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CHESTERFIELD'S LETTERS. / ' -s LETTERS WRITTEN BY LORD CHESTERFIELD TO HIS SON, SELECTED B Y CHARLES SAYLE. 55a LONDON: WALTER SCOTT, 24 WARWICK LANE. NEW YORK AND TORONTO: W. J. GAGE A CO LORD CHESTERFIELD. Born .,,,.,,, 1694 Goes to Cambridge . • . . . . 1712 Goes abroad ....... 1714 Gentleman of the Bed-chamber to the Prince of Wales 1715 M. P. for S. Germains ...... 171S Votes for the Schism Bill ..... 1718 Captain of the Yeoman of the Guards .... 1723 Refuses the Red Ribbon ..... 1725 Becomes Earl of Chesterfield ..... 1726 Sent as Ambassador to Holland .... 1728 High Steward of His Majesty's Household 1730 Philip Stanhope born 1731 Married . , , 1733 Dismissed 1733 Goes abroad for a year . . 1741 Ambassador to Holland ..... 1745 Lord Lieutenant of Ireland ..... 1745 Retires ....... 1748 Reforms the Calendar ...... 1751 Becomes deirf ...... 1752 Philip Stanhope^ M,P. for Liskeard 1754 Philip Stanhope at Ratisbon , 1763 Philip Stanhope envoy at Dresden . 1764 Philip Stanhope dies 1768 Dies . . 1773 " He who intends t' advise the young and gay, Must quit the common road — the former way Which hum drum pedants take to make folks wise, By praising virtue, and decrying vice. Let Parsons tell what dreadful ills will fall On such as listen when their passions call : We, from such things our pupils to affright, Say not they're sins, but that they're unpolite.** [Lieut. -Col. Jambs Forbbster.] PREFATORY NOTE. IT is a singular fate that has overtaken Lord Chesterfield. One of the more important figures in the political world of his time; one of the few Lord-Lieutenants of Ireland whose name was afterwards respected and admired ; the first man to introduce Voltaire and Montes- quieu to England; and the personal acquaintance of men like Addison and Swift, Pope and Bolingbroke ; the ally of Pitt, and the enemy of three Georges ; though he married a king's daughter and took up the task of the world's greatest emperor : yet the record of his actions has passed away, and he is remembered now only by an accident. Lord Chesterfield lives by that which he never intended for publication, while that which he published has already passed from the thoughts of men. It is one more example of the fact that our best work is that which is our heart's production. We have Lord Chesterfield's secret, and it bears witness to the strength of that part of him in which an intellectual anatomist has declared him to be deficieul — a criticism which is but another proof of that which has been somewhere said of him, that he has had the fate to be generally misunderstood. Yet nothing is more certain than that Lord Chesterfield did not mean to be anything but inscrutable. " Dissimilation is a shield," he used to say, "as secrecy is armour." "A young fellow ought to be wiser than he should seem to be, and an old fellow ought to Vltl PREJPA TOR Y NOTE. seem wise whether he really be so or not." It is still worth while attempting to solve the problem which is offered to us by his inscrutability, not only on its own account, but because Lord Chesterfield is a representative spirit of the eighteenth century. * Philip Dormer Stanhope did not experience in his youth either of those influences which are so important in the lives of most of us. His mother died before he could know her, and his father was one of those living nonentities whom his biographer sums up in saying that * We know little more of him than that he was an Earl of Chesterfield.' Indeed, what influence there may have been was of a negative kind, for he had, if anything, an avowed dislike for his son. Naturally under these conditions he had to endure the slings and arrows of fortune alone and uncounselled. One domestic influence was allowed him in the mother of his mother, whose face still looks out at us from the pages of Dr. Maty, engraved by Bartolozzi frum the original of Sir Peter Lely — a face sweet, intellectual, open — over the title of Gertrude Savile, Marchioness of Halifax. She it was who undertook, at any rate to some small degree, the rearing of her daughter's child. Lord Chesterfield is rather a Savile than a Stanhope. He heard French from a Normandy nurse in his cradle, and he received, when he grew a little older, "such a * 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 H'storical^ i. 388. PREFATORY NOTE. IX general idea of the sciences as it is a disgrace to a gentleman not to possess." But it is not till he gets to Cambridge at the age of eighteen that we hear anything definite. He writes to his tutor of former days, whom he seems to have made a real friend, from Trinity Hall : — " I find the college where I am infinitely the best in the University ; for it is the smallest, and filled with lawyers who have lived in the world, and know how to behave. Whatever may be said to the contrary, there is certainly very little debauchery in the university, especially amongst people of fashion, for a man must have the inclinations of a porter to endure it here." Thirty-six years later he draws for his son this picture of his college-life : — " As I make no difficulty of confessing my past errors, where I think the confession may be of use to you, I will own that, when I first went to the university, I drank and smoked, notwithstanding the aversion I had to wine and tobacco, only because I thought it genteel, and that it made me look a man." This touch of nature it is interesting to find in one who gave so much to the Graces- But to get at what he really did we may take the following : — "It is now. Sir, I have a great deal of business upon my hands ; for I spend an hour every day in studying civil law, and as much in philosophy ; and next week the blind man [Dr. Sanderson] begins his lectures upon the mathematics ; so that I am now fully employed. Would you believe, too, that I read Lucian and Xenophon in Greek, which is made easy to me ; for I do not take the pains to learn the grammatical rules ; but the gentleman who is with me, and who is a living grammar, teaches me them all as I go along. I reserve time for playing at tennis, for I wish to have the corpus sanum as well as the mens sana : I think the one is not good for much without the other. As for anatomy, I shall not have an opportunity of a k PREFATORY NOTE. learning it ; for though a poor man has been hanged, the surgeon who used to perform those operations would not this year give any lectures, because, he says, . . . the scholars will not come. " Methinks our affairs are in a very bad way, but as I cannot mend them, I meddle very little in politics ; only I take a pleasure in going sometimes to the coffee house to see the pitched battles that are fought between the heroes of each party with inconceivable bravery, and are usually ter- minated by the total defeat of a few tea-cups on both sides." * He only stayed in Cambridge two years, and then travelled abroad to Flanders and Holland. He had just left the Hague when the news reached him across the water which only then wns not stale — Queen Anne was dead. It was the turning-point of his career, for his great- uncle, who had influence and position at the court, obtained for him from George I. the post of Gentleman of the Bed-chamber to the Prince of Wales. At the same time he obtained a pocket-borough in Cornwall, and appeared in the House of Commons. He was not yet of age, of which fact a friend in the opposition politely and quietly informed him after he had made his first speech. He was, therefore, not only debarred from voting, but liable to a fine of ;£^5oo. He made a low bow, left the House, and posted straightway to Paris. He was not there long. Advancing months soon removed the objection of age, and we find him again frequently in the House. His position on the Schism and Occasional Conformity Bills was one which he him- self in after years regretted. He was still, however, * For another, very different, view of the life and studies at Cambridge at the time, see the Life of Ambrose Bomvicke (1694-1714). phefa tor y note. xi swimming with the stream, and the stream led on to fortune. In 1723 he was made Captain of the Yeomen of the Guards, and two years later, when the Order of the Bath was revived, was offered by the king the red ribbon. But this he refused; and not contented with so much discourtesy, objected to others accepting it. He wrote a ballad on Sir William Morgan, who had received the same offer. The ballad came to the ears of the king; and for this, or for other reasons. Stanhope the courtier lost his place. At this juncture two changes took place, to him of equal importance. George I. died and brought Stanhope's former master to the throne; and Lord Chesterfield died, leaving his son his title. The latter event raised him to the House of Lords — the Hospital for Incurables, as Lord Chesterfield calls it. The former should have raised him to higher office still ; but that policy of scheming for which Lord Chesterfield has become almost as famous as Macchiavelli in this case played him false. Believing that where marriage begins, love, as a necessary consequence, ends, he had paid all his attentions to the new king's mistress, while he was still Prince of Wales, and none to his^, queen. And Caroline of Anspach took precaution that when George II. came to the throne the courtier's negligence should be treated as it deserved. Thus at the age of thirty-three, while still a young man, Chesterfield was cut off from the Court: and he was already in opposition to Walpole. The King as a subter- fuge offered him the post of Ambassador to Holland, and the offended courtier was thus removed. But political events were moving rapidly, and in two years' time it was rumoured that Chesterfield would be reinstated in favour. The King, however, was still obdurate, and xu PREFATORY NOTt:. instead of Secretary of State he was made High Steward of the Household. Chesterfield remained in Holland, gambling, and watching events. *'I find treating v/ith two hundred sovereigns of different tempers and pro- fessions," he writes, "is as laborious as treating with one fine woman, who is at least of two hundred minds in one day." The game went on for a year more. Then he was by his own wish recalled. On the 2nd of May of this same year he was presented with a son by a Mme. Du Bouchet. "A beautiful young lady at the Hague," says one writer, *• set her wits against his and suffered the usual penalty; she fell, and this son was the result." This son was- the object of all Lord Chesterfield's care and affection. It was to him that his now famous letters were written. The father we find, on hjs return to England, in the House talking indefatigably as ever. It was the year of Walpole's Excise Bill which was to have freed the country by changing the system of taxation from direct to indirect methods. It was a good measure and a just one. Every part of Walpole's scheme has been since carried into effect. But then there was a general cry raised against it. The liberties of the people, it was said, were being attacked. Chester- field, with the rest of the Patriots, and with the country behind them, fought hard, and the Bill was dropped (nth April 1 731). Two days afterwards, going up the steps of S. James's Palace, he was stopped by a servant in the livery of the Duke of Grafton, who told him that his master must see him immediately. He drove off at once in the Duke's carriage, and found that he was to surrender the White Staff. He demanded an audience at Court, obtained it, and was snubbed. Of course he left it immediately. PREFATORY NOTE, xiu We could have wished perhaps that Lord Chesterfield's affection and character had prevented him from falling — especially so soon after the affair at the Hague — into so unpraiseworthy an undertaking as a mariage de con- venance. Yet whether it was to spite his royal enemy, or because in financial difficulties he remembered the existence of the will of George I. — or even from love ; at any rate in the following year he married, in lawful wedlock, Melusina de Schulenberg, whom, though merely the " niece " of the Duchess of Ken dale, George the First had thought fit to create Lady Walsingham and the possessor by his will of ;£'2o,ooo. Scandal or truth has been very busy about the relationship of Lady Walsingham and her aunt. Posterity openly declares her to have been the daughter of that lady by a royal sire. But good Dr. Maty, as though by the quantity of his information, wishing to override its quality, tells us that her father was none other than one *' Frederick Achatz ' de Schulenburg, privy counsellor to the Duke of Brunswick-Lunenburg, Lord of Stehler, Bezendorff, Angern," etc. But we may well remember Lord Chesterfield's own words here: *'It is a happy phrase that a lady has presented her husband with a son, for this does not admit anything of its parentage." Anyhow Lord Chesterfield lost the money, for George the Second, on being shown his father's will by the Archbishop of Canterbury, put i' in his pocket and walked hastily out of the room. It never was seen again. But to have quarrelled with George II. had one recom- mendation. It made him a friend of the Prince of Wales. No sooner was Lord Chesterfield married than the Prince and Princess sent round their cards, and the rest of their Court, of course, followed them. It seems to have been Lord Chesterfield's fate to be opposed to the reigning XIV PREFATORY NOTE, . Ill power. His opposition now, however, was quite spon- taneous. We need not follow him through all the political entangle- ments of the time. Smollett said of him that he was the only man of genius employed under Walpole, and though history has hardly justified such praise, yet it certainly illustrates a truth. We may take his speech in 1737 against the Playhouse Bill as a sample of his oratory. I borrow from Lord Mahon : — * [The speech] contains many eloquent predictions, that, should the Bill be enacted, the ruin of liberty and the introduction of despotism would inevitably follow. Yet even Chesterfield owns that "he has observed of late a remarkable licentiousness in the stage. In one play very lately acted (Pasquin*) the author thought fit to represent the three great professions, religion, physic, and law as inconsistent with common sense ; in another (King Charles the Firstt), a most tragical story was brought upon the stage, — SL catastrophe too recent, too melancholy, and of too solemn a nature, to be heard of anywhere but from the pulpit. How these pieces came to pass unpunished, I do not know. , . . The Bill, my Lords, may seem to be designed only against the stage ; but to me it plainly appears to point somewhere else. It is an arrow that does but glance upon the stage : the mortal wound seems designed against the liberty of the press. By this Bill you prevent a play's being acted, but you do not pre- vent it being printed. Tlierefore if a licence should be refused for its being acted, we may depend upon it the play will be printed. It will be printed and * [" Pasquin. A Dramatic Satire on the Times, by Henry Field* ing. Acted at the Hay market, 1736; 1740." (Baker.)] + V'^ing Charles I. Hist. Tr. by W. Havard, 1737." (Ibid.).] PREFATORY NOTE. XV published, my Lords, with the refusal, in capital letters, upon the title-page. People are always fond of what is for- bidden. Libri prohibiti are, in all countries, diligently and generally sought after. It will be much easier to procure a refusal than it ever was to procure a good house or a good sale ; therefore we may expect that plays will be wrote on purpose to have a refusal: this will certainly procure a good house or a good sale. Thus will satires be spread and dispersed through the whole nation ; and thus every man in the kingdom may, and probably will, read for sixpence what a few only could have seen acted for half a crown. We shall then be told, What ! will you allow an infamous libel to be printed and dispersed, which you will not allow to be acted ? If we agree to the Bill now before us, we must, perhaps, next session, agree to a Bill for preventing any plays being printed without a licence. Then satires will be wrote by way of novels, secret histories, dialogues, or under some such title ; and thereupon we shall be told, What ! will you allow an infamous libel to be printed and dispersed, only because it does not bear the title of a play? Thus, my Lords, from the precedent now before us, we shall be induced, nay, we can find no reason for refusing, to lay the press under a general licence, and then we may bid adieu to the liberties of Great Britain." ' * Of course it is impossible from single passages, even perhaps from single speeches, to infer that he was ever a great orator, but Horace Walpole has declared one of his speeches the finest that he had ever listened to, and, as Lord Mahon justly observes, ** Horace Walpole had heard his own father ; had heard Pitt ; had heard Pulteney ; had * Chesterfield says he had been accustomed to read and translate the great masterpieces to improve and form his style. His indebted- ness to Milton in his Areopagitica in the above passage is obvious. XVI PREFATORY NOTE, / heard Windham ; had heard Carteret ; yet he declares in 1 743 that the finest speech he had ever listened to was one from Lord Chesterfield." He was, with the other ' Patriots,' in clamouring for war with Spain, pursuing Walpole with an opposition which has been characterised as ** more factious and unprincipled, than any that had ever disgraced English politics " (Green). In 1739, it will be remembered, Walpole bowed to the storm. The following extract from An Ode to a Number of Great Men, published in 1742, will show underneath its virulence who were expected to take the lead : — •' But first to C[arteret] fain you'd sing, Indeed he's nearest to the king, Yet careless how to use him, Give him, I beg, no labour'd lays, He will but promise if you praise, And laugh if you abuse him. ** Then (but there's a vast space betwixt) The new-made £[arl] of B[ath] comes next, Stiff in his popular pride : His step, his gait describe the man. They paint him better than I can. Wabbling from side to side. -' ** Each hour a different face he wears. Now in a fury, now in tears. Now laughing, now in sorrow, Now he'll command, and now obey. Bellows for liberty to-day. And roars for power to-morrow. " At noon the Tories had him tight. With staunchest Whigs he supped at night, Each party thought to have won him : But he himself did so divide, Shuffled and cut from side to side, That now both parties shun him. PREFATORY NOTE, xvii « More changes, better times this isle Demands, oh I Chesterfield, Argyll, To bleeding Britain bring 'em ; Unite all hearts, appease each storm, 'Tis yours such actions to perform. My pride shall be to sing 'em." Affairs in Holland again compelled him to seek that Court, and it is thence that he was summoned to Ireland in 1744. "Make Chenevix an Irish Bishop," he had written. "We cannot," was the reply, "but any other condition." " Then make me Lord-Lieutenant," he wrote back. They took him at his word, and Chenevix soon obtained his place. Chesterfield had always looked forward to the post with longing. " I would rather be called the Irish Lord- Lieutenant," he had said, " than go down to Posterity as the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland." It was, as has been truly observed, the most brilliant and useful part of his career. I shall be pardoned for quoting again from Mahon. "It was he who first, since the revolution, had made that office a post of active exertion. Only a few years before the Earl of Shrewsbury had given as a reason for accepting it, that it was a place where a man had business enough to hinder him from falling asleep, and not enough to keep him awake. Chesterfield, on the contrary, left nothing undone nor for others to do. . . . [He] was the first to introduce in Dublin the principle of impartial justice. It is very easy, as was formerly the case, to cfiose the great Protestant families as managers ; to see only through their eyes, and to hear only through their ears ; it is very easy, according to the modern fashion, to become the tool and the champion of Roman Catholic agitators; but to hold XVlll PREFATORY NOTE. the balance even between both : to protect the Establish- ment, yet never wound religious liberty; to repress the lawlessness, yet not chill the affection of that turbulent but warm-hearted people ; to be the arbiter, not the slave of parties; this is the true object worthy that a states- man should strive for, and fit only for the ablest to attain ! ' I came determined,* writes Chesterfield many years after- wards, *to proscribe no set of persons whatever; 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 that my lenity to the Papists had wrought no alteration, either in their religion or political sentiments. I did not expect that it would : but sur 4y there was no reason of cruelty towards them.' ... So able were the measures of Chesterfield; so clearly did he impress upon the public mind that his moderation was not weakness, nor his clemency cowardice, but that, to quote his own words, *his hand should be as heavy as Cromwell's upon them if they once forced him to raise it.' So well did he know how to scare the timid, while conciliating the generous, that this alarming period [1745] passed over with a degree of tranquillity such as Ireland has not often displayed even in orderly and settled times. This just and wise — wise because just — administration has not failed to reward him with its meed of fame ; his authority has, I find, been appealed to even by those who, as I conceive, depart most widely from his maxims ; and his name, I am assured, lives in the honoured remembrance of the Irish people, as perhaps, next to Ormond, the best and worthiest in their long Viceregal line." We know that it was a complete success, so far as it went. But he held the post only for four years. He had PREFATORY NOTE, XIX held the highest offices, he had attained his highest wishes : yet his membership in the Cabinet had been made nominal rather than real, and his power was ever controlled by the hand of the king. Nowhere, in whatever direction he might care to turn his eyes along the political landscape, could he see anything but what was rotten and revolting. In 1748 he retired. We cannot call his polit'?al career an unsuccessful one. It was probably as brilliant as it was possible for a man of his parts to enjoy. He was a good talker and an incomparable ambassador. His action in Holland had permanent influence on the politics of Europe. But indeed, if he had been freed from the opposition of a profligate Court and all that it entailed; if, as has been implied by some, he would have been a greater man had not the death of his father driven him into the House of Lords ; if he would then have risen to be anything greater than a second-rate Minister: this we may doubt. Yet we are not entitled to draw an estimate of his character before we have studied its other side. Chesterfield did not entirely give up attendance or even speaking at the House, but his energies henceforward were devoted to literary rather than political matters. One further act he performed before he left for good; he carried out three years later the reform of the English Calendar, an account of which he gives in one of his letters, and I cannot equal his words * This was the last important public event in his life. Next year he was attacked with deafness, which incapacitated him of necessity from affairs. It does not seem that he was ever very sorry to leave them. Ever and anon the old political fire breaks out, and we find him keeping an observant eye on the course * See Letter CCXV.. also CCXII. XX PREFATORY NOTE. of events. But he was thoroughly despondent of the prestige and ascendancy of England by the time of the outbreak of the Seven Years' War. " Nation ! " he had cried, "we are no longer a nation." We find him sympathising with Wilkes, and to the end on the side of Pitt But about 1765 his letters begin to bear the mark of decrepitude, and his brains to be unable to cope with the situations that arose. " I see and hear these storms from shore, suave mart magno^ &*c, I enjoy my own security and tranquillity, together with better health than I have reason to expect at my age and with my constitution : however I feel a gradual decay, though a gentle one ; and I think I shall not tumble, but slide gently to the bottom of the hill of life. When that will be I neither know nor care, for I am very weary," And in the following August, anticipating alike the autumn of his life and of the year, he writes : — "I feel this beginning of the autumn, which is already very cold; the leaves are withered, fall apace, and seem to intimate that I must follow them, which I shall do without reluctance, being extremely weary of this silly world." — (Letter CCCLV.) Yet even a year later we find him giving dinner parties to the Duke of Brunswick, and wishing that he had both the monarchs of Austria and Prussia, that they should, "together with some of their allies, take Lorraine and Alsace from France." (Letter CCCLXIV.) For a few more years he lingered on, gardening, reading, and writing, and then in 1773, almost alone, he parted with "this silly world." PREFATORY NOTE. XXI II. I have omitted from this sketch of Lord Chesterfield's political life any reference to the literary side of his character. I have, however, spoken of his friendship with Voltaire. Voltaire came to England in the same year that Chesterfield's father died, to obtain, among other things, a publisher for the Henriade. Chesterfield and Bolingbroke at once took him up and introduced him into high places.* Voltaire never forgot him nor the services which he had rendered; and one of the most charming lights thrown upon the end of Lord Chesterfield's career is in a letter from the old sage of Ferney to his friend of younger days, now grown old as himself. Chesterfield was always a great admirer of Voltaire's, though by no means a blind one : — " I strongly doubt," he writes, " whether it is permissible for a man to write against the worship and belief of his country, even if he be fully persuaded of its error, on account of the terrible trouble and disorder it might cause ; but I am sure it is in no wise allowable to attack the foundations of true morality, and to break unnecessary bonds which are already too weak to keep men in the path of duty." But differences upon points of morality and religion did not prevent his having an immense regard for Voltaire's genius. There is yet the other transaction in which Lord Chester- field was engaged, and it will probably be as long re- membered against him as the letters, — his ill-famed treat- ment of Dr. Johnson. It is too well known how Johnson ' * It is just possible, though I have nowhere seen it affirmed, that Voltaire and Chesterfield may have met, sti". earlier, in Holland. For in 17 1 3 they were both there. Their attainments there were all but parallel, Voltaire succumbing to a fatal passion in 17 13, which did not, to our knowledge, overtake Chesterfield till his second visit in 1729. . XXll VkKFATORY NOTE. came to his door, and how Chesterfield, who could never be impolite, received the ill-mannered Doctor. But either the Earl objected to having the old man annoying his guests at table, or else he was not sufficiently pressing with his money ; anyhow, the Doctor felt repelled, left off calling, and never sought another patron. Years afterwards, when he brought out his Dictionary (1755), there was a letter pre- fixed to the first edition, entitled " The Blast of Doom, pro- claiming that patronage shall be no more." Bos well solicited the Doctor for many years to give him a copy, but he did not do so until 1781, and then gave it from memory : — i( . Seven years, jny lord, have passed since I waited in your outward rooms, or was repulsed from your door ; during which time 1 have been pushing on my work under difficulties, of which it is useless to complain, and have brought it 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 struggling for life in the water, and, when he has reached ground, encumbers him with help ? The notice 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 shoul'^. consider me as owing that to a patron which providence has enabled me to do for myself. " Having carried on my work thus far, with so little obligation to any favourer of learning, I shall not be disappointed, though I should conclude it, if possible, with less ; for I have been long wakened from that dream of hope in which I once boasted myself with so much exaltation, my lord, your lordship's most humble and most obedient servant, Samuel Johnson." PREFATORY NOTE. XXIll Such a transaction is but little to the praise of Lord Chesterfield, who would have posed as the Maecenas of the eighteenth century. But there the matter rests. It is another proof of what the Earl was not, but with the slightest bend of his body might have been. He lost the Dedication to one of the greatest achievements of the time. III. Let us turn to Lord Chesterfield's son. Sainte-Beuve says of him — he was **one of those ordinary men of the world of whom it suffices to say there is nothing to be said." But there is so much melancholy interest attaching to his history ttiat we may well try to discern some of the features of the youth. No portrait of Philip Stanhope, so far as I am aware, has ever been given to the public, though we know from his father's letters that one, if not more than one, was executed at Venice during his stay there, so that I am unable, as yet, to surmise anything from physical feature of form and angle. We know that his father sent him to Westminster school, and that there he was slovenly and dirty. Of his intellectual qualities we hear nothing. His father's letter to the boy, then sixteen, is subtle : — " Since you do not care to be an Assessor of the Imperial Chamber, and desire an establishment in England, what do you think of being Greek Professor at one of our Universities ? It is a very pretty sinecure, and requires very little knowledge (much less than, I hope, you have already) of that language. If you do not approve of this, I am at a loss to know what else to propose to you." The old earl, six months later, added as follows : — XXIV PREFAIORY NOTE. "The end I propose by your education, and which {if you please) I shall certainly attain, is, to unite in you all the know- ledge of a scholar, with the manners of a courtier, and to join what is seldom joined in any of my countrymen, Books and the World. They are commonly twenty years old before they have spoken to anybody above their schoolmaster, and the Fellows of their College. If they happen to have learning, it is only Greek and Latin ; but not one word of Modem History or Modern Languages. Thus prepared, they go abroad, as they call it ; but, in truth, they stay at home all that while ; for, being very awkward, confoundedly ashamed, and not speaking the languages, they go into no foreign company, at least none good, but dine and sup with one another at the tavern. Such example, I am sure you will not imitate, but carefully avoid." Young Stanhope went abroad with a tutor, Mr. Harte, to 1 the chief towns, first, of Germany, followed everywhere by letters from his father, though, as his father says in one of them, " God knows whether to any purpose or not." He never escaped from the paternal care. Wherever you are " I have A rgu^ps ly^tb a hundred eyes," his father told him. The boy was affectionately fond of his father, though he did not inherit his father's epistolary taste. Yet we find him on corresponding terms with Lady Chesterfield. He was inclined to be stout, a fault which his father tells him to remedy by abstaining from Teutonic beer. He wo' e long hair. "I by no means agree to your cutting off your hair." (Stanhope had suggested this as a remedy for headaches.) " Your own hair is at your age such an ornament ; and a wig, however well made, such a disguise that I will upon no account whatever have you cut off your hair." We hear that he was already within two inches of his father's height. Boswell met him at Dresden, and has left us the following picture of him : — *' Mr. Stanhope's character has been unjustly represented as being diametrically opposed to what PREFATORY NOTE, XXV Lord Chesterfield wished him to be. He has been called dull, gross, awkward, but I knew him at Dresden when he was envoy to that Court, and though he could not boast of the Graces, he was, in fact, a sensible, civil, well-behaved man." And what he was as envoy he seems to have been all his life. Lord Chesterfield sent him to Berlin first,* and Turin afterwards, as there was to be fou»id the next fittest training in Europe at that Court. Nothing; could exceed his father's care in warning him against such dangers as usually attend Court life. Against evils of all kind he cautions and guards him. Yet there is this continual insistence on the Graces. "The Graces I The Graces!" he writes, " Remember the Graces ! I would have you sacri- fice to the Graces." By no means must a man neglect the Graces if he would pursue his object, the object of getting on. After all this schooling he went to Paris, and seems to have made a tolerable debut. There must have been a strange measuring up of qualities when father and son met. At twenty-two Lord Chesterfield obtained for him a seat in the House, but he was never a brilliant speaker. He, like the younger Pitt, was a parliamentary experiment; but it was not given to Stanhope to succeed. In 1757 he goes to Hamburg. Two years later his health broke down, and he came to England. But feeling better again, in 1763 he obtained a post at Ratisbon, whence he was once summoned to vote in the English Parliament. Next year he went to Dresden as envoy, but there his constitution was ruined, and he set off" for Berlin, and afterwards for France. In the spring of 1767 he returned to Dresden, fancying himself better, but in the following year the old symptoms returned, and he died on the 17th of October 1768, near Avignon. It was then * He must just have escaped travelling from Leipzig to Bedin with Tossing. Both took the journey in Februaiy 1749. XXVI PREFATORY NOTE. only that his father discovered he was the father of two children — by a secret marriage. And these, together with their mother, were thrown upon Lord Chesterfield for support. It is one of the examples of his characteristic traits that he supported and loved all three. There is no more charming pendant to the whole series of letters than a short one of three paragraphs which he wrote to the two children of his illegitimate son only two years before he left them for ever. - Here my biographical notice of the three generations ends. But the lives of father and son will ever remain full of interest and suggestion to those who would study human character. There are several portraits of the Earl of Chesterfield. The most striking, and at the same time probably the most faithful which we have, is that by Bartolozzi in the Maty Memoirs. It is clear, mobile, and benevolent The features are very large, and the eyes of that cold meditative species which look as though they were the altar stone of that fire of wit and quaint humour which we know he possessed. It is a fine intellectual, if some- what too receding, forehead, with protruding temples and clear-cut eyebrows; the nose prominent, and the mouth pronounced. There is a great diversity however in the portraits, and he seems sometimes to have been unable to hide the traits of sensuality. Yet, on the whole, it is as inscrutable as his own scheming diplomatic soul could ever have wished for its earthly representative in clay If we ask ourselves what is the moral of the Letters, and what is their significance, we are met with a varied reply. We have here the outpourings of a man's soul in PREFATORY NOTE. XXVll peneiralibus. As such the book stands for its time unique. Chesterfield, when he wrote these letters, was not actuated by the criticisms of Grub Street, nor indeed any criticisms. He never for a moment dreamt that his letters would be published, and they are therefore bereft of that stifling self- consciousness which is the bane of so many writers. It is this which makes so frequently a man's letters more living than his published works, at any rate more real. So far, of course, Lord Chesterfield shares this distinction with other writers. But his letters are noteworthy for more than this. They combine with it a complete system of educa- tion, a system which was thought out without opposition and expressed without fear. In such a case, of course, we do not look for style; but so perfect and so equal was the man that we are even told that these letters are not exceeded in style by anything in the language.* Manuals, of course, there have been many. In the age gone by there had been Walsingham's, there had been Burghleys Advice^ there had been Sir Walter Raleigh's; but from the time that Cicero wrote his De Officiis for his own child down to these, we come upon but few of this sort. There had been Castiglione's Cortegiano^ and in a few years Delia Casa's Galateo\ there is Roger Ascham's Scholemaster. Chesterfield had found much to lus taste and method in the Moral Reflections of La Rochefoucauld and the Characters of La Bruy^re. In our own country had just appeared Locke's Essay on Education^ and this he sends for his son to read.f * For his fine sense of the quality of words witness : ** An unbar- monious 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." + Characteristically, no mention is made of Shaftesbury nor of Hutcheson. ^mf^mm&mmm mtmmsm^w waf ^ XXVlll PREFATORY NOTE. In 1759 Lessing and Wieland were writing on the same subject; and in 1762 Rousseau published -^/w/Vi?. Every- where education was, to use a common phrase, in the air. Chesterfield loved his sc.i passionately and unremit- tingly. He had been much in France, and admired the French nation; and he determined that his son should combine the good qualities of both nationalities — the ideal statesman and the ideal polished man of society. He did not forget that on Philip Stanhope would ever remain the brand of the bar sinister; but we may well believe that this was only one more daring reason for the experiment which he chose to make. He was playing for high stakes, and he was not careless of the issue. **My only ambition," he writes in 1754, "remaining is to be the counsellor and minister of your rising ambition. Let me see my own youth revived in you ; let me be your mentor, and I promise you, with your parts and knowledge, you shall go far."— (Letter CCLXXIV.) It is seldom that we have such a continuous series of original letters as these. From the first badinage to his son, then five years old, who was then in Holland, in which he explains what a republic is, and how clean is Holland in comparison with London ; from the times when he explains how Poetry is made, and who the Muses are, and sends his little son accounts of all the Greek and Roman legends ; from the tinies when he writes, " Let us return to our Geography that we may amuse ourselves with maps ; " and in the middle of a letter of affection, having mentioned Cicero, starts off "apropos of him," and gives his little son his whole history, and that of Demosthenes after him; to the times when the boy is able to retort on him for inconsistency in calling Ovidius Ovid, and not calling Tacitus Tacit; through all his explanations of PREFATORY NOTE. XXIX what Irony is and is not; through his pedantic **by the ways ; " his definitions {pace Professor Freeman) of Ancient and Modern History; his sarcasms and his descriptions: down to the time when his advice is about quadrille tables and ministers and kings, the series is absolutely unbroken and of unflagging interest. They are at the best, as he says himself, "What one man of the world writes to another." " I am not writing poetry," he says, "but useful reflections.*' "Surely it is of great use to a young man before he starts out for a country full of mazes, windings and turnings, to have at least a good map of it by some experienced traveller." And so the old man gives us his map of life as he had seen it. It is exactly the same estimate, in result as Cicero gave in the De Oratore : " Men judge most things under the influence of either hate, or love, or desire, or anger, or grief, or joy, or hope, or fear, or error, or some other passion, than by truth, or precepts, or standard of right, or justice, or law." ** The proper study of mankind is man," and if we disapprove of the morality of Cicero and his epoch no less than of Chesterfield's, we must yet remember that in the one instance, as in the other, their precepts were the purveyors of very soundest advice. His standard is, as has been already pointed out, that of the eighteenth century. " Be wiser than other people if you can ; but do not tell them so." " It is an active, cheerful, seducing good-breeding which must gain you the good-will and first sentiments of the men and the affections of the women. You must carefully watch and attend to their passions, their tastes, their little humours and weaknesses, and aller au devant^^ " Make love to the most impertinent beauty that you meet with, and be gallant with all the rest." XXX PREFATORY NOTE. It would be a not uninteresting task to see how many of his moral sentiments would stand fire at the present day. We know all the facts of his life, and we have here his opinions on nearly every matter. His opinions are as concise as they are outspoken. " The best of us have had our bad sides, and it is as imprudent as it is ill-bred to exhibit them,"* he says. It is this absence of ceremony which makes him so living and real. Even in Dr. Johnson's time the merit as well as the demerit of this series of letters had been settled for the standard of that day. " Take out the immorality," said the worthy Doctor, "and it should be put into the hands of every young gentleman." :.> < , .> = The training to which he subjected his son was in many ways admirable. Rise regularly, however late o' nights ; work all the morning ; take exercise in the afternoon ; and see good company in the evening. The impressing of this y/' advice upon his son has left us in the possession of one of the most charming examples of Lord Chesterfield's most playful style.— (Letter CLXI.) Lord Chesterfield was all for modern to the disadvantage of a classical education. Learn all the modern history and modern languages you can, and if at the same time you can throw in a little Latin and Greek, so much the better for you. Roman history study as much as you will, for of all ancient histories it is the most instructive, and furnishes most examples of virtue, wisdom, and courage. History is to be studied morally, he says, but not only so. When we turn to his judgment of the ancients we are considerably startled. He seems to have preferred Voltaire's Henriade to any epic. " Judge whether," he * Cf, Sir Walter Raleigh's " Every Man's Folly ought to be his j;reatest Secret. " — instructions to his Son. ) PREFATORY NOTE. XXXI writes, " I can read all Homer through tout de suite. I admire his beauties ; but, to tell you the truth, when he slumbers I sleep. Virgil, I confess, is all sense, and there- fore I like him better than his model; but he is often languid, especidly in his five or six last books, during which I am obliged to take a good deal of snuff. ..." If his views on Milton should be known, he adds, he would be abused by every tasteless pedant and every solid divine in England. His criticism of Dante it will be best for the reader himself to discover. The weightier questions and the weightiest he pushed altogether aside. "I don't speak of religion," he writes. " I am not in a position to do so — the excellent Mr. Harte will do that." At any rate, Chesterfield knew his own ground. Incidentally we find his position cropping up. " The reason of e ver y man is, or Qught.-tQ-beyiu&-4juid€ ; and I should haxe-AS Hi«ch right to expect every man to ' — bctJf'Tny height and temperament as to wish that he should reason precisely as I do." It was the doctrine of the French school that he had adopted, with something of a quietism of his own. " Let them enjoy quietly their errors," he says somewhere, "both in taste and religion."* It would be interesting to compare in these matters the relative positions of Chesterfield and Bolingbroke. Of the movement headed by Wesley, as we have seen earlier in his career, Chesterfield seems to have taken as little heed as the younger Pliny did of the first holders of Wesley's faith. It is a harder and more delicate question which we are met with in discussing Lord Chesterfield's position with * * 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. XXXll PREFATORY NOTE. regard to morality. Johnson's criticism of the Letters^ that "they taught the morals of a courtesan and manners of a dancing master," even though epigrammatic, yet bears within it traces of the sting which the lexicologist ftlt about the matter of the Dedication. Of the EarVs opinions we have seen something in former extracts and in his own life. He speaks quite openly — " I wish to speak as one man of pleasure does to another." " A polite arrangement," he says elsewhere, ** becomes a gallant man." Anything disgraceful or impolite he will not stand. * ' Yet as a human Picciola does Lord Chesterfield guard the soul of his son within its prison-house of life. He never speaks, however, to his son pulpitically. It is ever as a wise counsellor : and his tendency is always the same. '^ * It is suggestive of much to turn aside from the petitesses of these instructions to the thoughts which were occupying the brain of the author of Emilius about the same time. From very much the same foundations and the same materials how different is the result ! In the one we breathe the fresh air of the country, of the rustic home and the carpenter's shop: In the other we are stifled by the perfumes of the court-room and suffocated by tight lacing. In the one we are never for a moment to wear a mask : in the other we are never for a moment to move without it Yet, though the one is built up of social theories by an enthusiastic dreamer, and the other is a cold, practical experi- ment by a man of the world, and " ^a imperfect man of action, whom politics had made a perfect moralist," there is the same verdict of failure to be pronounced upon them both. Voltaire said of Emilius that it was a stupid romance, but admitted that it contained fifty pages which he would have bound in morocco. Lord Chesterfield's was PREFATORY NOTE. XXXlll no romance, but its pages deserve perhaps as careful treat- ment. " It is a rich book," says Sainte-Beuve ; " one cannot read a page without finding some happy observation worthy of being mentioned." Yet, as a system of education, it is blasted with the foul air of the charnel-house. n V. If we look at the result we must pronounce his experi- ment no less a failure. The odds were too heavy in the first instance, and a man of less energy and stability than Lord Chesterfield would not have dared to have played at such high stakes. He ought to have considered what an infliction he was casting upon his s on, and respected the feelings jDf_(?theis, rather - than his own aml»tion. He has reapeS' the harvest which he had sown. When Philip Stanhope tried to obtain an appointment at the embassy in Brussels the Marquis de Botta made so much to do on the ground of his illegitimacy that his claim was disallowed. When there was a chance of his receiving an appointment at Venice, the king objected on the same grounds. Not one word of displeasure is handed down to us in these familiar letters, but we know that both felt it deeply and never forgave. But even Philip Stanhope himself must have disappointed his father. When his widow, with her two children, walked up the hall of Chesterfield House, where the earl sat alone in solitary childless grandeur, it must have seemed a strange answer to the question which he had asked Time some thirty-eight years before. He may well have grown weary of sitting at the table at which he had staked his all and lost. Vivacious, sincere, plain, and liberal-minded, his memory may well pass down to posterity as that of a great man XXXIV PREFATORY NOTE. with mean aspirations. That ambition was not wanting in his composition is true, and it was this which encompassed his ruin. He reminds us of the melancholy structure of S. Petronio at Bologna, begun in emulation of the Florentine Duomo by the Bolognese. One sees the out- line of the structure which was to have been raised, but for two centuries it has stood uncompleted, a monument to her greatness and her shame. Careless of the interests of those around him ; careless and callous of what was demanded of man by men ; care- less of speech so long as he could create a bon-mot or a well- balanced phrase. Lord Chesterfield's life is characteristic of his time. Chesterfield, if we may make one more comparison, is like one of those great trees that we see upon the banks of a river, which, while drawing its nurture half from its native soil and the stream by its side, and half from the sky above it, has had that very soil worn away by the current of the stream, so that the tree, by its own natural weight and under the force of adverse winds and circum- stance, has bowed itself over towards the waves, losing its natural height and grandeur for ever. Dead to the higher interests of humanity ; dead to the deeper influences which keep us sober and thoughtful and earnest ; dead, again, to any ideal save such as might serve his own designs : — such was the man who deemed himself called upon, or fitted, to perform the sacred office of Education to his darling child. C. S. CHESTERFIELD'S LETTERS. v^ LORD CHESTERFIELD'S LETTERS. LETTER I. Dear Boy, Tunbridge, July the 15th, 1739. I THANK you for your concern about my health ; which I would have given you an account of sooner, but that writing does not agree with these waters. I am better since I have been here ; and shall therefore stay a month longer. Signor Zamboni compliments me, through you, much more than I deserve; but pray do you take care to deserve what he says of you ; and remember, that praise, when it is not deserved, is the severest satire and abuse; and the most effectual way of exposing people's vices and follies. This is a figure of speech called Irony; which is saying directly the contrary of what you mean ; but yet it is not a lie, because you plainly show, that you mean directly the contrary of what you say ; so that you deceive nobody. For example; if one were to compliment a notorious knave for his singular honesty and probity, and an eminent fool for his wit and parts, the irony is plain, and everybody would discover the satire. Or, suppose that I were to commend you for your great attention to your book, and for your retaining and remembering what you have once learned; would not you plainly perceive 633 ft LORi> CtiESTERPIELD'S the irony, and see that I laughed at you? Therefore, whenever you are commended for anything, consider fairly, with yourself, whether you deserve it or not; and if you do not deserve it, remember that you are only abused and laughed at ; and endeavour to deserve better for the future, and to prevent the irony. Make my compliments to Mr. Maittaire, and return him my thanks for his letter. He tells me, that you are again to go over your Latin and Greek Grammar; so that when I return, I expect to find you very perfect in it; but if I do not, I shall compliment you upon your application and memory. Adieu. r* \s. i LETTER II. Dear Boy, November the 20th, 1739. As you are now reading the Roman History, I hope you do it with that care and attention which it deserves. The utility of History consists principally in the examples it gives us of the virtues and vices of those who have gone before us : upon which we ought to make the proper observations. History animates and excites us to the love and the practice of virtue ; by showing us the regard and veneration that was always paid to great and virtuous men, in the times in which they lived, and the praise and glory with which their names are perpetuated, and transmitted down to our times. The Roman History furnishes more examples of virtue and magnanimity, or^ greatness of mind, than any other. It was a common thing to see their Consuls and Dictators (who, you know, were their chief Magistrates) taken from the plough, to lead theitv ; LETTERS TO HtS SON. U0US.5 |}raise r and \ story »v y, or - thing were their armies against their enemies ; and, after victory, returning to their plough again, and passing the rest of their lives in modest retirement : a retirement more glorious, if pos- sible, than the victories that preceded it 1 Many of their greatest men died so poor, that they were buried at the expense of the public. Curius, who had no money of his own, refused a great sum that the Samnites offered him, saying, that he saw no glory in having money himself, but in commanding those that had. Cicero relates it thus : ^^ Curio adfocum sedenti magnum auri pcndus Samnites cum attulissent^ repudiati ab eo sunt, Non enim auntm habere prcularum sibi videri^ sed iis^ qui haberent aurum^ imperare.