which aroused the wonder or envy of other nations; to use peerages and
bishoprics, pocket boroughs and sinecures, as a means of buttressing
that fabric, such were the aims of the third George.

Failing materially to weaken the force of this mighty engine of
patronage, Pitt was fain to make the best of things as they were. The
defeat of his Reform Bill in 1785 was the chief crisis in his early
career; for it involved the failure of the Abolition Bill, perhaps also
of the schemes for the relief of the poor which he outlined in 1797. In
fact, after the year 1785, and still more so after 1790, he had to
govern mainly as King's Minister, not as the people's Minister. Worst of
all, the centre of political gravity remained dangerously high
throughout the storms of the Revolutionary Era. How much of the nation's
energy then went forth in justifiable discontent and futile efforts at
repression has already appeared. Up to the year 1798 the struggle
against France was largely one of the governing class against a nation;
and for this the King and the British oligarchy, not Pitt, were
responsible. Personal charm and the magnetic gift of evoking enthusiasm
have in some monarchs counterbalanced defects of narrowness and
intolerance. George was not deficient in courtly grace and tact--witness
his remark to Pitt at their first interview after the long separation of
the years 1801-1804. When Pitt ventured to compliment the King on his
looking better than after the illness of 1801, the latter at once
replied: "That is not to be wondered at: I was then on the point of
parting with an old friend. Now I am about to regain one." But these
gracious remarks came rarely in his closing years, which were marked by
increasing harshness to his family, petulance on the most trivial
affairs, and an outlook more narrowly personal than ever.

Such a nature chafes its surroundings. It arouses no enthusiasm; it
merely begets heat by friction. Pitt has been blamed for spending too
much time and energy in speeches about the war. But there was no other
way of kindling the nation's zeal. The Princes very rarely spoke in the
House of Lords, except under an overmastering fear of the abolition of
the Slave Trade. None of the Ministers, except Windham, had the gift of
oratory. On Pitt alone devolved the task of arousing a national spirit;
and a cruel destiny cut short his life at the very time when his
inspiring presence was most needed. How much England then los