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THOUGH several years have elapsed since the publication of this work, it is still, we believe, a new publication to most of our readers. Nor are we surprised at this. The book is large, and the style heavy. The information which Mr. Thackeray has obtained from the State Paper Office is new; but much of it is very uninteresting. The rest of his narrative is very little better than Gifford's or Tomline's Life of the second Pitt, and tells us little or nothing that may not be found quite as well told in the Parliamentary History, the Annual Register, and other works equally common.

Almost every mechanical employment, it is said, has a tendency to injure some one or other of the bodily organs of the artisan. Grinders of cutlery die of consumption; weavers are stunted in their growth; smiths become blear-eyed. In the same manner almost every intellectual employment has a tendency to produce some intellectual malady. Biographers, translators, editors, all, in short, who employ themselves in illustrating the lives or the writings of others, are peculiarly exposed to the Lues Boswelliana, or disease of admiration. But we scarcely remember ever to have seen a patient so far gone in this distemper as Mr. Thackeray. He is not satisfied with forcing us to confess that Pitt was a great orator, a vigorous minister, an honourable and high-spirited gentleman. He will have it that all virtues and all accomplishments met in his hero. In spite of Gods, men, and columns, Pitt must be a poet, a poet capable of producing a heroic poem of the first order; and we

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are assured that we ought to find many charms in such lines as these:

"Midst all the tumults of the warring sphere,

My light-charged bark may haply glide; Some gale may waft, some conscious thought shall cheer,

And the small freight unanxious glide.” *

Pitt was in the army for a few Mr. months in time of peace. Thackeray accordingly insists on our confessing that, if the young cornet had remained in the service, he would have been one of the ablest commanders that ever lived. But this is not all. Pitt, it seems, was not merely a great poet in esse, and a great general in posse, but a finished example of moral excellence, the just man made perfect. He was in the right when he attempted to establish an inquisition, and to give bounties for perjury, in order to get Walpole's head. He was in the right when he declared Walpole to have been an excellent minister. He was in the right when, being in opposition, he maintained that no peace ought to be made with Spain, till she should formally renounce the right of search. He was in the right when, being in office, he silently acquiesced in a treaty by which Spain did not renounce the right of search. When he left the Duke of Newcastle, when he coalesced with the Duke of Newcastle, when he thundered against subsidies, when he lavished subsidies with unexampled profusion, when he execrated the Hanoverian connection, when he declared that Hanover ought to be as dear to us as Hampshire, he was still invariably speaking the language of a virtuous and enlightened statesman.

The truth is that there scarcely ever lived a person who had so little claim to this sort of praise as Pitt. He was undoubtedly a great man. But his was not a complete and well-proportioned greatness. The public life of Hampden or of Somers resembles a regular drama, which can be criticized as a whole, and every scene of

The quotation is faithfully made from Mr. Thackeray. Perhaps Pitt wrote guide in the fourth line.

which is to be viewed in connection man who might perhaps, under some with the main action. The public life strong excitement, have been tempted of Pitt, on the other hand, is a rude to ruin his country, but who never though striking piece, a piece abound- would have stooped to pilfer from her, ing in incongruities, a piece without a man whose errors arose, not from a any unity of plan, but redeemed by sordid desire of gain, but from a fierce some noble passages, the effect of thirst for power, for glory, and for which is increased by the tameness or vengeance. History owes to him this extravagance of what precedes and of attestation, that at a time when any what follows. His opinions were un- thing short of direct embezzlement of fixed. His conduct at some of the the public money was considered as most important conjunctures of his quite fair in public men, he showed life was evidently determined by pride the most scrupulous disinterestedness; and resentment. He had one fault, that, at a time when it seemed to be which of all human faults is most generally taken for granted that Gorarely found in company with true vernment could be upheld only by the greatness. He was extremely affected. basest and most immoral arts, he apHe was an almost solitary instance of pealed to the better and nobler parts a man of real genius, and of a brave, of human nature; that he made a lofty, and commanding spirit, without brave and splendid attempt to do, by simplicity of character. He was an means of public opinion, what no other actor in the Closet, an actor at Council, statesman of his day thought it posan actor in Parliament; and even in sible to do, except by means of corprivate society he could not lay aside | ruption; that he looked for support, his theatrical tones and attitudes. not, like the Pelhams, to a strong We know that one of the most dis- aristocratical connection, not, like tinguished of his partisans often com- Bute, to the personal favour of the plained that he could never obtain sovereign, but to the middle class of admittance to Lord Chatham's room Englishmen; that he inspired that till every thing was ready for the representation, till the dresses and properties were all correctly disposed, till the light was thrown with Rembrandt-like effect on the head of the illustrious performer, till the flannels had been arranged with the air of a Grecian drapery, and the crutch placed as gracefully as that of Belisarius or Lear.

