Lord Chatham’s letters written to his son about this period overflow with parental affection and judicious advice. After the too eager and ambitious youth had recovered from a severe illness, he was thus touchingly addressed by his justly gratified father: “How happy the task, my noble, amiable boy, to caution you only against pursuing too much all those liberal and praiseworthy things to which less happy natures have perpetually to be spurred and driven. I will not tease you with too long a lecture in favor of inaction and a competent stupidity――your two best tutors and companions at present. You have time to spare; consider, there is but the Encyclopedia. And when you have mastered all that, what will remain? You will want, like Alexander, another world to conquer.” After removing from the University the younger Pitt repaired to the Continent, and spent some time at Rheims, still resolutely pursuing his studies and adding to his stores of knowledge. In 1778 his famous father died, under circumstances which rendered him dearer than ever to the country, of whose honor and interest he was ever so vigilant a guardian, and whose name he made so great, and dreaded among the nations of the earth. Pitt, who had been present when Lord Chatham fell down in the House of Lords while raising his enfeebled voice to cheer the drooping spirits of Englishmen, appeared at the public funeral as chief mourner, and ere long proved the inheritor of his father’s popularity. Between them had existed the strongest affection and the most complete confidence. Having duly kept his terms at Lincoln’s Inn, Pitt was called to the bar in 1780, and went the western circuit with sufficient encouragement to justify expectations of success in his legal pursuits. Lord Mansfield, indeed, declared, that if he persevered in the profession he would be regarded as one of its chief ornaments. But it was perfectly natural that he should rather aspire to parliamentary distinction; and accordingly he engaged in an unsuccessful contest for the representation of Cambridge University. It was, however, for Appleby, a borough under the influence of the Lowthers, that he was first, through the friendship of the Duke of Rutland, returned to that house, which was so often stilled into silence as he rose to speak, delighted as his grand voice swelled in every ear, and filled with thunders of applause as he, with a coolness and self-possession unfelt by all listeners, resumed his place with a look of lofty contempt for his foes.