The Press.
London, England, 1853-09-03 00:00:00

"Aides in the whirlwind, and directs the storm."

Pitt feels that still the public voice of Eng-
land is with him not with his foes. And the
minister, after hint,
hours pondering, descends
to an early breakilist, hurriedly swallowed,
and he is soon scouring on his high-trotting
steed over the road to London.
He sees the rural landscape around him,
beautiful even in November, with as utter indif
ference as on the evening before. But as he
advances his mind is roused when, descend-
ing from the heights near Norwood, he looks
down over the mighty city, aud thinks of the
" 'Annum, et opes, strepitumque Roma'"
London, in all its outstretched vastness, is the
material type of that great developed Empire
of which he thinks. India—the Colonies
—a mighty marine—a great zone of British
influence circling the world—such are the ideas
that loom through the solitary statesman's
aiintl, as he casts his piercing glance over the
great city, whose spires and forests of masts
are only dimly, yet grandly, visible beneath
his view.
And now he is again at the Treasury. He
gives a look at his office-book, and observes
the number of interviews with all manner of
people that he has appointed for this day.
While looking over Ulm utters a regret that he
has not Pretyman still for at private secretary ;
a ul, while he is making a note, in comes Wil-
liam Grenville with a hurried letter from Doc-
tor Willis, from Windsor, written in a more
sanguine mood about the King; and their col-
loquy is interrupted by l)undas, who talks at
once of more " ratting amongst their sup-
porters, but says the Scotch members will be
faithful. " I wish we could say the same of more
" important people," cries Pitt; " for example,
Thurlow." The word has scarcely left his lips
when the Chancellor is announced, and Dun-
das mutters a Scotch saying in which "the
dell" is all that is heard, and soon after Pitt
is closeted with ono who looks black and bold
enough to make us think again of Duntlas's
proverb. He is indeed " the black-brow 'd
A' phantom " that he was described by Burke,
and Pitt thinks of Fox's witty saying that
" there never was any man so wise us Thurlow
" looked." How calmly and proudly Pitt looks
down upon the areb-schemer, while the deep in-
triguer tries to hide his heart from that pene-
trating gaze. "%Veil, they have not broken
with catch other yet. Thurlow has come to
talk about the Irish Chancellorship. for Lord
Lit'Sard has resigned at last, and Fitzgibbon
wants to get it. In a few minutes he departs,
and Pitt is forced to select from his crowded
antechamber what persons ho will see. The
first be names is " Bob Smith"— Pluebus!
What a name ! He is quite a pet of the great
statesman, and, like most of his fatvourites. he
41•0111 CS from the City—a banker, still residing
east of Temple-bar, but shortly to emerge into
a splendid mansion in the Green park, and
wear the sparkling coronet of " Carrington."
And next he sees the Irish Fitzgibbon
—small in stature, but great in audacity of
design—at provincial Thurlow, as towering in
arrogance as his English prototype—yet Pitt
Likes his clear intellect and his ready compre-
hension of the minister's imperialising
Then come the thronging deputations from the
City—West Indian planters raising an alarm
about Wilberforce's plans for abolition, and
East Indian merchants with talk about ship-
ping, voyaging, cargoes, excise, Eastern pos-
sessions, and all that perplexed basilic**