Part 19

A very simple inscription, ending with the words, "Other sheep I have which are not of this fold. Them also must I bring," marks the place in the nave where, with a curious significance, Livingstone, an architect of the Empire, lies close to other architects, Sir Charles Barry, Sir Gilbert Scott, and John Pearson, whose works are to be seen in the Houses of Parliament, Westminster Abbey, and Westminster Hall.

We cannot leave these lovers of humanity without one glance at the statue of the good Earl of Shaftesbury, the friend of little children and of all those who were desolate and oppressed. Possessed of all that could make life attractive to him, he devoted himself to his dying day to the service of his fellows, and his name will go down to history as the liberator of the white slaves in England. For, as Wilberforce championed the negro, Shaftesbury fought long and steadily in the cause of the women and children employed in factories and collieries, who worked sometimes for thirty-six hours at a time under the most appalling conditions. At last he forced Parliament to take action, and to pass the Ten Hours' Bill, besides insisting that factory inspectors were appointed to see that all workers were protected as the law intended they should be. That was his greatest work, but to tell of all that he did would fill a volume with a record of golden deeds. Ever ready to lead an unpopular cause; an enthusiast without being a fanatic; strong, clear-headed, steadfast, reliable, and single-hearted, he stands out a noble figure in the social history of the nineteenth century. Just before his death, in 1885, his friend, Dean Stanley, in writing to him, spoke of Westminster Abbey as the place where he should rest. But the old man shook his head and begged to be buried in his country home.

However, the Abbey could not altogether refrain from doing him honour, and through streets lined with people, many of them the poorest in the land, most of them wearing some outward sign of mourning, a bit of black ribbon or a scrap of crape, followed by deputations from almost every charitable association, the coffin was carried to Westminster. Around it stood high and low, rich and poor. The wreaths sent by royal princes lay Bide by side with the tributes from the flower-girls and the boys on the training-ships. A mighty volume of sound ascended to the vaulted roof, as the familiar hymn was sung--

"Let saints on earth in concert sing, With those whose rest is won, For all the servants of our King In earth and heaven are one!"

Then the organ ceased, the Blessing was given, and the great procession left the Abbey to the march of the coster-mongers' band, to the tramp of thousands of feet, whose way in life he had made more easy and more blessed.

In the north aisle of the nave rest three great men, builders in another way, who have served the world by their thoughts--Newton, Herschel, and Darwin.

Sir Isaac Newton made one of the most wonderful discoveries in the world of science and nature, the law of gravitation, and also invented a method by which the whole course of a comet could be calculated. On his monument you will see a globe, covered with constellations and the path of a comet, while below are groups of children weighing the sun and the moon. The long Latin epitaph was one which greatly offended Dr. Johnson, who said that "none but philosophers could understand it."

Sir John Herschel was the son of a distinguished father, and from his boyhood he resolved to follow in his father's footsteps. "To put my shoulders to the wheel, and to leave the world a little better than I found it," was the ideal he set before himself whilst at Cambridge, and in this spirit he carried on the work of making a careful study of the stars in the southern hemisphere, which had never been done before.

Besides astronomy he was devoted to books, especially to poetry, and translated many of Schiller's poems, as well as parts of the "Iliad," into English. "Give a man," he said, "once the taste for reading good books, and you place him in contact with the best society in every period of history, with the wisest, the wittiest, the tenderest, the bravest, and the purest of characters who have adorned humanity. You make him a denizen of all nations, a contemporary of all ages."

His eyes were fixed on the stars; his heart was ever set on those things that are above. These are the beautiful words in which he has described the object and the end of all his study:--

"To spring even a little way aloft, to carol for awhile in bright and sunny regions--to open the doors of the human mind to let in light and knowledge, always sure that right will come right at last--to rise to the level of our strength, and if we must sink again, to sink not exhausted but exercised, not dulled in spirit, but cheered in heart--such may be the contented and happy lot of him who can repose with equal confidence on the bosom of the earth, or ride above the mists of earth into the empyrean day."

He died loaded with honours in 1871, though no man sought fame or honour less.

"Enough if cleansed at last from earthly stain, My homeward step be firm, and pure my evening sky."

Thus had he written, and how could longing soar higher?

