The Early History of Charles James Fox #267907

Charles James Fox, our first great statesman of the modern school, was closely connected with scenes which lie far back in English history. His grandfather, if not the most well-graced, was at any rate one of the best-paid, actors on the stage of the seventeenth century. Sir Stephen Fox was born in 1627. "The founder of our family," says the third Lord Holland, "seems, notwithstanding some little venial endeavors of his posterity to conceal it, to have been of a very humble stock;" and Sir Stephen's biographer and panegyrist, writing within a year of his death, has very little to tell which can destroy the effect of this frank confession.