FRASER'S

MAGAZINE.

PITT.*

partment of biographical literature is that in which private life runs most parallel with general history. The life of a distinguished author or artist is, for instance, more easily handled than that of a great general or statesman. It may not possess the same interest in its connexion with important public events, with the fate of armies, or the destinies of nations; but it can be pursued with less effort in its comparatively secluded and easy course. Its distinctive individuality can be better preserved, and is in less danger of being lost in the overwhelming crowd of surrounding circumstances.

Hence it is that in ordinary hands the life of a great public personage is apt to become a mere collection of the annals of the age in which he played his part; mingled perhaps with a few personal anecdotes which, instead of varying or heightening the interest of the narrative, are apt to appear trivial or out of place in juxtaposition with the vast transactions in the midst of which the hero of the work has, for the most part, to be exhibited. Thus has it hitherto fared with Pitt. The greatest of English ministers has been until the present year without a biographer, in the true meaning of the word. His public acts and sayings have been chronicled in books called Lives of Pitt. Gifford's ponderous tomes only profess to deal with the public and political career of the great statesman. Bishop Tomline's work was

But

add to his three volumes a fourth, in which he would have given what relates to Mr. Pitt's private life. In this the Bishop would have dwelt upon the manners, temper, and disposition of his distinguished pupil, which, he says, he always considered as constituting the most extraordinary part of his character. The lives have thus been without personal life-the real man has hardly been even presented to the reader: we have only become acquainted with the Pitt of the History of Europe, of the Annual Register, and of the Parliamentary Debates. Generally, we may be said to have seen the great figure either glorified as the saviour of the nation and the idol of the Pitt clubs, or vilified and denounced as the enemy of all good by their political opposites. We have not before seen and known in its living truth the noble and gentle nature of the individual human being, about whom all must be anxious to know all that can now be known.

Lord Stanhope has a peculiar' call to the duty which he has undertaken, of giving to the public a new life of Pitt. An able and accomplished writer of English history he has amply proved himself to be in former works; but he has a special vocation beyond other writers for the fit and worthy presentment of his own illustrious connexion. Pitt, dying unmarried, could have no direct personal representative. The peerage of Chatham, acquired by his father, and held by his elder brother, is

VOL. LXIV. NO. CCCLXXIX.

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