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Cato led victorious armies into the field, and proved himself an able general; for in Rome the functions of the general and the statesman were united in the person of the Consul.

It became not, however, the Secretary of State to lead armies in person; but while Chatham administered the affairs of this country, “victory crowned the British arms wherever they appeared, both on sea and land; and the four years of the second administration of Mr. Pitt are four of the most glorious years in the history of the eighteenth century.”^[10]

In their retirement they were alike; for neither regarded with complacency the pursuits of literature: they required some physical activity in their very idleness, and gardening was the favourite occupation of both. Cato displayed his disregard and even hatred for literary refinement by advising the Senate to dismiss the Grecian Ambassador Carneades promptly, lest his eloquence should corrupt the Roman youth with a love for Greek learning and philosophy.

He cultivated his farm and garden with great skill, and wrote a work on the subject, entitled “De Rustica.” Chatham was a landscape-gardener of no mean pretensions. He assisted Lord Lyttelton in laying out the celebrated park and grounds at Hagley; and Bishop Warburton eulogizes his skill in gardening as inimitable, and far superior to that of the professor Capability Brown. Not even obedience to the king’s mandate could draw Chatham from his country retirement at Hayes.