of his great services, and of the space which he filled in the eyes of all mankind, he would not stoop to personal squabbles. "This is no season," he said, in the debate on the Spanish war, for altercation and recrimination. A day has arrived 'when every Englishman should stand forth for his country. Arm the whole; be one people; forget every thing but the public. I set you the example. Harassed by slanders, sink、 ing under pain and disease, for the public I forget both my wrongs and my infirmities!"

Walpole ably narrates an episode of this period, when in the memorable debate upon the Address in approbation of the Preliminaries of Peace, on Dec. 9, 1762, Mr. Pitt fiercely darted forth even from his sick bed to oppose them. The diarist describes how eager was the expectation of his coming; how prevalent the doubt whether his illness might not keep him away. At length, a shout from the thronged streets was heard by the assembled members; the doors were thrown open; and in the midst of a large acclaiming concourse was seen Mr. Pitt, borne along in the arms of his servants. He was set down at the bar, from whence, by the aid of a crutch and of several friends, he crawled to his seat on the front Opposition bench. His countenance appeared emaciated and ghastly; his dress was of black velvet, but both hands and feet were swathed in flannel. His speech, which extended to three hours and a half, he delivered sitting down at intervals by the hitherto unprecedented indulgence of the House; his voice was faint and low, and he was more than once compelled to take a cordial before he could proceed. At the conclusion, his agony of pain was such as to compel him to leave the House without taking part in the division. When he passed out, the huzzas which greeted his coming were redoubled, and the multitude catching at the length of his speech as a topic of praise, shouted again and again: "Three hours and a half! Three hours and a half!"

Although this speech could not be ranked amongst the highest oratorical achievements of Pitt, it contained several

passages of great beauty. Its slight effect on the division which followed may perhaps be explained by the corrupt traffic which preceded it. We are assured that Fox, on accepting the lead of the House of Commons, had undertaken to purchase a majority in favour of the Peace. A kind of mart for Members of Parliament was opened by him at his own, the Paymaster's Office. It is alleged that the lowest bribe for a vote upon the Peace was a bank-note of 2007.; and that Mr. Martin, the Secretary of the Treasury, afterwards acknowledged 25,000l. to have been thus expended in a single morning.-Memoirs of George III., vol. i. p 199.

GEORGE THE THIRD AND MR. PITT.

The failure of Mr. Pitt's projected administration in 1763 may be considered as, in all its various consequences, one of the most important and lamentable events of the reign of George III. it would, probably, have stifled the nascent iniquity about Wilkes, prevented the American Stamp Act, and all the other circumstances of George Grenville's subsequent administration, which were both directly and consequentially so disastrous to this country.*

The circumstances of the negotiation are very interesting: Lord Bute undertook, by the King's commands, to mediate the return of Mr. Pitt to His Majesty's service: at an interview between the King and Mr. Pitt everything appeared to be amicably arranged. This was on Saturday, August 27; and on Sunday Mr. Pitt communicated the whole to the Duke of Newcastle, fully persuaded, from the King's answer and behaviour, that "the thing would do." On Monday, however, Mr. Pitt had another interview, at which the scene

* About this time (1763) his Majesty had a serious illness—its peculiar character was then unknown, but we have the best authority for believing that it was of the nature of those which thrice after afflicted his Majesty, and finally incapacitated him from the duties of government-and it is highly probable that this illness was produced by the great anxiety which these struggles of faction had produced in the royal mind.— Quarterly Review, No. 133.

changed, and the whole design was abandoned. The cause of the failure remains a mystery. It was imputed to Lord Bute, of whom Lord Chatham spoke as "something behind the throne greater than the throne itself." This was either a vision or a falsehood. "It is more near the truth to say that there was something before the throne greater than the throne itself, and that was the talismanic power of Mr. Pitt-the lamp of his talents had obedient slaves and a magical power, which were called into omnipotent activity whenever he chose to rub it.”

The indisputable authority of Lord Hardwick (who was privy to the whole negotiation,) leads us to suppose that it failed because the King, with that justice which was a marked feature of his character, was desirous of doing something for his present minister, George Grenville-whom the King proposed to Mr. Pitt for Paymaster, saying, "Poor George Grenville; he is your relation, and you once loved him!" This kind suggestion, thus graciously expressed, Mr. Pitt rejected by a cold and silent bow. The King then proposed Lord Temple for the head of the Treasury, but that Mr. Pitt also received with a negative observation. The King's last words were, "Well, Mr. Pitt, I see that this will not do; my honour is concerned, and I must support it;" which can have no meaning but that His Majesty thought that he could not in honour abandon George Grenville, and those other servants who had so recently come to his assistance, and whom Mr. Pitt seemed resolved to sweep out, though he afterwards declared that he had no such intention.-Quarterly Review, No. 131.

