Don’t you think a complete year enough for any administration to last?  One, who at least can remove them, though he cannot make them, thinks so; and, accordingly, yesterday notified that he had sent for Mr. Pitt.(965) Not a jot more is known; but as this set is sacrificed to their resolution to have nothing to do with Lord Bute, the new list will probably not be composed Of such hostile ingredients.  The arrangement I believe settled in the outlines; if it is not, it may still never take place:  it will not be the first time this egg has been addled.  One is very sure that many people on all sides will be displeased, and I think no side quite contented.  Your cousins, the house of Yorke, Lord George Sackville, Newcastle, and Lord Rockingham, will certainly not be of the elect.  What Lord Temple will do, or if any thing will be done for George Grenville, are great points of curiosity.  The plan will probably be, to pick and cull from all quarters, and break all parties as much as possible.(966) From this moment I date the wane of Mr. Pitt’s glory; he will want the thorough-bass of drums and trumpets, and is not made for peace.  The dismission of a most popular administration, a leaven of Lord Bute, whom, too, he can never trust, and the numbers he will discontent, will be considerable objects against him.

For my own part, I am much pleased, and much diverted.  I have nothing to do but to sit by and laugh; a humour you know I am apt to indulge.  You shall hear from me again soon.

(965) On the 7th the King addressed a letter to Mr. Pitt, expressing a desire to have his thoughts how an able and dignified ministry might be formed, and requesting him to come to town for that salutary purpose.  The letter will be found in the Chatham Correspondence, vol. ii. p. 436.-E.

(966) “Here are great bustles at court,” writes Lord Chesterfield, on the 11th, “and a great change of persons is certainly very near.  My conjecture is, that, be the new settlement what it will, Mr. Pitt will be at the head of it.  If he is, I presume, qu’il aura mis de l’eau dans son vin par rapport `a My lord Bute:  when that shall come to be known, as known it certainly Will soon be, he may bid adieu to his popularity."-E.

Letter 310 To George Montagu, Esq.  Arlington Street, July 21, 1766. (page 485)

You may strike up your sackbut, psaltery, and dulcimer; for Mr. Pitt(967) comes in, and Lord Temple does not.  Can I send you a more welcome affirmative or negative?  My sackbut is not very sweet, and here is the ode I have made for it: 

When Britain heard the woful news,
That Temple was to be minister,
To look upon it could she choose
But as an omen most sinister? 
But when she heard he did refuse,
In spite of Lady Chat. his sister,
What could she do but laugh, O Muse? 
And so she did, till she ***** her.

If that snake had wriggled in, he would have drawn after him the whole herd of vipers; his brother Demogorcon and all.  ’Tis a blessed deliverance.