position of what was now deemed his unconstitutional measures; the throne of majesty was overwhelmed with petitions for his immediate removal; the party that withstood him in Parliament was lately considerably increased; and at length unable to resist the torrent of an angry opposition, he resigned, with reluctance, a station he was no longer in a condition to maintain.

Now it was that the ingenuity of Denterville appeared in a manner conspicuous. He foiled, with wonderful dexterity, a crowd of competitors; he alternately employed, as most convenient to the prosecution of his designs, flattery and entreaty, threatening and promises, persuasions and presents; he encouraged the discontented, excited the populace, raised their expectations, and as is the custom of demagogues, promised them their most extravagant demands. The favourite of the people was constituted their prime minister; and the party which he had joined, as well as those he had formerly opposed, beheld with equal astonishment and disgust, an obscure individual, entirely unknown in the sphere of politics till within a couple of years, elevated to that honourable rank which each had the vanity to suppose was peculiarly due to himself. Every nobleman in the realm was incensed; and the ambitious Denterville was presented, by his sovereign, with the vacant office, not on account of any partiality the latter entertained towards him, but merely to appease the presumptuous murmurs of a discontented multitude.

No one can suppose that Denterville could derive the smallest degree of satisfaction from a station obtained in such an extraordinary manner. There was not a leading man throughout the kingdom, whom he could, with confidence, rely upon as his faithful friend; there was scarcely a single courtier but who, at the same time when, in the usual complimentary language of a court, he expressed the most unbounded affection for his person, waited with an inward impatience for the moment of his degradation; and his only reliance was placed in the continuance of the affection of that populace, whose opinions are proverbial for their versatility, whose aversions and partialities are always formed with equal inconsideracy, and who are liable to be inflamed and misled by every orator who will flatter and harangue them. If he should be once deprived of their support and affection, he knew, too well, his fall

was inevitable. Like the courtier of Dionysius, he constantly beheld the suspended sword, supported only by a single thread, hovering over him; at the sumptuous banquet, or the gilded couch, he shuddered with horror as he silently viewed the fate that was impending, and a continual solicitude for the fearful production of a tremendous futurity, prevented him from participating even in the scanty enjoyments of his newly acquired situation.

"It is more easy," says the father of our dramatic writers, “to teach twenty what were good to be done, than to be one of the twenty to follow our own instructions;" and it certainly does not require the wisdom of a sage to be enabled to be observe, that in the political, as in the moral world, to censure the imperfections of an act already performed, demands by far less ingenuity and understanding than, in our turn to execute one equally judicious and equally salutary. The merciless marauder may easily destroy, within the fleeting space of a single hour, that magnificent structure which has employed the labour and dexterity of the artist during the entire revolution of a century.

The abilities of Denterville, it must be acknowledged were solely of this destructive nature. By his specious objections, an inflammatory language, the sword and buckler of a popular orator, he had been empowered, at his pleasure, to oppose and overturn the most prudent measure of his preliminary antagonist; but scarcely was he seated in the place of the person whose conduct he had reprobated, before, corrected by experience, he became perfectly sensible of his own incapacity, and was unable, during the course of a short administration, to project any expedient comparable with those which he had formerly censured with so much severity.

Nature, in truth, had never designed him for a minister of state; and it was only by "o'erstepping the modesty" of that goddess, that he had, at length, arrived to this present pre-eminence. His head became quickly distracted by a multiplicity of affairs, and his thoughts were confused by the rapidity with which he was obliged to hurry from one transaction to another. His attention was confused by the number of different and important objects that continually crowded before his view, equally demanding an investigation; and whilst he stood irresolute to which he should first turn, the moments would frequently elapse without his turn

ing to either. His mind was harrassed, and his ingenuity ransacked, in the constant formation of new schemes, which, when executed, answered no other purpose by their badness, than that of adding fresh vigour to the flame of a violent opposition. The vigilant eyes of a thousand observers were always on the watch, as his own had formerly been, to observe the most trifling inaccuracy; a thousand ears were attentively employed to catch the most unpremeditated expression; and a thousand mouths were perpetually open to recite and aggravate, with acrimonious malice, what had been heard and seen, to the credulous multitude. So far from enjoying that voluptuous and delightful indolence, those luxurious delicacies, and that endearing converse of friendship, for which he had, from his tenderest years, incessantly panted, but which the unfortunate peculiarity of his dispositon rendered him wholly unable to enjoy, he had not now leisure to indulge in those innocent amusements that are in common to every one. His hours were occupied in the concerns of the state, and in parliamentary debates, in attending his own levee, and being present at that of his sovereign; and, in a short time, his pallid countenance and debilitated constitution fatally convinced him of that truth with which every one but himself was already perfectly acquainted, namely, that the elevated situation of a prime minister ought to be the object of our sincerest compassion, rather than our envy. But the measure of that misfortune to which his ambition and discontent had contributed to reduce him was not yet complete. The black clouds of fate still continued to accumulate around him, and, by the darkness of their appearance, prognosticated the speedy bursting of a terrible storm.

