yet to live nearly forty years, in the midst of dignities and splendour. There was little, perhaps, in the contrast to sadden Pitt's heart, for the honours which he had earned were of a far more durable kind than those which had descended on Sidmouth. But when the spirits are already sinking, trifles however light in themselves, add to the inward burden and make it intolerable. When Rose visited him on the 19th of January, he found him in tears, while his features betrayed the most poignant grief.

When parliament re-assembled, his place was vacant, and his political foes were too generous to make any attack on him at such a moment. Fox evinced much feeling when he alluded to his alarming illness; and the campaign which the Opposition had intended to open was postponed. The 23rd came, and the Bishop of Lincoln, apprising Pitt of his danger, pressed him to prepare for death by receiving the sacrament. But Pitt had not strength equal to the service, and accepted only the Bishop's invitation to prayer. He spoke of himself with unfeigned humility; and this Dr. Tomline assured him was the best guarantee for the success of prayer. He feared, he said, that he had neglected it too much to allow him to hope that it would now be very efficacious; but he added, clasping his hands. with much fervour, "I throw myself entirely upon the mercy of God, through the merits of Christ." The words quoted, however, are not in Pitt's style; and though one

*

*Gifford's "Life of Pitt," vol. vi. pp. 806, 807.

would be sorry to doubt the Bishop of Lincoln as an informant, there appears to be great reason to suspect that they never were uttered.

The discrepancy between the several accounts of Pitt's last moments are very considerable: and it is evident that reporters put into his mouth language which they wished him to breathe, or which they thought likely to come from him. He had always conformed to customary religious observances, but had never professed any special conviction of the truth of Revelation.* Wilberforce, who knew him so well, attached no credence to the stories that were told of his pious end. His nephew, the Hon. J. H. Stanhope, has left an interesting account of his closing hours-the affectionate farewell which he took of Lady Hester; "his angelic mildness" to his physician and all who attended his bedside; his incoherent thoughts on the affairs of his country; and the love and concern which he expressed for England with his last breath: but when we compare this narrative with other testimonies, and make all the needful deductions, the residuum presents little that is remarkable, and less that is satisfactory.† dazzling brightness which had encircled his forehead in the senate faded away when he entered the valley of the shades of death.

The

"It is a singular and melancholy circumstance," says

* Goldwin Smith's "Lectures on Pitt," pp. 53, 68, 70; "Life of Wilberforce," vol. i. pp. 29, 95; vol. ii. pp. 212, 220.

† Jesse's "Memoirs of George III.,” vol. iii. p. 468, note; Westminster Review, xxii. 33, note.

Lord Brougham, "resembling the stories told of William the Conqueror's deserted state at his decease, that some one in the neighbourhood having sent a messenger to inquire into Mr. Pitt's state, he found the wicket open, then the door of the house, and nobody answering the bell, he walked through the rooms till he reached the bed on which the minister's body lay lifeless, the sole tenant of the mansion, of which the doors, a few hours before, were darkened by crowds of suitors alike obsequious and importunate the vultures whose instinct haunts the carcases only of living ministers.” *

The 23rd of January, on which Pitt's early career ended, was, as I have said, the twenty-fifth anniversary of the day when he took his seat in parliament. Centuries will elapse before his labours in that quarter of a century are forgotten. His remains were worthy of the highest honour, and the House of Commons showed no disposition to withhold it. A public funeral at the cost of the nation was voted, and £40,000 for the payment of his debts. The motion for this outlay was carried by a majority of 288 to 89; and if Fox was one of those who opposed it, he did so with the utmost delicacy and good feeling. St. Edward the Confessor died within the walls of the Painted Chamber at Westminster; the remains of Chatham rested there on their way to the adjoining abbey; and there also the body of William Pitt lay in state on the 20th and 21st of February, 1806.

* Lord Brougham's "Historical Sketches."

It would be long to tell the names of those princes of the blood, peers, bishops, and commoners, who followed him to the tomb with unfeigned grief. Six persons who had been, or were to be, prime ministers, were among the number, Lords Sidmouth, Grenville, and Liverpool, Spencer Perceval, Canning, and Sir Arthur Wellesley. No one in the mournful train-perhaps not even Wellington excepted-will be remembered longer by posterity than William Wilberforce. He supported the banner of the crest of Pitt; and to his eye the face of the father seemed to be looking down in fearful concern on the grave that was opened for the son. Well might Lord Wellesley, who also was present, ask: "What grave contains such a father and such a son? What sepulchre embosoms the remains of so much excellence and glory?” The disinterested patriotism of the elder had certainly descended to the younger, and the herald could not be accused of flattery when he pronounced over him this eulogium: "Non sibi sed patriæ vixit.”

Of Pitt's public character little more need be said. He was thoroughly grand and English in his designs; and by his majestic composure and power of debate he gave to every measure he adopted a momentum difficult to resist. If his will had not been controlled by that of parliament and of the Sovereign, he might have pursued a consistent and a grander course. He might have reformed the representation as others have done after him, and as he proposed to do on three several occasions. He might have

abolished the Test Act, and have taken Catholic members of parliament by the hand, and conducted them to their seats in the legislature. He might have completed the work of negro emancipation; he might have developed the views of Sir Robert Walpole on Free Trade more fully, and have anticipated the anti-Protectionist measures of Sir Robert Peel. All this it was in his heart to do; but in social advance, as in the processes of nature, many seeds are lost, many buds are nipped. Sunny days predict summer long before the fruit-season arrives; and it often happens that a statesman who has only made vigorous efforts in a good direction has amply accomplished the purpose of his being.

If the nation still groans under the debt with which he saddled it, we ought to remember that the burden of debt is light compared with those evils which his policy as regards France ultimately averted. It were better to incur debts irredeemable to the end of time than to allow the country's honour to be stained, her power to be diminished, and her soil to be profaned by a monster of ambition. The feelings which Pitt entertained towards France before the war were noble and generous beyond those of his contemporaries and rivals. It was in the teeth of Charles James Fox that he carried a commercial treaty with France. It was in advance of his father Chatham's ideas, and in the spirit of Cobden himself, that he repudiated the notion that France and England must be enemies for ever. He regarded Free Trade as both