called Mr. Pitt all the rogues he can set his mouth on. It appears at present a most unaccountable proceeding in every part of it, for he seems to have forfeited his popularity, on which his consequence depended, for a consideration which he might have commanded at any time; and yet he does not make an absolute retreat, for in that case one should think he would have taken the peerage himself.”

Mr. Pitt's retirement is as powerful an instance of his lofty spirit as any which marked his administration: it drew the following poignant lines from Churchill:

Can numbers then change nature's stated laws?
Can numbers make the worse the better cause?
Vice must be vice, virtue be virtue still,
Though thousands rail at good, and practise ill.
Wouldst thou defend the Gaul's destructive rage,
Because vast nations on his side engage?
Though to support the rebel Cæsar's cause,
Tumultuous legions arm against the laws;
Though scandal would our patriot's name impeach,
And rails at virtues which she cannot teach.
What honest man but would with joy submit
To bleed with Cato, and retire with Pitt?
Steadfast and true to virtue's sacred laws,
Unmov'd by vulgar censure or applause.
Let the world talk, my friend; that world, we know,
Which calls us guilty, cannot make us so.
Unaw'd by numbers, follow nature's plan;
Assert the rights, or quit the name of man.
Consider well, weigh strictly right and wrong;
Resolve not quick; but, once resolv'd, be strong,
In spite of dulness, and in spite of wit,
If to thyself thou canst thyself acquit,
Rather stand up, assured by conscious pride,
Alone, than err with millions on thy side.

Walpole writes in a very opposite spirit, in a letter to the Countess of Ailesbury, Oct. 10, 1761:

"I am in such a passion, I cannot tell you what I am angry about-why, about virtue and Mr. Pitt; two arrant cheats, gipsies. I believe he was a comrade of Elizabeth Canning, when he lived at Enfield-Wash.* In short, the Council were for making peace;

* Mr. Pitt lived, for a few years, on Enfield Chase, near EnfieldWash, the land of Elizabeth Canning.

But he, as loving his own pride and purposes,
Evades them with a bombast circumstance,
Horribly stuff'd with epithets of war,

And in conclusion-nonsuits my mediators.

"He insisted on a war with Spain, was resisted, and last Monday resigned. The City breathed vengeance on his opposers, the Council quaked, and the Lord knows what would have happened; but yesterday, which was only Friday, as this giant was stalking to seize the Tower of London, he stumbled over a silver penny, picked it up, carried it home to Lady Hester, and they are now as quiet, good sort of people, as my Lord and Lady Bath, who lived in the vinegar-bottle. In fact, Madam, this immaculate man has accepted the Barony of Chatham for his wife, with a pension of three thousand pounds a year for three lives; and though he has not quitted the House of Commons, I think my Lord Anson would now be as formidable there. The pension he has left us is a war for three thousand lives! perhaps for twenty times three thousand lives! But

Does this become a soldier? this become

Whom armies follow'd, and a people lov'd?

"What! to sneak out of the scrape, prevent peace, and avoid the war! blast one's character, and all for the comfort of a paltry annuity, a long-necked peeress, and a couple of Grenvilles! The City looks mighty foolish, I believe, and possibly even Beckford may blush."

To the Hon. Mr. Conway, Oct. 12, Walpole writes: "It is very lucky that you did not succeed in the Expedition to Rochfort. Perhaps you might have been made a peer; and as Chatham is a naval title, it might have fallen to your share. But it was reserved to crown greater glory and lest it should not be substantial enough, three thousand pounds a-year for three lives go along with it. Not to Mr. Pittyou can't suppose it. Why truly, not the title, but the annuity does, and Lady Hester is the baroness; that, if he should please, he may earn an earldom himself. Don't believe me, if you have not a mind. I know I did not believe those

who told me. But ask the Gazette that swears it-ask the King, who has kissed Lady Hester-ask the City of London, who are ready to tear Mr. Pitt to pieces-ask forty people I can name, who are overjoyed at it and then ask me again, who am mortified, and who have been the dupe of his disinterestedness. Oh! my dear Harry! I beg you on my knees, keep your virtue; do let me think there is still one man upon earth who despises money. I wrote you an account last week of his resignation. Could you have believed that in four days he would have tumbled from the conquest of Spain to receiving a quarter's pension from Mr. West? (Secretary to the Treasury.) To-day he has advertised his seven coachhorses to be sold.-Three thousand a year for three lives, and fifty thousand pounds of his own, will not keep a coach and six.* I protest I believe he is mad, and Lord Temple thinks so too; for he resigned the same morning that Pitt accepted the pension. . . . Delaval has said an admirable thing: he blames Pitt-not as you and I do; but calls him fool; and says, if he had gone into the City, told them he had a poor wife and children unprovided for, and had opened a subscription, he would have got five hundred thousand pounds, instead of three thousand pounds a year. As I cannot put Mr. Pitt to death, at least I have buried him; here is his epitaph:

"Admire his eloquence-it mounted higher
Than Attic purity or Roman fire:

Adore his services-our lions view

Ranging, where Roman eagles never flew :

Copy his soul supreme o'er Lucre's sphere;

-But oh! beware three thousand pounds a year!"

