rhetoric of Sheridan, we may doubt whether any of his contemporaries equalled him in the peculiar powers necessary for success as a debater in the house of commons. "When he spoke," said Lord Brougham, "he rolled a tide of fire over the subject;" and it seems certain that no orator has appeared in England who matched him in the art of subduing an audience, not by gesture or pathos, but by reasoning declamation. We may add that his correspondence has lately been published by Lord John Russell, and that his life by that statesman is now going through the press.—W. O'C. M.
FOX, Edward, an eminent English prelate and statesman in Henry VIII.'s time, was born at Dursley in Gloucestershire, and died at London in 1538. Fox was a man admirably qualified for the conduct of affairs. He was lively, prudent, and dexterous. He was educated at King's college, Cambridge, of which he became provost in 1528, and was shortly afterwards recommended to Wolsey, who, appreciating his abilities, sent him along with Stephen Gardiner to Rome, for the purpose of promoting the divorce of the king from Catherine of Arragon. After his return to England, he was again employed abroad, being sent on embassies to France and Germany. It was he who about this time introduced Cranmer to the notice of Henry VIII. When, after the fall of Wolsey, the English clergy were involved in extraordinary difficulties, the prudence and dexterity of Fox were found of the highest value. He was raised to the see of Hereford in 1535, and in the same year was sent to attend the conferences of the Prussian protestant princes, who were then assembled at Smalcald, and whom he exhorted to unite in doctrine with the Church of England. He spent the winter at Wittemberg, endeavouring, but in vain, to come to an understanding with the German divines. Fox died two years after his return to England. He was a great promoter of the Reformation, though his wariness and political prudence kept him from outrunning the king's wishes in that matter, and so also from attaining the high renown achieved by the more venturous and self-forgetful of the reformers. He wrote a treatise entitled "De vera differentia regiæ potestatis et ecclesiasticæ," &c. 1534; and "Annotations upon the Mantuan poet." The former was turned into English by Henry Lord Stafford.—R. M., A.
FOX, Francis, an English divine, was educated at Oxford, where he graduated in 1704. He was presented to the living of Pottern in Wiltshire, and became chaplain to Lord Cadogan. Fox is the author of several works which attained some popularity, especially the "New Testament explained," 2 vols.; and "The Duty of Public Worship Proved." In 1726 he was made vicar of St. Mary's, Reading. He died in 1738.—R. M., A.
FOX, George, the founder of the Society of Friends was born in the year 1624 at Drayton in Leicestershire, of parents who belonged to the established church. His father was a weaver, and by the strict honesty of his conduct had won from his neighbours the soubriquet of "Righteous Christer," while his mother is described by him as having been "an upright woman of the family of the Lagos, and of the stock of the martyrs." George, while yet a boy, was so distinguished by his gravity and exemplary conduct that his relations "thought to have made him a priest." This design was abandoned, however, and he was placed with a shoemaker, who dealt also in wool and cattle, and who employed him in tending sheep. Whilst thus occupied, his view of the requirements of christianity as compared with the inconsistent conduct of the bulk of its professors deeply affected him. When in the twentieth year of his age, and for some two or three years afterwards, Fox describes himself as having been in a very distressed state of mind, from which the various professors and clergymen to whom he applied for counsel were unable to relieve him. From this condition he was at length delivered by that which he regarded as the voice of God in his soul, directing him to Christ as alone able "to speak to his condition." Very soon after this he began his public ministrations at Dukinfield, Manchester, and the neighbourhood. From the first, his preaching seems to have made many converts and excited much opposition. Fox's first imprisonment took place in the year 1648, in consequence of his opposing the preacher in "the great steeple-house at Nottingham," on a point of doctrine. In 1650 he was imprisoned at Derby under a false charge of blasphemy. One of the committing justices, Bennet, acted with great violence on this occasion, and it was he who on Fox's bidding him "tremble at the word of the Lord," first applied to him and his friends the name of Quakers. Fox lay in prison at Derby for about a year, the time having been lengthened in consequence of his refusal to accept a commission as captain of one of the regiments then being raised by parliament. To his belief of the unlawfulness of all war, which prompted this refusal, was added the same time a clear view of the enormity of the punishment of death for crimes affecting property only, and he exerted himself to save the life of a poor woman then in gaol for theft. Within ten years of Fox's first appearance as a preacher, meetings of the Friends were established in most parts of England. At the same time, so actively were they persecuted, that for many years there were seldom less than a thousand of them in prison. Cromwell, though himself favourable to liberty of conscience, seems to have been unable to curb the excesses of popular hostility launched in all quarters against a sect which denounced all state interference with religion, and maintained that the gospel should be preached without fee or reward. Fox had several interviews with the Protector, having been first sent to him as a dangerous person, by Colonel Hacker in 1654. After much conversation with him at Whitehall on the subject of religion. Fox was about to leave, when Cromwell caught him by the hand saying—"Come again to my house, for if thou and I were but an hour of a day together, we should be nearer one to the other;" adding that he wished him "no more ill than he did to his own soul." Captain Drury, who had taken Fox to London, was commissioned to tell him that he was at liberty, and might go whither he would. In 1656, however. Fox was again imprisoned, this time in Launceston castle. On hearing of the event, one of his friends went to Cromwell and "offered himself" says Fox, "body for body to be in Doomsdale (the name of the dungeon) in my stead, if he would take him and set me at liberty;" which thing so struck him that he said to his great men and council—"Which of you would do so much for me if I were in the same condition?" About a month after the restoration of Charles II., Fox was committed to Lancaster castle "on the charge of being a common disturber of the peace, and of endeavouring to make insurrection and embroil the whole kingdom in blood." After lying in gaol some months, a habeas corpus was obtained, and the authorities showed their disbelief of these grave charges by allowing Fox himself, unbailed and unguarded, to convey to London the sheriff's return to the writ. Presenting this to the judges, he was, after a hearing, released by the king's command, and at nearly the same time about seven hundred of his friends, who had been committed to prison under the preceding governments, were also set at liberty. The hopes entertained by the members of the young society that they would be allowed a breathing time from persecution, were dispelled at the commencement of 1661, by the atrocious measures which followed the mad attempt of Venner and his fifth monarchy men. The act empowering magistrates to tender the oaths of allegiance and supremacy to any person whom they thought fit to suspect, also operated with great severity against the Friends: under its provisions Fox was committed to prison at Lancaster in the beginning of 1664, whence he was removed to Scarborough castle, where he lay till the autumn of 1666. His treatment during the greater part of this incarceration of nearly three years, seems to have been most inhuman, and to have seriously affected his health. After his release, Fox turned his attention more closely to the internal regulations of the now large society, and to the subject of education, recommending his friends to establish schools for the instruction of their children in "whatsoever things were civil and useful in the creation." In 1669 George Fox married Margaret Fell, the widow of one of the judges of the Welsh courts. The year 1670 witnessed the passing of the most stringent of the conventicle acts, forbidding under heavy penalties the assembling for religious worship, in any house, of more than four persons besides the family, except according to the usages of the Church of England. As a society, the Friends seem to have stood almost alone in their refusal to comply with it, and the pains and penalties of the law consequently fell principally upon them. Fox exhorted his friends to firmness, and himself remained in London, to share with them in their sufferings—attending the meeting in Gracechurch Street, where it was expected the storm would first fall. Soon after his recovery from a severe illness he sailed for Barbadoes, where he exerted himself greatly in the interests of religion and humanity. It is interesting to trace in his narrative of this journey, the germ of that anti-slavery principle which has since been so
