The King of Table Wits.--Early Years.--Hervey's Description of his
Person.--Resolutions and Pursuits.--Study of Oratory.--The
Duties of an Ambassador.--King George II.'s Opinion of his
Chroniclers.--Life in the Country.--Melusina, Countess of
Walsingham.--George II. and his Father's Will.--Dissolving
Views.--Madame du Bouchet.--The Broad-Bottomed
Administration.--Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland in Time of
Peril.--Reformation of the Calendar.--Chesterfield
House.--Exclusiveness.--Recommending 'Johnson's
Dictionary.'--'Old Samuel,' to Chesterfield.--Defensive
Pride.--The Glass of Fashion.--Lord Scarborough's Friendship
for Chesterfield.--The Death of Chesterfield's Son.--His
Interest in his Grandsons.--'I must go and Rehearse my
Funeral.'--Chesterfield's Will.--What is a Friend?--Les
Manières Nobles.--Letters to his Son.
The subject of this memoir may be thought by some rather the modeller of
wits than the original of that class; the great critic and judge of
manners rather than the delight of the dinner-table: but we are told to
the contrary by one who loved him not. Lord Hervey says of Lord
Chesterfield that he was 'allowed by everybody to have more conversable
entertaining table-wit than any man of his time; his propensity to
ridicule, in which he indulged himself with infinite humour and no
distinction; and his inexhaustible spirits, and no discretion; made him
sought and feared--liked and not loved--by most of his acquaintance.'
This formidable personage was born in London on the 2nd day of
September, 1694. It was remarkable that the father of a man so
vivacious, should have been of a morose temper; all the wit and spirit
of intrigue displayed by him remind us of the frail Lady Chesterfield,
in the time of Charles II.[23]--that lady who was looked on as a martyr
because her husband was jealous of her: 'a prodigy,' says De Grammont,
'in the city of London,' where indulgent critics endeavoured to excuse
his lordship on account of his bad education, and mothers vowed that
none of their sons should ever set foot in Italy, lest they should
'bring back with them that infamous custom of laying restraint on their
wives.'
Even Horace Walpole cites Chesterfield as the 'witty earl:' apropos to
an anecdote which he relates of an Italian lady, who said that she was
only four-and-twenty; 'I suppose,' said Lord Chesterfield, 'she means
four-and-twenty stone.'
By his father the future wit, historian, and orator was utterly
neglected; but his grandmother, the Marchioness of Halifax, supplied to
him the place of both parents, his mother--her daughter, Lady Elizabeth
Saville--having died in his childhood. At the age of eighteen,
Chesterfield, then Lord Stanhope, was entered at Trinity Hall,
Cambridge. It was one of the features of his character to fall at once
into the tone of the society into which he happened to be thrown. One
can hardly imagine his being 'an absolute pedant,' but such was,
actually, his own account of himself:--'When I talked my best, I quoted
Horace; when I aimed at being facetious, I quoted Martial; and when I
had a mind to be a fine gentleman, I talked Ovid. I was convinced that
none but the ancients had common sense; that the classics contained
everything that was either necessary, useful, or ornamental to men; and
I was not even without thoughts of wearing the toga virilis of the
Romans, instead of the vulgar and illiberal dress of the moderns.'
Thus, again, when in Paris, he caught the manners, as he had acquired
the language, of the Parisians. 'I shall not give you my opinion of the
French, because I am very often taken for one of them, and several have
paid me the highest compliment they think it in their power to
bestow--which is, "Sir, you are just like ourselves." I shall only tell
you that I am insolent; I talk a great deal; I am very loud and
peremptory; I sing and dance as I walk along; and, above all, I spend an
immense sum in hair-powder, feathers, and white gloves.'
Although he entered Parliament before he had attained the legal age,
and was expected to make a great figure in that assembly, Lord
Chesterfield preferred the reputation of a wit and a beau to any other
distinction. 'Call it vanity, if you will,' he wrote in after-life to
his son, 'and possibly it was so; but my great object was to make every
man and every woman love me. I often succeeded: but why? by taking great
pains.'
According to Lord Hervey's account he often even sacrificed his interest
to his vanity. The description given of Lord Chesterfield by one as
bitter as himself implies, indeed, that great pains were requisite to
counterbalance the defects of nature. Wilkes, one of the ugliest men of
his time, used to say, that with an hour's start he would carry off the
affections of any woman from the handsomest man breathing. Lord
Chesterfield, according to Lord Hervey, required to be still longer in
advance of a rival.
'With a person,' Hervey writes, 'as disagreeable, as it was possible for
a human figure to be without being deformed, he affected following many
women of the first beauty and the most in fashion. He was very short,
disproportioned, thick and clumsily made; had a broad, rough-featured,
ugly face, with black teeth, and a head big enough for a Polyphemus. One
Ben Ashurst, who said a few good things, though admired for many, told
Lord Chesterfield once, that he was like a stunted giant--which was a
humorous idea and really apposite.'
Notwithstanding that Chesterfield, when young, injured both soul and
body by pleasure and dissipation, he always found time for serious
study: when he could not have it otherwise, he took it out of his sleep.
How late soever he went to bed, he resolved always to rise early; and
this resolution he adhered to so faithfully, that at the age of
fifty-eight he could declare that for more than forty years he had never
been in bed at nine o'clock in the morning, but had generally been up
before eight. He had the good sense, in this respect, not to exaggerate
even this homely virtue. He did not rise with the dawn, as many early
risers pride themselves in doing, putting all the engagements of
ordinary life out of their usual beat, just as if the clocks had been
set two hours forward. The man in ordinary society, who rises at four in
this country, and goes to bed at nine, is a social and family nuisance.
Strong good sense characterized Chesterfield's early pursuits. Desultory
reading he abhorred. He looked on it as one of the resources of age, but
as injurious to the young in the extreme. 'Throw away,' thus he writes
to his son, 'none of your time upon those trivial, futile books,
published by idle necessitous authors for the amusement of idle and
ignorant readers.'