PITT'S GREAT PYNSENT LEGACY.

During the Grenville administration took place one of the most singular events in Pitt's life. There was a certain Sir Thomas Pynsent, a Somersetshire baronet of Whig politics, who had been a member of the House of Commons in the days of Queen Anne, and had retired to rural privacy when the Tory party, towards the end of her reign, obtained the

ascendancy in her councils. During fifty years of seclusion, he continued to brood over the circumstances which had driven him from public life, the dismissal of the Whigs, the peace of Utrecht, the desertion of our allies. He now thought that he perceived a close analogy between the well-remembered events of his youth, and the events he had witnessed in extreme old age; between the disgrace of Marlborough and the disgrace of Pitt; between the elevation of Harley and the elevation of Bute; between the treaty negotiated by St. John and the treaty negotiated by Bedford; between the wrongs of the House of Austria in 1712 and the wrongs of the House of Brandenburg in 1762. This fancy took such possession of the old man's mind that he determined to leave the whole of his property to Pitt. In this way, Pitt came into possession of nearly 3000l. a-year. Nor could all the malice of his enemies find any ground for reproach in the transaction. Nobody could call him a legacy-hunter. Nobody could accuse him of seizing that to which others had a better claim. For he had never in his life seen Sir William; and Sir William had left no relatives so near as to be entitled to form any expectation respecting the estate.

Walpole's early account of the legacy is very amusing. Writing to Sir Horace Mann, Jan. 13, 1765, he says: ""Tis the marvellous, the eccentric, that characterizes Englishmen. Come, you shall have an event in the genuine English taste, and before it has been pawed and vulgarized. It is fresh this very day. There is somebody dead somewhere-strong marks of novelty, you see-in Somersetshire or Wiltshire, I think, who has left two hundred thousand pounds to Mr. Pitt, to Mr. William Pitt, to the Pitt, the man who frightened the Great Mogul so three years ago, and who had liked to have tossed the Kings of France and Spain in a blanket, if somebody had not cut a hole in it, and let them slip through. Somebody the first was called Pinsent or Vincent-the town and I am not sure of the name yet: but it is certain he never saw the said Mr. Pitt-I hope that was not the best reason for the legacy. The parson of the parish, who made the

Will, has sent word to Hayes, that it is lodged in the housekeeper's hands, who has command from the defunct not to deliver it but to the legatee, or order. Unluckily, Mr. Pitt is in bed with the gout in his hand, and cannot even sign the order; however, Lady Chatham has sent for the Will, and it is supposed her order will suffice. You may depend on all the latter part; I had it but two hours ago from Lady Temple, whose lord has been to Hayes this morning on this affair. The deceased, it seems, had voted against the first Treaty of Utrecht, and had lived to see a second. I do believe now that this country will be saved at last, for we shall have real Patriots when the Opposition pays better than the Court. Don't you think that Mr. Pitt would give half his legacy that he had never accepted a pension? It is very singular: ten thousand pounds from old Marlborough, a reversion of a great estate from Jack Spencer,* and this fortune out of the clouds! Lord Bath, indeed, but I never heard it was for his virtues or services,-was in so many testaments, that they used to call him emphatically, Will Pulteney-it is more pleasant to be called Will Pitt from such tributes to his merit."

A week after, Jan. 20, Walpole writes to Lord Hertford: "Our important day on the Warrants is put off for a week, in compliment to Mr. Pitt's gout-can it resist such attention? I shall expect it in a prodigious quantity of black ribands. You have heard, to be sure, of the great fortune that is bequeathed to him by a Sir William Pynsent, an old man of near ninety, who quitted the world on the peace of Utrecht; and, luckily for Mr. Pitt, lived to be angry with its pendant, the treaty of Paris. I did not send you the first report, which mounted it to an enormous sum; I think the medium amount is two thousand pounds a-year, and thirty thousand pounds in money. This Sir William Pynsent,

The Duchess-Dowager of Marlborough left Mr. Pitt ten thousand pounds, and her grandson, John Spencer, entailed the Sunderland estates upon him after his own son; but that son, afterwards Earl Spencer, cut off that entail as soon as he came of age,