Send forth your last and youngest born, whate'er the heart may feel;
Gird on his sword, and bind yourselves the spurs upon his heel;
Give him a proud and parting kiss, and send him to the field:
Say, as the Spartan matrons said,-" Come with, or on thy shield!”
Let aged men, bowed down by years, whose strength and eyesight
fail,

With tottering limbs and trembling hands put on the coat of mail;
Let little grandsons guide their steps, that so they may not miss
To strike if but one feeble blow in such a cause as this.

That is no time for weak lament, no time when tears should flow,
When poet's hand should touch the lyre to pity's strain of woe.
No; to the ramparts haste, and hear your mourning country's cry,
To strike for her but one good blow, and if it fails, to die!

IV.

But when it is the greed of pride that lights the warrior-flame,
And two great kings go forth without remorse to play their game,
The cruel game, to make new towns and provinces their prey,
Though just a thousand thousand dead must be the price they pay;
When down upon the helpless peoples crowding armies pour,
That some proud leader thus may boast one skilful slaughter more,—
Shame on the bard who makes his lay the accomplice of the wrong!
Honour to him who makes the martyrs heroes of his song!
Whatever streams of scathing fire in verse divine be stor❜d,
Upon the butcher's cursed art be all that lava pour'd!
Let others in triumphal hymns bid Cæsar's glory shine;
Let others round his images the laurel-garland twine:
Tum thou from war's unholy pomp, from all its grandeurs vain,
To sing of peace and happy arts that swell and deck her train,
To sing of Freedom, chased away by all this discord vile,
And bid the nations court once more the sunshine of her smile.
Tell them of industry's reward, of virtue's sweet caress;
Dare to chastise, to smite, to slay-nay, rather learn to bless!
Bless! and if need be, bow the head, and bend the suppliant knee,
Bend to the monarchs on their thrones-plead for humanity!
Tell them that God has placed them there to govern and to keep
Their flocks with wise and loving care-true shepherds of the sheep:
Tell them that but one faithful prayer laid at His feet to-day
Will quench the lightnings in His hand, and turn His wrath away.

English Premiers.

IV. THE EARL OF CHATHAM AND LORD Bute.

WILLIAM PITT, afterwards Lord Chatham, first saw the light in the very middle of Queen Anne's reign. Whigs and Tories had forgotten for a while their old animosities, were associated in office under Godolphin, and yielded to the national enthusiasm which surveyed with delight and pride the humbled power of France, and the battles won year after year by Marlborough and Prince Eugene. Only four months before William's birth these generals had defeated the imperial forces at Oudenarde, and taken possession of French Flanders. The boy's earliest associations were with victories and rejoicings, with chivalrous exploits and glory as profitless for England as Louis XIV. and Philip V. could desire. William Pitt was, one may say, the founder of his family-so far, at least, as its nobility is regarded. His grandfather, indeed, had been governor of Madras, and had sold "Pitt's diamond" to the Regent of France for more than 2,000,000 livres; but his father's income was small, and William, who was a younger son, inherited no more than about one hundred a year. He was educated at Eton and Trinity College, Oxford, was destined for the army, and held a commission as cornet in a cavalry regiment; but at the age of sixteen he was visited with that hereditary malady which was to be his life-long trial. The torments of gout, however, preserved him from habits of dissipation, and procured for him that leisure which was essential to his political career. Crosses and contradictions are required to produce intellectual as well as moral greatness. At Oxford Pitt had given some tokens of a turn for literature, and published some Latin verses on the death of George the First, which did not rise at all above the dignity of the subject. The ideas and the versification were worthy of a king whose talents never enabled him to learn English, and whose virtues, if he had any, were known only to a few partial admirers. The travels in France and Italy with which Pitt completed his education did more for the instruction of his mind than for the establishment of his health. His thews were not the thews of Mars. His commission in the Blues must be sold; he might

fight the battles of his country on the floor of the Houses of Parliament, but nature had never intended him for the "flinty and steel couch of war." His elder brother being elected in 1734 both for Old Sarum and for Oakhampton, he resigned the former seat to William, who accordingly took his place in the senate.

Walpole was at the height of his power. It was the sixteenth year of his administration, and during the latter half of that period he had been supreme. The brilliant Carteret, Townshend, his old ally, the polished Chesterfield, the brave and eloquent Argyle, opposed him vigorously; and though he might have made many a foe his friend, he was unwilling to purchase support at the cost of his own independence. The Whigs in opposition were called patriots, and to these Pitt joined himself. Their hand was against every man: they repudiated Toryism, professed the principles of Hampden and Russell, and denounced with vehemence the corruption practised by the Government. They counted among their adherents the Prince of Wales, who, in placing himself at the head of an opposition, set an example which three other princes of the same rank have since followed. The patriots were charmed with his support. It relieved them from the reproach of encouraging Jacobitism by voting so constantly with Jacobites, it gave them hopes of promotion when the heir-apparent should succeed to the Crown, and greatly increased their respectability in their own eyes. It was on the marriage of Prince Frederick with the Princess of Saxe-Gotha that Pitt addressed the House for the first time. His speech was reported in the Gentleman's Magazine, and it is difficult to guess in reading it why it established his reputation as a speaker. But there is that in every true orator of which no report, however accurate, can convey an idea. It may indeed, like a landscape, be too exact, and destroy general effect by reproducing blemishes. Magnetic influence issues from the gifted debater, and weaves electric chains round the hearer's heart. Pitt's appearance was commanding and graceful, fire flashed from his eye, and his features indicated high and noble thought. His voice admitted of endless modulations—now sinking to a whisper, now pealing through crowded halls in melodious thunder. Every tone was at his command; every feeling and passion, real or feigned, found its fitting expression in his voice. He was a Garrick in action, an Eschylus in intensity; copious as Cicero, vigorous as Demosthenes. He yielded to the impulse of his nature, disdained for the most part set speeches, gushed and rolled like a foaming torrent in whose beauty there is something awful. His opponents feared him, for his invective was overwhelming; so did his friends, for he spoke his mind freely, and was of all statesmen least able to master the

