"No man so propense to art was less artful; no man staked his honesty to less purpose, for he was so awkward that honesty was the only quality that seemed natural to him. His cunning was so often in default that he was a kind of beacon that warned men not to approach the shallows on which he founded his attachments always at the wrong season." Thus was Lyttelton's character depicted by Walpole, who described his person: "With the figure of a spectre, and the gesticulations of a puppet, he talked heroics through his nose." The King had an interview with Grenville on May 22, and on the following day the ex-ministers met to decide the terms on which they would return to office. "The King is reduced to the mortification--and it is extreme--of taking his old ministers again," Walpole wrote to Lord Hertford. "They are insolent enough, you may believe. Grenville has treated his master in the most impertinent manner, and they are now actually discussing the terms that they mean to impose on their captive." Ministers demanded that Lord Bute should not interfere directly or indirectly in the affairs of Government and that his brother, Stuart Mackenzie,[306] should be dismissed from the office of Keeper of the Privy Seal of Scotland; that Lord Holland should be deprived of the Pay-mastership of the Forces, which should in future be held by a member of the House of Commons; that the Marquis of Granby should be head of the army, and that the government of Ireland should be left to the discretionary arrangement of the ministry.[307] The King was furious and, but that he was impotent at the moment, would have unhesitatingly refused even to discuss most of these conditions. The only concession he could obtain was from Lord Granby, who waived his claim to be Captain-General during the life of the Duke of Cumberland. Lord Holland had to go, although the King, who was bound to him by ties of gratitude, would gladly have retained him; and ministers were united as to the dismissal of Mackenzie, and would not even allow the King's plea that he had promised Mackenzie the post for life and that he would disgrace himself by breaking his word, to weigh with them in the least. Even George's tears made no impression on Grenville and his colleagues, though his embarrassment affected Mackenzie himself, who in spite of the fact that he had accepted his present position at the King's request in exchange for another and more lucrative office, which was desired for some one else, surrendered the Privy Seal without demur. "His Majesty sent for me to his closet, where I was a considerable time with him, and if it were possible to love my excellent Prince now better than I did before, I should certainly do it, for I have every reason that can induce a generous or a grateful mind to feel his goodness to me," Mackenzie wrote to Sir Andrew Mitchell. "But such was his Majesty's situation at that time, that had he absolutely rejected my dismissal, he