of the usually benevolent Dr. Burgh--"Can I see
Addington climb upon the stooping neck of Mr. Pitt, and not believe that
it is done in hostility or in a masked confederacy? If the former, how
am I to estimate the man who comes in? If the latter, what judgement can
I form of the man who goes out?"[630] Slander also was busy in the guise
of that gadfly, Nicholls, who proposed to thank the King for dismissing
him. By way of retort Pitt's friends triumphantly carried a motion of
thanks to Pitt for his great services, against a carping minority of
fifty-two; but members were heard to mutter their preference for
Addington over all "the d--d men of genius."

Was it not time to arouse the country from sloth? The England of 1802
seemed to Wordsworth

a fen of stagnant waters.

While he invoked the memory of Milton, Canning resolved to appeal to
Pitt. In a day or two he threw off a poem which, though slighted by him,
gained a wider vogue than any of his effusions, "The Pilot that
weathered the Storm." The last and best stanza is as follows:

And O! if again the rude whirlwind should rise,
The dawning of peace should fresh darkness deform,
The regrets of the good and the fears of the wise
Shall turn to the pilot that weathered the storm.

The song was enthusiastically received by the company assembled at the
Merchant Taylors' Hall; and the reference to the recall of Pitt roused
the company to a high pitch of excitement. The song, as a whole, is
laboured and strained. The only stanza which happily weds phrase and
thought is the last. The others form a lumbering prelude to this almost
Sibylline cadence.

Despite these efforts to sow discord between Pitt and Addington, they
remained on excellent terms;[631] and the support given by the former to
the Peace of Amiens ensured to the Minister an overwhelming victory at
the polls in the General Election of the summer of 1802. Pitt was of
course returned by the University of Cambridge, "with every mark of zeal
and cordiality"--so he wrote to Rose on 10th July. The rest of the
summer he passed either near London or at Walmer. It is unfortunate that
he did not visit France, as Fox, Romilly, and many others now did.
Probably his sharp rebuff to Bonaparte's overture at the end of 1799,
and his subsequent diatribes against him precluded such a step. But he
also needed rest and quiet. On 8th June he wrote to Windham: "The sea
air and the contrast of the scene to t