Even in those days such books 'swarm and buzz about one:' 'flap them
away,' says Chesterfield, 'they have no sting.' The earl directed the
whole force of his mind to oratory, and became the finest speaker of his
time. Writing to Sir Horace Mann, about the Hanoverian debate (in 1743,
Dec. 15), Walpole praising the speeches of Lords Halifax and Sandwich,
adds, 'I was there, and heard Lord Chesterfield make the finest oration
I have ever heard there.' This from a man who had listened to Pulteney,
to Chatham, to Carteret, was a singularly valuable tribute.
Whilst a student at Cambridge, Chesterfield was forming an acquaintance
with the Hon. George Berkeley, the youngest son of the second Earl of
Berkeley, and remarkable rather as being the second husband of Lady
Suffolk, the favourite of George II., than from any merits or demerits
of his own.
This early intimacy probably brought Lord Chesterfield into the close
friendship which afterwards subsisted between him and Lady Suffolk, to
whom many of his letters are addressed.
His first public capacity was a diplomatic appointment: he afterwards
attained to the rank of an ambassador, whose duty it is, according to a
witticism of Sir Henry Wotton's '_to lie_ abroad for the good of his
country;' and no man was in this respect more competent to fulfil these
requirements than Chesterfield. Hating both wine and tobacco, he had
smoked and drunk at Cambridge, 'to be in the fashion;' he gamed at the
Hague, on the same principle; and, unhappily, gaming became a habit and
a passion. Yet never did he indulge it when acting, afterwards, in a
ministerial capacity. Neither when Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, or as
Under-secretary of State, did he allow a gaming-table in his house. On
the very night that he resigned office he went to _White's_.
The Hague was then a charming residence: among others who, from
political motives, were living there, were John Duke of Marlborough and
Queen Sarah, both of whom paid Chesterfield marked attention. Naturally
industrious, with a ready insight into character--a perfect master in
that art which bids us keep one's thoughts close, and our countenances
open, Chesterfield was admirably fitted for diplomacy. A master of
modern languages and of history, he soon began to like business. When in
England, he had been accused of having 'a need of a certain proportion
of talk in a day:' 'that,' he wrote to Lady Suffolk, 'is now changed
into a need of such a proportion of writing in a day.'
In 1728 he was promoted: being sent as ambassador to the Hague, where he
was popular, and where he believed his stay would be beneficial both to
soul and body, there being 'fewer temptations, and fewer opportunities
to sin,' as he wrote to Lady Suffolk, 'than in England.' Here his days
passed, he asserted, in doing the king's business, very ill--and his own
still worse:--sitting down daily to dinner with fourteen or fifteen
people; whilst at five the pleasures of the evening began with a lounge
on the Voorhoot, a public walk planted by Charles V.:--then, either a
very bad French play, or a '_reprise quadrille_,' with three ladies, the
youngest of them fifty, and the chance of losing, perhaps, three florins
(besides one's time)--lasted till ten o'clock; at which time 'His
Excellency' went home, 'reflecting with satisfaction on the innocent
amusements of a well-spent day, that left nothing behind them,' and
retired to bed at eleven, 'with the testimony of a good conscience.'
All, however, of Chesterfield's time was not passed in this serene
dissipation. He began to compose 'The History of the Reign of George
II.' at this period. About only half a dozen chapters were written. The
intention was not confined to Chesterfield: Carteret and Bolingbroke
entertained a similar design, which was completed by neither. When the
subject was broached before George II., he thus expressed himself; and
his remarks are the more amusing as they were addressed to Lord Hervey,
who was, at that very moment, making his notes for that bitter chronicle
of his majesty's reign, which has been ushered into the world by the
late Wilson Croker--'They will all three,' said King George II., 'have
about as much truth in them as the _Mille et Une Nuits_. Not but I shall
like to read Bolingbroke's, who of all those rascals and knaves that
have been lying against me these ten years has certainly the best parts,
and the most knowledge. He is a scoundrel, but he is a scoundrel of a
higher class than Chesterfield. Chesterfield is a little, tea-table
scoundrel, that tells little womanish lies to make quarrels in families:
and tries to make women lose their reputations, and make their husbands
beat them, without any object but to give himself airs; as if anybody
could believe a woman could like a dwarf baboon.'
Lord Hervey gave the preference to Bolingbroke; stating as his reason,
that 'though Lord Bolingbroke had no idea of wit, his satire was keener
than any one's. Lord Chesterfield, on the other hand, would have a great
deal of wit in them; but, in every page you see he intended to be witty:
every paragraph would be an epigram. _Polish_, he declared, would be his
bane;' and Lord Hervey was perfectly right.
In 1732 Lord Chesterfield was obliged to retire from his embassy on the
plea of ill-health, but probably, from some political cause. He was in
the opposition against Sir Robert Walpole in the Excise Bill; and felt
the displeasure of that all-powerful minister by being dismissed from
his office of High Steward.
Being badly received at court he now lived in the country; sometimes at
Buxton, where his father drank the waters, where he had his recreations,
when not persecuted by two young brothers. Sir William Stanhope and John
Stanhope, one of whom performed 'tolerably ill upon a broken hautboy,
and the other something worse upon a cracked flute.' There he won three
half-crowns from the curate of the place, and a shilling from 'Gaffer
Foxeley' at a cock-match. Sometimes he sought relaxation in Scarborough,
where fashionable beaux 'danced with the pretty ladies all night,' and
hundreds of Yorkshire country bumpkins 'played the inferior parts; and,
as it were, only tumble, whilst the others dance upon the high ropes of
gallantry.' Scarborough was full of Jacobites: the popular feeling was
then all rife against Sir Robert Walpole's excise scheme. Lord
Chesterfield thus wittily satirized that famous measure:--
'The people of this town are, at present, in great consternation upon a
report they have heard from London, which, if true, they think will ruin
them. They are informed, that considering the vast consumption of these
waters, there is a design laid of _excising_ them next session; and,
moreover, that as bathing in the sea is become the general practice of
both sexes, and as the kings of England have always been allowed to be
masters of the seas, every person so bathing shall be gauged, and pay so
much per foot square, as their cubical bulk amounts to.'
