"You will ask what can be beyond this? Nothing-but what was beyond what ever was-and that was Pitt. He spoke at past one for an hour and thirty-five minutes. There was more humour, wit, vivacity, fine language, more boldness, in short, more astonishing perfections than even you, who are used to him, can conceive. He was not very abusive, yet very attacking on all sides. He ridiculed My Lord Hillsborough; crushed poor Sir George (Lyttleton); crucified the attorney (Murray); lashed My Lord Granville; painted My Lord of Newcastle; attacked Mr. Fox; and even hinted up to the Duke of Cumberland himself."

66 THE COUSIN HOOD."

In 1754, Pitt took to wife Lady Hester Grenville, sister of Earl Temple-a marriage which, while it secured his domestic happiness, strengthened his political connexion. Henceforth, the family of Grenville, flourishing both in its main-stem and in its branches, and surnamed by those who envied or opposed it, "the Cousinhood,"-continued to play a conspicuous and important part on the scene of politics. Lord Macaulay has computed that within the space of fifty years, three First Lords of the Treasury, three Secretaries of State, two Keepers of the Privy Seal, and four First Lords of the Admiralty, were appointed from among the sons and grandsons of the first Countess Temple.

INVASION PANIC.

During the winter of 1755, and until the close of the Session in May, 1756, England was stirred with constantlyrecurring alarms of a French invasion. Scarce a French sail appeared in the Channel but it was expanded by popular rumour into a hostile flotilla. Our national confidence had dwindled under our pusillanimous rulers; a little longer, and we might all have sunk to the level of Newcastle. "I want," exclaimed Pitt, in a tone becoming an Englishman, "to call this country out of that enervate state that 20,000 men from France could shake it."

LORD CHATHAM'S LETTERS.

Wilkes designates Chatham as "the best orator and worst letter-writer of his age;" and the publication of his Lordship's Correspondence fully corroborates this remark. His style of mind, manners, and expression was of too high a scale to be gracefully lowered to the familiar or colloquial. It seems as if he thought it necessary to conduct the most ordinary correspondence, as Virgil was said to manure his fields, with an air of dignity; even in his affectionate letters to his wife and children he appears to descend with reluctance from his pedestal; and most readers, we think, will be of opinion that he makes a much more interesting and striking figure in Horace Walpole's Letters than in his own.

PITT'S PEERS.

Wilkes frequently noticed the multitude of Peers created during Mr. Pitt's administration, as a circumstance likely to be attended with an important consequence, not generally foreseen. "While the new relation between the minister and the new-made peers shall subsist, their subserviency," he used to say, "to his measures will continue; but when this relation ceases, the probability is, that, as succeeding ministers will not have the means of attaching them, they will form a silent, sulky opposition,-a dead weight on every administration. Will it not then be found that the descendants of Mr. Pitt's peers will be mutes to strangle his successors ?"

THE COALITION OF NEWCASTLE AND FOX-THE
RHONE AND SAONE.

In the Session of 1755, in the long debate upon the Address, in the House of Commons, Mr. Pitt achieved a great oratorical triumph. Horace Walpole, who was present, well describes Pitt as haughty, defiant, conscious of recent injury, and of supreme ability. "He surpassed himself, and then I need not tell you that he surpassed Cicero and Demosthenes. What a figure would they, with their formal,

laboured, cabinet orations make by the side of his manly vivacity and dashing eloquence, at one o'clock in the morning, after sitting in that heat for eleven hours! He spoke above an hour and a half, with scarce a bad sentence." Of this splendid declamation against the treaties of subsidy by far the greater part has perished; one elaborate passage, however, on the coalition between Newcastle and Fox, is happily preserved. "It strikes me now," said Pitt, raising his hand suddenly to his forehead, "I remember that at Lyons I was taken to see the conflux of the Rhone and Saone, the one a gentle, feeble, languid stream, and though languid of no depth, the other a boisterous and impetuous torrent,-but different as they are they meet at last,-and long," he added, with bitter irony, "long may they continue united, to the comfort of each other, and to the glory, honour, and security of their nation."

