The History is written in Latin: the style is good, but it is disfigured by the affectation not only of Latinizing names, but of expressing modern offices by classical phrases, which of necessity bear a very forced, or no analogy to the things which they are tortured to denote. For instance, it would be difficult to recognise the Constable of France under the title Magister Equitum. This makes the assistance of an explanatory dictionary very requisite, and such a one was published by Jacques Dupuy, in 1634, under the title, Index Thuani. The History is comprised in 138, or, as divided in some editions, into 143 books; and, in the London edition of 1733, fills six ponderous folios. In the relation of foreign affairs, De Thou’s authority is less valuable, for it is stated that he received with little examination the accounts which were transmitted to him from abroad: but for the history of France during the sixteenth century, his work is the standard authority on which later writers have relied. The best and wisest men of all parties have joined, since his death, in according to him the praise of strict integrity and impartiality, a generosity of temper which scorned to suppress or pervert the truth, and great diligence, as well as unusual opportunities, in ascertaining the real course of events. It is not meant to claim for him an entire exemption from the errors of limited information, or the faults of temper and prejudice: defects such as these are incident to all human productions. It is to be observed that the heaviest charges against him on this head have been made by those who were of his own religion.

The first portion of this work was published in 1604, comprising the first eighteen books, with the letter to Henry IV., which serves as a preface. This, which was translated into French, and published separately, has obtained great admiration, as one of the finest specimens extant of this branch of composition. De Thou published the remainder at different times, and superintended several editions. Prudential considerations induced him to make some changes and suppressions, but upon his death-bed he entrusted a perfect manuscript copy to his friends Peter Dupuy and Rigault, with injunctions to publish it. The passages expunged by De Thou himself were subsequently collected and published in Holland, under the title, Thuanus Restitutus. But the most complete edition is that of London, 1733, from the collections and papers of Carte the historian, which were purchased for that purpose by Dr. Mead. This consists of six splendid folio volumes, with a seventh, containing De Thou’s autobiography, and a variety of supplementary pieces. The Eloges of learned men, to the number of 400 and upwards, contained in the History, were extracted and published in a body by Antoine Teissier. The whole has been translated into French.

A doubt has been expressed whether the Latin memoirs which profess to be written by De Thou, proceed from his own pen, or from that of Rigault. They are translated into French, and printed by themselves. They are interspersed with many pieces in Latin verse, which De Thou took pleasure in composing, and wrote with elegance. He composed a poem on Hawking, entitled “Hieracosophion”, and translated the Book of Job, and several portions of the Prophecies. The gleanings of his conversation, extant under the title Thuana, are scarcely worthy of his high reputation.

Engraved by W. Holl.
LORD CHATHAM.
From a Print by E. Fisher, after a Picture by R. Brompton.
Under the Superintendence of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge.
London, Published by Charles Knight & Co. Ludgate Street.

CHATHAM.

William Pitt, the first Earl of Chatham, was born in Westminster, November 15, 1708. He was sent to Eton at an early age, and admitted a gentleman-commoner of Trinity College, Oxford, in January, 1726. His father, Robert Pitt, Esq., of Boconnock, in Cornwall, died in the following year, and left to him the scanty inheritance of a younger son. He quitted Oxford without taking a degree; spent some time in travelling on the Continent; and entered the army shortly after his return. He obtained a seat in Parliament for Old Sarum in 1735, and attached himself to the party in opposition, then headed in the lower house by the Pulteneys, and favoured in the upper by the Prince of Wales. His known talents, and his determined hostility, soon drew upon him the anger of Sir Robert Walpole, who is reported to have said, “We must at all events muzzle that terrible cornet of horse.” Failing in this, he had recourse to a method of revenge which would not have been tolerated in later times, and took away Pitt’s commission. For this injury, however, the sufferer received an ample recompense in the increased estimation of the public.

Pitt spoke with great ability and energy, in 1739, against the proposed convention with Spain, and in 1740, against a bill introduced to facilitate the impressment of seamen, containing very arbitrary and oppressive provisions. Many of his speeches have been preserved, to a certain extent, in the periodical works of the day; though it is probable, from the very imperfect mode of reporting which then prevailed, that little remains of their original garb of words. Walpole was compelled to resign in 1742; but, with his usual dexterity, he contrived, by disuniting the opposition, to secure himself from the consequences of an inquiry into his conduct. Pitt spoke with much heat and eloquence in favour of the inquiry; and two of his speeches on this subject are reported at considerable length. He obtained no share in the ministry upon Walpole’s fall, and continued to be a leader in opposition during the years 1742–3–4. More especially he was earnest in reprobation of the Hanoverian policy, which was supposed at that time to have an undue preponderance in our councils: and his pertinacity on this point engendered in the breast of George II. a strong personal dislike, which is said to have prevented his admission into that which was whimsically termed the “broad-bottomed administration,” formed at the close of 1744. In that autumn he received a bequest of £10,000 from the celebrated Duchess of Marlborough, “upon account of his merit, in the noble defence he has made for the support of the laws of England, and to prevent the ruin of his country.”

Pitt was assured by the Pelhams, that as soon as the King’s antipathy could be removed, his services would be secured to the government: and he accordingly received the appointment, of Vice-treasurer of Ireland, February 22, 1746, and, May 6, was promoted to the office of Paymaster-general. In the latter capacity he showed his superiority to pecuniary corruption, by foregoing the profit which it had been usual to derive from the large balances retained in that officer’s hands, and by rejecting other lucrative perquisites of office. But he has incurred the charge of political dishonesty, by supporting measures, as a minister, analogous in character to those which, under former governments, he had so strongly condemned. On this subject we may quote the words of a recent writer on the history of parties in England. “By the absorption into the government of almost all its leaders and chief orators, the opposition was for some time reduced in Parliament to extreme insignificance. Mr. Pitt was now one of the most determined supporters of the very measures which the first ten years of his parliamentary life had been spent in condemning and opposing. Nor did he scruple to avow his change of opinion. In reference, for instance, to the claim of exemption from search for British ships when found near the coast of Spanish America, which, urged by the opposition in the time of Sir Robert Walpole, had involved the country in a war with Spain, and was afterwards abandoned at the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle by the government of which Pitt was a member, he said in the House of Commons that he had indeed once been an advocate for that claim; but it was when he was a young man; he was now ten years older, and having considered public affairs more coolly, was convinced it could not be maintained. In the same manner very much of his old jealousy of military power and of the prerogative appears to have evaporated in the cooler consideration which he had now been enabled to give to such matters. We do not profess to doubt the perfect honesty of Mr. Pitt in this change of sentiment; and we may also think that his more matured opinions were, upon the whole, more rational than those of his fervid and impetuous nonage as a politician; but the facts (which only furnish an instance of what has often happened) are worth recording as a lesson for such as are capable of understanding it.” It is to be recollected, that the remarkable events of 1745–6 may very well have modified Mr. Pitt’s opinions with respect to the maintenance of a standing army.