pot where his great rival was soon to lie. The sadness of the
assistants was beyond that of ordinary mourners. For he whom they were
committing to the dust had died of sorrows and anxieties of which none
of the survivors could be altogether without a share. Wilberforce, who
carried the banner before the hearse, described the awful ceremony with
deep feeling. As the coffin descended into the earth, he said, the eagle
face of Chatham from above seemed to look down with consternation into
the dark house which was receiving all that remained of so much power
and glory.

All parties in the House of Commons readily concurred in voting forty
thousand pounds to satisfy the demands of Pitt's creditors. Some of his
admirers seemed to consider the magnitude of his embarrassments as a
circumstance highly honourable to him; but men of sense will probably
be of a different opinion. It is far better, no doubt, that a great
minister should carry his contempt of money to excess than that he
should contaminate his hands with unlawful gain. But it is neither right
nor becoming in a man to whom the public has given an income more than
sufficient for his comfort and dignity to bequeath to that public a
great debt, the effect of mere negligence and profusion. As first Lord
of the Treasury and Chancellor of the Exchequer, Pitt never had less
than six thousand a year, besides an excellent house. In 1792 he was
forced by his royal master's friendly importunity to accept for life
the office of Warden of the Cinque Ports, with near four thousand a year
more. He had neither wife nor child; he had no needy relations: he had
no expensive tastes: he had no long election bills. Had he given but a
quarter of an hour a week to the regulation of his household, he would
have kept his expenditure within bounds. Or, if he could not spare even
a quarter of an hour a week for that purpose, he had numerous friends,
excellent men of business, who would have been proud to act as his
stewards. One of those friends, the chief of a great commercial house in
the city, made an attempt to put the establishment in Downing Street to
rights; but in vain. He found that the waste of the servants' hall was
almost fabulous. The quantity of butcher's meat charged in the bills was
nine hundredweight a week. The consumption of poultry, of fish, and of
tea was in proportion. The character of Pitt would have stood higher
if with the disinterestedness of Pericles and of De Witt, he