it too long. Before that summer had closed the Duke's appetite for office had become so uncontrollable that he could not refrain from engaging with the Opposition, and attempting to take the Treasury by storm.*

On the resignation of Newcastle, Lord Bute immediately named himself head of the Treasury, with George Grenville Secretary of State in his stead, and Sir Francis Dashwood Chancellor of the Exchequer; while Lord Barrington, who had held the latter office, became, in exchange, Treasurer of the Navy. Not satisfied with this rapid succession of honours, Lord Bute, only a few days afterwards, obtained for himself a vacant Garter. But skilled as he was in the mysteries of Court cabal, he did not understand or did not heed the currents of popular feeling. He had yet to learn that statesmen even of real merit ought for their own sakes to shun the envy that attends a too rapid elevation. And still more important becomes this due gradation, when at the root of so high a growth lies little or no merit beyond the favour of the Sovereign. A violent storm of unpopularity began early in the summer to gather round the head of Bute. It was not that the nation mourned the dismissal of Newcastle; they probably felt about the Earl and the Duke much like Charles Townshend, who was a kinsman of both, and who some years before had thus summed up their comparative pretensions: "Silly fellow for silly fellow, "I think it is as well to be governed by my uncle, with a blue riband, as by my cousin with a green one."†Even as to Pitt the popular voice was not at this time loudly raised. But reflecting men, when they saw Lord Bute remove rival after rival, and attain favour after favour, began to inquire among themselves the cause of his unbounded ascendant. Was that ascendant founded on any peculiar weight of property, or courtesy of manners, or lustre of public service? What wisdom had his Lordship ever shown in Council? what skill in diplomacy? what eloquence in debate? And when questions such as these receive no satisfactory reply, there will

* Political Life of Lord Barrington by the Bishop of Durham (unpublished), p. 70.

This was in 1756.-Lord Orford's Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 65.

1762.

JOHN WILKES.

259

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always be a proneness to leap, even without a shadow of proof or testimony, to the most injurious surmises. A host of libels now came forth, ready to direct and fix the unsettled suspicions of the public. John Wilkes, name now first emerging into an evil fame,—was the author of periodical papers against the influence of Lord Bute, under the name of the North Briton. Still more insulting was a new dedication which he wrote and published to an old play*, "The fall of Mortimer," in which Lord Bute was compared to that minion, and the Princess Dowager to the mother of Edward the Third. With characteristic effrontery, Wilkes one day accosted Mr. Jeremiah Dyson, the Secretary to the Treasury, and asked him if he was then going towards Downing Street; 66 because," added he, a friend of mine has dedicated a play to Lord Bute, and it is usual to give dedicators "something; I wish you would put his Lordship in mind " of it.”—There is no account whether the dull Secretary did really fall into the snare, and deliver to his chief this message of mock-civility.

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Not less unjustifiable was the attempt of Wilkes and his fellow-libellers to extend the popular animosity in England from a man to a nation, from the Earl of Bute to the whole Scottish race. Because the new Prime Minister was of northern birth,—because he might be unduly or, as they said, profligately, eager to place countrymen of his own in office,-it was judged expedient, without regard to truth or decency, to hold forth those countrymen at large as objects of abhorrence, -to overlook or deny those qualities which have made them conspicuous among the nations of the world, their high spirit, their dauntless courage, their steady industry, their education so carefully directed, and their sense of religion so deep and so devout, and to represent them as a brood of hungry harpies, ready to pounce upon and to devour the fruits of the richer South. The favourite taunt was the poverty of their barren mountains, the same, as a Scottish gentleman once observed, which the Persians might urge against the Macedonians on the day before

*Or rather the unfinished fragment of a play. See Ben Jonson's Works, vol. v. p. 305. ed. 1716.

the battle of the Issus. Foremost amongst these maligners of Scotland was Churchill, once a clergyman, now a town-rake, and a familiar associate of Wilkes, whom he surpassed in talents and equalled in morality. His "Prophecy of Famine" may yet be read with all the admiration which the most vigorous powers of verse, and the most lively touches of wit, can earn in the cause of slander and falsehood.* Unhappily the old rancour between the bordering nations was not yet so wholly allayed or extinguished but that it could be, by such able hands, again fanned into flame. When Wilkes was consulted by his friend Churchill on the publication of this poem, and had read it in manuscript, he shrewdly answered, that he was sure it must succeed, as it was at once personal, poetical, and political.† And successful, indeed, it proved. Churchill deserves the reputation, whatever that reputation may be worth,—of having done more than any other man of his time by his writings (for Lord Bute, as I think, did as much by his conduct,) to array one portion of the United Kingdom in bitter hostility against the other.