class with a firm confidence in his integrity and ability; that, backed by them, he forced an unwilling court and an unwilling oligarchy to admit him to an ample share of power; and that he used his power in such a manner as clearly proved him to have sought it, not for the sake of profit or patronage, but from a wish to establish for himself a great and durable reputation by means of eminent services rendered to the State.

Yet, with all his faults and affectations, Pitt had, in a very extraordinary degree, many of the elements of great- The family of Pitt was wealthy and ness. He had genius, strong passions, respectable. His grandfather was quick sensibility, and vehement en- Governor of Madras, and brought thusiasm for the grand and the beauti-back from India that celebrated diaful. There was something about him which ennobled tergiversation itself. He often went wrong, very wrong. But, to quote the language of Wordsworth,

"He still retained, 'Mid such abasement, what he had received From nature, an intense and glowing mind." In an age of low and dirty prostitution, in the age of Dodington and Sandys, it was something to have a

mond which the Regent Orleans, by the advice of Saint Simon, purchased for upwards of two millions of livres, and which is still considered as the most precious of the crown jewels of France. Governor Pitt bought estates and rotten boroughs, and sat in the House of Commons for Old Sarum. His son Robert was at one time member for Old Sarum, and at another for Oakhampton. Robert had two sons

Thomas, the elder, inherited the estates | family had both the power and the and the parliamentary interest of his inclination to serve him. At the father. The second was the cele- general election of 1734, his elder brated William Pitt.

He was born in November, 1708. About the early part of his life little more is known than that he was educated at Eton, and that at seventeen he was entered at Trinity College, Oxford. During the second year of his residence at the University, George the First died; and the event was, after the fashion of that generation, celebrated by the Oxonians in many middling copies of verses. On this occasion Pitt published some Latin lines, which Mr. Thackeray has preserved. They prove that the young student had but a very limited knowledge even of the mechanical part of his art. All true Etonians will hear with concern that their illustrious schoolfellow is guilty of making the first syllable in labenti short.* The matter of the poem is as worthless as that of any college exercise that was ever written before or since. There is, of course, much about Mars, Themis, Neptune, and Cocytus. The Muses are earnestly entreated to weep over the urn of Cæsar; for Cæsar, says the Poet, loved the Muses; Cæsar, who could not read a line of Pope, and who loved nothing but punch and fat

women.

Pitt had been, from his school-days, cruelly tormented by the gout, and was advised to travel for his health. He accordingly left Oxford without taking a degree, and visited France and Italy. He returned, however, without having received much benefit from his excursion, and continued, till the close of his life, to suffer most severely from his constitutional malady.

His father was now dead, and had left very little to the younger children. It was necessary that William should choose a profession. He decided for the army, and a cornet's commission was procured for him in the Blues.

But, small as his fortune was, his

So Mr. Thackeray has printed the poem. But it may be charitably hoped that Pitt wrote labanti.

brother Thomas was chosen both for Old Sarum and for Oakhampton. When Parliament met in 1735, Thomas made his election to serve for Oakhampton, and William was returned for Old Sarum.

