ined more reputation than any man at his
first appearance had ever gained before. The session was a great
triumph to the new member, but it brought neither strength nor
popularity to the administration. At the end of it the king dismissed
them, and the Chatham Government was formed--that strange combination
which has been made famous by Burke's description of it as a piece of
joinery so crossly indented and whimsically dovetailed, such a piece
of diversified mosaic, such a tessellated pavement without cement,
that it was indeed a very curious show, but utterly unsafe to touch
and unsure to stand upon. There was no obvious reason why Burke should
not have joined the new ministry. The change was at first one of
persons rather than of principles or of measures. To put himself, as
Burke afterwards said, out of the way of the negotiations which were
then being carried on very eagerly and through many channels with the
Earl of Chatham, he went to Ireland very soon after the change of
ministry. He was free from party engagements, and more than this, he
was free at the express desire of his friends; for on the very day of
his return the Marquis of Rockingham wished him to accept office under
the new system. Burke "believes he might have had such a situation,
but he cheerfully took his fate with his party." In a short time he
rendered his party the first of a long series of splendid literary
services by writing his _Observations on the Present State of the
Nation_ (1769). It was a reply to a pamphlet by George Grenville, in
which the disappointed minister accused his successors of ruining the
country. Burke, in answering the charge, showed a grasp of commercial
and fiscal details at least equal to that of Grenville himself, then
considered the first man of his time in dealing with the national
trade and resources. To this easy mastery of the special facts of the
discussion, Burke added the far rarer art of lighting them up by broad
principles, and placing himself and his readers at the highest and
most effective point of view for commanding their general bearings.

If Burke had been the Irish adventurer that his enemies described, he
might well have seized with impatience the opening to office that the
recent exhibition of his powers in the House of Commons had now made
accessible to him. There was not a man in Great Britain to whom the
emoluments of office would have been more useful. It is one of the
standing mysteries in lite