Note 28 — Chapter II
Reading edition
When Lord Chatham’s motion was shown to Grenville, he lifted up his eyes at seeing Wilkes’s name in it. It was no doubt inserted to soothe Wilkes, who had lately abused him in a rancorous letter to Grenville; for nothing exceeded Lord Chatham’s pusillanimity to those who attacked him, except his insolence to those who feared him. At this time he did not avoid holding out hopes to the King’s favourites, that he would not remove them if he came into power. “I will not,” said he, in his metaphoric rhodomontade, “touch a hair of the tapestry of the Court.”