But he was
the leader of an unsuccessful party. Even, comparatively
speaking, in our own times, the same mysterious oblivion is
sometimes encouraged to creep over personages of great social
distinction as well as political importance.
The name of the second Pitt remains, fresh after forty years
of great events, a parliamentary beacon. He was the
Chatterton of politics; the "marvellous boy." Some have a
vague impression that he was mysteriously moulded by his great
father: that he inherited the genius, the eloquence, the state
craft of Chatham. His genius was of a different bent, his
eloquence of a different class, his state craft of a different
school. To understand Mr Pitt, one must understand one of the
suppressed characters of English history, and that is Lord
Shelburne.
When the fine genius of the injured Bolingbroke, the only peer
of his century who was educated, and proscribed by the
oligarchy because they were afraid of his eloquence, "the
glory of his order and the shame," shut out from Parliament,
found vent in those writings which recalled to the English
people the inherent blessings of their old free monarchy, and
painted in immortal hues his picture of a patriot king, the
spirit that he raised at length touched the heart of Carteret
born a whig, yet scepticai of the advantages of that patrician
constitution which made the Duke of Newcastle the most
incompetent of men, but the chosen leader of the Venetian
party, virtually sovereign of England.
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