“With prospects bright upon the world he came, Pure love of virtue, strong desire of fame; Men marked the lofty path his mind would take, And all foretold the progress he should make.” The family to which this illustrious man belonged was rich and respectable, though not patrician in origin or descent. The Pitts were for ages settled in Dorsetshire, but at length one of them became Governor of Madras, and brought home from the East that celebrated diamond, the largest then known to be in existence, which was sold to the Regent Orleans for more than three millions of livres, and took its place as the most precious of the crown jewels of France. The son of this fortunate functionary was a gentleman of Cornwall, and hereditary patron of some boroughs; for one of which, Old Sarum, his second son, a cornet in the Blues, was returned to Parliament. The talents of the latter were speedily exerted in such a way as to give offense to Sir Robert Walpole, who manifested the annoyance he felt by dismissing him from the army: but nothing could restrain the course of that terrible eloquence, which, in reality, was hardly under its possessor’s control. Instead of depending, as others had done, on oligarchies and “pocket-lists,” he relied for support on the middle classes, then struggling into importance, and, with their aid, ere long became the greatest war-minister who ever presided over the destinies of England. He married a daughter of the political house of Grenville, whose members played so conspicuous a part in the affairs of the eighteenth century, and had several children, of whom William Pitt, the second son, was born at Hayes, in the county of Kent, on the 28th of May, 1759.