The two rivals were still, it appears, on familiar terms. After the debate, Fox asked Pitt, "Who is the Rhone ?" Pitt answered, "Is that a fair question ?" "Why," said Fox, "as you have said so much that I did not desire to hear, you may tell me one thing that I would hear. Am I the Rhone, or Lord Granville ?" Pitt answered, "You are Granville." Lord Temple, no bad commentator of Pitt's meaning, said, that "the Rhone meant the Duke, Fox, and Lord Granville; the Saone, the Duke of Newcastle, the Chancellor, and Murray." Yet (says Thackeray) it was generally understood that the former was personal to Fox, the latter to Newcastle. The description, languid, yet of no depth, was scarcely applicable to the Chancellor, by no means to Murray.

It has been surmised that Pitt adapted this comparison from a passage in Lord Roscommon's Essay on Translated Verse: possibly, he may have merely quoted the lines of Roscommon, and may have converted his quotation into prose. Lord Roscommon says:

Thus have I seen a rapid headlong tide,
With foaming waves the passive Saone divide,

Whose lazy waters without motion lay,

Whilst he with eager force urg'd his impetuous way.

Such is the conjecture of Mr. W. Ewart, in No. 193 of Notes and Queries; but the circumstantiality with which Pitt relates—" I was taken to see the conflux," has in it a semblance of truth; and had the change which Mr. Ewart conjectures been made, it would most probably have been noted by Walpole, who heard the speech.

HOW THE PITT MINISTRY WAS FORMED.

When, in 1756, the administration of the Duke of Newcastle had proved intolerably unpopular, Mr. Pitt was become, even in the opinion of the King himself, an inevitable necessity. The first project was to graft him on the old stock, but he boldly refused to take any part until the Duke of Newcastle should be dislodged. He likewise refused, civilly but firmly, to act with Mr. Fox, who thereupon suddenly resigned. The Duke, much offended with Fox, held on, and attempted other arrangements-all failing, he was himself (in November, 1756) obliged to abdicate, after having filled the offices of Secretary of State and First Lord of the Treasury for thirtytwo years. The King had now no alternative but Mr. Pitt and his friends. Pitt took for himself the office of Secretary of State, and provided for all the Pittite connexion; during all these arrangements Mr. Pitt being confined by the gout-conveniently enough to a man of his taste, who professed to hate the personal details of patronage. The King was exceedingly averse to the whole system, both principles and persons, and was particularly displeased at the speech put into his mouth by the new ministers-a feeling which he evinced pleasantly enough:-A printer was prosecuted for publishing a spurious speech, on which the King expressed “a hope that the man's punishment might be of the mildest sort, for he had read both speeches, and, as far as he understood either of them, he liked the spurious speech better than his own."

"At last," writes Walpole, "after an interval of eleven

weeks, the ministry was settled, and kissed hands on the 29th (June, 1757). The Duke of Newcastle returned to the Treasury, with Legge for his Chancellor of the Exchequer. Pitt and Lord Holdernesse were Secretaries of State. Lord Temple had the Privy Seal in the room of Lord Gower, who was made Master of the Horse. Fox accepted the Pay-office, professing great content, and that he should offend neither in thought, word, nor deed; and Lord Anson was restored to the Admiralty."

Waldegrave has this amusing note: "On the day they were all to kiss hands, I went to Kensington to entertain myself with the innocent, or perhaps ill-natured amusement of examining the different countenances. The behaviour of Pitt and his party was decent and sensible: they had neither the insolence of men who had gained victory, nor were they awkward and disconcerted, like those who come to a place where they know they are not welcome; but as to the Duke of Newcastle, and his friends the resigners, there was a mixture of fear and shame on their countenances; they were the real objects of compassion."

"From this period," say the Editors of the Chatham Correspondence," commenced the brilliant era, justly called Mr. Pitt's Administration; in which he became the soul of the British counsels, conciliated the goodwill of the King, infused a new spirit into the nation, and curbed the united efforts of the House of Bourbon." Yet, in a letter from Lord Chesterfield to Mr. Dayrolles, we find this reversed picture of the state of affairs at this moment:- "Whoever is in, or whoever is out, I am sure we are undone, both at home and abroad at home, by our increasing debt and expenses; abroad, by our ill-luck and incapacity. The King of Prussia, the only ally we had in the world, is now, I fear, hors de combat. Hanover I look upon to be, by this time, in the same situation with Saxony; the fatal consequence of which is but too obvious. The French are masters to do what they please in America. We are no longer a nation. I never yet saw so dreadful a prospect."