In 1733, Lord Chesterfield married Melusina, the supposed niece, but, in
fact, the daughter of the Duchess of Kendal, the mistress of George I.
This lady was presumed to be a great heiress, from the dominion which
her mother had over the king. Melusina had been created (for life)
Baroness of Aldborough, county Suffolk, and Countess of Walsingham,
county Norfolk, nine years previous to her marriage.
Her father being George I., as Horace Walpole terms him, 'rather a good
sort of man than a shining king,' and her mother 'being no genius,'
there was probably no great attraction about Lady Walsingham, except her
expected dowry.
During her girlhood Melusina resided in the apartments at St.
James's--opening into the garden; and here Horace Walpole describes his
seeing George I., in the rooms appropriated to the Duchess of Kendal,
next to those of Melusina Schulemberg, or, as she was then called, the
Countess of Walsingham. The Duchess of Kendal was then very 'lean and
ill-favoured.' 'Just before her,' says Horace, 'stood a tall, elderly
man, rather pale, of an aspect rather good-natured than august: in a
dark tie-wig, a plain coat, waistcoat, and breeches of snuff-coloured
cloth, with stockings of the same colour, and a blue riband over all.
That was George I.'
[Illustration: A ROYAL ROBBER.]
The Duchess of Kendal had been maid of honour to the Electress
Sophia, the mother of George I. and the daughter of Elizabeth of
Bohemia. The duchess was always frightful; so much so that one night the
electress, who had acquired a little English, said to Mrs. Howard,
afterwards Lady Suffolk,--glancing at Mademoiselle Schulemberg--'Look at
that _mawkin_, and think of her being my son's passion!'
The duchess, however, like all the Hanoverians, knew how to profit by
royal preference. She took bribes:--she had a settlement of £3,000 a
year. But her daughter was eventually disappointed of the expected
bequest from her father, the king.[24]
In the apartments at St. James's Lord Chesterfield for some time lived,
when he was not engaged in office abroad; and there he dissipated large
sums in play. It was here, too, that Queen Caroline, the wife of George
II., detected the intimacy that existed between Chesterfield and Lady
Suffolk. There was an obscure window in Queen Caroline's apartments,
which looked into a dark passage, lighted only by a single lamp at
night. One Twelfth Night Lord Chesterfield, having won a large sum at
cards, deposited it with Lady Suffolk, thinking it not safe to carry it
home at night. He was watched, and his intimacy with the mistress of
George II. thereupon inferred. Thenceforth he could obtain no court
influence; and, in desperation, he went into the opposition.
On the death of George I., a singular scene, with which Lord
Chesterfield's interests were connected, occurred in the Privy Council.
Dr Wake, Archbishop of Canterbury, produced the king's will, and
delivered it to his successor, expecting that it would be opened and
read in the council; what was his consternation, when his Majesty,
without saying a word, put it into his pocket, and stalked out of the
room with real German imperturbability! Neither the astounded prelate
nor the subservient council ventured to utter a word. The will was never
more heard of: and rumour declared that it was burnt. The contents, of
course, never transpired; and the legacy of £40,000, said to have been
left to the Duchess of Kendal, was never more spoken of, until Lord
Chesterfield, in 1733, married the Countess of Walsingham. In 1743, it
is said, he claimed the legacy--in right of his wife--the Duchess of
Kendal being then dead: and was 'quieted' with £20,000, and got, as
Horace Walpole observes, nothing from the duchess--'except his wife.'
The only excuse that was urged to extenuate this act on the part of
George II., was that his royal father had burned two wills which had
been made in his favour. These were supposed to be the wills of the Duke
and Duchess of Zell and of the Electress Sophia. There was not even
common honesty in the house of Hanover at that period.
Disappointed in his wife's fortune, Lord Chesterfield seems to have
cared very little for the disappointed heiress. Their union was
childless. His opinion of marriage appears very much to have coincided
with that of the world of malcontents who rush, in the present day, to
the court of Judge Cresswell, with 'dissolving views.' On one occasion
he writes thus: 'I have at last done the best office that can be done to
most married people; that is, I have fixed the separation between my
brother and his wife, and the definitive treaty of peace will be
proclaimed in about a fortnight.'
Horace Walpole related the following anecdote of Sir William Stanhope
(Chesterfield's brother) and his lady, whom he calls 'a fond couple.'
After their return from Paris, when they arrived at Lord Chesterfield's
house at Blackheath, Sir William, who had, like his brother, a cutting,
polite wit, that was probably expressed with the 'allowed simper' of
Lord Chesterfield, got out of the chaise and said, with a low bow,
'Madame, I hope I shall never see your face again.' She replied, 'Sir, I
will take care that you never shall;' and so they parted.
There was little probability of Lord Chesterfield's participating in
domestic felicity, when neither his heart nor his fancy were engaged in
the union which he had formed. The lady to whom he was really attached,
and by whom he had a son, resided in the Netherlands: she passed by the
name of Madame du Bouchet, and survived both Lord Chesterfield and her
son. A permanent provision was made for her, and a sum of five hundred
pounds bequeathed to her, with these words: 'as a small reparation for
the injury I did her.' 'Certainly,' adds Lord Mahon, in his Memoir of
his illustrious ancestor, 'a small one.'
