The Ministry is now formed. The Prime Minister moves into Downing Street; his colleagues hasten to make themselves acquainted with the work of their various departments. The parliamentary concert is about to commence, and it is for the Premier as leader of the Government orchestra to keep his band together as best he may. This is no easy task. A single false note may mar the harmony of the whole performance; the failure of one solitary instrumentalist may cause the dismissal of the entire band. It is the conductor's duty to see that his orchestra plays in unison, or, if not in unison, at least in harmony. He must keep a watchful eye upon each individual, and quash the efforts of any one member to perform a solo upon his own peculiar trumpet. All round the platform sit the members of a former band, stern critics anxious to seize the instruments from the hands of their rivals and show the public how the tune should be played. Their chance will soon arrive. For when the concert has gone on sufficiently long, the popular audience grows weary of the performance and demands something fresh. Another conductor is chosen, and another orchestra engaged to play. The old band is dismissed, and its members are free to return to their former avocations, wiser no doubt, but perhaps poorer men.[152] But though from Parliament to Parliament the performers may vary and the leaders change, the music remains very much the same; and, while the country enjoys the privilege of paying the piper, it is generally the piper who calls the tune. [152] If Pitt had been dismissed from office "after more than five years of boundless power," says Macaulay, "he would hardly have carried out with him a sum sufficient to furnish a set of chambers in which, as he cheerfully declared, he meant to resume the practice of the Law."--"Miscellaneous Writings," p. 347. CHAPTER VI THE LORD CHANCELLOR From the days of Sir Thomas More to the present time the Woolsack has continuously enriched the annals of English history with famous and distinguished names. The well-known biographies of Lord Campbell, whose habit of writing the lives of the deceased as soon as the breath was out of their bodies added, as Brougham declared, a new terror to death, supply abundant evidence of the statesmanlike qualities that attach to the holders of the office. The most eminent men of their day have held the Chancellorship, proving the truth of Burke's well-known assertion that of all human studies the law is the most efficacious in forming great men, and that to be well versed in the laws of England is to be imbued in the sublimest principles of human wisdom. The office of Chancellor is of very ancient origin.[153] It existed in England in the days of the Anglo-Saxon kings, when the official who acted as judicial secretary or clerk to the sovereign is supposed to have derived his title from the _cancelli_ or screens behind which he carried on his clerical duties.