Gray also appears to have been greatly offended at this acceptance of the title and pension: "Oh!" he exclaims, "that foolishest of great men, that sold his inestimable diamond for a paltry peerage and pension!"

* Mr. Rigby writes to the Duke of Bedford, Oct. 12: "Your Grace will perceive in to-day's Public Advertiser that his (Mr. Pitt's) coachhorses are to be sold; his house in St. James's-square is also to be let: he will have no house in town, and live altogether at Hayes."

In his next letter, Oct. 24, Walpole writes to Mr. Montagu : "The City have bethought themselves, and have voted that they will still admire Mr. Pitt; consequently, he, without the check of seeming virtue, may do what he pleases." The Duke of Newcastle writes to the Duke of Bedford, Oct. 20: "Mr. Pitt's most extraordinary and unwarrantable letter has had a most extraordinary and unanswerable effect, and has brought back to him his mad, noisy City friends, who were for a time displeased with him."

Great was the popular excitement of various kinds. At the recent coronation, one of the largest jewels had fallen from the crown, which was looked upon by superstitious people as a sinister omen; and now there were many who saw its fulfilment:

When first portentous, it was known,
Great George had jostled from his crown
The brightest diamond there;

The omen-mongers, one and all,

Foretold some mischief must befall,
Some loss beyond compare !

Some fear this gem is Hanover,
Whilst others wish to God it were;
Each strives the nail to hit.

One guesses that, another this,

All mighty wise, yet all amiss;

For, ah! who thought of Pitt?

Caricatures, newspapers, and pamphlets, in the interest or pay of Bute, represented Pitt as "the distressed statesman," disappointed and overthrown in his ambitious projects, and now obliged to retire to conceal his chagrin. They spoke of him as the general incendiary, the demon of war, who cared not how he burthened or embroiled his country, while he gratified his love of slaughter and confusion. They talked of his factiousness, and of his intended measures of opposition. In one of the caricatures, entitled "Gulliver's Flight, or the Man-mountain," the "Great Commoner," as he was popularly termed, is represented flying away from St. Stephen's upon his own bubbles, amid the acclamations of the multitude below. The large bubble on which he is seated, is inscribed with the

words, "Pride, Conceit, Patriotism, Popularity." The smaller ones beneath it, are "Vanity," "Adulation," "Self-importance." More, just falling from him, are inscribed, "North America," "Spanish War," "Honesty," as being bubbles that proceeded from his resignation. And the one just issuing from the pipe is "Moderation," a sneer at the moderation which he professed after his resignation.

These attacks produced a violent re-action in Pitt's favour; portraits of Pitt, and pictures that glorified him, had a ready sale. In one of these prints, Pitt carrying the cap of liberty, and treading on faction, is presented to Britannia by Pratt, Lord Camden, and is supported by justice and victory. The ministry of Pitt, during the last years of the reign of George II., seemed, indeed, to have trodden faction underfoot; and party, which had for some years been a mere distinction of ins and outs, appeared to be almost extinguished.*

MR. PITT'S PENSION.

On the day after Pitt's resignation, the King signified through Lord Bute, his desire of conferring on the ex-minister some substantial mark of favour-suggesting the sinecure government of the newly-conquered province of Canada, with a salary of 50007.; or the Chancellorship of the Duchy, with a similar salary. This proposition was declined; but, in compliance with Pitt's suggestion, a peerage was conferred on Lady Hester, by the title of Baroness Chatham, descendible to her sons; and a pension of 3000l. a year to himself, and any two lives he should name. He named Lady Hester and their eldest son.

* England under the House of Hanover. By Thomas Wright, Esq., M.A., vol. i. pp. 393-396. "It was now," says the author, "that the name of Tories, which had always been considered as identical with Jacobites, and which had scarcely been heard of for some time, again made its appearance. In the late reign the Crown had been a moderator of parties; it now entered the field of political warfare as a party in the strife, and the early prejudices of youth identified George III., during the rest of his reign, violently and obstinately with those who, modified considerably from the old Jacobites, were henceforward denominated Tories."