second Duke of Richmond, and was born on the 24th of January, 1748-9. After passing through a small school at Wandsworth, where many persons of rank received the first rudiments of their education, he was in his tenth year removed to Eton, and placed under the care of Dr. Young, who was afterwards promoted to the Irish Bench. He was distinguished among his contemporaries for quickness of parts, warmth of affection, and occasionally earnest, but irregular application. His father, from mistaken kindness, took him in 1763 to Paris and to Spa, and not only allowed but encouraged him to engage in all the fashionable expences and dissipations of these places of resort, which would have been hazardous to the habits and morals even of mature experience. Ardent however as he was, and thoughtless as he appeared, in the pursuit of pleasure, he had yet the good sense to return of his own accord to the discipline of Eton, and to finish his education by two years residence at Hertford College, Oxford, where, under the tuition of Dr. Newcome he prosecuted his studies with an ardour and success rarely exceeded by any, and particularly observable in a lad, whose passion for dissipation and amusement had been so imprudently fomented through the culpable indulgence of a too affectionate father. He quitted the University in 1766, and accompanied his parents in a tour through the south of Europe till 1768. That time was not, as his former excursion, unprofitably spent. His progress in the living was as remarkable as his proficiency in the dead languages. He spoke both French and Italian with correctness and fluency. I...