REPRESENTATIVE BRITISH ORATIONS WITH INTRODUCTIONS AND EXPLANATORY NOTES BY CHARLES KENDALL ADAMS Videtisne quantum munus sit oratoris historia? -CICERO, DeOratore, ii, 15 NEW YORK & LONDON G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS The Knickerbocker Press HARVARD COLLEGE LIBRARY FROM THE LIBRARY OF COPYRIGHT G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 1884. Press of G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS New York WILLIAM PITT. THE younger Pitt was the second son of Lord Chatham, and was seven years of age when his father in 1766 was admitted to the peerage. The boy's earliest peculiarity was an absorbing ambition to become his father's successor as the first orator of the day. His health, however, was so delicate as to cause the gravest apprehensions. Stanhope tells us that before he was fourteen "half of his time was lost through ill health," and that his early life at Cambridge was one long disease." There is still extant a remarkable letter that reveals better than any thing else the fond hopes of the father and the physical discouragement as well as the mental aspirations of the son. Chatham wrote: "Though I indulge with inexpressible delight the thought of your returning health, I cannot help being a little in pain lest you should make |