** And Fabricius, who had often commanded the Roman armies, and as often triumphed over their enemies, was found by his fireside, eating those roots and herbs which he had planted and cultivated himself in his own field. Seneca tells it thus : Fabricius ad focum cotnat Ulas ipsas radices^ quaSy in agrc repurgando^ triumphalis Senex vulsit, Scipio, after a victory he had obtained in Spain, found among the prisoners a young Princess of extreme beauty, who, he was informed, was soon to have been married to a man of quality of that country. He ordered her to be entertained and attended with the same care and respect, as if she had been in her father's house ; and, as soon as he could find her lover, he gave her to him, and added io her portion the money that her father had brought for her ransom. Valerius Maximus says, Eximia former virginem acccrsitis parentibus^ tt sponso inviolatam tradidit, et Tuvenis^ et Ccelebs^ et Victor, This was a most glorious example of modera- tion, continence, and generosity, which gained him the hearts of all the people of Spain ; and made them say, as Livy tells us, Venisse Diis simillimum juvsnem^ vincentem omrJa^ cum armis, U'tn benignitaie^ ac beneficiis. 4 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S Such are the rewards that always crown virtue; and such the characters that you should imitate, if you would be a great and a good man, which is the only way to be a happy one I Adieu. ' ^^ LETTER III. Dear Boy, • •,,...> vt a » . , Saturday. Since you choose the name of Polyglot, I hope you will take care to deserve it \ which you can only do by care and application. I confess the names of Frisky, and Colas, are not quite so honourable; but then, remember too, that there cannot be a stronger ridicule, than to call a man by an honourable name, when he is known not to deserve it. For example ; it would be a manifest irony to call a very ugly fellow an Adonis (who, you know, was so handsome, that Venus herself fell in love with him), or to call a cowardly fellow an Alexander, or an ignorant fellow. Poly- glot ; for everybody would discover the sneer : and Mr. Pope observes very truly, that . *' Praise undeserved is satire in disguise." .. Next to the doing of things that deserve to be written, there is nothing that gets a man more credit, or gives him more pleasure, than to write things that deserve to be read. The younger Pliny (for there were two Plinys, the uncle and the nephew) expresses it thus : " Equidem beatos puto^ quibus Deorum munere datum est^ aut facere scribenda^ aut legenda scHbere; beatissimas verb quibus utrumque.** Pray mind your Greek particularly ; for tc know Greek very well is to be really learned: there is no great credit LETTERS TO HIS SON. 5 in knowing Latin, for everybody knows it ; and it is only a shame not to know it. Besides that, you will understand Latin a great ieal the better for understanding Greek very well ; a great number of Latin words, especially the technical words, being derived from the Greek. Technical words mean such particular words as relate to any art or science ; from the Greek word t€x^% ^-hich signifies Art, and nxvLKo^^ which signifies Artificial. Thus, a Dictionary, that explains the terms of Art, is called a Lexicon Technicum, or a Technical Dictionary. Adieu. .■•;• ' y 1 1- jreek Iredit LETTER IV. Dear Boy, I SEND you here a few more Latin roots, though I am not sure that you will like my roots so well as those that grow in your garden ; however, if you will attend to them, they may save you a great deal of trouble. These few will naturally point out many others to your own observation ; and enable you, by comparison, to find out most derived and compound words, when once you know the original root of them. You are old enough now to make observa- tions upon what you learn ; which, if you would be pleased to do, you cannot imagine how much time and trouble it would save you. Remember, you are now very near nine years old ; an age at which all boys ought to know a gieat deal, but you, particularly, a great deal moie, considering the care and pains that have been employed about you; and if you do not answer those expectations, you will lose your character ; which is the most mortifymg thing that can happen to a generous mind. Everybody has ambition, of LORD CHESTERFIELD'S \ some kind or other, and is vexed when that ambition is disappointed : the difference is, that the ambition of silly people is a silly and mistaken ambition ; and the ambition of people of sense is a right and commendable one. For instance ; the ambition of a silly boy, of your age, would be to have fine clothes, and money to throw away in idle follies J which, you plainly see, would be no proofs of merit in him, but only of folly in his parents, in dressing him out like a jackanapes, and giving him money to play the fool with. Whereas a boy of good sense places his ambition in excelling other boys of his own age, and even older, in virtue and knowledge. His glory is in being known always to speak the truth, in showing good-nature and compassion, in learning quicker, and applying himself more than other boys. These are real proofs of merit in him, and conse- quently proper objects of ambition ; and will acquire him a solid reputation and character. This holds true in men, as well as in boys : the ambition of a silly fellow will be, to have a fine equipage, a fine house, and fine clothes ; things which anybody, that has as much money, may have as well as he ; for they are all to be bought : but the ambition of a man of sense and honour is, to be distinguished by a character and reputation of knowledge, truth, and virtue; things which are not to be bought, and that can only be acquired by a good head and a good heart. Such was the ambition of the Lacedaemonians and the Romans, when they made the greatest figure ; and such, I hope, yours will always be. Adieu. LETTERS TO HIS SON, 7 LETTER V. Dear Boy, Wednesday. You behaved yourself so well at Mr. Boden's, last Sunday, that you justly deserve commendation : besides, you encourage me to give you some rules of politeness and good breeding, being persuaded that you will observe them. Know, then, that as learning, honour, and virtue are absolutely necessary to gain you the esteem and admiration of mankind; politeness and good breeding are equally necessary to make you welcome and agreeable in conversa- tion and common life. Great talents, such as honour, virtue, learning, and parts, are above the generality of the world; who neither possess them themselves, nor judge of them rightly in others : but all people are judges of the lesser talents, such as civility, affability, and an obliging, agreeable address and manner ; because they feel the good effects of them, as making society easy and pleasing. Good sense must, in many cases, determine good breeding; because the same thing that would be civil at one time, and to one person, may be quite otherwise at another time, and to another person; but there are some general rules of good breeding, that hold always true, and in all cases. As, for example, it is always extremely rude to answer only Yes, or No, to anybody, without adding, Sir, my Lord, or Madam, according to the quality of the person you speak to ; as, in French, you must always say. Monsieur^ Milord^ Madatne^ and Mademoiselle. I suppose you know that every married woman is, in French, Madame^ and every unmarried one is Mademoiselle. It is likewise extremely rude not to give the proper attention, and a civil answer, when people speak to you ; or to go away, or be doing something else, while they are speaking to you; for that convinces them that you 8 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S despise them, and do not think it worth your while to hear or answer what they say. I dare say I need not tell you. how rude it is to take the best place in a room, or to seize immediately upon what you like at table, without offering first to help others, as if you considered nobody but your- self. On the contrary, you should always endeavour to procure all the conveniences you can to the people you are with. Besides being civil, which is absolutely necessary, the perfection of good breeding is, to be civil with ease, and in a gentlemanlike manner. For this, you should observe the French people, who excel in it, and whose politeness seems as easy and natural as any other part of their conversation. Whereas the English are often awkward in their civilities, and, when they mean to be civil, are too much ashamed to get it out. But, pray, do you remember never to be ashamed of doing what is right : you would have a great deal of reason to be ashamed if you were not civil ; but what reason can you have to be ashamed of being civil ? And why not say a civil and an obliging thing as easily and as naturally as you would ask what o'clock it is ? This kind of bashfulness, which is justly called, by the French, mauvaise honte^ is the distinguishing character of an English booby; who is frightened out of his wits, when people of fashion speak to him ; and when he is to answer them, blushes, stammers, can hardly get out what he would say, and becomes really ridiculous, from a groundless fear of being laughed at : whereas a real well- bred man would speak to all the Kings in the world, with as little concern, and as much ease, as he would speak to you. Remember, then, that to be civil, and to be civil with ease (vhich is properly called good breeding), is the only way to be beloved, and well received in company ; that to LETTERS TO HIS SON. 9 be ill-bred, and rude, is intolerable, and the way to be kicked out of company ; and that to be bashful is to be ridiculous. As I am sure you will mind and practise all this, I expect that when you are novenniSy you will not only be the best scholar, but the best-bred boy in England of your age. Adieu. LETTER VI. Dear Boy, Spa, the 2Sth July, N. S. 1741. I HAVE often told you in my former letters (and it is most certainly true) that the strictest and most scrupulous honour and virtue can alone make you esteemed and valued by mankind; that parts and learning can alone make you admired and celebrated by them ; but that the possession of lesser talents was most absolutely necessary towards making you liked, beloved, and sought after in private life. Of these lesser talents, good breeding is the principal and most necessary one, not only as it is very important in itself, but as it adds great lustre to the more solid advantages both of the heart and the mind. I have often touched upon good breeding to you before, so that this letter shall be upon the next necessary qualification to it, which is a genteel, easy manner and carriage, wholly free from those odd tricks, ill habits, and awkwardnesses which even many very worthy and sensible people have in their behaviour. However trifling a genteel manner may sound, it is of very great consequence towards pleasing in private life, especially the women, which, one time or other, you will think worth pleasing ; and I have known many a man, from his awkwardness, give people such ^ dislike of him at lO LORD CHESTERFIELD'S first, that all his merit could not get the better of it after- wards. Whereas a genteel manner prepossesses people in your favour, bends them towards you, and makes them wish to like you. Awkwardness can proceed but from two ^ causes — either from not having kept good company, or from not having attended to it. As for your keeping good company, I will take care of that; do you take care to observe their ways and manners, and to form your own upon them. Attention is absolutely necessary for this, as indeed it is for everything else, and a man without attention is not fit to live in the world. When an awkward fellow first comes into a room, it is highly probable that his sword gets between his legs and throws him down, or makes him stumble, at least. When he has recovered this accident, he goes and places himself in the very place of the whole room where he should not ; there he soon lets his hat fall down, and in taking it up again, throws down his cane ; in recovering his cane, his hat falls a second time ; so that he is a quarter of an hour before he is in order again. If he drinks tea or coffee he certainly scalds his mouth, and lets either the cup or the saucer fall, and spills the tea or coffee in his breeches. At dinner his awkwardness dis- tinguishes itself particularly, as he has more to do : there he holds his knife, fork, and spoon differently from other people; eats with his knife to the great danger of his mouth ; picks his teeth with his fork, and puts his spoon, which has been in his throat twenty times, into the dishes again. If he is to carve, he can never hit the joint, but, in ^ his vain efforts to cut through the bone, scatters the sauce , in everybody's face. He generally daubs himself with soup ,, ^^ and grease, though his napkin is commonly stuck through a buttonhole and tickles his chin. When he drinks he infallibly coughs in his glass, and besprinkles the company. i«J LETTERS TO HIS SON, II Besides all this, he has strange tricks and gestures ; such as snuffing up his nose, making faces, putting his fingers in his nose, or blowing it and looking afterwards in his handker- chief, so as to make the company sick. His hands are troublesome to him when he has not something in them, and he does not know where to put them ; but they are in |f perpetual motion between his bosom and his breeches : he does not wear his clothes, and, in short, does nothing, like other people. All this, I own, is not in any degree criminal; but it is highly disagreeable and ridiculous in company, and ought most carefully to be avoided by whoever desires to please. From this account of what you should not do, you may easily judge what you should do; and a due attention to the manners of people of fashion, and who have seen the world, will make it habitual and familiar to you. There is, likewise, an awkwardness of expression and words, most carefully to be avoided ; such as false English, bad pronunciation, old sayings, and common proverbs ; which are so many proofs of having kept bad and low company. For example ; i^ instead of saying ,that tastes are different, and that every man has his own peculiar one, you should let off a proverb, and say. That what is one man's meat is another man's poison ; or else. Every one as they like, as the good man said when he kissed his cow ; everybody would be persuaded that you had never kept company with anybody above footmen and housemaids. Attention will do all this ; and without attention nothing is to be done : want of attention, which is really want of thought, is either folly or madness. You should not only have attention to everything, but a quicknefis of attention, so as to observe, at once, all the people in the room, their motions, their looks, and their words, and yet without 19 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S staring at them, and seeming to be an observer. This quick and unobserved observation is of infinite advantage in life, and is to be acquired with care ; and, on the con- trary, what is called absence, which is a thoughtlessness, and want of attention about what is doing, makes a man so like either a fool or a madman, that for my part I see no real difference. A fool never has thought; a mad- man has lost it; and an absent man is, for the time, without it . ^ , . ' * Adieu ! Direct your next to me, chez Monsieur Chabert^ Banquier^ d Paris; and take care that I find the improve- ments I expect, at my return.. - , ft ( .^ * . - . M \ : \ . LETTER VII. Dear Boy, Spa, August the 6th, 1741. I AM very well pleased with the several performances you sent me, apd still more so with Mr. Maittaire's letter, that accompanied them, in which he gives me a much better account of you than he did in his former. Laudari a laudato viro, was always a commendable ambition ; encourage that ambition, and continue to deserve the praises of the praiseworthy. While you do so, you shall have whatever you will from me ; and when you cease to do so, you shall have nothing. I am glad you have begun to compose a little ; it will give you a habit of thinking upon subjects, which is at least as necessary as reading them ; therefore pray send me your thoughts upon this subject : — a: . " J«foi» sibi, sed toti genitwm se credere nmndo," LETTERS TO HIS SON, n It is a pah of Cato's character in Lucan ; who says, that Cato did not think himself born for himself only, but for all mankind. Let me know, then, whether you think that a man is born only for his own pleasure and advantage, or whether he is not obliged to contribute to the good of the society in which he lives, and of all mankind in general. This is certain, that every man receives advan- tages from society, which he could not have, if he were the only man in the world : therefore, is he not in some measure in debt to society? and is he not obliged to do for others what they do for him? You may do this in English or Latin, which you please ; for it is the thinking part, and not the language, that I mind in this case. I warned you, in my last, against those disagreeable tricks and awkwardnesses, which many people contract when they are young, by the negligence of their parents, and cannot get quit of them when they are old ; such as odd motions, strange postures, and ungenteel carriage. But there is likewise an awkwardness of the mind, that ought to be, and with care may be, avoided : as, for instance, to mistake or forget names; to speak of Mr. What-d'ye-call-him, or Mrs. Thingum, or How-d*ye-call-her, is excessively awkward and ordinary. To call people by improper titles and appellations is so too ; as my Lord, for Sir ; and Sir, for my Lord. To begin a story or narration, when you are not perfect in it, and cannot go through with it, but are forced, possibly, to say in the middle of it, ** I have forgot the rest," is very unpleasant and bungling. One must be extremely exact, clear, and perspicuous in everything one says, otherwise, instead of entertaining or informing others, one only tires and puzzles them. The voice and manner of speaking, too, are not to be neglected : some people almost shut their mouths when they speak, and u LORD CHESTERFIELD'S mutter so that they are not to be understood ; others speak so fast, and sputter, that they are not to be understood neither ; some always speak as loud as if they were talking ' to deaf people ; and others so low that one cannot hear them. All these habits are awkward and disagreeable, and are to be avoided by attention : they are the distinguishing . marks of the ordinary people, who have had no care taken of their education. You cannot imagine how necessary it is to mind all these little things; for I have seen many people, with great talents, ill received, for want of having . these talents too ; and others well received, only from their little talents and who had no great ones. A' . LETTER VIII. Sir, Saturday. The fame of your erudition, and other shining qualifi- cations, having reached to Lord Orrery, he desired me, that you might dine with him and his son. Lord Boyle, next Sunday; which I told him you should. By this time, I suppose, you have heard from him; but, if you have not, you must, however, go there between two and three to-morrow, and say, that you come to wait upon Lord Boyle, according to his Lordship's orders, which I informed you of. As this^ill deprive me of the honour and pleasure of your company at dinner to-morrow, I will hope for it at bireakfast, and shall take care to have your chocolate ready. r Though I need not tell one of your age, experience, and knowledge of the world, how necessary good-breeding is, to recommend one to mankind; yet, as your various \\ LETTERS TO HIS SON, \ \ 17 occupations of Greek and cricket, Latin and pitch-la ^j^ ^^ may possibly divert your attention from this objec, ^^^ take the liberty of reminding you of it, and desiring you, to be very well bred at Lord Orrery's. It is good breeding alone that can prepossess people in your favour at first sight: more time being necessary to discover greater talents. This good breeding, you know, does not consist, in low bows and formal ceremony; but in an easy, civil, and respectful behaviour. You will therefore take care to answer with complaisance, when you are spoken to; to place yourself at the lower end of the table, unless bid to go higher ; to drink first to the Lady of the house, and next to the Master; not to eat awkwardly or dirtily; not to sit when others stand: and to do all this with an air of complaisance, ard not with a grave, iiour look, as if you did it all unwillingly. I do not mean a silly, insipid smile, that fools have when they would be civil; but an air of sensible good humour. I hardly know anything so difficult to attain, or so necessary to possess, as perfect good breeding, which is equally inconsistent with a stiff formality, an impertinent forwardness, and an awkward bashfulness. A little ceremony is often necessary; a certain degree of firmness is absolutely so ; and an outward modesty is extremely becoming: the knowledge of the world, and your own observations, must, and alone can, tell you the proper quantities of each. Mr. Fitzgerald was with me yesterday, and commended you much ; go on to deserve commendations, and you will certainly meet with them. Adieu. « 14 y LORD CHESTERFIELD'S iii i! w,- 1 * . LETTER IX. mutter sr so idr ne'' . • • '.-•■■■•■, -••■■ ■• ..' ',. ■' • Dear Boy, Dublin, January the 2Sth, 1745. As there are now four mails due from England, one of which, at least, will, I suppose, bring me a letter ^rom you, I take this opportunity of acknowledging it beforehand, that you may not accuse me (as you once or twice have done) of negligence. I am very glad to find, by your letter which I am to receive, that you are determined to apply yourself seriously to your business ; to attend to what you learn, in order to learn it well ; and to reflect and reason upon what you have learned, that your learning may be of use to you. These are very good resolutions, and I applaud you mightily for them. Now for your last letter, which I have received. You rebuke me very severely for not knowing, or at least not remembering, that you have been some time in the fifth form. Here, I confess, I am at a loss what to say for myself; for, on the one hand, I own it is not probable that you would not, at the time, have communicated an event of that impGitance to me; and, on the other hand, it is not likely that, if you had informed me of it, I could have for- gotten it. You say that it happen'^d six months ago; in which, with all due submission to you, I apprehend you are mistaken, because that must have been before I left England, which I am sure it was not; and it does not appear, in any of your original manuscripts, that it happened since. May not this possibly proceed from the oscitancy of the writer? To this oscitancy of the librarians, we owe s^ many mistakes, hiatuses, lacunae, etc., in ancient manu- scripts. It may here be necessary to explain to you the meaning of the Oscitantes Hbrarii ; which, I believe, you will easily take. These persons (before printing was invented) % LETTERS TO HIS SON. 17 transcribed the works of authors, someticnes for their own profit, but oftener (as they were generally slaves) for the profit of their masters. In the first case, dispatch, more than accuracy, was their object \ for the faster lliey wrote the more they got : in the latter case (observe this), as it was a task imposed on them, which they did not dare to refuse, they were idle^ careless^ and incorrect ; not giving themselves the trouble to read over what they had written. The celebrated Atticus kept a great number of these transcribing slaves, and got great sums of money by their labours. But, to return now to your fifth form, from whence I have strayed, it may be, too long; Pray what do you do in that country? Be so kind as to give me a description of it. What Latin and Greek books do you read there ? Are your exercises exercises of invention ? or do you still put the bad English of the psalms into bad Latin, and only change the shape of Latin verse, from long to short, and from short to long ? People do not improve, singly, by travelling, but by the observations they make, and by keeping good company where they do travel. So I hope, in your travels, through the fifth form, you keep company with Horace and Cicero, among the Romans ; and Homer and Xenophon, among the Greeks ; and that you are got out of the worst company in the world, the Greek epigrams. M?,rtial has wit, and is worth your looking into sometimes ; but I recommend the Greek epigrams to your supreme contempt Good-night to you. 634 i8 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S LETTER X. Dear Boy, Dublin Castle, November the 19th, 1745. I HAVE received your last Saturday's performance, with which I am very well satisfied I know or have heard of no Mr. St, Maurice here ; and young Pain, whom I have made an Ensign, was here upon the spot, as were every one cf those I have named in these new levies. Now that the Christmas breaking up draws near, I have ordered M Desnoyers to go to you, during that time, to teach you to dance, I desire you will particularly attend to the graceful motion of your arms ; which, with the manner of putting on your hat, and giving your hand, is all that a gentleman need attend to. Dancing is in itself a very trifling, silly thing ; but it is one of those established follies to which people of sense are sometimes oblipjed to conform ; and then they should be able to do it well. And, though I would not have you a dancer, yet, when you do dance, I would have you dance well, as I would have you do every- thing you do well. There is no one thing so trifling, but which (if it is to be done at all) ought to be done v;eii. And I have often told you, that I wished you even played at pitch, and cricket, better than any boy at Westminster. ^For instance ; dress is a very foolish thing ; and yet it is a very fooHsh thing for a man not to be well dressed, according to his ranlc and way of life ; and it is so far from being a disparagement to any man's understanding, that it is rather a proof of it, to be as well dressed as those whom he lives with : the difference in this case, between a man of sense and a fop, is, that the fop values himself upon his dress ; and the man of sense laughs at it, at the same time that he knows he must not neglect it. There are a thousand foolish customs ^--7' LETTERS TO HIS SON 19 45- with of no made ne ci have ne, to jnd to lanner II that a very follies iform ; )ugh I nee, I every- ig, but v;eii. yed at Wor la very (ording )eing a rather lives Ise and Ind the )ws he Listoms of this kind, which not being criminal must be complied with, and even cheerfully, by men of sense. Diogenes the Cynic was a wise man for despising them ; but a fool for showing it. Be wiser than other people, if you can \ but do not tell them so. It is a very fortunate thing for Sir Charles Hotham to have fallen into the hands of one of your age, experience, and knowledge of the world ; I am persuaded you will take infinite care of him. Good-night. LETTER XI. Dear Boy, Bath, October the 4th, O. S. 1746. Though I employ so much of my time in writing to you, I confess I have often my doubts whether it is to any purpose. I khow how unwelcome advice generally is ; I know that those who want it most like it and follow it least ; and I know, too, that the advice of parents, more particularly, is ascribed to the moroseness, the imperious- ness, or the garrulity of old age. But then, on the other hand, I flatter myself, that as your own reason (though too youn^ as yet to suggest much to you of itself) is, however, strong enough to enable you both to judge of and receive plain truths : I flatter myself, I say, that your own reason, young as it is, must tell you that I can have no interest but yours in the advice I give you ; and that, consequently, you will at least weigh and ; nsider it well: in which case, some of it will, I hope, have its effect. Do not think that I mean to dictate as a parent ; I only mean to advise as a friend, and an indulgent one 20 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S too: and do not apprehend that I mean to check your pleasures ; of which, on the contrary, I only desire to be the guide, not the censor. Let my experience supply your want of it, and clear your way in the progress of your youth of those thorns and briers which scratched and disfigured me in the course of mine. I do not, there- fore, so much as hint to you how absolutely dependent you are upon me ; that you neither have nor can have a shilling in the world but from me ; and that, as I have no womanish weakness for your person, your merit must and will be the only measure of my kindness. I say, I do not hint these things to you, because I am convinced that you will act right upon more noble and generous principles ; I mean, for the sake of doing right, and out of affection and gratitude to me. I have so often recommended to you attention and application to whatever you learn, that I do not mention them now as duties, but I point them out to you as conducive, nay, absolutely necessary, to your pleasures; foj; can there be a greater pleasure than to be universally allowed to excel those of one's own age and manner of life? And, consequently, can there be anything more mortifying than to be excelled by them ? In this latter case, your shame and regret must be greater than any- body's, because everybody knows the uncommon care which has been taken of your education, and the oppor- tunit'es you have had of knowing more than others of your age. I do not confine the application which I recommend, singly to the view and emulation of excelling others (though that is a very sensible pleasure and a very warrantable pride) ; but I mean likewise to excel in the thing itself: for, in my mind, one may as well not know a thing at all, as know it but imperfectly. To know a little LETTERS TO HIS SOM 21 )por- s of Kh I Uing very the Know ittle of anything, gives neither satisfaction nor credit, but often brings disgrace or ridicule. Mr. Pope says, very truly, " A little knowledge is a dangerous thing ; Drink deep, or taste not the Castalian spring." And what is called a splattering of everything infallibly constitutes a coxcomb. I have often, of late, reflected what an unhappy man I must now have been, if I had not acquired in my youth some fund and taste of learning. What could I have done with myself, at this age, with- out them? I must, as many ignorant people do, have destroyed my health and faculties by sotting away the evenings ; or, by wasting them frivolously in the tattle of women's company, must have exposed myself to the ridicule and contempt of those very women; or, lastly, I must have hanged myself, as a man once did, for weariness of putting on and pulling off his shoes and stockings every day. My books, and only my books, are now left me ; and I daily find what Cicero says of learning to be true : " Hcec studia (says he) adolescentiam alunt^ senectutem oblectant^ secundas res ornant^ adversis perfugium ac solatium prcebent^ delectant domi^ non impediunt foris^ pernoctant nobiscutn^ peregrinantur^ rusticantur." I do not mean, by this, to exclude conversation out of the pleasures of an advanced age ; on the contrary, it is a very great and a very rational pleasure, at all ages ; but the conversation of the ignorant is no conversation, and gives even them no pleasure : they tire of their own sterility, and have not matter enough to furnish them with words .to keep up a conversation. Let me, therefore, most earnestly recommend to you to hoard up, while you can, a great stock of knowledge; 22 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S :i ^ftl for though, during the dissipation of your youth, you may not have occasion to spend much of it, yet you may depend upon it that a time will come, when you will want it to maintain you. Public granaries are filled in plentiful years ; not that it is known that the next, or the second, or third year will prove a scarce one, but because it is known that sooner or later such a year will ^ come, in which the grain will be wanted. I will say no more to you upon this subject ; you have Mr. Harte with you to enforce it ; you have Reason to assent to the truth of it ; so that, in short, " you have Moses and the Prophets ; if you will not believe them, neither will you believe, though one rose from the dead." — Do not imagine that the knowledge, which I so much recommend to you, is confined to books, pleasing, useful, and necessary as that knowledge is : but I comprehend in it the great knowledge of the world, still more neces- sary than that of books. In truth, they assist one another reciprocally ; and no man will have either perfectly, who has not both. The knowledge of the world is only to be acquired in the world, and not in a closet. Books alone will never teach it you ; but they will suggest many things to your observation, which might otherwise escape you ; and your own observations upon mankind, when compared with those which you will find in books, will help you to fix the true point. To know mankind well requires full as much attention and application as to know books, and, it may be, more sagacity and discernment. I am, at this time, acquainted with many elderly people, who have a11 passed their whole lives in the great world, but with such levity and in- attention, that they know no more of it now than they did at fifteen. Do not flatter yourself, therefore, with / LETTERS TO HIS SON. 23 the thoughts that you can acquire this knowledge in the frivolous chit-chat of idle companies : no, you must go much deeper than that. You must look into people, as well as at ihim. Almost all people are born with all the ^ pass^ions, to a certain degree ; but almost every man has a prevailing one, to which the others are subordinate. Search every one for that ruling passion ; pry into the recesses of his heart, and observe the different workings of the same\ passion in different people. And, when you have found out the prevailing passion of any man, remember never to trust him, where that passion is concerned. Work upon ' him by it, if you please, but be upon your guard yourself agimst it, whatever professions he may make you. . 1 would desire you to read this letter twice over, but that I much doubt whether you will read once to the end of it. I will trouble you no longer now ; but we will have more upon this subject hereafter. Adieu. t Chesterfield. I have this moment received your letter from Schaff- hausen : in the date of it you forgot the month. LETTER XII. Dear Boy, Bath, October the 9th, O. S. 1746. Your distresses in your journey from Heidelberg to Schaffhausen, your lying upon straw, your black bread, and your broken Berline^ are proper seasonings for the greater fatigues and distresses, which you must expect in the course of your travels ; and, if one had a mind to morahse, one might call them the samples of the accidents, rubs, and ^ i i iHit i wrr « i 24 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S difficulties, which every man meets with in his journey through h'fe. In this journey, the understanding is the voiture that must carry you through; and in proportion as that is stronger or weaker, more or less in repair, your journey will be better or worse ; though, at best, you will now Jand then find some bad roads, and some bad inns. Take care, therefore, to keep that necessary voiture in perfect good repair ; examine, improve, and strengthen it every day : it is in the power, and ought to be the care, of every man to do it ; he that neglects it deserves tc feel, and certainly will feel, the fatal effects of that negligence. A propos cA negligence ; I must say something to you upon that subject. You know I have often told you that / my affection for you was not a w<^ak, woinanish one ; and, far from blinding me, it makes me but more quick-sighted as to your faults : those it is not only my right, but my duty, to tell you of, and it is your duty and your interest to correct them. In the atrict scrutiny which I have made into vou, I have (thank God) hitherto not discovered any vice of the heart, or any peculiar weakness of the head : but I have discovered laziness, inattention, and indifference ; faults which are only pardonable in old men, who, in the decline of life, when health and spirits fail, have a kind of claim to that sort of tranquillity. But a young man should be ambitious to shine and excel; alert, active, and inde- fatigable in the means of doing it ; and, like Caesar, Nil actum reputans^ si quid superesset a^erdtim. Yv)U seen: to want that vivida vis anitni which spurs and excites most young men to please, 10 shine, to excel. Without the desire and the pains necessary to be cor siderable, depend upon it you never can be so ; as, without the desire and r.ttention necessary to plea^Je, you never can please. Nullum niimen abe^t^ si sit prudentia^ is unquc tionably trufe with if * v; LETTERS TO HIS SON. 2S ipenc' regard to everything except poetry ; and I am very sure that any man of common understanding may, by proper culture, care, attention, and labour, make himself whatever he pleases except a good poet. Your destination is the great and busy world ; your immediate object is the affairs, the interests, and the history, the constitutions, the customs, and the manners of the several parts of Europe. In this any man of common sense may, by common application, be sure to excel. Ancient and Modern History are, by attention, easily attainable. Geography and Chronology the same ; none of them requiring any uncommon share of genius or invention. Speaking and writing clearly, correctly, and with ease and grace, are certainly to be acquired by reading the best authors with care, and by attention to the best living models. These are the qualifications more particularly necessary for you in your department, which you may be possessed of if you please, and which, I tell you fairly, I shall be very angry at you if you are not ; because, as you have the means in your hands, it will be your own fault only. If care and application are necessary to the acquiring of those qualifications, without which you can never be considerable nor make a figure in the world, they are not less necessary with regard to the lesser accomplishments, which are requisite to make you agreeable and pleasing in society. In truth, whatever is worth doing at all is worth doing well, and nothing can be done well without attention ^ I therefore carry the necessity of attention down to the lowest things, even to dancing and dress. Custom has made dancing sometimes necessary for a young man; therefore mind it while you learn it, that you may learn to do it well, and not be ridiculous, though in a ridiculous act. Dress is of the same nature ; you must dress, therefore 26 LORD CHESTERFIELD^ S attend to it ; not in order to rival or to excel a fop in it, but in order to avoid singularity, and consequently ridicule. Take great care always to be dressed like the reasonable people of your own age, in the place where you are, whose dress is never spoken of one way or another, as either too negligent or too much studied. What is commonly called an absent man, is commonly either a very weak or a very affected man ; but be he which he will, he is, I am sure, a very disagreeable man in com- pany. He fails in all the common offices of civility; he seems not to know those people to-day with whom yesterday he appeared to live in intimacy. He takes no part in the general conversation ; but, on the contrary, breaks into it from time to time with some start of his own, as if he waked from a dream. This (as I said before) is a sure indication either of a mind so weak that it is not able to bear above one object at a time ; or so affected, that it would be supposed to be wholly engrossed "uy, and directed to, some very great and important objects. Sir Isaac Newton, Mr. Locke, and (it may be) five or six more, since the creation of the world, may have had a right to absence, from that intense thought which the things they were investigating required. But if a young man, and a man of the world, who has no such avocations to plead, will claim and exercise that right of absence in company, his pretended right should, in my mind, be turned into an involuntary absence, by his perpetual exclusion out of company. How- ever frivolous a company may be, still, while you are among them, do not show them, by your inattenlion, that you think them so ; but rather take their tone, and conform in some degree to their weakness, instead of manifesting your contempt for them. There is nothing that people bear more impatiently, or forgive less, than contempt : and an LETTERS TO HIS SON. «» injury is much sooner forgotten than an insult. If, therefore, you would rather please than offend, rather be well than ill spoken of, rather be loved than hated, remember to have that constant attention about you which flatters every man's little vanity; and the want of which, by mortifying his pride, never fails to excite his resentment, or at least his ill- will. For instance ; most people (I might say all people) have their weaknesses ; they have their aversions and their likings, to such and such things; so that, if you were to laugh at a man for his aversion to a cat, or cheese (which are common antipathies), or, by inattention and negligence, to let them come in his way where you could prevent it, he would, in the first case, think himself insulted, and, in the second, slighted, and would remember both. Whereas your care to procure for him what he likes, and to remove from him what he hates, shows him that he is at least an object of your attention; flatters his vanity, and makes him possibly more your friend, than a more important service would have done. With regard to women, attentions still below these are necessary, and, by the custom of the world, in some measure due, according to the laws of good breeding. My long and frequent letters which I send you, in great doubt of their success, put me in mind of certain papers which you have very lately, and I formerly, sent up to kites, along the string, which we called messengers ; some of them the wind used to blow away, others were torn by the string, and but few of them got up and stuck to the kite. But I will content myself now, as I did then, if some of my present messengers do but stick to you. Adieu. / t8 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S LETTER XIII. Dear Boy, London, December the 2nd, O. S. 1746. I HAVE not, in my present situation, time to write to you, cither so much or so often as I used, while I was in a place of much more leisure and profit : but my afifection for you must not be judged of by the number of my letters ; and, though the one lessens, the other, I assure you, does not. I have just now received your letter of the 25th past, N. S., and, by the former post, one from Mr. Harte, with both which I am very well pleased : with Mr. Harte's, for the good account which he gives me of you: with yours, for the good account you give me of what I desired to be informed of. Pray continue to give me further information of the form of government of the country you are now in ; which I hope you will know most minutely before you leave it. The inequality of the town of Lausanne seems to be very convenient in this cold weather ; because going up hill and down will keep you warm. — You say there is a good deal of good company; pray, are you got into it? Have you made acquaintances, and with whom ? Let me know some of their names. Do you learn German yet, to read, write, and speak it ? Yesterday, I saw a letter from Monsieur Bochat, to a friend of mine, which gave me the greatest pleasure that I have felt this great while, because it gives so very good an account of you. Among other things which Monsieur Bochat says to your advantage, he mentions the tender uneasiness and concern that you showed during my illness ; for which (though I will say that you owe it me) I am obliged to you ; sentiments of gratitude not being universal, nor even common. As your affection for me can only LETTERS TO HIS SON. 29 proceed from your experience and conviction of my fond- ness for you (for to talk of natural aflfection is talking nonsense), the only return I desire is, what it is chiefly your interest to make me ; I mean, your invariable practice of Virtue, and your indefatigable pursuit of Knowledge. Adieu ! and be persuaded that I shall love you extremely while you deserve it, but not one moment longer. to a i that good msieur ender ness ; I am ersal, only LETTER XIV. Dear Boy, ^ London, December the 9th, O. S. 1746. Though I have very little time, and though I write by this post to Mr. Harte, yet I cannot send a packet to Lausanne without a word or two to yourself. I thank you for your letter of congratulation which you wrote me, not- withstanding the pain it gave you. The accident that caused the pain was, I presume, owing to that degree of giddiness which I have sometimes taken the liberty to speak to you of. The post I am now in, though the object of most people's views and desires, was in some degree inflicted upon me; and a certain concurrence of circum- stances obliged rae to engage in it. But I feel that it requires more strength of body and mind than I have, to go through with it , were you three or four years older, you should share in my trouble, and I would have taken you into my office ; but I hope you will employ those three or four years so well, as to make yourself capable of being of use to ine, if I should continue in it so long. The read- ing, writing, and speaking the modern languages correctly ; the knowledge of the laws of nations, and the particular 30 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S constitution of the Empire; of History, Geography, and Chronology, — are absolutely necessary to this business, for which I have always intended you. With these qualifica- tions, you may very possibly be my successor, though not niy immediate one. I hope you employ your whole time, which few people do ; and that you put every moment to profit of some kind or other. I call company, walking, riding, etc., employing one's time, and, upon proper occasions, very usefully; but what I ?annot forgive, in anybody, is sauntering, and doing nothing at all, v/ith a thing so precious as time, and so irrecoverable when lost. Are you acquainted with any Ladies at Lausanne; and do you behave yourself with politeness enough to make them desire your company ? I must finish: God bless you ! 