ho had
nothing in common with Johnson except violent Jacobitism, and who had
stood in the pillory for a libel on the Revolution, was honored with a
mark of royal approbation, similar to that which was bestowed on the
author of the English Dictionary, and of the Vanity of Human Wishes. It
was remarked that Adam, a Scotchman, was the court architect, and that
Ramsay, a Scotchman, was the court painter, and was preferred to
Reynolds. Mallet, a Scotchman, of no high literary fame, and of
infamous character, partook largely of the liberality of the government.
John Home, a Scotchman, was rewarded for the tragedy of Douglas, both
with a pension and with a sinecure place. But, when the author of the
Bard, and of the Elegy in a Country Churchyard, ventured to ask for a
Professorship, the emoluments of which he much needed, and for the
duties of which he was, in many respects, better qualified than any man
living, he was refused; and the post was bestowed on the pedagogue under
whose care the favorite's son-in-law, Sir James Lowther, had made such
signal proficiency in the graces and in the humane virtues.

Thus, the first lord of the treasury was detested by many as a Tory, by
many as a favorite, and by many as a Scot. All the hatred which flowed
from these various sources soon mingled, and was directed in one torrent
of obloquy against the treaty of peace. The Duke of Bedford, who had
negotiated that treaty, was hooted through the streets. Bute was
attacked in his chair, and was with difficulty rescued by a troop of the
guards. He could hardly walk the streets in safety without disguising
himself. A gentleman who died not many years ago used to say that he
once recognized the favorite Earl in the piazza of Covent Garden,
muffled in a large coat, and with a hat and wig drawn down over his
brows. His lordship's established type with the mob was a jack boot, a
wretched pun on his Christian name and title. A jack boot, generally
accompanied by a petticoat, was sometimes fastened on a gallows, and
sometimes committed to the flames. Libels on the court, exceeding in
audacity and rancor any that had been published for many years, now
appeared daily both in prose and verse. Wilkes, with lively insolence,
compared the mother of George the Third to the mother of Edward the
Third, and the Scotch minister to the gentle Mortimer. Churchill, with
all the energy of hatred, deplored the fate of his country, invaded by a
new race of savages, m