conjecture from the course of events, was very prejudicial to the country. Disliked by the King, slighted by Mr. Pitt, whose influence in the nation was at this time at its height, harassed by a powerful opposition which regarded it base to yield to the demands of America, the Rockingham government rather fell to pieces than was broken up, little more than a year after its formation; and Mr. Pitt reached the utmost limit of ambition in being commissioned by the King to form a ministry, without the smallest limitation as to terms, in July, 1766. Whatever gratification he may have felt at the moment, this high position added neither to his glory nor his happiness. It led in the first place to a violent quarrel with his most intimate friend and political associate, Lord Temple, who felt himself slighted by Mr. Pitt’s arrangements. Many of the most important persons, whose support he desired, felt aggrieved by his past conduct, or were offended by the haughtiness of his demeanour: Lord Rockingham, in particular, refused even to grant him an interview. And when the government was formed at last, it was of that ill-assorted and motley character which led Burke, in an often-quoted passage of his great speech on American taxation, to describe it as a “tesselated pavement without cement.” The Duke of Grafton was placed at the Treasury, and for himself Pitt took a peerage and the Privy Seal. The astonishment of every body at this was extreme. Lord Chesterfield says, “Mr. Pitt, who had a carte blanche given him, named every one of them (the new ministry); but what would you think he named himself for?—Lord Privy Seal, and (what will astonish you as it does every mortal here) Earl of Chatham. The joke here is, that he has had a fall up stairs, and has done himself so much hurt that he will never be able to stand upon his legs again. Every body is puzzled how to account for this step; though it would not be the first time that great abilities have been duped by low cunning. But, be it what it will, he is now certainly only Earl of Chatham, and no longer Mr. Pitt in any respect whatever. Such an event, I believe, was never heard nor read of. To withdraw in the fullness of his power, and in the utmost gratification of his ambition, from the House of Commons (which procured him his power, and which could alone insure it to him), and to go into that hospital of incurables, the House of Lords, is a measure so unaccountable, that nothing but proof positive could have made me believe it; but true it is.”