ment of their wisdom, the most speaking lesson to their experience, and the most assured and cheering pledge of their ultimate safety. They will find in his personal character the solid connexion of private virtues with public fidelity; no factitious and glaring professions of impracticable patriotism; no degrading submissions to the popular cry; no desperate experiments on the public security, to grasp at a shadowy and fugitive power, and they will find the success commensurate to the integrity of the principles; public difficulties that seemed insurmountable, rapidly overcome; disaffection at home converted into emulous loyalty. The broken system of Europe rebuilt into one superb confederacy; the fallen fortitude of the Continent suddenly in spirited into invincible courage; the revolutionary idol which disdained to be fed with less than the blood of kings, and sat enveloped with the smoke of human hecatombs, resistlessly torn from its altar, and cast into its own flames; an unexampled war, which involved all Europe, and menaced the dissolution of every tie of nations and of man, closed by an unexampled triumph, in which all Europe shared, and which established a new bond of friendship and mutual reliance among all its kingdoms. The history of Europe is imperfectly and obscurely written, if the historian forgets to look to Providence. But the history of our own country forms one of its finest illustrations. If it had been contemplated by man in the middle of the eighteenth century, that at its close the French Revolution should shake the Continent, and that England should be the great agent in the hand of Providence, first to protect mankind from the fatal supremacy of that revolution, and next to overthrow and extinguish it in the very spot where it first started upon the human eye, no measures of provision could be more distinctly and powerfully preparative than the apparently simple contingencies of England from the end of the Seven Years' War. The peace of 1762 had tranquillized Europe, but it was the abortive tranquillity of a truce. War was at an end on the Continent. Austria had been baffled by Prussia, but Prussia was exhausted by her victory. No German power remained, of sufficient strength, to revenge the ravages of both. France had lost armies, and what she valued more, laurels. Russia, scarcely recovered from domestic murders, and employing her resources in doubtful hostilities with the Ottoman, was scarcely recognised as a European power. England, flushed with victory, had gained all the prizes of the war, an unlimited territory in the New World, the French West Indies, a new empire in the East, and the unquestioned influence of a power of the first order on the European system. The natural peril to England, in this condition of safety and superiority, would be, that she might relax the sinews of her strength; that without an enemy to dread, she might cease to be warlike; that with hourly increasing opulence, she might become surcharged with indolent voluptuousness; and that with a population rapidly rising in the consciousness of its own influence, she might be tossed about by every gust of republicanism. All those contingencies would have been formidable hazards under any condition of the surrounding kingdoms. But the nature of the coming crisis, utterly unascertained as it was by man, must have rendered the hazards almost certain ruin. If, a quarter of a century before the first meeting of the National Assembly, the angel of the future had drawn up the curtain, and revealed to some great English mind the characteristic form and features of the French Revolution, its universal spirit of aggression, its conversion of the whole power of the state into war, its hatred of all settled authority, and its universal appeal to the power of the populace at home and abroad; what would be the qualities which such a mind would require to see, as first and most predominant in England, if she were finally to rescue herself and redeem others from the general danger? The answer must be, that she should be compelled by circumstances to keep her warlike vigilance in activity, that she should be in some degree even exercised in war during the interval, that she, should be directed to the knowledge of those peculiar resources on which she must finally rely, and be taught the especial use of that arm by which the battle was to be chiefly borne, that she must feel the value of a financial system founded on the most accurate estimate of her means, that she should be taught the infinite peril of suffering the populace to become the dictators of her government; that to put the whole machine of public power and virtue in motion, there should stand at the head of affairs some individual whose peculiar talent lay in that management of the public wealth so essential in a long, costly, and exhausting course of hostilities, while his unquestioned general ability, public devotedness, and personal integrity, made the nation look up to him with unbounded homage, and follow his counsels with deferential obedience. Another requisition, of the highest moral value in a contest, which was as much of charac. ter as of arms, was, that on the throne should be seated a king, whose manliness, firmness, and religious principle qualified him to preside over a nation, among whom the last virtues of the earth were to find a shelter, religion to make its stand against atheism, loyalty against rebellion, patriotism against treason, and the ancient and generous character of royal government against the novel, bitter, and bloodthirsty selfishness of popular anarchy. Is it fanciful to conceive those requisitions? No more so than to remember their necessity. The history of the revolution a quarter of a century after is lying open before the world. There, guided by the ominous light shed from the lamp of the regicide and the assassin, we may trace, line by line, the precautionary wisdom of that singular and