For some time Lord Chesterfield remained in England, and his letters are
dated from Bath, from Tonbridge, from Blackheath. He had, in 1726, been
elevated to the House of Lords upon the death of his father. In that
assembly his great eloquence is thus well described by his
biographer:--[25]
'Lord Chesterfield's eloquence, the fruit of much study, was less
characterized by force and compass than by elegance and perspicuity, and
especially by good taste and urbanity, and a vein of delicate irony
which, while it sometimes inflicted severe strokes, never passed the
limits of decency and propriety. It was that of a man who, in the union
of wit and good sense with politeness, had not a competitor. These
qualities were matured by the advantage which he assiduously sought and
obtained, of a familiar acquaintance with almost all the eminent wits
and writers of his time, many of whom had been the ornaments of a
preceding age of literature, while others were destined to become those
of a later period.'
The accession of George II., to whose court Lord Chesterfield had been
attached for many years, brought him no political preferment. The court
had, however, its attractions even for one who owed his polish to the
belles of Paris, and who was almost always, in taste and manners, more
foreign than English. Henrietta, Lady Pomfret, the daughter and heiress
of John, Lord Jeffreys, the son of Judge Jeffreys, was at that time the
leader of fashion.
Six daughters, one of them, Lady Sophia, surpassingly lovely recalled
the perfections of that ancestress, Arabella Fermor whose charms Pope
has so exquisitely touched in the 'Rape of the Lock.' Lady Sophia became
eventually the wife of Lord Carteret, the minister, whose talents and
the charms of whose eloquence constituted him a sort of rival to
Chesterfield. With all his abilities, Lord Chesterfield may be said to
have failed both as a courtier and as a political character, as far as
permanent influence in any ministry was concerned, until in 1744, when
what was called the 'Broad-bottomed administration' was formed, when he
was admitted into the cabinet. In the following year, however, he went,
for the last time, to Holland, as ambassador, and succeeded beyond the
expectations of his party in the purposes of his embassy. He took leave
of the States-General just before the battle of Fontenoy, and hastened
to Ireland, where he had been nominated Lord-Lieutenant previous to his
journey to Holland. He remained in that country only a year; but long
enough to prove how liberal were his views--how kindly the dispositions
of his heart.
Only a few years before Lord Chesterfield's arrival in Dublin, the Duke
of Shrewsbury had given as a reason for accepting the vice-regency of
that country, (of which King James I. had said, there was 'more ado'
than with any of his dominions,) 'that it was a place where a man had
business enough to keep him from falling asleep, and not enough to keep
him awake.'
Chesterfield, however, was not of that opinion. He did more in one year
than the duke would have accomplished in five. He began by instituting a
principle of impartial justice. Formerly, Protestants had alone been
employed as 'managers;' the Lieutenant was to see with Protestant eyes,
to hear with Protestant ears.
'I have determined to proscribe no set of persons whatever,' says
Chesterfield, 'and determined to be governed by none. Had the Papists
made any attempt to put themselves above the law, I should have taken
good care to have quelled them again. It was said my lenity to the
Papists had wrought no alteration either in their religious or their
political sentiments. I did not expect that it would: but surely that
was no reason for cruelty towards them.'
Often by a timely jest Chesterfield conveyed a hint, or even shrouded a
reproof. One of the ultra-zealous informed him that his coachman was a
Papist, and went every Sunday to mass. 'Does he indeed? I will take care
he never drives me there,' was Chesterfield's cool reply.
It was at this critical period, when the Hanoverian dynasty was shaken
almost to its downfall by the insurrection in Scotland of 1745, that
Ireland was imperilled: 'With a weak or wavering, or a fierce and
headlong Lord-Lieutenant--with a Grafton or a Strafford,' remarks Lord
Mahon, 'there would soon have been a simultaneous rising in the Emerald
Isle.' But Chesterfield's energy, his lenity, his wise and just
administration saved the Irish from being excited into rebellion by the
emissaries of Charles Edward, or slaughtered, when conquered, by the
'Butcher,' and his tiger-like dragoons. When all was over, and that sad
page of history in which the deaths of so many faithful adherents of the
exiled family are recorded, had been held up to the gaze of bleeding
Caledonia, Chesterfield recommended mild measures, and advised the
establishment of schools in the Highlands; but the age was too
narrow-minded to adopt his views. In January, 1748, Chesterfield retired
from public life. 'Could I do any good,' he wrote to a friend, 'I would
sacrifice some more quiet to it; but convinced as I am that I can do
none, I will indulge my ease, and preserve my character. I have gone
through pleasures while my constitution and my spirits would allow me.
Business succeeded them; and I have now gone through every part of it
without liking it at all the better for being acquainted with it. Like
many other things, it is most admired by those who know it least.... I
have been behind the scenes both of pleasure and business; I have seen
all the coarse pulleys and dirty ropes which exhibit and move all the
gaudy machines; and I have seen and smelt the tallow candles which
illuminate the whole decoration, to the astonishment and admiration of
the ignorant multitude.... My horse, my books, and my friends will
divide my time pretty equally.'
He still interested himself in what was useful; and carried a Bill in
the House of Lords for the Reformation of the Calendar, in 1751. It
seems a small matter for so great a mind as his to accomplish, but it
was an achievement of infinite difficulty. Many statesmen had shrunk
from the undertaking; and even Chesterfield found it essential to
prepare the public, by writing in some periodical papers on the subject.
Nevertheless the vulgar outcry was vehement: 'Give us back the eleven
days we have been robbed of!' cried the mob at a general election. When
Bradley was dying, the common people ascribed his sufferings to a
judgment for the part he had taken in that 'impious transaction,' the
alteration of the calendar. But they were not less _bornés_ in their
notions than the Duke of Newcastle, then prime minister. Upon Lord
Chesterfield giving him notice of his Bill, that bustling premier, who
had been in a hurry for forty years, who never 'walked but always ran,'
greatly alarmed, begged Chesterfield not to stir matters that had been
long quiet; adding, that he did not like 'new-fangled things.' He was,
as we have seen, overruled, and henceforth the New Style was adopted;
and no special calamity has fallen on the nation, as was expected, in
consequence. Nevertheless, after Chesterfield had made his speech in the
House of Lords, and when every one had complimented him on the clearness
of his explanation--'God knows,' he wrote to his son, 'I had not even
attempted to explain the Bill to them; I might as soon have talked
Celtic or Sclavonic to them as astronomy. They would have understood it
full as well.' So much for the 'Lords' in those days!
