d him. He again
obtained the Vice-treasurership, and in the final distress of that
unpopular administration, was for a short time raised even to the
Colonial Secretaryship. But North was driven from power, and all his
adherents fell along with him. Rockingham, the North and Fox coalition,
and Pitt, exhibited a succession of premierships, which ended in the
exclusion of the whole Whig principle, in all its shapes and shades, for
twenty years. Ellis was now growing old; he was rich; he had been a
public man for upwards of forty years; he had been fiercely abused by
the opposition writers while he continued in office, and fiercely
attacked by the government writers when in opposition. He had thus his
full share of all that public life furnishes to its subjects, and he
seemed inclined to spend the remainder of his days in quiet. But the
French Revolution came. Startled at the ruin with which its progress
threatened all property, he joined that portion of the Whigs which
allied itself with the great Minister. The Duke of Portland entered the
cabinet, and Wellbore Ellis was raised to the peerage. There his career,
not unworthily, closed; and his remaining years were given to private
society, to books, of which he had a celebrated collection, and to the
recollections of the Classics, of which he possessed an early mastery.
He was an acute and accomplished man. The fiery indignation of Junius
rather threw a light than inflicted an injury on his character. That
first of political satirists spared none; and the universal nature of
his attacks made men receive them, as they receive a heavy shower,
falling on all alike, and drenching the whole multitude together.

Bonaparte has taken the first step to a throne: he has established
nobility. The Republic having abolished all titles, a peerage was, for a
while, impossible. But he has formed a military Caste, which, without
hazarding his popularity with the Parisians, increases his popularity
with the troops, and has all the advantages of a noblesse, with all the
dependency of its members on the head of the State. He has named this
Institution the Legion of Honour. It is to consist of several classes,
the first comprehending the great officers of state, generals who have
distinguished themselves, and ancient men of science. It has sixteen
Cohorts, with palaces allotted to them in Paris and the provinces, for
the headquarters of the cohorts. Grants of land are also proposed for
the su