party, was placed in the high and awful rank "in which he now is. The fortunes of his coun 66 66 try, we had almost said the fates of the world, were placed in his wardship-we sink in pros"tration before the inscrutable dispensations of Providence, when we reflect in whose wardship the fates of the world were placed! 66 66 "The influencer of his country and of his species was a young man, the creature of "another's predetermination, sheltered and "weather-fended from all the elements of expe"rience; a young man, whose feet had never "wandered; whose very eye had never turned "to the right or to the left; whose whole track "had been as curveless as the motion of a fasci"nated reptile! It was a young man, whose "heart was solitary, because he had existed always amid objects of futurity, and whose imagination too was unpopulous, because those objects of hope to which his habitual wishes had transferred, and as it were projected, his "existence, were all familiar and long-esta"blished objects! A plant sown and reared in "a hot-house, for whom the very air, that sur"rounded him, had been regulated by the ther"mometer of previous purpose; to whom the light of nature had penetrated only through 66 66 66 66 66 66 glasses and covers; who had had the sun with"out the breeze; whom no storm had shaken; "on whom no rain had pattered; on whom the 200 "dews of Heaven had not fallen! "who had had no feelings connected with man A being "or nature, no spontaneous impulses, no un"biassed and desultory studies, no genuine "science, nothing that constitutes individuality "in intellect, nothing that teaches brotherhood "in affection! Such was the man—such, and "so denaturalized the spirit, on whose wisdom "and philanthropy the lives and living enjoy"ments of so many millions of human beings were made unavoidably dependent. 66 66 66 "From this time a real enlargement of mind "became almost impossible. Pre-occupations, intrigue, the undue passion and anxiety, with "which all facts must be surveyed; the crowd "and confusion of those facts, none of them seen, but all communicated, and by that circumstance, and by the necessity of perpevery tually classifying them, transmuted into words. "and generalities; pride; flattery; irritation; "artificial power; these, and circumstances re"sembling these, necessarily render the heights "of office barren heights; which command in"deed a vast and extensive prospect, but attract "so many clouds and vapours, that most often "all prospect is precluded. Still, however, Mr. "Pitt's situation, however inauspicious for his "real being, was favourable to his fame. He heaped period on period; persuaded himself " and the nation, that extemporaneous arrange "ment of sentences was eloquence; and that eloquence implied wisdom. "His father's struggles for freedom, and his "own attempts, gave him an almost unexampled "popularity; and his office necessarily asso"ciated with his name all the great events that happened during his administration. There "were not however wanting men who saw through this delusion: and refusing to attri"bute the industry, integrity, and enterprising "spirit of our merchants, the agricultural improvements of our landholders, the great inven"tions of our manufacturers, or the valour and "skilfulness of our sailors, to the merits of a 66 66 minister, they have continued to decide on his "character from those acts and those merits, "which belong to him, and to him alone. Judg"ing him by this standard, they have been able "to discover in him no one proof or symptom of "a commanding genius. They have discovered "him never controlling, never creating, events, "but always yielding to them with rapid change, "and sheltering himself from inconsistency by perpetual indefiniteness. In the Russian war, they saw him abandoning meanly what he had planned weakly, and threatened insolently. "In the debates on the Regency, they detected "the laxity of his constitutional principles, and "received proofs that his eloquence consisted "not in the ready application of a general 66 66 66 66 66 66 system to particular questions, but in the facility of arguing for or against any question by specious generalities, without reference to any system. In these debates he combined "what is most dangerous in democracy with "all that is most degrading in the old super"stitions of monarchy; and taught an inherency of the office in the person, in order "to make the office itself a nullity, and the premiership, with its accompanying majority, "the sole and permanent power of the state. "And now came the French Revolution. This 66 was a new event: the old routine of reasoning, the common trade of politics, were to "become obsolete. He appeared wholly unpre 66 66 66 66 pared for it half favouring, half condemning, ignorant of what he favoured, and why "he condemned, he neither displayed the honest "enthusiasm and fixed principle of Mr. Fox, "nor the intimate acquaintance with the gene"ral nature of man, and the consequent prescience "of Mr. Burke. "After the declaration of war, long did he "continue in the common cant of office, in "declamation about the Scheld and Holland, "and all the vulgar causes of common contests! "and when at least the immense genius of his "new supporter had beat him out of these words (words signifying places and dead objects, and signifying nothing more), he adopted other 66 "words in their places, other generalities“Atheism and Jacobinism-phrases, which he "learnt from Mr. Burke, but without learning "the philosophical definitions and involved consequences, with which that great man accompanied those words. Since the death of Mr. "Burke the forms, and the sentiments, and the "tone of the French have undergone many and 66 66 important changes: how, indeed, is it possible "that it should be otherwise, while man is the “creature of experience! But still Mr. Pitt proceeds in an endless repetition of the same general phrases. This is his element: deprive "him of general and abstract phrases, and you "reduce him to silence; but you cannot deprive "him of them. Press him to specify an indi“vidual fact of advantage to be derived from a 66 war, and he answers, Security! Call upon "him to particularize a crime, and he exclaims "-Jacobinism! Abstractions defined by ab"stractions; generalities defined by generalities! "As a minister of finance he is still, as ever, the "words of abstractions. Figures, custom-house 66 66 reports, imports and exports, commerce and "revenue-all flourishing, all splendid! Never was such a prosperous country as England "under his administration! Let it be objected, "that the agriculture of the country is, by the "overbalance of commerce, and by various and "complex causes, in such a state, that the country |