Fielding, the novelist; and Charles Pratt, afterwards Lord Chancellor Camden. Dean Bland was the head-master of Eton, and highly valued the attainments of young Pitt. He was entered at Trinity College, Oxford, in 1726, as already stated; and in the following year he published some Latin lines on the Death of George the First.

Lord Mahon tells us that of his leisure for study, Pitt availed himself with assiduous and incessant care. Again and again he read over the classics; not as pedants use, but in the spirit of a poet and philosopher; not nibbling at their accents and metres, but partaking in their glorious aspirations; warmed by the flame, not raking in the cinders. As to style, Demosthenes was his favourite study amongst the ancients; amongst the English, Bolingbroke and Barrow. We are told that he had read some of Barrow's Sermons so often as to know them by heart.* But perhaps the best clue to Pitt's own mental tasks, more especially in the field of oratory, is afforded by those which he afterwards so successfully enjoined to his favourite son. It is stated upon the authority of the late Lord Stanhope, that Mr. Pitt being asked to what he principally ascribed the two qualities for which his eloquence was most conspicuous—namely, the lucid order of his reasonings, and the ready choice of words,answered that he believed he owed the former to an early study of the Aristotelian logic, the latter to his father's practice in making him every day after reading over to himself some paper in the classics, translate it aloud and continuously into English prose. Lord Mahon's History of England, vol. iii. p. 13.

Through life (says Mr. Charles Butler,) Mr. Pitt cultivated

* Barrow's amplitude of style is not unfrequently discernible in Pitt. But Barrow's more poetical attributes-his bursts of passionate fervour -his glowing use of personification-his felicity in adapting high thoughts to sonorous expressions,-appear more congenial to Chatham's style of eloquence than that of his son. There are parts in Barrow which we could well fancy Chatham to have spoken. For instance, the sublime passage beginning, “Charity is a right noble and worthy thing," &c.— Quarterly Review, No. 194.

the muses. Miss Seward's Anecdotes contain an imitation by him of the Ode of Horace, "Tyrrhena regum progenies," which shows a very classical mind. He also translated the speech of Pericles, inserted in Smith's version of Thucydides, as related by Mr. Pitt to a friend of Mr. Butler.

PITT'S START IN LIFE. HIS FIRST SPEECH.

From his school-days Pitt had been cruelly tormented with gout, which attacked him with increased violence at Oxford, and compelled him to quit the University without taking a degree. Soon after he visited France and Italy; he returned, however, not much benefited by his excursion. It was now time that he should devote himself to a profession. His father, who died in 1727, had left him but a small patrimony: Lord Chesterfield says, one hundred pounds a year. This is, probably, below the mark: his grandfather must have been wealthy; he himself was one of only two sons, and Mr. Thackeray estimates William's property at about 40007. An opportunity of coming into Parliament soon occurred: his brother having been elected in 1734 both for Old Sarum and Oakhampton, and making his election for the latter place, William Pitt was, at the meeting of Parliament, in 1735, returned for Old Sarum. But it was still necessary that he should choose a profession; he decided for the army, and a Cornet's commission was obtained for him in the Blues.

Sir Robert Walpole had now been fourteen years at the head of affairs, but was losing his friends, who thenceforth became his deadly enemies. Pitt attached himself to the Whigs in opposition, the Patriots as they were called; and when he entered Parliament his conduct was attentively watched by the political world. He did not speak in the dull session of 1735; but in April, 1736, he made his maiden speech-on Mr. Pulteney's motion for a congratulatory address to the king upon the marriage of Frederick Prince of Wales to the Princess of Saxe Gotha.

Mr. Thackeray takes this opportunity to record what he calls "the personal and organic excellencies of this vehement

orator. If the remark of Demosthenes respecting the preeminent advantages of pronunciation possess any truth, it was never more completely verified than in the instance of Mr. Pitt."

Mr. Charles Butler, in his Reminiscences, says: "No person in his external appearance was ever more bountifully gifted by nature for an orator. In his look and gesture grace and dignity were combined, but dignity presided; the 'terrors of his beak, the lightning of his eye,' were insuf ferable. His voice was both full and clear; his lowest whisper was distinctly heard, his middle tones were sweet, rich, and beautifully varied; when he elevated his voice to its highest pitch, the House was completely filled with the volume of the sound. The effect was awful, except when he wished to cheer and animate; he then had spirit-stirring notes, which were perfectly irresistible. He frequently rose, on a sudden, from a very low to a very high key, but it seemed to be without effort. His diction was remarkably simple, but words were never chosen with greater care. He mentioned to a friend of Mr. Butler's, that he had read twice, from beginning to end, Bailey's Dictionary.

