peerage, were shin of beef and gin, blankets and baskets of small coal, to the starving poetasters of the Fleet.  Even in the House of Commons, he was, on one occasion during this session, assailed with an insolence and malice which called forth the indignation of men of all parties; but he endured the outrage with majestic patience.  In his younger days he had been but too prompt to retaliate on those who attacked him; but now, conscious of his great services, and of the space which he filled in the eyes of all mankind, he would not stoop to personal squabbles.  “This is no season,” he said, in the debate on the Spanish war, “for altercation and recrimination.  A day has arrived when every Englishman should stand forth for his country.  Arm the whole; be one people; forget everything but the public.  I set you the example.  Harassed by slanderers, sinking under pain and disease, for the public I forget both my wrongs and my infirmities!” On a general review of his life, we are inclined to think that his genius and virtue never shone with so pure an effulgence as during the session Of 1762.

The session drew towards the close; and Bute, emboldened by the acquiescence of the Houses, resolved to strike another great blow, and to become first minister in name as well as in reality.  That coalition, which a few months before had seemed all-powerful, had been dissolved.  The retreat of Pitt had deprived the Government of popularity.  Newcastle had exulted in the fall of the illustrious colleague whom he envied and dreaded, and had not foreseen that his own doom was at hand.  He still tried to flatter himself that he was at the head of the Government; but insults heaped on insults at length undeceived him.  Places which had always been considered as in his gift, were bestowed without any reference to him.  His expostulations only called forth significant hints that it was time for him to retire.  One day he pressed on Bute the claims of a Whig Prelate to the archbishopric of York.  “If your grace thinks so highly of him,” answered.  Bute, “I wonder that you did not promote him when you had the power.”  Still the old man clung with a desperate grasp to the wreck.  Seldom, indeed, have Christian meekness and Christian humility equalled the meekness and humility of his patient and abject ambition.  At length he was forced to understand that all was over.  He quitted that Court where he had held high office during forty-five years, and hid his shame and regret among the cedars of Claremont.  Bute became First Lord of the Treasury.

The favourite had undoubtedly committed a great error.  It is impossible to imagine a tool better suited to his purposes than that which he thus threw away, or rather put into the hands of his enemies.  If Newcastle had been suffered to play at being first minister, Bute might securely and quietly have enjoyed the substance of power.  The gradual introduction of Tories into all the departments of the Government