Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 45.djvu/394



 vols. i.-iv. : Cornwallis's Corr. (3 vols. 8vo, 18539) has also other important notices of William Pitt; Corresp. between W. Pitt and Charles, Duke of Rutland, 1890 ; Grattan's Life of Grattan (5 vols. 8vo, 1839); Grattan's Speeches (4 vols. 8vo, 1822); Coote's Hist. of the Union (8vo, 1802); Lecky's Leaders of Public Opinion in Ireland, 1861 ; Ingram's Hist. of the Irish Union (8vo, 1887); above all, Lecky's Hist. of England, vols. vi.-viii. For satirical writing on Pitt's side : Spirit of the Public Journals, 1802-1804, see list of Canning's verses in Lewis's Administrations, p. 249 ; the Anti-Jacobin. Against Pitt: Wolcot's [Peter Pindar] Works (5 vols. 8vo, 1812); Morris's Lyra Urbanica (2 vols. 12mo, 1840). For caricatures, see Works of James Gillray, and in Wright's Caricature History of the Georges (8vo, 1868). For accounts of William Pitt in general histories: Lecky's Hist. of England in the Eighteenth Century (8 vols. 8vo, 1882-90), vols. iv.-viii. ; Mahan's Influence of Sea Power on the French Revolution, 1793-1812 (2 vols. 8vo, 1892), which contains a fine defence of Pitt's war policy, specially with reference to naval operations ; Adolphus's Hist. of England (7 vols. 8vo, 1845) ends at 1303 ; Alison's Hist. of Europe (12 vols. 9th ed. 8vo, 1853), vols. ii.-v.]}} 

PITT, WILLIAM (1749–1823), writer on agriculture, was born at Tettenhall, near Wolverhampton, in 1749. He was one of the most able of those employed by the board of agriculture in the preparation of the reports on the different counties. He lived first at Pendeford, near Wolverhampton, but removed afterwards to Edgbaston, Birmingham. He died on 18 Sept. 1823, and was buried at Tettenhall. He published: 1. ‘A General View of the Agriculture of the County of Stafford, with Observations on the Means of its Improvement,’ London, 1794, 4to; 1796, 4to; 1808, 8vo; 1815, 8vo. 2. Similar reports on the agriculture of Northamptonshire, 1809, 8vo; Worcestershire, 1813, 8vo; and Leicestershire, to which is annexed ‘A Survey of the County of Rutland. By Richard Parkinson’ (1748–1815) [q. v.], London, 1809, 8vo. 3. ‘On Agricultural Political Arithmetic’ (Essay xxi. in Hunter's ‘Georgical Essays,’ vol. iv., York, 1803, 8vo). 4. ‘The Bullion Debate,’ a serio-comic satiric poem, London, 1811, 8vo. 5. ‘A Comparative Statement of the Food produced from Arable and Grass Land, and the Returns arising from each; with Remarks on the late Enclosures,’ &c., London, 1812, 4to. 6. ‘A Topographical History of Staffordshire,’ &c., Newcastle-under-Lyme, 1817, 8vo.

[Donaldson's Agricultural Biography, p. 74; Loudon's Encyclopædia of Agriculture, p. 1210; Simms's Bibliotheca Staffordiensis, p. 361.] 

PITTIS, THOMAS (1636–1687), divine, son of Thomas Pittis, a captain of militia in the Isle of Wight, by his wife Mary, was born at Niton, where his family had lived for several generations. He was baptised on 28 June 1636. In 1652 he entered as a commoner at Trinity College, Oxford, but migrated to Lincoln College, whence he matriculated on 29 April 1653, graduating B.A. on 15 June 1656, M.A. on 29 June 1658, B.D. in 1665, and D.D. in 1670. Wood says he was ‘esteemed by his contemporaries a tolerable disputant; but, his speech being disliked by the godly party of those times, he was expelled from the university in 1658.’ He was presented, before March 1660, by John Worsley of Gatcombe, to the rectory of Newport, Isle of Wight. In 1665 he was presented to the living of Holyrood, or St. Cross, Southampton, where his strong royalist sympathies brought him into conflict with the mayor and corporation (cf. A Private Conference between a Rich Alderman and a Poor Country Vicar made Public, 1670). He was appointed one of the king's chaplains and lecturers at Christ Church, Newgate Street, about 1670, and in 1677 was also presented by Charles II to the rectory of Lutterworth, Leicestershire, but was removed in 1678 to the rectory of St. Botolph's, Bishopsgate. Here he remained until his death, on 28 Dec. 1687. He was buried at Niton. A slab was placed in his memory in St. Botolph's chancel by his wife, who survived him. He married, on 4 Feb. 1661, in Gatcombe church, Elizabeth, daughter of William Stephens of Newport, and sister of Sir William Stephens, knight, of Burton, Isle of Wight. By her he left two sons: Thomas, born in 1669, vicar of Warnham, Sussex, and William, noticed below; with two daughters: Elizabeth, who married Zacheus Isham [q. v.], Pittis's successor at St. Botolph's; and Catherine.

Besides separate sermons Pittis published: 1. ‘A Discourse concerning the Trial of Spirits wherein Inquiry is made into Men's Pretences to Inspiration for publishing Doctrines, in the name of God, beyond the Rules of the Sacred Scriptures,’ London, 1683, 8vo; the other ‘A Discourse of Prayer,’ London, 1683, 8vo.

 (1674–1724), the second son, entered Winchester School in 1687, matriculated at New College, Oxford, on 14 Aug. 1690, graduated B.A. 1694, and was fellow of his college 1692–5. He was afterwards a member of the Inner Temple. On 27 April 1706 he was ordered by the court of queen's bench to stand in the pillory three times and to pay a fine of one hundred marks for writing a ‘Memorial of the Church of 