While millions of money were passing through Pitt's hands, he himself was never otherwise than poor; and he died poor.

Of all his rancorous libellers, not one ever ventured to call in question his honesty.
In former times, the profits of office were sometimes enormous.

When Audley, the famous annuity-monger of the sixteenth century, was asked the value of an office which he had purchased in the Court of Wards, he replied:--"Some thousands to any one who wishes to get to heaven immediately; twice as much to him who does not mind being in purgatory; and nobody knows what to him who is not afraid of the devil." Sir Walter Scott was a man who was honest to the core of his nature and his strenuous and determined efforts to pay his debts, or rather the debts of the firm with which he had become involved, has always appeared to us one of the grandest things in biography.

When his publisher and printer broke down, ruin seemed to stare him in the face.

There was no want of sympathy for him in his great misfortune, and friends came forward who offered to raise money enough to enable him to arrange with his creditors.