1 11, I LETTER XV. Dear Boy, Lcadon, March the 6th, O. S. 1747. Whatever you do will always affect me very sensibly one way or another ; and I am now most agreeably ar:cted by two letters which I have lately seen from Lausanne, upon your subject ; the one was from Madame St. Germain, the other from Monsieur Pampigny : they both give so good an account of you, that I thought myself obliged, in juslice both to them and to you, to let you. know it. Those who deserve a good character ought to have the satisfaction of knowing that they have it, both as a reward and as an encouragement. They write, that you ar** not ouiy dkroiii. LETTERS TO HIS SON. 3T but tolerably well-bred; and that the English crust of awkward bashfulness, shyness, and roughness (of which, by- the-by, you had your share), is pretty well rubbed off. I am most heartily glad of it ; for, as I have often told you, those lesser talents, of an engaging, insinuating manner, an easy good breeding, a genteel behaviour and address, are of infinitely more advantage than they are generally thought to be, especially here in England. Virtue and learning, like gold, have their intrinsic value ; but if they are not polished, they certainly lose a great deal of their lustre : and even polished brass will pass upon more people than rough gold. What a number of sins does the cheerful, easy, good breeding of the French frequently cover ! Many of them want common sense, many more common learning ; but in general they make up so much by their manner for those defects, that frequently they pass undiscovered. I have often said, and do think, that a Frenchman, who, with a fund of virtue, learning, and good sense, has the manners and good breeding of his country, is the perfection of human nature. This perfection you may, if you please, and I hope you will, arrive at. You know what virtue is : you may have it if you will ; it is in every man's power ; and miserable is the man who has it not. Good sense God has given you. Learning you already possess enough of, to have, in a reasonable time, all that a man need have. With this you are thrown out early into the world, where it will be your own fault if you do not acquire all the other accomplishments necessary to complete and adorn your character. You will do well to make your compliments to Madame St. Germain and Monsieur Pampigny, and tell them how sensible you are of their partiality to you, in the advantageous testimonies which, you are informed, they have given of you here. 3» LORD CHESTERFIELD'S Adieu! Continue' to deserve such testimonies, and then you will not only deserve, but enjoy, .ny truest affection. \ ■Ml I LETTER XVI. Dear Boy, London, March the 27th, O. S. 1747. Pleasure is the rock which most young people split upon ; they launch out with crowded sails in quest of it, but without a compass to direct their course, or reason sufficient to steer the vessel; for want of which, pain and shame, instead of Pleasure, are the returns of their voyage. Do not think that I mean to snarl at Pleasure, like a Stoic, or to preach against it, like a Parson ; no, I mean to point it out, and recommend it to you, like an Epicurean : I wish you a great deal, and my only view \z to hinder you from mistaking it. - The character which most young men first aim at is, that of a Man of Pleasure; but they generally take it wpon trust ; and instead of consulting their own taste and inclinations, they blindly adopt whatever those with whom they chiefly converse are pleased to call by the name of Pleasure; and k Man of Pleasure^ in the vulgar acceptation of that phrase, means only a beastly drunkard, an aban- doned whoremaster, and a profligate swearer and curser. As it may be of use to you, I am not unwilling, though at the same time ashamed, to own that the vices of my youth proceeded much more from my silly resolution of being what I heard called a Man of Pleasure, than from my own inclinations. I always naturally hated drinking; and yet I have often drunk, with disgust at the time, attended ' / i then on. 1747. e split it, but fficient shame, ;. Do ;oic, or loint it I wish from at is, ake it :e and whom me of itation aban- :urser. igh at I youth being my I; and ;nded \ ! ; i 1 LETTERS TO HIS SON. 33 by great sickness the next day, only because I then con- sidered drinking as a necessary qualification for a fine gentleman and a Man of Pleasure. The same as to gaming. I did not want money, and consequently had no occasion to play for it; but I thought Play another necessary ingredient in the com- position of a Man of Pleasure, and accordingly I plunged into it without desire, at first; sacrificed a thousand real pleasures to it ; and made myself solidly uneasy by it, for thirty of the best years of my life. I was even absurd enough, for a little while, to swear, by way of adorning and completing the shining character which I affected; but this folly I soon laid aside upon finding both the giylt and the indecency of it. Thus seduced by fashion, and blindly adopting nominal pleasures, I lost real ones; and my fortune impaired,. and my constitution shattered, are, I must confess, the just punishment of my errors. Take warning, then, by them ; choose your pleasures for yourself, and do not let them be imposed upon you. Follow nature, and not fashion : weigh the present enjoy- ment of your pleasures against the necessary consequences of them, and then let your own common sense determine your choice. Were I to begin the world again, with the experience which I now have of it, I would lead a life of real, not of imaginary pleasure. I would enjoy the pleasures of the table, and of wine; but stop short of the pains insepar- ably annexed to an excess in either. I would not, at twenty years, be a preaching missionary of abstemiousness and sobriety; and I should let other people do as they would, without formally and sententiously reb; /.ing them for it ; but I would be most firmly resolved not to destroy 635 34 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S my own faculties and constitution in complaisance to those who have no regard to their own. I would play to give me pleasure, but not to give me pain ; that is, I would play for trifles, in mixed companies, to amuse myself and conform to custom ; but I would take care not to venture for sums, which, if I won, I should not be the better for; but, if I lost, should be under a difficulty to pay; and, when paid, would oblige me to retrench in several other articles. Not to mention the quarrels which deep play commonly occasions. I would pass some of my time in reading, and the rest in the company of people of sense and learning, and chiefly those above me: and I would frequent the mixed com- panies of men and women of fashion, which though often frivolous, yet they unbend and refresh the mind, not use- lessly, because they certainly polish and soften the manners. These would be my pleasures and amusements, if I were to live the last thirty years over again; they are rational ones; and moreover I will tell you, they are really the fashionable ones : for the others are not, in truth, the pleasures di what I call people of fashion, but of those who only call themselves so. Does good company care to have a man reeling drunk among them ? Or to see another tearing his hair, and blaspheming, for having lost, at play, more than he is able to pay? Or a whoremaster with half a nose, and crippled by coarse and infamous debauchery ? No ; those who practise, and much more those who brag of them, make no part of good company ; and are most unwillingly, if ever, admitted into it. A real man of fashion and pleasure observes decency; at least, neither borrows nor affects vices ; and, if he unfortunately has any, he gratifies them with choice, delicacy, and secrecy. ' / LETTERS TO HIS SON. 35 I have not mentioned the pleasures of the mind (which are the solid and permanent ones), because they do not come under the head of what people commonly call pleasures, which they seem to confine to the senses. The pleasure of virtue, of charity, and of learning is true and lasting pleasure ; which I hope you will be well and long acquainted with. Adieu. LETTER XVII. Dear Boy, London, April the 3rc], O. S. 1747. If I am rightly informed, I am now writing to a fine Gentleman, in a scarlet coat laced with gold, a brocade waistcoat, and all other suitable ornaments. The natural partiality of every author for his own works, makes me very glad to hear that Mr. Harte has thought this last edition of mine worth so fine a binding ; and as he hss bound it in red and gilt it upon the back, I hope he will take care that it shall be lettered too. A showish binding attracts the eyes, and engages the attention of everybody ; but with this difference, that women, and men who are like women, mind the binding more than the book ; whereas men of sense and learning immediately examine the inside \ and if they find that it does not answer the finery on the outside, they throw it by with the greater indignation and contempt. I hope that when this edition of my works shall be opened and read, the best judges will find connection, consistency, solidity, and spirit in it. Mr. Harte may recensere and emendare as much as he pleases, but it will be to little pur- pose if you do not cooperate >yith him. The work will be imperfect. 36 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S I thank you for your last information of our success in the Mediterranean ; and you say, very rightly, that a Secre- tary of State ought to be well informed. I hope, therefore, you will take care that I shall. You are near the busy scene in Italy: and I doubt not but that, by frequently looking at the map, you have all that theatre of the war very perfect in your mind. . I like your account of the salt works ; which shows that you gave some attention while you v^ere seeing them. But, notwithstanding that, by your account, the Swiss salt is (I dare say) very good, yet I am apt to suspect that it falls a little short of the true Attic salt, in which there was a peculiar quickness and delicacy. That same Attic salt seasoned almost all Greece, except Boeotia ; and a great deal of it was exported afterwards to Rome, where it was counterfeited by a composition called Urbanity, which in some time was brought to very near the perfection of the original Attic salt. The more you are powdered with these two kinds of salt, the better you will keep, and the more you will be relished. Adieu ! My compliments to Mr. Harte and Mr. Eliot. 1^ LETTER XVIII. Dear Boy, London, April the 14th, O. S. 1747. If you feel half the pleasure from the consciousness of doing well, that I do from the informations I have lately received in your favour from Mr. Harte, I shall have little occasion to exhort or admonish you any more, to do what your own satisfaction and self-love will sufficiently prompt LETTERS TO HIS SON. 37 you to. Mr. Harte tells me that you attend, that you apply to your studies ; and that, beginning to understand, you begin to tastJ them. This pleasure will increase and keep pace with your attention, so that the balance will be greatly to your advantage. You may remember, that I have always earnestly recommended to you, to do what you are about, be that what it will ; and to do nothing else at the same time. Do not imagine that I mean by this, that you should attend to, and plod at, your book all day long ; far from it : I mean that you should have your pleasures too ; and that you should attend to them, for the time, as much as to your studies; and if you do not attend equally to both, you will neither have improvement nor satisfaction from either. A man is fit for neither business nor pleasure who either cannot, or does not, command and direct his attention to the present object, and in some degree banish, for that time, all other objects from his thoughts. If at a ball, a supper, or a party of pleasure, a man were to be solving, in his own mind, a problem in Euclid, he would be a very bad companion, and make a very poor figure in that company ; or if, in studying a problem in his closet, he were to think of a minuet, I am apt to believe that he would make a very poor mathematician. There is time enough for everything, in the course of the day, if you do but one thing at once ; but there is not time enough in the year, if you will do two things at a time. The Pensionary de Witt, who was torn to pieces in the year 1672, did the whole business of the Republic, and yet had time left to go to assemblies in the evening, and sup in company. Being asked how he could possibly find time to go through so much business, and yet amuse himself in the evenings as he did ? he answered. There was nothing so easy ; for that it was only doing one thing at a time, and never putting off 38 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S anything till to-morrow that could be done to-day. This steady and undissipated attention to one object is a sure mark of a superior genius ; as hurry, bustle, and agitation, are the never-failing symptoms of a weak and frivolous mind. When you read Horace, attend to the justness of his thoughts, the happiness of his diction, and the beauty of his poetry; and dr not th ik of Pu/Tendorf ^ CHESTERFIELD'S introduced into good company. But I must remind you, at the same time, that it will be to very little purpose for you to frequent good company, if you do not conform to, and learn their manners ; if you are not attentive to please, and well bred with the easiness of a man of fashion. As you must attend to your manners, so you must not neglect your person ; but take care to be very clean, well dressed, and genteel; to have no disagreeable attitudes, nor awkward tricks; which many people use themselves to, and then cannot leave them off. Do you take care to keep your teeth very clean, by washing them constantly every morn- ing, and after every meal ? This is very necessary, both to preserve your teeth a great while, and to save -you a great deal of pain. Mine have plagued me long, and are now falling out, merely for want of care when I was of your age. Do you dress well, and not too well? Do you consider your air and manner of presenting yourself enough, and not too much? neither negligent nor stiff. All these things deserve a degree of care, a second-rate attention ; they give an additional lustre to real merit. My Lord Bacon says, that a pleasing figure is a perpetual letter of recommenda- tion. It is certainly an agreeable forerunner of merit, and smooths the way for it. Remember that I shall see you at Hanover next summer, and shall expect perfection ; which if I do not meet with, or at least something very near it, you and I shall not be very well together. I shall dissect and analyze you with a microscope, so that I shall discover the least speck or blemish. This is fair warning; therefore take your measures accordingly. Yours. •'nn nmer, with, lot be with speck your LETTERS TO HIS SOxV. LETTER XXII. 45 Dear Boy, London, August the 7th, O. S. 1747. I RECKON that this letter has but a bare chance of binding you at Lausanne; but I was resolved to risk it, as it is the last that I shall write to you till you are settled at Leipsig. I sent you by the last post, under cover to Mr. Harte, a letter of recommendation to one of the first people at Munich ; which you will take care to present to him in the politest manner: he will certainly have you presented to the Electoral family; and I hope you will go through that ceremony with great respect, good breeding, and ease. As this is the first Court that ever you will have been at, take care to inform yourself, if there be any particular customs or forms to be observed, that you may not commit any mistake. At Vienna, men always make courtesies, instead of bows^ to the Emperor; in France, nobody bows at all to the King, nor kisses his hand ; but in Spain and England, bows are made, and hands are kissed. Thus every Court has some peculiarity or other, which those who go to them ought previously to inform them- selves of, to avoid blunders and awkwardnesses. I have not time to say any more now, than to wish you a good journey to Leipsig; and great attention, both there and in going thither. Adieu. LETTER XXIII. Dear Boy, London, October the 9th, O. fv'. 1747. People of your age have commonly an uriguarded frankness about them, which makes them the easy prey and 44 LORD CHESTERFIELDS bubbles of the artful and the experienced : they look upon every knave, or fool, who tells them that he is their friend, to be really so; and pay that profession of simulated friendship with an indiscreet and unbounded confidence, always to their loss, often to their ruin. Beware, therefore, now that you are coming into the world, of these proffered friendships. Receive them with great civility, but with great incredulity too; and pay them, with compliments, but not with confidence. Do not let your vanity and self- love make you suppose that people become your friends at first sight, or even upon a short acquaintance. Real friendship is a slow grower; and never thrives, unless ingrafted upon a stock of known and reciprocal merit. There is another kind of nominal friendship, among young people, which is warm for the time, but, by good luck, of short duration. This friendship is hastily produced by their being accidentally thrown together, and pursuing the same course of riot and debauchery. A fine friendship, truly ! and well cemented by drunkenness and lewdness. It should rather be called a conspiracy against morals and good manners, and be punished as such by the civil Magistrate. However, they have the impudence and the folly to call this confederacy a friendship. They lend one another money for bad purposes ; they engage in quarrels, offensive and defensive, for their accomplices; they tell one another all they know, and often more too ; when, of a sudden, some accident disperses them, and they think no more of each other, unless it be to betray and laugh at their imprudent confidence. Remember to make a great difference between companions and friends ; ' jr a very complaisant and agreeable companion may, and often does, prove a very improper and a very dangerous friend. People will, in a great degree, and not without reason, form their LETTERS TO HIS SON. m opinion of you upon that which they have of your friends; and there is a Spanish proverb, which says very justly, Tell \ me whom you live with^ atid I will tell you who you are. * One may fairly suppose that a man who makes a knave or a fool his friend, has something very bad to do, or to conceal. But, at the same time that you carefully decline the friendship of knaves and fools, if it can be called friendship, there is no occasion to make either of them your enemies, wantonly and unprovoked; for they are numerous bodies; and I would rather choose a secure neutrality, than alliance or war, with either of them. You may be a declared enemy to their vices and follies, with- out being marked out by them as a personal one. Their enmity is the next dangerous thing to their friendship. Have a real reserve with almost everybody ; and have a seeming reserve with almost nobody ; for it is very disagree- able to seem reserved, and very dangerous not to be so. Few people find the true medium ; many are ridiculously mysterious and reserved upon trifles; and many impru- dently communicative of all they know. The next thing to the choice of your friends is the choice of your company. Endeavour, as much as you can, to keep company with people above you. There you rise, as much as you sink with people below you ; for (as I have mentioned before) you are whatever the company you keep is. Do not mistake, when I say company above you, and think that I mean with regard to their birth ; that is the least consideration : but I mean with regard to their merit, and the light in which the world considers them. There are two sorts of good company; one which is called the beau inonde^ and consists of those people who have the lead in Courts, and in the gay part of life; the other consists of those who are distinguished by some 46 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S peculiar merit, or who excel in some particular and valuable art or science. For my own part, I used to think myself in company as much above me, when I was with Mr. Addison and Mr. Pope, as if I had been with all the princes in Europe. What I mean by low company, which should by all means be avoided, is the company of those who, absolutely insignificant and contemptible in themselves, think ^they are honoured by being in your company, and who flatter every vice and every folly you have, in order to engage you to converse with them. The pride of being I the first of the company is but too common ; but it is very silly, and very prejudicial. Nothing in the world lets down a character more than that wrong turn. You may possibly ask me whether a man has it always in his power to get into the best company? and how? I say. Yes, he has, by deserving it ; provided he is but in circum- stances which enable him to appear upon the footing of a gentleman. Merit and good breeding will make their way everywhere. Knowledge will introduce him, and good breeding will endear him to the besl; companies; for, as I have often told you, politeness and good breeding are absolutely necessary to adorn any or all other good qualities or talents. Without them, no knowledge, no perfection whatsoever, is seen in its best light. The Scholar, without good breeding, is a Pedant ; the Philosopher, a Cynic ; the Soldier, a Brute ; and every man disagreeuble. I long to hear from my several correspondents ai Leipsig, of your arrival there, and what impression you make on them at first; for I have Arguses, with a hundred eyes each, who will watch you narrowly, and relate to me faith- fully. My accounts will certainly be true ; it depends upon you entirely of what kind they shall be. Adieu. \ i LETTERS TO HIS SON. 47 LETTER XXIV. Dear Boy, London, October the i6th, O. S. 1747. The art of pleasing is a very necessax one to possess, but a very difficuU one to acquire. It can hardly be reduced to rules, and your ov/n good sense and observation will teach you more of it than I can. Do as you would be done by is the surest method that I know of pleasing. Observe carefully what pleases you in others, and probably the same things in you will please others. If you are pleased with the complaisance and attention of others to your humours, your tastes, or your weaknesses, depend upon it the same complaisance and attention on your part to theirs, will equally please them. Take the tone of the company that you are in, and do not pretend to give it ; be serious, gay, or even trifling, as you find the present humour of the company ; this is an attention due from every individual to the majority. Do not tell stories in company : there is nothing more tedious and disagreeable : if by chance you know a very short story, and exceedingly applicable to the present subject of conversation, tell it in as few words as possible ; and even then throw out that you do not love to tell stories, but that the shortness of it tempted you. Of all things, banish egotism out of your coiiversation, and never think of entertaining people with your own personal concerns or private affairs ; though they are interesting to you, they are tedious and impertinent to everybody else : besides that, one cannot keep one's own private affairs too secret. Whatever you think your own excellencies may be, do not affectedly display them in company ; nor labour, as many people do, to give that turn to the conversation which may supply you with an \ 4» LORD CHESTERFIELD'S opportunity of exhibiting them. If they are real, they will infaUibly be discovered without your pointing them out yourself, and with much more advantage. Never maintain an argument with heat and clamour, though you think or know yourself to be in the right ; but give your opinion modestly and coolly, which is the only way to con/ince; and if that does not do, try to change the conversation, by saying, with good humour, " We shall hardly convince one another, nor is it necessary that we should, so let us talk of something else." Remember that there is a local propriety to be observed in all companies ; and that what is extremely proper in one company may be, and often is, highly improper in another. ' The jokes, the bons mots, the little adventures, which may do very well in one company, will seem flat and tedious when related in another. The particular characters, the habits, the cant of one company may give merit to a word, or a gesture, which would have none at all if divested of those accidental circumstances. Here people very com- monly err ; and fond of something that has entertained them in one company, and in certain circumstances, repeat it with emphasis in another, where it is either msipid, or, it may be, offensive, by being ill-timed or misplaced. Nay, they often do it with this silly preamble ; ** I will tell you an excellent thing ; " or, "I will tell you the best thing in the world." This raises expectations, which when absolutely disappointed, make the relator of this excellent thing look, very deservedly, like a fool. If yoi vvould particularly gain the affection and friendship of partic i 1 people, whether men or women, endeavour to find o'jt iiuir stre'lominr.nt e .cellency, if they have one, and their prv vai'^iig iveakness, which everybody has ; and do LETTERS TO HIS SON. 49 N^ !) justice to the one, and something more than justice to the other. Men have various objects in which they may excel, or at least would be thought to excel ; and though ihey love to hear justice done to them where they know that they excel, yet they are most and best flattered upon those points where they wish to excel, and yet are doubtful whether they do or not. As, for example, Cardinal Richelieu, who was undoubtedly the ablest Statesman of his time, or perhaps of any other, had the idle vanity of being thought the best Poet too ; he envied the great Corncille his reputation, and ordered a criticism to be written upon the Cid. Those, therefore, who flattered skilfully, said little to him of his abilities in state affairs, or at least but en passant, and as it might naturally occur. But the incense which they gave him, the smoke of which they knew would turn his head in their favour, was as a bel esprit and a Poet. Why ? Because he was sure of one excellency, and distrustful as to the other. You will easily discover every man's prevailing vanity by observing his favourite | topic of conversation, for every man talks most of what he has most a mind to be thought to excel in. Touch him but there, and you touch him to the quick. 'he late Sir Robert Walpole (who was certainly an able n n) was little open to flattery upon that head, for he was m no doubt himself about it; but his prevailing weaki - ss was to be thought to have a polite and happy turn gallantry, of which he had undoubtedly less than any n m living : it was his favourite and frequent subject of conversation, which proved to those who had any penetration that it was his prevailing weakness. And they applied to it with success. Women have in general but one object, which is their beauty; upon which scarce any flattery i.^ loo gross for ^ them to follow. Nature has hardly formed a woman ugly 636 ; » I'' . 50 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S enough to be insensible to flattery upon her person ; if her face is so shocking, that she must in some degree be conscious of it, her figure and her air, she trusts, make ample amends for it. If her figure is deformed, her face, she thinks, counterbalances it. If they are both bad, she comforts herself that she has graces, a certain manner, a je ne sfais quoi^ still more engaging than beauty. This truth is evident, from the studied and elaborate dress of the ugliest women in the world. An undoubted, uncon- tested, conscious beauty is, of all women, the least sensible of flattery upon that head ; she knows it is her due, and is therefore obliged to nobody for giving it her. She must be flattered upon her understanding; which, though she may possibly not doubt of herself, yet she suspects that men may distrust. Do not mistake me, and think that I mean to recommend to you abject and criminal flattery : no, flatter nobody's vices or crimes ; on the contrary, abhor and discourage them. But there is no living in the world without a com- plaisant indulgence for people's weaknesses, and innocent, though ridiculous vanities. If a man has a mind to be thought wiser, and a woman handsomer, than they really are, their error is a comfortable one to themselves, and an innocent one with regard to other people ; and I would rather make them my friends by indulging them in it, than my enemies by endeavouring (and that to no purpose) to undeceive them. There are little attentions, likewise, which are infinitely engaging, and which sensibly affect that degree of pride and self-love, which is inseparable from human nature, as they are unquestionable proofs of the regard and consideration which we have for the persons to whom we pay them. As, for example, to observe the little habits, the likings, the "M LETTERS TO HIS SON. 51 antipathies, and the tastes of those whom we would gain ; and then take care to provide them with the one, and to secure them from the other ; giving them, genteelly, to understand, that you had observed they liked such a dish, or such a room, for which reason you had prepared it : or, on the contrary, that having observed they had an aversion to such a dish, a dislike to such a person, etc., you had taken care to avoid presenting them. Such attention to such trifles flatters self-love much more than greater things, as it makes people think themselves almost the only objects of your thoughts and care. These are some of the arcana necessary for your initiation in the great society of the world. I wish I had known them better at your age ; I have paid the price of three and fifty years for them, and shall not grudge \t i*" you reap the advantage. Adieu. LETTER XXV. tely land [hey cion I As, the Dear Boy, London, December the nth, O. S. 1747. There is nothing which I more wish that you should know, and which fewer people do know, than the true use and value of Time. It is in everybody's mouth, but in few people's practice. Every fool, who slatterns away his whole time in nothings, utters, however, some trite commonplace sentence, of which there are millions, to prove at once the value and the fleetness of time. The sun-dials, likewise, all over Europe, ha^^e some ingenious inscription to that effect ; so that nobody squanders away their time without hearing and seeing daily how necessary it is to employ it well, and \ r' 52 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S how irrecoverable it is if lost. But all these admonitions are useless, where there is not a fund of good sense and reason to suggest them, rather than receive them. By the manner in which you now tell me that you employ your time, I flatter myself that you have that fund : that is the fund which will make you rich indeed. I do not, therefore, mean to give you a critical essay upon the use and abuse of time ; I will only give you some hints with regard to the use of one particular period of that long lime which, I hope, you have before you ; I mean the next two years. Remember, then, • that whatever knowledge you do not solidly lay the foundation of bef3re you are eighteen, you will never be master of while you breathe. Knowledge is a comfortable and necessary retreat and shelter for us in an advanced age ; and if we do not plant it while young, it will give us no shade when we grow old. I neither require nor expect from you great application to books, after you are once thrown out into the great world. I know it is impossible ; and it may even, in some cases, be improper : thi •, therefore, is your time^ and your only time, for unwearied and uninterrupted application. If you should sometimes think it a little laborious, consider that labour is the unavoidable fatigue of a necessary journey. The mora^' hours a day you travel, the sooner you will be at your journey's end. The sooner you are qualified for your liberty, the sooner you shall have it ; and your manumission will entirely depend upon the manner in which you employ the intermediate time. I think I offer you a very good bargain, wheu I promise you, upon my word, that if you will do everything that I would have you do, till you are eighteen, I will do everything that you would have me do, ever afterwards. I knew a gentleman who was so good a manager of his nitions se and • By the y your t is the jreforc, [)use of the use ; hope, years, do not en, you ige is a 3 in an young, neither books, I know ses, be y time, should hour is more^' t your r your ission mploy good if you ou are e do, of his LETTERS TO HIS SON. 53 time, that he would not even lose that small portion of it which the calls of nature obliged him to pass in the necessary-house ; but gradually went through all the Latin Poets in those moments. He bought, for example, a common edition of Horace, of which he tore off gradually a couple of pages, carried them with him to that necessary place, read them first, and then sent them down as a sacrifice to Cloacina : this was so much time fairly gained ; and I recommend to you to follow his example. It is better than only doing what you cannot help doing at those moments ; and it will make any book which you shall read in that manner very present in your mind. Books of science, and of a grave sort, must be read with continuity ; but there are very many, and even very useful ones, which may be read with advantage by snatches, and uncon- nectedly : such are all the good Latin Poets, except Virgil in his ^neid ; and such are most of the modern poets, in which you will find many pieces worth reading, that will not take up above seven or eight minutes. Bayle's, Moreri's, and other dictionaries are proper books to take and shut up for the little intervals of (otherwise) idle time, that every- body has in the course of the day, between either their studies or their pleasures. Good-night I LETTER XXVL Dear Boy, January the 2nd, O. S. 1748. I AM edified with the allotment of your time at Leipsig ; which is so well employed from morning till night, that a fool would say, you had none left for yourself ; whereas, I 54 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S am sure, you have sense enough to know that such a right use of your time is having it all to yourself; nay, it is even more, for it is laying it out to immense interest ; which in a very few years will amount to a prodigious capital. Though twelve of your fourteen Commensaux may not be the liveliest people in the world, and may want (as I easily conceive they do) / IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) 1.0 1.1 128 itt m fii £ |;£ 12.0 lit IL25 nil 1.4 I 1.6 Hiotographic Sciences Corporation 23 WIST MAIN STREET WEBSTER, N.Y. MSSO (716) •73-4S03 r<\^ V iV ^\ ^ \ ci\ 56 i LORD CHESTERFIELD'S LEITER XXVII. Dear Boy, London, January the 15th, O. S. 1748. I WILLINGLY accept the New Year's gift which you I)romise me for next year ; and the more valuable you make it, the more thankful I shall be. That depends entirely upon you ; and therefore I hope to be presented every year with a new edition of you, more correct than the former, and considerably enlarged and amended. Since you do not care to be an Assessor of the Imperial Chamber, and desire an establishment in England, what do you think of being Greek Professor at one of our Univer- sities ? It is a very pretty sinecure, and requires very little knowledge (much less than, I hope, you have already) of that language. If you do not approve of this, I am at a loss to know what else to propose to you ; and therefore desire that you will inform me what sort of destination you propose for yourself: for it is now time to fix it, and to take our measures accordingly. Mr. Harte tells me, that you set up for a IIoAiTtKos avi;/) ; if so, I presume it is in the view of succeeding me in my office; which I will very willingly resign to you, whenever you shall call upon me for it. But, if you intend to be the noA.iTt/cos or the BvA7y<^o/)os av7y/3, there are some trifling circumstances upon which you should previously take your resolution. The first of which is, to be fit for it ; and then, in order to be so, make yourself master of Ancient and Modern History, and Languages. To know perfectly the constitution and form of government of every nation ; the growth and the decline of ancient and modern Empires; and to trace out and reflect upon the causes of both. To know the strength, the riches, and the co mmerce of every country. These little things, trifling as / LETTERS TO HIS SON, 57 they may seem, are yet very necessary for a Politician to know ; and which therefore, I presume, you will condescend to apply yourself to. There are some additional qualifica- tions necessary in the practical part of business, which may deserve some consideration in your leisure moments ; such as an absolute command of your temper, so as not to be I provoked to passion upon any account: P atienc e to hear frivolous, impertinent, and unreasonable applications ; with address enough to refuse, without offending; or by your manner of granting, to double the obligation : Dexterity enough to conceal a truth without telling a lie : Sagacity enough to read other people's countenances : and ta erenity enough not to let them discover anything by yours ; a_ seeming frankness, with a real reserv e. These are the rudiments of a PoHcician ; the world must be your grammar. Three mails are now due from Holland ; so that I have no letters from you to acknowledge. I therefore conclude with recommending myself to your favour and protection, when you succeed. Yours. LETTER XXVIII. Dear Boy, London, February the 13th, O. S. 1748. Your last letter gave me a very satisfactory account of your manner of employing your time at Leipsig. Go on so but for two years more, and I promise you, that you will outgo all the people of your age and time. I thank you for your explication of the Schriftsassen and Ampisassen; and pray let me know the meaning of the Landsassen, I am very willing that you should take a Saxon servant, who speaks nothing but German ; which will be a sure way of keeping up your German after you leave Germany. But 58 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S then, I would neither have that man, nor him whom you have already, put out of livery, which makes them both impertinent and useless. I am sure that, as soon as you shall have taken the other servant, your present man will press extremely to be out of livery, and valet de chambre ; which is as much as to say, that he will curl your hair, and shave you, but not condescend to do anything else. I therefore advise you never to have a servant out of livery ; and though you may not always think proper to carry the servant who dresses you, abroad in the rain and dirt, behind a coach or before a chair, yet keep it in your power to do so, if you please, by keeping him in livery. I have seen Monsieur and Madame Flemming, who give me a very good account of you, and of your manners; which, to tell you the plain truth, were what I doubted of the most. She told me that you were easy, and not ashamed ; which is a great deal for an Englishman at your age. , . , ;., I set out for the Bath to-morrow, for a month; only to be better than well, and to enjoy, in quiet, the liberty which I have acquired by the resignation of the seals. You shall hear from me more at large from thence ; and now good-night to you. ,^ f LETTER XXIX. Dear Boy, Bath, February the i6th, O. S. 1748. The first use that I made of my liberty was to come hither, where I arrived yesterday. My health, though not fundamentally bad, yet for want of proper attention of late wanted some repairs, which these waters never fail giving it LETTERS TO HIS SON. 59 748. come h not f late ingit I shall drink them a month, and return to London, there to enjoy the comforts of social life, instead of groaning under the load of business. I have given the description of the life that I propose to lead for the future, in this motto, which I have put up in the frize of my library in my new house : Nunc veterum libris, nunc somno, et inertibus horis Ducere sollicitae jucunda obi; via vitse. I must observe to you, upon this occasion, that the uninterrupted satisfaction which I expect to find in that library, will be chiefly owing to my having employed some part of my life well at your age. I wish I had employed it better, and my satisfaction would now be complete; but, however, I planted, while young, that degree of knowledge which is now my refuge and my shelter. Make your plantations still more extensive, they will more than pay you for your trouble. I do not regret the time that I passed in pleasures ; they were seasonable, they were the pleasures of youth, and I enjoyed them while young. If I had not, I should probably have overvalued them now, as we are very apt to do what we do not know : but, knowing them as I do, I know their real value, and how much they are generally overrated. Nor do I regret the time that I have passed in business, for the same reason ; those who see only the outside of it imagine that it has hidden charms, which they pant after ; and nothing but acquaint- ance can undeceive them. I, who have been behind the scenes, both of pleasure and business, and have seen all the springs and pullies of those decorations which astonish and dazzle the audience, retire, not only without regret, but with contentment and satisfaction. But what I do and ever shall regret, is the time which, while young, I lost in mere idleness and in doing nothing. This is the common 6o . LORD CHESTERFIELD'S effect of the inconsideracy of youth, against which I beg you will be most carefully upon your guard. The value of moments, when cast up, is immense, if well employed ; if thrown away, their loss is irrecoverable. Every moment may be put to some use, and that with much more pleasure than if unemployed. Do not imagine that, by the employ- ment of time, I mean an uninterrupted application to serious studies. No ; pleasures are, at proper times, both as necessary and as useful : they fashion and form you for the world; they teach you characters, and show you the human heart in its unguarded minutes. But, then, remem- ber to make that use of them. I have known many people, from laziness of mind, go through both pleasure and business with equal inattention ; neither enjoying the one, nor doing the other ; thinking themselves men of pleasure, because they were mingled with those who were ; and men of business, because they had business to do, though they did not do it. Whatever you do, do it to the purpose ; do it thoroughly, not superficially. Approfondissez ; go to the bottom of things. Anything half done, or half known, is, in my mind, neither done nor known at all. Nay worse, for it often misleads. There is hardly any place, or any company, where you may not gain knowledge if you please ; almost everybody knows some one thing, and is glad to talk upon that one thing. Seek and you will find, in this world as well as in the next. See everything, inquire into everything ; and you may excuse your curiosity, and the questions you ask, which otherwise might be thought impertinent, by your manner of asking them; for most things depend a great deal upon the manner. As, for example, / am afraid that I am very troublesome with my questions ; but nobody can inform me so well as you ; or something of that kind. LETTERS TO HIS SON, 6i Now that you are in a Lutheran country, go to their churches, and observe the manner of their pubHc worship ; attend to their ceremonies, and inquire the meaning and intention of every one of them. And, as you will soon understand German well enough, attend to their sermons, and observe their manner of preaching. Inform yourself of their church government, whether it resides in the Sovereign, or in Consistories and Synods. Whence arises the maintenance of their Clergy ; whether from tithes, as in England, or from voluntary contributions, or from pensions from the State. Do the same thing when you are in Roman Catholic countries ; go to their churches, see all their ceremonies, ask the meaning of them, get the terms explained to you. As, for instance, Prime, Tierce, Sexte, Nones, Matins, Angelus, High Mass, Vespers, Complies, etc. Inform yourself of their several religious Orders, their Founders, their Rules, their Vows, their Habits, their Revenues, etc. But when you frequent places of public worship, as I would have you go to all the different ones you meet with, remember that however erroneous, they are none of them objects of laughter and ridicule. Honest error is to be pitied, not ridiculed. The object of all the public worships in the world is the same; it is that great eternal Being, who created every- thing. The different manners of worship are by no means subjects of ridicule. Each sect thinks its own the best ; and I know no infallible judge in this world to decide which is the best. Make the same inquiries, wherever you are, concerning the revenues, the military establish- ment, the trade, the cjmmerce, and the police of every country. And you would do well to keep a blank paper book, which the Germans call an Album: and there, instead of desiring, as they do, every fool they meet with 69 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S to scribble something, write down all these things as soon as they come to your knowledge from good authorities. I had almost forgotten one thing which I would recom- mend as an object for your curiosity and information, that is, the Administration of Justice; which, as it is always carried on in open Court, you may, and I would have you, go and see it with attention and inquiry. I have now but one anxiety left which is concerning you. I would have you be, what I know nobody is, perfect. As that is impossible, I would have you as near perfection as possible. I know nobody in a fairer way towards it than yourself if you please. Never were so much pains taken for anybody's education as for yours; and never had anybody those opportunities of knowledge and improvement which you have had and still have. I hope, I wish, I doubt, and I fear alternately. This only I am sure of, that you will prove either the greatest pain or the greatest pleasure of Yours. LETTER XXX. Dear Boy, Bath, February the 22nd, O. S. 1748. Every excellency, and every virtue, has its kindred vice or weakness; and if carried beyond certain bounds, sinks into the one or the other. Generosity often runs into Profusion, Economy into Avarice, Courage into Rashness, Caution into Timidity, and so on : — insomuch that, I believe, there is more ju dgment required for t he rrnpfr rnndufit of our virtup'i, than for avoiding their opposite vices. Vice, in its true light, is so deformed, LETTERS TO HIS SON. r 63 that it shocks us at first sight; and Would hardly ever seduce us, if it did not at first wear the mask of some Virtue. But Virtue is in itself so beautiful, that it charms us at first sight ; engages us more and more, upon further acquaintance; and, as with other Beauties, we think excess impossible : it is here that judgment is necessary to moderate and direct the effects of an excellent cause. I shall apply this reasoning, at present, not to any particular virtue, but to an excellency, which for want of judgment is often the cause of ridiculous and blamable effects; I mean, great I^,rnjn ^, which, if not accompanied with sound judgment, frequently carries us into Error, Pride, and Pedantry. As I hope you will possess that excellency in its utmost extent, and yet without its too common failings, the hints which my experience can suggest may probably not be useless to you. Some learned , men, proud of their knowledge, only speak to decide, and give judgment without appeal. The consequence of which is, that mankind, provoked by the insult, and injured by the oppression, revolt ; and in order to shake off the tyranny, even call the lawful authority in question. The more you know, the modester you^hould be : and (by the by) that Tnodesty~tsr"tKe^surest way of gralffylng your vanity. Even where you are sure, seem .rather doubtful : re present, but do not pro nounce ; and if you would convince others, seem open to conviction yourself Others, to show their learning, or often from the pre- judices of a school education, where they hear of nothing else, are always talking of the Ancients as something more than men, and of the Moderns as something less. They are never without a Classic or two in their pockets ; they stick to the old good sense; they read none of the / 64 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S modern trash ; and will show you plainly that no improve- ment has been made in any one art or science these last seventeen hundred years. I would by no means have you disown your acquaintance with the Ancients ; but still less would I have you brag of an exclusive intimacy with them. Speak of the Modern^ without contempt, and of the Ancients without idolatry; judge them all by their merits, but not by their ages; and if you happen to have an Elzevir classic in your pocket, neither show it nor mention it. Some great Scholars most absurdly draw all their maxims, both for public and private life, from what they call Parallel Cases in the ancient authors; without con- sidering, that, in the first place, there never were, since the creation of the world, two cases exactly parallel: and, in the next place, that there never was a case stated, or even known, by any Historian, with every one of its circumstances; which, however, ought to be known, in order to be reasoned from. Reason upon the case itself and the several circumstances that attend it, and act accordingly: but not from the authority of ancient Poets or Historians. Take into your consideration, if you please, cases seemingly analogous ; but take them as helps only, not as guides. We are really so prejudiced by our educations, that, as the Ancients deified their Heroes, we deify their Madmen : of which, with all due regard to antiquity, I take Leonidas and Curtius to have been two distinguished ones. And yet a stolid Pedant would, in a speech in Parliament, relative to a tax of twopence in the pound, upon some commodity or other, quote those two heroes, as examples of what we ought to do and suffer for our country. I have known these absurdities carried so far, by people of injudicious learning, that I i : LETTERS TO HIS SON. 65 should not be surprised, if some of them were to propose, while we are at war with the Gauls, that a number of geese should be kept in the Tower, upon account of the infinite advantage which Rome received, in a parallel case^ from a certain number of geese in the Capitol. This way of reasoning, and this way of speaking, will always form a poor politician, and a puerile declaimer. There is another species