PITONI, GIUSEPPE OTTAVIO (1657–1743), Italian musical composer, was born at Rieti on the 18th of March 1657. He came to Rome as a boy and sang in the choir of SS Apostoli. Foggia gave him instructions in counterpoint, and he became maestro di Cappella, first at Terra di Rotondo and later (1673) at Assisi. In 1676 he went to Rieti, and in 1677 to Rome, where he held various appointments, dying on the 1st of February 1743 as maestro di Cappella at St Marco, where he was buried. Pitoni appears to have devoted himself exclusively to church music, and although he did not disdain the modern style with instrumental accompaniment, he is best known by his Masses and other works in the manner of Palestrina. Several volumes of his autograph composition are in the Santini Library at Munster.
PITT, THOMAS (1653–1726), British East India merchant and politician, usually called “Diamond Pitt,” was born at Blandford, Dorset, on the 5th of July 1653. In early life he went to India, and from his headquarters at Balasore he made trading journeys into Persia and soon became prominent among those who were carrying on business in opposition to the East India Company. Twice he was arrested by order of the company, the second time being when he reached London in 1683, but after litigation had detained him for some years in England he
returned to India and to his former career. Unable to check him the East India Company took him into its service in 1695, and in 1697 he became president of Fort St George, or Madras. Pitt was now very zealous in defending the interests of his employers
against the new East India Company, and in protecting
their settlements from the attacks of the natives; in directing
the commercial undertakings of the company he also appears
to have been very successful. Soon, however, he had a serious
quarrel with William Fraser, a member of his council, and consequently
he was relieved of his office in 1709, although he was
afterwards consulted by the company on matters of importance.
During his residence in India Pitt bought for about
£20,000 the fine diamond which was named after him; in 1717
he sold this to the regent of France, Philip duke of Orleans,
for £80,000 or, according to another account, for £135,000.
It is now the property of the French government. During
his former stay in England Pitt had bought a good deal of
property, including the manor of Old Sarum, and for a short
time he had represented this borough in parliament. After his
final return from India in 1710 he added to his properties and
again became member of parliament for Old Sarum. He died at
Swallowfield near Reading on the 28th of April 1726. His
eldest son, Robert, was the father of William Pitt, earl of
Chatham (q.v.), and of Thomas Pitt (d.1761), whose son became
the first Lord Camelford; his second son, Thomas Pitt (c. 1688–1729),
having married Frances (d. 1772), daughter of Robert
Ridgeway, 4th earl of Londonderry (d. 1714), was himself
created earl of Londonderry in 1726.
PITT, WILLIAM (1759–1806), English statesman, the
second son of William Pitt, earl of Chatham, and of Lady
Hester Grenville, daughter of Hester, Countess Temple,
was born at Hayes, near Bromley, Kent, on the 28th of
May 1759. The child inherited a name which, at the time
of his birth, was the most illustrious in the civilized world,
and was pronounced by every Englishman with pride, and
by every enemy of England with mingled admiration and
terror. During the first year of his life every month had
its illuminations and bonfires, and every wind brought some
messenger charged with joyful tidings and hostile standards.
In Westphalia the English infantry won a great battle which
arrested the armies of Louis XV. in the midst of a career of
conquest; Boscawen defeated one French fleet on the coast of
Portugal; Hawke put to flight another in the Bay of Biscay;
Johnson took Niagara; Amherst took Ticonderoga; Wolfe died
by the most enviable of deaths under the walls of Quebec;
Clive destroyed a Dutch armament in the Hugli, and established
the English supremacy in Bengal; Coote routed Lally at Wandewash,
and established the English supremacy in the Carnatic.
The nation, while loudly applauding the successful warriors,
considered them all, on sea and on land, in Europe, in America,
and in Asia, merely as instruments which received their direction
from one superior mind. It was the great William Pitt
who had vanquished the French marshals in Germany and
French admirals on the Atlantic — who had conquered for his
country one great empire on the frozen shores of Ontario
and another under the tropical sun near the mouths of the
Ganges. It was not in the nature of things that popularity
such as he at this time enjoyed should be permanent. That
popularity had lost its gloss before his children were old enough
to understand that the earl of Chatham was a great man. The
energy and decision which had eminently fitted him for the
direction of war were not needed in time of peace. The lofty
and spirit-stirring eloquence which had made him supreme in
the House of Commons often fell dead on the House of Lords.
Chatham was only the ruin of Pitt, but an awful and majestic
ruin, not to be contemplated by any man of sense and feeling
without emotions resembling those which are excited by the
remains of the Parthenon and of the Colosseum. In one respect
the old statesman was eminently happy. Whatever
might be the vicissitudes of his public life, he never failed
to find peace and love by his own hearth. He loved all his
children, and was loved by them; and of all his children the
one of whom he was fondest and proudest was his second son.
The child’s genius and ambition displayed themselves with a rare and almost unnatural precocity. At seven the interest which he took in grave subjects, the ardour with which he pursued his studies, and the sense and vivacity of his remarks on books and on events amazed Early Life. his parents and instructors. One of his sayings of this date was reported to his mother by his tutor. In August 1766, when the world was agitated by the news that Mr Pitt had become earl of Chatham, little William exclaimed, “I am glad that I am not the eldest son. I want to speak in the House of Commons like papa.” At fourteen the lad was in intellect a man. Hayley, who met him at Lyme in the summer of 1773, was astonished, delighted, and somewhat overawed, by hearing wit and wisdom from so young a mouth. The boy himself had already written a tragedy, bad, of course, but not worse than the tragedies of his friend. This piece (still preserved) is in some respects highly curious. There is no love. The whole plot is political; and it is remarkable that the interest, such as it is, turns on a contest about a regency. On one side is a faithful servant of the Crown, on the other an ambitious and unprincipled conspirator. At length the king, who had been missing, reappears, resumes his power, and rewards the fathful defender of his rights. A reader who should judge only by internal evidence would have no hesitation in pronouncing that the play was written by some Pittite poetaster at the time of the rejoicings for the recovery of George III. in 1789.
The pleasure with which William’s parents observed the rapid development of his intellectual powers was alloyed by apprehensions about his health. He shot up alarmingly fast; he was often ill, and always weak; and it was feared that it would be impossible to rear a stripling so tall, so slender, and so feeble. Port wine was prescribed by his medical advisers; and it is said that he was, at fourteen, accustomed to take this agreeable physic in quantities which would, in our more abstemious age, be thought much more than sufficient for any full-grown man. It was probably on account of the delicacy of his frame that he was not educated like other boys of the same rank. Almost all the eminent English statesmen and orators to whom he was afterwards opposed or allied North, Fox, Shelburne, Windham, Grey, Wellesley, Grenville, Sheridan, Canning went through the training of great public schools. Lord Chatham had himself been a distinguished Etonian; and it is seldom that a distinguished Etonian forgets his obligations to Eton. But William’s infirmities required a vigilance and tenderness such as could be found only at home. He was therefore bred under the paternal roof. His studies were superintended by a clergyman named Wilson; and those
