OLIVER GOLDSMITH'S LIFE AND TIMES. [BOOK m.
1765. to the crown what is now a property of almost incredible
ms7. value.* It was his own chosen system of government to
govern without party, and solely by the favour of the crown;
and here, then, were its four years' fruits. His ministers had
become his tyrants, and statesmen held themselves aloof from
his service. When his uncle Cumberland came back from
Hayes with Pitt's formal refusal, he thought in his despair
of even the old Duke of Newcastle; began to make
atonement for recent insults to the house of Devonshire;
and threw out baits for those old pure whigs who had
been to this time the objects of his most concentrated
hatred. Doubts and distrust shook the Princess Dowager's
friends, in which Nugent of course largely shared; and
expectation stood on tip-toe in Gerrard-street, where his
friends of the club could hardly avoid taking interest in
what affected the fortunes of Edmund Burke.
For Burke, not unreasonably, looked to obtain employment
in the scramble. Hawkins said he had always meant to offer
himself to the highest bidder ;t but the calumny is hardly
worth refuting. He had honourably disengaged himself from
Hamilton, and scornfully given back his pension; nor were
his friends kept in ignorance that he had since attached
himself to the party of whigs the most pure and least
powerful in the state. Lord Bockingham was at their head : J
a young nobleman of princely fortune and fascinating
manners, who made up for powers of oratory, in which he
* Walpole's George III, ii. 160. f Miss Hawkins's Memoirs, L 101.
J Since my first edition appeared, Lord Albeinarle has published, as
Memoirs of the Marquis of Rocldnglutm and Us Contemporaries, a series of letters
relating chiefly to the public affairs of this period, from the collections of his family,
with a highly intelligent and well-informed comment of his own. At the close of
the book (ii. 486-8) the reader will find Burke's celebrated character of Lord
Eockingham, written for the mausoleum in Wentworth-park, printed more cor-
rectly than he will find it in any other place.