XXXII. PITT'S REPLY TO SIR ROBERT WALPOLE. (152)
William Pitt, 1708—1778, one of the ablest statesmen and orators of his time, was born in Cornwall, and educated at Eton and Oxford. He entered Parliament in 1735, and became a formidable opponent of the ministry of Sir Robert Walpole. He gained great reputation by his wise and vigorous management of military affairs in the last years of the reign of George II. He opposed the "Stamp Act" with great earnestness, as well as the course of the ministry in the early years of the American Revolution. In 1778, he rose from a sick bed to make his celebrated speech, in the House of Lords, in opposition to a motion to acknowledge the independence of America. At its close, he fell in an apoplectic fit, and was borne home to die in a few weeks afterward. He was buried in Westminster Abbey. Mr. Pitt possessed a fine personal presence and a powerful voice; he was very popular with the people, and is often called the "Great Commoner." He was created "Earl of Chatham" in 1766. ###
The atrocious crime of being a young man, which the honorable gentleman has, with such spirit and decency, charged upon me, I shall neither attempt to palliate nor deny; but content myself with hoping that I may be one of those whose follies cease with their youth, and not of that number who are ignorant in spite of experience. Whether youth can be imputed to a man as a reproach, I will not assume the province of determining; but surely age may become justly contemptible, if the opportunities which it brings have passed away without improvement, and vice appears to prevail when the passions have subsided. The wretch, who, after having seen the consequences of a thousand errors, continues still to blunder, and whose age has only added obstinacy to stupidity, is surely the object either of abhorrence or contempt, and deserves not that his gray hairs should secure him from insult. Much more is he to be abhorred, who, as he has advanced in age, has receded from virtue, and become more wicked—with less temptation; who prostitutes himself for money which he can not enjoy, and spends the remains of his life in the ruin of his country.
But youth is not my only crime; I am accused of acting a theatrical part. A theatrical part may either imply some peculiarity of gesture, or a dissimulation of my real sentiments, and an adoption of the opinions and language of another man. In the first sense, the charge is too trifling to be confuted, and deserves only to be mentioned that it may be despised. I am at liberty, like every other man, to use my own language; and though, perhaps, I may have some ambition to please this gentleman, I shall not lay myself under any restraint, nor very solicitously copy his diction or his mien, however matured by age, or modeled by experience.
But, if any man shall, by charging me with theatrical behavior, imply that I utter any sentiments but my own, I shall treat him as a calumniator and a villain; nor shall any protection shelter him from the treatment he deserves. I shall, on such an occasion, without scruple, trample upon all those forms with which wealth and dignity intrench themselves, nor shall anything but age restrain my resentment; age,—which always brings one privilege, that of being insolent and supercilious, without punishment!
But, with regard to those whom I have offended, I am of opinion that, if I had acted a borrowed part, I should have avoided their censure: the heat that offended them was the ardor of conviction, and that zeal for the service of my country which neither hope nor fear shall influence me to suppress. I will not sit unconcerned while my liberty is invaded, nor look in silence upon public robbery. I will exert my endeavors, at whatever hazard, to repel the aggressor, and drag the thief to justice, whoever may protect him in his villainies, and whoever may partake of his plunder.
XXXIII. CHARACTER OF MR. PITT. (154)
Henry Grattan, 1750-1820, an Irish orator and statesman, was born at Dublin, and graduated from Trinity College, in his native city. By his admiration of Mr. Pitt, the first Earl of Chatham, he was led to turn his attention to oratory. In personal appearance, he was unprepossessing; but his private character was without a blemish. ###
The secretary stood alone. Modern degeneracy had not reached him. Original and unaccommodating, the features of his character had the hardihood of antiquity. His august mind overawed majesty itself. No state chicanery, no narrow system of vicious politics, no idle contest for ministerial victories, sank him to the vulgar level of the great; but overbearing, persuasive, and impracticable, his object was England, his ambition was fame.
Without dividing, he destroyed party; without corrupting, he made a venal age unanimous. France sunk beneath him. With one hand he smote the house of Bourbon, and wielded in the other the democracy of England. The sight of his mind was infinite; and his schemes were to effect, not England, not the present age only, but Europe and posterity. Wonderful were the means by which those schemes were accomplished; always seasonable, always adequate, the suggestion of an understanding animated by ardor and enlightened by prophecy.
The ordinary feelings which make life amiable and indolent, were unknown to him. No domestic difficulties, no domestic weakness, reached him; but, aloof from the sordid occurrences of life, and unsullied by its intercourse, he came occasionally into our system, to counsel and decide. A character so exalted, so strenuous, so various, so authoritative, astonished a corrupt age, and the treasury trembled at the name of Pitt, through all classes of venality. Corruption imagined, indeed, that she had found defects in this statesman, and talked much of the inconsistency of his glory, and much of the ruin of his victories; but the history of his country, and the calamities of the enemy, answered and refuted her.
Nor were his political his only talents. His eloquence was an era in the senate; peculiar and spontaneous; familiarly expressing gigantic sentiments and instructive wisdom; not like the torrent of Demosthenes, or the splendid conflagration of Tully; it resembled sometimes the thunder, and sometimes the music of the spheres. He did not conduct the understanding through the painful subtilty of argumentation, nor was he ever on the rack of exertion; but rather lightened upon the subject, and reached the point by the flashings of the mind, which, like those of the eye, were felt, but could not be followed.
Upon the whole, there was in this man something that could create, subvert, or reform; an understanding, a spirit, and an eloquence, to summon mankind to society, or to break the bonds of slavery asunder, and to rule the wildness of free minds with unbounded authority; something that could establish or overwhelm empires, and strike a blow in the world that should resound through the universe.
NOTES.—Demosthenes (b. 385, d. 322, B. C.) was the son of a cutler at Athens, Greece. By diligent study and unremitting toil, he became the greatest orator that ever lived.
Tully, Marcus Tullius Cicero (b. 106, d. 43, B. C.), was the most remarkable of Roman orators. He held the highest office of the Republic.