His perspicuous and never-failing flow of language was due, not a little, to an early habit of translating at sight, from Greek and Latin orators, under direction of his father the Earl of Chatham--not taught by this great master to give slavish word for word translation; but as apt and polished and vigorous a rendering as he could accomplish, without any surrender, or mal-presentment of the leading thoughts. Nor do I know any class-room exercise, nowadays, which would so test and amplify a young student's vocabulary, or teach him better the easy and forcible use of his own language. But, to have its full disciplinary power, it should be a loud, _ore rotunda_ rendering--not a {194} mere lip-service; a launch, straight out from shores, into whatever waters or wilds the heathen orators may be sailing upon, and a full showing of their changing drift--whether in the eddies of a playful irony, or under the driving sweep of their storms of denunciation. Singularly apart from literary men, and most literary influences, Macaulay has objected (perhaps with some reason) to Pitt's cruel disregard of Dr. Johnson's needs and longings in his latter years; it would have been a charming thing, for instance, for the son of Chatham to put a Government ship at the service of the invalided philosopher, for a voyage under Italian skies; but with Pitt, the large political ends which were taking shape in his mind, and in process of evolution, blinded him to lesser and personal or kindly interests. A nod of the obstinate old king would have counted for more than a tragedy of _Irene_. All his classicism was but a weapon to smite with, or from which to forge the links of those shining parentheses by which he strangled an opponent. Nothing beyond or below the cool, considerate humanities of the cultured, self-poised gentleman {195} (unless we except some rare outbreak of petulance) belongs to this great orator, who could thrust one through with a rapier held by the best rules of fence; and who never did or could say a word so warm as to touch a friend or make an enemy forget his courtliness. Guiding the political fate of England through a period of such strain, as demanded more nerve and more discretion than any period of a century before, or of a century thereafter--admired by all, and loved by very few, Pitt died quite alone, in a little cottage on Wimbledon Common[5]--even his servants had left;--died too of old age; an old age that grew out of his tormenting labors and ambitions--before he was fifty. _An Orator and Playwright._ [Sidenote: Sheridan.]