After his _furore_ for politics had subsided, Chesterfield returned to
his ancient passion for play. We must linger a little over the still
brilliant period of his middle life, whilst his hearing was spared;
whilst his wit remained, and the charming manners on which he had formed
a science, continued; and before we see him in the mournful decline of a
life wholly given to the world.
He had now established himself in Chesterfield House. Hitherto his
progenitors had been satisfied with Bloomsbury Square, in which the Lord
Chesterfield mentioned by De Grammont resided; but the accomplished
Chesterfield chose a site near Audley Street, which had been built on
what was called Mr. Audley's land, lying between Great Brook Field and
the 'Shoulder of Mutton Field.' And near this locality with the elegant
name, Chesterfield chose his spot, for which he had to wrangle and fight
with the Dean and Chapter of Westminster, who asked an exorbitant sum
for the ground. Isaac Ware, the editor of 'Palladio,' was the architect
to whom the erection of this handsome residence was intrusted. Happily
it is still untouched by any _renovating_ hand. Chesterfield's favourite
apartments, looking on the most spacious private garden in London, are
just as they were in his time; one especially, which he termed the
'finest room in London,' was furnished and decorated by him. 'The
walls,' says a writer in the 'Quarterly Review,' 'are covered half way
up with rich and classical stores of literature; above the cases are in
close series the portraits of eminent authors, French and English, with
most of whom he had conversed; over these, and immediately under the
massive cornice, extend all round in foot-long capitals the Horatian
lines:--
'Nunc . veterum . libris . Nunc . somno . et . inertibus . Horis.
Lucen . solicter . jucunda . oblivia . vitea.
'On the mantel-pieces and cabinets stand busts of old orators,
interspersed with voluptuous vases and bronzes, antique or Italian, and
airy statuettes in marble or alabaster of nude or semi-nude opera
nymphs.'
What Chesterfield called the 'cannonical pillars' of the house were
columns brought from Cannons, near Edgeware, the seat of the Duke of
Chandos. The antechamber of Chesterfield House has been erroneously
stated as the room in which Johnson waited the great lord's pleasure.
That state of endurance was probably passed by 'Old Samuel' in
Bloomsbury.
In this stately abode--one of the few, the very few, that seem to hold
_noblesse_ apart in our levelling metropolis--Chesterfield held his
assemblies of all that London, or indeed England, Paris, the Hague, or
Vienna, could furnish of what was polite and charming. Those were days
when the stream of society did not, as now, flow freely, mingling with
the grace of aristocracy the acquirements of hard-working professors;
there was then a strong line of demarcation; it had not been broken down
in the same way as now, when people of rank and wealth live in rows,
instead of inhabiting hotels set apart. Paris has sustained a similar
revolution, since her gardens were built over, and their green shades,
delicious, in the centre of that hot city, are seen no more. In the very
Faubourg St. Germain, the grand old hotels are rapidly disappearing, and
with them something of the exclusiveness of the higher orders. Lord
Chesterfield, however, triumphantly pointing to the fruits of his taste
and distribution of his wealth, witnessed, in his library at
Chesterfield House, the events which time produced. He heard of the
death of Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, and of her bequest to him of
twenty thousand pounds, and her best and largest brilliant diamond ring,
'out of the great regard she had for his merit, and the infinite
obligations she had received from him.' He witnessed the change of
society and of politics which occurred when George II. expired, and the
Earl of Bute, calling himself a descendant of the house of Stuart, 'and
humble enough to be proud of it,' having quitted the isle of Bute, which
Lord Chesterfield calls 'but a little south of Nova Zembla,' took
possession, not only of the affections, but even of the senses of the
young king, George III., who, assisted by the widowed Princess of Wales
(supposed to be attached to Lord Bute), was 'lugged out of the
seraglio,' and 'placed upon the throne.'
Chesterfield lived to have the honour of having the plan of 'Johnson's
Dictionary' inscribed to him, and the dishonour of neglecting the great
author. Johnson, indeed, denied the truth of the story which gained
general belief, in which it was asserted that he had taken a disgust at
being kept waiting in the earl's antechamber, the reason being assigned
that his lordship 'had company with him;' when at last the door opened,
and forth came Colley Cibber. Then Johnson--so report said--indignant,
not only for having been kept waiting but also for _whom_, went away, it
was affirmed, in disgust; but this was solemnly denied by the doctor,
who assured Boswell that his wrath proceeded from continual neglect on
the part of Chesterfield.
Whilst the Dictionary was in progress, Chesterfield seemed to forget the
existence of him, whom, together with the other literary men, he
affected to patronize.
He once sent him ten pounds, after which he forgot Johnson's address,
and said 'the great author had changed his lodgings.' People who really
wish to benefit others can always discover where they lodge. The days of
patronage were then expiring, but they had not quite ceased, and a
dedication was always to be in some way paid for.
When the publication of the Dictionary drew near, Lord Chesterfield
flattered himself that, in spite of all his neglect, the great
compliment of having so vast an undertaking dedicated to him would still
be paid, and wrote some papers in the 'World,' recommending the work,
more especially referring to the 'plan,' and terming Johnson the
'dictator,' in respect to language: 'I will not only obey him,' he said,
'as my dictator, like an old Roman, but like a modern Roman, will
implicitly believe in him as my pope.'
Johnson, however, was not to be propitiated by those 'honeyed words.' He
wrote a letter couched in what he called 'civil terms,' to Chesterfield,
from which we extract the following passages:
'When, upon some slight encouragement, I first visited your lordship, I
was overpowered, like the rest of mankind, by the enchantment of your
address; and could not forbear to wish that I might boast myself
_vainqueur du vainqueur de la terre_--that I might obtain that regard
for which I saw the world contending; but I found my attendance so
little encouraged, that neither pride nor modesty would suffer me to
continue it. When I had once addressed your lordship in publick, I had
exhausted all the art of pleasing which a retired and uncourtly scholar
can possess. I had done all that I could; and no man is well pleased to
have his all neglected, be it ever so little.
