Street for the purpose of throwing dirt on a silent Paymaster, and few dared attack him to his face. He had already inspired the House of Commons with that awe of him which subsisted and increased so long as he remained there. To deliver a philippic against Pitt was no joking matter; it required a man with iron nerves who was reckless of retribution. Lee, as we have seen, had attempted one, but, in spite of Horace Walpole's eulogy, he does not seem to have repeated the experiment. Hampden also attacked him, as we shall see, in terms which would have led to a duel had not the Speaker interposed his authority. Fox and Grenville withstood him doggedly in after years. Barré, when an obscure Irish adventurer, tried an attack not altogether without success, but did not care to renew the attempt, and became, in fact, Pitt's devoted follower. But these instances must be considered as singularly rare when it is remembered how tempting a mark was presented by Pitt's career, how frank and direct was the language of Parliament, and how generous the potations which flushed its debates. Murray, Pitt's contemporary and his equal in sheer ability, cowered before him; cowered with loathing, but cowered.[181] Pitt was already surrounded, and as years went on completely encompassed, with an armour and atmosphere of terror which rendered him almost impregnable to personal collisions throughout his career in the House of Commons. Some who had nothing to lose and everything to gain baited him from time to time, but they were always tossed back with damage. Such persistent assailants as he had, and they only appeared in force long afterwards, were mainly anonymous. Whatever the cause may have been, Pitt, from his accession to office in 1746, remains in obscurity and almost in silence (so far as the records testify, though it is evident that these are extremely imperfect) for eight long years, at the potent period of life which ranges from thirty-eight to forty-six, the age at which Napoleon closed his career, but which was yet two years earlier than the commencement of Pitt's. During this long eclipse of ambition and stormy vigour he gives but few signs of life for the most diligent chronicler to note. But he had no sooner been appointed Paymaster than an incident took place which seemed to point to a sudden dawn of royal favour. The Duke of Cumberland's achievements in Scotland were to be rewarded by a pension of 40,000_l._ a year, and the King expressed a wish that the motion to this effect should be made by Pitt. It is, however, evident that this was not a mark of royal affection, but rather of a royal desire to utilise the new acquisition to the Government, and in a way so little congenial as to make Pitt feel the collar on his neck. The King may have wished to display his captive in chains. But Cumberland, who did not love Pitt, declined this mark of regard, and Pelham fulfilled the honorary duty.