It happened that Mr. Conway and Horace Walpole were at dinner with the Earl, and to them, as soon as the Duke was gone, he communicated what he had heard. They were no less astonished than the others had been, and saw plainly that Fox was precipitating the King and the chief persons in England upon a measure, from which it would be impossible for them to recede, to which it was impossible Pitt should submit, and that in consequence of such a rupture at such a crisis, heated as the passions of men were, even a Civil War might ensue. To crush such a plan in its embryo was, in reality, serving Fox, and certainly the nation:--these were sufficient inducements; and yet, as I have said, Walpole had the additional satisfaction of disappointing the views of that cabal, when he persuaded Mr. Conway to go directly to the Duke of Devonshire, and alarm him with the true picture of the measure in which he had been drawn to concur. His timid nature easily caught the panic: he made the intended meeting be laid aside, the message put off; and the next day, without acquainting Fox with his determination of accepting without conditions, went to Kensington, and consented to take the Treasury. Fox and the Duke of Bedford, who were waiting in the outward room, were thunder-struck--the latter expostulated warmly with Devonshire--the other, who had found Mr. Conway at Devonshire-house the night before, did not want to be told who shot the arrow; still less, when Devonshire officiously assured him it was not Mr. Conway. Fox has said to the real author of his miscarriage, that from that hour he dated all the events in the subsequent revolutions. This happened on the 2nd and 3rd of November. The Duke of Devonshire having yielded, the new system began to range itself. Legge professed acquiescence--artfully; if Pitt acceded, he must of course: if Pitt did not, Legge would have all the merit of his own moderation. But that conqueror grew still more tractable: he first yielded to take the southern province; next, even to bear with Lord Holderness, if his Majesty insisted on it; yet hoped it would be waved, as he [otherwise] might set out with doing something disagreeable to his Majesty, [he] having engaged his honour, if a question should be moved on that Lord, not to oppose it. Some parting rays of popular virtue were still made to glimmer: the party even ordered one Evans, a lawyer, to draw up articles of impeachment against Lord Anson; and transports were ordered for the Hanoverians, as the country magistrates urged that they were not obliged by law to billet them. The nation all the while expected great services from Pitt--but even the Duke of Newcastle had talked reformation, and once had gone so far as to cashier the pensions of three old widows. Pitt’s was a nobler style; and, as Addison said of Virgil, if he did contaminate himself, _he at least tossed about his dirt with an air of majesty_. [Illustration: DUKE OF BEDFORD. London, Henry Colburn, 1846.]