Walpole had now been, during fourteen years, at the head of affairs. He had risen to power under the most favourable circumstances. The whole of the Whig party, of that party which professed peculiar attachment to the principles of the Revolution, and which exclusively enjoyed the confidence of the reigning house, had been united in support of his administration. Happily for him, he had been out of office when the South-Sea Act was passed; and, though he does not appear to have foreseen all the consequences of that measure, he had strenuously opposed it, as he had opposed all the measures, good and bad, of Sunderland's administration. When the South-Sea Company were voting dividends of fifty per cent., when a hundred pounds of their stock were selling for eleven hundred pounds, when Threadneedle Street was daily crowded with the coaches of dukes and prelates, when divines and philosophers turned gamblers, when a thousand kindred bubbles were daily blown into existence, the periwig-company, and the Spanish-jackass-company, and the quicksilver-fixation-company, Walpole's calm good sense preserved him from the general infatuation. He condemned the prevailing madness in public, and turned a considerable sum by taking advantage of it in private. When the crash came, when ten thousand families were reduced to beggary

in a day, when the people, in the frenzy of their rage and despair, clamoured, not only against the lower agents in the juggle, but against the Hanoverian favourites, against the English ministers, against the King himself, when Parliament met, eager for confiscation and blood, when members of the House of Commons proposed that the directors should be

treated like parricides in ancient, character was respectable.

Rome, tied up in sacks, and thrown into the Thames, Walpole was the man on whom all parties turned their eyes. Four years before he had been driven from power by the intrigues of Sunderland and Stanhope; and the lead in the House of Commons had been intrusted to Craggs and Aislabie. Stanhope was no more. Aislabie was expelled from Parliament on account of his disgraceful conduct regarding the South-Sea scheme. Craggs was perhaps saved by a timely death from a similar mark of infamy. A large minority in the House of Commons voted for a severe censure on Sunderland, who, finding it impossible to withstand the force of the prevailing sentiment, retired from office, and outlived his retirement but a very short time. The schism which had divided the Whig rarty was now completely healed. Walpole had no opposition to encounter except that of the Tories; and the Tories were naturally regarded by the King with the strongest suspicion and dislike.

He was

already a distinguished speaker. He had acquired official experience in an important post. He had been, through all changes of fortune, a consistent Whig. When the Whig party was split into two sections, Pulteney had resigned a valuable place, and had followed the fortunes of Walpole. Yet, when Walpole returned to power, Pul teney was not invited to take office. An angry discussion took place between the friends.

The ministry offered a peerage. It was impossible for Pulteney not to discern the motive of such an offer.

He indignantly refused to accept it. For some time he continued to brood over his wrongs, and to watch for an opportunity of revenge. As soon as a favourable conjuncture arrived he joined the minority, and became the greatest leader of Opposition that the House of Commons had ever seen.

Of all the members of the Cabinet Carteret was the most eloquent and accomplished. His talents for debate were of the first order ; his For a time business went on with a knowledge of foreign affairs was susmoothness and a despatch such as had perior to that of any living statesman; not been known since the days of the his attachment to the Protestant sucTudors. During the session of 1724, cession was undoubted. But there was for example, there was hardly a single not room in one Government for him division except on private bills. It is and Walpole. Carteret retired, and not impossible that, by taking the was, from that time forward, one of the course which Pelham afterwards took, most persevering and formidable eneby admitting into the government all mies of his old colleague. the rising talents and ambition of the If there was any man with whom Whig party, and by making room here Walpole could have consented to and there for a Tory not unfriendly make a partition of power, that man to the House of Brunswick, Walpole was Lord Townshend. They were might have averted the tremendous distant kinsmen by birth, near kinsmen conflict in which he passed the later by marriage. They had been friends years of his administration, and in from childhood. They had been which he was at length vanquished. The Opposition which overthrew him was an opposition created by his own policy, by his own insatiable love of

