In considering the estimates which were formed of Mr. Pitt's and Mr. Fox's characters respectively, more especially in point of what may be called popularity; and also as to their reputation for genius, wit, and classical taste, it should be remembered that Mr. Fox happened to have become connected, both at school and at Oxford, with a circle of men eminent for talents and classical proficiency, men also who were not shut up in cloisters, but who lived in the world, and gave the tone in the highest and most polished societies of the metropolis. Among these were Mr. Hare, General Fitzpatrick, Lord John Townshend; and to these must be added Mr. Windham, Mr. Erskine, and, above all, Mr. Sheridan. Mr. Pitt had also several college friends who came into Parliament about the same period with himself, men of no inferior consideration­--Mr. Bankes, Mr. Eliot, Lord Abercorn, Lord Spencer, and several others. But these, it must be confessed, were by no means men of the same degree of brilliancy as the former set; nor did they in the same degree live in the circle of fashion and there diffuse their own opinions. Again Mr. Fox's political connections were numerous, and such as naturally tended to stamp a high value on his character. Burke, Barré­--for there were those also who though not of Fox's party, often associated with him in private, and tended to sustain the general estimate of his superiority; of these were Gibbon, Lord Thurlow, Dunning, Jeykell. [Illustration: THE RIGHT HONBLE. WILLIAM PITT.] Again, the necessity under which Mr. Pitt often lay of opening and speaking upon subjects of a low and vulgarising quality, such as the excise on tobacco, wine, &c., &c., topics almost incapable with propriety, of an association with wit or grace, especially in one who was so utterly devoid of all disposition to seek occasions for shining, tended to produce a real mediocrity of sentiment and a lack of ornament, as well as to increase the impression that such was the nature of his oratory. Also the speeches of a minister were of necessity more guarded, and his subjects, except where he was opening some new proposition or plan, were rather prescribed to him by others, than selected by himself.[22] * * * * * The MS. of Canning's lines on Pitt is amongst the Wilberforce Papers; they are so little known that no apology is needed for inserting them here. Canning wrote them for the feast in honour of Pitt's birthday, May 28, 1802. It will be remembered that Pitt had resigned in 1801, because the King would not accept his Irish policy. A vote of censure had been moved, and was not merely rejected, but, by an overwhelming majority, it was carried "that the Right Hon. William Pitt has rendered great and important services to his country, and especially deserved the gratitude of this House."[23] THE PILOT THAT WEATHER'D THE STORM. (_A Song written in 1802._)