Mr. Pitt was tall and thin, and wore a sad and mocking look. His utterance was cold, his intonation monotonous, his gestures imperceptible; nevertheless, the lucidity and fluency of his thought, the logic of his arguments, suddenly lighted with flashes of eloquence, raised his talent to something out of the common. I used often to see Mr. Pitt, when he went from his house on foot across St. James's Park, to wait upon the King. George III.[356], on his side, arrived from Windsor after drinking beer out of a pewter pot with the neighbouring farmers; he drove through the ugly court-yards of his ugly palace in a dowdy carriage followed by a few Horse-guards. That was the master of the Kings of Europe, as five or six City merchants are the masters of India. Mr. Pitt, in a black coat, a steel-hilted sword at his side, his hat under his arm, climbed the stairs, taking two or three steps at a time. On his way he found only three or four unemployed Emigrants: casting a scornful look in their direction, he went on, with his nose in the air, and his pale face. The great financier maintained no order in his own affairs, had no regular hours for his meals or his sleep. Over head and ears in debt, he paid nobody, and could not bring himself to add up a bill. A footman kept house for him. Badly dressed, with no pleasures, no passions, greedy only for power, he scorned honours, and refused to be more than plain William Pitt. Lord Liverpool, in the month of June last, 1822, took me to dine at his country-place: when we were crossing Putney Heath, he showed me the little house in which died, a poor man, the son of Lord Chatham, the statesman who had taken Europe into his pay and with his own hand distributed all the millions in the world[357]. George III. survived Mr. Pitt, but he had lost his reason and his sight. Every session, at the opening of Parliament, the ministers read to the silent and moved Houses the bulletin of the King's health. One day I had gone to visit Windsor: a few shillings persuaded an obliging door-keeper to hide me so that I might see the King. The monarch, white-haired and blind, appeared, wandering like King Lear through his palace and groping with his hands along the walls of the apartments. He sat down to a piano, of which he knew the position, and played some portions of a sonata by Handel[358]: a fine ending for Old England!