and he appeared to be on such good terms with each other that I did not choose to interfere.'

"Very shortly before Fox died he complained of great uneasiness in his stomach; and Cline advised him to try the effect of a cup of coffee. It was accordingly ordered; but not being brought so soon as was expected, Mrs. Fox expressed some impatience; upon which Fox said, with his usual sweet smile, 'Remember, my dear, that good coffee cannot be made in a moment.' Lady Holland announced the death of Fox in her own odd manner to those relatives and intimate friends of his who were sitting in a room near his bed-chamber, and waiting to hear that he had breathed his last;-she walked through the room with her apron thrown over her head. Trotter's Memoirs of Fox, though incorrect in some particulars, is a very pleasing book. Trotter died in Ireland: he was reduced to great straits; and Mrs. Fox sent him, at different times, as much as several hundred pounds, though she could ill spare the money. How fondly the surviving friends of Fox cherished his memory! Many years after his death I was at a fête given by the Duke of Devonshire at Chiswick House. Sir Robert Adair and I wandered about the apartments, up and down stairs. 'In which room did Fox expire?' asked Adair. I replied 'In this very room.' Immediately Adair burst into tears with a vehemence of grief such as I hardly ever saw exhibited by a man.'

WILLIAM PITT'S EARLY LIFE.

One morning, some law lord (thought to have been Lord Mansfield), paid a visit to Lord Chatham, at his country residence at Hayes. Whilst they were conversing, his son William came through the library. Lord asked who is that youth? Lord Chatham said, "That is my second son-call him back and talk to him." They did so, and Lord was struck by a forwardness of knowledge, a readiness of expression, and unyieldingness of opinion, which even then was remarkable in the future minister. When he had left them, Lord Chatham said: "That is the most extraordinary youth I ever knew. All my life I have been aiming at the possession of political power, and have found the greatest difficulty in getting or keeping it. It is not on the cards of fortune to prevent that young man's gaining it, and if ever he does so, he will be the ruin of his country."

Mr. Pitt, member for Sir James Lowther's close borough of Appleby, delivered his maiden speech in February, 1781, in support of Mr. Burke's motion for Reforming the Civil List. His speech, early in June, on the American War, elicited praise even from his

opponents. "He promises to be the first speaker ever heard in the House," said a member to Fox. "He is that already," was the chivalrous, or rather the manly, reply of Charles Fox.

The story told of Mr. Pitt's refusing to marry Mademoiselle Neckar, (afterwards Madame de Staël,) when the match was proposed by the father, rests upon a true foundation; not so, however, the form of the answer, that "he was already married to his country"-thought to have been a jest.

A CASTING VOTE.

Lord Malmesbury has given this sketch of the Prime Minister Pitt, on the night when the vote first went against Dundas. "I sat wedged close to Pitt himself the night we were 216 to 216; and the Speaker, Abbot (after looking as white as a sheet, and pausing for ten minutes) gave the casting vote against us. Pitt immediately put on the little cocked hat that he was in the habit of wearing when dressed for the evening, and jammed it deeply over his forehead, and I distinctly saw the tears trickling down his cheeks. We had overheard one or two such as Colonel Wardle say they would see 'how Billy looked after it.' A few young ardent followers of Pitt, with myself, locked their arms together, and formed a circle in which he moved, I believe unconsciously, out of the House; and neither the Colonel nor his friends could approach him."

A NARROW ESCAPE.

In the autumn of 1784, Mr. Pitt had nearly fallen a victim to the frolic of a festive meeting. Returning late at night, on horseback, from Wimbledon to Addiscombe, the seat of Mr. Huskisson, near Croydon, where the party had dined; Lord Thurlow, then Chancellor, Pitt, and Dundas, found the turnpike-gate between Tooting and Streatham thrown open. Being in elevated spirits, and having no servant near them, they passed through the gate at a brisk pace, without stopping to pay the toll; regardless of the remonstrance or threats of the turnpike-man, who, running after them, and believing them to belong to some highwaymen, who had recently committed depredations on that road, discharged the contents of his blunderbuss at their backs. Happily, he did no injury. To this narrow escape of the Prime Minister, which furnished matter of pleasantry though perhaps not of rejoicing, to the Opposition, allusion is made in the Rolliad:

"How as he wander'd darkling o'er the plain,
His reason lost in Jenkinson's champagne,
A peasant's hand, but that just Fate withstood
Had shed a Premier's, for a robber's blood."

AN OPPORTUNITY LOST.

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During the co-operation of all parties against Mr. Addington's Government in the spring of 1804, Mr. Pitt and Mr. C. Long were one night passing the door of Brookes's Club-house, on their way from the House of Commons, when Mr. Pitt, who had not been there since the Coalition of 1784, said he had a great mind to go in and sup. His wary friend said, I think you had better not," and turned aside the well-conceived intention. When," says Lord Brougham, we reflect on the high favour Mr. Pitt was then in with the Whigs, and consider the nature of Mr. Fox, as well as his own, we can have little doubt of the cordial friendship which such a night would have cemented, and that the union of the two parties would have been complete."

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DEFENDERS OF THEIR COUNTRY.

In 1805, Pitt had a meeting of country gentlemen, chiefly militia colonels, to consider his "Additional Force Bill." One of the meeting objected to a clause for calling out the Force, which he insisted should not be done, "except in case of actual invasion." Pitt replied, "That would be too late;" but the speaker still insisted on the case of actual invasion. By-and-by they came to another clause, to render the Force more disposable; the same gentleman objected again, and insisted very warmly that he would never consent to its being sent out of England. "Except, I suppose," rejoined Pitt, "in case of actual invasion."