Charles Darwin was perhaps the greatest man of the three, for after long years of patient hard work, bravely carried on through bad health, he produced as the result of his experiments a wonderful book called "The Origin of Species," in which he explained how the world, instead of being created all at once as it is to-day, has grown slowly and very gradually, through many processes, just as we ourselves, our minds, and all our powers have developed from a state of savagery into our present state of civilisation. When first Darwin published his work explaining all this, some people were frightened and horrified, and declared that he wanted to upset all the old ideas about God and religion. But thus they had said whenever a new discovery had been made, and yet with each new discovery we have only learnt more and more how great God is, and how--

"He moves in a mysterious way His wonders to perform."

So all such great discoverers as Newton, Herschel, and Darwin give us in reality the same message, which is never to be afraid of truth, for truth comes from God, and the only danger is when we doubt, even for a moment, that it must come triumphant out of every honest discussion.

*CHAPTER XIX*

*PITT AND THE STATESMEN'S CORNER*

When William Pitt, Earl of Chatham, was buried in the north transept at Westminster Abbey in the year 1778, Parliament having decreed that "he ought to be brought near to the dust of kings," and not lie in St. Paul's Cathedral, earnestly though the City of London begged for this favour, he drew to that part of the Abbey so many distinguished ministers of the Crown, that it soon received the name of the Statesmen's Corner, in distinction to the Poets' Corner which Chaucer had created. Pitt the elder and Pitt the younger, Fox, Canning, Palmerston, Castlereagh, Grattan, and Gladstone--these are the names which most closely belong to the Statesmen's Corner, and through their lives we can catch glimpses of English political life from the reign of George II. down to our own day.

William Pitt entered Parliament in 1735, and joined the party calling themselves the Patriots, rallying round the Prince of Wales, who was always at enmity with the King and Queen. This party naturally included any one opposed to Walpole, still the all-powerful minister at Court. The Patriots were young men, talented and vigorous, and their first signal victory was obtained when they forced Walpole into declaring war against Spain, that country, they insisted, having systematically hampered, injured, and insulted British traders, in spite of treaties and negotiations. Walpole was before all else a peace minister; but the Patriots, supported by the country, declared that war was necessary if England was to uphold her position and power on the seas, and Pitt, full of energy and eloquence, was one of the most powerful, though one of the youngest, among the Patriots. This war, as Walpole had foreseen, was but the prelude to a general disturbance; England became involved in Continental quarrels, and the Stuart party seized this opportunity of making a final, though unsuccessful attempt to place Prince Charles Edward on the throne. After nine years a treaty of peace was signed at Aix-la-Chapelle, and broadly speaking, the result of the war, so far as this country was concerned, was that we had been successful on the seas, in Canada, and in India, unsuccessful on the Continent. Walpole had resigned, Newcastle was a Prime Minister "who had neither judgment nor ability," and Pitt became more and more the ruling power. The year 1757 saw him virtually Prime Minister, and with his whole might he set himself to arouse a national spirit in England, to make the people see that our real future lay not in the Continent, but in the Colonies. "I can save this country, nobody else can," he said confidently at this time, and it was no vain boast. The years which followed were glorious years. In India, France had joined with a powerful native prince to oust the British traders, and had been utterly defeated at Plassey by the genius of Clive, who had but a handful of troops as against seventy thousand. That victory made the British masters of the whole province of Bengal, and laid the foundations of our Indian Empire. From henceforward the French power in India rapidly declined. In America an equal triumph crowned Pitt's policy. In Wolfe he had found a man able to do in the West what Clive did in the East, and Canada became a British Colony. Wolfe himself fell in the great struggle for Quebec, as did Montcalm, his rival French general, and a monument stands in the north ambulatory of the Abbey to the memory of the gallant young leader, who died in the hour of his victory. "It is necessary to watch for a victory every morning for fear of missing one," was the remark of Walpole's son Horace. And the nation felt that it was Pitt whose policy and whose power had made all these things possible. Parliament was entirely in his hands, he swayed the Commons by his eloquence just as he impressed them by his strength; the King supported him, and the people adored him.

