f his
colleagues, the savage clamors raised by his detractors, bewildered his
enfeebled mind. One thing alone, he said, could save him. He must
repurchase Hayes. The unwilling consent of the new occupant was extorted
by Lady Chatham's entreaties and tears; and her lord was somewhat
easier. But if business were mentioned to him, he, once the proudest and
boldest of mankind, behaved like a hysterical girl, trembled from head
to foot, and burst into a flood of tears.

His colleagues for a time continued to entertain the expectation that
his health would soon be restored, and that he would emerge from his
retirement. But month followed month, and still he remained hidden in
mysterious seclusion, and sunk, as far as they could learn, in the
deepest dejection of spirits. They at length ceased to hope or to fear
anything from him; and, though he was still nominally Prime Minister,
took without scruple steps which they knew to be diametrically opposed
to all his opinions and feelings, allied themselves with those whom he
had proscribed, disgraced those whom he most esteemed, and laid taxes on
the colonies, in the face of the strong declarations which he had
recently made.

When he had passed about a year and three quarters in gloomy privacy,
the King received a few lines in Lady Chatham's hand. They contained a
request, dictated by her lord, that he might be permitted to resign the
Privy Seal. After some civil show of reluctance, the resignation was
accepted. Indeed Chatham was, by this time, almost as much forgotten as
if he had already been lying in Westminster Abbey.

At length the clouds which had gathered over his mind broke and passed
away. His gout returned, and freed him from a more cruel malady. His
nerves were newly braced. His spirits became buoyant. He woke as from a
sickly dream. It was a strange recovery. Men had been in the habit of
talking of him as of one dead, and, when he first showed himself at the
King's levee, started as if they had seen a ghost. It was more than two
years and a half since he had appeared in public.

He, too, had cause for wonder. The world which he now entered was not
the world which he had quitted. The administration which he had formed
had never been, at any one moment, entirely changed. But there had been
so many losses and so many accessions, that he could scarcely recognize
his own work. Charles Townshend was dead. Lord Shelburne had been
dismissed. Conway had sunk into utter ins