The village, too, the peaceful pleasant plain, Here clowns delight the weekly news to con, If the prince had been a man of a harsh and gloomy mind, he had already found matter to qualify him for a Timon. But his experience produced no bitterness against human nature, though it may have urged him into more intimate connexion with the party that promised at once to protect and to avenge. Long attracted to Fox by the social captivations of that singularly-gifted individual, he now completely joined him as the politician, made friends of his friends and enemies of his enemies, unfurled the opposition banner, and all but declared himself the head of the great aristocratic combination, which was now more than ever resolved to shake the minister upon his throne. In 1792† the prince had been introduced to the house of peers, attended by the Dukes of Cumberland, Richmond, Portland, and Lord Lewisham, and had spoken on the Marquis of Abercorn's motion for an address on the proclamation for repressing seditious meetings. The speech was much admired for the grace of its delivery. It was in substance that -"He was educated in the principle, and he should ever preserve it, of a reverence for the constitutional liberties of the people; and as on those liberties the happiness of the people depended, he was determined, *Poem of "The Newspaper," published in 1784. as far as his interest could have any force, to support them. The matter at issue was, whether the constitution was or was not to be maintained; whether the wild ideas of theory were to conquer the wholesome maxims of established practice; and whether those laws, under which we had flourished for so long a series of years, were to be subverted by a reform unsanctioned by the people. "As a person nearly and dearly interested in the welfare, and he would emphatically add, the happiness and comfort of the people, it would be treason to the principles of his mind, if he did not come forward and declare his disapprobation of those seditious publications which had occasioned the motion now before their lordships; his interest was connected with the interests of the people; they were so inseparable, that unless both parties concurred, happiness could not exist. "On this great, this solid basis, he grounded the vote which he meant to give; and that vote should unequivocally be, for a concurrence with the address of the commons." He concluded by saying, with remarkable effect,-"I exist by the love, the friendship, and the benevolence of the people, and them I never will forsake as long as I live." This speech, whether suggested by the Duke of Portland (as was rumoured), or conceived by the prince, was obviously ministerial. But in those days, when the lord of the treasury might in the next month be thundering at the head of its assailants, and in the month after be flinging back their baffled bolts from the secure height of ministerial power; when in one month he might be the rebellious Titan, and in the next the legitimate Jove, the waving of whose curls shook the Olympus of Downing-street from its summit to its base; the rapid changes of the administration made ministerial allegiance curiously fugitive. Before the worshipper had time to throw himself at the foot of the altar, the idol was gone, and another was in possession; before the cargo of fealty could reach the port, the port was in dust and ashes, or a hostile ensign waved upon its walls. North, Pitt, Shelburne, Fox, and Rockingham successively mastered the treasury bench, within scarcely more months than their names; until government had begun to be looked on as only a more serious masquerade, where every man might assume every character in turn, and where the change of dress was the chief difference between the Grand Turk and his buffoon. The prince was the great political prize. From the hour of his infancy, when he was first shown be hind his gilded lattice at St. James's to the people, he was the popular hope. The king's early illness, which made it probable that the heir might soon be the master of the crown, fixed the public interest still more anxiously upon him, and the successive cabinets felt the full importance of his name: but now the whole advantage was on the side of opposition. England had never before seen such a phalanx armed against a minister. A crowd of men of the highest natural talents, of the most practised ability, and of the first public weight in birth, fortune, and popularity, were nightly arrayed against the administration, sustained by the solitary eloquence of the young Chancellor of the Exchequer. He was Yet Pitt was not careless of followers. more than once even charged with sedulously gathering round him a host of subaltern politicians, whom he might throw forward as skirmishers,-or sacrifices, which they generally were. Powis, describing the "forces led by the right hon. gentleman on the treasury bench," said, "the first detachment may be called his body-guard, who shoot their little arrows against those who refuse allegiance to their chief."* This light infantry were, of course, soon scattered *Wraxall's Memoirs. when the main battle joined. But Pitt, a son of the aristracy, was an aristocrat in all his nature, and he loved to sc young men of family round him; others were chosen for their activity, if not for their force, and some probably from personal liking. In the later period of his career, his train was swelled by a more influential and promising race of political worshippers, among whom were Lord Mornington, since Marquis Wellesley; Ryder, since Lord Harrowby; and Wilberforce, still undignified by title, but possessing an influence which, perhaps, he values more. The minister's chief agents in the house of commons were Mr. Grenville (since Lord Grenville) and Dundas. Yet, among those men of birth or business, what rival could be found to the popular leaders on the opposite side of the house,-to Burke, Sheridan, Grey, Windham, or to Fox, that "Prince and chief of many throned powers, Who led the embattled seraphim to war." Without adopting the bitter remark of the Duke de Montausier to Louis the Fourteenth, in speaking of Versailles :-"Vous avez beau faire, sire, vous n'en ferez jamais qu'un favori sans mérite," it was impossi ble to deny their inferiority on all the great points of public impression. A debate in that day was one of the highest intellectual treats: there was always some new and vigorous feature in the display on both sides; some striking effort of imagination or masterly reasoning, or of that fine sophistry, in which, as was said of the vices of the French noblesse, half 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 |