A
letter of the poet Hayley to him will serve to suggest the extent of his
loss in limiting his intercourse to a comparatively small coterie:

Felpham, near Chichester, _Sept. 9_[?].[608]

DEAR PITT,

Why are you slow in doing the little good in your power? Yes:
great as you are, the real good you can do must be little; but
that little I once believed you would ever haste to do with a
generous eagerness and enthusiasm, and therefore I used to
contemplate your character with an enthusiastic affection. That
character, high as it was, sunk in my estimation from the
calamitous delay concerning the promised pension of Cowper, a
delay which allowed that dear and now released sufferer to sink
into utter and useless distraction before the neglected promise
was fulfilled. Will you make me some amends for the affectionate
concern I suffered for the diminution of your glory in that
business by expediting now a pension eagerly but ineffectively
solicited by many _great people_, as I am told, for a most
deserving woman, the widow of Mr. Green, the consul at Nice?...
Deserve and receive a kind and constant remembrance in the
benedictions of a recluse who has still the ambition to live in
your regard by the good which he would excite you to perform. At
all events forgive this very unexpected intrusion and
importunity from the old and long sequestered admirer of your
youth,
W. HAYLEY.

Hayley's letter is a trifle too presumptuous in tone even for an old
friend; but it affords one more proof of Pitt's neglect of literary men,
though it is but fair to remember that in 1793-4 he was hard pressed by
the outbreak of war with France and the struggle to keep the Allies
together. Still, the greatest of statesmen is he who, in the midst of
world politics, neither neglects old friends, nor forgets the claims of
literature and art. In this connection it is painful to add that he
allowed the yearly stipend of the King's Painter, Sir Joshua Reynolds,
to be reduced from L200 to L50. On Reynolds soliciting the secretaryship
to the Order of the Bath, he was told that it had been promised to an
official of the Treasury. Another request, proffered through his patron,
the Duke of Rutland, also proved fruitless, and he had reason to write
with some bitterness--"Mr. Pitt, I fear, has not much a