Lord Chatham, His Early Life and ConnectionsRosebery, Archibald Philip Primrose, Earl of
History
Lord Chatham, His Early Life and Connections
Rosebery, Archibald Philip Primrose, Earl of
Pitt, William, Earl of Chatham, 1708-1778
'Say, what gave Camelford his wished for rank?
Did he devote old Sarum to the Bank?
Or did he not, that envied rank to gain,
Transfer the victim to the Treasury's fame?' (_sic_)
But, though he was by no means destitute of the family characteristics,
this Thomas was a man of high honour, character and charm. He won the
heart of Horace Walpole, whose neighbour he was, until they quarrelled,
as of course they were sure to do. But for a time Horace, whose
affection was not often or easily given and whose confidence in matters
of taste was fastidious, gave both affection and confidence unstintedly
to this young man. He attracted, too, the still rarer tenderness of his
uncle William. To him Chatham addressed the well-known letters on
education which he found time to write in all the business of office;
though Thomas on attaining manhood repaid him with the most cordial
aversion. This sentiment, which seems at first to savour of ingratitude,
is not in reality difficult to explain. In the first place, the uncle
was to some extent involved in those financial questions connected with
the paternal inheritance in which the father played, as we have seen, so
intrepid though unscrupulous a part. Mutual aversion facilitated mutual
disagreement in matters always fertile of friction; and the younger
Thomas, though he had an ill opinion of his father, sided with him as
against his uncle. We cannot, even on Thomas's own showing, blame the
uncle in these rather petty transactions, and William's besetting sin
was certainly not avarice; but neither can we blame the son for siding
with the father. On an impartial survey we may conclude that disputes
between two Pitts who were near descendants of the Governor were
incapable of an amicable solution.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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