overbalance of commerce, and by various and complex causes, in such a state, that the country hangs as a pensioner for bread on its neighbours, and a bad season uniformly threatens us with famine, this (it is replied) is owing to our prosperity—all prosperous nations are in great distress for food. Still prosperity, still general phrases, uninforced by one single image, one single fact of real national amelioration, of any one comfort enjoyed, where it was not before enjoyed, of any one class of society becoming healthier, or wiser, or happier. These are things, these are realities; and these Mr. Pitt has neither the imagination to body forth, or the sensibility to feel for. Once, indeed, in an evil hour intriguing for popularity, he suffered himself to be persuaded to evince a talent for the real, the individual: and he brought in his Poor Bill. When we hear the Minister's talents for finance so loudly trumpeted, we turn involuntarily to his Poor Bill, to that acknowledged abortion, that unanswerable evidence of his ignorance respecting all the fundamental relations and actions of property, and of the social union.
As his reasonings, even so is his eloquence. One character pervades his whole being. Words on words finely arranged, and so dexterously consequent, that the whole bears the semblance of argument, and still keeps awake a sense of surprise; but when all is done, nothing rememberable has been said; no one philosophical remark, no one image, not even a pointed aphorism. Not a sentence of Mr. Pitt's has ever been quoted, or formed the favourite phrase of the day, a thing unexampled in any man of equal reputation. But while he speaks, the effect varies according to the character of his auditor. The man of no talent is swallowed up in surprise: and when the speech is ended, he remembers his feelings, but nothing distinct of that which produced them; (how opposite an effect to that of nature and genius, from whose works the idea still remains, when the feeling is passed away, remains to connect itself with other feelings, and combine with new impressions!) The mere man of talent hears him with admiration, the mere man of genius with contempt; the philosopher neither admires nor contemns, but listens to him with a
