enjoyed by his son, Lord Camelford.[1] He dissipated a great deal, and immersed himself in irretrievable distress by bad projects, and by bad economy unaccompanied with generosity or dignity, so as not to leave him a single friend in his distress. In 1756 I accidentally came across this elder brother at Utrecht, who struck me as such a remarkable man that I stopped on purpose, and sat up all night with him. He abounded in anecdote, having been attached to and in great favour with the Prince of Wales to the time of his death. His temper resembled his brother's, but there was no bounds to his violence. He branded his brother with the most abusive epithets, and told many particulars of him which I have forgot. Upon inquiry afterwards his brother did much the same by him, so that one or other must have been ——. There is a Spanish proverb that where there happens to be a small crack in the brain a great deal of light often comes in. He had a very considerable Parliamentary interest, but the violence of his temper got the better of him, and misled him upon almost all occasions. Lord Chatham's temper was sincerely violent, but he could control it.[2] Mr. William Pitt was by all accounts a very singular character from the time he went to Eton, where he was distinguished, and must have had a very early turn of observation by his telling me, that his reason for preferring private to publick education was, that he scarce observed a boy who was not cowed for life at Eton; that a publick school might suit a boy of a turbulent forward disposition, but would not do where there was any gentleness. He came into the world, as I have said, under the protection of Lord Cobham. Lord Cobham's character can be best described by those who knew him; but I have always understood him to have been an officer bred in the Queen's time, licentious, factious, and no speaker, but who passed his whole time in clapping young men upon the back, keeping house with a good economy, and saying things at
- ↑ As to Thomas Pitt (Lord Camelford) see Vol. II. p. 257; also Buckingham, Courts and Cabinets of George III., i. 190.
- ↑ The account of this incident is also taken from the less complete MS. in substitution for the shorter account from the complete MS. printed in the first edition.
