The States and Union. [volume] (Ashland, Ohio) 1868-1872, 1869-01-13
! WnIIAM PIT.
BY JAMES PARTON.

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BY JAMES PARTON.
It was the last year of the reign oi
King George the Second. William
Pitt, the great commoner, not yet the
Earl of Chatham, was at the height Of
his power and celebrity, and he had
made the name of England illustrious
or. terrible in every part of the world
on sea and land Horace Walpole
used write in his diary at this time
such sentences as this:
Gone is forced to ask every morn
ing what victory there is, for fear Of
missing one" Or this: 1.-THE park
guns will never have time to cool; we
ruin ourselves in gunpowder and sky
rockets" Or this /: victories come
tumbling SO over one another from
distant parts of the globe, thst it look
ed just like the handiwork of a lady
romance writer Or this: What
lectures will be read to poor children
on this era! Europe taught to
tremble-the great king huinbled-
the treasures of Peru diverted into the
Thames-Asia subdued by the gigan-
tic Give !"
Z Ali this redounded to the glcry of
the great minister, VINO then welded
the resources of the British Empire.
In the midst of it, in May. 1853, an
event occurred in his own household
which proved to be of more interest
both to him and his country than any
of the events celebrated by the Park
guns; William Pitt, his second son,
was born. The miHister, as we can
plainly see in his afectionate letters to
his wife and children, had very ha-
py home. His wife, Lady Hester
,Grenville, was q woman singularly
formed to be the companion and help
meet of such man, and he was de-
v"tedly fond Of her. 1 cannot doubt
that, amid all the distractions Of bust
hess afSd v7et0Fy he foafd time toTdn
up the into the nursery, now and then,
in the cou' sc of the day, TO kiss the
another on her couch, and see how the
little stranger was coming on that was
smuggling up to her bosom. <
. The newcomer proved to be preco-
eious child. Almost from his infancy
he seems to have had q kind of fore
knowledge of his subsequent career,
and a distinct ambition to fulfil it.
When he was seven years of age, hear
ing that his father had been created
Earl .og Chatham, the hoy exclaimed ::
~ am glad that I am not the eldest
son. I want to speak in the House of
Common like papa"
And he seems to have kept this idea
before his mind during the whole OF
his boyhood and youth. AS Lord
Macaulay so happily says of him:
"He was the minion, the child, the
spoiled child, of the House of Com
mons. For the Hsuse of Commons
he had an hereditary, an infantine
love. Through his whole boyhood
the House of Commons was never out
of his thoughts, or out of the thoughts
of his instructors. Reciting at his
fathers knee, reading Thucydides
and Cicero into English, analyzing the
great Attic speeches on the Embassy
and on the Crown, he was constantly
in training for the conflicts of the
House of fGemmons."
There never was more remarkable
instance of precocity.. When he was
twelve years of age he was much be.
yond his brother, who was three years
older. AT fourteen his mind appeared
to have the maturity of mans. The
poet Hayley, who met him at this time,
conversed with him as with a finished
critic, and regretted afterwards that
he had aot,consulted him upon the
plan of a literary work which he was
then contemplating. Already the
boy himself had written a tragedy,
which contained no lovers, but deriv'
ed all its interest from the struggles
of rival politicians. Jos g
From his father, however, he in
herited that, equity habit of body
(which plagued Lord Chatham from
youth to old age. At fourteen, VIII
liam Pitt, actall, slender and feeble
STRIPPING, was tormented- with gout,
and nothing was found to alleviate
his ,tornents but the port wine which
had caused them. He would drink
two bottles of port in one day in his
fifteenth year; and, what is morewon-
derful, it did him good. . By ,thetime
he was fifteen years of age, he was
restored to tolerable health, and had
no serious feturn of the gout as long
as he lived: ll1 L o-''-- e'sssy' :
At College, the youth was most
diligent and successful student. Like
his great successor, Sir Robert Peel
he excelled equally in mathematics
and in the languages. Newton's
Principia was his delight, and. sucl,
was his passion for mathematics, that
i his mathematical instructors deemed
it necessary to check rather than en-.
courage him. At the same time, he
was not satisfied with his knowledge
of Greek literature until he had mast
cred all the Greek poetry that has
come down to us. Speaking Of his
reading thesnlost obscure of all the
Greek poetsshis tutor says: 2I <
+ @He read it with an ease at first
sight which, if I; had not witnessed it
/ should have thought beyond the
compass of the human intellect.
HIS father was his instructor IN or
atory, snd taught him how to manage
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