But in 1760 George II. died, and his second son George, who succeeded him (Frederick Prince of Wales having died), did not care for a minister so fearless and independent. Neither was Pitt without enemies. When he saw that his opponents, supported by the King, were determined to make a peace with France of which he could not approve, he resigned, after making a powerful speech though he was very ill at the time. His words concluded thus: "It is because I see in this treaty the seeds of a future war that it meets with my most hearty disapprobation. The peace is insecure, because it restores the enemy to his former greatness; the peace is inadequate, because the places gained are no equivalent for the places surrendered." Before a year was over, all that Pitt foretold had come to pass, and England was again at war with Spain. Bute, who had been virtually Prime Minister since Pitt gave up office, now resigned, leaving in power Grenville, the leader in the House of Commons, and in a very short time Grenville brought forward a measure concerning America, which was so short-sighted and so opposed to the colonial spirit, that it could only have a disastrous ending. Practically all North America was in British hands, and it was divided into thirteen different States, besides Canada. Those States had their own Colonial Assemblies, but the supreme power rested with the British Parliament. In 1765 Grenville brought in the Stamp Act, by which American colonists had to use legal paper stamped in England for all their agreements, and this was carried without the consent of the colonists, as they had no representatives in Parliament, so that besides imposing a tax on them, Parliament had really tampered with one of their most sacred rights as British subjects. The Act was very badly received in America, and relations became so strained that Pitt, to whom any matter affecting the Colonies was very dear, came out of his retirement to protest against the Act, and brought all his splendid fearless eloquence to bear on the subject. "This kingdom has no right to tax the Colonies," he argued, and he went on to declare--

"I rejoice that America has resisted. Three millions of people so dead to all feelings of liberty as voluntarily to submit to be slaves, would have been fit instruments to make slaves of the rest.... The Commons of America have ever been in possession of their constitutional right of giving and granting their own money. They would have been slaves if they had not enjoyed it.... A gentleman asks, 'When were the Colonies emancipated?' I desire to know when were they made slaves? ... I stand up for this kingdom. I maintain that our legislative power over the Colonies is sovereign and supreme in every circumstance of government and legislation. But taxation is no part of the governing or legislative power. Taxes are a voluntary gift and grant of the Commons alone. When therefore in this House we give and grant, we give and grant what is our own. But in an American tax what do we do? We, your Majesty's Commons for Great Britain, give and grant to your Majesty--what? Our own property? No; we give and grant to your Majesty the property of your Majesty's Commons of America. It is an absurdity in terms. I beg leave to move that the Stamp Act be repealed absolutely, totally, and immediately; that the reason for the repeal be assigned because it was founded on an erroneous principle. At the same time let the sovereign authority of this country over the Colonies be asserted in as strong terms as can be devised, that we exercise every power except that of taking their money out of their pockets without their consent."

Pitt still held his sway over the House of Commons, and the Act was repealed. A few months later he was again Prime Minister, but now no longer as William Pitt, the great Commoner. He had accepted a title, to the disappointment of many of his followers, who had revered him in the past for his entire independence; and after he sat in the Lords as Earl of Chatham, his influence never made itself felt in the same way. Besides, his health continually broke down, bravely though he struggled against it, and he was often laid aside for many months at a time. During one of these periods, another irritating Act was passed, taxing all the tea, glass, and paper imported into America, and as this occurred just when the sore feelings over the Stamp Act had been allayed, it was particularly unfortunate. The Colonists looked on it as an act of revenge for their victory and determined to resist it, while the King was unfortunately surrounded by a party, of which Lord North was the chief, who urged him, whatever the cost might be, to force America into submission. Lord North becoming Prime Minister was the signal for an outbreak of public feeling in America; riots occurred, and some tea-laden ships in Boston harbour were boarded, the tea being all thrown into the water. Again Chatham raised his voice on the side of consideration, of common sense, and of conciliation.

"My Lords," he said, after he had used one telling argument after another to prove how useless and irritating had been the action of the Government, driving these loyal sons of the old country into actions which were the result of despair, and which in cooler moments they would heartily regret, "I am an old man, and I plead for a gentle mode of governing America, for the day is not far distant when America may vie with these kingdoms, not only in arms, but in arts also.... If we take a transient view of those motives which induced the ancestors of our fellow-subjects in America to leave their native country to encounter the innumerable difficulties of the unexplored regions of the western world, our astonishment at the present conduct of their descendants will naturally subside. There was no corner of the world into which men of their free and enterprising spirit would not fly with alacrity rather than submit to the slavish and tyrannical principles which prevailed at that period in their native country. And shall we wonder, my Lords, if the descendants of such illustrious characters spurn with contempt the hand of unconstitutional power, that would snatch from them the dearly-bought privilege they now contend for? My Lords, proceed like a kind and affectionate parent over a child whom he tenderly loves. Instead of these harsh and severe proceedings, pass an amnesty on their youthful errors; clasp them once more in fond, affectionate arms, and I venture to affirm you will find them children worthy of their sire."

