FOX AND BURKE.
It is, or it _would_ be, if Mr. Schlosser were himself more interesting,
luxurious to pursue his ignorance as to facts, and the craziness of his
judgment as to the valuation of minds, throughout his comparison of Burke
with Fox. The force of antithesis brings out into a feeble life of
meaning, what, in its own insulation, had been languishing mortally into
nonsense. The darkness of his 'Burke' becomes _visible_ darkness under the
glimmering that steals upon it from the desperate commonplaces of this
'Fox.' Fox is painted exactly as he _would_ have been painted fifty years
ago by any pet subaltern of the Whig club, enjoying free pasture in
Devonshire House. The practised reader knows well what is coming. Fox is
'formed after the model of the ancients'--Fox is 'simple'--Fox is
'natural'--Fox is 'chaste'--Fox is 'forcible;' why yes, in a sense, Fox is
even 'forcible:' but then, to feel that he was so, you must have _heard_
him; whereas, for forty years he has been silent. We of 1847, that can
only _read_ him, hearing Fox described as _forcible_, are disposed to
recollect Shakspeare's Mr. Feeble amongst Falstaff's recruits, who also is
described as _forcible_, viz., as the 'most forcible Feeble.' And,
perhaps, a better description could not be devised for Fox himself--so
feeble was he in matter, so forcible in manner; so powerful for instant
effect, so impotent for posterity.
Pages:
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142