extinct. Hayes, in Kent, the seat of the elder, and the birth-place of the younger Pitt, has long passed out of the hands of the family. The house in which the great younger son was born still exists, but contains no personal memorials. There is only the tradition which points out the room in which the future Minister first saw the light. The country-house of Holwood, in which Pitt chiefly sought what little change of air and scene was permitted to him from his official residence in Downing-street and the pressure of public affairs, is pulled down. But the grandfather of the present distinguished bearer of the title of Stanhope married Pitt's sister, by whom he had three daughters, of whom Lady Hester Stanhope was one: and his second wife was a first cousin of Pitt's. In fact, the best personal and local ties connecting the memory of Pitt with the present day, may be said to be represented by the noble owner of Chevening, a place which now contains a larger assemblage of family memorials of him than could be found elsewhere; and whose domain has within its circuit a drive laid out by the great Lord Chatham, which descends beautifully from the high road in the direction of Hayes, and still bears the name of its designer.

More charming volumes upon an interesting topic were never presented to the reader. The subject is unfolded with gracefulness and ease, and is made as fascinating as a novel; while there is no sacrifice of accuracy or lack of necessary historical research. For the life of Pitt was identified with the history of Europe-with that of the civilized world; and the art with which the public and personal interests of the narrative are blended constitutes one great excellence of Lord Stanhope's volumes.

Unfortunately, many of the best materials once in existence, which would have served to illustrate the life of Pitt in his relations with his own family, were destroyed by his episcopal biographer. Dr. Tomline, as quasi-literary executor, made a general holocaust of the

letters addressed to Pitt by members of his family. But his own letters to his mother remain, and some of those written by him to his brother, Lord Chatham. These are entirely new to the reader; and their publication, together with that of George III.'s letters to Mr. Pitt, adds greatly to the value of the present volumes. There is an absence of playfulness in the letters to his mother which might be surprising in a person known to have possessed such powers of amusement in company, if it did not happen that the qualities of pleasing in society and as a correspondent are often found asunder. They are full of grace and affection, but always plain and serious in their style.

The supposed duty of burning all letters-whatever their general interest might be-seems to have been felt more strongly a generation or two back, than it has been in more recent years. Some modern violations of reserve and decorum in the indiscriminate publication of letters affecting living personages, have deserved and have received rebuke; but in the Bishop's dealings with his old pupil's papers we have to deplore the opposite fault. There is a great difference between the hoarding up of letters for the mere purpose of gratifying curiosity, and their preservation as legitimate illustrations of an important biography.

Readers of Miss Burney's Diary will recollect how she describes her assistance of dear old Mrs. Delany in sorting her correspondence; and how one is surprised by her complacent avowal that she went through the letters of Swift, Dr. Young, and Mason, to her ancient friend, and destroyed all that could not be saved every way to their honour. Pitt's family letters can as little have been fit subjects for destruction as those to Mrs. Delany of which Miss Burney was unluckily requested to undertake the rummaging.

Of Pitt's early life, therefore, the memorials are not extensive. There is, however, abundant evidence that he received a most

1861.]

special and arduous training for his distinguished career.

At four

teen years old he was ripe for college; and entering the University of Cambridge at that age, he continued his residence at Pembroke after he had taken the honorary degree of M.A.-the privilege of a peer's son-and until he had completed the unusual term of seven years of college life; partly from love of the place and of its studies, and partly, no doubt, with a view to obtaining support for his early purpose of representing the University in Parliament. Cambridge had afterwards the honour of returning the greatest of her political sons to the House of Commons; but he was defeated in his object of entering public life as one of the representatives of his beloved Alma Mater.

Pitt's proficiency in all that was to be taught by a Cambridge tutor, is a striking example of what is possible to undaunted will and perseverance, under the disadvantages of weak health and a constitution so feeble that it required to be fortified by the prescription of that port wine the use of which was commenced as a medicine, and afterwards continued as a habit which had become necessary to existence. From his father he had much personal superintendence and direction of his studies. The constant practice of off-hand translation from another language into English-the recitation of passages from the best poets of his ownthe marking and comparing striking passages in orators and historians -the presence at actual debates in

the House of Lords-laid the foundation of a perfect and ready style of oratory and this particular attention to preparation for public speaking pervaded the whole of Pitt's private educational course. Then, as now, the University contributed no assistance to this important branch of education for all public and much professional life. It is remarkable that in the midst of so much improvement as has been made in other respects, the great English seminaries are still without any provision for the

3

public instruction in elocution of those who are destined for Parliament, the pulpit, and the bar. For such as are wise and modest enough to understand that the art of public speaking may be learned, like almost everything else, by practice, and submission to precept, recourse must still be had to the private lessons of the retired actor or of the popular preacher who is willing to impart his experience to those who seek it. But there is no open or regular school of oratory; and most men make their first speech at the bar, or preach their first sermon, in total ignorance even of many of what may be called the merely mechanical rules for the due management of the voice.