of learned men, who, though less dogmatical and supercilious, are not less impertinent. These are the communicative and shining Pedants, who adorn their conversation, even with women, by happy quotations of Gi jek and Latin, and who have contracted such a familiarity with the Greek and Roman authors, that they call them by certain names or epithets denoting intimacy. As old Homer; that sly rogue Horace; Maro^ instead of Virgil ; and Naso, instead of Ovid. These are often imitated by coxcombs who have no learning at all, but who have got some names and some scraps of ancient authors by heart, which they improperly and impertinently retail in all companies, in hopes of passing for scholars. If, therefore, you would avoid the accusation of pedantry, on one hand, or the suspicion of ignorance, on the other, abstain from learned ostentation. Speak the language of the company that you are in; speak it purely, and unlarded with any other. Never seem wiser, nor more learned, than the people you are with. Wear your learn- ing, like your watch, in a private pocket; and do not pull it out, and strike it, merely to show that you have one. If you are asked what o'clock it is, tell it ; but do not proclaim it hourly and unasked, like the watchman. Upon the whole, remember that learning (I mean Greek and Roman learning) is a most useful and necessary ornament, which it is shameful not to be master of; but 637 / 66 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S at the same time most carefully avoid those errors and abuses which I have mentioned, and which too often attend it. Remember, too, that great modern knowledge is still more necessary than ancient; and that you had better know perfectly the present than the old state of Europe; though I would have you well acquainted with both. I have this moment received your letter of the 17th, N. S. Though, I confess, there is no great variety in your present manner of life, yet materials can never be wanting for a letter; you see, you hear, or you read, something new every day; a short account of which, with your own reflections thereupon, will make out a letter very well. But, since you desire a subject, pray send me an account of the Lutheran establishment in Germany ; their religious tenets, their church government, the maintenance, authority, and titles of their Clergy. Vittorio Siri^ complete, is a very scarce and very dear book here; but I do not want it. If your own library grows too voluminous, you will not know what to do with it, when you leave Leipsig. Your best way will be, when you go away from thence, to send to England, by Hamburg, all the books that you do not absolutely want. Yours. LETTER XXXI. Dear Boy, Bath, March the 9th, O. S. 1748. I MUST, from time to time, remind you of what I have often recommended to you, and of what you cannot attend to too much; sacrifice to the Graces, The diflferent effects LETTERS TO HIS SON. 67 of the same things, said or done, when accompanied or abandoned by them, is almost inconceivable. They pre- pare the way to the heart ; and the heart has such an influence over the understanding, that it is worth while to engage it in our interest. It is the whole of women, who are guided by nothing else ; and it has so much to say, even with men, and the ablest men too, that it commonly triumphs in every struggle with the understanding. Monsieur de Rochefoucault, in his Maxims, says, that V esprit estsouvent la dupe du caur. If he had said, instead of souvent^ presque toujourst I fear he would have been nearer the truth. This being the case, aim at the heart. Intrinsic merit alone will not do : it will gain you the general esteem of all ; but not the particular affection, that is, the heart, of any. To engage the affection of any particular person, you must, over and above your general merit, have some particular merit to that person ; by services done or offered ; by expressions of regard and esteem; by complaisance, attentions, etc., for him: and the graceful manner of doing all these things opens the way to the heart, and facilitates, or rather insures, their effects. From your own observation, reflect what a disagreeable impression an awkward address, a slovenly figure, an ungraceful manner of speaking, whether stuttering, mutter- ing, monotony, or drawling, an unattentive behaviour, etc., make upon you, at first sight, in a stranger, and how they prejudice you against him, though, for aught you know, he may have great intrinsic sense and merit. And reflect, on the other hand, how much the opposites of all these things prepossess you at first sight in favour of those who enjoy them. You wish to find all good qualities in them, and are in some degree disappointed if you do not. A thousand little things, not separately to be defined, conspire to form 68 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S ■ ( these Graces, this je ne sais quoi^ that always pleases. A pretty person, genteel motions, a proper degree of dress, an harmonious voice, something open and cheerful in the countenance, but without laughing ; a distinct and properly varied manner of speaking : all these things, and many others, are necessary ingredients in the composition of the pleasing je ne sais quoi^ which everybody feels, though nobody can describe. Observe carefully, then, what dis- pleases or pleases you in others, and be persuaded that in general the same things will please or displease them in you. Having mentioned laughing, I must particularly warn you against it : and I could heartily wish, that you may often be seen to smile, but never heard to laugh, while you live. Frequent and Icud laughter is the characteristic of folly and ill manners : it is the manner in which tho mob express their silly joy, at silly things ; and they call it being merry. In my mind, the^e is nothing so illiberal, and so ill bred, as audible laughter. True wit, or sense, never yet made anybody laugh; they are above it : they please the mind, and give a cheerfulness to the countenance. But it is low^ buffoonery, or silly accidents, that always excite laughter; and that is what people of sense and breeding should show themselves above. A man's going to sit down, in the supposition that he has a chair behind him, and falling down upon his breech for want of one, sets a whole company a laughing, when all the wit in the world wouM not do it ; a plain proof, in my mind, how low and unbecoming a thing laughter is. Not to mention the dis- agreeable noise that it makes, and the shocking distortion of the face that it occasions. Laughter is easily restrained by a very little reflection, but as it is generally connected with the idea of gaiety, people do not enough attend to its absurdity. I am neither of a melancholy nor a cynical LETTERS TO HIS SON. 69 disposition; and am as willing and as apt to be pleased as anybody ; but I am sure that, since I have had the full use of my reason, nobody has ever heard me laugh. Many people, at first from awkwardness and mauvaise honte^ have got a very disagreeable and silly trick of laughing whenever they speak: and I know a man of very good parts, Mr. Waller, who cannot say the commonest thing without laugh- ing ; which makes those who do not know him, take him at first for a natural foot This and many other very disagree- able habits are owing to mauvaise honte at their first setting out in the world. They are ashamed in company, and so disconcerted that they do not know what they do, and try a thousand tricks to keep themselves in countenance; which tricks afterwards grow habitual to them. Some put their fingers in their nose, others scratch their head, others twirl their hats ; in short, every awkward, ill-bred body has his trick. But the frequency does not justify the thing ; and all these vulgar habits and awkwardness, though not criminal indeed, are most carefully to be guarded against, as they are great bars in the way of the art of pleasing. Remember, that to please is almost to prevail, or at least a necessary previous step to it. You, who have your fortune to make, should more particularly study this art. You had not, I must tell you, when you left England, les manilres prkvenantes ; and I must confess they are not very common in England : but I hope that your good sense will make you acquire them abroad. If you desire to make yourself considerable in the world (as, if you have any spirit, you do) it must be enthrely your own doing : for I may very possibly be out of the world at the time you come into it. Your own rank and fortune will not assist you ; your merit and your manners can alone raise you to figure and fortune. I hav^ laid the foundations of them by the 70 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S education which I have given you ; but you must build the superstructure yourself. I must now apply to you for some informations, which I dare say you can, and which I desire you will give me. Can the Elector of Saxony put any of his subjects to death for high treason without bringing them first to their trial in some public Court of Justice ? Can he by his own authority confine any subject in prison as long as he pleases, without trial ? Can he banish any subject out of his dominions by his own authority ? Can he lay any tax whatsoever upon his subjects, without the consent of the States of Saxony? and what are those States? how are they elected? what Orders do they con- sist of ? do the Clergy make part of them ? and when and how often do they meet ? If two subjects of the Elector's are at law for an estate situated in the Electorate, in what Court must this suit be tried ; and will the decision of that Court be final, or does there lie an appeal to the Imperial Chamber at Wetzaler? What do you call the two chief Courts, or two chief Magistrates, of civil and criminal justice ? What is the common revenue of the Electorate, one year with another ? What number of troops does the Elector now maintain ? and what is the greatest number that the Electorate is able to maintain? - ^^^ I do not expect to have all these questions answered at once ; but you will answer them in proportion as you get the necessary and authentic informations. You are, you see, my German Oracle ; and I consult you with so much faith, that you need not, like the Oracles of old, return ambiguous answers ; especially as you have this LETTERS TO HIS SON. 71 advantage over them, too, that I only consult you about past and present, but not about what is to come. I wish you a good Easter fair at Leipsig. See, with attention, all the shops, drolls, tumblers, rope-dancers, and hoc genus omne: but inform yourself more particularly of the several parts of trade there. Adieu. ! year 1^1 LETTER XXXII. Dear Boy, London, April the ist, O. S. 1748. I HAVE not received any letter, either from you or from Mr. Harte, these three posts, which I impute wholly to accidents between this place and Leipsig; and they are distant enough to admit of many. I always take it for granted that you are well when I do not hear to the contrary ; besides, as I have often told you, I am much more anxious about your doing well, than about your being well ; and when you do not write I will suppose that you are doing something more useful. Your health will con- tinue while your temperance continues ; and at your age nature takes sufficient care of the body, provided she is left to herself, and that intemperance on one hand, or medicines on the other, do not break in upon her. But it is by no means so with the mind, which at your age particularly requires great and constant care, and some physic. Every quarter of an hour well or ill employed, will do it essential and lasting good or harm. It requires also a great deal of exercise to bring it to a state of health and vigour. Observe the difference there is between minds cultivated and minds uncultivated, and you will, I am sure, think that you 72 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S cannot take jo much pains, nor employ too much of your time, in the ilture of your own. A drayman is probably born with as good organs as Milton, Locke, or Newton ; but by culture they are much more above him than he is above his horse. Sometimes, indeed, extraordinary geniuses have broken out by the force of nature without the assistance of education ; but those instances are too rare for anybody to trust to ; and even they would make a much greater figure if they had the advantage of education into the bargain. If Shakspeare's genius had been cultivated, those beauties, which we so justly admire in him, would have been undisgraced by those extravagancies, and that nonsense, with which they are frequently accompanied. People are in general what they are made, by education and company, from fifteen to five-and-twenty ; consider well, therefore, the importance of your next eight or nine years ; your whole depends upon them. I will tell you sincerely my hopes and my fears concerning you. I think you will be a good scholar, and that you will acquire a considerable stock of knowledge of various kinds : but I fear that you neglect what are called little, though in truth they are very material, things; I mean a gentleness of manners, an engaging address, and an insinuating behaviour : they are real and solid advantages, and none but those who do not know the world, treat them as trifles. I am told that you speak very quick, and not distinctly ; this is a most ungraceful and disagreeable trick, which you know I have told you of a thousand times ; pray attend carefully to the correction of it. An agreeable and distinct manner of speaking adds greatly to the matter ; and I have known many a very good speech unregarded upon account of the disagreeable manner in which it has been delivered, and many an indifferent one applauded, for the contrary reason. Adieu. -^v LETTERS TO HIS SON. 73 LETTER XXXIII. Dear Boy, London, May the 17th, O. S. 1748. I RECEIVED, yesterday, your letter of the i6th, N. S., and have, in consequence of it, written this day to Sir Charles Williams, to thank him for all the civilities he has shown you. Your first setting out at Court has, I find, been very favourable; and his Polish Majesty has distin- guished you. I hope you received that mark of distinction with respect and with steadiness, which is the proper behaviour of a man of fashion. People of a low, obscure education, cannot stand the rays of greatness; they are frightened out of their wits when Kings and great men speak to them; they are awkward, ashamed, and do not know what nor how to answer: whereas les honnifes gens are not dazzled by superior rank : they know and pay all the Respect that is due to it ; but they do it without being disconcerted ; and can converse just as easily with a King as with any one of his subjects. That is the great advantage of being introduced young into good company, and being used early to converse with one's superiors. How many men have I seen here, who, after having had the full benefit of an English Education, first at school, and then at the university, when they have been presented to the King, did not know whether they stood upon their heads or their heels? If the King spoke to them, they were annihilated ; they trembled, endeavoured to put their hands in their pockets and missed them, let their hats fall, and were ashamed to take them up; and, in short, put themselves in every attitude but the right, that is, the easy and natural one. The characteristic of a well-bred man is, y^ to converse with his inferiors without insolence, and with 74 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S v\ is superiors with respect and with ease. He talks to Kings without concern ; he trifles with women of the first condition, with familiarity, gaiety, but respect; and con- verses with his equals, whether he is acquainted with them or not, upon general, common topics, that are not, however, quite frivolous, without the least concern of mind, or awkwardness of body: neither of which can appear to advantage, but when they are perfectly easy. The tea-things which Sir Charles Williams has given you, I would have you make a present of to your Mamma, and send them to her by Duval, when he returns. You owe her, not only duty, but likewise great obligations, for her care and tenderness; and consequently cannot take too many opportunities of showing your gratitude. I am impatient to receive your account of Dresden, and likewise your answers to the many questions that I asked you- Adieu for this time, and God bless you ! LETTER XXXIV. V Dear Boy, London, June the 21st, O. S. 1748. Your very bad enunciation runs so much in my head and gives me such real concern, that it will be the subject of this, and I believe of many more, letters. I congratulate both you and myself that I was informed of it (as I hope) in time to prevent it ; and shall ever think myself, as hereafter you will I am sure think yourself, infinitely obliged to Sir Charles Williams for informing me of it. Good God 1 if this ungraceful and disagreeable manner of speaking had ■\ LETTERS TO HIS SON. 75 either by your negligence or mine become habitual to you, as in a couple of years more it would have been, what a figure would you have made in company, or in a public assembly ? Who would have liked you in the one or have attended to you in the other? Read what Cicero and Quintilian say of Enunciation, and see what a stress they lay upon the gracefulness of it ; nay, Cicero goes further, and even maintains that a good figure is necessary for an Orator; and particularly that he must not be vastus ; that is, over- grown and clumsy. He shows by it that he knew mankind well, and knew the powers of an agreeable figure and a graceful manner. Men, as well as women, are much oftener led by their hearts than by their understandings. The way to the heart is through the senses; please their eyes and their ears, and the work is half done. I have frequently known a man's fortune decided for ever by his first address. If it is pleasing, people are hurried involun- tarily into a persuasion that he has a merit, which possibly he has not ; as, on the other hand, if it is ungraceful, they are immediately prejudiced against him ; and unwilling to allow him the merit which it may be he has. Nor is this sen- timent so unjust and unreasonable as at first it may seem ; for if a man has parts he must know of what infinite conse- quence it is to him to have a graceful manner of speaking and a genteel and pleasing address : he will cultivate and improve them to the utmost. Your figure is a good one ; you have no natural defect in the organs of speech; your address may be engaging, and your manner of speaking graceful, if you will; so that if they are not so, neither I nor the world can ascribe it to anything but your want of parts. What is the constant and just observation as to all a^'tors upon the stage ? Is it not that those who have the best sense always speak the best, though they may happen I 76 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S not to have the best voices ? They will speak plainly, dis- tinctly, and with the proper emphasis, be their voices ever so bad. Had Roscius spoken quick^ ihicky and ungracefully^ I will answer for it, that Cicero would not have thought him worth the oration which he made in his favour. Words were given us to communicate our ideas by; and there must be something inconceivably absurd in uttering them in such a manner as that either people cannot understand them or will not desire to understand them. I tell you truly and sincerely that I shall judge of your parts by your speaking gracefully or ungracefully. If you have parts you will never be at rest till you have brought yourself to a habit of speaking most gracefully ; for I aver that it is in your power. You will desire Mr. Harte that you may read aloud to him every di.y; and that he will interrupt and correct you every time that you read too fast, do not observe the proper stops, or lay a wrong emphasis. You will take care to open your teeth when you speak; to articulate every word distinctly ; and to beg of Mr. Harte, Mr. Eliot, or whomever you speak to, to remind and sto'p you, if ever you fall into the rapid and unintelligible mutter. You will even read aloud to yourself and tune your utter- ance to your own ear ; and read at first much slower than you need to do, in order to correct yourself of that shame- ful trick of speaking faster than you ought. In short, you will make it your business, your study, and your pleasure, to speak well if you think right. Therefore, what I have said in this, and in my last, is more than sufficient, if you have sense ; and ten times more would not be sufficient if you have not : so here I rest it. Next to graceful speaking, a genteel carriage, and a graceful manner of presenting yourself, are extremely necessary, for they are extremely engaging ; and carelessness LETTERS TO HIS SON, 77 in these points is much more unpardonable in a young fellow than affectation. It shows an offensive indifference about pleasing. I am told by one here who has seen you lately, that you are awkward in your motions, and negligent of your person : I am sorry for both ; and so will you, when it will be too late, if you continue so some time longer Awkwardness of carriage is very alienating ; and a total negligence of dre , and air, is an impertinent insult upon custom and fashion. You remember Mr. very well, I am sure, and you must consequently remember his extreme awkwardness ; which, I can assure you, has been a great clog to his parts and merit, that have, with much difficulty, but barely counterbalanced it at last. Many to whom I have formerly commended him, have answered me. That they were sure he could not have parts, because he was so awkward : so much are people, as I observed to you before, taken by the eye. Women have great influence as to a man's fashionable character; and an awkward man will never have their votes ; which, by the way, are very numerous, and much oftener counted than weighed. You should therefore give some attention to your dress, and to the gracefulness of your motions. I believe, indeed, that you have no perfect model for either, at Leipsig, to form yourself upon ; but, however, do not get a habit of neglect- ing either: and attend properly to both when you go to Courts; where they are very necessary, and where you will have good masters and gcjd models for both. Your exer- cises of riding, fencing, and dancing, will civilise and fashion your body and your limbs, and give you, if you will but take it, Vair d'un honnite homme. I will now conclude with suggesting one reflection to you, which is, that you should be sensible of your good fortune, in having one who interests himself enough in you 78 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S to inquire into your faults, in order to inform you of them. Nobody but myself would be so solicitous, either to know or correct them ; so that you might consequently be ignorant of them yourself; for our own self-love draws a thick veil between us and our faults. But when you hear yours from me, you may be sure that you hear them from one who, for your sake only, desires to correct them ; from one whom you cannot suspect of any partiality but in your favour; and from one who heartily wishes that his care of you, as a father, may in a little time render every care unnecessary but that of a friend. Adieu. P.S. — I condole with you for the untimely and violent death of the tuneful Matzel. LETTER XXXV. Dear Boy, London, July the 26th, O. S. 1748. There are two sorts of understandings ; one of which hinders a man from ever being considerable, and the other commonly makes him ridiculous; I mean the lazy mind, and the trifling, frivolous mind. Yours, I hope, is neither. T he lazy mind will not take ihe trouble of going to the bottom of anything, but, discouraged by the first difficulties (and everything worth knowing or having is attended with some), stops short, contents itself with easy, and consequently superficial, knowledge, and prefers a great degree of ignor- ance to a small degree of trouble. These people either think or represent most things as impossible, whereas few things are so to industry and activity. But difficulties seem LETTERS TO HIS SON, 79 to them impossibilities, or at least they pretend to think them so, by way o*" excuse for their laziness. An hour's attention to the same object is too laborious for them; they take everything in the light in which it first presents itself, never consider it in all its different views, and, in short, never think it thorough. The consequence of this is, that when they come to speak upon these subjects before people who have considered them with attention, they only discover their own ignorance and laziness, and lay them- selves open to answers that put them in confusion. Do not, then, be discouraged by the first difficulties, but contra audentior ito; and resolve to go to the bottom of all those things which every gentleman ought to know well. Those arts or sciences which are peculiar to certain professions need not be deeply known by those who are not intended for those professions. As, for instance, fortification and navigation ; of both which, a superficial and general know- ledge, such as the common course of conversation, with a very little inquiry on your part, will give you, is sufficient. Though, by the way, a little more knowledge of fortification may be of some use to you ; as the events of war, in sieges, make many of the terms of that science occur frequently in common conversations; and one would be sorry to say, like the Marquis de Mascarille, in Moli^re's Prkcieuses Ridicules^ when he hears of une demie Lune ; Ma foi^ ^ktoit Men une Lune toute entilre. But those things which every gentleman, independently of profession, should know, he ought to know well, and dive into all the depths of them. Such are languages, history, and geography ancient and modern ; philosophy, rational logic, rhetoric ; and, for you particularly, the constitution, and the civil and military state, of every country in Europe. This, I confess, is a pretty large circle of knowledge, attended with some 8o LORD CHESTERFIELD'S difficulties, and requiring some trouble; which, however, an active and industrious mind will overcome, and be amply repaid. The trifling and frivolous mind is always busied, but to little purpose; it takes little objects for great ones, and throws away upon trifles that time and attention which only important things deserve. Knick- knacks, butterflies, shells, insects, etc., are the objects of their most serious researches. They contemplate the dress, not the characters, of the company they keep. They attend more to the decorations of a Play, than to the sense of it ; and to the ceremonies of a Court, more than to its politics. Such an employment of time is an absolute loss of it. You have now, at most, three years to employ either well or ill ; for as I have often told you, you will be all your life what you shall be three years hence. For God's sake, then, reflect : Will you throw away this time, either in laziness, or in trifles ? Or will you not rather employ every moment of it in a manner that must so soon reward you, with so much pleasure, figure, and character ? I cannot, I will not, doubt of your choice. Read only useful books; and ne\er quit a subject till you are thoroughly master of it, but read and inquire on till then. When you are in company, bring the conversation to some useful subject, but h porth of that company. Points of history, matters of literature, the customs of particular countries, the several Orders of Knighthood, as Teutonic, Malthese, etc., are surely better subjects of conversation than the weather, dress, or fiddle- faddle stories, that carry no information along with them. The characters of Kings, and great Men, are only to be learned in conversation; for they are never fairly written during their lives. This, therefore, is an entertaining and instructive subject of conversation, and will likewise give you an opportunity of observing how very differently LETTERS TO HIS SON. 81 II characters are given, from the different passions and views of those who give them. Never be ashamed nor afraid of asking questions; for if they lead to information, and if you accompany them with some excuse, you will never be reckoned an impertinent or rude questioner. All those things, in the common course of life, depend entirely upon the manner ; and in that respect the vulgar saying is true, That one man may better steal a horse, than another look over the hedge. There are few things that may not be said, in some manner or other; either in a seeming con- fidence, or a genteel irony, or introduced with wit : and one great part of the knowledge of the world consists in knowing when and where to make use of these different manners. The graces of the person, the countenance, and the way of speaking, contribute so much to this, that I am convinced the very same thing said by a genteel person, in an engaging way, and gracefully and distinctly spoken, would please ; which would shock, if mutlered out by an awkward figure, with a sullen, serious countenance. The Poets always represent Venus as attended by the three Graces, to intimate that even Beauty will not do without. I think they should have given Minerva three also; for without them, I am sure, learning is very unattractive. Invoke them, then, distinctly^ to accompany all your words and motions. Adieu. P.S. — Since I wrote what goes before, I have received your letter, of no date^ with the enclosed state of the Prussian forces : of which, I hope you have kept a copy ; this you should lay in 2^ porte-feuille^ and add to it all the military establishments that you can get of other States and Kingdoms : the Saxon establishment you may, doubtless, easily find. By the way, do not forget to send me answers 638 r^ 82 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S to the questions which I sent you some time ago, concerning both the civil and the ecclesiastical affairs of Saxony. Do not mistake me, and think I only mean that you should speak elegantly with regard to style, and the purity of language ; but I mean that you should deliver and pro- nounce what you say gracefully and distinctly, for which purpose I will have you frequently read, very loud, to Mr. Harte, recite parts of orations und speak passages of plays. For without a graceful and pleasing enunciation, all your elegancy of style in speaking is not worth one farthing. I am very glad that Mr. Lyttelton approves of my new house, and particularly of my Canonical pillars. My bust of Cicero is a very fine one, and well preserved; it will have the best place in my library, unless at your return you bring me over as good a modern head of your own, which I should like still better. I can tell you that I shall examine it as attentively as ever antiquary did an old one. Make my compliments to Mr. Harte, whose recovery I rejoice at " LETTER XXXVI. Dear Boy, Bath, October the 19th, O. S. 1748. Having in my last pointed out what sort of company you should keep, I will now give you some rules for your conduct in it ; rules which my own experience and observa- tion enable me to lay down, and communicate to you yith some degree of confidence. I have often given you hints of this kind before, but then it has been by snatches ; I will I LETTERS TO HIS SON. 83 748. npany your serva- vith hints I will now be more regular and methodical. I shall say nothing with regard to your bodilv carriage and address, but leave them to the care of your dancing-master, and to your own attention to the best models : remember, however, that they are of consequence. Talk often, but never long ; in that case, if you do not please, at least you are sure not to tire your hearers. Pay your own reckoning, but do not treat che whole company ; this being one of the very few cases in which people do not care to be treated, every one being fully convinced that he has wherewithal to pay. Tell stories very seldom, and absolutely n'^ver but where they are very apt and very short. Omit every circum- stance that is not material, and beware of digressions. To have frequent recourse to narrative betrays great want of imagination. Never hold anybody by the button, or the hand, in order to be heard cut; for, if people are not willing to hear you, you had much better hold your tongue than them. Most long talkers single out some one unfortunate man in company (commonly him whom they observe to be the most silent, or their next neighbour) to whisper, or at least, in a half voice, to convey a continuity of words to. This is excessively ill-bred, and, in some degree, a fraud ; conversa- tion stock being a joint and common property. But, on the other hand, if one of these unmerciful talkers lays hold of you, hear him with patience (and at least seeming attention), if he is worth obliging ; for nothing will oblige him more than a patienv hearing, as nothing would hurt him more, than either to leave him in the midst of his discourse, or to discover your impatience under your affliction. Take, rather than give, the tone of the company you are 84 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S ^ Hi ' i in. If you have parts, you will show them, more or less, rpon every subject ; and if you have not, you had better talk sillily upon a subject of other people's than of your own choosing. Avoid as much as you can, in mixed companies, argument- ative, polemical conversations ; which, though they should not, yet certainly do, indispose, for a time, the contending parties towards each other : and, if the controversy grows warm and noisy, endeavour to put an end to it by some genteel levity or joke. I quieted such a conversation hubbub once, by representing to them that though I was persuaded none there present would repeat, out of company, what passed in it, yet I could not answer for the discretion of the passengers in the street, who must necessarily hear all that was said. Above all things, and upon all occasions, avoid speaking of yourself, if it be possible. Such is the natural pride and vanity of our hearts, that it perpetually breaks out, even in people of the best parts, in all the various modes and figures of the egotism. Some abruptly speak advantageously of themselves, without either pretence or provocation. They are impudent. Others proceed more artfully, as they imagine ; and forge accusations against themselves, complain of calumnies which they never heard, in order to justify themselves, by exhibit- ing a catalogue of their many virtues. They acknowledge it may^ indeed, seem odd^ that they should talk in that manner of themselves ; it is what they do not like, and what they never would have done ; no^ no tortures should ever have forced it from them, if they had not been thus unjustly and monstrously accused. But, in these cases, justice is surely due to one^s self as well as to others ; and, when our character is attacked, we may say, in our own justification, what otherwise we never I LETTERS TO HIS SON. 8S would have said. This thin veil of Modesty, drawn before Vanity, is much too transparent to conceal it, even from very moderate discernment. Others go more modestly and more slily still (as they think) to work; but, in my mind, still more ridiculouslyJ They confess themselves (not without some degree of shame and confusion) into all the Cardinal Virtues ; by first degrading them into weaknesses, and th/^n owning their misfortune, in being made up of those weaknesses. They cannot see people suffer without sympathizing with^ and endeavouring to help them. They cannot see people want without relieving them : though truly their own circumstances cannot very well afford it. They cannot help speaking truths though they know all the imprudence of it. In shorty they know that^ with all these weaknesses^ they are not Jit to live in the worlds much less to thrive in it. But they are now too old to change^ and must rub on as well as they can. This sounds too ridiculous and outr^^ almost, for the stage ; and yet take my word for it, you will frequently meet with it upon the common stage of the world. And here I will observe, by-the-by, that you will often meet with characters in nature so extravagant, that a discreet Poet would not venture to set them upon the stage in their true and high colouring. This principle of vanity and pride is so strong in human nature, that it descends even to the lowest objects ; and one often sees people angling for praise, where, admitting all they say to be tr'ie (which, by the way, it seldom is), no just praise is to be caught. One man affirms that he has rode post a hundred miles in six hours : probably it is a lie ; but supposing it to be true, what then ? Why, he is a very good postboy, that is all. Another asserts, and probably not without oaths, that he has drunk six or eight bottles of 86 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S wine at a sitting : cut of charity I will believe him a liar ; for if I do not I must think him a beast. Such, and a thousand more, are the follies and extrava- gancies which vanity drav s people into, and which always defeat their own purpose : and, as Waller says, upon another subject, " Make the wretch the most despised, Where most he wishes to be prized." The only sure way of avoiding these evils is, never to speak of yourself at all. But when historically you are obliged to mention yourself, take care not to drop one single word that can directly or indirectly be construed as fishing for applause. Be your character what it will, it will be known ; and nobody will take it upon your own word. Never imagine that anything you can say yourself will varnish your defects, or add lustre to your perfections: but, on the contrary, it may, and nine times in ten will, make the former more glaring, and the latter obscure. If you are silent upon your own subject, neither envy, indignation, nor ridicule will obstruct or allay the applause which you may really deserve ; but if you publish your own panegyric, upon any occasion or in any shape whatsoever, and however artfully dressed or disguised, they will all conspire against you, and you will be disappointed of the very end you aim at. Take care never to seem dark and mysterious ; which is not only a very unamiable character, but a very suspicious one too : if you seem mysterious with others, they will be really so with you, and you will know nothing. The height of abilities is, to have volto scioltOy and pensieri stretti; that is, a frank, open, and ingenuous exterior, with LETTERS TO HIS SON. 87 a prudent and reserved interior; to be upon your own guard, and yet, by a seeming natural openness, to put people off of theirs. Depend upon it, nine in ten of every company you are in, will avail themselves of every indiscreet and unguarded expression of yours, if they can turn it to their own advantage. A prudent reserve is there- fore as necessary as a seeming openness is prudent Always look people in the face when you speak to them ; the not doing it is thought to imply conscious guilt; besides that, you lose the advantage of observing by their counten- ances what impression your discourse makes upon them. In order to know people's real sentiments, I trust much more to my eyes than to my ears ; for they can say what- ever they have a mind I should hear, but they can seldom help looking what they have no intention that I should know. Neither retail nor receive scandal, willingly; for though the defamation of others may, for the present, gratify the malignity or the pride of our hearts, cool reflection will draw very disadvantageous conclusions from such a dis- position ; and in the case of scandal, as in that of robbery, the receiver is always thought as bad as the thief. Mimicry, which is the common and favourite amuse- ment of little, low minds, is in the utmost contempt with great ones. It is the lowest and most illiberal of all buffoonery. Pray neither practise it yourself, nor applaud it in others. Besides that, the person mimicked is insulted; and, as I have often observed to you before, an insult is never forgiven. I need not (I believe) advise you to adapt your con- versation to the people you are conversing with ; for I suppose you would not, without this caution, have talked upon the same subject, and in the same manner, to a 88 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S Minister of State, a Bishop, a Philosopher, a Captain, and a Woman. A man of the world must, Hke the Cameleon, be able to take every different hue ; which is by no means a criminal or abject, but a necessary complaisance, for it relates only to Manners, and not to Morals. One word only as to swearing; and that I hope and believe is more than is necessary. You may sometimes hear some people in good company interlard their discourse with oaths, by way of embellishment, as they think ; but you must observe too, that those who do so are never those who contribute, in any degree, to give that company the denomination of good company. They are always sub- alterns, or people of low education ; for that practice, besides that it has no one temptation to plead, is as silly and as illiberal as it is wicked. Loud laughter is the mirth of the mob, who are only pleased with silly things; for true Wit or good Sense never excited a laugh since the creation of the world. A man of parts and fashion is therefore only seen to smile, but never heard to laugh. But, to conclude this long letter; all the above-men- tioned rules, however carefully you may observe them, will lose half their effect if unaccompanied by the Graces. Whatever you say, if you say it with a supercilious, cynical face, or an embarrassed countenance, or a silly disconcerted grin, will be ill received. If, into the bar- gain, you mutter it^ or utter it indistinctly and ungracefully^ it will be still worse received. If your air and address are vulgar, awkward, and gauche^ you may be esteemed indeed, if you have great intrinsic merit, but you will never please ; and without pleasing, you will rise but heavily. Venus, among the Ancients, was synonymous with the Graces, who were always supposed to accompany her ; and Horace LETTERS TO HIS SON. 89 tells us that even Youth, and Mercury, the God of Arts and Eloquence, would not do without her. " — Ydixyxxsi QQXS\\'& sine te Juventas Mercuriusque. ' They are not inexorable Ladies, and may be had if properly and diligently pursued. Adieu. --' VI: LETTER XXXVIL Dear Boy, London, November the 18th, O. S. 1748. Whatever I see or whatever I hear, my first con- sideration is, whether it can in any way be useful to you. As a proof of this, I went accidentally the other day into a print-shop, where, among many others, I found one print from a famous design of Carlo Maratti, who died about thirty years ago, and was the last eminent painter in Europe: the subject is, // Studio del Disegno ; or, the School of Drawing. An old man, supposed to be the Master, points to his Scholars, who are variously employed, in Perspective, Geometry, and the observation of the statues of antiquity. With regard to Perspective, of which there are some little specimens; he has wrote, Tanto che basii, that is. As much as is sufficient; with tegard to Geometry, Tanto che basti again ; with regard to the con- templation of the ancient statues, there is written, Non mai a basianza ; There never can be enough. But in the clouds, at the top of the piece, are represented the three Graces ; with this just sentence written over them, Senza di not ogni Jatica I vana; that is, Without us all labour is vain. This 90 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S \ ! everybody allows to be true, in painting j but all people do not seem to consider, as I hope you will, that this cruth is full as applicable to every other art or science ; indeed, to everything that is to be said or done. I will send you the print itself, by Mr. Eliot, when he returns; and I will advise you to make the same use of it that the Roman Catholics say they do of the pictures and images of their saints; which is, only to remind them of those; for the adoration they disclaim. Nay, I will go further, and, as the transition from Popery to Paganism is short and easy, I will classically and poetically advise you to invoke and sacrifice to them every day, and all the day. It must be owned that the Graces do not seem to be natives of Great Britain, and I doubt the best of us here have more of the rough than the polished diamond. Since barbarism drove them out of Greece and Rome, they seem to have taken refuge in France, where their temples are numerous, i.nd their worship the established one. Examine yourself seriously, why such and such people please and engage you, more than such and such others of equal merit, and you will always find, that it is because the former have the Graces, and the latter not. I have known many a woman with an exact shape, and a symmetrical assemblage of beautiful features, please nobody; while others, with very moderate shapes and features, have charmed everybody. Why? because Venus will not charm so much without her attendant Graces, as they will without her. Among men how often have I seen the mos< solid merit and knowledge neglected, unwelcome, or even rejected, for want of them ? While flimsy parts, little knowledge, and less merit, intro- duced by the Graces, have been received, cherished, and admired. Even virtue, which is moral beauty, wants some of its charms, if unaccompanied by them. LETTERS TO HIS SON. 91 u, more If you ask me how you shall acquire what neither you nor I can define or ascertain, I c^n only answer, By obser- vation. Form yourself, with regard to others, upon what you feel pleases you in them. I can tell you the import- ance, the advantage, of having the Graces, but I cannot give them you : I heartily wish I could, and I certainly would; for I do not know a better present that I could make you. To show you that a very wise, philosophical, and retired man thinks upon that subject as I do, who have always lived m the world, I send you, by Mr. Eliot, the famous Mr. Locke's book upon Education ; in which you will find the stress that he lays upon the Graces, which he calls (and very truly) Good breeding. I have marked all the parts of that book which are worth your attention ; for as he begins with the child almost from its birth, the parts relative to its infancy would be useless to you. Germany is still less than England the seat of the Graces ; however, you had as good not say so while you are there. But the place which you are going to, in a great degree is, for I have known as many well-bred pretty men come from Turin as from any part of Europe. The late King Victor Amedde took great pains to form such of his subjects as were of any consideration, both to business and manners; the present King, I am told, follows his example: this, however, is certain, that in all Courts and Congresses, where there are various foreign Ministers, those of the King of Sardinia are generally the ablest, the politest, and les plus dklih. You will, therefore, at Turin have very good models to form yourself upon ; and remember, that with regard to the best models, as well as to the antique Greek statues in the print, non mat a bastanza. Observe every word, look, and motion, of those who are allowed to be the most accom- plished persons there. Observe their natural and careless, 9» LORD CHESTERFIELD'S I but genteel air ; their unembarrassed good breeding ; their unassuming, but yet unprostituted, dignity. Mind their decent mirth, their discreet frankness, and that entregent^ which, as much above the frivolous as below the important and the secret, is the proper medium for conversation in mixed companies. I will observe, by-the-by, that the talent of that light entregent is often of great use to a foreign Minister ; not only as it helps him to domesticate himself in many families, but also as it enables him to put by and parry some subjects of conversation, which might possibly lay him under difficulties, both what to say and how to look. Of all the men that ever I knew in my life (and I knew him extremely well), the late Duke of Marlborough possessed the Graces in the highest degree, not to say engrossed them; and indeed he got the most by them ; for I will venture (contrary to the custom of pro- found historians, who always assign deep causes for great events) to ascribe the better half of the Duke of Marlborough's greatness and riches to those Graces. He was eminently illiterate ; wrote bad English, and spelled it still worse. He had no share of what is commonly called Parts; that is, he had no brightness, nothing shining in his genius. He had, most undoubtedly, an excellent good plain understanding, with sound judgment. But these alone would probably have raised him but something higher than they found him, which was Page to King James the Second's Queen. There the Graces protected and promoted him; for, while he was an Ensign of the Guards, the Duchess of Cleveland, then favourite mistress to King Charles the Second, struck by those very Graces, gave him five thousand pounds ; with which he immediately boupht an annuity for his life, of five hundred pounds a year, of my grandfather, Halifax, which was the foundation of his LETTERS TO HIS SON, 93 subsequent fortune. His figure was beautiful; but his manner was irresistible, by either man or woman. It was by this engaging, graceful manner that he was enabled, during all his war, to connect the various and jarring Powers of the Grand Alliance, and to carry them on to the main object of the war, notwithstanding their private and separate views, jealousies, and wrongheadednesses. What- ever Court he went to (and he was often obliged to go himself to some resty and refractory ones), he as constantly prevailed, and brought them into his measures. The Pensionary Heinsius, a venerable old Minister, grown gray in business, and who had governed the Republic of the United Provinces for more than forty years, was absolutely governed by the Duke of Marlborough, as that Republic feels to this day. He was always cool ; and nobody ever observed the least variation in his countenance : he could refuse more gracefully than other people could grant ; and those who went away from him the most dissatisfied, as to the substance of their business, were yet personally charmed with