brought the country to the brink of ruin. Yet this veteran, so busy, so selfish, and still so fond of power, for a few days acted the part he ought to have adopted in earnest. He waited on the King, pleaded his age, and begged to be excused from entering on a new reign. The King told him he could not part with him. Fortified with this gracious and comfortable command, he next consulted his friends. It was not their interest to point out to him the ridicule of thinking to rule in the Cabinet of a third George, almost a boy. Four days more determined the Duke to take a new court-lease of folly.[9] The Duke of Devonshire,[10] though greatly younger, might not have been without difficulties too, if he had pleased to remember them. He had been ill-treated in the late reign by the Prince and the Princess Dowager, hated the Favourite, and had declared he would quit, whenever the new reign should commence; but he thought better of it. The Princess, whose ambition yielded to none, was desirous to figure in the new era, and demanded to be declared _Princess-Mother_. Precedents were searched for in vain; and she missed even this shadow of compensation for the loss of the appellation of _Queen_--a loss which she showed a little afterwards she could not digest. The Earl of Bute seemed to act with more moderation. His credit was manifest; but he allotted himself no ministerial office, contenting himself for the present with the post of Groom of the Stole, which he had filled under the Prince, and for which room was prepared, by removing the Earl of Rochford[11] with a large pension. Lord Bute’s agents gave out, that he would upon no account interfere or break with Mr. Pitt. The latter, however, did not trust to these vague assurances, but endeavoured to maintain the preceding system: talked to the King of the Duke of Newcastle as first minister, and as wishing him to continue so; and said he had never chosen any other channel for his addresses or demands to the late King--an intimation that he would make none through Lord Bute. For himself, he had meddled with nothing but the war, and he wished his Majesty to give some mark that he approved the measures of the late reign. The other ministers were not less attentive to their own views. The Duke of Bedford[12] insisted on returning to the Government of Ireland, and that Lord Gower[13] should remain Master of the Horse; but the latter point was accommodated by the removal of Sir Thomas Robinson (with a pension) from the Great Wardrobe, which was bestowed on Lord Gower; and Lord Huntingdon continued in the post he had enjoyed under the Prince. Mr. Mackenzie, the Favourite’s brother, was destined to be Master of the Robes, but was forced to give way to the Duke of Newcastle, who obtained it for Mr. Brudenel;[14] for though bent on making his court, his Grace as often marred his own policy as promoted it.