PITT'S LAST MOMENTS.

The news of Austerlitz was the last blow which killed Pitt. The gout, which had hitherto confined its attacks to his extremities, assailed some vital organ. He was not without hopes of getting better. Lord Wellesley found him in high spirits, though before the interview was over, Pitt fainted in his presence. His last moments are described by the Hon. James Stanhope, who was present in the room when he died; so that at length we seem to have authentic information of a scene which has hitherto been very imperfectly described. "I remained the whole of Wednesday night with Mr. Pitt," says Mr. Stanhope, in a paper drawn up by him, and of which Earl Stanhope has availed himself in his Life of Pitt. "His mind seemed fixed on the affairs of the country, and he expressed his thoughts aloud, though sometimes incoherently. He spoke a good deal concerning a private letter from Lord Harrowby, and frequently inquired the direction of the wind; then said, answering himself, East; ah! that will do; that will bring him quick.' At other times he seemed

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to be in conversation with a messenger, and sometimes cried out 'Hear, hear,' as if in the House of Commons. During the time he did not speak he moaned considerably, crying, 'Oh, dear! Oh, Lord!' Towards twelve the rattles came in his throat, and proclaimed approaching dissolution. . . . . At about half-past two he ceased moaning. . . . . I feared he was dying; but shortly afterwards, with a much clearer voice than he spoke in before, and in a tone Í shall never forget, 'Oh, my country! how I leave my country!' [referring, as it was natural for him to do, to the disastrous state of the continental war produced by the battle of Austerlitz.] From that time he never spoke or moved, and at half-past four expired without a groan or struggle," 23rd January, 1806. He received the Sacrament from the Bishop of Lincoln. Mr. Pitt gave his watch to his servant, who handed it over to Mr. Dundas, M.P., more than twenty years after Mr. Pitt's death. That watch, a mourning ring, and box containing the hair, were bequeathed to the Rt. Hon. R. N. Hamilton; and the watch is now preserved in the Fitzwilliam Museum, at Cambridge.

"Pitt is the most forgiving and easy-tempered of men," says Lord Malmesbury. "He is the most upright political character I ever knew or heard of," says Wilberforce. 66 I never once saw him out of temper," says George Rose. One day, when the conversation turned upon the quality most needed in a Prime Minister, and one said "Eloquence," another "Knowledge," and a third "Toil," Pitt said "No; Patience." It was an answer worthy of the great statesman, and recalls that of Newton, who said that he owed his splendid discoveries to the power of fixed attention. Pitt was wonderfully patient, and this, which is commonly regarded as a slow virtue, he combined with uncommon readiness and rapidity of thought. "What an extraordinary man Pitt is!" said Adam Smith; "he makes me understand my own ideas better than before."

PITT'S HABITS OF WORK.

His extraordinary and systematic exertions told seriously against Mr. Pitt when his health began to give way. The labour which he had to endure as a mere youth in sustaining the Government against overwhelming odds tended to undermine his constitution. One of his greatest speeches was delivered under much physical suffering. Now and then he took a holiday, and in imagination we may see him and Wilberforce at Holwood sallying forth with billhooks, cutting new walks from one large tree to another through the thickets of the Holwood copses. But continually it happened that he worked through nearly the whole of a recess, seldom allowing him

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self a single holiday. When the House of Commons met, his work was of course doubled, and he had to adapt himself to hours that ill-suited his feeble frame. Frequently the debates did not come to an end till six, seven, or even eight o'clock on the following morning. He wound up one of his most celebrated speeches-that on the Slave Trade, delivered in 1792, by welcoming as of good omen the morning beam that then shot across the House. As a usual thing, he had eight or ten hours of sleep, and he slept well. He had often to be woke up in the night to receive important news, and if his attendants went in upon him ten minutes afterwards they were sure to find him sleeping sound again. This was his salvation. When he received the news of Trafalgar he could not sleep after it, and rose to work at three in the morning. He mentioned this as something extraordinary, and as showing the tremendous importance of the tidings. But' it showed also that his health was giving way, and that his nervous system was not so calm as it used to be. How could it be calm, considering the work which he had to go through? Even in his first Cabinet, when he had Dundas and Grenville at his side, he was overtoiled. He transacted the business of all departments except theirs, and when he transacted business we should understand what that means. He did nothing by deputy. He would not suffer any one to arrange his papers and extract the important points for him. Imagine this system of work carried on in a Government where he had no Grenville and no Dundas to assist him, where he stood almost alone, and when he had to bear up against health which was fast failing.-Times review.

Pitt could dilate or compress at pleasure: even in one member of a sentence, he could inflict a wound that was never healed. Mr. Fox having made an able speech, Mr. Erskine followed him with one of the very same import. Mr. Pitt rose to answer them: he announced his intention to reply to both; "but," said he, "I shall make no mention of the honourable gentleman who spoke last: he did no more than regularly repeat what was said by the member who preceded him, and regularly weaken all he repeated."

GEORGE III. AND HIS MINISTER, PITT.

George III. had a sincere liking and regard for Pitt, though it is evident that much of that partiality was the merest selfishness. He was grateful to a Minister who saved him from the dictation of the great Whig families, and so long as it cost him nothing he was profuse in his expressions of attachment to Pitt. When Pitt proposed to resign in 1801, the King replied, "I hope Mr. Pitt's sense of duty will prevent his retiring from his present situation to the end