schoolfellows at Eton. They were country neighbours in Norfolk. They had been in office together under Godolphin. They had gone into oppopower. sition together when Harley rose to In the very act of forming his Mi-power. They had been persecuted by nistry he turned one of the ablest and most attached of his supporters into a deadly enemy. Pulteney had strong public and private claims to a high situation in the new arrangement. His fortune was immense. His private

the same House of Commons. They had, after the death of Anne, been recalled together to office. They had again been driven out together by Sunderland, and had again come back together when the influence of Sunder

U

land had declined. Their opinions on, cerned. He withdrew his Bill, and public affairs almost always coincided. turned out all his hostile or wavering They were both men of frank, generous, colleagues. Chesterfield was stopped and compassionate natures. Their in- on the great staircase of St. James's, tercourse had been for many years affectionate and cordial. But the ties of blood, of marriage, and of friendship, the memory of mutual services, the memory of common triumphs and common disasters, were insufficient to restrain that ambition which domineered over all the virtues and vices of

and summoned to deliver up the staff which he bore as Lord Steward of the Household. A crowd of noble and powerful functionaries, the Dukes of Montrose and Bolton, Lord Burlington, Lord Stair, Lord Cobham, Lord Marchmont, Lord Clinton, were at the same time dismissed from the service of the Crown.

had been peaceably carried into effect in England immediately after the death of Anne, and that the Jacobite rebellion which, during the following year, broke out in Scotland, had been suppressed. He too carried over to the minority the aid of his great name, his talents, and his paramount influence in his native country.

Walpole. He was resolved, to use his own metaphor, that the firm of the Not long after these events the Oppohouse should be, not Townshend and sition was reinforced by the Duke of Walpole, but Walpole and Townshend. | Argyle, a man vainglorious indeed and At length the rivals proceeded to per- fickle, but brave, eloquent and popular. sonal abuse before a large company, It was in a great measure owing to his seized each other by the collar, and exertions that the Act of Settlement grasped their swords. The women squalled. The men parted the combatants. By friendly intervention the scandal of a duel between cousins, brothers-in-law, old friends, and old colleagues, was prevented. But the disputants could not long continue to act together. Townshend retired, and, with rare moderation and public spirit, refused to take any part in politics. He could not, he said, trust his temper. He feared that the recollection of his private wrongs might impel him to follow the example of Pulteney, and to oppose measures which he thought generally beneficial to the country. He therefore never visited London after his resignation, but passed the closing years of his life in dignity and repose among his trees and pictures at Rainham.

In each of these cases taken separately, a skilful defender of Walpole might perhaps make out a case for him. But when we see that during a long course of years all the footsteps are turned the same way, that all the most eminent of those public men who agreed with the Minister in their general views of policy left him, one after another, with sore and irritated minds, we find it impossible not to believe that the real explanation of the phænomenon is Next went Chesterfield. He too to be found in the words of his son, was a Whig and a friend of the Pro- "Sir Robert Walpole loved power so testant succession. He was an orator, much that he would not endure a rival." a courtier, a wit, and a man of letters. Hume hasdescribed this famous minisHe was at the head of ton in days when, ter with great felicity in one short senin order to be at the head of ton, it was tence,-"moderate in exercising power, not sufficient to be dull and super- not equitable in engrossing it." Kindcilious. It was evident that he sub-hearted, jovial, and placable as Walpole mitted impatiently to the ascendancy of was, he was yet a man with whom no Walpole. He murmured against the Ex-person of high pretensions and high cise Bill. His brothers voted against it spirit could long continue to act. He in the House of Commons. The Minister acted with characteristic caution and characteristic energy; caution in the conduct of public affairs; energy where his own supremacy was con

had, therefore, to stand against an Opposition containing all the most accomplished statesmen of the age, with no better support than that which he received from persons like his brother

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