de of warfare,
which was soon turned with far more formidable effect against
themselves. Half the inhabitants of the Grub Street garrets paid their
milk scores, and got their shirts out of pawn, by abusing Pitt. His
German war, his subsidies, his pension, his wife's peerage, were shin of
beef and gin, blankets and baskets of small coal, to the starving
poetasters of the Fleet. Even in the House of Commons, he was, on one
occasion during this session, assailed with an insolence and malice
which called forth the indignation of men of all parties; but he endured
the outrage with majestic patience. In his younger days he had been but
too prompt to retaliate on those who attacked him; but now, conscious of
his great services, and of the space which he filled in the eyes of all
mankind, he would not stoop to personal squabbles. "This is no season,"
he said, in the debate on the Spanish war, "for altercation and
recrimination. A day has arrived when every Englishman should stand
forth for his country. Arm the whole; be one people; forget everything
but the public. I set you the example. Harassed by slanderers, sinking
under pain and disease, for the public I forget both my wrongs and my
infirmities!" On a general review of his life, we are inclined to think
that his genius and virtue never shone with so pure an effulgence as
during the session of 1762.

The session drew towards the close; and Bute, emboldened by the
acquiescence of the Houses, resolved to strike another great blow, and
to become first minister in name as well as in reality. That coalition,
which a few months before had seemed all powerful, had been dissolved.
The retreat of Pitt had deprived the government of popularity. Newcastle
had exulted in the fall of the illustrious colleague whom he envied and
dreaded, and had not foreseen that his own doom was at hand. He still
tried to flatter himself that he was at the head of the government; but
insults heaped on insults at length undeceived him. Places which had
always been considered as in his gift, were bestowed without any
reference to him. His expostulations only called forth significant hints
that it was time for him to retire. One day he pressed on Bute the
claims of a Whig Prelate to the archbishopric of York. "If your grace
thinks so highly of him," answered Bute, "I wonder that you did not
promote him when you had the power." Still the old man clung with a
desperate grasp to the wreck. Seldom, indeed, hav