of
eternity. All this was not prepared long beforehand, for it seems that
the dagger had only been shown to Burke on his way to the House as one
that had been sent to Birmingham to be a pattern for a large order.
Whether prepared or unprepared, the scene was one from which we gladly
avert our eyes.

Negotiations had been going on for some months, and they continued in
various stages for some months longer, for a coalition between the two
great parties of the State. Burke was persistently anxious that Fox
should join Pitt's Government. Pitt always admitted the importance
of Fox's abilities in the difficult affairs which lay before the
ministry, and declared that he had no sort of personal animosity to
Fox, but rather a personal good-will and good-liking. Fox himself said
of a coalition, "It is so damned right, to be sure, that I cannot help
thinking it must be." But the difficulties were insuperable. The
more rapidly the Government drifted in Burke's direction, the more
impossible was it for a man of Fox's political sympathies and
convictions to have any dealings with a cabinet committed to a policy
of irrational panic, to be carried out by a costly war abroad and
cruel repression at home. "_What a very wretched man!_" was Burke's
angry exclamation one day, when it became certain that Fox meant to
stand by the old flag of freedom and generous common sense.

When the coalition at length took place (1794), the only man who
carried Burke's principles to their fullest extent into Pitt's cabinet
was Windham. It is impossible not to feel the attraction of Windham's
character, his amiability, his reverence for great and virtuous men,
his passion for knowledge, the versatility of his interests. He is a
striking example of the fact that literature was a common pursuit
and occupation to the chief statesmen of that time (always excepting
Pitt), to an extent that has been gradually tending to become rarer.
Windham, in the midst of his devotion to public affairs, to the
business of his country, and, let us add, a zealous attendance on
every prize fight within reach, was never happy unless he was working
up points in literature and mathematics. There was a literary and
classical spirit abroad, and in spite of the furious preoccupations of
faction, a certain ready disengagement of mind prevailed. If Windham
and Fox began to talk of horses, they seemed to fall naturally into
what had been said about horses by the old writers. Fox held