and knowledge gave to discourse and discussion hours bestowed by many young men on the licentiousness of the stews, or the phrenzy of the gaming-table."

His contemporaries at Cambridge proposed that he should stand candidate for representing the University in Parliament: this he declined, and was returned member for Poole. His first public appearance had been two years before his election. Soon after his father's death, a report had been spread of a negociation having gone on the preceding winter, between Lord Chathain and Lord Bute, for Chatham coming into Administration. Some said that Lord Bute had applied to Chatham, others that Chathain had applied to Bute. This last supposition, with great reason, Pitt considered as derogatory to his father. A statement, published by the Chatham family, and drawn up by Pitt, was considered by Lord Mountstuart as tending to convey an idea that his father had applied to Chatham. In endeavouring to refute that notion, he

advanced some observations calculated to

make it appear that Lord Catham had applied to Lord Bute. Mountstuart, a sensible, well informed, experienced man, on the one side, and Pitt, a youth of nineteen, on the other, entered into discussion of the subject. Pitt manifested a striking superiority in genius and reasoning.

In his speech on Burke's reform, Pitt acquitted himself so as to justify the anticipations of the public in his favour. He in some measure joined the party which Burke and Fox headed, but maintained the sentiments of his father respecting the independence of America.

One of the chief excellencies of Pitt's speeches is the clearness of the arrangement. This This appears to result from a comprehensive mind viewing the subject in all its parts and relations, and disposing them in such a way as, from that view, he perceives, will render them most effectual. In the former edition, and also in the Histo

rical Magazine of June 1799, I delivered an opinion, that, in several points, Mr. Pitt considerably resembles Dr. Robertson. Like that eminent historian, he displays great powers of combination, of bringing together every circuinstance and argument that can elucidate his plans or evince his propositions. He sets before us a subject in all its parts, dependencies, and relations. The comprehensive view which he takes, enables him to clear his ground as he goes along, and precludes every necessity of repetition. He makes his hearer and reader perfectly masters of his reasoning and its foundation. This constant and habitual exertion of a comprehensive mind produces clearness of arrangement, as it enables him to dispose every part of his orations in such a way, as he perceives will render them most effectual. Elo- : quence naturally calls forward more forcible reasoning than history, from minds equally strong; but it does not naturally produce more profound reflections: greater depth, therefore, must result from superior knowledge and superior powers. In the cOMPASS and

depth of his understanding, I think Mr. Pitt is doubtless superior to that great man to whom I have compared him above. Force, of reasoning, however, he has in common with another extraordinary personage, Mr. Fox; profound observation and expanded views, with a still greater personage, Mr. Burke; but there is one point in which he excells these uncommon men; that is, the appropriate appositeness of his arguments to the question at issue. We have not only before us every thing that is requisite, but nothing that is not requisite. If we consider the speeches of these three great men, Pitt, Fox, and Burke, as we should do at proposition in Euclid, enunciating a certain theorem to be proved true or false, and estimate the arguments of each by their exclusive tendency to prove the proposition enunciated, we must certainly give the preference to Pitt. The closeness of Pitt has converged the rays of Fox's genius; whoever peruses his speeches during Lord North's Administration, and his speeches. during Mr. Pitt's, will find that, excellent

as they were in the former period, they are still more excellent in the latter, having their amazing force more compacted and better directed. In the latter period we seldom find that vehement declamation, that profusion of invective, which frequently marked his speeches in the former. Indeed, when we compare Fox's speeches in the House of Commons with those he makes in mixed clubs, where he has every thing his own way, and nobody to oppose him, we perceive a very striking difference. In the one he assumes positions neither self-evident, proved, nor universally admitted to be true, and declaims upon them as if they were axioms; in the other he advances no proposition without either, true or plausible grounds. The acuteness, indeed, of Pitt very readily perceives a flaw in an opponent's argument. His eloquence, as well as that of Burke and Fox, is original. We do not find that it so specially resembles that of any other orator, ancient or modern, as to give ground to believe that he has followed a model. While closely attentive to logical