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his disposal, his parsimony towards literary men reminds us of Louis XIV., of whom it is related that among his acts of munificence he awarded a pension of £40 to Molière during his life, and allowed his tomb after his death to be raised one foot above the ground!* "Literature will take care of itself," answered Pitt, when applied to in behalf of Burns. "Yes," observed Southey, "it will take care of itself, and of you too, if you do not look to it."

Pitt's failing in this respect was the more remarkable because his oratory was the fruit of genius and careful study. He never so relied on his natural abilities as to neglect secondary means, and his high position supplied whatever was wanting to make his success as a debater complete. There were points in which some of his contemporaries surpassed him-Sheridan was more witty, Burke more imaginative—but in power and ingenuity he rose above them, and found no rival but in Fox. To him, again, he yielded in kindliness of look and language— perhaps in sympathy with human sufferings and in hatred of every form of oppression. He was intrepid and proud, but noble and commanding on all occasions; severe as one who is conscious of rectitude, and sometimes sarcastic and scornful as one who can endure nothing that is crooked and low.

It was in supporting the glorious efforts of Wilberforce to suppress the slave-trade that his eloquence shone

* Victor Hugo's "William Shakespeare,” p. 27.

*

brightest and fell with surest stroke. It was the 2nd of April, 1792; Grey, Windham, and Fox were walking away together from the House of Commons, and, still under the magic influence of his periods, they discussed the merits of his high-souled appeal. On this they all agreed, that they had never before heard such oratory, and that during the last twenty minutes Pitt seemed inspired. There is no more happy faculty in a speaker than that of seizing impromptu on some passing occurrence, and applying it to illustrate his main argument. It was long past midnight. Pitt had been describing in pathetic language the dark and servile condition of Africa, and had expressed sanguine hopes of its being yet visited by the light of religion, civilisation, and science, when the first ray of the morning broke through the windows of the House of Commons, and with admirable readiness he pointed to that beam, and quoted those apposite lines from the "Georgics":

"Nos. . . . primus equis Oriens afflavit anhelis,
Illic sera rubens accendit lumina Vesper." +

His hopes, his prospects, his prediction were all summed up in this beautiful poetry; and as he turned his face towards the south, the hearts of his hearers bounded across intervening seas to embrace as freedmen and brethren the swarthy children of Ham. A motion for gradual abolition was carried "against the united forces of Africans and

*"Life of Wilberforce by his Sons," vol. i. pp. 345-6.

† Book i. 250, 251. See Moore's "Life of Sheridan," vol. ii. p. 185.

West Indians," by a majority of 238 to 85. This was a great step in advance.

It was in the year 1792, and within five months of each other, that two ex-premiers, once powerful and in high favour, departed this life. One was John Earl of Bute,* and the other Frederick Lord North, then third Earl of Guildford. The former had during a quarter of a century lived in profound retirement, and spent the greater part of his time in a villa on the cliff's edge at Christchurch in Hampshire. There he used to listen to the melancholy murmur of the sea, and hear in it the soul's moaning over the vanity of human affairs.

The good-humoured premier whose short-sighted policy severed America from England was, during the last five years of his life, afflicted with partial blindness from paralysis of the optic nerve. But his inner day never died; and he continued to the last patient and cheerful. Not long before his death, he met the old and blind Colonel Barré on the Pantiles at Tunbridge Wells, and gaily observed: "Ah, Colonel, whatever may have been our former animosities, I am persuaded there are no two men who would now be more glad to see each other than you and I." +

The generous rivalry which existed between Pitt and Fox did not prevent their uniting on many important questions. They advocated with equal warmth the cause

* Died March 10, 1792.

+ Died August 5, 1792.

Wraxall's "Memoirs," vol. ii. pp. 136-7.

of the marketed negro; they pleaded side by side for the relief of Roman Catholics; they contended together for the extension to juries of the same powers in cases of libel as in criminal proceedings, thus placing the liberty of the press under their protection; and they inveighed with one voice against those "iniquitous laws" in the Statutebook "which attach penalties to mere opinions." It cannot, indeed, be maintained that Pitt was always consistent, nor can we do otherwise than lament his yielding, against his better judgment, to pressure from without in supporting the Test and Corporation Act. Sir Robert Walpole before him had acted much in the same way, and the generous efforts of Lord Stanhope in 1719 had proved equally abortive.* That he was personally averse to the exclusion of all but members of the Established Church from offices of State is certain from the fact of his having in private laid before George III. "unanswerable reasons for abolishing it."

The great question on which Pitt and Fox differed was the expediency of war with France. Yet this difference supervened upon previous agreement. In 1790 Pitt predicted that the convulsions in France would sooner or later end in order and peace. In February, 1792, he declared to the House that, judging from the condition of Europe, there never was a time when a long peace might more reasonably be expected. The policy which he re

* Lord Stanhope, "History of England," vol. i. p. vol. iii. p. 103.

327;
vol. ii. p. 185;

† Speech on the Budget.

commended was that of strict neutrality. He contemplated a reduction of the war establishment in June, and in October and November he still dwelt on the advantages of non-intervention. As late as the 29th of December he maintained that war might be averted, and nothing transpired which could cause men to suspect that his private feelings had undergone a change. All was of a piece with his attempt to introduce a commercial treaty between England and revolutionary France—an attempt which brought upon him the bitterest reproaches, and was thought likely by many to disturb the peace of his father's bones. His favourite plans of economy and of finance, his project for increasing the revenue by increasing consumption, for reducing the taxes and for improving commerce, were evidently based on the expectation of peace. He would leave France to arrange her internal affairs after her own fashion-this was his uniform language, whether in the House or in his private correspondence.

But January, 1793, arrived-that tragical month which saw the blood of Louis XVI. poured forth on a scaffold; and those red drops were the first of a shower of blood which fell on the soddened plains of half Europe during many years. Pitt's policy changed. Up to the moment when the result of Louis XVI.'s trial was made known, he advised the other powers of Europe to preserve peace; after it, he no longer did so. On the 20th of January his resolution to declare war was avowed. A

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