of its author, and of abiding
value as a standard book of reference for one of the greatest
personalities and one of the most stirring periods of English
history. Earl Stanhope died on December 24, 1875.

_I.--The Boy Statesman_

William Pitt, the elder, afterwards Earl of Chatham, married in 1754
Lady Hester Grenville. William Pitt, their second son, was born on May
28, 1759, at Hayes, near Bromley, in Kent.

In his boyhood, from the earliest years, William Pitt evinced to all
around him many tokens of intellectual promise and ambition; but his
parents were frequently distressed by his delicate health. It was no
doubt on this account that he was not sent to any public or private
school. Lord Chatham was extremely careful of the education of his
family; and, without any disparagement to young William's tutor, it was
certainly from his father that he profited most.

William was at fourteen so forward in his studies that he was sent to
Cambridge, commencing his residence at Pembroke Hall in October 1773.
His health at this period gave cause for great alarm. A serious illness
at Cambridge, however, proved a turning-point; for long afterwards he
enjoyed fairly good health. Early hours, daily exercise on horseback,
and liberal potations of port wine--his elixir of strength at this time,
although it helped in later years to undermine his constitution--made
him far stronger after his illness than before it.

In 1778, after the death of his father, he was entered at Lincoln's Inn,
and was called to the Bar in 1780. But he had little opportunity of
practising as a barrister, for his parliamentary ambitions were soon
fulfilled. In the autumn of 1780 he was an unsuccessful candidate for
Cambridge University; but through the influence of Sir James Lowther he
was returned in the same year for Appleby, and took his seat in the
Commons on January 23, 1781.

Lord North was still at the head of affairs, and the Opposition
consisted of two parties: the aristocratic Whigs, whose leader was the
Marquis of Rockingham, but whose true guiding spirit was Charles James
Fox; and a smaller band of the old adherents of Lord Chatham, under Lord
Shelburne. To this party Pitt, as a matter of course, attached himself.
His first speech was made on February 26, in support of Burke's bill for
economical reform. He completely fulfilled the high expectations that
had been formed of the son of so illustrious a father. Not only did h