But his powerful pleading fell on deaf ears. All in vain did he urge that though the Government might be revenged on America, no Government could conquer it. In 1775 war, terrible as a civil war, broke out between the old country and the new. The Congress raised an army, and set at the head of it George Washington. "The man first in war, first in peace, first in the hearts of his countrymen," solemnly declared that from henceforth the United Colonies would be free and independent States, and carried on the campaign with the utmost success, assisted by France. Dismayed at last and astonished, Lord North and his ministers began to talk of conciliation. But it was too late. Two British forces, each of about four thousand men, had been forced to surrender to the American troops. No longer was it possible for England to make terms.

At home there was consternation, irresolution, and a sense of deep resentment against the Government which had so blundered. Chatham was a dying man, but he yet had something to say. Weakness, irresolution, or fear were unknown words to him, even though now he admitted--

"I tremble for this country; I am almost led to despair that we shall ever be able to extricate ourselves."

On the 7th of April 1778 he lifted up his voice for the last time, this time against an ignominious surrender, which the discomfited Government, terrified by the action of France, were all too ready to accept. Conscious himself of his fast-ebbing strength, Chatham, the Imperialist minister of the eighteenth century, summoned all his old fire and eloquence to his aid, and spoke with intense feeling, rejoicing, he said, "that the grave had not yet closed on him, pressed down as he was by the hand of infirmity."

Panic-stricken, the Government were inclined to offer absolute independence to all the Colonies. Chatham vigorously opposed the idea.

"His Majesty," he declared, "succeeded to an empire as great in extent as its reputation was unsullied. Shall we tarnish the lustre of this nation by an ignominious surrender of its rights and fairest possessions? Shall this great kingdom, that has survived whole and entire the Danish degradations, the Scottish invasion, the Norman Conquest, that has stood the threatened invasion of the Spanish Armada, now fall prostrate before the house of Bourbon? Shall a people that seventeen years ago was the terror of the world, now stoop so low as to tell its ancient and insatiate enemy, 'Take all we have: only give us peace.' In God's name, if it be absolutely necessary to declare for peace or war, and the former cannot be preserved with honour, why is not the latter commenced without hesitation? My Lords, any state is better than despair. Let us at least make an effort; and if we must fall, let us fall like men!"

With this brave appeal Chatham sat down exhausted. A few moments later he was carried fainting out of the House, which at once adjourned. And within a month, he who has been described as "the first Englishman of his time," had passed from the troubled arena of politics.

His monument in the Abbey shows him to us as he must often have looked when, wearing his Parliamentary robes, he addressed the House in that clear, sweet voice of his, which he could use with such wonderful effect, and the sculptor has well caught the expression of his fearless strength. Near him stand Prudence and Fortitude; below is Britannia, Mistress of the Seas; and the inscription tells how, under his administration, Great Britain was exalted to a height of prosperity and glory, unknown in any former age.

His second son, William, was born in 1759, the year that was perhaps the most successful in his father's life, and as he was too delicate to go to school, the older man personally supervised the early education of this his favourite child. When quite small, Chatham began to give him lessons in public speaking, making him stand on a platform to recite poetry or speeches, and later on teaching him to argue their points. With such a teacher and such a ready pupil, it is not surprising to hear of excellent progress made.

Little Willy Pitt, as he was called, soon showed in which direction his inclinations lay. "I am glad I am not the eldest son," he remarked, when he was seven, "as I want to speak in the House of Commons like papa."

He was only nineteen when his father died, but it was he who had helped the old statesman to his place in the House of Lords on the last day of his life, he who assisted to carry him out, and he who stood as chief mourner at that impressive funeral in the Abbey, his elder brother being abroad. The thought of any life but a political and a public one, never entered his mind, and two years later he became a member of Parliament. The first step up the ladder was taken. Already a trained speaker, his gifts were at once recognised by the House. Members of both parties generously praised him, and prophesied that his would be a great career. "I doubt not," said honest William Wilberforce, "but that I shall one day see him the first man in the country." His likeness to his father was remarkable. "Language, gesture, and manner were all the same," wrote his delighted tutor. "All the old members recognised him instantly, and most of the young ones said this was the very man they had so often heard described."

But it was not on his father's merits that William Pitt sprang into immediate fame; his own personality was his passport.

Thirteen years before, another young man had entered Parliament, Charles James Fox, the brilliant, excitement-loving son of Lord Holland. After Eton and Oxford he had been sent abroad to complete his education, but so great were his follies and extravagances, that his father had to firmly summon him home. This mandate, we are told, "he obeyed with great reluctance," and he seems to have gone back with an extensive wardrobe of clothes in the latest and most costly fashions, leaving behind him enormous debts in every town he had visited.