effectual discipline, by which England was unconsciously made ready for the most extraordinary and trying contest that ever summoned a nation into the field for the highest interests of human nature. The peace of 1762 had placed England in the most distinguished rank which she had ever yet attained. All was national supremacy, all was popular exultation. The public feeling of her preeminence was so unquestioned, that the nation actually trembled at the sudden overflow of prosperity, and while the language of the politician was, that she must thenceforth prepare to meet the combined jealousy of all nations, the philosopher pronounced, that as the wheel of change was in continual motion, and she had now risen to its summit, she must thenceforth make up her resolution to descend. But all history seems written to baffle the pride of human prediction. From the hour when her sword was laid by, the spirit of England began to be exercised in civil contests, menacing in appearance, but of the first importance to her constitutional vigour. The quarrels of Wilkes with the Government, the struggles of rival leaders for the Cabinet, and the excited feelings of the nation from both causes, kept the country in a perpetual state of that uninjurious activity, which is the finest school for civil knowledge. The few remnants of ancient despotism clinging to the constitution were rent away in the contest; and in the midst of much popular violence, party follies, and national alarm, freedom gained at every advance, until every man of sense and honesty felt that not the shadow of a feudal fetter remained on the noble proportions of English liberty. The discussions with the American colonies followed, and they were rapidly exacerbated into war-a war which now lies too deep among the crimes of the past and gone for us to revive its memory, but on whose tomb the most lenient hand, if it be the hand of truth, must inscribe popular profligacy, unprovoked rebellion, and filial ingratitude. But that war was made the direct means of preparing England for the coming hostilities, which were to summon all her force. Even the peculiar nature of the war seems to have belonged to that system of foresight which turned all casualties to the great future emergency. It scarcely occupied a fragment of the military force of England. It largely occupied the naval. After a long period of necessary inaction, it compelled England to feel that the navy was her right arm; it disciplined that navy, by frequent encounters, into almost a security of FRAGMENTS FROM THE HISTORY OF JOHN BULL. CHAP. XI. Of the Sham Fight between Dan and Allsop, when he robbed Patrick's "BLESS my heart," quoth John, as he slipped into the steward's office next morning after Gray had been spirited away, as you have heard, and found Allsop at work as usual, with the ruler in his hand, and his ready-reckoner before him, casting up the price of some prime cattle which John had been purchasing for Bullock's hatch"Bless my heart, Master Allsop, why, I thought you were gone for ever and a day-and fifty miles off at least, by this time. Any thing happened to your friends in Northamptonshire, eh? And where is Gray, for I warrant me, since you are come back, he's not far from your elbow?"-"Nay," quoth Allsop, looking closely at his ledger, to escape John's eye, and letting fall an infernal splash of red ink on the page in his confusion-" nothing at all has happened, and Gray, poor fellow, isn't come back; but the truth is, that just as we were turning into the North Road, by the park gate, out came all the servants to a man, protesting that the books could not be kept without me; that nobody except myself understood my way of posting them; that I must stay at all events for a month or two, just to help Sheepface a little, till he gets into the way of managing them; and so, being somewhat soft hearted, as you know, and not liking to see the books bedevilled by a stranger; why look ye, d'ye see-I came back, as it were; that is to say, here I am again, after all."-"But methinks," replied John, to whom all this appeared uncommonly queer-"you and Grav had made up your minds to jo gether for better for worse; a think on't, I've heard you fidavit you would never pu paper under another stewa as Gray only went bec wouldn't stay, it's past my hension how you should c and he be left to trudge or heart I left him," said Allsop. "I "Ah, well-a-day! 'twas with a sore wept like a church-spout; but what could I do? The books must have gone to the devil; and, thinks I, if I remain, I may do something for Gray, poor old fellow, since his pride won't allow him to keep the key of the privy; so, although it went sorely against the grain with me to part company with him, there was no help for it. And though Gray was an excellent hand at accounts, yet Sheepface-Sheepface is his match any day-a clever, handy, good-natured fellow, has every body's good word, never speaks above his breath; turns away the and he and I understand one anvery beggars with a civil answer; other already-so no fear that besmoothly." tween us all will go on fair and sop's pranks, to see there was some John knew quite enough of Allvile underhand work about all this, and 'twas plain to him that, one way or other, poor Gray had been fairly juggled out of his situation. Fain would he have sent the whole conHere were fifty things to begin to, cern adrift, but what could he do? and none to do them; for Arthur and Bobby, to whom he had sent a broad hint that he would like to see them, and that perhaps they and Sheepface might manage matter hetween them, returned for answ see him damned sit in the sam There was no Allsop, he saw a time, so, g a little, Joh to Sheepfac was really and indiff "Well," man ca old fath these nilly, Allsop must leave this to look after his own farm. By that time, please Heaven, I shall have some other body in my eye-and then out go the whole crew. Amen." You may remember, that this scheme of turning Gray out of doors was mainly owing to Dan, who, finding that he was not just so ready to join in his plan for robbing Patrick of his living as he expected, would never rest satisfied till he had seen his back fairly out of the house; and now having gained his end, by the help of honest Allsop and Buckram, he wasn't the man to let so good an opportunity slip. So he fairly told Allsop, that he intended to come down that evening after dark, and rob the parsonage by main force; and that he, Allsop, must lend a hand, or, at all events, pretend to be asleep, and say nothing. "Nay," said Allsop, "though I care as little about Patrick as most men, yet John, as you know, has a great respect for him. 