of Chatham was to be devoted. He
was the fourth child and second son; the third son and last child of
Chatham was born two years later. William Pitt was delicate from his
infancy, and by reason of his delicacy was never sent to school. He
was educated by private tuition, directly guided and controlled by his
father. From the first he was precocious, full of promise, full of
performance. He acquired knowledge eagerly and surely; what he learned
he learned well and thoroughly. Trained from his cradle in the
acquirements essential to a public life, he applied himself, as soon as
he was of an age to appreciate his tastes and to form a purpose, to
equipping himself at all points for a political career. When the great
Chatham died he left behind him a son who was to be as famous as
himself, a statesman formed in his own school, trained in his own
methods, inspired by his counsels, and guided by {215} his example. A
legend which may be more than legend has it that from the first destiny
seemed determined to confront the genius and the fame of Fox with the
genius and the fame of Pitt. It is said that the Foxes were assured by
a relative of the Pitts that the young son of Chatham, then a child
under a tutor's charge, showed parts which were sure to prove him a
formidable rival to the precocious youth who was at once the delight
and the despair of Lord Holland's life. It is certain that the young
Fox was early made acquainted with the ripe intelligence and eager
genius of the younger Pitt. It was his chance to stand with the boy
one night at the bar of the House of Lords, and to be attracted and
amazed at the avidity with which Pitt followed the debate, the sagacity
with which he commented upon what he saw and heard, and the readiness
with which he formulated answers to arguments which failed to carry
conviction to his dawning wisdom. Pitt loved the House of Commons
while he was still in the schoolroom; it was inevitable that he should
belong to the House of Commons, and he entered it at the earliest
possible moment, even before he was legally qualified to do so, for he
was not quite of age when he first took his seat.

The qualities of fairness and fitness which Greek wisdom praised in the
conduct of life were characteristic of Pitt's life. In its zealous,
patient preparation for public life, its noble girding of the loins
against great issues, its wistful renunciation of human hopes, its
early consciousness of terr