Charles James Fox, the standard bearer of the reform Whig opposition in the late eighteenth century, was among the most colorful politicians of his era and perhaps its most arresting orator. Despite a career marked by shifting alliances and misadventures, Fox had a great impact on the development of nineteenth-century British political thinking, and such major prime ministers as Melbourne, Grey, and Russell looked, in part, to Fox's principles on liberty to guide their own actions. Today Fox is best remembered for his advocacy of the Libel Bill, a milestone in the history of English law;...