him, and, in some degree, comforted by his manner. With all his gentleness and gracefulness, no man living was more conscious of his situation, nor maintained his dignity better. With the share of knowledge which you have already gotten, and with the much greater which, I hope, you will soon acquire, what may you not expect to arrive at, if you join all these graces to it ? In your destination particularly they are, in truth, half your business ; for, if you can once gain the affections, as well as the esteem, of the Prince or Minister of the Court to which you are sent, I will answer for it, that will effectually do the business of the Court that sent you; otherwise, it is up-hill work. Do not mistake, and think that these graces, which I so often and earnestly 94 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S recommend to you, should only accompany important transactions, and be worn only les jours de gala : no ; they should, if possible, accompany every the least thing that you do or say; for, if you neglect them in little things, they will leave you in great ones. I should, for instance, be extremely concerned to see you even drink a cup of coffee ungracefully, and slop yourself with it, by your awkward manner of holding it ; nor should I like to see your coat buttoned nor your shoes buckled awry. But I should be outrageous if I heard you mutter your words unintelligibly, stammer in your speech, or hesitate, misplace, and mistake in your narrations : and I should run away from you, with greater rapidity, if possible, than I should now run to embrace you, if I found you destitute of all those graces, which I have set my heart upon their making you one day, omnibus ornatum excelkre rebus. This subject is inexhaustible, as it extends to everything that is to be said or done; but I will leave it for the present, as this letter is already pretty long. Such is my desire, my anxiety for your perfection, that I never think I have said enough, though you may possibly think I have said too much ; and though, in truth, if your own good sense is not sufficient to direct you, in many of these plain points, all that I or anybody else can say will be insufficient. But, where you are concerned, I am the insatiable Man in Horace, who covets still a little corner more, to complete the figure of his field. I dread every little corner that may deform mine, in which I would have (if possible) no one defect. I this moment receive yours of the 17th, N. S., and cannot condole with you upon the secession of your German Commensaux ; who, both by your and Mr. Harte's descrip- tion, seem to be des gens d*une aimable absence : and, if you LETTERS TO HIS SON. 95 can replace them by any other German conversation, you will be a gainer by the bargain. I cannot conceive, if you understand German well enough to read any German book, how the writing of the German character can be so difficult and tedious to you, the twenty-four letters being very soon learned ; and I do not expect that you should write yet with the utmost purity and correctness, as to the language: what I meant by your writing once a fortnight to Grevenkop, was only to make the written character familiar to you. However, I will be content with one in three weeks, or so. I believe you are not likely to see Mr. Eliot again soon, he being still in Cornwall with his father, who, I hear, is not likely to recover. Adieu. LETTER XXXVIII. Dear Boy, London, January the lOth, O. S. 1749. I HAVE received your letter of the 31st December, N. S. Your thanks for my present, as you call it, exceed the value of the present ; but the use which you assure me that you will make of it is the thanks which I desire to receive. Due attention to the inside of books, and due contempt for the outside, is the proper relation between a man of sense and his books. Now that you are going a little more into the world, I will take this occasion to explain my intentions as to your future expenses, that you may know what you have to expect from me, and make your plan accordingly. I shall 96 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S neither deny nor grudge you any money, that may be necessary, for either your improvement or your pleasures; I mean, the pleasures of a rational being. Under the head of Improvement, I mean the best Books, and the best Masters, cost what they will ; I also mean, all the expense of lodgings, coach, dress, servants, etc., which, according to the several places where you may be, shall be respectively necessary, to enable you to keep the best company. Under the head of rational Pleasures, I comprehend. First, proper charities, to real and compassionate objects of it ; Secondly, proper presents, to those to whom you are obliged, or whom you desire to oblige ; Thirdly, a conformity of expense to that of the company which you keep; as in public spectacles, your share of little entertainments; a few pistoles at games of mere commerce ; and other incidental calls of good company. The only two articles which I will never supply, are the profusion of low riot, and the idle lavishness of negligence and laziness. A fool squanders away, without credit or advantage to himself, more than a man of sense spends with both. The latter employs his money as he does his time, and never spends a shilling of the one, nor a minute of the other, but in something that is either useful or rationally pleasing to himself or others. The former buys whatever he does not want, and does not pay for what he does want. He cannot withstand the charms of a toy-shop ; snuff-boxes, watches, heads of canes, etc., are his destruction. His servants and tradesmen conspire with his own indolence to cheat him ; and in a very little time, he is astonished, in the midst of all his ridiculous superfluities, to find himself in want of all the real comforts and necessaries of life. Without care and method, the largest fortune will not, and with them, almost the smallest will, supply all necessary expenses. As far as LETTERS TO HIS SON. 97 you can possibly, pay ready money for everything you buy, and avoid bills. Pay that money> too^ yourself, and not through the hands of any servant, who always either stipulates poundage, or requires a present fo- his good word, as they call it. Where you must have bills (as for meat and drink, clothes, etc.), pay them regularly every month, and with your own hand. Never, from a mistaken economy, buy a thing you do not want, because it is cheap j or from a silly pride, because it is dear. Keep an account, in a book, of all that you receive, and of all that you pay, for no man who knows what he receives and what he pays ever runs out. I do not mean that you should keep an account of the shillings and half-crowns which you may spend in chair-hire, operas, etc. j they are unworthy of the time, and of the ink that they would consume ; leave such minuties to dull, pennywise fellows; but remember, in economy, as well as in every other part of life, to have the proper attention to proper objects, and the proper contempt for little ones. A strong mind sees things in their true proportions : a weak one views them through a magnifying medium ; which, like the microscope, makes an elephant of a flea ; magnifies all little objects, but cannot receive great ones. I have known many a man pass for a miser, by saving a penny, and wrangling for twopence, who was undoing himself at the same time, by living above his income, and not attending to essential articles which were above his portke. The sure characteristic of a sound and strong mind is, to find in everything those certain bounds, quos ultra citrave nequit consistere rectum. These boundaries are marked out by a very fine line, which only good sense and attention can discover ; it is much too fine for vulgar eyes. In Manners, this line is Good Breeding; beyond it, is troublesome ceremony ; short of it, is unbecoming 639 98 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S negligence and inattention. In Morals, it divides osten- tatious Puritanism from criminal Relaxation. In Religion, Superstition from Impiety ; and, in short, every virtue from its kindred vice or weakness. I think you have sense enough to discover the line : keep it always in your eye, and learn to walk upon it ; rest upon Mr. Harte, and he will poize you, till you are able to go alone. By the way, there are fewer people who walk well upon that line, than upon the slack rope ; and therefore a good performer shines so much the more. Your friend, Comte Pertingue, who constantly inquires after you, has written to Compte Salmour, the Governor of the Academy at Turin, to prepare a room for you there, immediately after the Ascension; and has recommended yo": to him, in a manner which I hope you will give him no reason to repent or be ashamed of. As Compte Salmour's son, now residing at the Hague, is my particular acquaint- ance, I shall have regular and authentic accounts of all that you do at Turin. During your stay at Berlin, I expect that you should inform yourself thoroughly of the present state of the Civil, Military, and Ecclesiastical government of the King ol Prussia's dominions, particularly of the Military, which is upon a better footing in that country than in any other in Europe. You will attend at the reviews, see the troops exercise, and inquire into the number of troops and companies in the respective regiments of horse, foot, and dragoons ; the numbers and titles of the commissioned and non-commissioned Officers in the several troops and companies ; and also, take care to learn the technical military terms in the German language : for, though you are not to be a military man, yet these military matters are so frequently the subjects of conversation, that you will look LETTERS TO HIS SON. 99 very awkwardly if you are ignorant of them. Moreover, they are comnaonly the objects of negotiation, and as such fall withir your future profession. You must also inform yourself of the reformation which the King of Prussia has lately made in the law ; by which he has both lessened the number and shortened the duration of lawsuits: a great work, and worthy of so great a Prince! As he is in- disputably the ablest Prince in Europe, every part of his government deserves your most diligent inquiry and your most serious attention. It must be owned that you set out well, as a young Politician, by beginning at Berlin, and then going to Turin, where you will see the next ablest Monarch to that of Prussia ; so that, if you are capable of making political reflections, those two Princes will furnish you with sufficient matter for them. I would have you endeavour to get acquainted with Monsieur de Maupertuis, who is so eminently distinguished by all kinds of learning and merit, that one should be both sorry and ashamed of having been even a day in the same place with him, and not to have seen him. If you should have no other way of being introduced to him, I will send you a letter from hence. Monsieur Cagnoni, at Berlin, to whom I know you are recommended, is a very able man of business, thoroughly jnformed of every part of Europe : and his acquaintance, if you deserve and improve it as you should do, may be of great use to you. Remember to take the best dancing-master at Berlin, more to teach you to sit, stand, and walk gracefully, than to dance finely. The Graces, the Graces; remember the Graces ! Adieu. 100 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S LETTER XXXIX. \ Dear Boy, London, February the 28th, O. S. 1749. I WAS very much pleased with the account that you gave me of your reception at Berlin \ but I was still better pleased with the account which Mr. Harte sent me of your manner of receiving that reception ; for he says you behaved yourself to those crowned heads, with all the respect and modesty due to them ; but, at the same time, without being any more embarrassed than if you had been conversing with your equals. This easy respect is the perfection of good breeding, which nothing but superior good sense, or a long usage of the world, can produce ; and aG in your case it could not be the latter, it is a pleasing indication to me of the former. You will now, in the course of a few months, have been rubbed at three of the considerable Courts of Europe, — Berlin, Dresden, and Vienna ; so that I hope you will arrive at Turin tolerably smooth, and fit for the last polish. There you may get the best ; there being no Court, I know of, that forms more well-bred and agreeable people. Remember now, that good breeding, genteel carriage, address, and even dress (to a certain degree) are become serious objects, and deserve a part of your attention. The day, if well employed, is long enough for them all. One half of it bestowed upon your studies, and your exercises, will finish your mind and your body ; the remain- ing part of it, spent in good company, will form your manners, and complete your character. What would I not give, to have you read Demosthenes critically in the morning, and understand him better than anyi\<^#; at ^C^^> ■^^ r;rA^^r : LETTERS TO HIS SON. xot noon, behave yourself better than any person at Court; and, in the evenings, trifle more agreeably than anybody in mixed companies ? All this you may compass if you please; you have the means, you have the opportunities. Employ them, for God's sake, while you may, and make yourself that all-accomplished man that I wish to have you. It entirely depends upon these two years; they are the decisive ones. I send you here enclosed, a letter of recommendation to Monsieur Capello, at Venice, which you will deliver him immediately upon your arrival, accompanying it with com- pliments from me to him and Madame, both whom you have seen here. He will, I am sure, be both very civil and very useful to you there, as he will also be afterwards at Rome, where he is appointed to go Ambassador. By the way, wherever you are, I would advise you to frequent, as much as you can, the Venetian Ministers, who are always better informed of the Courts they reside at than any other Minister, the strict and regular accounts, which they are obliged to give to their own government, making them very diligent and inquisitive. • You will stay at Venice as long as the Carnival lasts ; for though I am impatient to have you at Turin, yet I would wish you to see thoroughly all that is to be seen at so singular a place as Venice, and at so showish a time as the Carnival. You will take, also, particular care to view all those meetings of the government, which strangers are allowed io see, as the Assembly of the Senate, etc. ; and likewise, to inform yourself of that peculiar and intricate form of government. There are books that give an account of it, among which the best is Amelot de la Houssaye : this I would advise you to read previously ; it will not only give you a general notion of that constitution, but also furnish toi ! ZOJ^i) CliESTERFi:^LD'S you with materials for proper questions and oral informa- tions upon the place, which are always the best. There are likewise many very valuable remains, in sculpture and paintings of the best masters which deserve your attention. I suppose you will be at Vienna as soon as this letter will get thither; and I suppose, too, that I must not direct above one more to you there. After which, my next shall be directed to you at Venice, the only place where a letter will be likely to find you, till you are at Turin ; but you may, and I desire that you will, write to me, from the several places in your way, from whence the post goes. I will send you some other letters, for Venice, to Vienna, or to your Banker at Venice, to whom you will, upon your arrival there, send for them: for I will take care to have you so recommended from place to place, that you shall not run through them, as most of your countrymen do, without the advantage of seeing and knowing what best deserves to be seen and known ; I mean, the Men and the Manners. God bless you, and make you answer my wishes ; I will now say, my hopes ! Adieu. LETTER XL. Dear Boy, I DIRECT this letter to your Banker at Venice, the surest place for you to meet with it, though I s:'ppose it will be f^ere some time before you ; for, as your intermediate stay anywhere else will be but short, and as the post from hence, in this season of Easterly winds, is uncertain, I direct no LETTERS TO MIS SOJ^, 163 more letters to Vienna; where I hope both you and Mr. Harte will have received the two letters which I sent you respectively ; with a letter of recommendation to Monsieur Capello at Venice, which was enclosed in mine to you. I will suppose, too, that the inland post, on your side of the water, has not done you justice ; for I received but one single letter from you, and one from Mr. Harte, during your whole stay at Berlin ; from whence I hoped for, and expected, very particular accounts. I persuade myself, that the time you stay at Venice will be properly employed, in seeing all that is to be seen at that extraordinary place ; and in conversing with people who can inform you, not of the raree-shows of the town, but of the constitution of the government ; for which pur- pose I send you the enclosed letters of recommendation from Sir James Gray, the King's Resident at Venice, but who is now in England. These, with mine to Monsieur Capello, will carry you, if you will go, into all the best company at Venice. But the important point, and the important place, is Turin; for there I propose your staying a considerable time, to pursue your studies, learn your exercises, and form your manners. I own I am not without my anxiety for the consequence of your stay there, which must be either very good or very bad. To you it will be entirely a new scene. Wherever you have hitherto been, you have conversed chiefly with people wiser and discreeter than yourself, and have been equally out of the way of bad advice or bad. example ; but, in the Academy at Turin, you will probably meet with both, considering the variety of young fellows of about your own age ; among whom, it is to be expected, that some will be dissipated and idle, others vicious and profligate. I will believe, till the contrary appears, that you 104 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S have sagacity enough to distinguish the good from the bad characters ; and both sense and virtue enough to shun the latter, and connect yourself with the former : but, however, for greater security, and for your sake alone, I must acquaint you, that I have sent positive orders to Mr. Harte to carry you off, instantly, to a place which I have named to him, upon the very first symptom which he shall dis- cover in you, of Drinking, Gaming, Idleness, or Disobedi- ence to his orders ; so that, whether Mr. Harte informs me or not of the particulars, I shall be able to judge of your conduct in general, by the time of your stay at Turin. If it is short I shall know why; and I promise you, that you shall soon find that I do : but, if Mr. Harte lets you con- tinue there as long as I propose you should, I shall then be convinced that you make the proper use of your time, which is the only thing I have to ask of you. One yeat is the most that I propose you should stay at Turin ; and that year, if you employ it well, perfects you. One year more of your late application, with Mr. Harte, will complete your Classical studies. You will be, likewise, master of your exercises in that time j and will have formed yourself so well at that Court, as to be fit to appear advantageously at any other. These will be the happy effects of your year's stay at Turin, if you behave and apply yourself there as you have done at Leipsig ; but, if either ill advice, or ill example, affect and seduce you, you are ruined for ever. I look upon that year as your decisive year of probation ; go through it well, and you will be all-accomplished, and fixed in my tenderest affection for ever : but, should the contagion of vice or idleness lay hold of you there, your character, your foitune, my hopes, and, consequently, my favour, are all blasted, and you are undone. The more I love you now, from the good opinion that I have of you, LETTERS TO HIS SON. 105 the greater will be my indignation, if I should have reason to change it. Hitherto you have had every possible proof of my affection, because you have deserved it : but, when you cease to deserve it, you may expect every possible mark of my resentment. To leave nothing doubtful, upon this important point, I will tell you fairly, beforehand, by what rule I shall judge of your conduct. By Mr. Harte's accounts. He will not, I am sure, nay, I will say more, he cannot be in the wrong with regard to you. He can have no other view but your good; and you will, I am sure, allow that he must be a better judge of it than you can possibly be, at your age. While he is satisfied, I shall be so too ; but whenever he is dissatisfied with you, I shall be much more so. If he complains, you must be guilty ; and I shall not have the least regard for anything that you may allege in your own defence. I will now tell you what I expect and insist upon from you at Turin : First, That you pursue your Classical and other studies, every morning, with Mr. Harte, as long and in whatever manner Mr. Harte shall be pleased to require : Secondly, That you learn, uninterruptedly, your exercises, of riding, dancing, and fencing : Thirdly, That you make yourself master of the Italian language : and lastly. That you pass your evenings in the best company. I also require a strict conformity to the hours and rules of the Academy. If you will but finish your year in this manner at Turin, I have nothing further to ask of you ; and I will give you everything that you can ask of me : you shall after that be entirely your own master ; I shall think you safe ; shall lay aside all authority over you ; and friendship shall be our mutual and only tie. Weigh this, I beg of you, deliberately in your own mind ; and consider, whether the application, and the degree of restraint, which I require but 10$ LORJD CHESTERFIELb^^ for one year more, will not be amply repaid by all th6 advantages, and the perfect liberty, which you will receive at the end of it. Your own good sense will, I am sure, not allow you to hesitate one moment in your choice. God bless you ! Adieu. P.S. — Sir James Gray's letters not being yet sent me, as I thought they would, I shall enclose them in my next, which, I believe, will get to Venice as soon as you. LETTER XLI. Dear Boy, London, May the 15th, O. S. 1749- This letter will, I hope, find you settled to your serious studies, and your necessary exercises, at Turin, after the hurry and dissipation of the Carnival at Venice. I mean that your stay at Turin should, and I flatter myself that it will, be a useful and ornamental period of your education ; but, at the same time, I must tell you, that all my affection for you has never yet given me so much anxiety, as that which I now feel. While you are in danger, I shall be in fear ; and you are in danger at Turin. Mr. Harte will, by his care, arm you as well as he can against it ; but your own good sense and resolution can alone make you invulnerable. I am informed there are now many English at the Academy at Turin; and I fear those are just so many dangers for you to encounter. Who they are, I do not know ; but I well know the general ill conduct, the indecent behaviour, and the illiberal views of my young countrymen abroad; especially wherever they are in numbers together. Ill example is of itself dangerous LETTERS TO HIS SON, idj enough ; but those who give it seldom stop there : they add their infamous exhortations and invitations; and, if these fail, they have recourse to ridicule ; which is harder for one of your age and inexperience to withstand, than either of the former. Be upon your guard, therefore, against these batteries, which will all be played upon you. You are not sent abroad to converse with your own countrymen : among them, in general, you will get little knowledge, no languages, and, I am sure, no manners. I desire that you will form no connections, nor (what they impudently call) friendships, with these people : which are, in truth, only combinations and conspiracies against good morals and good manners. There is commonly, in young people, a faciHty that makes them unwilling to refuse any- thing that is asked of them \ a mauvaise honte^ that makes them ashamed to refuse; and, at the same time, an ambition of pleasing and shining in the company they keep ; these several causes produce the best effect in good company, but the very worst in bad. If people had no vices but their own, few would have so many as they have. For my own part, I would sooner wear other people's clothes than their vices ; and they would sit upon me just as well. I hope you will have none ; but, if ever you have, I beg at least they may be all your own. Vices of adoption are, of all others, the most disgraceful and unpardonable. There are degrees in vices, as well as in virtues ; and I must do my countrymen the justice to say, they generally take their vices in the lowest degree. Theh: gallantry is the infamous mean debauchery of stews, justly attended and rewarded by the loss of their health, as well as their character. Their pleasures of the table end in beastly drunkenness, low riot, broken windows, and very often (as they well deserve) broken bones. They game, for the sake of the vice^ not of io8 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S 1 1 I the amusement ; and therefore carry it to excess ; undo, or are undone by, their companions. By such conduct and in such company abroad, they come home, the unimproved, illiberal, and ungentlemanlike creatures, that one daily sees them ; that is, in the Park, and in the streets, for one never meets them in good company ; where they have neither manners to present themselves, nor merit to be received. But, with the manners of footmen and grooms, they assume their dress too ; for you must have observed them in the streets here, in dirty blue frocks, with oaken sticks in their hands, and their hair greasy and unpowdered, tucked up under their hats of an enormous size. Thus finished and adorned by their travels, they become the disturbers of playhouses; they break the windows, and commonly the landlords, of the taverns where they drink ; and are at once the support, the terror, and the victims, of the bawdy- houses they frequent. These poor mistaken people think they shine, and so they do, indeed ; but it is as putrefaction shines, in the dark. I am not now preaching to you, like an old fellow, upon either religious or moral texts^ I am persuaded you do not ^ant the best instructions of that kind : but I am advising V you as a friend, as a man of the world, as one who would not have you old while you are young, but would have you take all the pleasures that reason points out, and that decency warrants. I will therefore suppose, for argument's sake (for upon no other account can it be supposed), that all the vices above-mentioned were perfectly innocent in themselves ; they would still degrade, vilify, and sink those who practised them ; would obstruct their rising in the world, by debasing their characters ; and give them a low turn of mind and manners, absolutely inconsistent with their making any figure in upper life, and great business. LETTERS TO HIS SON. 109 What I have now said, together with your own good sense, is, I hope, sufficient to arm you against the seduc- tion, the invitations, or the profligate exhortations (for I cannot call them temptations) of those unfortunate young people. On the other hand, when they would engage you in these schemes, content yourself with a decent but steady refusal ; avoid controversy upon such plain points. You are too young to convert them, and, I trust, too wise to be converted by them. Shun them, not only in reality, but even in appearance, if you would be well received in good company ; for people will always be shy of receiving any man who comes from a place where the plague rages, let him look ever so healthy. There are some expressions, both in French and English, and some characters, both in those two and in other countries, which have, I dare say, misled many youLg men to their ruin. Une honnUe dkbauchey une jolie dkbauche; an agreeable rake^ a man of pleasure. Do not think that this means debauchery and profligacy : nothing like it. It means, at mos:, the accidental and unfrequent irregularities of youth and vivacity, in opposition to dulness, formality, and want of spirit. A commerce gallant^ insensibly formed with a woman of fashion; a glass of wine or two too much unwarily taken, in the warmth and joy of good company ; or some innocent frolic, by which nobody is injured ; are the utmost bounds of that life of pleasure, which a man of sense and decency, who has a regard for his character, will allow himself, or be allowed by others. Those who transgress them in the hopes of shining miss their aim, and become infamous, or at least contemptible. The length or shortness of your stay at Turin will sufficiently inform me (even though Mr. Harte should not) of your conduct there ; for, as I have told you before, Mr. no LORD CHESTERFIELD'S I ij Harte has the strictest orders to carry you away immediately from thence, upon the first and least symptom of infection that he discovers about you ; and I know him to be too conscientiously scrupulous, and too much your friend and mine, not to execute them exactly. Moreover, I will in- form you that I shall have constant accounts of your behaviour from Comte Salmour, the Governor of the Academy, whose son is now here, and my particular friend. I have, also, other good channels of intelligence, of which I do not apprize you. But, supposing that all turns out well at Turin, yet, as I propose your being at Rome for the Jubilee at Christma«,J desire that you will apply yourself diligently to your exercises of dancing, fencing, and riding, at the Academy ; as well for the sake of your health and growth, as to fashion and supple you. You must not neglect your dress neither, but take care to be Men mis. Pray send for the best Operator for the teeth, at Turin, where, I suppose there is some famous one ; and let him put yours in perfect order; and then take care to keep them so, afterwards, yourself 'SIom had very good teeth, ?nd I hope they are so still; but even those who have bad ones should keep them clean ; for a dirty mouth is, in my mind, ill manners. In short, neglect nothing that can possibly please. A thousand nameless little things, which . nobody can describe, but which everybody feels, conspire to form that whole of pleasing; as the several pieces of a Mosaic work, though separately of little beauty or value, When properly joined, form those beautiful figures which please everybody. A look, a gesture, an attitude, a tone of voice, all bear their parts in the great work of pleasing. The art of pleasing is more particularly necessary in your Intended profession than perhaps in any other; it is, in truth, the first half of your business; for if you do not LETTERS TO HIS SON. Ill please the Court you are sent to, you ?/ill be of very little use to the Court you are sent from. Please the eyes and the ears, they will introduce you to the heart ; and, nine times in ten, the heart governs the understanding. Make your court particularly, and show distinguished attentions, to such men and women as are best at Court, highest in the fashion, and in the opinion of the public; speak advantageously of them behind their backs, in com- panies who you have reason to believe will tell them again. Express your admiration of the many great men that the house of Savoy has produced ; observe, that nature, instead of being exhausted by those efforts, seems to have re- doubled them, in the persons of the present King, and the Duke of Savoy : wonder, at this rate, where it will end, and conclude that it will end in the government of all Europe. Say this, likewise, where it will probably be repeated ; but say it unaffectedly, and, the last especially; with a kind of enjouement. These little arts are very allowable, and must be made use of in the course of the world ; they are pleasing to one party, useful to the other, and injurious to nobody. What I have said, with regard to my countrymen in general, does not extend to them all without exception; there are some who have both merit and manners. Your friend, Mr. Stevens, is among the latter, and I approve of your connection with him. You may happen to meet with some others, whose friendship may be of great use to you \ hereafter, either from their superior talents, or their rank and fortune ; cultivate them : but then I desire that Mr. Harte may be the judge of those persons. Adieu, my dear child 1 Consider seriously the import- ance of the two next years, to your character, your figure, and your fortune. J_ ^--7- • 112 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S LETTER XLII. Dear Boy, London, September the 12th, O. S. 1749. It seems extraordinary, but it is very true, that my anxiety for you increases in proportion to the good accounts which I receive of you from all hands. I promise myself so much from you, that I dread the least disappointment. You are now so near the port, which I have so long wished and laboured to bring you into, that my concern woul " be doubled should you be shipwrecked within sight of it. The object, therefore, of this letter is (laying aside all the authority of a parent), to conjure you as a friend, by the affection you have for me (and surely you have reason to have some), and by the regard you have for yourself, to go on, with assiduity and attention, to complete that work, which, of late, you have carried on so well, and which is now so near being finished. My wishes, and my plan, were to make you shine, and distinguish your- self equally in the learned and the polite world. Few have been able to do it. Deep learning is generally tainted with pedantry, or at least unadorned by manners ; as, on the other hand, polite manners, and the turn of the world, are too often unsupported by knowledge, and consequently end contemptibly in the frivolous dissipation of drawing-rooms and ruelles. You are now got over the dry and difficult parts of learning ; what remains requires much more time than trouble. You have lost time by your illness ; you must regain it now or never. I there- fore most earnestly desire, for your own sake, that for these next six months, at least six hours every morning, uninterruptedly, may be inviolably sacred to your studies with Mr. Harte. I do not know whether he will require LETTERS TO HIS SON. "3 so much, but I know that I do, and hope you will, and consequently prevail with him to give you that time: I own it is a good deal ; but when both you and he consider, that the work will be so much better and so much sooner done, by such an assiduous and continued application, you will neither of you think it too much, and each will find his account in it. So much for the mornings which, from your own good sense, and Mr. Harte's tenderness and care of you, will, I am sure, be thus well employed. It is not only reasonable, but useful, too, that your evenings should be devoted to amusements and pleasures; and therefore I not only allow, but recommend, that they should be employed at assemblies, balls, spectacles^ and in the best companies ; with this restriction only, that the consequences of the evening's diversions may not break in upon the morning's studies, by breakfastings, visits, and idle parties into the country. At your age, you need not be ashamed, when any of these morning parties are proposed, to say you must beg to be excused, for you are obliged to devote your mornings to Mr. Harte; that I will have it so; and that you dare not do other- wise. Lay it all upon me, though I am persuaded it will be as much your own inclination as it is mine. But those frivolous, idle people, whose time hangs upon their own hands, and v/ho desire to make others lose theirs too, are not to be reasoned with; and indeed it would be doing them too much honour. The shortest civil answers are the best ; / cannot^ I dare not^ instead of / will not; for, if you were to enter with them into the necessity ot study, and the usefulness of knowledge, it woum only furnish them with matter for their silly jests; which, though I would not have you mind, I would not have you invite. I will suppose you at Rome, studying six 640 114 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S hours interruptedly with Mr. Harte, every morning, and passing your evenings with the best company of Rome, observing their manners and forming your own ; and I will suppose a number of idle, sauntering, illiterate English, as there commonly is there, living entirely with one another, supping, drinking, and sitting up late at each other's lodgings; commonly in riots and scrapes when drunk; and never in good company when sober. I will take one of these pretty fellows, and give you the dialogue between him and yourself; such as I dare say it will be on bis side, and such as I hope it will be on yours. Englishman. Will you come and breakfast with me to-morrow; there will be four or five of our countrymen; we have provided chaises, and we will drive somewhere out of town after breakfast ? Stanhope. I am very sorry I cannot, but I am obliged to be at home all morning. Englishman. Why, then, we will come and breakfast with you. Stanhope. I can't do that neither, I am engaged. Englishman. Well, then, let it be the next day. Stanhop^i. To tell you the truth, it can be no day in the morning, for I neither go out nor see anybody at home before twelve. Englishman. And what the devil do you do with your- self till twelve o'clock ? Stanhope. I am not by myself, I am with Mr. Harte. Englishman. Then what the devil do you do with him ? Stanhope. We study different things; we read, we converse. Englishman. Very pretty amusement indeed ! Are you to take Orders, then? Stanhope. Yes, my father's orders, I believe, I must take. LETTERS TO HIS SON, "5 Englishman. Why, hast thou no more spirit than to mind an old fellow a thousand miles off? Stanhope. If I don't mind his orders he won't mind my draughts. Englishman. What, does the old prig threaten, then? threatened folks live long ; never mind threats. Stanhope. No, I can't say that he has ever threatened me in his life ; but I believe I had best not provoke him. Englishman. Pooh! you would have one angry letter from the old fellow, and there would be an end of it. Stanhope. You mistake him mightily ; he always does more than he says. He has never been angry with me yet, that I remember, in his life ; but if I were to provoke him I am sure he would never forgive me ; he would be coolly immovable, and I might beg and pray, and write my heart out to no purpose. Englishman. Why, then, he is an old dog, that's all I can say; and pray, are you to obey your dry-nurse too, this same, what's his name — Mr. Harte ? Stanhope. Yes. ^ Englishman. So he stuffs you all morning with Greek, and Latin, and Logic, and all that. Egad, I have a dry- nurse, too, but I never looked into a book with him in my life ; I have not so much as seen the face of him this week, and don't care a louse if I never see it again. Stanhope. My dry-nurse never desires anything of me that is not reasonable and for my own good, and therefore I like to be with him. Englishman. Very sententious and edifying, upon my word I at this rate you will be reckoned a very good young man. Stanhope. Why, that will do me no harm. Englishman. Will you be with us to-morrow in the ti6 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S evening, then ? We shall be ten with you, and I have got some excellent good wine, and we'll be very merry. Stanhope. I am very much obliged to you, but I am engaged for all the evening to-morrow; first at Cardinal Albani's, and then to sup at the Venetian Embassadress's. Englishman. How the devil can you like being always with these foreigners? I never go amongst them, with all their formalities and ceremonies. I am never easy in company with them, and I don't know why, but I am ashamed. Stanhope, I am neither ashamed nor afraid ; I am very easy with them ; they are very easy with me ; I get the language, and I see their characters by conversing with them; and that is what we are sent abroad for. Is it not? Englishman. I hate your modest women's company ; your women of fashion, as they call 'em. I don't know what to say to them, for my part. Stanhope. Have you ever conversed with them ? Englishman. No. I never conversed with them ; but I have been sometimes in their company, though much against my will. Stanhope. But at least they have done you no hurt, which is, probably, more than you can say of the women you do converse with. Englishman. That's true, I own; but for all that, I would rather keep company with my surgeon half the year than with your women of fashion the year round. Stanhope. Tastes are different, you know, and every man follows his own. Englishman, That's true \ but thine's a devilish odd one. Stanhope. All morning with thy dry-nurse, all the evening \ in formal fine company, and all day long afraid of old t: LETTERS TO HIS SON, 117 Daddy in England. Thou art a queer fellow, and I am afraid there's nothing to be made of thee. Stanhope, I am afraid so too. Englishman. Well then, good-night to you ; you have no objection, I hope, to my being drunk to-night, which I certainly will be. Stanhope. Not in the least; nor to your being sick to- morrow, which you as certainly will be ; and so good-night too. You will observe that I have not put into your mouth those good arguments which upon such an occasion would, I am sure, occur to you, as piety and affection towards me, regard and friendship ibr Mr. Harte, respect for your own moral character, and for all the relative duties of Man, Son, Pupil, and Citizen. Such solid arguments would be thrown away upon such shallow puppies. Leave them to their ignorance, and to their dirty, disgraceful vices. They will severely feel the effects of them, when it will be too late. Without the comfortable refuge of learning, and with all the sickness and pains of a ruined stomach, and a rotten carcass, if they happen to arrive at old age, it is an uneasy and ignominious one. The ridicule which such fellows endeavour to throw upon those who are not like them is, in the opinion or all men of sense, the most authentic panegyric. Go on, then, my dear child, in the way you are in, only for a year and half more ; that is all I ask of you. After that, I promise that you shall be your own master, and that I will pretend to no other title than that of your best and truest friend. You shall receive advice, but no orders, from me ; and in truth you will want no other advice but such as youth and inexperience must necessarily require. You shall certainly want nothing that is requisite, ii8 id i'\\ , I I I I ZO/?D CHESTERFIELD'S not only for your conveniency, but also for your pleasures, which I always desire should be gratified. You will suppose that I mean th© pleasures d^un honnHe homme. While you are learning Italian, which I hope you do with diligence, pray take care to continue your German, which you may have frequent opportunities of speaking ; I would also have you keep up your knowledge of the Jus Publicum Imperiiy by looking over now and then those inestimable manuscripts which Sir Charles Williams, who arrived here last week, assures me you have made upon that subject. It will be of very gre?t u^^e to you when you come to be concerned in foreign affairs, as you shall be (if you qualify yourself ibr them) younger than ever any other was ; I mean, before you are twenty. Sir Charles tells me that he will answer for your learning, and that he believes you will acquire that address and thoce grrces which are so necessary to give it its full lustre and value. But he confesses that he doubts more of the latter than of the former. The justice which he does Mr. Harte, in his panegyrics of him, makes me hope that there is likewise a great deal of truth in his encomiums of you. Are you pleased with and proud of the reputation which you have already acquired ? Surely you are, for I am sure I am. Will you do anything to lessen or forfeit it? Surely you will not. And will you not do all you can to extend and increase it ? Surely you will. It is only going on for a year and a half longer, as you have gone on for the two years last past, and devoting half the day ohly to application; and yoi^ v,'ill be su-e to niakc the earliest figure and fortune in ;he world tb^t ever man made. Adieu. LETTERS TO HIS SON, 119 LETTER XLIII. Dear Bo\, London, September the 22nd, O. S. 1749. If I had faith in philters and love potions, I should suspect that you had given Sir Charles Williams some, by the manner in which he speaks of you, not only to me, but to everybody else, I will not repeat to you what he says of the extent and correctness of your knowledge, as it might either make you vain, or persuade you that you had already enough of what nobody can have too much. You will easily imagine how many questions I asked, and how narrowly I sifted him upon your subject ; he answered me, and I dare say with truth, just as I could have wished ; till, satisfied entirely with his accounts of your character and learning, I inquired into other matters, intrinsically indeed of less consequence, but still of great consequence to every man, and of more to you than to almost any man ; I mean your address, manners, and air. To these questions, the same truth which he had observed before, obliged him to give me much less satisfactory answers. And, as he thought himself, in friendship both to you and me, obliged to tell me the disagreeable, as well as the agreeable truths, upon the same principle I think myself obliged to repeat them to you. He told me, then, that in company you were frequently most provoktngly inattentive, absent, and distrait. That you came into a room and presented yourself very awkwardly; that at table you constantly threw down knives, forks, napkins, bread, etc., and that you neglected your person and dress, to a degree unpardonable at any age, and much more so at yours. These things, how immaterial soever they may seem to I20 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S people who do not know the world and the nature of man- kind, give me, who know them to be exceedingly material, very great concern. I have long distrusted you, and therefore frequently admonished you, upon these articles; and I tell you plainly that I shall not be easy till I hear a very different account of them. I know no one thing more offensive to a company than that inattention and distraction. It is showing them the utmost contempt, and people never forget contempt. No man is distrait with the man he fears, or the woman he loves ; which is a proof that every man can get the better of that distraction when he thinks it worth his while to do so ; and, take my word for it, it is always worth his while. For my own part, I would rather be in company with a dead man than with an absent one; for if the dead man gives me no pleasure, at least he shows me no contempt ; whereas the absent man, silently indeed, but very plainly, tells me that he does not think me worth his attention. Besides, can an absent man make any observations upon the characters, customs, and manners of the company ? No. He may be in the best companies all his lifetime (if they will admit him, which, if I were they, I would not) and never be one jot the wiser. I never will converse with an absent man; one may as well talk to a deaf one. It is in truth a practical blunder to address ourselves to a man, who we see plainly neither hears, minds, nor understands us. Moreover, I aver that no man is, in any degree, fit for either business or conversation, who cannot, and does not, direct and command his atten- tion to the present object, be that what it will. You know by experience that I grudge no expense m your education, but I will positively not keep you a Flapper. You may read in Dr. Swift the description of these Flappers, and the qse they were of to your friends the Laputans, whose minds LETTERS TO HIS SON. 121 (Gulliver says) are so taken up with intense speculations that they neither can speak nor attend to the discourses of others, without being roused by some external action upon the organs of speech and hearing ; for which reason those people who are able to afford it always keep a Flapper in their family as one of their domestics, nor ever walk about or make visits without him. This Flapper is likewise employed diligently to attend his master in his walks, and upon occasion to give a soft flap upon his eyes, because he is always so wrapped up in cogitation that he is in manifest danger of falling down every precipice, and bouncing his head against every post, and, in the streets, of jostling others, or being jostled into the kennel himself. If Christian will undertake this province into the bargain, with all my heart, but I will not allow him any increase of wages upon that score. In short, I give you fair warning that when we meet, if you are absent in mind, I will soon be absent in body, for it will be impossible for me to stay in the room ; and if at table you throw down your knife, plate, bread, etc., and hack the wing of a chicken for half an hour without being able to cut it off, and your sleeve all the time in another dish, I must rise from table to escape the fever you would certainly give me. Good God ! how I should be shocked if you came into my room for the first time with two left legs, presenting yourself with all the graces and dignity of a Tailor, and your clothes hanging upon you like those in Monmouth Street, upon tenter- hooks ! whereas I expect, nay, require to see you present yourself with the easy and genteel air of a Man of Fashion who has kept good company. I expect you not only well dressed, but very well dressed : I expect a gracefulness in all your motions, and something particularly engaging in your address. All this I expect, and all this is in your :! I ; i i 123 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S power, by care and attention, to make me find ; but to tell you the plain truth, if I do not find it, we shall not converse very much together, for I cannot stand inattention and awkwardness ; it would endanger my health. You have often seen, and I have as often made you observe, L 's distinguished inattention and awkwardness. Wrapped up, like a Laputan, in intense thought, and possibly sometimes in no thought at all ; which I believe is very often the case of absent people ; he does not know his most intimate acquaintance by sight, or answers them as if he were at cross-purposes. He leaves his hat in one room, his sword in another, and would leave his shoes in a third, if his buckles, though awry, did not save them : his legs and arms, by his awkward management of them, seem to have undergone the Question extraordinaire; and his head, always hanging upon one or other of his shoulders, seems to have received the first stroke upon a block. I sincerely value and esteem him for his Parts, Learning, and Virtue; but for the soul of me I cannot love him in company. This will be universally the case in common life, of every inattentive, awkward man, let his real merit and knowledge be ever so great. When I was of your age I desired to shine, as far as I was able, in every part of life ; and was as attentive to my Manners, my Dress, and my Air, in company on evenings, as to my Books and my Tutor in the mornings. A young fellow should be ambitious to shine in everything; and, of the two, always rather overdo than underdo. These things are by no means trifles ; they are of infinite consequence to those who are to be thrown into the great world, and who would make a figure or a fortune in it. It is not sufficient to deserve well ; one must please well too. Awkward, disagreeable merit will never carry anybody far. Wherever you find a good dancing-master, * LETTERS TO HIS SON. 133 pray let him put you upon your haunches ; not so much for the sake of dancing, as for coming into a room, and presenting yourself genteelly and gracefully. Women, whom you ought to endeavour to please, cannot forgive a vulgar and awkward air and gestures; // leur faut du brillant The generality of men are pretty like them, and are equally taken by the same exterior graces. I am very glad that you have received the diamond buckles safe : all I desire, in return for them, is, that they may be buckled even upon your feet, and that your stock- ings may not hide them. I should be sorry you were an egregious fop ; but I protest that, of the two, I would rather have you a Fop than a Sloven. I think negligence in my own dress, even at my age, when certainly I expect no advantages from my dress, would be indecent with regard to others. I have done with fine clothes; but I will have my plain clothes fit me, and made like other people's. In the evenings, I recommend to you the com- pany of women of fashion, who have a right to attention, and will be paid it. Their company will smooth your manners, and give you a habit of attention and respect ; of which you will find the advantage among men. My plan for you, from the beginning, has been to make you shine, equally in the learned and in the polite world ; the former part is almost completed to my wishes, and will, I am persuaded, in a little time more, be quite so. The latter part is still in your power to complete ; and I flatter myself that you will do it, or else the former part will avail you very little, especially in your department, where the exterior address and graces do half the business ; they must be the harbingers of your merit, or your merit will be v\jry coldly received : all can and do judge of the former, few of the latter. 