last reign, is happily restored to his country. He made his first
public re-appearance in the senate last night. All the old members
recognised him instantly, and most of the young ones said he appeared
the very man they had so often heard described: the language, the
manner, the gesture, the action were the same; and there wanted only a
few wrinkles in the face, and some marks of age, to identify the
absolute person of the late Earl of Chatham."

Addington, at this period, had a good deal of intercourse with Pitt, who
became Chancellor of the Exchequer at the age of twenty-three, and whose
brilliant success in parliament evidently stimulated his friend to
political pursuits. But the infamous coalition broke in, and Pitt was
dismissed from the ministry. Its existence, however, was brief: it not
merely fell, but was crushed amidst a universal uproar of national
scorn; and Pitt, not yet twenty-five, was appointed prime minister. In
the course of the month, an interview took place between Pitt and
Addington, which gave his friends strong hopes of seeing him in
immediate office. His friend Bragge thus writes to him:

"I give you joy of the effects of the interview of last Sunday, of which
I am impatient to hear the particulars. Secretary, either official or
confidential, I should wish you, and indeed all the boards are already
filled."

Still, he remained unappointed, though his intimacy with the minister
grew more confidential from day to day. Pitt was at this time engaged in
a desperate struggle with the Opposition, who, ruined as they were in
character, yet retained an overwhelming majority in parliament. On this
occasion, the young statesman gave perhaps the most triumphant evidence
of his remarkable sagacity. Every one was astonished, that he had not at
once dissolved a parliament which it seemed impossible for him either to
convince or conquer. But, with the House of Lords strongly disposed
towards him, and the King for his firm friend, Pitt fought the House
night after night, until he found the national feeling wholly on his
side. Then, on the 25th of March, 1784, he dissolved the parliament, and
by that act extinguished the whole power of Whiggism for twenty years.
There never was a defeat more ruinous; more than a hundred and sixty
members, who had generally been of the Foxite party, were driven
ignominiously from their seats, and the party was thenceforth condemned
to linger in an opposition equally bitter, frui