eformers, and in due time
lined up on the side of the conservatives, and gradually succumbed to a
strictly aristocratic disease, gout. Whether genius is transmissible or
not is a question, but all authorities agree as to gout.

Pitt's opposition to the Walpoles was so very firmly rooted that it
continued for life, and for this he was rewarded by the Duchess of
Marlborough with a legacy of ten thousand pounds. Her Grace was the
mother of the lady who had the felicity to have her picture painted by
Gainsborough, which picture was brought to America and secreted here for
many years and finally was purchased for sixty-five thousand dollars by
Pierpont Morgan, through the kind offices of my friend Patricius Sheedy,
Philistine-at-Large.

The Duchess in her will said she gave the money to Pitt as "an
acknowledgment of the noble defense he had made for the support of the
laws of England." But the belief is that it was her hatred for Walpole
that prompted her admiration for Pitt. And her detestation of Walpole
was not so much political as sentimental--a woman's love-affairs being
much more to her than patriotism--but the Duchess being a woman deceived
herself as to reasons. Our acts are right, but our reasons seldom are. I
leave this Marlborough matter with those who are interested in the
psychology of the heart--merely calling attention to the fact that
although the Duchess was ninety when she passed out, the warm
experiences of her early womanhood were very vivid in her memory. If you
wish to know when love dies out of a woman's brain, you will have to ask
some one who is older than was the Duchess of Marlborough.

When George the Second died, and his grandson George the Third came into
power, Pitt resigned his office in the Cabinet and abandoned politics.

At last he found time to get married. He was then forty-six years of
age.

Men retire from active life, but seldom remain upon the shelf--either
life or death takes them down. In five years' time we find the King
offering Pitt anything in sight, and Mr. Pitt, the Great Commoner,
became Viscount Pitt, Earl of Chatham.

By this move Pitt lost in popularity more than he had gained in
dignity--there was a complete revulsion of feeling toward him by the
people, and he never again attained the influence and power he had once
known.

Burke once referred to a certain proposed bill as "insignificant,
irrelevant, pompous, creeping, explanatory and ambiguous--done in the
true