Page images
PDF
EPUB

436

HIS METHOD OF STUDY.

Bishop Tomline gives us some idea of Pitt's literary partialities and dislikes at this time. We learn that he did not relish the rolling periods of Johnson, nor even the stately style of Gibbon. He preferred the elegant fluency of Hume and the artistic ease of Robertson. Of Middleton's 'Life of Cicero' he was an attentive reader, and like his father (and the Earl of Beaconsfield) he was a warm admirer of Bolingbroke. In after life he more than once declared that he regretted no loss in literature more than that of Bolingbroke's Parliamentary Speeches. He read French with accuracy, and appears to have fully appreciated Molière. The practice of extemporaneous translation, initiated by his father, he continued with Mr. Pretyman. When alone, he would dwell for hours upon striking passages of an orator or historian, carefully noticing their turn of phraseology, and studying their method of arranging a narrative. A few pages would thus occupy a whole morning. It was a favourite employment to compare opposite speeches on the same subject, and observe how each speaker handled his side of it. The authors whom he preferred for this purpose were Thucydides, Livy, and Sallust. Livy, and Sallust. On such occasions he frequently committed his observations to paper, that they might furnish a topic for conversation with his tutor at their next meeting. He was also accustomed to copy any eloquent passage, or beautiful or forcible expression, which he met with in his reading.

His studies at Cambridge were prudently interrupted

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

Smith's Wealth of Nations' and Locke's Essay on the Human Understanding.' The former taught him his system of finance.

DEATH OF THE EARL OF CHATHAM.

437

by occasional visits to London, when he resorted to the House of Lords to hear his venerated father speak. Thus it happened to him to be present on the 7th of May, 1778, when, for the last time, the Great Earl addressed his peers. It was he who, with his brotherin-law, Lord Mahon, supported him as with feeble steps he limped into the august chamber. It was he who

accompanied him back to his residence at Hayes, and was present when he drew his last breath. At the public funeral, which took place on the 9th of June, he walked, in the absence of his elder brother, as chief mourner, supported on one side by Lord Mahon, and on the other by the head of the Pitt family, Thomas Pitt of Boconnoc. To his mother, who remained at Hayes, he wrote the following account of the funeral:

"I cannot let the servants return without letting you know that the sad solemnity has been celebrated so as to answer every important wish we could form on the subject. The Court did not honour us with their countenance, nor did they suffer the procession to be as magnificent as it ought; but it had, notwithstanding, everything essential to the great object, the attendance being most respectable, and the crowd of interested spectators immense. The Duke of Gloucester was in the Abbey. Lord Rockingham, the Duke of Northumberland, and all the ministry in town were present. The pall-bearers were Sir George Savile, Mr. Townshend, Dunning, and Burke. The eight assistant mourners were Lord Abingdon, Lord Cholmondeley, Lord Harcourt, Lord Effingham, Lord Townshend,

438

PITT AS A LAWYER.

Lord Fortescue, Lord Shelburne, and Lord Camden. All our relations made their appearance.

..."

Pitt, at his father's death, was in possession of an income of about £300 a year. When he removed to London, in 1779, to enter himself at Lincoln's Inn, he was obliged to borrow from his uncle, Earl Temple, the sum necessary for the purchase of suitable "chambers." He duly kept his "terms," and still sought relaxation from his graver pursuits by attending Parliament on the occasion of any remarkable debate. It is said that, on one of these occasions, he was introduced, on the steps of the throne in the House of Lords, to Charles James Fox, his senior by ten years, and already in the flush of his fame. Fox used afterwards to relate that, as the debate proceeded, his young companion turned to him frequently, exclaiming, "But surely, Mr. Fox, that might be met thus," or "Yes, but he lays himself open to retort." Fox did not remember the particular criticisms; but he said that he was impressed at the time by the precocity of a lad who, through the whole sitting, was thinking only how the speeches on both sides might best be answered.

Pitt was called to the Bar in June, 1780, and in the following month he lost his favourite sister, Lady Mahon. In August he joined the Western Circuit for a few weeks. At the dissolution of Parliament he contested Cambridge, and was defeated; but Sir James Lowther, through the influence of the Duke of Rutland, was induced to find him a seat for his borough of Appleby. "No kind of condition was mentioned," he wrote to his mother, "but that if ever our lines of conduct should become opposite, I should give him an opportunity of

ENTERS THE HOUSE OF COMMONS.

439

choosing another person." On the 23rd of January, 1781, "That date," says Lord Stanhope, "marks both the commencement and the close of his

he took his seat.

public life, for it was on the anniversary of the same day that he died."

II.

As became the son of Lord Chatham, Pitt, on entering the House of Commons, joined the Whig party; or, rather, the Shelburne section of that party. For the stress of events had sundered it into two main divisions; one, the larger, representing the old Whig connection,—the “Revolutionary families," as they were fond of calling themselves, the "Venetian oligarchy," as they have been absurdly misnamed by their detractors,— led by the Marquis of Rockingham, and Charles James Fox, assisted by Edmund Burke and Richard Brinsley Sheridan; the other, and smaller, led by Lord Shelburne and Lord Camden, and including Townshend, Dunning, and Edward Barré, representing the immediate followers of the late Earl of Chatham. Pitt, without hesitation, plunged into debate; and his first speech assured the House that it had gained no ordinary accession to its cluster of great speakers.

We may here transcribe Lord Holland's opinion of Pitt as a speaker. He applies to him Johnson's eulogium on Goldsmith, nihil tetigit quod non ornavit. The slightest and most frivolous detail, he says, grew luminous, polished, and splendid as he handled it; the most insignificant part of the subject derived interest and im

« ՆախորդըՇարունակել »