On the death of Lord Rockingham his administration fell to pieces; and Lord Shelburne became First Minister of the Crown. The latter nobleman was eminent for his intelligence, knowledge, and variety of information; a great linguist, fond of science and letters, and actuated by popular principles. He appointed Pitt Chancellor of the Exchequer, and intrusted him with the management of the House of Commons, within eighteen months of the young statesman’s having obtained a seat in Parliament. In this most responsible position he displayed consummate powers in debate, and proved himself entirely worthy of the confidence reposed in his ability and discretion. The opposition leaders conceived that they had been injured by Lord Shelburne, and showed no mercy to his chief colleague, either on account of his youth or hereditary claims to public respect; but Pitt faced their embattled host with haughty defiance. It certainly required no ordinary courage to do so. Burke’s great soul was at that time heavy; he was not insensible of the humiliation he had recently experienced; and, like the Northumbrian Hotspur before breakfast, he was ready to vent his hoarded wrath on any one who appeared as an antagonist. Besides, he little relished the spectacle of the assembly, whose brightest ornament he was, being ruled by a lad who had not donned manly garments, when he was achieving conversational triumphs over Dr. Johnson, and contesting the palm of eloquence with “the great Commoner.” Sheridan even went the length of comparing the ministerial leader to one of Ben Jonson’s characters, “the angry boy in the ‘Alchymist;’” and Fox relentlessly poured forth against him the terrible torrent of his stirring and impetuous eloquence.