CHAP. XL] GOLDSMITH IN PRACTICE AND BURKE IN OFFICE.
prostrate, had not had more to do with his non-appearance 1765,
than either gout or fever. m~37.
The minister's triumph in his Stamp Act, however, was
brief. The King had hardly given it his glad assent, when
the first slight seizure of the terrible malady which in
later days more sorely afflicted him, necessitated an act
of regency; and the mismanagement of the provisions of
that act hopelessly embroiled the minister with his
master. Then came the clash and confusion of the parties
into which the once predominant old whig party had been
lately rent asunder, and which the present strange and
sullen seclusion of Pitt made it hopeless to think of reuniting.
In vain he was appealed to; in vain the poor King made
piteous submissions to induce him to return to power.
Fortunate in legacies, a Somersetshire baronet whom he had
never seen had just left him three thousand a-year; and it
began to be whispered about that he would not take office
again. The opposition lost ground, and the ministry did not
gain it; the coercion laid upon the King became notorious ;
the city was shaken with riots, which in the general disor-
ganisation of affairs rose almost to rebellion; and while, on
the one hand, a new administration seemed impossible
without the help of Pitt, on the other it was plain that
Grenville and the Bedforcls were tottering to their final fall.
The King was intensely grateful to them for their invasion
of the public liberties, and had joyfully co-operated with them
in the taxation of America; but he hated them because they
hated Bute, who had placed them in power; because they
had insulted his mother the Princess Dowager, whose
intrigues had sustained them in power ; and because they
suffered Buckingham-gardens to be overlooked rather than
vote him a somewhat paltry grant, which would have secured