124 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S i 1 i fiij P ' I! Mr. Harte tells me that you have grown very much since your illness: if you get up to five feet ten, or even nine, inches, your figure will, probably, be a good one ; and, if well dressed and genteel, will probably please, which is a much greater advantage to a man than people commonly think. Lord Bacon calls it a letter of recommendation. I would wish you to be the omnis homo^ Vhomme universeL You are nearer it, if you please, than ever any- body was at your age ; and if you will but, for the course of this next year only, exert your whole attention to your studies in the mornings, and to your address, manners, air, and tournure^ in the evenings, you will be the man I wish you, and the man that is rarely seen. Our letters go, at best, so irregularly, and so often miscarry totally, that, for greater security, I repeat the same things. So, though I acknowledge by last post Mr. Harte's letter of the 8th September, N.S., I acknow- ledge it again by this to you. If this should find you still at Verona, let it inform you that I wish you would set out soon for Naples, unless Mr. Harte should think it better for you to stay at Verona, or any other place on this side Rome, till you go thjre for the Jubilee. Nay, if he likes it better, I am very willing that you should go directly from Verona to Rome ; for you cannot have too much of Rome, whether upon account of the language, the curiosities, or the company. My only reason for mentioning Naples is for the sake of the climate, upon account of your health ; but if Mr. Harte thinks your health is now so well restored as to be above climate, he may steer your course wherever he thinks proper ; and, for aught 1 know, your going directly to Rome, and consequently staying there so much (he longer, may be as weU as anything clae. I think you LETTERS TO BIS SON, t25 s, manners, and 1 cannot put our affairs in better hands than in Mr. Harte's; and I will take his infallibility against the Pope's, with some odds on his side. A propos of the Pope; remember to be presented to him before you leave Rome, and go through the necessary ceremonies for it, whether of kissing his slipper or his b — h; for I would never deprive myself of anything that I wanted to do or see, by refusing to comply with an established custom. When I was in Catholic countries, I never declined kneeling in their churches at the elevation, nor elsewhere, when the Host went by. It is a complaisance due to the custom of the place, and by no means, as some silly people have imagined, an implied approbation of their doctrine. Bodily attitudes and situations are things so very indifferent in themselves, that I would quarrel with nobody about them. It may, indeed, be improper for Mr. Harte to pay that tribute of complaisance, upon account of his character. This letter is a very long, and possibly a very tedious one, but my anxiety for your perfection is so great, and particularly at this critical and decisive period of your life, that I am only afraid of omitting, but never of repeating, or dwelling too long upon anything that I think may be of the least use to you. Have the same anxiety for yourself that I hfive for you, and all will do well. Adieu 1 my dear child. LETTER XLIV. Dear Boy, London, September the 27th, O. S. 1749. , A VULGAR, ordinary way of thinking, acting, or speaking, implies a low education, and a habit of low company. I i 126 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S . Young people contract it at school, or among servants, with whom they are too often nsed to converse ; but, after they frequent good company, ',ney must want attention and observation very much, if they do not lay it quite aside. And indeed if they do not, good company will be very apt to lay them aside. The various kinds of vulgarisms are infinite ; I cannot pretend to point them out to you ; but I will give you some samples, by which you may guess at the rest. A vulgar man is captious and jealous ; eager and impetu- ous about trifles. He suspects himself to be slighted, thinks everything that is said meant at him ; if the company happens to laugh, he is persuaded they laugh at him ; he grows angry and testy, says something very impertinent, and draws himself into a scrape, by showing what he calls a proper spirit, and asserting himself. A man of fashion does not suppose himself to be either the sole or principal object of the thoughts, looks, or words of the company ; and never suspects that he is either slighted or laughed at, unless he is conscious that he deserves it. And if (which very seldom happens) the company is absurd or ill-bred enough to do either, he does not care twopence, unless the insult be so gross and plain as to require satisfaction of another kind. As he is above trifles, he is never vehement and eager about them; and, wherever they are concerned, rather acquiesces than wrangles. A vulgar man's conversation always savours strongly of the lowness of his education and company. It turns chiefly upon his domestic affairs, his servants, the excellent order he keeps in his own family, and the little anecdotes of the neighbourhood ; all which he relates with emphasis, as interesting matters. He is a man gossip. Vulgarism in language is the next and distinguishing It LETTERS TO HIS SON, ii7 characteristic of bad company and a bad education. A man of fashion avoids nothing with more care than that. Proverbial expressions and trite sayings are the flowers of the rhetoric of a vulgar man. Would he say that men differ in their tastes, he boJ:h supports and adorns that opinion by the good old saying, as he respectfully calls it, that ivhat is one marHs Meat is another maiis Poison, If anybody attempts being smarts as he calls it, upon him, he gives them Tit for Tat^ ay, that he does. He has always some favourite word for the time being, which, for the sake of using often, he commonly abuses. Such as vastly angry, vastly kind, vastly handsome, and vastly ugly. Even his pronunciation of proper words carries the mark of the beast along with it. He calls the earth yearth ; he is obleiged not obliged to you. He goes to wards and not towards such a place. He sometimes affects hard words, by way of ornament, which he always mangles like a learned woman. A man of fashion never has recourse to proverbs and vulgar aphorisms, uses neither favourite words nor hard words ; but takes great care to speak very correctly and grammatically, and to pronounce properly ; that is, according to the usage of the best companies. An awkward address, ungraceful attitudes and actions, and a certain left-handedness (if I may use that word), loudly proclaim low education and low company ; for it is impossible to suppose that a man can have frequented good company, without having catched something, at least, of their air and motions. A new raised man is distinguished in a regiment by his awkwardness \ but he must be impenetrably dull if, in a month or two's time, he cannot perform at least the common manual exercise, and look like a soldier. The very accoutrements of a man of fashion are grievous encumbrances to a vulgar man. He is at a ^'"»ss what to do 128 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S with his hat, when it is not upon his head ; his cane (if unfortunately he wears one) is at perpetual war with every cup of tea or coffee he drinks ; destroys them first, and then accompanies them in their fall. His sword is formid- able only to his own legs, which would possibly carry him fast enough out of the way of any sword but his own. His clothes fit him so ill, and constrain him so much, that he seems rather their prisoner than their proprietor. He presents himself in company like a criminal in a court of justice; his very air condemns him; and people of fashion will no more connect themselves with the one, than people of character will with the other. This repulse drives and sinks him into low company ; a gulf from whence no man, after a certain age, ever emerged. Les mani^res nobles et aisks^ la tournure d^un homme de condition, le ton de la bonne cotnpagnie^ les Grdces^ le je ne sais quoiy qui pla\t, are as necessary to adorn and introduce your intrinsic merit and knowledge, as the polish is to the diamond, which, without that polish, would never be worn, whatever it might weigh. Do not imagine that these accomplishments are only useful with women; they are much mora so with men. In a public assembly, what an advantage has a graceful speaker, with genteel motions, a handsome figure, and a liberal air, over one who shall speak full as much good sense, but destitute of these ornaments! In business, how prevalent are the graces, how detrimental is the want of them ! By the help of these I have known some men refuse favours less offensively than others granted them. The utility of them in Courts, and Negotiations, is inconceivable. You gain the hearts and consequently the secrets, of nine in ten that you have to do with, in spite even of their prudence, which will, nine times in ten, be the dupe of their hearts, and of their fcift LETTERS TO HIS SON. 129 senses. Consider the importance of these things as they deserve, and you will not lose one moment in the pursuit of them. You are travelling now in a country once so famous both for arts and arms, that (however degenerated at present) it still deserves your attention and reflection. View it there- fore with care, compare its former with its present state, and examine into the causes of its rise, and its decay. Consider it classically and politically, and do not run through it, as too many of your young countrymen do, musically, and (to use a ndiculous word) knick-knackically. No piping nor fiddling, I beseech you; no days lost in poring upon almost imperceptible Intaglios and Cameos: and do not become a Virtuoso of small wares. Form a taste of Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture, if you please, by a careful examination of the works of the best ancient and modern artists ; those are liberal arts, and a real taste and knowledge of them become a man of fashion very well. But, beyond certain bounds, the Man of Taste ends, and the frivolous Virtuoso begins. Your friend Mendes, the good Samaritan, dined with me yesterday. He has more good nature and generosity than parts. However, I will show him all the civilities that his kindness to you so justly deserves; he tells me that you are taller than I an., which I am very glad of. I desire you may excel me in everything else too; and, far from repining, I shall rejoice at your superiority. He commends your friend Mr. Stevens extremely; of whom, too, I have heard so good a character from other people, that I am very glad of your connection with him. It may prove of use to you hereafter. When you meet with such sort of Englishmen abroad, who, either from their parts or their rank, are likely to make a figure at heme, I would advise 641 ! 130 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S you to cultivate them, and get their favourable testimony of you here, especially those who are to return to England before you. Sir Charles Williams has puffed you (as the mob called it) here extremely. If three or four more people of parts do the same, before you come back, your first appearance in London will be to great advantage. Many people do, and indeed ought, to take things upon trust ; many more do who need not ; and few dare dissent from an established opinion. Adieu. LETIER XLV. Dear Boy, London, November the 24th, O. S. 1749. Every rational being (I take it for granted) proposes to himself some object more important than mere respiration and obscure animal existence. He desires to distinguish himself among his fellow-creatures ; and, alicui negotio intentus, pradari facinoris^ aut artis boncdy famam qucerit Caesar, when embarking in a storm, said that it was not necessary he should live, but that it was absolutely necessary he should get to the place to which he was going. And Pliny leaves mankind this only alternative ; either of doing what deserves to be written, or of writing what deserves to be read. As for those who do neither, eorum vttam mor- temque juxta astumo ; quoniam de utraque sihtur. You have, I am convinced, one or both of these objects in view ; but you must know and use the necessary means, or your pursuit will be vain and frivolous. In either case, sapere est principium et fans ; but it is by no means all. That knowledge must be adorned, it must have lustre as well as LETTERS TO HIS SON. 131 weight, or it will be oftener taken for Lead than for Gold. Knowledge you have, and will have : I am easy upon that article. But my business, as your friend, is not to com- pliment you upon what you have, but to tell you with freedom what you want ; and I must tell you plainly that 1 fear you want everything but knowledge. I have written to you so often of late upon Good Breed- ing, Address, les Miani^res liantes, the Graces, etc., that I shall confine this letter to another subject, pretty near akin to them, and which, I am sure, you are full as deficient in ; I mean, Style. Style is the dress of thoughts ; and let them be ever so just, if your style is homely, coarse, and vulgar, they will appear to as much disadvantage, and be as ill received, as your person, though ever so well-proportioned, would if dressed ixi rags, dirt, and tatters. It is not every under- standing that can judge of matter ; but every ear can and does judge, more or less, of style : and were I either to speak or write to the public, I should prefer moderate matter, adorned with all the beauties and elegancies ot style, to the strongest matter in the world, ill worded and ill delivered. Your business is. Negotiation abroad and Oratory in the House of Commons at home. What figure can you make in either case, if your style be inelegant, I do not say ba(f ? Imagine yourself writing an office-letter to a Secretary ot State, which letter is to be read by the whole Cabinet Council, and very possibly afterwards laid before Parliament ; any one barbarism, solecism, or vulgarism in it would, in a very few days, circulate through the whole kingdom, to your disgrace and ridicule. For instance ; I will suppose you had written the following letter from the Hague, to the Secretary of State at London ; and leave you to suppose the consequences of it. ir- 132 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S My Lord, I hady last night, the honour of your Lordship's letter of the 24th, and will set about doing the orders contained therein; and // so be that I can get that affair done by the next post, I will not fail for to give your Lordship an account of it by next pest. I have told the French Minister, as hoWy that if that affair be not soon concluded, your Lordship would think it all long of him; and that he mast have neglec ;1 fo-r l' b ve wrote to ixis Court about it. I must beg leavf Xq- i;- ? your Lordship in mind, as how that I am now full chi.; qaa^tjrs in arrear; and if so be that I do not very soon receive at least one half year, I shall cut a very bad figure^ for this here place is very dear. I shall be vastly beholden to your Lordship for that there mark of your favour ; and so I rest^ or remain^ Your, etc. You will tell me, possibly, that this is a caricatura of an illiberal and inelegant style ; I will admit it : but assure you, at the same time, that a dispatch with less than half these faults would blow you up for ever. It is by no means sufficient to be free from faults in speaking and writing; you must do both correctly and elegantly. In faults of this kind it is not ilk optimus qui minimis urgetur; but he is unpardonable who has any at all, because it is his own fault : he need only attend to, observe, and imitate the best authors. It is a very true saying, that a man must be born a Poet, but that he may make himself an Orator ; and the very first principle of an Orator is, to speak his own language par- ticularly, with the utmost purity and elegancy. A man will be forgiven even great errors in a foreign language, but in his own even the least slips are justly laid hold of and ridiculed. LETTERS TO HIS SON. 133 A person of the House of Commons, speaking two years ago upon navaJ aflfairs, asserted that we had then the finest navy upo>t the face of the yearth. This happy mixture of blunder and vulgarism, you may easily imagine, was mattei of immediate ridici ,'e; but I can assure you that it con- tinues so still, and will be remembered as long as he lives and speaks. Another, speaking in defence of a gentleman ipoii whom a censure was moved, happily said, that he thought that gentleman was more liable to be thanked and rewarded, than censured. You know, I presume, that liable can never be used in a good sense. You have with you three or four oi 'h^. best English Authors, Dryden, Atterbury, and Swift ; eaa lem with the utmost care, and wfth a particular vie to their language ; and they may possibly correct that cu ious infelicity of diction^ which you acquired at Wes- inkier. Mr. Harte excepted, I will admit that you have met with very few English abroad, who could improve your style ; and with many, I dare say, who speak as ill as yourself, and it may be worse; you must, therefore, take the more pains, and consult your authors, and Mr. Harte, the more. I need not tell you how attentive the Romfins and Greeks, particularly the Athenians, were to this object. It is also a study among the Italians and the French, witness their respective Academies and Dictionaries, for improving and fixing their languages. To our shame be it spoken, it is less attended to here than in any polite country ; but that is no reason why you should not attend to it ; on the contrary, it will distinguish you the more. Cicero says, very truly, that it is glorious to excel other ^nen in that very article, in which men excel brutes ; speech. Constant experience has shown me, that great purity and elegance of style, with a graceful elocution, cover a multitude IlRM 134 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S of faults, in either a speaker or a writer. For my own part, I confess (and I believe most people are of my mind) that if a speaker should ungracefully mutter or stammer out to me the sense of an angel, deformed by barbarisms and solecisms, or larded with vulgarisms, he should never speak to me a second time, if I could help it. Gain the heart, or you gain nothing ; the eyes and the ears are the only roads to the heart. Merit and knowledge v/ill not gain hearts, though they will secure them when gained. Pray have that truth ever in your mind. Engage the eyes, by your address, air, and motions; soothe the ears, by the elegancy and harmony of your diction : the heart will certainly follow ; and the whole man, or woman^ will as certainly follow the heart. I must repeat it to you, over and over again, that, with all the knowledge which you may have at present, or hereafter acquire, and with all the merit that ever man had, if you have not a graceful address, liberal and engaging manners, a prepossessing air, and a good degree of eloquence in speaking and writing, you will be nobody : but will have the daily mortification of seeing people, with not one tenth part of your merit or knowledge, get the start of you, and disgrace you, both in company and in business. You have read Quintilian, the best book in the world to form an Orator ; pray read Cicero^ de Oratore^ the best book in the world to finish one. Translate and retranslate, from and to Latin, Greek, and English ; make yourself a pure and elegant English style : it requires nothing but application. I do not find that God has made you a Poet ; and I am very glad that He has not ; therefore, for God's sake, make yourself an Orator, which you may do. Though I still call you boy, I consider you no longer as such ; and when I reflect upon the prodigious quantity of manure that has been laid upon you, I expect you should LETTERS TO HIS SON. ns produce more at eighteen than uncultivated soils do at eight and twenty. • Pray tell Mr. Harte I have received his letter of the 13th, N. S. Mr. Smith was much in the right not to let you go, at this time of the year, by sea ; in the summer you may navigate as much as you please : as, for example, from Leghorn to Genoa, etc. Adieu. LETTER XLVL Dear Boy, London, December the 9th, 1749. It is now above forty years since I have never spoken nor written one single word without giving myself at least one moment's time to consider whether it was a good one or a bad one, and whether I could not find out a better in its place. 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. I will freely and truly own to you, without either vanity or false modesty, that whatever reputation I have acquired as a speaker is more owing to rtiy constant attention to my diction, than to my matter, which was necessarily just the same of other people's. When you come into Parliament, your reputation as a speaker will depend much more upon your words, and your periods, than upon the subject. The same matter occurs equally to everybody of common sense, upon the same question ; the dressing it well is what excites the attention and admiration of the audience. It is in Parliament that I have set my heart upon your ■ W—aj ' i I JB BM 136 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S making a figure ; it is there tliat I want to have you justly proud of yourself, and to make me justly proud of you. This means that you must be a good speaker there ; I use the word must^ because I know you may if you will. The vulgar, who are always mistaken, look upon a Speaker and a Comet with the same astonishment and admiration, taking them both for preternatural phenomena. This error discourages many young men from attempting that character; and good speakers are willing to have their talent considered as something very extraordinary, if not a peculiar gift of God to His elect. But let you and I analyze and simplify this good speaker ; let us strip him of those adventitious plumes, with which his own pride, and the ignorance of others have decked him, and we shall find the true definition of him to be no more than this : — A man of good common sense, who reasons justly, and expresses himself elegantly on that subject upon which he speaks. There is surely no witchcraft in this. A man of sense, without a superior and astonishing degree of parts, will not talk nonsense upon any subject ; nor will he, if he has the least taste or application, talk inelegantly. What, then, does all this mighty art and mystery of speaking in Parlia- ment amount to ? Why, no more than this, That the man who speaks in the House of Commons, speaks in that House, and to four hundred peoplCj that opinion, upon a given subject, which he would make no difficulty of speaking in any house in England, round the fire, or at table, to any fourteen people whatsoever ; better judges, perhaps, and severer critics of what he says, than any fourteen gentlemen of the House of Commons. I have spoken frequently in Parliament, and not always without some applause; and therefore I can assure you, from my experience, that there is very little in it. The LETTERS TO HIS SON, M7 elegancy of the style, and the turn of tnt periods, make the chief impression upon the hearers. Give them but one or two round and harmonious periods in ?. speech, which they will retain and repeat; and they will go home as well satisfied as people do from an Opera, humming all the way one or two favourite tunes that have struck their ears and were easily caught. Most people have ears, but few have judg- ment; ti ckle those ear .s^.and depend upon it you will catch their judgments, such as they are. Cicero, conscious that he was at the top of his profession (for in his time Eloquence was a profession), in order to set himself off, defines, in his Treatise de Oratore^ an Orator to be such a man as never was, or never will be ; and, by this fallacious argument, says, that he must know every art and science whatsoever, or how shall he speak upon them? But with submission to so great an authority, my definition of an Orator is extremely different from, and I believe much truer than his. I call that man an Orator who reasons justly, and expresses himself elegantly upon what- ever subject he treats. Problems in Geometry, Equations in Algebra, Processes in Chymistry, and Experiments in Anatomy, are never, that I have heard of, the objects of Eloquence; and therefore I humbly conceive that a man may be a very fine speaker, and yet know nothing of Geometry, Algebra, Chymistry, or Anatomy. The subjects of all Parliamentary debates are subjects of common sense singly. Thus ^ write whatever occurs to me, that I think may contribute either to form or inform you. May my labour not be in vain ! and it will not, if you will but have half the concern for yourself that I have for you. Adieu. 138 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S LETTER XLVII. i Hi! Dear Boy, London, December the I2th, O. S. 1749. Lord CLARE^rDON, in his history, says of Mr. John Hampden, that he had a head to contrive^ a tongue to persuade^ and a hand to execute^ any mischief. I shall not now enter into the justness of this character of Mr. Hampden, to whose brave stand against the illegal demand of ship-money we owe our present liberties ; but I mention it to you as the character which, with the altera- tion of one single word. Goody instead of Mischief I would have you aspire to, and use your utmost endeavours to deserve. The head to contrive, God must to a certain degree have given you ; but it is in your own power greatly to improve it by study, observation, and reflection. As for the tongue to persuade^ it wholly depends upon yourself; and without it the best head will contrive to very little purpose. The hand to execute depends, likewise, in my opinion, in a great measure upon yourself. Serious reflection will always give courage in a good cause ; and the courage arising from reflection is of a much superior nature to the animal and constitutional courage of a foot soldier. The former is steady and unshaken, where the nodus is dignus vindice; the latter is oftener improperly than properly exerted, but always brutally. The second member of my text (to speak ecclesiastically) shall be the subject of my following discourse ; the tongue to persuade. As judicious Preachers recommend those virtues which they think their several audiences want the most : such as truth and continence at Court ; dis- interestedness in the City ; and sobriety i.i the Country. You must certainly, in the course of your little I LETTERS TO HIS SON, 139 . S. 1749- Mr. John tongue to L shall not IX of Mr. al demand 5 ; but I the altera- 'f^ I would eavours to a certain sver greatly n. As for I yourself; very little kewise, in Serious luse ; and h superior of a foot where the Derly than iastically) the tongue nd those want the urt ; dis- untry. Dur little experience, have felt the difterent effects of elegant and inelegant speaking. Do you not suffer when people accost you in a stammering or hesitating manner : in an untuneful voice, with false accents and cadences ; puzzling and blundering through solecisms, barbarisms, and vulgar- isms ; ruisplacing even their bad words, and inverting all method ? Does not this prejudice you against their matter, be it what it will ; nay, even against their persons ? I am sure it does me. On the other hand, do you not feel your- self inclined, prepossessed, nay, even engaged in favour of those who address you in the direct contrary manner? The effects of a correct and adorned style of method and perspicuity, are incredible towards persuasion ; they often supply the want of reason and argument, but when used in the support of reason and argument they are irresistible. The French attend very much to the purity and elegancy of their style, even in common conversation ; insomuch that it is a character, to say of a man, qu^il narre bien. Their conversations frequently turn upon the delicacies of their language, and an Academy is employed in fixing it. The Crusca^ in Italy, has the same object ; and I have met with very few Italians who did not speak their own language correctly and elegantly. How much mere necessary is it for an Englishman to do so who is to speak it in a public assembly, where the laws and liberties of his country are the subjects of his deliberation ? The tongue that would persuade there must not content itself with mere articulation. You know what pains Demosthenes took to correct his naturally bad elocution ; you know that he declaimed by the seaside in storms, to prepare himself for the noise of the tumultuous assemblies he was to speak to ; and you can now judge of the correctness and elegancy of his style. He thought all these things of consequence, and I Pi 111' 'il ji.n II !i;l ; ! "■' 140 LOJ?D CHESTERFIELD'S he thought right ; pray do you think so too. It is of the utmost consequence to you to be of that opinion If you have the least defect in your elocution, take the utmost care and pains to correct it. Do not neglect your style, what- ever language you speak in, or whomever you speak to, were it your footman. Seek always for the best words and the happiest expressions you can find. Do not content yourself with being barely understood; but adorn your thoughts, and dress them as you would your person ; which, however well proportioned it might be, it would be very improper and indecent to exhibit naked, or even worse dressed than people of your sort are. I have sent you, in a packet which your Leipsig acquaint- ance, Duval, sends to his correspondent at Rome, Lord Bolingbroke's book, which he published about a year ago. I desire that you will read it over and over again, with particular attention to the style, and to all those beauties of Oratory with which it is adorned. Till I read that book, I confess I did not know all the extent and powers of the English language. Lord Bolingbroke has both a tongue and a pen to persuade ; his manner of speaking in private conversation is full as elegant as his writings ; whatever subject he either speaks or writes upon, he adorns it with the most splendid eloquence; not a studied or laboured eloquence, but such a flowing happiness of diction, which (from care perhaps at first) is become so habitual to him, that even his most familiar conversations, if taken down in writing, would bear the Press, without the least correction either as to method or style. If his conaact, in the former part of his life, had been equal to all ':iis natural and acquired talents, he would most justly have merited the epithet of all-accomplished. He is himself sensible of his past errors : those violent passions, which seduced him I'll ! LETTERS TO HIS SON, T41 in his youth, have now subsided by age ; and, take him as he is now, the character of all-accomphshed is more his due than any man's I ever knew in my life. But he has been a most mortifying instance of the violence of human passions, and of the weakness of the most exalted human reason. His v'^tnes and his vices, his reason and his passions, did not blend themselves by a gradation of tints, but formed a shining and sudden contrast. Here the darkest, there the most splendid, colours, and both rendered more shining from their proximity. Impetuosity, excess, and almost extravagancy, characterised not only his passions, but even his senses. His youth was distinguished by all the tumult and storm of pleasures, in which he most licentiously triumphed, disdaining all decorum. His fine imagination has often been heated and exhausted with his body, in celebrating and deifying the prostitute of the night ; and his convivial joys were pushed to all the extravagancy of frantic Bacchanals. Those passions were interrupted but by a stronger, Ambition. The former impaired both his constitution and his character, but the latter destroyed both his fortune and his reputation. He has noble and generous sentiments, rather than fixed reflected principles of good nature and friendship ; but they are more violent than lasting, and suddenly and often varied to their opposite extremes, with regard even to the same persons. He receives the common attentions of civiHty as obligations, which he returns with interest ; and resents with passion the little inadvertencies of human nature, which he repays with interest too. Even a difference of opinion upon a philosophical subject would provoke, and prove him no practical Philosopher, at least. i\ 142 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S I M \. Notwithstanding the dissipation of his youth, and the tumultuous agitation of his middle age, he has an infinite fund of various and almost universal knowledge, which, from the clearest and quickest conception, and happiest memory, that ever man was blessed with, he always carries about him. It is his pocket-money, and he never has occasion to draw upon a book for any sum. He excels more particularly in History, as his historical works plainly prove. The relative Political and Commercial interests of every country in Europe, particularly of his own, are better known to him than perhaps to any man in it; but how steadily he has pursued the latter, in his public conduct, his enemies, of all parties and denominations, tell with joy. He engaged young, and distinguished himself in busi- ness ; and his penetration was almost intuition. I am old enough to have heard him speak in Parliament. And I remember, that though prejudiced against him by party, I felt all the force and charms of his eloquence. Like Belial, in Milton, " he made the worse appear the better cause." All the internal and external advantages and talents of an Orator are undoubtedly his. Figure, voice, elocution, knowledge, and, above all, the purest and most florid diction, with the justest metaphors and happiest images, had raised him to the post of Secretary at War, at four-and- twenty years old ; an age at which others are hardly thought fit for the smallest employments. During his long exile in France he applied himself to study with his characteristical ardour ; and there he formed, and chiefly executed, the plan of a great philosophical work. The common bounds of human knowledge are too narrow for nis warm and aspiring imagination. He must g f.xU^ flarmnantia mania Mundi^ and explore the urkn'^Tn nnd unknowable regions of Metaphysics; which LETTERS TO HIS SON. ^^l open an unbounded field for the excursions of an ardent imagination ; where endless conjectures supply the defect of unattainable knowledge, and too often usurp both its name and influence. He has had a very handsome person, with a most engaging address in his air and manners : he has all the dignity and good breeding which a man of quality should or can have, and which co few, in this country at least, really have. He professes himself a Deist; believing in a general Providence, but doubting of, though by no means rejecting, (as is commonly supposed^) the immortality of the soul, and a future state. Upon the whole, of this extraordinary man, what can we say, but alas, poor human nature ! In your destination you will have frequent occasions to speak in public ; to Princes and States abroad ; to the House of Commons, at home ; judge then, whether Eloquence is necessary for you or not ; not only common Eloquence, which is rather free from fauks, than adorned by beauties, but the highest, the most shining degree of eloquence. For God's sake, have this object always in your view, and in your thoughts. Tune yc r tongue early to persuasion; and let no jarring, disson t accents ever fall from it. Contract a habit of speakinj^ ell, upon every occasion, and neglect yourself in no one Eloquence and good breeding, alone, with an exceeding small degree of parts and knowledge, will carry a man a great way; with your parts and knowledge, then, how far will they not carry you ? A.dieu. I. ! ! I f LORD CHESTERFIELD'S LETI'KR XLVIII. Dear Boy, London, January the 8th, O. S. 1750. I HAVE seldom or never written to you upon the subject of Religion and Morality : your own reason, I am persuaded, has given you true notions of both ; they speak best for themselves ; but, if they wanted assistance, you have Mr. Harte at hand, both for precept and example: to your own reason, therefore, and to Mr. Harte, shall I refer you, for the Reality of both ; and confine myself, in this letter, to the decency, the utility, and the necessity of scrupulously preserving the appearances of both. When I say the appearances of religion, I do not mean that you should talk or act like a Missionary, or an Enthusiast, nor that you should take up a controversial cudgel against whoever attacks the sect you are of; this would be both useless, and unbecoming your age : but I mean that you should by no means seem to approve, encourage, or applaud, those libertine notions, which strike at religions equally, and which are the poor threadbare topics of half Wits, and minute Philosophers. Even those who are silly enough to laugh at their jokes are still wise enough to distrust and detest their characters : for, putting moral virtues at the highest, and religion at the lowest, religion must still be allowed to be a collateral security, at least, to Virtue ; and every prudent man will sooner trust to two securities than to one. Whenever, therefore, you happen to be in company with those pretended Esprits fortSy or with thoughtless libertines, who laugh at all religion to show their wit, or disclaim it to complete their riot, let no word or look of yours intimate the least approbation ; on the contrary, let a silent gravity express your dislike : but enter III LETTERS TO HIS SON. 145 • I not into the subject, and decline such unprofitable and indecent controversies. Depend upon this truth, That every man is the worse looked upon, and the less trusted, for being thought to have no religion; in spite of all the pompous and specious epithets he may assume, of Esprit Jort^ Free-thinker, or Moral Philosopher; and a wise Atheist (if such a thing there is) would, for his own interest, and character in this world, pretend to some religion. Your moral character must be not only pure, but, like Caesar's wife, unsuspected. The least speck or blemish upon it is fatal. Nothing degrades and vilifies more, for it excites and unites detestation and contempt. There are, however, wretches in the world profligate enough to explode all notions of moral good and evil ; to maintain that they are merely local, and depend entirely upon the customs and fashions of different countries : nay, there are still, if possible, more unaccountable wre vrie.\. ; I mean those who affect to preach and propagate such absurd and infamous notions, without believing them themselves. These are the devil's hypocrites. Avoid, as much as possible, the com- pany of such people ; who reflect a degree of discredit and infamy upon all who converse with them. But as you may sometimes, by accident, fall into such company, take great care that no complaisance, no good-humour, no warmth of festal mirth, ever make you seem even to acquiesce, much less to approve or applaud, such infamous doctrines. On the other hand, do not debate, nor enter into serious argument, upon a subject so much below it : but content yourself with telling these Apostles^ that you know they are not serious ; that you have a much better opinion of them than they would have you have ; and that you are very sure they would not practise the doctrine they preach. But put your private mark upon them, and shun them for ever afterwards. 642 i 1 ! i !' " ! ' 3 ?■ 'i ^^^wS '■ 1' ■ / H^^Mf r i ■ i! 146 LOJ?J? CHESTERFIELD'S There is nothing so delicate as your Moral character, and nothing which it is your interest so much to preserve pure. Should you be suspected of Injustice, Malignity, Per- fidy, Lying, etc., all the parts and knowledge in the world will never procure you esteem, friendship, or respect. A strange concurrence of circumstances has sometimes raised very bad men to high stations ; but they have been raised like criminals to a pillory, where their persons and their crimes, by being more conspicuous, are only the more known, the mere detested, and the more pelted and insulted. If, in any case whatsoever, affectation and ostentation are pardonable, it is in the case of morality; though, even there, I would not advise you to a pharisaical pomp of virtue. But I will recommend to you a most scrupulous tenderness for your moral character, and the utmost care not to say or do the least thing that may, ever so slightly, taint it Show yourself, upon all occasions, the advocate, the friend, but not the bully, of Virtue. Colonel Chartres, whom you have certainly heard of (who was, I believe^ ':he most notorious blasted rascal in the world, and who had, by all sorts of crimes, amassed immense wealth), was so sensible of the disadvantage of a bad character, that I heard him once say, in his impudent, profligate manner, that though he would not give one farthing for Virtue, he would give ten thousand pounds for a character ; because he should get a hundred thousand pounds by it : whereas he was so blas^^ed that he had no longer an opportunity of cheating people. Is it possible, then, that an honest man can neglect what a wise rogue would purchase so dear ? There is one of the vices above-mentioned, into which people of good education, and, in the main, of good principles, sometimes fall, from mistaken notions of skill, ■ m,- LETTERS TO HIS SON. M7 :ter, and ve pure, ity, Per- [le world pect. A es raised ive been persons I only the elted and Ltion and morality ; Pharisaical )U a most :, and the may, ever asions, the Colonel vho was, I world, and se wealth), •acter, that ;e manner, Virtue, he because hereas he irtunity of an honest irchase so Into which of good IS of skill. dexterity, and self-defence ; I mean Lying : though it is inseparably attended with more infamy and loss than any other. The prudence and necessity of often concealing the truth insensibly seduces people to violate it. It is the only art of mean capacities, and the only refuge of mean spirits. Whereas concealing the truth, upon proper occasions, is as prudent and as innocent, as telling a lie, upon any occasion, is infamous and foolish. I will state you a case in your own department. Suppose you are employed at a foreign Court, and that the Minister of that Court is absurd or impertinent enough to ask you what your instructions are ; will you tell him a lie ; which, as soon as found out, and found out it certainly will be, must destroy your credit, blast your character, and render you useless there ? No. Will you tell him the truth, then, and betray your trust ? As certainly, No. But you will answer, with firmness. That you are surprised at such a question ; that you are persuaded he does not expect an answer to it ; but that, at all events, he certainly will not have one. Such an answer will give him confidence in you \ he will conceive an opinion of your veracity, of which opinion you may afterwards mr\ke very honest and fair advantages. But if, in negotiations, you are looked upon as a liar, and a trickster, no confidence will be placed in you, noth'ng will be communicated to you, and you will be in the situation of a man who has been burnt in the cheek ; and who, from that mark, cannot afterwards get an honest livelihood, if he would, but muKt continue a thief. Lord Bacon very justly makes a distinction between Simulation and Dissimulation ; and allows the latter rather than the former : but still observes, that they are the weaker sort of Politicians who have recourse to either. ] I : I 148 LOI^D CHESTERFIELD'S A man who has strength of mind, and strength of parts, wants neither of them. Certainly (says he) the ablest men that ever were have all had an openness and frank- ness of dealings and a name of certainty and veracity; but then they were like horses well managed ; for they could tell^ passing well^ when to stop^ or turn : and at such times^ when they thought the case indeed required some dissimula- tion^ if then they used it^ it came to pass that the former opinion spread abroad^ of their good faith and clearness of dealing^ made them almost invisible. There are people who indulge themselves in a sort of lying, which they reckon innocent, and which in one sense is so; for it hurts nobody but themselves. This sort of lying is the spurious offspring of vanity, begotten upon folly : these people deal in the marvellous; they have seen some things that never existed; they have seen other things which they never really saw, though they did exist, only because they were thought worth seeing. Has anything remarkable been said or done in any place, or in any company ? they immediately present and declare them- selves eye or ear witnesses of it. They have done feats themselves, unattempted, or at least unperformed, by others. They are always the heroes of their own fables ; and think that they gain consideration, or at least present attention, by it. Whereas, in truth, all they get is ridicule and contempt, not without a good degree of distrust : for one must naturally conclude, that he who will tell any lie from idle vanity, will not scruple telling a greater for interest. Had I really seen anything so very extraordinary as to be almost incredible, I would keep it to myself, rather than, by telling it, give any one body room to doubt for one minute my veracity. It is most certain that the reputation of chastity is not so necessary for a LETTERS TO HIS SON. 149 Df parts, he ablest i frank- city; but hey could ch times^ Us Simula- le former arness of e people lich they o; for it ng is the ly: these 2en some ler things ;xist, only anything or in any are them- one feats rtned, by vn fables; St present IS ridicule trust: for tell any reater for raordinary to myself, room to st certain sary for a woman, as that of veracity is for a man : and with reason : for it is possible for a woman to be virtuous though not strictly chaste; but it is not possible for a man to he virtuous without strict veracity. The slips of the poor women are some times mere bodily frailties; but a lie in a man is a vice of the mind, and of the heart. For God's sake, be scrupulously jealous of the purity of your moral character ; keep it immaculate, unblemished, unsullied; and it will be unsuspected. Defamation and calumny never attack, where there is no weak place ; they magnify, but they do not create. There is a very great ditiference between that purity of character, which I so earnestly recommend to you, and the Stoical gravity and austerity of character, which I do by no means recommend to you. At your age, I would no more wish you to be a Cato, than a Clodius. Be, and be reckoned, a man of pleasure, as well as a man of business. Enjoy this happy and giddy time of yo ir life; shine in the pleasures and in the company of people of your own age. This is all to be done, and indeed only can be done, without the least taint to the purity of your moral cb racter: for those mistaken young fellows, who Uiink to shine by an impious or immoral licentiousness, shine only from their stinking, like corrupted flesh, in the dark. Without this purity, you can have no dignity of character, and without dignity of character it is impossible to rise in the world. Vou must be respectable, if you will be respected. T have known people slattern away their character, Witliout really polluting it; the conse- quence of which has been, that they have become innocently contemptible; their merit has been dimmed, their pretensions unegarded, and all their views defeated. Character must be kept bright, as well as clean. Content m IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) 1.0 I.I 11.25 ISO *^* 2.0 ■UUil m U Hill 1.6 — 6' Va V2 ^}. Hiotographic Sciences Corporation -^^ V qv \ :\ 23 WEST MAIN STREET WEBSTER, N.Y. M5M (716) 872-4503 I! I 150 LORD CHESTERFIELD* S yourself with mediocrity in nothing. In purity of character, and in poHteness of manners, labour to excel all, if you wish to equal many. Adieu. • . . i I I ii i i LETTER XLIX. My dear Friend, London, January the i8th, O. S. 1750. 