ABSTRACT
‘Acme and Septimius’ takes further advantage of Fox’s bucolic birthday celebration. At this event he was seen, in public, apparently at ease in the company of Horne Tooke, a man whom Fox had previously taken care to keep at a distance. Fox had been partly responsible for Tooke’s first prosecution, in 1774, had contested Tooke for the seat of Westminster, and appears to have distrusted his politics and disliked his person:
the only persons whom Fox positively could not endure, were Horne Tooke and Sheridan ... At my own table I have heard him abuse Tooke as the greatest villain he had known. 1