'Seven years, my lord, have now past, since I waited in your outward
room, or was repulsed from your door, during which time I have been
pushing on my work through difficulties, of which it is useless to
complain, and have brought it, at last, to the verge of publication
without one act of assistance, one word of encouragement, or one smile
of favour: such treatment I did not expect, for I never had a patron
before.... Is not a patron, my lord, one who looks with unconcern on a
man who is struggling for life in the water, and, when he has reached
ground, encumbers him with help? The notice which you have been pleased
to take of my labours, had it been early, had been kind; but it has been
delayed till I am indifferent and cannot enjoy it; till I am solitary
and cannot impart it; till I am known and do not want it. I hope it is
no very cynical asperity not to confess obligations where no benefit has
been received, or to be unwilling that the publick should consider me as
owing that to a patron which Providence has enabled me to do for
myself.'
The conduct of Johnson, on this occasion, was approved by most manly
minds, except that of his publisher, Mr. Robert Dodsley; Dr. Adams, a
friend of Dodsley, said he was sorry that Johnson had written that
celebrated letter (a very model of polite contempt). Dodsley said he was
sorry too, for he had a property in the Dictionary, to which his
lordship's patronage might be useful. He then said that Lord
Chesterfield had shown him the letter. 'I should have thought,' said
Adams, 'that Lord Chesterfield would have concealed it.' 'Pooh!' cried
Dodsley, 'do you think a letter from Johnson could hurt Lord
Chesterfield? not at all, sir. It lay on his table, where any one might
see it. He read it to me; said, "this man has great powers," pointed out
the severest passages, and said, "how well they were expressed."' The
art of dissimulation, in which Chesterfield was perfect, imposed on Mr.
Dodsley.
Dr. Adams expostulated with the doctor, and said Lord Chesterfield
declared he would part with the best servant he had, if he had known
that he had turned away a man who was '_always_ welcome.' Then Adams
insisted on Lord Chesterfield's affability, and easiness of access to
literary men. But the sturdy Johnson replied, 'Sir, that is not Lord
Chesterfield; he is the proudest man existing.' 'I think,' Adams
rejoined, 'I know one that is prouder; you, by your own account, are the
prouder of the two.' 'But mine,' Johnson answered, with one of his happy
turns, 'was defensive pride.' 'This man,' he afterwards said, referring
to Chesterfield, 'I thought had been a lord among wits, but I find he is
only a wit among lords.'
In revenge, Chesterfield in his Letters depicted Johnson, it is said, in
the character of the 'respectable Hottentot.' Amongst other things, he
observed of the Hottentot, 'he throws his meat anywhere but down his
throat.' This being remarked to Johnson, who was by no means pleased at
being immortalized as the Hottentot--'Sir,' he answered, 'Lord
Chesterfield never saw me eat in his life.'
[Illustration: DR. JOHNSON AT LORD CHESTERFIELD'S.]
Such are the leading points of this famous and lasting controversy. It
is amusing to know that Lord Chesterfield was not always precise as to
directions to his letters. He once directed to Lord Pembroke, who was
always swimming 'To the Earl of Pembroke, in the Thames, over against
Whitehall. This, as Horace Walpole remarks, was sure of finding him
within a certain fathom.'
Lord Chesterfield was now admitted to be the very 'glass of fashion,'
though age, and, according to Lord Hervey, a hideous person, impeded his
being the 'mould of form.' 'I don't know why,' writes Horace Walpole, in
the dog-days, from Strawberry Hill, 'but people are always more anxious
about their hay than their corn, or twenty other things that cost them
more: I suppose my Lord Chesterfield, or some such dictator, made it
fashionable to care about one's hay. Nobody betrays solicitude about
getting in his rents.' 'The prince of wits,' as the same authority calls
him--'his entrance into the world was announced by his bon-mots, and his
closing lips dropped repartees that sparkled with his juvenile fire.'
No one, it was generally allowed, had such a force of table-wit as Lord
Chesterfield; but while the 'Graces' were ever his theme, he indulged
himself without distinction or consideration in numerous sallies. He
was, therefore, at once sought and feared; liked but not loved; neither
sex nor relationship, nor rank, nor friendship, nor obligation, nor
profession, could shield his victim from what Lord Hervey calls, 'those
pointed, glittering weapons, that seemed to shine only to a stander-by,
but cut deep into those they touched.'
He cherished 'a voracious appetite for abuse;' fell upon every one that
came in his way, and thus treated each one of his companions at the
expense of the other. To him Hervey, who had probably often smarted,
applied the lines of Boileau--
'Mais c'est un petit fou qui se croit tout permis,
Et qui pour un bon mot va perdre vingt amis.'
Horace Walpole (a more lenient judge of Chesterfield's merits) observes
that 'Chesterfield took no less pains to be the phoenix of fine
gentlemen, than Tully did to qualify himself as an orator. Both
succeeded: Tully immortalized his name; Chesterfield's reign lasted a
little longer than that of a fashionable beauty.' It was, perhaps,
because, as Dr. Johnson said, all Lord Chesterfield's witty sayings were
puns, that even his brilliant wit failed to please, although it amused,
and surprised its hearers.
Notwithstanding the contemptuous description of Lord Chesterfield's
personal appearance by Lord Hervey, his portraits represent a handsome,
though hard countenance, well-marked features, and his figure and air
appear to have been elegant. With his commanding talents, his wonderful
brilliancy and fluency of conversation, he would perhaps sometimes have
been even tedious, had it not been for his invariable cheerfulness. He
was always, as Lord Hervey says, 'present' in his company. Amongst the
few friends who really loved this thorough man of the world, was Lord
Scarborough, yet no two characters were more opposite. Lord Scarborough
had judgment, without wit: Chesterfield wit, and no judgment; Lord
Scarborough had honesty and principle; Lord Chesterfield had neither.
