contented,"--proving that it had only been "the tempest which had lifted
him from his place."

Wilkes introduced himself to Churchill, and they became speedily
intimate. Soon after, indignant at the supremacy of Lord Bute, who, as a
royal favourite, had obtained a power in the country which had not been
equalled since Buckingham fell before the assassin Felton's knife, and
was employing all his influence to patronise the Scotch, Wilkes commenced
the _North Briton_. In this, from the first, he was assisted by
Churchill, who, however, did not write prose so vigorously as verse. He
had sent to the _North Briton_ a biting paper against the Scotch. On
reflection, he recalled and recast it in rhyme. It was "The Prophecy of
Famine;" and became so popular as to make a whole nation his enemies, and
all _their_ enemies his friends. This completely filled up the measure of
Churchill's triumph. He actually dressed his youngest son in the Highland
garb, took him everywhere along with him, and instructed him to say, when
asked why he was thus dressed, "Sir, my father hates the Scotch; and does
it to plague them."

Lord Bute resigned early in 1763, and was succeeded by a ministry
comprising such men as Sir Francis Dashwood, and Lord Sandwich, who had
been intimates of Wilkes, and had shared with him in certain disgusting
orgies at Medmenham Abbey. They now, however, changed their tactics, and
became vehement upholders of morality and religion; and began to watch
their opportunity for pouncing on their quondam associate. This he
himself furnished by the famous _North Briton_, No. 45. That paper may
now seem, to those who read it, a not very powerful, and not very daring
diatribe. But the times were inflammable--the nation was frantic with
rage at the peace--the ministry were young, and willing to flesh their
new-got power in some victim or other; and Wilkes, in this paper, had now