the
famous epigram, "In England it is thought necessary to kill an admiral
from time to time to encourage the others"--"_pour encourager les
autres_." Voltaire tried hard to save Byng, and even induced the Duc
de Richelieu to write a letter bearing his personal testimony to the
unfortunate admiral's courage.

The Duke of Newcastle resigned office, and for a short time the Duke of
Devonshire was at the head of a coalition Ministry which included Pitt.
The King, however, did not stand this long, and one day suddenly turned
them all out of office. Then a coalition of another kind was formed,
which included Newcastle and Pitt, with Henry Fox in the subordinate
position of paymaster. Pitt now for the first time had it all his own
way. He ruled everything in the House of Commons. He flung himself
with passionate and patriotic energy into the {299} alliance with that
great Frederick whose genius and daring were like his own. Pitt was a
heaven-born war-minister. His courage and his resources changed the
whole fortunes of the war. He seemed a statesman to organize victory.
He stirred up the languishing patriotism of the hour, and filled it
with new and noble inspiration. It was true what George had said to
him--that he had taught, or tried to teach, the Sovereign to seek
outside the House of Commons for the voice of the English people. But
this was to the honor of Pitt, and not to his discredit. Pitt saw that
a legislature returned on such a representation could be no spokesman
of the English people. He knew that intelligence and education were
beginning to spread with increased wealth through large unrepresented
classes, and even communities. While he had the people behind him he
cared little for the Sovereign, and still less for the House of
Commons. His pride was as great as his patriotism; he might be broken,
but he could not bend. At last he had found his true place--at the
head of a great nation and during a grand national crisis.

[Sidenote: 1757--Sterne]

The closing years of George's reign were honored by some literary
triumphs in which George himself could have taken but little interest.
In 1755 appeared, in two volumes folio, the English Dictionary by
Samuel Johnson. We shall meet with Samuel Johnson a good deal in the
future course of this history, and have now only to mention as a fact
the publication of the work on which he himself believed his fame was
to rest. Another work of a very different