“He rose from his seat with slowness and difficulty, leaning upon his crutches, and supported under each arm by his two friends. He took one hand from his crutch, and raised it, casting his eyes towards Heaven, and said, ‘I thank God that I have been enabled to come here this day, to perform my duty, and to speak on a subject which has so deeply impressed my mind. I am old and infirm—have one foot—more than one foot, in the grave. I am risen from my bed, to stand up in the cause of my country!—perhaps never again to speak in this House.’
“The reverence, the attention, the stillness of the house, was most affecting: if any one had dropped an handkerchief, the noise would have been heard. At first he spoke in a very low and feeble tone; but as he grew warm his voice rose, and was as harmonious as ever; oratorical and affecting perhaps more than at any former period; both from his own situation and from the importance of the subject on which he spoke. He gave the whole history of the American war; of all the measures to which he had objected; and all the evils which he had prophesied in consequence of them; adding, at the end of each, ‘And so it proved.’” He concluded with an energetic appeal against the “dismemberment of this ancient and most noble monarchy.” To the Duke of Richmond’s reply he listened with attention and composure: he then rose again, but his strength failed, and he fell back in convulsions in the arms of the Peers who surrounded him. The House immediately adjourned. On the following day the Duke of Richmond’s motion was negatived.
Lord Chatham was removed to Hayes, where he languished until May 12, 1778, on which day he expired. He was honoured with a public funeral, and a public monument in Westminster Abbey; a sum of 20,000l. was voted in discharge of his debts; and a pension of 4,000l. a year was annexed to the earldom of Chatham. He left five children by his wife, Lady Hester Grenville, sister of Earl Temple, whom he married November 6, 1754. He warmly loved and was beloved by his family, and in domestic life enjoyed all the happiness which unbroken confidence and harmony can bestow.
The character of this great man is thus drawn by Lord Chesterfield:—“His constitution refused him the usual pleasures, and his genius forbade him the idle dissipations of youth; for so early as the age of sixteen, he was the martyr of an hereditary gout. He therefore employed the leisure which that tedious and painful distemper either procured or allowed him, in acquiring a great fund of premature and useful knowledge. Thus, by the unaccountable relation of causes and effects, what seemed the greatest misfortune of his life, was perhaps the principal cause of its splendour. His private life was stained by no vice, nor sullied by any meanness. All his sentiments were liberal and elevated. His ruling passion was an unbounded ambition, which, where supported by great abilities, and crowned with great success, makes what the world calls a great man. He was haughty, imperious, impatient of contradiction, and overbearing; qualities which too often accompany, but always clog great ones. He had manners and address, but one might discover through them too great a consciousness of his own superior talents. He was a most agreeable and lively companion in social life, and had such a versatility of wit, that he would adapt it to all sorts of conversation. He had also a happy turn for poetry, but he seldom indulged, and seldom avowed it. He came young into Parliament, and upon that theatre he soon equalled the oldest and the ablest actors. His eloquence was of every kind, and he excelled in the argumentative, as well as in the declamatory way. But his invectives were terrible, and uttered with such energy of diction, and such dignity of action and countenance, that he intimidated those who were the most willing and best able to encounter him. Their arms fell out of their hands, and they shrunk under the ascendant which his genius gained over theirs.”
Mr. Thackeray’s ‘History of the Right Hon. W. Pitt, Earl of Chatham,’ in addition to the fullest account of his public and private life, contains copious extracts from the reports of his speeches, and his correspondence. The letters to his nephew, afterwards Lord Camelford, deserve notice, as exhibiting his private character in a very amiable light. The same may be said of the letters to his son, William Pitt, printed by Dr. Tomline in his life of that statesman.
[Death of Chatham, from the picture by J. S. Copley, R.A.]
MOZART.
That most of those who are now by universal consent numbered among the benefactors of the human race reaped little benefit from their genius, however actively exerted, is a melancholy truth not to be disputed, and seldom more strongly exemplified than in the instance of the great composer, who is the subject of this memoir. He to whom all the really civilized parts of the world are so deeply indebted for the increase, to an almost incalculable amount, of the stock of an intellectual and innocent pleasure, scarcely ever enjoyed a moment’s respite from ill-requited labour and corroding anxieties: few, not in a state of actual want, ever suffered more from the evils of poverty; and he who left so valuable a treasure to mankind had not in the hour of death the consolation of feeling that he had been able to secure against the miseries of dependence, an affectionate wife and her helpless offspring.