elf on some fit occasion. Malmesbury and Canning did
their utmost to spur him on to a more decided opposition; and the latter
wrote him a letter of eight pages "too admonitory and too fault-finding
for even Pitt's very good humoured mind to bear."[648] Pitt replied by
silence. In vain did friends tell him that Ministers had assured the
King of his intention to bring forward Catholic Emancipation if he
returned to office. In vain did Malmesbury declare that Pitt must take
the helm of State, otherwise Fox would do so. In vain did Rose predict
the country's ruin from Addington's appalling ignorance of finance. Pitt
still considered himself in honour bound to support Addington. At the
close of January he held friendly converse with him, before setting out
for Walmer for a time of rest and seclusion. Canning's only consolation
was that Bonaparte would come to their help, and by some new act of
violence end Pitt's scrupulous balancing between the claims of national
duty and of private obligations. The First Consul dealt blow upon blow.
Yet even so, Canning's hopes were long to remain unfulfilled. As we saw
in the former volume, the relations of Pitt to Addington had for many
years been of an intimate nature; but occasions arise when a statesman
ought promptly to act upon the maxim of Mirabeau--"_La petite morale est
ennemie de la grande._" In subordinating the interests of England to the
dictates of a deep-rooted but too exacting friendship, Pitt was guilty
of one of the most fatal blunders of that time.

FOOTNOTES:

[606] Wraxall, iii, 458. For Pitt's earlier friendships see my former
volume.

[607] "Mems. of Lady Hester Stanhope," iii, 187.

[608] From Mr. Broadley's MSS. Hayley's efforts on behalf of Cowper have
been described by Professor E. Dowden, "Essays: Modern and Elizabethan"
(1910). Ultimately a pension of L300 a year was assigned to Cowper: the
authorization, signed by the King and Pitt, and dated 23rd April 1794,
is now in the Cowper Museum, Olney, Bucks, so the secretary, Mr. Thomas
Wright (editor of Cowper's Letters), kindly informs me.

[609] "Rutland Papers," iii, 229, 241 (Hist. MSS. Comm.). So, too,
Tomline said that Pitt had no ear for music, and little taste for
drawing or painting, though he was fond of architecture, and once drew
from memory the plan of a mansion in Norfolk, with a view to improving
it (Lord Rosebery, "Tomline's Estimate of Pitt," 34).

[610] "Glenbervie Journals," 195.

[611] "