"His sentiments, too, were apparently simple; but sentiments were never adopted or altered with greater skill; he was often familiar and even playful, but it was the familiarity and playfulness of condescension-the lion that dandled with the kid; the terrible, however, was his peculiar power.-Then the whole House sunk before him,-still, he was dignified; and wonderful as was his eloquence, it was attended with this most important effect, that it impressed every hearer with a conviction that there was something in him even finer than his words; that the man was infinitely greater than the orator; no impression of this kind was made by the eloquence of his son, or his son's antagonist."

"As to person," says Mr. Thackeray, "nature had stamped more forcibly upon no man the impression of an orator. His

* As Mr. Butler was born in 1750, he probably had the advantage of hearing some of the later speeches of Lord Chatham.

figure was tall and manly, and the ordinary spectator was struck with the grace and dignity of his look and deportment. But the eye was his most wonderful feature. It is neither the language of romance nor of exaggeration to say that the keen lightning of that eye often blasted the courage of the most intrepid of his opponents. The other powers were peculiar and unrivalled, and the fascination of its glance was such, that few could withstand it." Elsewhere Thackeray says: "His eagle eye, like that of the Prince of Condé, at once struck and awed the observer. The general character of his features was also aquiline. His countenance was animated by an expression of dignity and intelligence which inspired respect and admiration, and was exactly indicative of the man."

Lord Waldegrave, after eulogizing the clearness of his style, observes that "his eye was as significant as his words. In debate, his single look could sometimes disconcert an orator opposed to him." His voice most happily combined sweetness and strength. It had all that silvery clearness which so delighted us in Sir William Follett's, and even when it sank to a whisper, it was distinctly heard; while its higher notes, like the swell of some majestic organ, could peal and thrill above every other earthly sound.

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Pitt's first speech is described by Tindal as unmixed with any strains but that of declamation ;" and he adds, "We have few models of an antiquity more perfect in that kind, it being more ornamented than the declamations of Demosthenes, and less diffuse than those of Cicero." Pitt's appearance and elocution must have been imposing from the first; for there was, certainly, nothing in the matter of his speech, if we may judge from the report of it, to put any one in mind of either Demosthenes or Cicero. Lord Macaulay well observes that the vogue which this unmeaning phrase has obtained, whereas it should never have been quoted, except to be laughed at, may serve to show in how slovenly a way most people are content to think.

The statesman's start was, however, in some respects, un

fortunate. There can be little doubt that it was the offence given to the King by Mr. Pitt's parliamentary conduct, and probably, by his first speech, that rendered it impossible for him to be brought into any office. The King was supported in his determination against Pitt by Lord Bath and Lord Carteret. Accordingly, we find that he attacked the latter in Parliament with great virulenec, calling him "an execrable minister,- -a sole minister,-who had renounced the British nation, and seemed to have drunk of the potion described in poetic fictions, which made men forget their country." And Walpole tells us, that in one of the numerous speeches in which Mr. Pitt assiduously followed up the first blow, he called Carteret "the Hanoverian minister—a flagitious taskmaster;" adding, that the "sixteen thousand Hanoverians were all the party he had."

PITT DISMISSED FROM THE ARMY BY SIR ROBERT

WALPOLE.

It is said that Walpole no sooner heard the sound of Pitt's voice in Parliament than he confessed an alarm. "We must, at all events," said he, "muzzle that terrible Cornet of Horse." Throughout his first speech, beneath inflated panegyric of the sovereign, there lurked a strain of bitter irony and sarcastic insinuation, which so irritated Walpole against the young Member, that he took from him his commission in the army, within a few days. The speech was delivered on the 29th of April, and the records in the War Office show that the vacancy made by "the supercession of Cornet Pitt" was filled up on the 17th of May. This violent treatment served but to raise Mr. Pitt in the estimation of the public. Soon after this, he used to drive about the country in a one-horse chaise, without a servant; when, at each town to which he came, the people flocked around his chaise, and greeted him with the loudest acclamations.

It was upon this dismissal that Pitt's friend, Lord Lyttelton, addressed to him the following lines, which, though poor enough in themselves, have the historical importance of