Amidst these growing dissensions all parties (I need scarcely except the remnant of the Jacobites) were gladdened at the birth of an heir. On the 12th of August the Queen was safely delivered of a son, afterwards King George the Fourth. He was by no means the only offspring of this fruitful marriage: eight other Princes and six Princesses followed in rapid and happy succession the youngest, Princess Amelia, being born in 1783.

;

The campaign of the Prussian armies in this year displays a striking contrast to the former. Being reinforced in Silesia by 20,000 Russians under General Czernicheff, Frederick had become superior in numbers to the Austrians under Marshal Daun, and reduced them, in their turn, to the defensive. Daun was compelled (precisely as Frederick the year before) to take up a strong position

*What to give a very slight example can be more directly opposite to fact than the following description of a Scottish stream:"Where slowly winding the dull waters creep, "And seem themselves to own the power of sleep."

+ Memoir of the Rev. Charles Churchill, p. 11. ed. 1767 of the Poems,

1762.

DETHRONEMENT OF THE CZAK.

261

in an entrenched camp for the defence of Schweidnitz. From this position, strong as it was, both by art and nature, Frederick was projecting to dislodge him by a combined assault, when, on the 19th of July, the Russian General waited upon His Prussian Majesty with most unexpected and most unwelcome tidings from Petersburg. The Czar, during the few months since his accession, had produced a wonderful unanimity amongst his subjects; they all agreed in despising his folly and abhorring his innovations. Although the latter were often trifling, they were on that very account perhaps the less tolerable; and nothing tended more to his downfal than his attempts to deprive the soldiers of their uniform, and the clergy of their beards. For the sake of his mistress, -a niece of the Chancellor Woronzow,- he had slighted, and, it is said, threatened to repudiate his consort, Catherine, Princess of Anhalt-Zerbst, a woman of superior genius, by whose counsels he might have profited. Thus, from the Czarina downwards, almost every one had an interest in forming,-and scarce any in revealing or counteracting, a conspiracy against him. On the 9th of July it broke forth, the guards mutinied, the Empress came to place herself at their head, and the Senate hastened to proclaim her sovereign in her own right, by the title of Catherine the Second. So thorough was the unanimity that, as Mr. Keith, the British Envoy, declares, "this surprising revolution was brought about "and completed in little more than two hours, without one drop of blood being spilt or any act of violence "committed." The Czar, who, unconscious of his danger, was living secluded with his mistress at Oranienbaum, a country-house upon the sea-shore, showed himself wholly wanting in energy and courage; he consented to sign, not merely an abdication of his throne, but an acknowledgment of his incapacity; and he was removed to safe custody near the capital. But how short is the span, whenever an absolute monarch is dethroned, between his prison and his grave! How soon has the Court

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*Mr. Keith to Mr. Secretary Grenville, July 12. 1762. Appendix. The fullest account of this singular catastrophe is that by Rulhière, published (after the death of Catherine the Second) in the last volume of his Histoire de Pologne.

Gazette to announce, with every expression of profound grief, some kind of fatal illness! In this case the kind selected was "hemorrhoidal cholic," of which the Czar is stated to have died on the seventh day of his confinement. In truth, however, the unhappy Prince was strangled by Orlof, a man of gigantic stature and ferocious aspect, surnamed from a wound "the Scarred," to distinguish him from his brother, who was at this time the Favourite of Catherine.

To resume the war with Frederick was by no means the wish of the new Sovereign, but as little was it her intention to continue his ally against Austria. The same express which conveyed to Czernicheff the tidings of the revolution brought him an order to separate his troops from the Prussian, and lead them back to Poland. Such was the unforeseen communication which, on the 19th of July, the Russian General made to the Prussian Monarch. Frederick lost no time in vain regrets; he prevailed on Czernicheff to conceal his news, and delay his depar ture for three days longer, and on the second of those days he attacked Daun on the heights of Burkersdorf. Thus, only a few hours before he was left by his allies, he succeeded in storming the Austrian positions, taking seventeen pieces of cannon and a great number of prisoners, and driving the enemy to the Bohemian frontier. On the 4th of August he commenced the siege of Schweidnitz, which Daun vainly attempted to relieve, and which surrendered on the 9th of October.

In Saxony the King's brother, Prince Henry, gained a battle at Freyberg over the Austrians and the troops of the Empire combined: and thus the whole result of the campaign was disastrous to Maria Theresa.

The war in Westphalia continued with unabated vigour. In that quarter England maintained annually a hundred thousand men, and expended five millions of money, yet these exertions, vast as they seem, were scarcely adequate, when opposed to the whole Continental power of France. The counsels of Lord Bute had, moreover, produced a coolness and want of concert between himself and the leaders of the German war, and might well throw a damp on the spirits of the latter; but the genius of Prince Ferdinand supplied every deficiency.