Then he ridiculed Murray's elaborate compassion of the aged Sovereign. He too could appeal for commiseration of the King. He could picture him deprived of any honest counsel, spending his summer in his electorate, surrounded by affrighted Hanoverians, without any one near him to keep him in mind of the policy and interest of England, or of the fact that we cannot reverse the laws of Nature, and make Hanover other than an open, defenceless country. He too could foresee the day, within the next two years, when the King would be unable to sleep in St. James's; but that would be because his slumbers would be disturbed by the clamours of a bankrupt people. These are all the shreds that remain of this glorious rhapsody. It would perhaps be better that nothing had survived. Each student must try and reconstruct for himself, like some rhetorical Owen, out of these poor bones the majestic structure of Pitt's famous speech. Fox replied with obvious languor and fatigue, and the division was taken between four and five. On the first question, that the words promising assistance to Hanover should be omitted, the supporters of the Government were 311 to 105. On the second amendment, which obscurely questioned the policy of both treaties the numbers were 290 to 89. The faithful Commons were still able to be loyal to Newcastle. Against that pasteboard rock Pitt's billows broke in vain.[304] Next day (November 15, 1755) Fox received the seals. Five days afterwards Pitt, Legge, and George Grenville were dismissed by notes from Lord Holdernesse, the colleague of Fox in the Secretaryship of State. Fox indeed declares in a letter to Welbore Ellis, then peevish at not getting a better place, that he did not know till the last moment of the intention to remove anybody but Legge.[305] To George Grenville, Bute, now beginning to show himself above ground, but still with circumspection, sent a significant note of congratulation. 'Tis glorious,' he wrote, 'to suffer in such a cause and with such companions.' Pitt received an even more gratifying communication from Temple, who settled on him a thousand a year till better times. We cannot perhaps blame Pitt for accepting this offer, since probably there was no other way of maintaining Lady Hester in decent comfort; for we may easily surmise that he had squandered his own fortune on buildings, gardens, and the like; as Temple probably knew. But we could wish that he had done so with less effusion. 'How decline or how receive so great a generosity so amiably offered.' Lady Hester, who had begun the letter of thanks, 'was literally not in a situation to write any farther.' Pitt was 'little better able to hold the pen than Lady Hester. We are both yours more affectionately than words can express. We could have slept upon the Earl of Holdernesses' letter (of dismissal). But our hearts must now wake to gratitude and you, and wish for nothing but the return of day to embrace the best and noblest of brothers.' Even this is