The Statesman.
London, England, 1819-08-19 00:00:00

(MARA:TER or MR. PITT.
PUBLISHED IN TITS SIORPI I NO POT OF MARCIII9.
JIM BY MR. COLERI DGE.

r MON HAZLITT'S sarniii:. Or POLITICAL GUI.
It ACT En, JOLT nlBl.'4lll'

sc WILLIAIM PITT was the son of I.oril Cat*vn ax.
a fact of no ordinary importance in the iodation of
his character, of no mean significance in the heraldry
of morals and intellect. Ills father's rank, fame,
political connexions, and parental ambition, were his
hmould : he was cast, rather than grew. From his
'early childhood, it was his father's custom to make
Phi, stand open a chair, and declaim before a large
company ; by which eferthe he acquired a premature
and unnatural derail,- in the combination of words,
which must of necessity have diverted his attention
from present objects, obscured his impressions, and
deadened his genuine feelings ; hence he associat 41 all
the operations of his facilities with words, and his
pleasures with the serprize recited by them. But an
ineoncelvably large prima of human knowledge
sad power is involved in the science and manage.
noel of word.. The young I'ITT was always fell
gown; he had neither the promise nor the a•k-
voidness of a growing intellect ; in losing his collo.
ceial vanity, he lost one of the prime links that con-
nect the individual with the species. That revelry
and debauchery • hich are so nfteu fatal to the powers
of intellect, would probably have been serviceable to
him ; they would bare giien him a ckser commeni.
cities with realities. lie became a 51ember of the Par.
limn!, supported the popular opinions, and in a
few pare, by the ;dome of the popobar party was
places in that high end awful rank in which he now
is. We sink in prostration before tire inscrutable dia.
pussies, of Provirience, when we reflect in whose
wardsaip the fate of Ike world was placed. The bi-
llets*" of his country and his species was a yams
man, the creature of another's predetermination,
sheltered and weether.fended from all the elements .1
experience, one whose feet had n wandered,
whose whale track bad beers as nerveless as the mo-
tions of a fascinated reptile, whose heart was soli-
tary, who had no spontaneous impulses, no unbiassed
and desultory studies, no genuine science, nothing
that constitutes indisideslity its intellect, nothing that
teach.. brotherhood in auktion. Such was the man,
and so denateralieed the spirit, on whose wisdom
and philanthropy the lives and living enjoyments of
so many millions of human beings were made en-
avoidatity dependent. From this lime a real enlarge.
meet of mind became almost impossible. l'r .
Wiens, intrigue, the undue /session and anxiety with
which all facts must be yed, the crowd and con.
fusion of these facts, none of them seen, but all com.
munieated, and by that very circomytance, and by
the necessity of perpetually classifying them, trans.
mated into words and generalities, pride, flattery,'
irritation, artificial power, them.-, and circumstances
like these, tender the heights of office barren heights,
which command, indeed, a vast and extrusive pro.
sped, but attract so many clouds and 'spears, that
most of•en all prospect is precluded. Ilis father's
streggles for Ireedoes,and his own attestants, gave him
almost ant sampled popularity, anal his office associated
'his name with ell the great events that happened daring
his administration. There were not wanting men who'
'saw thrieeoa the delusion ; and risto.ing to attribute
the industry, integrity, and enterprising spirit of
Our merchants, the agricultural improvements of oar
landholder., the greet inventions of our manatee.
term, all the valour and tkilfulness of our saws,
to the merits of a Minister ; they have continued to
decide on his character from those arts which belong
to him and him alone. Judging him by this stand.
ard, they have been stile to discover its him no one,
proof of a symptom of a commanding genius. They
have distOvesed him never controlling, never creat-
ing events, bat always yielding to them with rapid
change, and sheltering himself from inconsistency by
perpetual indefiniteness. In the Russian war they
saw him abandoning meanly what he had planned
weakly. and threatened insolently. In the debates
on the Regency. they detected the tarty of his coneti.
tuitional principles, and received proofs that his Pio.,
quetteeconsisted not in the really application of a
general system to particular questions, but in the fa-
culty of arguing for or spinet any questions by spa.
cions generalities without reference to any system—
In these debates he combined what is most dangerous
in democracy with all that is most degrading in,
the old superstitions of monarchy, and taught an in-
herency of the office in the person of the Ring, which
mule the I flire itself a nullity, and the Premiership,
with its accompanying majority, the sole and perms. I
molt pager of the State. And now came the French
Revolution. lie appeared wholly unprepared for it.
After tie Declaration ref %lar lung did he cowing,
i.s the common cant of iffier, in declamation about
the Scheldt end Holland, and all the vulgar causes of
regimen catalysts, and when at ler the immense ge-
otoa of Li. new nopttarr had best him out of these
0n.61. Le adopted other words in their places, other
gerseralitiea; Atheism and Jacobitrkm, phrases which
to had !Paint from Ileaex, bat without learning the
.Itilsssoritical &honks's, and involved culogegerrices,
saute Shia that man accompanied thuse wortlf.—