Everybody liked the one, but did not care for his company. Everyone
disliked the other, but wished for his company. The fact was,
Scarborough was 'splendid and absent.' Chesterfield 'cheerful and
present:' wit, grace, attention to what is passing, the surface, as it
were, of a highly-cultured mind, produced a fascination with which all
the honour and respectability in the Court of George II. could not
compete.
In the earlier part of Chesterfield's career, Pope, Bolingbroke, Hervey,
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, and, in fact, all that could add to the
pleasures of the then early dinner-table, illumined Chesterfield House
by their wit and gaiety. Yet in the midst of this exciting life, Lord
Chesterfield found time to devote to the improvement of his natural son,
Philip Stanhope, a great portion of his leisure. His celebrated Letters
to that son did not, however, appear during the earl's life; nor were
they in any way the source of his popularity as a wit, which was due to
his merits in that line alone.
The youth to whom these letters, so useful and yet so objectionable,
were addressed, was intended for a diplomatist. He was the very reverse
of his father: learned, sensible, and dry; but utterly wanting in the
graces, and devoid of eloquence. As an orator, therefore, he failed; as
a man of society, he must also have failed; and his death, in 1768, some
years before that of his father, left that father desolate, and
disappointed. Philip Stanhope had attained the rank of envoy to Dresden,
where he expired.
During the five years in which Chesterfield dragged out a mournful life
after this event, he made the painful discovery that his son had married
without confiding that step to the father to whom he owed so much. This
must have been almost as trying as the awkward, ungraceful deportment of
him whom he mourned. The world now left Chesterfield ere he had left the
world. He and his contemporary Lord Tyrawley were now old and infirm.
'The fact is,' Chesterfield wittily said, 'Tyrawley and I have been dead
these two years, but we don't choose to have it known.'
'The Bath,' he wrote to his friend Dayrolles, 'did me more good than I
thought anything could do me; but all that good does not amount to what
builders call half-repairs, and only keeps up the shattered fabric a
little longer than it would have stood without them; but take my word
for it, it will stand but a very little while longer. I am now in my
grand climacteric, and shall not complete it. Fontenelle's last words at
a hundred and three were, _Je souffre d'être._ deaf and infirm as I am,
I can with truth say the same thing at sixty-three. In my mind it is
only the strength of our passions, and the weakness of our reason, that
makes us so fond of life; but when the former subside and give way to
the latter, we grow weary of being, and willing to withdraw. I do not
recommend this train of serious reflections to you, nor ought you to
adopt them.... You have children to educate and provide for, you have
all your senses, and can enjoy all the comforts both of domestic and
social life. I am in every sense _isolé_, and have wound up all my
bottoms; I may now walk off quietly, without missing nor being missed.'
The kindness of his nature, corrupted as it was by a life wholly
worldly, and but little illumined in its course by religion, shone now
in his care of his two grandsons, the offspring of his lost son, and of
their mother, Eugenia Stanhope. To her he thus wrote:--
'The last time I had the pleasure of seeing you, I was so taken up in
playing with the boys, that I forgot their more important affairs. How
soon would you have them placed at school? When I know your pleasure as
to that, I will send to Monsieur Perny, to prepare everything for their
reception. In the mean time, I beg that you will equip them thoroughly
with clothes, linen, &c., all good, but plain; and give me the amount,
which I will pay; for I do not intend, from this time forwards, the two
boys should cost you one shilling.'
He lived, latterly, much at Blackheath, in the house which, being built
on Crown land, has finally become the Ranger's lodge; but which still
sometimes goes by the name of Chesterfield House. Here he spent large
sums, especially on pictures, and cultivated Cantelupe melons; and here,
as he grew older, and became permanently afflicted with deafness, his
chief companion was a useful friend, Solomon Dayrolles--one of those
indebted hangers-on whom it was an almost invariable custom to find, at
that period, in great houses--and perhaps too frequently in our own day.
Dayrolles, who was employed in the embassy under Lord Sandwich at the
Hague, had always, to borrow Horace Walpole's ill-natured expression,
'been a led-captain to the Dukes of Richmond and Grafton, used to be
sent to auctions for them, and to walk in the parks with their
daughters, and once went dry-nurse in Holland with them. He has
belonged, too, a good deal to my Lord Chesterfield, to whom I believe he
owes this new honour, "that of being minister at the Hague," as he had
before made him black-rod in Ireland, and gave the ingenious reason that
he had a black face.' But the great 'dictator' in the empire of
politeness was now in a slow but sure decline. Not long before his
death he was visited by Monsieur Suard, a French gentleman, who was
anxious to see '_l'homme le plus aimable, le plus poli et le plus
spirituel des trois royaumes_,' but who found him fearfully altered;
morose from his deafness, yet still anxious to please. 'It is very sad,'
he said, with his usual politeness, 'to be deaf, when one would so much
enjoy listening. I am not,' he added, 'so philosophic as my friend the
President de Montesquieu, who says, "I know how to be blind, but I do
not yet know how to be deaf."' 'We shortened our visit,' says M. Suard,
'lest we should fatigue the earl.' 'I do not detain you,' said
Chesterfield, 'for I must go and rehearse my funeral.' It was thus that
he styled his daily drive through the streets of London.
Lord Chesterfield's wonderful memory continued till his latest hour. As
he lay, gasping in the last agonies of extreme debility, his friend, Mr.
Dayrolles, called in to see him half an hour before he expired. The
politeness which had become part of his very nature did not desert the
dying earl. He managed to say, in a low voice, to his valet, 'Give
Dayrolles a chair.' This little trait greatly struck the famous Dr.
Warren, who was at the bedside of this brilliant and wonderful man. He
died on the 24th of March, 1773, in the 79th year of his age.
