though often interrupted by illness,
were prosecuted with extraordinary success. Before the lad had completed
his fifteenth year, his knowledge both of the ancient languages and
of mathematics was such as very few men of eighteen then carried up to
college. He was therefore sent, towards the close of the year 1773,
to Pembroke Hall, in the university of Cambridge. So young a student
required much more than the ordinary care which a college tutor bestows
on undergraduates. The governor, to whom the direction of William's
academical life was confided, was a bachelor of arts named Pretyman, who
had been senior wrangler in the preceding year, and who, though not a
man of prepossessing appearance or brilliant parts, was eminently
acute and laborious, a sound scholar, and an excellent geometrician.
At Cambridge, Pretyman was, during more than two years, the inseparable
companion, and indeed almost the only companion of his pupil. A close
and lasting friendship sprang up between the pair. The disciple was
able, before he completed his twenty-eighth year, to make his preceptor
Bishop of Lincoln and Dean of St Paul's; and the preceptor showed
his gratitude by writing a life of the disciple, which enjoys the
distinction of being the worst biographical work of its size in the
world.

Pitt, till he graduated, had scarcely one acquaintance, attended chapel
regularly morning and evening, dined every day in hall, and never went
to a single evening party. At seventeen, he was admitted, after the bad
fashion of those times, by right of birth, without any examination, to
the degree of the Master of Arts. But he continued during some years
to reside at college, and to apply himself vigorously, under Pretyman's
direction, to the studies of the place, while mixing freely in the best
academic society.

The stock of learning which Pitt laid in during this part of his life
was certainly very extraordinary. In fact, it was all that he ever
possessed; for he very early became too busy to have any spare time
for books. The work in which he took the greatest delight was Newton's
Principia. His liking for mathematics, indeed, amounted to a passion,
which, in the opinion of his instructors, themselves distinguished
mathematicians, required to be checked rather than encouraged. The
acuteness and readiness with which he solved problems was pronounced by
one of the ablest of the moderators, who in those days presided over
the disputations in the sch