Of his character it is difficult to speak so as to escape contradiction ; he passed his life in contests, and their influence extends beyond his grave. In his private relations it is universally admitted, that, under a cold and rather haughty exterior, he bore a mind of great amiableness and sterling worth. The enthusiasm with which his inti mate friends regarded him gives proof of this. " With a manner somewhat reserved and distant," says Mr. Rose, "in what might be termed his public deportment, no man was ever better qualified to gain, or more successful in fixing, the attachment of his friends than Mr. Pitt. They aaw all the powerful energies of his character softened into the most perfect complacency and sweetness of disposition, in the circles of private life ; the pleasures of which no one more cheerfully enjoyed, or more agreeably promot ed, when the paramount duties he conceived himself to owe to the public admitted of his mixing in them. That indignant severity with which he met and subdued what he considered unfounded opposition ; that keenness of sar casm with which he expelled and withered, as it might be said, the powers of most of his assailants in debate, were exchanged, in the society of his intimate friends, for a kindness of heart, a gentleness of demeanour, and a play fulness of good humour, which no one ever witnessed without interest, or participated without delight." His merits as a public man arc yet a matter of vehe ment discussion, and bid fair long to continue so. That he was a powerful speaker—unrivalled for the choice of his words, the lucid arrangement of his statements, the address and ingenuity of his arguments—appears to be universctly granted. That he was a skilful financier— distinguished for the sagacity of his plans and the dili gence with which he reduced them to practice—appears also to be granted, though less universally. But with re gard to the wisdom of his foreign and domestic policy, there is no unanimity of opinion even among those best qualified to judge him. His friends have exalted his me rits to the highest pitch of human excellence ; his ene mies have represented him as destitute of great ideas, a narrow seeker of temporary expedients, who sacrificed the cause of freedom to a love of place and kingly favour.
No doubt there is much exaggeration in this. The change of his political sentiments after his accession to authority is certainly a circumstance unfavourable to his general reputation ; but the impartial observer will hesi tate before adopting so mournful a solution of it. In this world of vicissitudes, it is not necessarily owing to un soundness of moral principle that the opinions of our first age cease to be those of our last. Mr. Pitt, in his twenty fourth year, arrived at the highest station which a subject can hope for, without any violation of sincerity ; it was na tural that he should look on the business of reform with very different eyes when he viewed it as a minister and as a popular orator—on the side of its benefits and on the side of its inconveniences ; that, as he gradually accus tomed himself to the exercise of power, and grew in years, and influence, and strength of habits, the ardent innovator should pass by degrees into the wary minister, for whom the machine of government was less a thing to beautify and improve than to keep moving with steadiness and quiet. There seems no need for more sinister imputa tions in all this; and Mr. Pitt's general conduct proved too well the independence of his mind to admit of such being formed. His treatment of Lord Shelburne, the to tal inattention he uniformly showed to personal profit or aggrandizement, should acquit him of such charges. When the jarrings of Whig and tory have given place to other causes of discord, as they succeeded others, a dis tant posterity will join the names of Pitt, and his rival Fox, to the names of the Chathams, the Oxenstierns, the Colberts, and other great statesmen of Europe ; it will be for the same posterity to decide what rank they shall occupy in that august series—to trace with clearness the influence due to their actions, and assign to each the proper share of gratitude or blame.—See Gifford's Life of Pitt, Tom line's Lfe, &c. kc. &c.