When' Denterville solicited, after so suppliant a manner, the vacant office of minister of state, he promised to the people, with the most solemn asseverations, that their political machine should be, from the fortunate moment of his elevation, conducted after such a manner, that it might be rendered, at the same time, honourable to them all, considered as a nation, and easy to each considered as individuals. He had promised them, with the same inconsiderate facility, an almost entire annihilation of taxes, an immediate conclusion of the war, an instantaneous discharge of an enormous naval and military force; and the credulous popu

face, who are generally too precipitate to reflect, and too ignorant to judge for themselves, listened to his extravagant assurances with delight, and were all very easily induced to believe what each so earnestly desired to be true.

(To be continued.)

FOR THE PORT FOLIO.-ORIGINAL LETTERS.

LORD CARDROSS (NOW EARL OF BUCHAN) TO ARTHUR LEE, ESQ.

Walcot, near Bath, 31st October, 1767.

MY DEAR SIR-I should be very happy indeed to be intrusted with the welfare of Virginia, and, I am sure, should pass my time most agreeably among you; but I am afraid I love you all too well to have that charge committed to me at present, after what has passed: not that I think any plan is likely to (be) adopted of a disagreeable tendency, but that my avowed sentiments, with respect to my countrymen on the other side of the Atlantic, might be thought too strongly favourable to certain demands which may be made. There remains another obstacle, and that is, as my father is, I am sorry to say, in a very precarious state of health, it would seem odd for an earl, according to the ideas of this country, to be deputy to sir Jeffery Amherst.

I told you that I had my eye on Turin; but I had much rather be with you, I assure you; and if any opening should happen by the death or resignation of Feuquier, I don't know but I may make an essay to your satisfaction. In the meantime, I think myself very happy in having one there so partial to me as you are, and who will never mention my name without saying that I am a friend to liberty and the friendless.

I ever am, my dear sir, with great esteem, your most obliged and obedient servant,

CARDROSS.

Governor Dinwiddie asks after you with regard; he is not well at present. Pray remember the museum at Edinburgh, which I espouse at present, and send us some of your country productions.

[The adventure, to which the writer of this letter alludes, with very proper contempt, was this: During our revolution Mr. Lee was sent on a mission to the Prussian court. Soon after his arrival at Berlin, his trunk was broken open, and all his papers were taken out. Upon complaint being made to the government, they were returned on the ensuing day. Mr Liston, then the English minister at that court, was said to have been an accessory before the fact to this theft. The Prussian monarch, Frederic the Great, addressed some complimentary verses on the occasion to our distinguished countryman, which are still in existence among his descendants.]

JOHN WILKES, ESQ. TO ARTHUR LEE, ESQ.

Prince's Court, 9th November, 1777.

I was made extremely happy, my dear sir, by the most friendly letter which you honoured me with by Monsieur Montandoine; and I am farther to thank you for giving me the opportunity of knowing so sensible and ingenious a gentleman. I eagerly embraced every occasion of being with him and his amiable lady, but the ill state of her health obliged her to pass a considerable part of her stay in this island at Bath, which Miss Wilkes and I greatly regretted.

The late adventure at Berlin was a low piece of Scottish knavery, exactly calculated for the meanness of fraud in those pedlars of politics, who, all the while boasting of economy, have lost a continent.

This poor country is fallen into a fatal lethargy, from which all efforts to rouse her seem ineffectual. The single loss of Minorca drove the people of England almost to madness; now thirteen provinces dismembered from the British empire, scarcely excite a murmur, except among a very few, who dare to love their country even at this disgraceful period. The parliamentary campaign will now soon open, but nothing is to be expected. Corruption has spread like a low-born mist, a Scottish mist, and pervades every thing. Poor opposition, too, wants a head, and is feeble and sickly in almost all its members.

I am very sensible of your kindness to young Smith at Berlin, and was made very happy by your favourable account of him. I hope that I am not to blush for him in future life, but trust he will justify your obliging partiality to him.