3l8 ANECDOTES. [1805. 



quaintance ; but many years after his death I received 

 from my friend William Napier so graphic an account 

 of a visit he had paid to Pitt in 1804, that I wrote 

 down nearly the whole of Napier's statement in the 

 very words he had used in relating to me the impres- 

 sion left on his mind by his visit to the great minister. 

 Napier received through his friend Charles Stanhope, 

 Pitt's nephew, an invitation to pass some time at 

 Putney. When he arrived, Mr Pitt received him cor- 

 dially, and welcomed him with such gentle good- 

 nature that he felt instantly not only at perfect ease, 

 but that he was in the presence of a friend with whom 

 he might instantly become familiar, to any extent, 

 within the bounds of good-breeding. All this pro- 

 duced a strange sensation, for Napier had gone to 

 Putney determined to hold fast by his Whiggish 

 principles even in the presence of the wicked Tory 

 minister, however polite and condescending he might 

 appear to be; for he had been reared among Whigs, and 

 accustomed to hear Mr Pitt abused with all the vehe- 

 mence of their sneering virulence. So he looked upon 

 Pitt as an enemy of all good government, and had 

 always heard his father, who was no Whig, condemn 

 the war with France as an iniquitous and pernicious 

 measure. Thus primed with fierce recollections and 

 patriotic resolves, he endeavoured to keep up a bitter 

 hatred of the minister; but in vain. All hostile feelings 

 gave way to unbounded surprise at finding such a 

 gentle, good-natured, and entertaining companion, for 

 such he proved to be long before the visit was at an end. 