1 CONSIDER the solid part of your little edifice as so near being finished and completed, that my only remaining care is about the embellishments; and that must now be your principal care too. Adorn yourself with all those graces and accomplishments, which, without solidity, are frivolous ; but without which, solidity is to a great degree useless. Take one man, with a very moderate degree of knowledge, but with a pleasing figure, a prepossessing address, graceful in all that he says and does, polite, liant^ and, in short, adorned with all the lesser talents ; and take another man, with sound sense and profound knowledge, but without the above-mentioned advantages ; the former will not only get the better of the latter, in every pursuit of every kind^ but in truth there will be no sort of competition between them. But can every man acquire these advantages ? I say. Yes, if he please ; supposing he is in a situation, and in circum- stances, to frequent good company. Attention, observa- tion, and imitation, will most infallibly do it. When you see a man, whose first abord strikes you, prepossesses you in his favour, and makes you entertain a good opinion of him, you do not know why ; analyze that abord^ and examine within yourself the several parts that composed it ; and you will generally find it to be the result, the happy LETTERS TO HIS SON. 151 assemblage of modesty unembarrassed, respect without timidity, a genteel but unaffected attitude of body and limbs, an open, cheerful, but unsmirking countenance, and a dress, by no means negligent, and yet not foppish. Copy him, then, not servilely, but as some of the greatest masters of painting have copied others ; insomuch that their copies have been equal to the originals, both as to beauty and freedom. When you see a man, who is universally illowed to shine as an agreeable, well-bred man, and a fine gentle- man (as, for example, the Duke de Nivernois), attend to him, watch him carefully ; observe in what manner he addresses himself to his superiors, how he lives with his equals, and how he treats his inferiors. Mind his turn of conversation, in the several situations of morning visits, the table, and the evening amusements. Imitate, without mimicking him ; and be his duplicate, but not his ape. You will find that he takes care never to say or do anything that can be construed into a slight or a negligence, or that can, in any degree, mortify people's vanity and self-love: on the contrary, you will perceive that he makes people pleayed with him, by making them first pleased with them- selves: he shows respect, regard, esteem, and attention, where they are severally proper ; he sows them with care, and he reaps them in plenty. These amiable accomplishments are all to be acquired by use and imitation ; for we are, in truth, more than half what we are by imitation. The great point is, to choose good models, and to study them with care. People insen- sibly contract, not only the air, the manners, and the vices of those with whom they commonly converse, but their virtues, too, and even their way of thinking. This is so true, that I have known very plain understandings catch a certain degree of wit^ by constantly conversing with those pi ^nW*»^F^~WW 152 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S who had a great deal. Persist, therefore, in keeping the best company, and you will insensibly become like them ; but if you add attention and observation, you will very soon be one of them. This inevitable contagion of company shows you the necessity of keeping the best, and avoiding all other ; for in every one something will stick. You have hitherto, I confess, had very few opportunities of keeping polite compa../. Westminster School is, undoubtedly, the seat of illiberal manners and brutal behaviour. Leipsig, I suppose, is not the seat of refined and elegant manners. Venice, I believe, has done something : Rome, I hope, will do a great deal more; and Paris will, I dare say, do all that you want : always supposing that you frequent the best companies, and in the intention of improving and forming yourself; for without that intention, nothing will do. I here subjoin a list of all those necessary ornamental accomplishments (without which, no man living can either please, or rise in the world), which hitherto I fear you want, and which only require your care and attention to possess. To speak elegantly, whatever language you speak in; without which nobody will hear you with pleasure, and, consequently, you will speak to very little purpose. An agreeable and distinct elocution ; without which nobody will hear you with patience : this everybody may acquire, who is not born with some imperfection in the organs of speech. You are not ; and therefore it is wholly in your power. You need take much less pains for it than Demosthenes did. nv A distinguished politeness of manners and address; which common sense, observation, good company, and imitation, will infallibly give you, if you will accept of it, LETTERS TO HIS SON, 153 A genteel carriage, and graceful motions, with the air of a man of fashion. A good dancing-master, with some care on your part, and some imitation of those who excel, will soon bring this about. To be extremely clean in your person, and perfectly well dressed, according to the fashion, be that what it will. Your negligence of dress, while you were a schoolboy, was pardonable, but would not be so now. Upon the whole, take it for granted, that, without these accomplishments all you know, and all you can do, will avail you very little. Adieu. LETTER L. My dear Friend, London, Fabruary the 5th, O. S. 1750. Very few people are good economists of their Fortune, and still fewer of their Time ; and yet, of the two, the latter is the most precious. I heartily wish you to be a good economist of both ; and you are now of an age to begin to think seriously of these two important articles. Young people are apt to think they have so much time before them, that they may squander what they please of it, and yet have enough left; as very great fortunes have frequently seduced people to a ruinous profusion. Fatal mistakes, always repented of, but always too late ! Old Mr. Lowndes, the faipous Secretary of the Treasury, in the reigns of King William, Queen Anne, and King George the First, used to say, Take can of the pence^ and the pounds will take care of themselves. To this maxim, which he not 1 154 L0R21 CHESTERFIELD'S m 91 I M only preached, but practised, his two grandsons, at this time, owe the very considerable fortunes that he left them. This holds equally true as to time ; and I most earnestly recommend to you the care of those minutes and quarters of hours, in the course of the day, which people think too short to deserve their attention ; and yet, if summed up at the end of the year, would amount to a very considerable portion of time. For example; you are to be at such a place at twelve, by appointment; you go out at eleven, to make two or three visits first ; those persons are not at home: instead of sauntering away that intermediate time at a coffee-house, and possibly alone, return home, write a letter, beforehand, for the ensuing post, or take up a good book, I do not mean Descartes, Mallebranche, Locke, or Newton, by way of dipping, but some book of rational amusement, and detached pieces, as Horace, Boileau, Waller, La Bruyere, etc. This will be so much time saved, and by no means ill employed. Many people lose a great deal of time by reading ; for they read frivolous and idle books, such as the absurd Romances of the two last centuries ; where characters, that never existed, are insipidly displayed, and sentiments, that were never felt, pompously described : the oriental ravings and extravagancies of the Arabian Nights, and Mogul Tales; or the new flimsy brochures that now swarm in France, of Fairy Tales, Reflexions sur le Cceur et i'Esprit^ Mktaphysique de V Amour ^ Analyse des beaux Sentiments; and such sort of idle frivolous stuff, that nourishes and improves the mind just as much as whipped cream would the body. Stick to the best established books in every language ; the celebrated Poets, Historians, Orators, or Philosophers. By these means (to use a city metaphor) you will make fifty per LETTERS TO BIS SON. I5S this left ceni. of that time, of which others do not make above three or four, or probably nothing at all. Many people lose a great deal of their time by laziness ; they loll and yawn in a great chair, tell themselves that they have not time to begin anything then, and that it will do as well another time. This is a most unfortunate disposition, and the greatest obstruction to both knowledge and business. At your age, you have no right nor claim to laziness ; I have, if I please, being emeritus. You are but just listed in the world, and must be active, diligent, inde- fatigable. If ever you propose commanding with dignity, you must serve up to it with diligence. Never put off till to-morrow what you can do to-day. Dispatch is the soul of business ; and nothing contributes more to Dispatch, than Method. Lay down a method for everything, and stick to it inviolably, as far as unexpected incidents may allow. Fix one certain hour and day in the week for your accompts, and keep them together in their proper order ; by which means they will require very little time, and you can never be much cheated. Whatever letters and papers you keep, docket and tie them up in their respective classes, so that you may instantly hive recourse to any one. Lay down a method also for your reading, for which you allot a certain share of your mornings; let it be in a consistent and consecutive course, and not in that desultory and immethodical manner, in which many people read scraps of different authors, upon different subjects. Keep a useful and short common-place book of what you read, to help your memory only, and not for pedantic quotations. Never read History without having maps, and a chronological book, or tables, lying by you, and constantly recurred to ; without which. History is only a confused heap of facts. One method more I 'S6 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S t recommend to you, by which I have found great benefit, even in the most 'lissipated part of my life ; that is, to rise early, and at the same hour every morning, how late soever you may have sat up the night before. This secures you an hour or two, at least, of reading or reflection, before the common interruptions of the morning begin ; and it will save your constitution, by forcing you to go to bed early, at least one night in three. You will say, it may be, as many young people would, that all this order and method is very troublesome, only fit for dull people, and a disagreeable restraint upon the noble spirit and fire of youth. I deny it ; and assert, on the contrary, that it will procure you both more time and more taste for your pleasures ; and so far from being troublesome to you, that after you have pursued it a month it would be troublesome to you to lay it aside. Business whets the appetite, and gives a taste to pleasures, as exercise does to food : and business can never be done without method : it raises the spirits for pleasure ; and a spectacle^ a ball, an assembly, will much more sensibly affect a man who has employed, than a man who has, lost, the preceding part of the day ; nay, I will venture to say, that a fine lady will seem to have more charms to a man of study or business, than to a saunterer. The same listlessness runs through his whole conduct, and he is as insipid in his pleasures as ineflftcient in everything else. I hope you earn your pleasures, and consequently taste them ; for, by the way, I know a great many men, who call themselves Men of Pleasure, but who, in truth, have none. They adopt other people's indiscriminately, but without any taste of their own. I have known them often inflict excesses upon themselves, because they thought them genteel ; though they sat as awkwardly upon them as other U LETTERS TO HIS SON, 157 people's clothes would have done. Have no pleasures but your own, and then you will shine in them. What are yours ? Give me a short history of them. Tenez-vous voire coin d table^ et dans les bonnes compagnies ? y brillez-vous dti coth de la politesse^ de Venjouement^ du badinage f Eies-vous galanti Filez-vous le parfait amour 1 Est-il question de flkchir par vos soins et par vos attentions les rigueurs de quelque jtkre Princesse 1 You may safely trust me \ for, though I am a severe censor of Vice and Folly, I am a friend and advocate for Pleasures, and will contribute all in my power to yours. There is a certain dignity to be kept up in pleasures, as well as in business. In love, a man may lose his heart with dignity ; but if he loses his nose, he loses his character into the bargain. At table, a man may with decency have a distinguishing palate ; but indiscriminate voraciousness degrades him to a glutton. A man may play with decency; but if he games, he is disgraced. Vivacity and wit make a man shine in company ; but trite jokes and loud laughter reduce him to a buffoon. Every virtue, they say, has its kindred vice ; every pleasure, I am sure, has its neighbour- ing disgrace. Mark carefully, therefore, the line that separates them, and rather stop a yard short, than step an inch beyond it. I wish to God that you had as much pleasure in follow- ing my advice, as I have in giving it you ; and you may the easier have it, as I give you none that is inconsistent with your pleasure. In all that I say to you, it is your interest alone thai I consider : trust to my experience ; you know you may to my affection. Adieu. i\ I have received no letter yet, from you or Mr. Harte. I ■t '!t| iS8 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S LETTER LI. My dear Friend, London, February the 8th, O. S. 1750. You have by this time, I hope and believe, made such a progress in the Italian language that you can read it with ease ; I mean the easy books in it : and indeed, in that, as well as in every other language, the easiest books are generally the best; for, whatever author is obscure and difficult, in his own language, certainly does not think clearly. This is, in my opinion, the case of a celebrated Italian author; to whom the Italians, from the admiration they have of him, have given the epithet of il divino ; I mean Dante. Though I formerly knew Italian extremely well, I could never understand him ; for which reason I had done with him, fully convinced that he was not worth the pains necessary to understand him. The good Italian authors are, in my mind, but few; I mean authors of invention; for there are, undoubtedly, very good Historians, and excellent Translators. The two Poets worth your reading, and, I was going to say, the only two, are Tasso and Ariosto. Tasso's Gierusalemme Liberata is altogether unquestionably a fine Poem, though it has some low and many false thoughts in it: and Boileau very justly makes it the mark of a bad taste, to compare le Clinquant du Tasse d rOr de Virgile. The image with which he adorns the introduction of his Epic Poern, is low and disgusting ; it is that of a froward, sick, puking child, who is deceived into a dose of necessary physic by du bon bon. The verses are these : , ' *'Cosi air egro fanciul porgiamo aspersi Di soavi licor gli or 11 del vaso : , . . Succhi amari ingannato intanto ei beve, . , £ dair inganno sua vita riceve. " LETTERS TO HIS SON, 159 m However, the Poem, with all its faults about it, may justly be called a fine one. If fancy, imagination, invention, description, etc., con- stitute a Poet, Ariosto is, unquestionably, a great one. His Orlando, it is true, is a melley of lies and truths, sacred and profane, wars, loves, enchantments, giants, mad heroes, and adventurous damsels : but then, he gives it you very fairly for what it is, and does not pretend to put it upon you for the true Epopke^ or Epic Poem. He says, *' Le Donne, i Cavalier, I'arme, gli amori Le cortesie, I'audaci imprese, io canto." The connections of his stories are admirable, his reflec- tions just, his sneers and ironies incomparable, and his painting excellent. When Angelica, after having wandered over half the world alone with Orlando, pretends, not- withstanding. <( -ch'el fior virginal cosi avea salvo, Come selo port6 dal matem' alvo ; " the Author adds, very gravely, ■ " Forsc era ver, ma non per6 credibile A chi del senso suo fosse Signore." Astolpho's being carried to the moon, by St. John, in order to look for Orlando's lost wits, at the end of the 34th book, and the many lost things that he finds there, is a most happy extravagancy, and contains, at the same time, a great deal of sense. I would advise you to read this Poem with attention. It is, also, the source of half the tales, novels, and plays, that have been written since. The Pastor Fido of Guarini is so celebrated, that you should read it ; but in reading it you will judge of the i6o LORD CHESTERFIELD'S great propriety of the characters. A parcel of shepherds and shepherdesses, with the true pastoral simplicity^ talk metaphysics, epigrams, concetti and quibbles, by the hour, to each other. The Aminta del Tasso is much more what it is intended to be, a Pastoral ; the shepherds, indeed, have their concetti^ and their antitheses, but are not quite so sublime and abstracted as those in Pastor Fido. I think that you will like it much the best of the two. Petrarca is, in my mind, a sing-song love-sick Poet; much admired, however, by the Italians : but an Italian, who should think no better of him than I do, would certainly say, that he deserved his Laura better than his Lauro; and that wretched quibble would be reckoned an excellent piece of Italian wit. The Italian Prose writers (of invention I mean), which I would recommend to your acquaintance, are Machiavello and Bocaccio; the former, for the established reputation which he has acquired, of a consummate Politician (whatever my own private sentiments may be of either his politics or his morality) : the latter, for his great invention, and for his natural and agreeable manner of telling his stories. Guicciardini, Bentivoglio, Divila, etc., are excellent Historians, and deserve being read with attention. The nature of History checks, a little, the flights of Italian imaginations ; which, in works of invention, are very high indeed. Translations curb them still more; and their translations of the Classics are incomparable ; particularly the first ten, translated in the time of Leo the Xth, and inscribed to him, under the title of the Collana. That original Collana has been lengthened since ; and, if I mistake not, consists, now, of one hundred and ten volumes. LETTERS TO HIS SON, i6i :ellent The talian high their ;ularly and That if I ten From what I have said you will easily guess that I meant to put you upon your guard; and not to let your f^Mcy be dazzled and your taste corrupted, by the concetti^ the quaintnesses, and false thoughts, which are too much the characteristics of the Italian and Spanish authors. I think you are in no great danger, as your taste has been formed upon the best ancient models ; the Greek and Latin authors of the best ages, who indulge themselves in none of the puerilities I have hinted at. I think I may say, with truth, that true wit, sound taste, and good sense, are now as it were engrossed by France and England. Your old acquaintances, the Germans, I fear are a little below them ; and your new acquaintances, the Italians, are a great deal too much above them. The former, I doubt, crawl a little ; the latter, I am sure, very often fly out of sight. I recommended to you, a good many years ago, and I believe you then read. La Mani^re de bien penser dans ies Ouvrages d^ Esprit^ par k Pkre Bouhours ; and I think it is very well worth your reading again, now that you can judge of it better. I do not know any book that contributes more to form a true taste ; and you find there, into the bargain, the most celebrated passages, both of the ancients and the moderns; which refresh your memory with what you have formerly read in them separately. It is followed by a book much of the same size, by the same author, entitled. Suite des Pensks ingenieuses. To do justice to the best English and French authors, they have not given in to that false taste; they allow no thoughts to be good that are not just and founded upon \ truth. The Age of Lewis XIV. was very like the Augustan ; Boileau, Moli^re, la Fontaine, Racine, etc., established the true and exposed the false taste. The reign of King Charles II. (meritorious in no other respect) banished 643 l63 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S I ( false taste out of England, and proscribed Puns, Quibbles, Acrostics, etc. Since that, false wit has renewed its attacks, and endeavoured to recover its lost empire, both in England and France, but without success : though, I must say, with more success in France than in England : Addison, Pope, and Swift having vigorously defended the rights of good sense ; which is more than can be said of their contemporary French authors ; who have of late had a great tendency to le faux briliant, le rafinement^ et Ventortillement, And Lord Roscommon would be more in the right now, than he was then, in saying, that •' The English bullion of one sterling line, Drawn to French wire, would through whole pages shine." Lose no time, my dear child, I conjure you, in forming your taste, your manners, your mind, your everything : you have but two years time to do it in ; for, whatever you are, to a certain degree, at twenty, you will be, more or less, all the rest of your life. May it be a long and a happy one ! Adieu. LETTER LIL ti My dear Friend, London, February the 22nd, O. S. 1750. If the Italian of your letter to Lady Chesterfield was all your own, I am very well satisfied with the progress which you have made in that language in so short a time ; accord- ing to that gradation, you will, in a very little time more, be master of it. Except at the French Embassador's, I believe you hear only Italian spoken : for the Italians speak LETTERS TO HIS SON. 163 ibbles, ed its 5, both ugh, I igland : led the said of ate had unt^ et more in ne. forming ng: you you are, less, all one! 1750. was all is which accord- \e. more, idor's, I ks speak very little French, and that little, generally, very ill. The French are even with them, and generally speak Italian as ill ; for I never knew a Frenchman in my life who could pronounce the Italian ce ci^ or ge gi. Your desire of pleas- ing the Roman Ladies will of course give you, not only the desire, but the means, of speaking to them elegantly in their own language. The Princess Borghese, I am told, speaks French both ill and unwillingly; and therefore you should make a merit to her of your application to her language. She is, by a kind of prescription (a longer than she would probably wish) at the head of the beau monde at Rome; and can, consequently, establish or destroy a young fellow's fashionable character. If she declares him amabile e leggiadro^ others will think him so, or, at least, those who do not, will not dare to say so. There are in every great town some such women, whose rank, beauty, and fortune have conspired to place them at the head of the fashion. They have generally been gallant, but within certain decent bounds. Their gallantries have taught, both them and their admirers, good breeding ; without which they could keep up no dignity; but would be vilified by those very gallantries which put them in vogue. It is with these women, as with Ministers and Favourites at Court; they decide upon fashion and characters, as these do on fortunes and preferments. Pay particular court, therefore, wherever you are, to these female sovereigns of the beau monde: their recommendation is a passport through all the realms of politeness. But then, remember that they require minute, officious attentions. You should, if possible, guess at and anticipate all their little fancies and inclinations ; make yourself familiarly and domestically useful to them, by offering yourself for all their little commissions, and assisting in doing the honours of their 41 164 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S ! U ^1 houses, and entering with seeming unction into all their little grievances, bustles, and views ; for they are always busy. If you are once ben ficcato at the Palazzo Borghese, you will soon be in fashion at Rome ; and being in fashion, will soon fashion you ; for that is what you must now think of very seriously. I am sorry that there is no good dancing-master at Rome, to form your exterior air and carriage; which, I doubt, are not the genteelest in the world. But you may, and I hope you will, in the meantime, observe the air and carriage of those who are reckoned to . have the best, and form your own upon them. Ease, gracefulness, and dignity, compose the air and address of a Man of Fashion ; which is as unlike the affected attitudes and motions of a petit mattre^ as it is to the awkward, negligent, clumsy, and slouching manner of a booby. I am extremely pleased with the account Mr. Harte has given me of the allotment of your time at Rome. Those five hours every morning, which you employ in serious studies with Mr. Harte, are laid out with great interest, and will make you rich all the rest of your life. I do not look upon the subsequent morning hours, which you pass with your Cicerone^ to be ill disposed of; there is a kind of con- nection between them : and your evening diversions, in good company, are, in their way, as useful and necessary. This is the way for you to have both weight and lustre in the world ; and this is the object which I always had in view in your education. Adieu, my friend ! Go on and prosper. Mr. Grevenkop has just received Mr. Harte's letter of the 19th, N. S. LETTERS TO HIS SON, 165 LETTER LIII. lOUS and look with con- s, in isary. re in d in My dear Friend, London, April the 26th, O. S. 1750. As your journey to Paris approaches, and as that period will, one way or another, be of infinite consequence to you, my letters will henceforwards be principally calculated for that meridian. You will be left there to your own discre- tion, instead of Mr. Harte's ; and you will allow me, I am sure, to distrust a little the discretion of eighteen. You will find in the Academy a number of young fellows much less discreet than yourself. These will all be your acquaint- ances ; but look about you first and inquire into their respective characters, before you form any connections among them ; and, ccRteris paribus^ single out those of the most considerable rank and family. Show them a dis- tinguishing attention; by which means you will get mto their respective houses, and keep the best company. All those French young fellows are excessively etourdi^ : be upon your guard against scrapes and quarrels : have no corporal pleasantries with them, no jeux de main^ no coups de chambrilre^ which frequently bring on quarrels. Be as lively as they, if you please, but at the same time be a little wiser than they. As to letters, you will find most of them ignorant ; do not reproach them with that ignorance, no^ make them feel your superiority ; it is not their fault they are all bred up for the army ; but, on the other hand, do not allow their ignorance and idleness to break in upon those morning hours which you may be able to allot to your serious studies. No breakfastings with them, which consume a great deal of time ; but tell them (not magisterially and sententiously) that you will read two or three hours in the morning, and that for the rest of the x66 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S day you are very much at their service. Though, by the way, I hope you will keep wiser company in the evenings. I must insist upon your never going to what is called the English coffee-house at Paris, which is the resort of all the scrub Enghsh, and also of the fugitive and attainted Scotch and Irish : party quarrels and drunken squabbles are very frequent there ; and I do not know a more degrading place in all Paris. Coffee-houses and taverns are by no means creditable at Paris. Be cautiously upon your guard against the infinite number of fine-dressed and fine-spoken chevaliers dHndustrie and aventuriers^ which swarm at Paris ; and keep everybody civilly at arm's length, of whose real character or rank you are not previously informed. Mon- sieur le Comte or Monsieur le Chevalier in a handsome laced coat, et irh Men mis^ accosts you at the play, or some other public place; he conceives at first sight an infinite regard for you, he sees that you are a stranger of the first distinction, he offers you his services, and wishes nothing more ardently than to contribute, as far as may be in his little power, to procure you les agrhnens de Paris. He is acquainted with some ladies of condition, qui prtfirent une petite society agrkable^ et des petits soupers aimables d'honnttes genSt au tumulte et d la dissipation de Paris ; and he will with the greatest pleasure imaginable have the honour of introducing you to these ladies of quality. Well, if you were to accept of this kind offer, and go with him, you would find au troisilme a handsome, painted, and p d strumpet, in a tarnished silver or gold second-hand robe; playing a sham party at cards for livres, with three or four sharpers well dressed enough, and dignified by the titles of Marquis, Comte, and Chevalier. The lady receives you in the most polite and gracious manner, and with all those compliments de routine which every French woman has LETTERS TO HIS SON. 167 equally. Though she loves retirement and shuns le grand monde^ yet she confesses herself obliged to the Marquis for having procured for her so inestimable, so accomplished, an acquaintance as yourself; but her concern is how to amuse you, for she never suffers play at her house above a livre ; if you can amuse yourself with that low play till supper, h la bonne heure. Accordingly you sit down to that little play, at which the good company takes care that you shall win fifteen or sixteen livres, which gives them an oppor- tunity of celebrating both your good luck and your good play. Supper comes up, and a good one it is, upon the strength of your being to pay for it. La Marquise en fait les honneurs au mieux^ talks sentiments, mmirs^ et morale ; interlarded with enjouement^ and accompanied with some oblique ogles, which bid you not despair in time. After supper, pharaon, lansquenet, or quinze happen accidently to be mentioned : the Chevalier proposes playing at one of them for half-an-hour ; the Marquise exclaims against it, and vows she will not suffer it, but is at last prevailed upon by being assured que ce ne sera que pour des riens. Then the wished-for moment is come, the operation begins : you are cheated, at best, of all the money in your pocket, and if you stay late, very probably robbed of your watch and snuff- box, possibly murdered for greater security. This, I can assure you, is not an exaggerated but a literal description of what happens every day to some raw and inexperienced stranger at Paris. Remember to receive all these civil gentlemen, who take such a fancy to you at first sight, very coldly, and take care always to be previously engaged, whatever party they propose to you. You may happen sometimes in very great and good companies to meet with some dexterous gentlemen, who may be very desirous, and also very sure, to win your money, if they can but engage n^' '■^m^. ■n i6S LORD CHESTERFIELD'S I you to play with them. Therefore lay it down as an invariable rule never to play with men, but only with women of fashion, at low play, or with women and men mixed. But at the same time, whenever you are asked to play deeper than you would, do not refuse it gravely and sententiously, alleging the folly of staking what would be very inconvenient to one to lose, against what one does not want to win ; but parry those invitations ludicrously, et en badinant. Say that if you were sure to lose, you might possibly play, but that as >ou may as well win, you dread tembarras des richesses ever since you have seen what an incumbrance they were to poor Harlequin, and that there- fore you are determined never to venture the winning above two Louis a day : this sort of light trifling way of declining invitations to vice and folly, is more becoming your age, and at the same time more effectual, than grave philo- sophical refusals. A young fellow who seems to have no will of his own, and who does everything that is asked of him, is called a very good-natured, but at the same time is tho?!ght a very silly, young fellow. Act wisely, upon solid principles, and from true motives, but keep them to your- self, and never talk sententiously. When you are invited to drink, say you wish you could, but that so little makes you both drunk and sick, que lejeu ne vaut pas la chandelle. Pray show great attention, and make your court to Monsieur de la Gu^rinifere ; he is well with Prince Charles, and many people of the first distinction at Paris ; his commendations will raise your character there, not to mention that his favour will be of use to you in the Academy itself. For the reasons which I mentioned to you in my last, I would have you be interne in the Academy for the first six months ; but after that I promise you that you shall have lodgings of your own dans un hotel garni^ if in LETTEkS TO HIS SON, 169 kes lie. to les, his to the >rou for ou in the meantime I hear well of you, and that you frequent, and are esteemed in, the best French companies. You want nothing now, thank God, but exterior advantages, that last polish that tournure du monde^ and those graces, which are so necessary to adorn and give efficacy to the most solid merit. They are only to be acquired in the best companies, and better in the best French companies than in any other. You will not want opportunities, for I shall send you letters that will establish you in the most distinguished companies, not only of the beau monde^ but of the beaux esprits too. Dedicate therefore, I beg of you, that whole year to your own advantage and final improvement, and do not be diverted from those objects by idle dissipations, low seduction, or bad example. After that year, do whatever you please : I will interfere no longer in your conduct. For I am sure both you and I shall be safe then. Adieu. LETTER LIV. My dear Friend, London, April the 30th, O. S. 1750. ' Mr. Harte, who in all his letters gives you some dash of panegyric, told me in his last a thing that pleases me extremely; which was, that at Rome you had constantly preferred the established Italian assemblies to the English conventicles^ set up against them by dissenting English ladies. That shows sense, and that you know what you are sent abroad for. It is of much more consequence to know the Mores multorum hominum than the Urbes. Pray continue this judicious conduct wherever you go, especially at Paris, where, instead of thirty, you will find above three % ■.ft I'M I ^ if I' II m» 170 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S hundred English, herding together, and conversing with no one French body. The life of les Milords Anglois is regularly, or if you will irregularly, this. As soon as they rise, which is very late, they breakfast together, to the utter loss of two good morning hours. Then they go by coachfulls to the Palais, the Invalides, and Notre-Dame ; from thence to the English coffee-house, where they make up their tavern party for dinner. From dinner, where they drink quick, they adjourn in clusters to the play, where they crowd up the stage, drest up in very fine clothes, very ill made by a Scotch or Irish tailor. From the play to the tavern again, where they get very drunk, and where they either quarrel among them- selves, or sally forth, commit some riot in the streets, and are taken up by the watch. Those who do not speak French before they go are sure to learn none there. Their tender vows are addressed to their Irish laundress, unless by chance some itinerant English woman, eloped from her husband, or her creditors, defrauds her of them. Thus they return home, more petulant, but not more informed, than when they left it; and show, as they think, their improvement, by affectedly both speaking and dresshig in broken French. '^_ " Hunc tu Romane caveto." Connect yourself, while you are in France, entirely with the French ; improve yourself with the old, divert yourself with the young ; conform cheerfully to their customs, even to their little follies, but not to their vices. Do not how- ever remonstrate or preach against them, for remonstrances do not suit with your age. In French companies in general you will not find much learning, therefore take care not to brandish yours in their faces. People hate those who make LETTERS TO HIS SON. 171 them feel their own inferiority. Conceal all your learning carefully, and reserve it for the company of les Gens tPEglise^ or les Gens de Robe ; and even then let them rather extort it from you, than find you over-willing to draw it. You are then thought, from that seeming unwillingness, to have still more knowledge than it may be you really have, and with the additional merit of modesty into the bargain. A man wi ; talks of, or even hints at, his bonnes fortunes^ is seldom believed, or if believed, much blamed : whereas a man who conceals with care is often supposed to have more than he has, and his reputation of discretion gets him others. It is just so with a man of learning ; if he affects to show it, it is questioned, and he is reckoned only superficial ; but if afterwards it appears that he really has it, he is pronounced a pedant. Real merit of any kind, ubi est non potest din celari ; it will be discovered, and nothing can depreciate it but a man's exhibiting it himself. It may not always be rewarded as it ought ; but it will always be known. You will in general find the women of the beau monde at Paris more instructed than the men, who are bred up singly for the army, and thrown into it at twelve or thirteen years old \ but then that sort of education, which makes them ignorant of books, gives them a great knowledge of the world, an easy address, and polite manners. Fashion is more tyrannical at Paris than in any other place in the world ; it governs even more absolutely than their King, which is saying a great deal. The least revolt against it is punished by proscription. You must observe j^ and conform to all the minuiies of it, if you will be in ' fashion there yourself; and if you are not in fashion, you are nobody. Get therefore, at all events, into the company of those men and women qui donnent le ton; and though at •i' i ' •> » [ 1 1-''*! m 172 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S first you should be admitted upon that shining theatre only as a persona muta^ persist, persevere, and you will soon have a part given you. Take great care never to tell in one company what you see or hear in another, much less to divert the present company at the expense of the last ; but let discretion and secrecy be known parts of your character. They will carry you much farther, and much safer, than more shining talents. Be upon your guard against quarrels at Paris ; honour is extremely nice there, though the asserting of it is exceedingly penal. Therefore point de mauvaises plaisanterieSy point de jeux de tnain^ et point de raillerie piquante. Paris is the place in the world where, if you please, you may the best unite the utile and the duke. Even your pleasures will be your improvements, if you take them with the people of the place, and in high life. From what you have hitherto done everywhere else, I have just reason to believe that you will do everything you ought at Paris. Remember that it is your decisive moment \ whatever you do there will be known to thousands here, and your character there, whatever it is, will get before you hither. You will meet with it at London. May you and I both have reason to rejoice at that meeting 1 Adieu. ^^ LETTER LV. )>r - -1 -i My dear Friend, London, June the 5th, O. S. 175a I HAVE received your picture, which I have long waited for with impatience; I wanted to see your countenance, from whence I am very apt, as I believe most people LETTERS TO HIS SON. '73 you your ther. both nt 50. aited are, to form some general opinion of the mind. If the painter has taken you as well as he has done Mr. Harte (for his picture is by far the most Hke I ever saw in my Hfip), I draw good conckisions from your countenance, which has both spirit and finesse in it. In bulk you are pretty well increased since I saw you ; if your height is not increased in proportion, I desire that you will make haste to complete it. Seriously, I believe that your exercises at Paris will make you shoot up to a good size ; your legs, by all accounts, seem to promise it. Dancing excepted, the wholesome part is the best part of those academical exercises. lis dbgraissent leur homme. A propos of exercises; I have prepared everything for your reception at Monsieur de la Gu^rinifere's, and your room, etc., will be ready at your arrival. I am sure you must be sensible how much better it will be for you to be interne in the Academy, for the first six or seven months at least, than to be en hotd garni^ at some distance from it, and obliged to go to it every morning, let the weather be what it will, not to mention the loss of time too ; besides, by living and boarding in the Academy, you will make an acquaintance with half the young fellows of fashion at Paris; and in a very little while be looked upon as one of them in all French companies ; an advan- tage that has never yet happened to any one Englishman that I have known. I am sure you do not suppose that the difference of the expense, which is but a trifle, has any weight with me in this resolution. You < have the French language so perfectly, and you will acquire the French tournure so soon, that I do not know anybody likely to pass his time so well at Paris as yourself. Our young countrymen have generally too little French, and too bad address, either to present themselves, or be well A'^ ' ■ik ■•■;i 11 11 174 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S received in the best French companies ; and, as a proof of it, there is no one instance of an Englishman's having ever been suspected of a gallantry with a French woman of condition, though every French woman of condition is more than suspected of having a gallantry. But they take up with the disgraceful and dangerous commerce of prostitutes, actresses, dancing women, and that sort of trash J though, if they had common address, better achieve- ments would be extremely easy. Un arrangement^ which is in plain English a gallantry, is, at Paris, as necessary a part of a woman of fashion's establishment, as her house, table, coach, eic A young fellow must therefore be a very awkward one, to be reduced to, or of a very singular taste, to prefer drabs and danger to a commerce (in the course of the world not disgraceful) with a woman of health, education, and rank. Nothing sinks a young man into low company, both of men and women, so surely as timidity, and diffidence of himself. If he thinks that he shall not, he may depend upon it he will not, please. But with proper endeavours to please, and a degree of persuasion that he shall, it is almost certain that he will. How many people does one meet with everywhere, who with very moderate parts, and very little knowledge, push themselves pretty far, singly by being sanguine, enter- prising, and persevering ? They will take no denial from man or woman; difficulties do not discourage them; repulsed twice or thrice, they rally, they charge again, and nine, times in ten prevail at last. The same means will much sooner, and more certainly, attain the same ends, with your parts and knowledge. You have a fund to be sanguine upon, and good forces to rally. In business (talents supposed) nothing is more effectual, or successful, than a good, though concealed, opinion of one's self, a LETTERS TO HIS SON, t7S proof aving oman dition they rce of DFt of hieve- which essary LS her ore be ngular ;in the lan of ig man •ely as s that please. :ee of e will. ;, who , push enter- from them; again, imeans same fund siness essful, elf, a firm resolution, and an unwearied perseverance. None but madmen attempt impossibilities; and whatever is possible is one way or another to be brought about. If one method fails, try another, and suit your methods to the characters you have to do with. At the treaty of the Pyrenees, which Cardinal Mazarin and Don I.ouis de Haro concluded, dans VIsle des Faisans ; the latter carried some very important points by his constant and cool perseverance. The Cardinal had all the Italian vivacity and impatience ; Don Louis all the Spanish phlegm and tenaciousness. The point which the Cardinal had most at heart was, to hinder the re-establishment of the Prince of Cond^ his implacable enemy; but he was in haste to conclude, and impatient to return to Court, where absence is always dangerous. Don Louis observed this, and never failed at every conference to bring the affair of the Prince of Condd upon the tapis. The Cardinal for some time refused even to treat upon it ; Don Louis, with the same sens froid^ as constantly persisted, till he at last prevailed, contrary to the intentions and the interest both of the Cardinal and of his Court. Sense must distinguish between what is impossible and what is only difficult, and spirit and perseverance will get the better of the latter. Every man is to be had one way or another, and every woman almost any way. I must not omit one thing, which is previously necessary to this, and indeed to everything else ; which is attention, a flexibility of attention ; never to be wholly engrossed by any past or future object, but instantly directed to the present one, be it what it will. An absent man can make but few observations ; and those will be disjointed and imperfect ones, as half the circum- stances must necessarily escape him. He can pursue I m its 176 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S nothing steadily, because his absences make him lose his way. They are very disagreeable, and hardly to be tolerated in old age ; but in youth they cannot be forgiven. If you find that you have the least tendency to them, pray watch yourself very carefully, and you may prevent them now; but if you let them grow into a habit, you will find it very difficult to cure them hereafter; and a worse distemper I do not know. I heard with great satisfaction the other day, from one who has been lately at Rome, that nobody was better received in the best companies than yourself. The same thing, I dare say, will happen to you at Paris ; where they are particularly kind to all strangers, who will be civil to them, and show a desire of pleasing. But they must be flattered a little, not only by words, but by a seeming preference given to their country, their manners, and ihdr customs ; which is but a very small price to pay for a very good reception. Were I in A'"rica, I would pay it to a negro for his good-will. Adieu. ir LETTER LVI. My dear Friend, London, July the 9th, O. S. 1750. I SHOULD not deserve that appellation in return from you, if I did not freely and explicitly inform you of every corrigible defect, which I may either hear of, suspect, or at any time discover in you. Those who in the common course of the world will call themselves your friends, or whom, according to the common notions of friendship, you may possibly think such, will never tell you of your I; their for a )ay it t75o- from every or at imon IS, or Iship, your LETTERS TO HIS SON, 177 faults, still less of your weaknesses. But on the contrary, more desirous to make you their friend than to prove themselves yours, they will flatter both, and, in truth, not be sorry for either. Interiorly, most people enjoy the inferiority of their best friends. The useful and essential part of friendship to you is reserved singly for Mr. Harte and myself; our relations to you stand pure, and un- suspected of all private views. In whatever we say to you, we can have no interest but yours. We can have no competition, no jealousy, no secret envy or malignity. We are therefore authorised to represent, advise, and remonstrate ; and your reason must tell you that you ought to attend to and believe us. I am credibly informed that there is still a considerable hitch or hobble in your enunciation ; and that when you speak fast, you sometimes speak unintelligibly. I have formerly and frequently laid my thoughts before you so fully upon this subject; that I can say nothing new upon it now. I must therefore only repeat, that your whole depends upon it Your trade is to speak well, both in public and in private. The manner of your speaking is full as important as the matter, as more people have ears to be tickled than understandings to judge. Be your pro- ductions ever so good, they will be of no use, if you stifle and strangle them in their birth. The best compositions of Corelli, if ill executed, and played out of tune, instead of touching, as they do when well performed, would only excite the indignation of the hearers, when murdered by an unskilful performer. But to murder your own productions, and that coram populo^ io a Medean cruelty^ which Horace absolutely forbids. Remember of what importance Demos- thenes, and one of the Gracchi, thought enunciation ; read what stress Cicero and Quintilian lay upon it; even the 644 (I 'II jm mi m \H i P ii t' 178 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S I 1 ; herb-women at Athens were correct judges of it. Oratory with all its graces, that of enunciation in particular, is full as necessary in our government, as it ever was in Greece or Rome. No man can make a fortune or a figure in this country, without speaking, and speaking well, in pubhc. If you will persuade, you must first please ; and if you will please, you must tune your voice to harmony ; you must articulate every syllable distinctly ; your emphasis and cadences must be strongly and properly marked ; and the whole together must be graceful and engaging \ if you do not speak in that manner, you had much better not speak at all. All the learning you have, or ever can have, is not worth one groat without it. It may be a comfort and an amusement to you in your closet, but car be of no use to you in the world. Let me conjure you therefore to make this your only object, till you have absolutely conquered it, for that is in your power ; think of nothing else, read and speak for nothing else. Read aloud, though alone, and read articulately and distinctly, as if you were reading in public, and on the most important occasion. Recite pieces of eloquence, declaim scenes of tragedies, to Mr. Harte, as if he were a numerous audience. If there is any particular consonant which you have a difficulty in articulating, as I think you had with the R^ utter it millions and millions of times, till you have uttered it right. Never speak quick, till you have first learned to speak well. In short, lay aside every book and every thought, that does not directly tend to this great object, absolutely decisive of your future fortune and figure. The next thing necessary in your destination is, writing correctly, elegantly, and in a good hand too; in which three particulars, I am sorry to tell you that you hitherto fail. Your hand-writing is a very bad one, and would make Iratory is full :ece or n this ic. If )u will I must s and rid the (^ou do t speak , is not md an > use to > make ered it, ad and •e, and iing in pieces arte, as ticular g, as I ions of quick, aside y tend future writing 1 which itherto make LETTERS TO HIS SON, 179 m a scurvy figure in an office-book of letters, or even in a lady's pocket-book. But that fault is easily cured by care, since every man who has the use of his eyes and of his right hand. As to the correctness ana elegancy of your writing, attention to grammar does the one, and to the best authors the other. In your letter to me of the 27th June, N. S., you omitted the date of the place, so that I only conjectured from the contents that you were at Rome. Thus I have, with the truth and freedom of the tenderest affection, told you all y©ur defects, at least all that I know or have heard of. Thank God they are all very curable, they must be cured, and I am sure you will cure them. That once done, nothing remains for you to acquire, or for me to wish you, but the turn, the manners, the address, and the graces of the polite world j which experience, observation, and good company will insensibly give you. Few people at your age have read, seen, and known so much as you have, and consequently few are so near as yourself to what I call perfection, by which I only mean being very near as well as the best. Far, therefore, from being discouraged by what you still want, what you already have should encourage you to attempt, and convince you that by attempting you will inevitably obtain it. The difficulties which you have sur- mounted were much greater than any you have now to encounter. Till very lately your way has been only through thorns and briers ; the few that now remain are mixed with roses. Pleasure is now the principal remaining part of your education. It will soften and polish your manners \ it will make you pursue and at last overtake the graces. Pleasure is necessarily reciprocal ; no one feels who does not at the I ^\' fv m h^.