the evil was atoned by the elegance. The ministerialists sarcastically pronounced that, in every debate, Burke said something which no one else ever said Sheridan said something that no one else ought to say, and Fox something that no one else would dare to say. But the world, fairer in its decision, did justice to their extraordinary powers; and found in the Asiatic amplitude and splendour of Burke; in Sheridan's alternate subtlety and strength, reminding it at one time of Attic dexterity, and another of the uncalculating boldness of barbarism; and in Fox's matchless English self-possession, unaffected vigour, and overflowing sensibility, a perpetual source of admiration.

But it was in the intercourses of social life that the superiority of Opposition was most incontestable. Pitt's life was in the senate: his true place of existence was on the benches of that ministry, which he conducted with such unparalleled ability and success: he was, in the fullest sense of the phrase, a public man; and his indulgences in the few hours which he could spare from the business of office, were more like the necessary restoratives of a frame already shattered, than the easy gratifications of a man of society: and on this principle we can safely account for the common charge of Pitt's propensity to wine. He found it essential, to relieve a mind and body exhausted by the perpetual pressure of affairs:

wine was his medicine: and it was drunk in total solitude, or with a few friends from whom the minister had no concealment. Over his wine the speeches for the night were often concerted; and when the dinner was done, the table council broke up only to finish the night in the house.

The secret history of those symposia might still clear up some of the problems that once exceedingly perplexed our politicians. On one occasion Pitt's silence on a motion brought forward by the present Earl Grey with great expectation and great effect, excited no less surprise, than its being replied to by Dundas, whose warfare generally lay among less hazardous antagonists. The clubs next day were in a fever of conjecture on this apparent surrender of a supremacy, of which the minister was supposed to be peculiarly jealous.

The mystification lasted until Dundas laughingly acknowledged that, on the night before the debate, Pitt and some of their immediate friends had been amusing themselves after dinner with imaginary speeches for Opposition: he himself had made a burlesque speech for the motion, and Pitt enjoyed the idea so highly, that he insisted on his replying to the mover in the house, saying, "that by the law of Parliament, nobody could be so fit to make a speech against, as he who had made a speech for; and that his only chance of escaping

the charge of being a proselyte, was by being an assailant." When the debate came on, Dundas had waited for the minister's rising, as usual; but, to his surprise, he found that Pitt was determined to keep up the jest, and compel him, malgré, bongré, to speak. There was no resource, Pitt was immovable, and the festive orator, to his considerable embarrassment, was forced to lead.

But wine, if a pleasant associate, is a dangerous master and an after-dinner frolic is mentioned as having nearly cost the minister his life. Returning, past midnight, with his friends to Wimbledon, from Mr. Jenkinson's, at Croydon, they found one of the turnpike gates open; and, whether from the natural pleasure of baffling the turnpikeman, or of cheating the king, the party put spurs to their horses and galloped through. Those sportive personages were no less than the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Lord Chancellor, and the Treasurer of the Navy-Pitt, Thurlow, and Dundas. The gate-keeper called after them in vain, until deciding, from their haste, and there having been rumours of robberies on the road, that they were three highwaymen, he summarily took the law into his own hands, and discharged a blunderbuss at their backs. However, their speed, or his being unaccustomed to shoot ministers flying, saved them; and they had to suffer from nothing but those "paper bullets of the brain" which Benedick so much despised.

Of those they had many a volley. The Rolliad thus commemorated the adventure:

"Ah think what danger on debauch attends !

Let Pitt, o'er wine, preach temperance to his friends,
How, as he wandered darkling o'er the plain,
His reason drowned in Jenkinson's champagne,
A rustic's hand, but righteous fate withstood,
Had shed a premier's for a robber's blood."

But those were rare condescensions to society in the premier. From remaining unmarried, he was without an establishment; for the attempt which he made to form one, with his fantastic relative Lady Hester Stanhope at its head, soon wearied him, and he escaped from it to the easier hospitality of Mr. Dundas, whose wife, Lady Jane, was a woman of remarkable intelligence, and much valued by Pitt. His official dinners were generally left to the management of Steele, one of the secretaries of the treasury.

But with Fox all was the bright side of the picture. His extraordinary powers defied dissipation. No public man of England ever mingled so much personal pursuit of every thing in the form of indulgence with so much parliamentary activity. From the dinner he went to the debate, from the debate to the gaming-table, and returned to his bed by day-light, freighted with parliamentary applause, plundered of his last disposable guinea, and fevered with sleeplessness and agitation; to go through the same round

within the next twenty-four hours. He kept no house; but he had the houses of all his party at his disposal, and that party were the most opulent and sumptuous of the nobility. Cato and Antony were not more unlike, than the public severity of Pitt, and the native and splendid dissoluteness of Fox.

They were unlike in all things. Even in such slight peculiarities as their manner of walking into the house of commons, the contrast was visible. From the door Pitt's countenance was that of a man who felt that he was coming into his high place of business. "He advanced up the floor with a quick firm step, with the head erect and thrown back, looking to neither the right nor the left, nor favouring with a glance or a nod any of the individuals seated on either side, among whom many of the highest would have been gratified by such a mark of recognition." * Fox's entrance was lounging or stately, as it might happen, but always good-humoured; he had some pleasantry to exchange with every body, and until the moment when he rose to speak, continued gaily talking with his friends.

As the royal residences were all occupied by the king, or the younger members of the royal family, the prince was forced to find a country

* Wraxall.