How well Pitt's training served him when, at twenty-one years of age, he rose for the first time to address a House of Commons familiar with the oratory of Fox, of Burke, and of Sheridan, needs not to be detailed. He joined in the debate upon Burke's Bill for Economical Reform, rather in the way of unpremeditated reply to previous speakers than with the usual set speech of a maiden orator. In the opinion of the very competent judges who heard him, he thus made the best first speech ever heard, and at once took his place among the foremost men in the House. No merely intellectual power or superiority could have made this result quite possible. The explanation lies much in the fact that the first speech was virtually not a first speech. Many a drill, and many a mental rehearsal of similar occasions, must have preceded the first public representation and the first actual warfare; and without that previous discipline he must, like others, have taken his lessons in public, and, like others, have slowly risen to the position of the highest eminence. His father's fame, and his own academical reputation, while they ensured him a favourable reception, also made his trial the more severe; but no expectation was raised that was not fulfilled, and his future place may be considered as having

been ascertained from the moment he sat down after the delivery of his maiden speech. He was at once destined in oratory to rival, as he was afterwards in administrative ability to surpass, his own father-the only preceding English minister with whom he can fairly be compared. Lord Stanhope has been able to communicate an interesting anecdote, which for the future may be added to the materials for forming a comparison between the abilities of the two Pitts. Lady Chatham was asked by a grand-daughter, 'Which do you think the cleverest, Grandpapa or Mr. Pitt? To which her answer was, 'Your Grandpapa, without doubt.' But would any wife and mother, with such a choice of excellence in a husband and a son, have given a different answer? From his father, however, Pitt derived little but his education and his name; Lord Chatham died when he was only nineteen. A younger son of a family of very moderate means, he kept his terms at Lincoln's Inn, and looked out for chambers, with the ordinary object of following the profession of an advocate to earn his bread. There was indeed the greatest necessity for strict economy in his early life. Until he came of age, he had no regular allowance, and the patrimonial income to which he then became entitled, does not appear to have exceeded two hundred and fifty or three hundred pounds a year. In writing to his mother, and in discussing the project of taking rooms, he mentions £1100 as 'the frightful sum' necessary for purchasing a particular set of chambers-evidently in the then recently-erected range of Stone Buildings. It must have been from them that he wrote to Lady Chatham, and described the defensive measures resorted to for the protection of Lincoln's Inn during the raging of the Lord George Gordon riots in 1780. He then witnessed a spectacle now familiar in those regions; for he tells his mother that 'several very respectable lawyers have appeared with muskets on their shoulders,' add

ing, however, what would hardly be felt by the admirers of the present gallant and efficient corps of the Devil's Own, that the exhibition was 'to the no small diversion of all spectators.'

Disappointed of taking his seat for Cambridge, Pitt, by favour of Sir James Lowther, the patron of the borough of Appleby, was returned for that place; and as member for Appleby he entered the House of Commons on the 23rd January, 1781; on the anniversary of which day, by a remarkable coincidence, he closed his career. Lord North was still in office, and it was in the last days of the American war. In opposition were the old Whigs, led by the Marquis of Rockingham in the Upper, and by Fox in the Lower House; with whom, for the time, were associated a number of Lord Chatham's old supporters. Pitt naturally ranged himself with his father's friends, and thus enjoyed what must be considered as the great advantage of entering public life with all the freedom belonging to an independent member of a mixed Opposition, rather than as a regularly enrolled voter with the occupants of the Treasury bench. Perhaps the most remarkable small fact in Pitt's early political life, is that his name should have been proposed as a member of Brooks's, and that Fox was his proposer.

At this time the charm of manner which in later life was only known to the few who could closely approach the great Minister, must have been open to apprecia tion by a wider circle. Wilberforce calls him the wittiest man he ever knew the most amusing of the party in the company of professed wits and yet as having at all times his wit under entire control. During his short connexion with the Bar and on the Western Circuit, he gained the liking of all his associates. Jekyll reported him as the most lively and convivial among lively young men in their hours of leisure. He was a favourite with both seniors and juniors, for his acquirements, his wit, good humour, and joyous manners.

1861.]

Twice again only in this session, Pitt addressed the House of Commons; and on the last occasion, near its close, upon a motion made by Fox in favour of concluding peace with the revolted colonies, he vindicated his father's opinions on the American war, and gave his own judgment against the continuance of a conflict so cruel, unnatural, unjust, and unprofitable. He was replied to by Dundas-the right hand of his own administrations in after days-but was congratulated by him on his 'happy union of first-rate abilities, high integrity, bold and honest independence of conduct, and the most persuasive eloquence.'

Parliament met again before Christmas, and the triumphs of Pitt as a speaker in his first session were fully maintained in his second. Still he fought in the ranks of Opposition, and side by side with his great enemy that was to be. It was in a speech made in support of Mr. Fox's charge against the Earl of Sandwich, then First Lord of the Admiralty, that he made a declaration of the motives which he had thus early determined should guide him in political life, and from which he never for an instant swerved in his subsequent career. He said, 'I support the motion from motives of a public nature, and from those motives only. I am too young to be supposed capable of entertaining any personal enmity against the Earl of Sandwich; and I trust that when I shall be less young it will appear that I have early determined, in the most solemn manner, never to allow any private and personal consideration whatever to influence my public conduct at any one moment of my life.'

