ose of several whose fortune is at this day upon a very different
footing from mine."

It was not long before a more important opening offered itself, which
speedily brought Burke into the main stream of public life. In the
summer of 1765 a change of ministry took place. It was the third since
the king's accession five years ago. First, Pitt had been disgraced,
and the old Duke of Newcastle dismissed. Then Bute came into power,
but Bute quailed before the storm of calumny and hate which his Scotch
nationality, and the supposed source of his power over the king, had
raised in every town in England. After Lord Bute, George Grenville
undertook the Government. Before he had been many months in office,
he had sown the seeds of war in the colonies, wearied Parliament,
and disgusted the king. In June 1765 Grenville was dismissed. With
profound reluctance the king had no other choice than to summon Lord
Rockingham, and Lord Rockingham, in a happy moment for himself and his
party, was induced to offer Burke a post as his private secretary.
A government by country gentlemen is too apt to be a government of
ignorance, and Lord Rockingham was without either experience or
knowledge. He felt, or friends felt for him, the advantage of having
at his side a man who was chiefly known as an author in the service
of Dodsley, and as having conducted the _Annual Register_ with great
ability, but who even then was widely spoken of as nothing less than
an encyclopaedia of political knowledge.

It is commonly believed that Burke was commended to Lord Rockingham by
William Fitzherbert. Fitzherbert was President of the Board of Trade
in the new government, but he is more likely to be remembered as Dr.
Johnson's famous example of the truth of the observation, that a
man will please more upon the whole by negative qualities than by
positive, because he was the most acceptable man in London, and yet
overpowered nobody by the superiority of his talents, made no man
think worse of himself by being his rival, seemed always to listen,
did not oblige you to hear much from him, and did not oppose what
you said. Besides Fitzherbert's influence, we have it on Burke's own
authority that his promotion was partly due to that mysterious person,
William Burke, who was at the same time appointed an under-secretary
of state. There must have been unpleasant rumours afloat as to the
Burke connection, and we shall presently consider what they were
worth. Meanwhile,