WILLIAM PITT, EARL OF CHATHAM, [THE son of Robert Pitt, esq. of Old Sarum, was born in 1708, in the city of Westminster. He received the first part of his education at Eton, and at the age of eighteen was sent to Trinity college, Oxford 3, whence he contributed a copy of Latin verses on the death of George the first. He afterwards made the tour of part of France and Italy, and according to lord Chesterfield, being a martyr to the gout from the age of sixteen, acquired "a great fund of premature and useful knowledge." In 1735 he was sent into parliament for the borough of Old Sarum, where he had not been many days before he was He was in no very particular manner, says Mr. Seward, distinguished at that celebrated seminary. Virgil in early life was his favourite author. He was by no means a good Greek scholar; and though he occasionally copied the arrangement and the expression of Demosthenes with great success in his speeches, he perhaps drew them from the Collana translation of that admirable orator, that book having been frequently seen in his room. The sermons of the great Dr. Barrow and of Abernethy were favourite books with him; and of the sermons of Mr. Mudge he spoke very highly. He once declared in the house of commons that no book had ever been perused by him with such instruction as Plutarch's Lives. See Monboddo on the Origin of Language. • Warton alludes to this in his poem on the death of George the second, addressed to Mr. secretary Pitt. selected for a teller. Upon every question he divided with his friends against the minister sir Robert Walpole; and in a short time was deprived of his cornet's commission in the Blues 4. In 1737 he was appointed groom of the bedchamber to the prince of Wales. In 1744 he received a legacy of £10,000 from the duchess of Marlborough, for his noble defence in supporting the laws of England. In 1746 he was made a vice-treasurer of Ireland, and soon after paymaster of the forces; in which office be distinguished himself by disinterested integrity and incorruptible virtue, until his dismission in 1755. On the breaking up of the Newcastle administration in October 1756, Mr. Pitt was allowed to make his own arrangement of a cabinet, and nominated himself secretary of states: but being hostile to the plan of German measures, he was commanded to resign in April 1757. This excited considerable fermentation through the country, and he was reinstated in July. The king gave him his confidence, and all went well till his death but a party then rose up against Mr. Pitt, which constrained his resignation in October 1761 6. In 1764 sir William Pynsent bequeathed to him and • On this occasion lord Lyttelton addressed some spirited lines to him. See Anderson's British Poets, vol. x. p. 270. 5 In 1756 Gilbert Cooper inscribed an iambic ode, entitled, The Genius of Britain, to the right hon. W.Pitt. Ut sup. p. 780. "The following lines were penned on Mr. Pitt's resigning the seals in 1761: "Ne'er yet in vain did Heaven its omens end, |