of his contemporaries that he seemed to have no delight out of the House except in such things as in some way related to the business that was to be done within it. The "undissipated and unwearied application" which he devoted to everything that he undertook was now employed in exasperating the country. The time was not yet ripe for it to be employed in dismembering the empire. In his support of the cider tax Grenville managed to {32} make it and himself ridiculous at the same time. In his defence he kept asking, over and over again, "Where will you find another tax? tell me where." Pitt, who was listening disdainfully to his arguments, followed one of these persistent interrogations by softly singing to himself, very audibly, the words which belonged to a popular song, "Gentle shepherd, tell me where." The House took the hint with delight, and the title of Gentle Shepherd remained an ironical adornment of Grenville for the rest of his life. Bute's disregard of public opinion was contrasted to his disadvantage with the conduct of Sir Robert Walpole, who bowed to the demonstration against his far wiser system of excise. Bute forced his tax forward in defiance of the popular feeling, and then, apparently alarmed by the strength of the spirit he had himself raised, he answered the general indignation by a sudden and welcome resignation on April 8, 1763. This was the end of Bute's attempt to be the recognized head of a government, though he still hoped and believed that he could rule from behind the throne instead of standing conspicuously at its side. To his unpopularity as a foreigner, to his unpopularity as a favorite, public hostility added a fresh, if a far-fetched and fantastic reason for detesting Bute. It was pointed out that he had Stuart blood in his veins, that an ancestor of his had been the brother of a Scottish King. Any stick is good enough to strike an unpopular statesman with, and there were not wanting people to assert, and perhaps even to believe, that Bute had entertained insidious schemes for raising himself to the throne. Bute is said to have declared that he resigned in order to avoid involving the King in the dangers with which his minister was threatened. If he did feel any fears for the King's safety he had certainly done his best to make those fears reasonable. It has not often been given to any statesman to hold the highest office in the state for so short a time, and in that time to accomplish so large an amount of harm. And the immediate harm of that year and a half was little as compared with the harm that was to follow, a fatal legacy, {33} from the principles that Bute advocated and the policy that Bute initiated. [Sidenote: 1763--The retirement of Bute]