His Birth and early Years.

WILLIAM PITT, second son of William, first earl of Chatham, and of lady Hester, only daughter of Richard Grenville, esq. and countess Temple, was born at Hayes, in Kent, on the 28th of May, 1759. Of his father it is unnecessary for me to speak; and of his mother I shall only observe, that she was highly distinguished by strength of understanding, superior attainments, and most accomplished manners. Lord and lady Chatham had two other sons, the present earl of Chatham, and Mr. James Pitt; and also two daughters, the elder of whom, lady Hester, was married in 1774 to lord viscount Mahon; and the younger, lady Harriet, in 1785, to the hon. Edward James Eliot, eldest son of lord Eliot.

Mr. Pitt, when about six years old, was placed under the tuition of the Rev. Edward Wilson, afterwards prebendary of Gloucester, and canon of Windsor, who attended him at lord Chatham's house; and this mode of education was continued eight years, during half at least of which pe

riod, his health was so indifferent, as to render him unable to apply to any serious study. But, notwithstanding this loss of time, the progress he made in learning was such, that in the year 1773, his father, designing the law to be his profession, determined to send him for the completion of his education, to Pembroke-hall, Cambridge. He was admitted in the spring of that year, and went to reside in the beginning of the following October. On account of the private manner in which he had been hitherto educated, his tender age, and the extreme delicacy of his constitution, it was thought right that Mr. Wilson should live with him for a few weeks in the same college apartment, without however having any concern in the direction of his studies. Lord Chatham wrote a letter to the master of the college, in which he expressed a desire that each of the two public tutors, who were then Mr. Turner and myself, would devote an hour in every day to his son. This plan was accordingly

* Now master of Pembroke-hall, and dean of Norwich,

adopted; but after Mr. Pitt's first three visits to Cambridge, he was entirely under my care and tui

tion.

Although Mr. Pitt was little more than fourteen years of age when he went to reside at the university, and had laboured under the disadvantage of frequent ill-health, the knowledge which he then possessed, was very considerable; and, in particular, his proficiency in the learned languages was probably greater than ever was acquired by any other person in such early youth. In Latin authors he seldom met with difficulty; and it was no uncommon thing for him to read into English, six or seven pages of Thucydides,* which he had not previously seen, without more than two or three mistakes, and sometimes without even one. He had such an exactness in discriminating the sense of words, and so peculiar a penetration in seizing at once the meaning of a writer, that, as was justly observed by Mr. Wilson, he never seemed to learn, but only to recollect. Whenever he did err in rendering a sentence, it was owing to the want of a correct knowledge of grammar, without which no language can be perfectly understood. This defect, too common in a private education, it was my immediate endeavour to supply; and he was not only soon master of all the ordinary

It was by lord Chatham's particular desire, that Thucydides was the first Greek book which Mr. Pitt read after he came to college. The only other wish ever expressed by his lordship, relative to Mr. Pitt's studies, was, that I would read Polybius with him.

rules of grammar, but, taking great pleasure in the philological disquisitions of critics and com. mentators, he became deeply versed in the niceties of construction and peculiarities of idiom, both in the Latin and Greek languages. He had also read the first six books of Euclid's Elements, Plane Trigonometry, the elementary parts of Algebra, and the two quarto volumes of Rutherford's Natural Philosophy, a work in some degree of repute while Mr. Wilson was a student at Cambridge, but afterwards laid aside.

Nor was it in learning only, that Mr. Pitt was so much superior to persons of his age. Though a boy in years and appearance, his manners were formed, and his behaviour manly. He mixed in conversation with unaffected vivacity; and delivered his sentiments with perfect ease, equally free from shyness and flippancy, and always with strict attention to propriety and decorum. Lord Chatham, who could not but be aware of the powers of his son's mind and understanding, had encouraged him to talk without reserve upon every subject, which frequently afforded opportunity for conveying useful information and just notions of persons and things. When his lordship's health would permit, he never suffered a day to pass without giving instructions of some sort to his children, and seldom without reading a chapter of the Bible with them.* He must in

