idleness, cluster together with no earthly resource but gazing into the
street, or poring over a newspaper. If this service is severe enough to
shake their philosophy during the sleety showers of February, and the
withering blasts of March; the first break of sunshine, and the first
streak of blue sky, makes their impatience amount to agony. The rest of
the season only renders their suffering more inveterate; until at last
the discharge of cannon from the Park, and the sound of trumpets at the
doors of the House of Lords, a gracious speech from the throne, and a
still more gracious smile from the sitter on it, let them loose from
their task, and they are free, facetious, and foxhunters once more.
There are still half-a-dozen other classes, "fine by degrees, and
beautifully less," which may be left to the imagination of the reader,
and the experience of the well-bred world.

Addington soon made himself useful on committees. The strong necessities
of the case, much more than the Reform Bill, have remarkably shortened
the longevity of election committees. The committee, in general, was
fortunate, which could accomplish its business within three months. Some
took twice the number, some even crossed over from session to session.
The first committee on which Addington was engaged had this unfortunate
duration, and he was re-appointed to it in the second session of the
parliament of 1785.

At this period, whether from a sense of disappointment, or from the
silent dulness of this drudgery, his health appears to have been in a
feeble state. In a letter to his father, he apologises for listlessness
and stupidity by illness, and says, "that he does not come up to the
definition of man as a risible animal." Yet the man who could live to
eighty-seven, and retain his health in a retirement of nearly a quarter
of a century, could not complain of his constitution.

In 1786 Pitt availed himself of the opening of the session to induce his
friend to break ground. He proposed that he should second the address;
and almost condescended to coax him into further exertion of his
abilities.--"I will not disguise," says his letter, "that, in asking
this favour of you, (the speech,) I look beyond the immediate object of
the first day's debate; from a persuasion that whatever induces you to
take a part in public, will equally contribute to your personal credit,
and that of the system to which I have the pleasure of thinking you are
so warmly att