Charles James Fox

Horace Walpole dubbed statesman and orator Charles James Fox (1749-1806) "the phenomenon of his age". He displayed that rare balance of piercing intellect and mordant wit tempered by a dazzling charm, which made him, according to his erstwhile friend Edmund Burke, "born to be loved". Fox was considered by the historian Macaulay to be "the greatest parliamentary defender of civil and religious liberty". He supported American Independence and the French Revolution, and also proposed the abolition of slavery.

Fox later styled himself a "Champion of the People", yet his decadent lifestyle was, according to Walpole, "dissipated, dissolute and idle beyond measure". Indulged from an early age by his father Henry Fox, Lord Holland and his mother Lady Caroline Lennox, his hedonistic pursuit of the pleasures of the flesh and senses echoed that of his ancestor and namesake King Charles II. Fox ate, drank, loved and gambled to excess. By the time of his parents' death in 1774, he had already squandered an astonishing £140,000 of his inheritance. He dies of liver failure at Chiswick House, then owned by his friend the 5th Duke of Devonshire.

An accomplished pastel portrait of Charles James Fox by an unknown artist, was presented to Richmond Free Library by Mrs Harrison on 30 December 1891, at a time when Fox had already achieved near-legendary status.

Many caricatures from the 1770s ridicule the exclusive "Macaroni Club". In 1764 Walpole described this clique as being "composed of all the travelled young men who wear long curls and spying glasses". Whereas a generation earlier the Grand Tour was central to the intellectual and artistic "finishing" of a gentleman's education, the Macaronis instead used it as an ideal opportunity to pursue pleasure, not knowledge. The Roman busts they examined were of an altogether different kind.

These fops and dandies adopted the more superficial aspects of European culture including fashion. The Town and Country Magazine of 1773 stated: "Their legs are covered will all the colours of the rainbow. Their shoes are scarce slippers and their buckles are within an inch of the toe". They were "crowned" by the wig bearing their name - the "Macaroni" introduced in 1773. Although the 18th century witnessed the rise and fall of the "Cauliflower", the "Tyburn Scratch" and the "Lunatique" the "Macaroni", stuffed with horsehair and wool, made a memorable spectacle, often rising to in excess of 18 inches. An obvious target for satirists, for their vanity and illusions of grandeur.