within their reach,* were forever talking of liberty and the constitution, and it is not to be wondered at, after all, if the poor young king grew sick of such a jargon, and longed to revert to a purer system of monarchy (and, perhaps, not a more turbid system of constitutional government), in which he may feel himself somewhat more of a king than a cochon à l'engrais, and have none of those insolent Whigs coming into his closet and scolding him into convulsions, or the milder necessity of eating nothing but potatoes ("Royal Farmers"), for a week. Looking round him, he saw in William Pitt one of the most formidable exponents of that Whig predominancy he disliked so much, and felt that it could not be diminished while the Great Commoner continued in the van of power, overawing the royal mind by his superiority, and controlling everything with the voice and port of a dictator. Pitt, on his side, believed in 1688, and the principles which placed the house of Brunswick on the throne; and he also firmly and potently believed that any attempts against himself and his statesmanship would be calculated to damage these in some measure. He was always disposed to act with his alliance and on the recognized Whig system. But it must be understood, that he always supported these with the more earnestness and vivacity, that they seconded his own high views of national glory and prosperity-in other words, aided his ambition.

*Lord Hervey, in his "Memoirs," says that, having once observed to George II. that he supposed his majesty found great relaxation in his frequent visits to the country, the king replied: "Yes, my lord, I am very glad to get away into the country; for I see so many hungry faces around me in London, I am afraid they will eat me up at last."

In the beginning of his reign, George III. began to put his policy in operation-a shrewd little policy of dividing to conquer. He manoeuvred to break the family alliances and other coalitions which might presume to dispute his cabinet with him. He followed out this idea with wonderful pertinacity and a fatal sort of success, in the midst of perilous confusions, through tempests of vituperation, and in spite of the most desperate looking national disasters. He agitated so vigorously, that the first nine years of his reign witnessed seven ministries, or rather premiershipsthe former being, perhaps, too definite a phrase for that scrambling succession of administrations, curious evidences of the chaotic state of things then existing. They were no clean clearings-out, and compact comings-in-no more marching in bands was permitted. Everything was done in a bit-by-bit, patchwork way, so as to have men of various leanings included, and thus guard against a monopoly of ministerial power by any too-powerful subject. It is rather puzzling to try and distinguish the wavering outline of these ministries. Pitt's ministry slid into Bute's, and that somehow into Grenville's; after this occurs a huddle that seems about to change into the Bedford or the Pitt, again; but it is the Rockingham that comes; and soon another shuffling takes place, and we have a shape of government-"if shape it may be called, that shape had none"-it is the ministry in the truckle-bed from which Lord Chatham flies away disgusted and enraged; and as we look at it, it is the Grafton ministry; then that, too, changes, in the twinkling of a zodiac, and lo! it is the good-humored and fatal Lord. North, patting his portly person, and unconsciously making

the most perilous and important chapter of modern history.

In the attempt to get rid of the expensive and overbearing William Pitt, the Earl of Bute was a prime instigator. There are letters in the "Chatham Correspondence” which seem to show, and are intended to show, a cordiality between the favorite and the minister, and we have seen statements that Bute's influence with the court party was far less than the world supposed; leading people to the idea that Lord Chatham, who must have been well informed on that subject, could not have entertained any violent antipathy to the Scottish Sejanus. But that Bute had a hand in Pitt's dismissal is as sure as he had a potential voice in forming the biases of George III. With a presence in history, almost as shadowy as that of Nominis Umbra himself, and "with no more biography than a fly," as Chancellor Thurlow used to say, how wonderfully that fastidious and somewhat feeble man has contrived to make himself talked of in the world! Bubb Doddington, in his "Diary," reveals the Earl's animus towards Pitt. Under date of 29th December, 1760, the diarist says Bute called on him and expressed a wish that Lord Holdernesse should quarrel with his colleagues, and throw up his office in seeming anger, in order that he (Bute) may go in without appearing to displace any one. From the same source, we learn that Glover, the poet, spoke to Doddington, in admiration of Bute, applauding his conduct and the determination of the king, and saying they would beat everything yet. This gives a glimpse behind the scenes; shows the plotting character of the young king's court, and the efforts of his

But the

"friends" to get rid of the Secretary.* The Princess of Wales, too, who lived on very friendly terms with the Earl of Bute, was a great part of these intrigues; and we can easily conceive how Pitt's contemptuous rage against those personages would be expressed in the bitterest language of Junius. His ministry drew to its close in 1761. The king was always sighing, like Falkland, for the blessings of peace, and thus formed the general fashion of deprecating the continuance of the war. In the autumn of 1761, the minister, who had organized victory before Carnot was born, finding that France and Spain had signed a family Compact, wanted to attack them promptly, and bring them to their senses by one or two of his coups de tonnere. feeling was entirely aginst him; the real enemy was not Bourbon, but Pitt. It was a courtly grief of the first magnitude to see him towering like a colossus, under whose huge legs his colleagues and others were doomed to creep about and find themselves dishonorable-staves. A majority of the Cabinet outvoted him, on this question of war, whereupon he haughtily resigned, declaring, with a scarce disguised contempt, to the people about him, that "he would not be responsible for measures he was not permitted to guide." Dutiful politicians of all sorts threw up their eyes and hands in amazement at such language, which, they said, was only fit for the Grand Turk, and Temple quitted office with his brother-in-law. Newcastle also, the nominal head of that ministry, resigned soon after, casting on the long

*No one, reading the concluding page or two of " Doddington's Diary," can have the slightest doubt that Lord Bute did everything in his power to bring about a change such as would remove Pitt.

enjoyed domains of office, as he quitted them for the last time, a glance like that of Boabdil, when he bid a last adieu to the pleasant seats of Granada. Then the court party triumphed, and the shy, saturnine Lord Bute succeeded in grasping what, with the king's aid, he had plotted for-the premiership of England-a brief possession,

George Grenville refused to follow the fortunes of his family and provoked the future sarcastic opposition of Pitt, by getting into the place lately held by the latter. In 1762, the Duke of Bedford, a strong opponent of Pitt's belligerent policy, went to France, and there concluded the treaty of Paris, signing away, with a stroke of his pen, conquests which had cost the late Secretary so much travail of soul to achieve. Meanwhile, a storm, directed by the latter, whether in parliament, or through channels of the press of which we have no certain knowledge as yet, blew against Bute and the court policy; a boot-jack and a petticoat (this last representing, by synecdoche, the Princess of Wales) were burnt together in the streets; and, then, the obnoxious minister bent, sighed like a reed, and passed away behind the scenes to come no more forward in history. He had achieved great things, however, in driving out Pitt and Temple, and shutting the gates of Bellona, for whose worship the former was the only adequate high priest. Still, these royal victories were as disconcerting as those of Pyrrhus. Popular feeling and the Pittite phalanx were at work, and his majesty, seeing that, without a strong ministry, different from that of the long-headed arithmetician then at the head of the cabinet, the business of the country would be at a deadlock, now seemed will