I had frequent opportunities of observing Mr. Pitt's accurate knowledge of the Bible; and I may, I trust, be allowed to mention the following anecdote:-In the year 1797, I was

deed be considered as having contributed largely to that fund of knowledge, and to those other advantages, with which Mr. Pitt entered upon his academical life. The effects of a very serious illness, with which Mr. Pitt was attacked soon after he went to the university in 1773, occasioned him to reside but little at Cambridge in the first three years. This illness, which confined him nearly two months, and at last reduced him to so weak a state, that, after he was convalescent, he was four days travelling to London, seems to have been a crisis in his constitution. By great attention to diet, to exercise, and to early hours, he gradually gained strength, without any relapse, or material check; and his health became progressively confirmed. At the age of eighteen he was a healthy man, and he continued so for many years. The preservation of Mr. Pitt's life, in its early part, may be considered as owing, under Providence, to his own care and the affectionate watchfulness of his friends; and the premature decline of his health, long before he reached the ordinary age of man, may as justly be ascribed to the anxiety and fatigue of unremitted attention to the duties of his public station..

reading with him, in manuscript, my Exposition of the First of the Thirtynine Articles, which I afterwards published in the Elements of Christian Theology. There were several quotations from Scripture, all of which he

remembered and made no observation upon them. At last, we came to a quotation, at which he stopped, and said, "I do not recollect that passage in the Bible, and it does not sound like Scripture." It was a quotation from the Apocrypha, which he had not read.

It was originally intended, that Mr. Pitt should take the degree of bachelor of arts in the regular way, and be candidate for academical honours; but his inability to keep the necessary terms, in consequence of the illness which has been noticed, caused this intention to be abandoned: and in the spring of 1776, he was admitted to the degree of master of arts, to which his birth gave him a right, and which is usually conferred upon young men of a certain rank, after about two years residence in the university, without any public examination, or the performance of any public exercise, and of course without the power of giving public proof of their talents or attainments.

While Mr. Pitt was under. graduate, he never omitted attending chapel morning and evening, or dining in the public hall, except when prevented by indisposition. Nor did he pass a single evening out of the college walls. Indeed, most of his time was spent with me; and exclusively of the satisfaction I had in superintending the education of a young man of his uncommon abilities and thirst for improvement, his sweetness of temper and vivacity of disposition, endeared him to me in a degree, which I should in vain attempt to express.

Towards the latter end of the year 1776, Mr. Pitt began to mix with other young men of his own age

and station in life, then resident at Cambridge; and no one was ever more admired and beloved by his acquaintance and friends. He was always the most lively person in abounding in playful wit and quick repartee; but never known

company,

to excite pain, or to give just ground of offence. Even those, who, from difference in political sentiment, or from any other cause, were not disposed to do him more than justice, could not but allow, that as a companion he was unrivalled. Though his society was universally sought, and from the age of seventeen or eighteen he constantly passed his evenings in company, he steadily avoided every species of irregularity; and he continued to pursue his studies with ardent zeal and unremitted diligence, during his whole residence in the university, which was protracted to the unusual length of nearly seven years, but with considerable intervals of absence. In the course of this time, I never knew him spend an idle day, nor did he ever fail to attend me at the appointed hour. At this early period there was the same firmness of principle, and rectitude of conduct, which marked his character in the more advanced stages of life. Letters of the first Lord Chatham.

In May, 1778, Mr. Pitt lost his great and excellent father, at a period when his advice and assistance would have been of the highest importance to him. I am happy to have it in my power to insert the following letters, which strongly mark the affectionate heart and amiable character of one of the ablest and most disinterested statesmen the world ever produced; and at the same time show the opinion he entertained, and the expectations he had formed, of the subject of these Memoirs.

The first of these letters was written by lord Chatham to Mr.

Pitt, upon his going to the university in 1773.

Burton Pynsent, Oct. 9, 1773. Thursday's post brought us no letter from the dear traveller: we trust this day will prove more satisfactory; it is the happy day that gave us your brother, and will not be less in favour with all here, if it should give us, about four o'clock, an epistle from my dear William. By that hour, I reckon, we shall be warm in our cups, and shall not fail to pour forth, with renewed joy, grateful libations over the much-wished tidings of your prosperous progress towards your destination. We compute, that yesterday brought you to the venerable aspect of alma mater; and that you are invested to-day with the toga virilis. Your race of manly virtue and useful knowledge is now begun, and may the favour of heaven smile upon the noble career!

Little was really disappointed at not being in time to see you, a good mark for my young vivid friend. He is just as much compounded of the elements of air and fire as he was. A due proportion of terrestrial solidity will, I trust, come, and make him perfect. How happy, my loved boy, is it, that your mamma and I can tell ourselves, there is at Cambridge one, without a beard," and all the elements so mixed in him, that nature might stand up, and say, This is a man." I now take leave for to-day, not meaning this for what James calls a regular letter, but a flying thought, that wings itself towards my absent William. Horses are ready, and all is birth, day.