rules of statecraft. He was more impassioned than argumentative, and sarcasm was one of the weapons he could wield the best. His powers of speech gave annoyance to the Government, and Walpole, who loved to carry things with a high hand, caused him to be dismissed from military service. This summary proceeding was not likely to conciliate a high-minded young man. Most ministers would have tried to buy him over, but Sir Robert's bribes and bounties were seldom spent in that way. By losing his cornetcy, however, Pitt gained something better worth having, and stood on firmer ground as groom of the bedchamber to the Prince of Wales. This honour was the reward of his services in advocating the settlement of 100,000l. a year on his royal highness; and as gratitude has been well defined "a lively apprehension of favours to come," there can be no doubt that the prince thought it would be advisable to secure the alliance of so skilful a pleader.

In promoting the war with Spain, Pitt's conduct was neither reasonable nor humane. Walpole, as we have seen,* consented to it unwillingly, and we know by the testimony of Burke that none of those who urged it forward the most attempted in after-years to justify their policy. The provocations offered by Spain were not sufficient to justify an appeal to arms, but they afforded orators out of place a fine opportunity of haranguing in a patriotic strain, without the responsibility of engaging in conflict with a great power in distant quarters of the globe. In spite of Pitt's vehement declamation, a treaty with Spain was concluded by the Government, and the evils of war were averted for a time. "The complaints," he exclaimed," of your despairing merchants, the voice of England has condemned it. Be the guilt of it upon the head of its adviser!" And with such words on his lips he and the rest of the Opposition quitted the House, and did not return to it till the next session. His absence caused Walpole no regret; and when he again took his seat he was among the foremost of those who requested the king to remove the obnoxious minister from his counsels. Being taunted with his youth and theatrical emotions by Horace Walpole, he gave vent to that memorable retort in which he contented himself, as he said, with wishing that his follies might cease with his youth, and that he might not be of the number of those who are ignorant in spite of experience; whose age only adds obstinacy to stupidity; who as they advance in years recede from virtue, and become more wicked with less temptation; who prostitute themselves for money which they cannot enjoy, and spend the remains of their life in completing the ruin of their country. Perhaps Pitt was never more of an actor

*The Month, April 1866, p. 337.

than in that scornful speech in which he rebutted the charge of creating stage-effect. When Sir Robert's administration was in its deathstruggles, he and the other Boys, as the Patriots were called, negotiated for an alliance with Newcastle and Lord Hardwicke on a Whig basis. They even engaged to procure the Prince of Wales's support, but Walpole declined their proposals, and after an obstinate struggle resigned. A new ministry armed at all points sprang from the brain of Pulteney, and Pitt, with his brilliant talents, was not included in it. He had his revenge: he opposed the rule of Wilmington and Sandys, as he had opposed the administration of Walpole. He made Carteret his target, as Sir Robert had been his butt; and the hard names he had applied to the one became less effective when hurled without distinction at the other. He was, indeed, one of those able men who have earned by mental force a reputation not supported by their moral discernment. Few great men have made greater mistakes. He eagerly promoted the appointment of a secret tribunal to inquire into Sir Robert Walpole's conduct as prime minister, and the bill of indemnity to witnesses, which was in fact a premium on perjury. These were measures from which the heart and understanding of every high-souled senator would have revolted measures for which no rebuke sufficiently withering could have been found except in Pitt's own invectives.

Events, however, were favourable to his rise. The new Government was more unpopular than the ex-minister had ever been; and the preference of the king for his German dominions, which Carteret encouraged, together with the English payment of Hanoverian troops, were themes on which Pitt dilated with great effect. The best speakers in the House of Commons had been removed to the Lords, and there was none among the rising debaters who could vie with the patriot on crutches. He possessed in the highest degree the faculty of detecting weak points in his adversaries, and of magnifying them. He rose on the ruin of others' reputations, and was often least just when most earnest and impassioned. "Our former minister," he said, in opposing the address of thanks for the speech from the Throne in 1743,-" our former minister betrayed the interests of his country by his pusillanimity; our present sacrifices them by his quixotism. Our former minister was for negotiating with all the world; our present is for fighting against all the world. Our former minister was for agreeing to every treaty, though never so dishonourable; our present will give ear to no treaty, though never so reasonable. Thus both appear to be extravagant; but with this difference, that by the extravagance of the present the nation will be put to a much greater charge than ever it was by the

VOL. V.

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