Page:Life of William Shelburne (vol 1).djvu/83

Rh his table which nobody else would say in a private room, with a good degree of shrewdness however in his conversation as well as his conduct.

"Mr. Pitt's setting out in the army and being turned out by Sir Robert Walpole is very well known. He told me that Sir Robert offered him the troop which was afterwards given to General Con way, so that if he had continued in the army he would have been immediately above him. He likewise told me that during the time he was Cornet of Horse there was not a military book which he did not read through. It may be easily conceived what progress an ardent mind with a dash of madness and certainly a most extraordinary imagination, must have made, steadily directing his mind and time from his earliest youth, as Mr. Wilkes says, 'to the studying of words and rounding of sentences,' for he was totus in hoc, not appearing to have applied to any other branch of science whatever. It is remarkable that neither he nor Lord Granville could write a common letter well. Of his imagination he used to say himself that it was so strong that most things returned to him with stronger force the second time than the first. He was so attentive to forming his own taste, that he would not look at a bad print if he could avoid it, wishing not to hazard his eye for a moment. He either sacrificed or kept down every other passion with a view to forward his ambition. One particular is sufficient to show the extraordinary command he must have had over himself from his setting out. In 1754, or thereabouts, quitted the above-mentioned set, and was gained by Lord Hardwicke to join the Duke of Newcastle, when he made a figure very different from what he had made, and very inferior to what could be expected of him. Mr. Pitt was the only one who was not in the least surprised, when it was discovered, for the first time, that Mr. Pitt had enjoyed his exclusive confidence for a number of years, and had governed his conduct, with a perfect knowledge of the