marriage just before its celebration, and he could have little scruple in repeating his falsehood by word of mouth, when the marriage had already taken place.

On the morning after the denial of the marriage by Mr. Fox, the Prince called at the house where Mrs. Fitzherbert was living with a relation. He went up to her, and taking hold of both her hands and caressing her, said, “Only conceive, Maria, what Fox did yesterday: he went down to the House, and denied that you and I were man and wife." Mrs. Fitzherbert made no reply, but changed countenance and turned pale.*

On the same day the Prince saw Mr. Grey, and endeavoured to persuade him to say something in Parliament to satisfy Mrs. Fitzherbert, and take off the edge of Fox's declaration. This Mr. Grey positively refused, saying no denial could be given without calling in question Mr. Fox's veracity, which no one, he presumed, was prepared to do. After some time, the Prince, with prodigious agitation, owned the marriage. He at length put an end to the conversation by saying abruptly, "Well, if nobody else will, Sheridan must." Sheridan accordingly went to the House of Commons, and paid some vapid compliments to Mrs. Fitzherbert, which took away nothing from the weight of Mr. Fox's denial.

On the day after Mr. Fox's declaration, a gentleman of his acquaintance went up to him at Brooks's, and said, "I see by the papers, Mr. Fox, you have denied the fact of the marriage of the Prince with Mrs. Fitzherbert. You have been misinformed. I was present at that marriage."

Mr. Fox now perceived how completely he had been duped. He immediately renounced the acquaintance of

* "Memoirs of Mrs. Fitzherbert," by the Hon. Charles Langdale.

the Prince, and did not speak to him for more than a year.

The late Lord Leicester (Mr. Coke), who related this fact to me, told me another anecdote on this subject. Mr. Fox, as was usual with him, paid a visit at Holkham in the autumn. Just after his departure, Mr. Coke received a letter from the Prince of Wales, telling him the Prince would be at Holkham that day. Accordingly, about seven o'clock he arrived, and towards eight the company in the house assembled for dinner. As soon as the dessert was on the table, the Prince rose, and begged to give a bumper toast, "The health of the best man in England-Mr. Fox." Much wine was drunk, and just before leaving the diningroom, it being then near one o'clock, the Prince again rose, and again gave, as a bumper toast, "The health of the best man in England-Mr. Fox." At nine o'clock the next morning he left Holkham, on his return to London. It was obvious that the object of the Prince was to find Mr. Fox at Holkham, and to seek a reconciliation.

Some time after this, when Mrs. Fitzherbert was sitting down to dinner at the Duke of Clarence's, she received a note from the Prince, plainly showing that his affections were estranged from her. He was, in fact, under a new influence.

The rest of this history: his marriage, the payment of his debts, his separation from the Princess, the renewal of his connexion with Mrs. Fitzherbert, and his second desertion of her, are but too well known. Mrs. Fitzherbert never afterwards spoke to Mr. Fox. Mr. Fox, on his side, again frequented, again acted with, but never again believed the Prince of Wales.

There can be no doubt that Mr. Fox had confided too

easily in the asseverations of the Prince. Unfortunately, his declaration in the House of Commons could not be retracted without exposing the Prince to the risk of losing his succession to the Crown. Although the marriage was void, the penalty might still attach. Thus Mr. Fox became unknowingly the organ of an injury to Mrs. Fitzherbert, which he could not afterwards repair.

Mr. Pitt behaved with his usual coolness during these transactions. When Mr. Fox made his declaration, he repeated to his neighbour on the Treasury Bench a wellknown line of "Othello."* Mr. Pitt afterwards was a party to the payment of the Prince's debts on condition of his marriage. The Princess Caroline of Brunswick was the victim of these heartless transactions.+

Fortunately for the nation, the marriage of the Prince of Wales and Mrs. Fitzherbert was not cursed with issue. Had a son been born from this marriage, a disputed, or at least a doubtful succession must have been the result; for the Roman Catholic subjects of the Crown were bound to believe in the validity of the marriage, and they might have disputed the binding nature of an Act of Parliament which set aside the legitimate issue of a reigning king. Mr. Fox had done no more than his duty in pointing out these perils to the Prince of Wales; but he did it at the risk of losing the favour of the Prince, and of incurring the lasting resentment of his victim.

* " Villain, be sure thou prove my love a whore."

+ See "Memoirs of the Whig Party," vol. ii.; and the "Malmesbury Correspondence," for the origin of this marriage.

CHAPTER XXVI.

THE REGENCY.

1788.

IN 1788 Mr. Fox made a tour in Switzerland and Italy. Mr. Gibbon notices his visit to Lausanne in these terms: "In his tour to Switzerland (September, 1788), Mr. Fox gave me two days of free and private society. He seemed to feel and even to envy the happiness of my situation, while I admired the powers of a superior man, as they are blended in his attractive character with the softness and simplicity of a child. Perhaps no human being was ever more perfectly exempt from the taint of malevolence, vanity, or falsehood.”*

Mr. Gibbon, like Dr. Johnson and Mr. Burke, retained his admiration of Mr. Fox in spite of the most serious differences of opinion; thus, in 1783 he wrote: "I am not sorry to hear of the splendour of Fox; I am proud, in a foreign country, of his fame and abilities, and our little animosities are extinguished by my retreat from the English stage."+

Thus, again, during the storm of the French Revolution, while he dreaded and abhorred the principles professed by Mr. Fox, he writes to Lord Sheffield: "I hope that "Miscellaneous Works," vol. i. p. 252. Ibid. vol. ii. p. 338.

your abjuration of all future connexion with Fox was not quite so peremptory as it is stated in the French papers. Let him do what he will, I must love the dog."*

On this occasion, after leaving Switzerland, Mr. Fox made a tour in Italy. It appears, from letters written some years afterwards, that he studied the great works of the Italian painters with intense but discriminate admiration.

It was said by his friends, that while on this tour he only once took up a newspaper, and that was to see which horse had won at Newmarket, in a race in which he took an interest.

While engaged in the delights of his Italian journey, and in admiration of Italian pictures and poetry, an express reached him, requiring his immediate presence in England. The occasion was one of pressing and unusual importance.

At the end of the session of Parliament it had been observed that the King's health was visibly impaired. Quiet, abstinence from business, and the medicinal waters of Cheltenham, were prescribed, but without success. His disorder increased, and was perceived to affect his intellects; his public receptions at St. James's were interrupted, and when on the 24th of October he appeared at a levee, his conversation and demeanour left no doubt of the nature of his malady. A violent fever supervened, and for several days his life was in imminent danger. Letters of Mr. Grenville to Mr. Addington, of the 7th, 10th, and 13th of November, represented the state of the King as "most alarming, and giving room for the utmost apprehensions of incurable disorder." "These particulars," Mr. Grenville

* "Miscellaneous Works," vol. i. p. 392.