[1] The greatest English writer of the present day thus sums up the
eighteenth century:--“An age of which Hoadly was the bishop, and
Walpole the minister, and Pope the poet, and Chesterfield the wit,
and Tillotson the ruling doctor.”--Newman, _Essays Critical and
Historical_, i. 388.
[2] For another, very different, view of the life and studies at
Cambridge at the time, see the _Life of Ambrose Bonwicke_ (1694-1714).
[3] [“_Pasquin._ A Dramatic Satire on the Times, by Henry Fielding.
Acted at the Haymarket, 1736; 1740.” (Baker.)]
[4] [“_King Charles I._ Hist Tr. by W. Havard, 1737.” (Ibid.).]
[5] Chesterfield says he had been accustomed to read and translate the
great masterpieces to improve and form his style. His indebtedness to
Milton in his _Areopagitica_ in the above passage is obvious.
[6] See Letter CCXV., also CCXII.
[7] It is just possible, though I have nowhere seen it affirmed, that
Voltaire and Chesterfield may have met, still earlier, in Holland. For
in 1713 they were both there. Their attainments there were all but
parallel, Voltaire succumbing to a fatal passion in 1713, which did
not, to our knowledge, overtake Chesterfield till his second visit in
1729.
[8] He must just have escaped traveling from Leipzig to Berlin with
Lessing. Both took the journey in February, 1749.
[9] For his fine sense of the quality of words witness: “An
unharmonious and rugged period at this time shocks my ears, and I, like
all the rest of the world, will willingly exchange and give up some
degree of rough sense for a good degree of pleasing sound.”
[10] Characteristically, no mention is made of Shaftesbury nor of
Hutcheson.
[11] _Cf._ Sir Walter Raleigh’s “Every Man’s Folly ought to be his
greatest secret.”--(_Instructions to his Son._)
[12] “A wise Atheist (if such a thing there is) would, for his own
interest and character in the world, pretend to some religion.”--Letter
CLXXX.
[13] In this Essay, by the late M. Sainte-Beuve, nothing has been
altered, although, in one or two places, even his critical acuteness
seems to have missed its point.
[14] This is no longer a conjecture, but a certainty, after what I read
in the edition of _Lord Chesterfield’s Letters_, published in London
by Lord Mahon in 1847 (4 vols.). See vol. iii., page 159. I was not
acquainted with this edition when I wrote my article.--C. DE S. B.
[15] This was written in June, 1850.
[16] This first letter will form a key to Chesterfield’s character. It
is partly badinage, and yet contains the elements of his lordship’s
idea. He has already begun to teach “Mr. Stanhope,” and addresses as
Monsieur a child of the mature age of five years. We have purposely
omitted other letters, some in Latin, _Phillipo Stanhope, adhuc
puerulo_, which contain merely historical and geographical information
fit for a little schoolboy.
[17] Lord Chesterfield was, as will be afterwards seen, particularly
anxious that his son should imbibe political, geographical, and
historical knowledge, hence these details to a child of five.
[18] Young Mr. Stanhope’s tutor.
[19] In a previous letter, which has been lost, Chesterfield has been
teaching rhetoric to a boy of about seven years old, for, referring
to it, he says: “En vérité je crois que vous êtes le premier garcon à
qui, _avant l’âge de huit ans_, on ait jamais parlé des figures de la
rhétorique, comme j’ai fait dans ma dernière.”
[20] We learn by a subsequent reference that the little fellow wished
not to be called Colas, but Polyglot, from knowing already three or
four languages.
[21] CAREFUL IMITATION.--_Philip Chesterfield to his dear little boy
Philip Stanhope, wishing health, etc._ Your last letter was very
grateful to me; not only was it nicely written, but in it you promise
to take great care and to win, deservedly, true praise. But I must
say plainly that I much suspect you of having had the help of a good
and able master in composing it; and he being your guide and adviser,
it will be your own fault if you do not acquire elegancy of style,
learning, and all that can make you good and wise. I entreat you,
therefore, carefully to imitate so good a pattern; the more you regard
him the more you will love me. [_About July, 1741._]
[22] In the beginning of this letter, which contains a lesson upon
Julius Cæsar, Chesterfield says: “You know so much more and learn so
much better than any boy of your age, that you see I do not treat you
like a boy, but write to you on subjects fit for men to consider.”
[23] So also Home,--
“Amen! and virtue is its own reward.”
_Douglas_, Act. iii. Sc. 1.
And Claudian, quoted by Chesterfield,
“Ipsa quidem virtus pretium sibi, solaque latè
Fortunæ secura nitet,” etc.
[24] Written in Latin. _Philippus Chesterfield, Phillippo Stanhope
adhuc puerulo, sed eras e pueritiâ egressuro. S. D._ Dated, Kalend,
Maii, 1741.
[25] In the compilation called “Lord Chesterfield’s Maxims,” wherein
part of this letter is given, all the characteristic points are left
out. Thus, where Chesterfield reminds his son that manner is of
consequence in pleasing, _especially the women_, the purist has excised
the words in italics.
