ous mediocrity. Henry Addington was at the head of
the Treasury. He had been an early, indeed a hereditary, friend of Pitt,
and had by Pitt's influence been placed, while still a young man, in the
chair of the House of Commons. He was universally admitted to have been
the best speaker that had sate in that chair since the retirement of
Onslow. But nature had not bestowed on him very vigorous faculties; and
the highly respectable situation which he had long occupied with honour
had rather unfitted than fitted him for the discharge of his new
duties. His business had been to bear himself evenly between contending
factions. He had taken no part in the war of words; and he had always
been addressed with marked deference by the great orators who thundered
against each other from his right and from his left. It was not strange
that, when, for the first time, he had to encounter keen and vigorous
antagonists, who dealt hard blows without the smallest ceremony, he
should have been awkward and unready, or that the air of dignity and
authority which he had acquired in his former post, and of which he had
not divested himself, should have made his helplessness laughable and
pitiable. Nevertheless, during many months, his power seemed to stand
firm. He was a favourite with the King, whom he resembled in narrowness
of mind, and to whom he was more obsequious than Pitt had ever been.
The nation was put into high good humour by a peace with France. The
enthusiasm with which the upper and middle classes had rushed into the
war had spent itself. Jacobinism was no longer formidable. Everywhere
there was a strong reaction against what was called the atheistical and
anarchical philosophy of the eighteenth century. Bonaparte, now First
Consul, was busied in constructing out of the ruins of old institutions
a new ecclesiastical establishment and a new order of knighthood.
That nothing less than the dominion of the whole civilised world would
satisfy his selfish ambition was not yet suspected; nor did even wise
men see any reason to doubt that he might be as safe a neighbour as
any prince of the House of Bourbon had been. The treaty of Amiens
was therefore hailed by the great body of the English people with
extravagant joy. The popularity of the minister was for the moment
immense. His want of parliamentary ability was, as yet, of little
consequence: for he had scarcely any adversary to encounter. The old
opposition, delighted by the peace, reg