resign, and the Marquis of Rockingham became prime minister in 1782, and Burke, the acknowledged leader of his party, became paymaster of the forces,—­an office at one time worth L25,000 a year, before the reform which Burke had instigated.  But this great statesman was not admitted to the cabinet; George III. did not like him, and his connections were not sufficiently powerful to overcome the royal objection.  In our times he would have been rewarded with a seat on the treasury bench; with less talents than he had, the commoners of our day become prime-ministers.  But Burke did not long enjoy even the office of paymaster.  On the death of Lord Rockingham, a few months after he had formed the ministry, Burke retired from the only office he ever held.  And he retired to Beaconsfield,—­an estate which he had purchased with the assistance of his friend Rockingham, where he lived when parliamentary duties permitted, in that state of blended elegance, leisure, and study which is to be found, in the greatest perfection, in England alone.

The political power of Burke culminated at the close of the war with America, but not his political influence:  and there is a great difference between power and influence.  Nor do we read that Burke, after this, headed the opposition.  That position was shared by Charles James Fox, who ultimately supplanted his master as the leader of his party; not because Burke declined in wisdom or energy, but because Fox had more skill as a debater, more popular sympathies, and more influential friends.  Burke, like Gladstone, was too stern, too irritable, too imperious, too intellectually proud, perhaps too unyielding, to control such an ignorant, prejudiced, and aristocratic body as the House of Commons, jealous of his ascendency and writhing under his rebukes.  It must have been galling to the great philosopher to yield the palm to lesser men; but such has ever been the destiny of genius, except in crises of public danger.  Of all things that politicians hate is the domination of a man who will not stoop to flatter, who cannot be bribed, and who will be certain to expose vices and wrongs.  The world will not bear rebukes.  The fate of prophets is to be stoned.  A stern moral greatness is repulsive to the weak and wicked.  Parties reward mediocre men, whom they can use or bend; and the greatest benefactors lose their popularity when they oppose the enthusiasm of new ideas, or become austere in their instructions.  Thus the greatest statesman that this country has produced since Alexander Hamilton, lost his prestige when his conciliating policy became offensive to a rising party whose watchword was “the higher law,” although, by his various conflicts with Southern leaders and his loyalty to the Constitution, he educated the people to sustain the very war which he foresaw and dreaded.  And had that accomplished senator from Massachusetts, Charles Sumner, who succeeded to Webster’s seat, and who in his personal appearance