in Kent, and at Walmer Castle, were strewn with them; and Lord Grenville, who was in this respect a congenial spirit, often told the Marquis Wellesley that he had never conversed with so good a Greek scholar. It was well for Pitt that his studies were not too discursive. He paid slight attention to modern languages, and even his classical attainments were made to contribute to the purity and force of his English style. His tutors, both Wilson and Pretyman, had constantly exercised him in reading Greek and Latin authors straight into his native language, when by looking over a page or two he had mastered the sense. The habit of selecting the most suitable words thus grew upon him, and made him at last unrivalled in the extemporaneous expression of ideas. He penetrated the sense of writers so keenly that "he never seemed to learn, but only to recollect."* He carefully studied the speeches of Pericles, Eschines, and the two chiefs of ancient oratory. He analysed the arguments closely, observing their weak and strong points, and committing to memory the most telling perorations. He thus became so skilful in dialectics, that he detected fallacies in a moment, and sat as a youth, to Fox's astonishment, in the House of Lords, "thinking only how all the speeches on both sides could be answered," and evincing, by his remarks, the keen interest he took in the debates.† Intending to make politics the business of his life, it is no *"Memoirs of Pitt," by Dr. Tomline, Bishop of Winchester. wonder that he early became acquainted with Adam Smith's "Wealth of Nations," in which every branch of commerce and political economy was treated as profoundly as the state of society then permitted.* In June, 1780, Pitt was called to the bar, and in August of the same year he joined the Western Circuit. In September he stood for Cambridge with ill success; but in January following, having been returned for Appleby, he took his seat on the 23rd of that month. Exactly twenty-five years after, he closed his career, and Fox, his senior by ten years, stepped into his vacant place. Pitt began, as we have seen, with port for weakness, but he ended with weakness for port. Often after discussing a bottle at Brookes's, where Fox had proposed him as a member,† he would adjourn with his choicest friends to Bellamy's and "help finish a couple more.' Every one knows Wraxall's story of his galloping through a turnpike with Dundas and Lord Chancellor Thurlow without paying the toll. The turnpike-man fancied they were highway robbers, and fired a blunderbuss at the tipsy premier. He was always a fast rider, and several grooms died in his service from the effects of cold after heated gallops behind their master.§ A popular paper thus describes him in Dog Latin: "Warcarryonissimus, * Pitt's Speech on the Budget, 1792; Goldwin Smith's "Three Eminent Statesmen-Pitt," p. 52. + February 20, 1781. See also "Buckingham Papers," vol. i. pp. 360-1. § Maddyn's "Chiefs of Parties," vol. i. p. 60, note. taxgatherissimus, vinum guzzleando potentissimus, prettygirlibus indifferentissimus, et filius bitchæ damnatissimus!”* His wit and pleasantries made him the idol of a select few; and Wilberforce, the most intimate of them all, affirmed that he was the wittiest man he had ever known.† Primed with wine, the young man used to rise in the House of Commons with singular composure, and support every liberal measure with all the ardour of his father in his best days. It was in this spirit that he supported Burke in his plan of economical reform; denounced the war with America as barbarous, unjust, and diabolical; declared himself the enemy of close boroughs and village constituencies, and advocated the shortening of the duration of parliaments. Already, according to Fox, he was one of the first men in the House. He was not, Burke said, a chip of the old block; he was the old block itself. "The young William Pitt," wrote Horace Walpole, during the session in which he delivered his maiden speech, “has again displayed paternal oratory. The other day, on the commission of accounts, he answered Lord North, and tore him limb from limb. What if a Pitt and Fox should again be rivals ?" To the same effect Wilberforce wrote, "He comes out as his father did, a ready-made orator."§ Yet the rounded periods of Pitt want the incommuni * Maddyn's "Chiefs of Parties," vol. i. p. 68. cable fire of Chatham, and contain few sentences that have passed into proverbs, few "Jewels, five-words long, That on the stretched forefinger of all Time Though Burke did call the son "the old block itself," he pronounced him on another occasion "the sublime of mediocrity.' How he managed to pay his way with. only £300 a year and a few briefs, it is difficult to conceive, except by supposing that he did not pay it at all, and that his creditors paid it for him. But, however convenient this plan may appear for a time, debts are exorbitant usurers, and they helped at last to break the heart of William Pitt. The party to which the young statesman was attached at the beginning of his public life requires an exact description. It belonged to the Opposition, but it was not the Opposition itself. That body consisted of two sections; the one, pure Whigs, headed by Lord Rockingham, and led by the dissipated but generous and agreeable Fox; the other, nondescript Whigs, or Chathamites, at whose head was Lord Shelburne, and to whom, by force of early education and respect for his great father, William was allied, together with Lord Camden, Barré, and Dunning. Each of these sections came successively into power. Rockingham, with his little band, was the first who stood on the ruins of the North adminis * Charles Butler's "Reminiscences," vol. i. p. 172. tration. He was desirous of securing Pitt's support, and offered him the easy and highly-paid office of ViceTreasurer of Ireland. But even at that early period Pitt had resolved to accept nothing which did not include a seat in the cabinet. The pride of birth as the son of Chatham was mingled in him with the pride of superior ability. He would be second to no man, however influential and experienced. If youth was his defect, he was willing to wait. Time would cure that failing; but it might never retrieve the false step of accepting an office inferior to his deserts. He therefore refused £5,000 a year, and declared his resolution publicly in Parliament. Many thought him arrogant, and indeed he himself repented of having expressed his intention so frankly. The doctors in scarlet at Cambridge, sitting in Golgotha, had already censured his presumption in standing for the University at the age of one-and-twenty, and his conduct on this occasion was not likely to change their opinion of him. Yet he who refuses £5,000 a year has the strength of a Titan. The reflection is obvious. Presumptuous or not, he must have the soul of Hercules. Thus Pitt kept the judgment of others concerning him in suspense. It was on the 7th of May, 1782, during the second administration of Lord Rockingham, that Pitt made a motion for inquiry into the system of representation. It should have come from ministers; but since their accession to office in the month of March, their zeal for parlia |