'Twas but the other day that Martin and he, who seem to be consumedly afraid that something or other is in the wind, walked up to the hall, and were most graciously received by John, who told them, he would stand by the Church like his fathers before him, and that not a stiver of the living should ever be cut short with his consent. I heard the thing with my own ears; and, as you know, he's the man, when fairly roused, to keep his word. We've gone a good length for you already; for the watchman has been sent adrift, the bulldog chained up, the pestilent broken bottles on the top of the wall chipped off, and Patrick may roar long enough now before any one comes near him. Rob the house, therefore, and welcome; but, for the sake of appear. ances, I must make a show of resistance. It won't be much-I'll only strike a blow or two, and then give the thing's over, ow the cash is to in: the dusk of the > Dan at the head op of thoroughs as you could see. their own strength, at the resistance was ge, they did not give he least trouble to con ceal their designs, but commenced with a storm of blows, with wooden bludgeons, on the door and casements. Dan headed the attack with a poker; and when poor Patrick, who had thrown up the window above, was bellowing across the pond for assistance, he accosted him thus: "Lookye, Patrick, I am a man of honour, and a gentleman every inch, and scorn to do an ungenteel thing by a countryman. Now just give up quietly two-fifths of all the cash and valuables you have in the houseyou'll never miss it-for you're as rich as a Jew-you know you are, you dog!-and we'll let you off handsomely for the other threefifths." Patrick only roared the louder at this proposal, for he saw it was a mere device to get a footing in his house. At last, by dint of bellowing, he brought Allsop to his assistance, who had pretended to be asleep, till John had actually sent a message to enquire what the row was about. He took good care, however, that most of the servants should be out of the way, and so made his appearance at the head of a few broken-winded old fellows, that were no match, of course, for Dan and his Irishmen. He then doubled his fists, and pretended to administer a tremendous blow on Dan's sconce; but Dan, parrying it with much ease, repaid him with a cross-buttock, and down dropped Allsop on his back, like a prize-ox under a cleaver, without uttering a word, and lay for dead. This pantomime, however, was not so well performed, but that Bobby and Manley, and some of the other servants, whom Allsop had taken care not to bring with him, but who, hearing the din, had followed to the spot, saw plainly that the thing was a sham fight; one shouted out shame in Allsop's ear, in hopes of bringing him to time, another threw a basin of cold water over him, a third poked him in the ribs, but all in vain-he seemed as dead as mutton. They did their best, however, to prevent the burglary from being committed; but they were so sadly outnumbered by the gang, that, in spite of all they could do, the ruffians made their way into the house, and marched off with believe, be said with the strictest truth, that no one ever read the Greek language, even after devoting his whole life to the study of it, with greater facility than Mr Pitt at the age of twenty-one." Among his classical acquirements he did not forget the writers of his own country. He read the poets with delight, and the historians and politicians with diligence and instruction. He even wrote verses, and at an early age had contributed his part with his brothers and sisters to a play in rhyme, which they acted before their father and family circle. His favourite prose models were Middleton's Life of Cicero, and Bolingbroke's political and historical works. He read Barrow's Sermons by the desire of his father, who pronounced them an admirable reper tory of language. In the university he attended with great interest to Dr Halifax's lectures on civil law. taphysicians in general. The details For three years after his entrance at college, his health had continued to form a serious impediment to his progress. In 1773, he was seized with an illness which had nearly deprived the world of his abilities. He was so weak on his recovery, that the journey to London occupied four days. But this shock finally confirmed his constitution. Exercise, attention to diet, and early hours, rapidly recruited him after a confinement of two months, and at eighteen he had every prospect of longevity. The incessant toils of public life alone seem to have shortened his bright and powerful career. In college he was remarkable for propriety of conduct. The son of the Earl of Chatham, the first and most popular minister that England had seen for a century, must have been a conspicuous object of attention and temptation. But Pitt was above the poor celebrity to be gained by violations of order. It is well worth remembering that this youth, at the height of all that life could offer, was to be seen attending the public duties of his college with a strictness which would be meritorious in the student whose conduct was to be his fortune. No man was more regularly present morning and evening at chapel, and he was never known to pass an evening out of the college |