The preamble to a codicil (Feb. 11, 1773) contains the following
striking sentences, written when the intellect was impressed with the
solemnity of that solemn change which comes alike to the unreflecting
and to the heart stricken, holy believer:--
'I most humbly recommend my soul to the extensive mercy of that
Eternal, Supreme, Intelligent Being who gave it me; most
earnestly at the same time deprecating his justice. Satiated with
the pompous follies of this life, of which I have had an uncommon
share, I would have no posthumous ones displayed at my funeral,
and therefore desire to be buried in the next burying-place to
the place where I shall die, and limit the whole expense of my
funeral to £100.'
His body was interred, according to his wish, in the vault of the chapel
in South Audley Street, but it was afterwards removed to the family
burial-place in Shelford Church, Nottinghamshire.
In his will he left legacies to his servants.[26] 'I consider them,' he
said, 'as unfortunate friends; my equals by nature, and my inferiors
only in the difference of our fortunes.' There was something lofty in
the mind that prompted that sentence.
His estates reverted to a distant kinsman, descended from a younger son
of the first earl; and it is remarkable, on looking through the Peerage
of Great Britain, to perceive how often this has been the case in a race
remarkable for the absence of virtue. Interested marriages, vicious
habits, perhaps account for the fact; but retributive justice, though it
be presumptuous to trace its course, is everywhere.
He had so great a horror in his last days of gambling, that in
bequeathing his possessions to his heir, as he expected, and godson,
Philip Stanhope, he inserts this clause:--
'In case my said godson, Philip Stanhope, shall at any time
hereinafter keep, or be concerned in keeping of, any race-horses,
or pack of hounds, or reside one night at Newmarket, that
infamous seminary of iniquity and ill-manners, during the course
of the races there; or shall resort to the said races; or shall
lose, in any one day, at any game or bet whatsoever, the sum of
£500, then, in any the cases aforesaid, it is my express will
that he, my said godson, shall forfeit and pay, out of my estate,
the sum of £5,000 to and for the use of the Dean and Chapter of
Westminster.'
When we say that Lord Chesterfield was a man who had _no friend_, we sum
up his character in those few words. Just after his death a small but
distinguished party of men dined together at Topham Beauclerk's. There
was Sir Joshua Reynolds; Sir William Jones, the orientalist; Bennet
Langton; Steevens; Boswell; Johnson. The conversation turned on Garrick,
who, Johnson said, had friends, but no friend. Then Boswell asked, 'what
is a friend?' 'One who comforts and supports you, while others do not.'
'Friendship, you know, sir, is the cordial drop to make the nauseous
draught of life go down.' Then one of the company mentioned Lord
Chesterfield as one who had no friend; and Boswell said: 'Garrick was
pure gold, but beat out to thin leaf, Lord Chesterfield was tinsel.'
And, for once, Johnson did not contradict him. But not so do we judge
Lord Chesterfield. He was a man who acted on false principles through
life; and those principles gradually undermined everything that was
noble and generous in character; just as those deep under-ground
currents, noiseless in their course, work through fine-grained rock, and
produce a chasm. Everything with Chesterfield was self: for self, and
self alone, were agreeable qualities to be assumed; for self, was the
country to be served, because that country protects and serves us: for
self, were friends to be sought and cherished, as useful auxiliaries, or
pleasant accessories: in the very core of the cankered heart, that
advocated this corrupting doctrine of expediency, lay unbelief; that
worm which never died in the hearts of so many illustrious men of that
period--the refrigerator of the feelings.
One only gentle and genuine sentiment possessed Lord Chesterfield, and
that was his love for his son. Yet in this affection the worldly man
might be seen in mournful colours. He did not seek to render his son
good; his sole desire was to see him successful: every lesson that he
taught him, in those matchless Letters which have carried down
Chesterfield's fame to us when his other productions have virtually
expired, exposes a code of dissimulation which Philip Stanhope, in his
marriage, turned upon the father to whom he owed so much care and
advancement. These Letters are, in fact, a complete exposition of Lord
Chesterfield's character and views of life. No other man could have
written them; no other man have conceived the notion of existence being
one great effort to deceive, as well as to excel, and of society forming
one gigantic lie. It is true they were addressed to one who was to enter
the maze of a diplomatic career, and must be taken, on that account,
with some reservation.
They have justly been condemned on the score of immorality; but we must
remember that the age in which they were written was one of lax notions,
especially among men of rank, who regarded all women accessible, either
from indiscretion or inferiority of rank, as fair game, and acted
accordingly. But whilst we agree with one of Johnson's bitterest
sentences as to the immorality of Chesterfield's letters, we disagree
with his styling his code of manners the manners of a dancing-master.
Chesterfield was in himself a perfect instance of what he calls _les
manières nobles_; and this even Johnson allowed.
'Talking of Chesterfield,' Johnson said, 'his manner was exquisitely
elegant, and he had more knowledge than I expected.' Boswell: 'Did you
find, sir, his conversation to be of a superior sort?'--Johnson: 'Sir,
in the conversation which I had with him, I had the best right to
superiority, for it was upon philology and literature.'
It was well remarked how extraordinary a thing it was that a man who
loved his son so entirely should do all he could to make him a rascal.
And Foote even contemplated bringing on the stage a father who had thus
tutored his son; and intended to show the son an honest man in
everything else, but practising his father's maxims upon him, and
cheating him.
'It should be so contrived,' Johnson remarked, referring to Foote's
plan, 'that the father should be the _only_ sufferer by the son's
villany, and thus there would be poetical justice.' 'Take out the
immorality,' he added, on another occasion, 'and the book
(Chesterfield's Letters to his Son) should be put into the hands of
every young gentleman.'
We are inclined to differ, and to confess to a moral taint throughout
the whole of the Letters; and even had the immorality been expunged, the
false motives, the deep, invariable advocacy of principles of
expediency, would have poisoned what otherwise might be of effectual
benefit to the minor virtues of polite society.