eaning man under such a
delusion.

In spite of all these difficulties, a ministry was made such as the King
wished to see,--a ministry in which all his Majesty's friends were
comfortably accommodated, and which, with the exception of his Majesty's
friends, contained no four persons who had ever in their lives been in
the habit of acting together. Men who had never concurred in a single
vote found themselves seated at the same board. The office of paymaster
was divided between two persons who had never exchanged a word. Most of
the chief posts were filled either by personal adherents of Pitt, or by
members of the late ministry, who had been induced to remain in place
after the dismissal of Lord Rockingham. To the former class belonged
Pratt, now Lord Camden, who accepted the Great Seal, and Lord Shelburne,
who was made one of the Secretaries of State. To the latter class
belonged the Duke of Grafton, who became First Lord of the Treasury, and
Conway, who kept his old position both in the government and in the
House of Commons. Charles Townshend, who had belonged to every party,
and cared for none, was Chancellor of the Exchequer. Pitt himself was
declared prime minister, but refused to take any laborious office. He
was created Earl of Chatham, and the privy seal was delivered to him.

It is scarcely necessary to say that the failure, the complete and
disgraceful failure, of this arrangement is not to be ascribed to any
want of capacity in the persons whom we have named. None of them was
deficient in abilities; and four of them, Pitt himself, Shelburne,
Camden, and Townshend, were men of high intellectual eminence. The fault
was not in the materials, but in the principle on which the materials
were put together. Pitt had mixed up these conflicting elements, in the
full confidence that he should be able to keep them all in perfect
subordination to himself, and in perfect harmony with each other. We
shall soon see how the experiment succeeded.

On the very day on which the new prime minister kissed hands, three
fourths of that popularity which he had long enjoyed without a rival,
and to which he owed the greater part of his authority, departed from
him. A violent outcry was raised, not against that part of his conduct
which really deserved severe condemnation, but against a step in which
we can see nothing to censure. His acceptance of a peerage produced a
general burst of indignation. Yet surely no peerage had ever been