This surprising circumstance, when at last become undeniable, makes, on the sudden, an immense difference for the Speeches and you! Speeches are not a thing of high moment to this Editor; it is the Thing spoken, and how far the speaker means to do it, that this Editor inquires for. Too many Speeches there are, which he hears admired all round, and has privately to entertain a very horrid notion of! Speeches, the finest in quality (were quality really 'fine' conceivable in such case), which WANT a corresponding fineness of source and intention, corresponding nobleness of purport, conviction, tendency; these, if we will reflect, are frightful instead of beautiful. Yes;--and always the frightfuler, the 'finer' they are; and the faster and farther they go, sowing themselves in the dim vacancy of men's minds. For Speeches, like all human things, though the fact is now little remembered, do always rank themselves as forever blessed, or as forever unblessed.
Sheep or goats; on the right hand of the Final Judge, or else on the left. There are Speeches which can be called true; and, again, Speeches which are not true:--Heavens, only think what these latter are! Sacked wind, which you are intended to SOW,--that you may reap the whirlwind! After long reading, I find Chatham's Speeches to be what he pretends they are: true, and worth speaking then and there.
Noble indeed, I can call them with you: the highly noble Foreshadow, necessary preface and accompaniment of Actions which are still nobler. A very singular phenomenon within those walls, or without!
"Pitt, though nobly eloquent, is a Man of Action, not of Speech;an authentically Royal kind of Man. And if there were a Plutarch in these times, with a good deal of leisure on his hands, he might run a Parallel between Friedrich and Chatham. Two radiant Kings: very shining Men of Action both; both of them hard bested, as the case often is. For your born King will generally have, if not "all Europe against him," at least pretty much all the Universe.
Chatham's course to Kingship was not straight or smooth,--as Friedrich, too, had his well-nigh fatal difficulties on the road.
Again, says the Plutarch, they are very brave men both; and of a clearness and veracity peculiar among their contemporaries.
In Chatham, too, there is something of the flash of steel; a very sharp-cutting, penetrative, rapid individual, he too; and shaped for action, first of all, though he has to talk so much in the world. Fastidious, proud, no King could be prouder, though his element is that of Free-Senate and Democracy. And he has a beautiful poetic delicacy, withal; great tenderness in him, playfulness, grace; in all ways, an airy as well as a solid loftiness of mind. Not born a King,--alas, no, not officially so, only naturally so; has his kingdom to seek. The Conquering of Silesia, the Conquering of the Pelham Parliaments--But we will shut up the Plutarch with time on his hands.
"Pitt's Speeches, as I spell them from Walpole and the other faint tracings left, are full of genius in the vocal kind, far beyond any Speeches delivered in Parliament: serious always, and the very truth, such as he has it; but going in many dialects and modes;full of airy flashings, twinkles and coruscations. Sport, as of sheet-lightning glancing about, the bolt lying under the horizon;bolt HIDDEN, as is fit, under such a horizon as he had.
A singularly radiant man. Could have been a Poet, too, in some small measure, had he gone on that line. There are many touches of genius, comic, tragic, lyric, something of humor even, to be read in those Shadows of Speeches taken down for us by Walpole. ...
"In one word, Pitt, shining like a gleam of sharp steel in that murk of contemptibilities, is carefully steering his way towards Kingship over it. Tragical it is (especially in Pitt's case, first and last) to see a Royal Man, or Born King, wading towards his throne in such an element. But, alas, the Born King (even when he tries, which I take to be the rarer case) so seldom can arrive there at all;--sinful Epochs there are, when Heaven's curse has been spoken, and it is that awful Being, the Born Sham-King, that arrives! Pitt, however, does it. Yes; and the more we study Pitt, the more we shall find he does it in a peculiarly high, manful and honorable as well as dexterous manner; and that English History has a right to call him 'the acme and highest man of Constitutional Parliaments; the like of whom was not in any Parliament called Constitutional, nor will again be.'"Well, probably enough; too probably! But what it more concerns us to remember here, is the fact, That in these dismal shufflings which have been, Pitt--in spite of Royal dislikes and Newcastle peddlings and chicaneries--has been actually in Office, in the due topmost place, the poor English Nation ardently demanding him, in what ways it could. Been in Office;--and is actually out again, in spite of the Nation. Was without real power in the Royal Councils;though of noble promise, and planting himself down, hero-like, evidently bent on work, and on ending that unutterable "St.-Vitus's-dance" that had gone so high all round him.
Without real power, we say; and has had no permanency. Came in llth-19th November, 1756; thrown out 5th April, 1757. After six months' trial, the St. Vitus finds that it cannot do with him;and will prefer going on again. The last act his Royal Highness of Cumberland did in England was to displace Pitt: "Down you, I am the man!" said Royal Highness; and went to the Weser Countries on those terms.
Would the reader wish to see, in summary, what Pitt's Offices have been, since he entered on this career about thirty years ago?