In March of 1782, Lord North's Government fell. He was succeeded by the Marquis of Rockingham, who had the difficult task to perform of composing a new Ministry, partly from the old one, and partly out of the somewhat discordant elements at his disposal among the members of Opposition who had united to overthrow Lord North, but who were far from being

5

well fitted permanently to act together. It might have been expected that the fresh star which had recently shone forth so brightly in the political firmament would be included in the new ministerial constellation. But it was not so. For Pitt, with that reliance upon himself, and that lofty feeling of independence which marked his character from the beginning, had announced his course some days before Lord North's resignation actually took place. He said in the House of Commons, 'For myself, I could not expect to form part of a new Administration; but were my doing so more within my reach, I feel myself bound to declare that I never would accept a subordinate situation.' Lord Stanhope justly points out how much more presumptuous and surprising such a resolution as this, not to accept office except as a Cabinet Minister, must have appeared in those days, from a young man not yet twentythree years old, than it even would appear in modern times. Sixteen of her Majesty's present Ministers are in possession of the talismanic keys which open the sacred Cabinet boxes. But in 1770, Lord North's first Cabinet consisted only of seven; the Coalition Cabinet, and Pitt's own Cabinet in 1783, were also of the same number.

Offers of the most valuable inferior offices were pressed upon the young barrister of Lincoln's Innthe nominee of Sir James Lowther for the borough of Appleby-including the post of Irish ViceTreasurer, with little work, and worth £5000 a year; but all were declined, and the future pilot of the State continued to vote as a private member, although in general support of the new Government. He was selected to bring forward in the House of Commons the question of Representative Reform; and in May he moved for a Select Committee to inquire into the state of the representation. The solid arguments for Parliamentary Reform were then the same as those which so long afterwards prevailed when the Reform Bill of 1831 became the law of the land. But the

question could then be discussed with moderation and temper; it was an open one with the Ministry; the advocates of Reform were not embittered in spirit by long exclusion from office; and if some measure of Reform had then been passed, it would have found acceptance by such an appeal to reason and political experience as was made by Pitt, and would not have owed any part of its success to rabid agitation and threats of the employment of physical force. The motion was lost by twenty votes, the numbers being 161 to 141, and Parliamentary Reform never had so good a chance again for fifty years, nor until it was carried by the Government of Lord Grey.

The death of Lord Rockingham in July put an immediate end to his short-lived and already disunited Administration. Lord Shelburne succeeded him as Prime Minister. Fox could not tolerate the supremacy of a supposed equal, and resigned. The Whigs went with him. Other wellknown changes took place; but the greatest was that Pitt became Chancellor of the Exchequer. It is most interesting to read his letters to Lady Chatham in the country, written just before, and at the time of Lord Rockingham's death. He still alludes to Westminster Hall as the place in which his future life would be spent, and where his slender patrimonial means of subsistence were to be reinforced. He talks of going Circuit within a couple of days of his having to announce that he was to enter the Cabinet either as Chief Minister of Finance or as Secretary of State; and one of his letters has a postscript about a sick servant, and his wishing to see his wife from the country, which shows his tender concern for all who depended upon him, and his care for their happiness even at a time when every thought might well be supposed to have been engrossed by his deep interest in the pending crisis of politics and of his own destiny.

The letters to his mother of a few weeks later date breathe a

charming spirit of satisfaction, and indicate some halcyon days of ministerial life. His allotted residence in Downing-street is the best summer town house possible. The business, he says, does not seem likely to be very fatiguing. The office of his secretary is a perfect sinecure, and that gentleman has nothing to do but to receive his salary. He was without a private secretary, and did not perceive any occasion for one. Such are the expressions on his first entrance upon official duties of the man whose life was afterwards to be worn out in the public service, and to whom of all men that ever filled high posts in the State was meted out the largest measure of anxiety and labour.

The arrangement of parties under the conditions of the new Ministry was by no means one of stable equilibrium. The friends of Fox and of Lord North found themselves together in Opposition. The members of the Government were divided on many points; but some important public work was done which could not have been achieved under a different state of things. The independence of the American colonies was recognised, and treaties were concluded with France and Spain. Pitt's sagacity, however, perceived that a strong and consistent Government could only be ensured by inviting the co-operation of Fox and his friends. With difficulty he overcame Lord Shelburne's reluctance to the step, and obtained the authority of the Prime Minister to invite a junction. Personal dislike to serve under Lord Shelburne on the part of Fox again prevailed, and the interview between Pitt and Fox on the subject terminated without result. Bishop Tomline has reported that it was the last time the two were ever in the same private room together, and dates from this time the commencement of their future continuous political hostility.

In another direction Dundas endeavoured to obtain the assistance of Lord North, but with equal want of success. What followed upon the failure of these attempts was dis