efore, there was no debate. It was rumoured that evening
that Pitt was better. But on the following morning his physicians
pronounced that there were no hopes. The commanding faculties of which
he had been too proud were beginning to fail. His old tutor and friend,
the Bishop of Lincoln, informed him of his danger, and gave such
religious advice and consolation as a confused and obscured mind could
receive. Stories were told of devout sentiments fervently uttered by the
dying man. But these stories found no credit with anybody who knew him.
Wilberforce pronounced it impossible that they could be true. "Pitt," he
added, "was a man who always said less than he thought on such topics."
It was asserted in many after-dinner speeches, Grub Street elegies, and
academic prize poems and prize declamations, that the great minister
died exclaiming, "Oh my country!" This is a fable; but it is true that
the last words which he uttered, while he knew what he said, were broken
exclamations about the alarming state of public affairs. He ceased to
breathe on the morning of the 23rd of January, 1806, the twenty-fifth
anniversary of the day on which he first took his seat in Parliament. He
was in his forty-seventh year, and had been, during near nineteen years,
First Lord of the Treasury, and undisputed chief of the administration.
Since parliamentary government was established in England, no English
statesman has held supreme power so long. Walpole, it is true, was First
Lord of the Treasury during more than twenty years: but it was not till
Walpole had been some time First Lord of the Treasury that he could be
properly called Prime Minister.

It was moved in the House of Commons that Pitt should be honoured with a
public funeral and a monument. The motion was opposed by Fox in a speech
which deserves to be studied as a model of good taste and good feeling.
The task was the most invidious that ever an orator undertook: but
it was performed with a humanity and delicacy which were warmly
acknowledged by the mourning friends of him who was gone. The motion was
carried by 288 votes to 89.

The 22d of February was fixed for the funeral. The corpse having lain in
state during two days in the Painted Chamber, was borne with great pomp
to the northern transept of the Abbey. A splendid train of princes,
nobles, bishops, and privy councillors followed. The grave of Pitt had
been made near to the spot where his great father lay, near also to
the s