256 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
severe financial and commercial depression ; and, in whatever light his principles
or politics may be viewed by contending parties, certain it is that under his
administration the nation attained an unusual degree of prosperity ; and his
financial arrangements were such that the treasury was enabled to sustain an
unexampled demand upon its resources.
The great struggle in which the Minister was engaged does not seem to have
left him much leisure for the cultivation of literature ; and so far from being
a patron of learned men, he was generally supposed to entertain a feeling of
hostility towards them :-
‘‘ Few friends are found for poetry and wit,
From North well-natured to imperious Pitt. ”
It must be remembered, however, that some of the most distinguished literary
characters of the time were in politics violently opposed to him.
The debates in the House of Commons, from his first connection with the
Ministry, furnish many instances of Pitt’s matchless eloquence, and of the force
and readiness of his replies to the philippics of his powerful opponents. His
sarcastic allusion to theatrical authorship, as a rejoinder to some witty observations
of Sheridan on one occasion, recoiled with severity on his own head, by
the happy analogy drawn by the latter betwixt the young Chancellor and
Kastrill, the Angry Boy in the Alchymist !-an appellation which adhered to
Pitt many years afterwards.
The extreme youth of the statesman was a prolific theme for satire by the
Opposition prints. In the “Rolliad” he is thus described :-
“ Above the rest, majestically great,
Behold the infant Atlas of the State ;
The matchless miracle of modern days,
In whom Britannia to the world displays
A sight to make surrounding nations stare-
A kingdom trusted to a school-boy’s care ! ”
Of the Minister’s aptitude for business, comprehensive mind, and astonishing
powers of memory, many anecdotes are related; but there are very few
instances of his having indulged, like some of his celebrated contemporaries, in
pleasant or witty sayings. His reply, however, to an offer made by a certain
London Incorporation, to raise a volunteer corps, on condition that he would
assure them against being called on to leave the country, is an exception :-‘‘ I
will,’’ said the Minister, “ engage that they shall not leave this country, except
in case of an invasion f ”
The death of Mr. Pitt occurred in ?January 1806, at the premature age of
forty-seven. He never possessed much strength of constitution ; but intense
application to public business-the trouble and anxiety of mind produced by
the impeachment and removal from office of his valuable colleague, Lord Melville,
and the intelligence of the success of Bonaparte in his attack upon Austria,
particularly his capture of Ulm, evidently hastened the catastrophe.