[26] His Lordship’s badinage, or it may be sarcasm, which the little
boy quickly perceived.
[27] His lordship was then Viceroy of Ireland.
[28] Mr. Stanhope was then travelling with his tutor in Germany.
[29] A good natured but somewhat silly book in which M. L’Abbé
instructs certain young ladies and gentlemen by means of sundry
conversations and reflections.
[30] His lordship had during this year been made one of his Majesty’s
Secretaries of State.
[31] Chesterfield had inclosed in a letter from Mr. Stanhope’s mamma
one from his own sister, thanking the boy for some Arquebusade water.
His lordship sent a rough copy of a polite answer to this note.
[32] Lord Chesterfield had been urging his son to send a Dresden
tea-service to his mother, which he did.
[33] A pun; the pillars from Canons in Middlesex.
[34] It is well, in the present state of society, to reflect upon the
intimacy here shown between persons in trade and those in high life.
[35] A somewhat curious use of the phrase, but well explained by
Johnson.
[36] De Retz, from whose “Mémoires” Lord Chesterfield quoted a sentence
in the commencement of the letter.
[37] The author, as he says, often repeats himself; see _ante_, p. 180.
[38] Pic-nic. Johnson does not mention this word, nor do his
predecessors, Ashe and Bailey. Richardson does not give it even in his
supplement. Worcester cites Widegren, 1788; this then is the earliest
use of the word by an author of weight.
[39] On a German question.
[40] An open face with a close (or secret) mind.
[41] This little note is inserted to show that Lord Chesterfield’s
repetitions were not unknown to himself. The most flagrant we have
omitted.
[42] As indeed did George III. _teste_ the anecdote of Kemble: “Mr.
Kemble, _obleige_ me with a pinch of snuff.” “It would become your
Majesty’s royal mouth better to say _oblige_.”
[43] We retain this as a picture of the morals of the time, and to
satisfy the reader’s curiosity as to the subject of so much care on the
part of his father.
[44] “Letters on the Spirit of Patriotism, on the Idea of a Patriot
King.”
[45] A notorious, wretched debauchee, who has been pilloried into a
miserable and degraded immortality by Arbuthnot, Pope and Hogarth; the
painter has given us his portrait in “The Harlot’s Progress,” plate 1.
Pope has set him up as an instance of that hardest trial to good men,
the success of the wicked:
“Should some lone temple, nodding to its fall,
For Chartres’ head reserve the nodding wall.”
And Arbuthnot wrote the most tremendously severe epitaph in the whole
range of literature on him while yet alive: “Here _continueth to rot_
the body of Colonel Francis Chartres,” etc. Finally, Chesterfield
points him out to his son as the most notorious blasted rascal in the
world--blasted, indeed, as by lightning. It is needless to say that
this word is not used as a vulgar oath, but to point out a man whose
name is, as the Bible of 1551 has it: “Marred forever by _blastynge_.”
[46] Benedict XIV.--the amiable Lambertini, who was thought by
Chesterfield too much of a savant and a man of the world to be
foolishly devout.
[47] The lady was turned fifty, and Chesterfield recommends her as a
chaperone.
[48] Strong as this reprobation is, it is as much needed to-day as when
written; the whole English race (if we credit _Westminster Review_,
March, 1869), especially the upper class, is suffering from the awful
effects of vice.
[49] Thus Englished by the famous Tom Brown:
“I do not love thee, Dr. Fell, the reason why I cannot tell,
But this I know and know full well, I do _not_ love thee, Dr. Fell.”
[50] The Maréchal de Richelieu.
[51] This single word implies decorum, good breeding, and propriety.
[52] As to terminations, so careful were the best French poets of their
rhymes.
[53] Chesterfield had at once perceived the emptiness of the saying,
which is certainly not in _ipsissimis verbis_ of Lord Shaftesbury. “We
have,” says Carlyle, in his “Essay on Voltaire,” “oftener than once
endeavored to attach some meaning to that aphorism, vulgarly imputed to
Shaftesbury--which, however, _we can find nowhere in his works_,--that
ridicule is the test of truth.” In the “Characteristics of Enthusiasm,”
sec. 2, there is this sentence, which comes very near it:--“How is it,
etc., that we (Christians) appear such cowards in reasoning, and are
so afraid _to stand the test of ridicule_”; but further on (p. 11, ed.
1733, vol. i.) he asks: “For what ridicule can lie against reason? or
how can any one of the least justice of thought admire a ridicule wrong
placed? Nothing is more ridiculous than this itself.” Shaftesbury often
returns to this subject; see “Errors in Wit,” etc.
[54] Ariosto, Tasso, and Boccaccio: the Orlando, Gierusalemme, and
Decamerone.
[55] See “Maxims,” p. 328.
[56] These maxims are referred to on page 324.
[57] Upon the back of the original is written, in Mr. Stanhope’s hand,
“Excellent Maxims, but more calculated for the meridian of France or
Spain than of England.”
[58] This Maxim, as well as several others, evidently prove they were
written by a man subject to despotic government.