\ i ill ^11 i8o LORD CHESTERFIELD'S i I ii same time give it. To be pleased, one must please. What pleases you in others, will in general please them in you. Paris is indisputably the seat of the graces ; they will even court you, if you are not too coy. Frequent and observe the best companies there, and you will soon be naturalised among them ; you will soon find how particularly attentive they are to the correctness and elegancy of their language, and to the graces of their enunciation ; they would even call the understanding of a man in question, who should neglect or not know the infinite advantages arising from them. Narrer^ rkiter, dklamer bien^ are serious studies among them, and well deserve to be so everywhere. The conversations even among the women frequently turn upon the elegancies, and minutest delicacies, of the French language. An enjouement^ a gallant turn prevails in all their companies, to women, with whom they neither are, nor pretend to be, in love ; but should you (as may very possibly happen) fall really in love there with some woman of fashion and sense (for I do not suppose you capable of falling in love with a strumpet), and that your rival, without half your parts or knowledge, should get the better of you, merely by dint of manners, enjouement^ badinage^ etc.^ how would you regret not having sufficiently attended to these accomplishments, which you despised as superficial and trifling, but which you would then find of real consequence in the course of the world ! And men, as well as women, are taken by these external graces. Shut up your books, then, now as a business, and open them only as a pleasure : but let the great book of the world be your serious study ; read it over and over, get it by heart, adopt its style, and make it your own. When I cast up your account as it now stands, I rejoice to see the balance so much in your favour ; and that the What n you. 11 even )bserve iralised tentive iguage, d even should g from studies :. The :n upon French ; in all ler are, lay very woman )able of without of you, '^., how these ial and [quence romen, books, ;asure : study ; Jle, and [rejoice lat the LETTERS TO HIS SON, i8i items per contra are so few, and of such a nature that they may be very easily cancelled. By way of debtor and creditor, it stands thus : Creditor, By ' French. Debtor, To English. German. Enunciation. Italian. Manners. Latin. - Greek. Logic. Ethics. History. 'Naturae. Jus- Gentium. Publicum. This, my dear friend, is a very true account, and a very encouraging one for you. A man who owes so little, can clear it off in a very little time, and if he is a prudent man, will ; whereas a man who by long negligence owes a great deal, despairs of ever being able to pay ; and therefore never looks into his accounts at all. When you go to Genoa, pray observe carefully all the environs of it, and view them with somebody who can tell you all the situations and operations of the Austrian army during that famous siege, if it deserves to be called one ; for in reality the town never was besieged, nor had the Austrians any one thing necessary for a siege. If Marquis Centurioni, who was last winter in England, should happen to be there, go to him with my compliments, and he will show you all imaginable civilities. I could have sent you some letters to Florence, but that I knew Mr. Mann would be of more use to you than all of '.I >i' H >^ K ' >|^jJL K P , ' i 1 ■ ; ■ f ■ k -jl ■ ' ■ ^ ' ■*| \ ■'' 'fl I'i' ^ t- m ■ f : pi " , ■' ?i -.1 • i orst and smallest hand I ever saw in my life. I cannot write quite so ill, but it was something like this, pjo-i^ip/y »yifez,^^n^opy^' However, I paid it at a venture ; though I would almost rather lose the money, than that such a signature should be yours. All gentlemen, and all men of business, write their names always in the same way, that their signature may m ■ < , ?! w? i mmmm ■■■■i 19a LOU/} CHESTERFIELD'S be so well known as not to be easily counterfeited ; and they genera iiy sign in rather a larger character than their common hand; whereas your name was in a less, and a worse, than your common writing. This suggested to me the various accidents which may very probably happen to you, while you write so ill. For instance ; if you were to write in such a character to the secretary's office, your letter would immediately be sent to the decipherer, as containing matters of the utmost secrecy, not fit to be trusted to the common character. If you were to write so to an antiquarian, he (knowing you to be a man of learning) would certainly try it by the Runic, Celtic, or Sclavonian alphabet, never suspecting it to be a modern chaiiicter. And if you were to send a poulet to a fine woman in such a hand, she would think that it really came from the poulailler^ which, by-the-by, is the etymology of the word, poulet ; for Henry the Fourth of France used to send billets-doux to his mistresses, by his poulailler^ under pretence of sending them chickens; which gave the name of poultts to those short, but expressive manuscripts. I have often told you that every man who has the use of his eyes and of his hand can write whatever hand he pleases; and it is plain that you can, since you write both the Greek and German characters, which you never learned of a writing-master, extremely well, though your common hand, which you learned of a master, is an exceeding bad and illiberal one, equally unfit for business or common use. I do not desire that you should write the laboured, stiff character of a writing- master: a man of business must write quick and well, and that depends singly upon use. I would therefore advise you to get some very good writing-master at Paris, and apply to it for a month only, which will be sufficient \ LETTERS TO HIS SON, 193 for, upon my word, the writing of a genteel plain hand of business is of much more importance than you think. You will say, it may be, that when you write so very ill, it is because you are in a hurry : to which I answer. Why are you ever in a hurry? a man of sense may be in haste, but can never be in a hurry, because he knows, that whatever he does in a hurry he must necessarily do very ill. He may be in haste to dispatch an affair, but he will take care not to let that haste hinder his doing it we'll. Little minds are in a hurry, when the object proves (as it commonly does) too big for them ; they run, they hare, they puzzle, confound, and perplex themselves ; they want to do everything at once, and never do it at all. But a man of sense takes the time necessary for doing the thing he is about, well; and his haste to dispatch a business, only appears by the continuity of his application to it : he pursues it with a cool steadiness, and finishes it before he begins any other. I own your time is much taken up, and you have a great many d'fferent things to do ; but remember that you had much better do half of them well, and leave the o'lher half undone, than do them all indifferently. Moreover, the few seconds that are saved in the course of the day, by writing ill instead of well, do not amount to an object of time, by any means equivalent to the disgrace or ridicule of writing the scrawl of a common whore. Con- sider, that if your very bad writing could furnish me with matter of ridicule, what will it not do to others, who do not view you in that partial light that I do. There was a Pope, I think it was Pope Chigi, who Was justly ridiculed for his attention to little things, and his inability in great ones ; and therefore called maximus in minimis^ and minimus in maximis. Why? Because he attended to 64s i. %\ I 194 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S Si little things, when he had great ones to do. At this particular period of your life, and at the place you are now in, you have only little things to do ; and you should make it habitual to you to do them well, that they may require no attention from you when you have, as I hope you will have, greater things to mind. Make a good handwriting familiar to you now, that you may hereafter have nothing but your matter to think of, when you have occasion to write to Kings and Ministers. Dance, dress, present yourself habitually well now, that you may have none of those little things to think of hereafter, and which will be all necessary to be done well occasionally, when you will have greater things to do. As I am eternally thinking of everything that can be relative to you, one thing has occurred to me, which I think necessary to mention, in order to prevent the diffi- culties which it might otherwise lay you under : it is this ; as you get more acquaintances at Paris, it will be impossible for you to fiequent your first acquaintances so much as you did, while you had no others. As, for example, at your first dkbut^ I suppose, you were chiefly at Madame Mon- conseiFs, Lady Hervey's, and Madame du Boccage's. Now that you have got so many other houses, you cannot be at theirs so often as you used ; but pray take care not to give them the least reason to think that you neglect or despise them for the sake of new and more dignified and shining acquaintances ; which would be ungrateful and imprudent on your part, and never forgiven on theirs. Call upon them often, though you do not stay with them so long as formerly ; tell them that you are sorry you are obliged to go away, but that you have such and such engagements, with which good breeding obliges you to comply; and insinuate that you would rather stay with I Hi; ! LETTERS TO HIS SON, 195 in be lich I ; diffi- fethis; ssible s you your Mon- tage's, annot e not ct or and and heirs, them u are such lU to with them. In short, take care to make as many personal friends, and as few personal enemies, as possible. I do not mean, by personal friends, intimate and confidential friends, of which no man can hope to have half-a-dozen in the whole course of his life, but I mean friends in the common acceptation of the word, that is, people who speak well of you, and who would rather do you good than harm, consistently with their own interest, and no further. Upon the whole, I recommend to you again and again les gr&ces. Adorned by them, you may, in a manner, do what you please ; it will be approved of : without them, your best qualities will lose half their efficacy. Endeavour to be fashionable among the French, which will soon make you fashionable here. Monsieur de Matignon already calls you le petit Franpis. If you can get that name generally at Paris, it will put you ^ la mode. Adieu, my dear child. LETTER LX. My dear Friend, London, Feb. the 28th, O. S. 1751. This epigram in Martial, '• Non amo te, Sabidi, nee possum dicere quare, Hoc tantum possum dicere, non amo te ; " * has puzzled a great many people ; who cannot conceive how it is possible not to love anybody, and yet not to know the reason why. I think I conceive Martial's meaning very clearly, though the nature of epigram, which is to he short, * " I do not love thee, Dr. Fell ; The reason why, I cannot tell ; But this I'm sure I know full well, ''•' I do not love thee, Dr. Fell."— /^» 1 : 198 _ LORD CHESTERFIELD'S and these lines of Mr. Dryden's will hold to a Minister as well as to a Mistress: " The prostrate lover, when he lowest lies, But stoops to conquer, and but kneels to rise. " In the course of the world, the qualifications of the cameleon are often necessary ; nay, they must be carried a little farther, and exerted a little sooner ; for you should, to a certain degree, take the hue of either the man or the woman that you want, and wish to be upon terms with. A propos^ Have you yet found out at Paris any friendly and hospitable Madame de Lursay, qui veut Men se charger du soin de vous kduquerl And have you had any occasion of representing to her, qu'elle faisoit done des nceuds ? But I ask your pardon, Sir, for the abruptness of the question, and acknowledge that I am meddling with matters that are out of my department. However, in matters of less importance I desire to be, de vos secrets lefidlle dkpositaire. Trust me with the general turn and colour of your amuse- ments at Paris. Is it le fracas du grand monde^ comidieSy balsy opirasy cour^ etc.? Or is it des petites socittks mains briilantes mais pas pour cela moins agrkables ? Where are you the most ktablil Where are you le petit Stanhope? Voyez-vous encore jour d que/que arrangement honn^te? — Have you made many acquaintances among the young Frenchmen who ride at your Academy ; and who are they ? Send me this sort of chit-chat in your letters, which, by-the- by, I wish you would honour me with somewhat oftener. If you frequent any of the myriads of polite Englishmen who infest Paris, who are they ? Have you finished with Abbe Nolet, and are you au fait of all the properties and effects of air ? Were I inclined to quibble, I would say that the effects of air^ at least, are best to be learned of LETTERS TO HIS SOJST, 199 Marcel. If you have quite done with TAbb^ Nolet, ask my friend I'Abb^ Salliei to recommend to you some meagre philomath, to teach you a little geometry and astronomy, not enough to absorb your attention and puzzle your intel- lects, but only enough not to be grossly ignorant of either. I have of late been a sort of an astronome malgrt moi, by bringing last Monday, into the House of Lords, a bill for reforming our present Calendar, and taking the New Style. Upon which occasion I was obliged to talk some astro- nomical jargon, of which I did not understand one word, but got it by heart, and spoke it by rote from a master. I wished that I had known a little more of it myself; and so much I would have you know. But the great and necessary knowledge of all is, to know yourself and others : this knowledge requires great attention and long experi- ence; exert the former, and may you have the latter! Adieu. P.S. — I have this moment received your letters of the 27th February, and the 2nd March, N. S. The seal shall be done as soon as possible. I am glad that you are employed in Lord Albemarle's bureau ; it will teach you, at least, the mechanical part of that business, such as folding, entering, and docketing letters ; for you must not imagine that you are let into th^finfin of the correspondence, nor indeed is it fit that you should at your age. However, use yourself to secrecy as to the letters you either read or write, that in time you may be trusted with secrety very secret^ separatey aparty etc. I am sorry that this business interferes with your riding; I hope it is but seldom; but I insist upon its not interfering with your dancing-master, who is at this time the most useful and necessary of all the masters you have or can have. \\ I ■1"; til IK m lr •i ■ 200 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S LETTER LXI. My dear Friend, London, March the i8th, O. S. 1751. I ACQUAINTED you in a former letter, that I had brought a bill into the House of Lords for correcting and reforming our present calendar, which is the Julian ; and for adopt- ing the Gregorian. I will now give you a more particular account of that affair ; from which reflections will naturally occur to you, that I hope may be useful, and which I fear you have not made. It was notorious that the Julian calendar was erroneous, and had overcharged the solar year with eleven days. Pope Gregory the 13th corrected this error ; his reformed calendar was immediately received by all the Catholic Powers of Europe, and afterwards adopted by all the Protestant ones, except Russia, Sweden, and England. It was not, in my opinion, very honourable for England to remain in a gross and avowed error, especially in such company; the inconveniency of it was likewise felt by all those who had foreign correspondences, whether political or mercantile. I determined, therefore, to attempt the reformation ; I consulted the best lawyers, and the most skilful astronomers, and we cooked up a bill for that purpose. But then my difficulty began : I was to bring in this bill, which was necessarily composed of law jargon and astronomical calculations, to both which I am an utter stranger. However, it was absolutely neces- sary to make the House of Lords think that I knew something of the matter ; and also to make them believe that they knew something of it themselves, which they do not. For my own part, I could just as soon have talked Celtic or Sclavonian to them, as astronomy, and they would have understood me full as well: so I I LETTERS 10 HIS SON, 201 resolved to do better than speak to the purpose, and to plea'je instead of informing them. I gave them, there- fore, only an historical account of calendars, from the Egyptian down to the Gregorian, amusing them now and then with little episodes; but I was particularly attentive to the choice of my words, to the harmony and roundness of my periods, to my elocution, to my action. This succeeded, and ever will succeed ; they thought I informed, because I pleased them : and many of them said that I had made the whole very clear to them ; when, God knows, I had not even attempted it. Lord Macclesfield, who had the greatest share in forming the bill, and who is one of the greatest mathematicians and astronomers in Europe, spoke afterwards with infinite knowledge, and all the clearness that so intricate a matter would admit of; but as his words, his periods, and his utterance were not near so good as mine, the preference was most unani- mously, though most unjustly, given to me. This will ever be the case ; every numerous assembly is tnob^ let the individuals who compose it be what they will. Mere reason and good sense is never to be talked to a mob: their passions, their sentiments, their senses, and their seeming interests, are alone to be applied to. Under- standing they have collectively none ; but they have ears and eyes, which must be flattered and seduced; and this can only be done by eloquence, tuneful periods, graceful action, and all the various parts of oratory. When you come into the House of Commons, if you imagine that speaking plain and unadorned sense and reason will do your business, you will find yourself most grossly mistaken. As a speaker, you will be ranked only according to your eloquence, and by no means according to your matter; everybody knows the matter 1 ;i| :| jr. ii^ 202 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S almost alike, but few can adorn it. I was early convinced of the importance and powers of eloquence; and from that moment I applied myself to it. I resolved not to utter one word, even in common conversation, that should not be the most expressive, and the most elegant, that the language could supply me with for that purpose; by which means I have acquired such ?. certain degree of habitual eloquence, that I must now really take some pains, if I would express myself very inelegantly. I want to inculcate this known truth into you, which you seem by no means to be convinced of yet, That orna- ments are at present your only objects. Your sole business now is to shine, not to weigh. Weight without lustre is lead. You had better talk trifles elegantly, to the most trifling woman, than coarse inelegant sense to the most solid man ; you had better return a dropped fan genteelly, than give a thousand pounds awkwardly; and you had better refuse a favour gracefully, than grant it clumsily. Manner is all, in everything: it is by Manner only that you can please, and consequently rise. All your Greek will never advance you from Secretary to Envoy, or from Envoy to Embassador; but your address, your manner, your air, if good, very probably may. Marcel can be of much more use to you than Aristotle. I would, upon my word, much rather that you had Lord Bolingbroke's style and eloquence, in speaking and writing, than all the learning of the Academy of Sciences, the Royal Society, and the two Universities, united. Having mentioned Lord Bolingbroke's style, which is, undoubtedly, infinitely superior to anybody's, I would have you read his works, which you have, over and over again, with particular attention to his style. Transcribe, imitate, emulate it, if possible : that would be of real use LETTERS TO HIS SON, 203 ', to you in the House of Commons, in negotiations, in conversation; with that, you may justly hope to please, to persuade, to seduce, to impose ; and you will fail in those articles, in proportion as you fall short of it. Upon the whole, lay aside, during your year's residence at Paris, all thoughts of all that dull fellows call solid, and exert your utmost care to acquire what people of fashion call shining. Prenez Vkclat et le brillant d'un galant homtne. Among the commonly called little things, to which you do not attend, your hand-writing is one, which is indeed shamefully bad, and illiberal; it is neither the hand of a man of business, nor of a gentleman, but of a truant school-boy; as soon, therefore, as you have done with Abb^ Nolet, pray get an excellent writing-mast jr, since you think that you cannut teach yourself to write what hand you please, and let him teach you to write a genteel, legible, liberal hand, and quick ; not the hand oi z. procureur^ or a writing-master, but that sort of hand in which the first Commis in foreign bureaus commonly write: for I tell you truly, that were I Lord Albemarle, nothing should remain in my bureau written in your present hand. From hand to arms the transition is natural; is the carriage and motion of your arms so too ? The motion of the arms is the most material part of a man's air, especially in dancing; the feet are not near so material. If a man dances well from the waist upwards, wears his hat well, and moves his head properly, he dances well. Do the women say that you dress well? for that is necessary too for a young fellow. Have you un goiit vif^ or a passion for anybody? I do not ask for whom; an Iphigenia would both give you the desire and teach you the means to please. In a fortnight or three weeks, you will see Sir Charles I 204 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S Hotham at Paris, in his way to Toulouse, where he is to stay a year or two. Pray be very civil to him, but do not carry him into company, except presenting him to Lord Albemarle; for as he is not to stay at Paris above a week, we do not desire that he should taste of that dissipation : you may show him a play and an opera. Adieu, my dear child. LETTER LXII. u Jl My dear Friend, London, May the 6th, O. S. 1751. The best authors are always the severest critics of their own works ; they revise, correct, file, and polish them, till they think they have brought them to perfection. Con- sidering you as my work, I do not look upon myself as a bad author, and am therefore a severt: critic. I examine narrowly into the least inaccuracy or inelegancy, in order to " correct, not to expose them, and that the work may be perfect at last. You are, I know, exceedingly improved in your air, address, and manners, since you have been at Paris; but still there is, I believe, room for further improvement, before you come to that perfection which I have set my heart upon seeing you arrive at : and till that moment I must continue filing and polishing. In a letter that I received by last post, from a friend of yours at Paris, the 't was this paragraph : Sans flatteriie^ fat Vhoniieur de vous assurer que Monsieur Stanhope reussit id au de l^ de ce (pi on attendroit d'une personne de son Age ; il voit trh- bonne compagnie^ et ce petit ton qu'on regardoit d'abord comme un pen decide et un peu brusque^ n^est rien mains que ceia, ■« ff ' LETTERS TO HIS SON. 205 parce qtiil est Veffet de la franchise^ accomp^ignte de la politesse et de la deference, 11 s'etudie d, plaire^ et il y t'eussit. Madame de Puisieux en parloit I'autre jour avec complaisance et inttrH : vous en serez content a tons egards. This is extremely well, and I rejoice at it : one little circum- stance only may, and I hope will, be altered for the better. Take pains to undeceive those who thought ih^ii petit ton un peu dkidk et un pen brusque ; as it is not meant so, let it not appear so. Compose your countenance to an air of gentle- ness and douceur^ use some expressions of diffidence of your own opinion, and deference to other people's ; such as, sHl nicest permis de le dire—je croirois — ne seroit-ce pas plutot comme cela ? Au ?noins fat tout lieu de me defer de moi- m^me: such mitigating, engaging words do by no means weaken your argument ; but, on the contrary, make it more powerful, by making it more pleasing. If it is a quick and hasty manner of speaking that people mistake, pour decide et brusque^ prevent their mistakes for the future, by speaking more deliberately, and taking a softer tone of voice : as in this case you are free from the guilt, be free from the suspicion too. Mankind, as I have often told you, is more governed by appearances than by realities : and, with regard to opinion, one had better be really rough and hard, with the appearance of gentleness and softness, than just the reverse. Few people have penetration enough to discover, attention enough to observe, or even concern enough to examine, beyond the exterior ; they take their notions from the surface, and go no deeper; they commend, as the gentlest and best-natured man in the world, that man who has the most engaging exterior maimer, though possibly they have been but once in his company. An air, a tone of voice, a composure of countenance to mildness and softness, which are all easily acquired, do the business ; It itfrl y !!ll! 't 1 206 ZOm) CHESTERFIELD'S and without further examination, and possibly with the contrary qualities, that man is reckoned the gentlest, the modestest, and the best-natured man alive. Happy the man who, with a certain fund of parts and knowledge, gets acquainted with the world early enough to make it his bubble, at an age when most people are the bubbles of the world ! for that is the common case of youth. They grow wiser when it is too late : and, ashamed and vexed at having been bubbles so long, too often turn knaves at last. Do not therefore trust to appearances and outside yourself, but pay other peop' ^ irith them \ because you may be sure that nine in ten ot mankind do, and ever will, trust to them. This is by no means a criminal or blamable simulation, if not used with an ill intention. I am by no means blam- able in desiring to have other people's good word, good will, and affection, if I do not mean to abuse them. Your heart, I know, is good, your sense is sound, and your knowledge extensive. What then remains for you to do? Nothing, but to adorn those fundamental qualifications with such engaging and captivating manners, softness, and gentleness, as will endear you to those who are able to judge of your real merit, and which always stand in the stead of merit with those who are not. I do not mean by this to recommend to you le fade doucereux^ the insipid softness of a gentle fool : no, assert your own opinion, oppose other people's when wrong ; but let your manner, your air, your terms, and your tone of voice, be soft and gentle, and that easily and naturally, not affectedly. Use palliatives when you contradict ; such as, / may be mistaken^ I am not sure^ but I believe^ I should rather ihink^ etc. Finish any argument or dispute with some little good-humoured pleasantry, to show that you are neither hurt yourself, nor meant to hurt your antagonist ; for an argument, kept up a LETTERS TO HIS SON. 207 ! good while, often occasions a temporary alienation on each side. Pray observe particularly, in those French people who are distinguished by that character, ceite douceur de tnoeurs et de manilres^ which they talk of so much, and value so justly ; see in what it consists ; in mere trifles, and most easy to be acquired, where the heart is really good. Imitate, copy it, till it becomes habitual and easy to you. Without a compliment to you, I take it to be the only thing you now want : nothing will sooner give it you than a real passion, or, at least, un goUt vif^ for some woman of fashion ; and as I suppose that you have either the one or the other by this time, you are consequently in the best schoDl. Besides this, if you were to say to Lady Hervey, Madame Monconseil, or such others as you look upon to be your friends. On dit que fal un certain petit ton trop dkidk et trop brusque^ Vintention pourtant n'y est pas; corrigez-moi, je vous en supplie^ et chatiez-moi meme publique- ment quand vous me trouverez sur le fait. Ne me passez rien^ poussez voire critique jusqu^d Vexch ; un juge aussi iclairk est en droit d^^tre shhre^ et je vous promets que le coupable tdchera de se corriger. Yesterday I had two of your acquaintances to dine with me, Baron B. and his companion Monsieur S. I cannot say of the former, qWil est paitri de grdces; and I would rather advise him to go and settle quietly at home, than to think of improving himself by further travels, Ce tiest pas le bois dont on en fait. His companion is much better, though he has a strong tocco di tedesco. They both spoke well of you, and so far I liked them both. Comment vont nos affaires avec Vaiviable petite Blot? Se prtte-t-elle ^ vos fleuretteSi Hes-vous censk d'Ure sur les rangs ? Madame uu est-elle voire Madame de Lursay^ et fait-elle quelque- fois des nauds ? Seriez vous son Meilcour ? Elle «t, dit on^ ;1- ;,ii 5 1 ! M 2o8 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S de la douceur^ de V esprit ^ des manilres ; il y a h apprendre dans un iel apprentissage, A woman like her, who has always pleased, and often been pleased, can best teach the art of pleasing ; that art, without which ogni fatica ^ vana. Marcel's lectures are no small part of that art ; they are the engaging forerunner of all other accomplishments. Dress is also an article not to be neglected, and I hope you do not neglect it ; it helps in the prernier abord^ which is often decisive. By dress, I mean your clothes being well made, fitting you, in the fashion, and not above it ; your hair well done, and a general cleanliness and spruceness in your person. I hope you take infinite care of your teeth; the consequences of neglecting the mouth ^r^ serious, not only to one's self but to others. In short, my dear child, neglect nothing ; a little more will complete the whole. Adieu ! I have not heard from you these three weeks, which I think a great while. LETTER LXIII. My dear Friend, Greenwich, June the 13th, O. S. 1751. Les bienskances are a most necessary part cf the know- ledge of the world. They consist in the relations of persons, things, time, and place ; good sense points them out, good company perfects them (supposing always an attention and a desire to please), and good policy recom- mends them. "•'' Were you to converse with a King, you ought to be as easy and unembarrassed as with your own valet-de-chambre : but yet every look, word, and action should imply the utmost respect. What would be proper and well bred with- :• LETTERS TO HIS SON. 209 others, much your superiors, would be absurd and ill bred with one so very much so. You must wait till you are spoken to ; you must receive, not give, the subject of con- versation ; and you must even take care that the given subject of such conversation do not lead you into any impropriety. The art would be to carry it, if possible, to some indirect flattery : such as commending those virtues in some other person, in which that Prince either thinks he does or at least would be thought by others to excel. Almost the same precautions are necessary to be used with Ministers, Generals, etc, who expect to be treated with very near the same respect as their masters, and commonly deserve it better. There is, however, this difference, that one may begin the conversation with them, if on their side it should happen to drop, provided one does not carry it to any subject, upon which it is improper either for them to speak or be spoken to. In these two cases, certain atti- tudes and actions would be extremely absurd, because too easy, and consequently disrespectful. As, for instance, if you were to put your arms across in your bosom, twirl your snuff-box, trample with your feet, scratch your head, etc., it would be shockingly ill bred in that company ; and, indeed, not extremely well bred in any other. The great difficulty in those cases, though a very surmountable one by atten- tion and custom, is to join perfect inward ease with perfect outward respect. In mixed companies with your equals (for in mixed com- panies all people are to a certain degree equal) greater ease and liberty are allowed ; but they too have their bounds within biens'eance. There is a social respect necessary: you may start your own subject of conversation with modesty, taking great care, however, de nejaniats parier de cordes dans la maison d^un pendu. Your words, gestures, and attitudes 646 -.fr : Vii 210 LORD CHESTERHELD'S 11 * I. ' > :'!! M:') h|l have a greater degree of latitude, though by no means an unbounded one. You may have your hands in your pockets, take snuff, sit, stand, or occasionally walk, as you like : but I believe you would not think it very bienseant to whistle, put on your hat, loosen your garters or your buckles, lie down upon a couch, or go to bed and welter in an easy- chair. These are negligences and freedoms which one can only take when quite alone : they are injurious to superiors, shocking and offensive to equals, brutal and insulting to inferiors. That easiness of carriage and behaviour, which is exceedingly engaging, widely differs from negligence and inattention, and by no means implies that one may do whatever one pleases ; it only means that one is not to be stiff, formal, embarrassed, disconcerted, and ashamed, like country bumpkins, and people who have never been in good company^ but it requires great attention to, and a scrupulous observation of, les biens'eances : whatever one ought to do is to be done with ease and unconcern ; what- ever is improper must not be done at all. In mixed companies, also, different ages and sexes are to be differ- ently addressed. You would not talk of your pleasures to men of a certain age, gravity, and dignity; they justly expect, from young people, a degree of deference and regard. You should be full as easy with them as with people of your own years : but your manner must be different ; more respect must be implied ; and it is not amiss to insinuate, that from them you expect to learn. It flatters and comforts age, for not being able to take a part in the joy and titter of youth. To women you should always address yourself with great outward respect and attention, whatever you feel inwardly ; their sex is by long prescription entitled to it ; and it is among the duties of bienseance : at the same time that respect is very properly, LETTERS TO HIS SON. 211 and very agreeably, mixed with a degree of enjoiiementy if you have it : but then, that badinage must either directly or indirectly tend to their praise, and even not be liable to a malicious construction to their disadvantage. But here, too, great attention must be had to the difference of age, rank, and situation. A Marechale of fifty must not be played with like a younr^ coquette of fifteen : respect and serious enjouementy if I m^y couple those two words, must be used with the former, and mere badinage^ zeste mhne d'un peu de polissonnerie^ is pardonable with the latter. Another important point of les bienseances^ seldom enough attended to, is, not to run your own present humour and disposition indiscriminately against everybody : but to ob- serve, conform to, and adopt, theirs. For example ; if you happened to be in high good-humour and a flow of spirits, would you go and sing a pont neuf, or cut a caper, to la Mardchale de Coigny, the Pope's Nuncio, or Abb^ Sallier, or to any person of natural gravity and melancholy, or who at that time should be in grief? I believe not: as, on the other hand, I suppose that if you were in low spirits, or real grief, you would not choose to bewail your situation with la petite Blot. If you cannot command your present humour and disposition, single out those to converse with, who happen to be in the humour nearest to your own. Loud laughter is extremely inconsistent with les Men- seancesy as it is only the illiberal and noisy testimony of the joy of the mob, at some very silly thing. A gendeman is often seen, but very seldom heard, to laugh. Nothing is more contrary to les biens'eances than horse-play, or jeux de main of any kind whatever, and ha:^' often very serious, sometimes very fatal, consequences. Romping, struggling, throwing things at one another's head, are the becoming pleasantries of the mob, but degrade a gentleman ; giuoco di « m Mil w Hi 212 LOJ^£> CHESTERFIELD^ S manoy giuoco di villano^ is a very true saying, among the few true sayings of the Italians. Peremptoriness and decision in young people is contraire aux bienseances : they should seem to assert, and always use some softening mitigating expression; such as //7 nCest termis de le dire^ je croirois plutdt^ si fose viexpliquer^ which softens the manner, without giving up, or even weakening, the thing. People of more age and experience expect and are entitled to that degree of deference. There is a bienseance also with regard to people of the lowest degree ; a gentleman observes it with his footman, even wi^h the beggcir in the street. He considers them as objects of compassion, not of insult ; he speaks to neither dhin ton brusque, but corrects the one coolly, and refuses the other with humanity. There is no one occasion in the world, in which le ton brusque is becoming a gentleman. In short, les bienseances are another word for manners ^ and extend to every part of life. They are propriety; the Graces should attend in order to complete them : the Graces enable us to do, genteelly and pleasingly, what les bienseances require to be done at all. The latter are an obligation upon every man ; the former are an infinite advantage and ornament to any man. May you unite both! Though you dance well, do not think that you dance well enough, and consequently not enrieavour to dance still better. And though you should be told that you are genteel, still aim at being genteeler. If Marcel should, do not you, be satisfied. Go on, court the Graces all your lifetime ; you will find no better triends at Court : they w'li speak in your favour, to the hearts of Princes, Ministers, and Mistresses. Now that all tumultuous passions and quick sensations ji • *V LETTERS TO HIS SON, 213 have subsided with me, and that I have no tormenting cares nor boisterous pleasures to agitate me, my greatest joy is to consider the fair prospect you have before you, and to hope and believe you will enjoy it. You are already in the world, at an age when others have hardly heard of it. Your character is hitherto not only unblemished in its moral part, but even unsullied by any low, dirty, and ungentlemanlike vice ; and will, I hope, continue so. Your knowledge is sound, extensive, and avowed, especially in everything relative to your destination. With such mate- rials to begin with, what then is wanting ? Not fortune, as you have found by experience. You have had, and shall have, fortune sufficient to assist your merit and your indus- try ; and, if I can help it, you never shall have enough to make you negligent of either. You have, too, ^nens sana in corpore sano^ the greatest blessing of all. All therefore that you want is as much in your power to acquire, as to eat your breakfast when set before you : it is only that know- ledge of the world, that elegancy of manners, that universal politeness, and those graces, which keeping good company, and seeing variety of places and characters, must inevitably, with the least attention on your part, give you. Your foreign destination leads to the greatest things, and your parliamentary situation will facilitate your progress ; con- sider, then, this pleasing prospect as attentively for yourself, as I consider it for you. Labour on your part to realise it, as I will on mine to assist and enable you to do it. Nullum numen abest^ si sit prudentia. Adieu ! my dear child. I count the days till I have the pleasure of seeing you : I shall soon count the hours, and at last the minutes, with increasing impatience. A ■\: % . V- P.S. — The mohairs are this day gone from hence for 214 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S Calais ; recommended to the care of Madame Morel, and directed, as desired, to the Comptroller-General. The three pieces come to six hundred and eighty French livres. LETTER LXIV. My dear Friend, London, June 24th, O. S. 1751. Air, address, manners, and graces are of such infinite advantage to whoever has them, and so peculiarly and essentially necessary for you, that now, as the time of our meeting draws near, I tremble for fear I should not find you possessed of them ; and, to tell you the truth, I doubt you are not yet sufficiently convinced of their importance. There is, for instance, your intimate friend Mr. H , who, with great merit, deep knowledge, and a thousand good qualities, will never make a figure in the world while he lives : Why ? Merely for want of those external and showish accomplishments, which he began the world too late to acquire ; and which, with his studious and philo- sophical turn, I believe he thinks are not worth his attention. He may, very probably, make a figure in the republic of letters ; but he had ten thousand times better make a figure as a man of the world and of business in the republic of the United Provinces, which, take my word for it, he never will. As I open myself, without the least reserve, whenever I think that my doing so can be of any use to you, T will give you a short account of myself when I first came into the world, which was at the age you are of now, so that (by the way) you have got the start gf nie in that important article LETTERS TO HIS SON. 215 :f by two or three years at least. At nineteen, I left the university of Cambridge, where I was an absolute pedant : 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 without thoughts of wearing the toga virilis of the Romans, instead of the vulgar and illiberal dress of the moderns. With these excellent notions, I went first to the Hague, where, by the help of several letters of recommendation, I was soon introduced into all the best company; and where I very soon discovered that I was totally mistaken in almost every one notion I had entertained. Fortunately, I had a strong desire to please (the mixed result of good nature and a vanity by no means blamable), and was sensible that I had nothing but the desire. I therefore resolved, if possible, to acquire the means too. I studied attentively and minutely the dress, the air, the manner, the address, and the turn of conversation of all those whom I found to be the people in fashion, and most generally allowed to please. I imitated them as well as I could ; if I heard that one man was reckoned remarkably genteel, I carefully watched his dress, motions, and attitudes, and formed my own upon them. When I heard of another, whose conversation was agreeable and engaging, I listened and attended to the turn of it. I addressed myself, though de trh-mauvaise grace ^ to all the most fashionable fine ladies ; confessed, and laughed with them at my own awkwardness and rawness, recom- mending myself as an object for them to try their skill in forming. By these means, and with a passionate desire of pleasing everybody, I came by degrees to please some ^ and, 2l6 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S I can assure you, that what little figure I have made in the world, has been much more owing to that passionate desire I had of pleasing universally than to any intrinsic merit or sound knowledge I might ever have been master of. My passion for pleasing was so strong (and I am very glad it was so) that I own to you fairly, I wished to make every woman I saw in love with me, and every man I met with admire me. Without this passion for the object, I should never have been so attentive to the means; and I own I cannot conceive how it is possible for any man of good nature and good sense to be without this passion. Does not good nature incline us to please all those we converse with, of whatever rank or station they may be ? And does not good sense and common observation show of what infinite use it is to please ? Oh ! but one may please by the good qualities of the heart, and the knowledge of the head, without that fashionable air, address, and manner, which is mere tinsel. I deny it. A man may be esteemed and respected, but I defy him to please without them. More- over, at your age, I would not have contented myself with barely pleasing; I wanted to shine, and to distinguish myself in the world as a man of fashion and gallantry, as well as business. And that ambition or vanity, call it what you please, was a right one ; it hurt nobody, and made me exert whatever talents I had. It is the spring of a thousand right and good things. I was talking you over the other day with one very much your friend, and who had often been with you, both at Paris and in Italy. Among the innumerable questions, which you may be sure I asked him concerning you, I happened to mention your dress (for, to say the truth, it was the only thing of which I thought him a competent judge), upon which he said that you dressed tolerably well at Paris ; but \ LETTERS TO HIS SON, 217 as that in Italy you dressed so ill, that he used to joke with you upon it, and even to tear your clothes. Now, I must tell you, that at your age it is as ridiculous not to be very well dressed, as at my age it would be if I were to wear a white feather and red-heeled shoes. Dress is one of the various ingredients that contribute to the art of pleasing ; it pleases the eyes at least, and more especially of women. Address yourself to the senses, if you would please ; dazzle the eyes, soothe and flatter the ears, of mankind ; engage their heart, and let their reason do its worst against you. Suaviter in modo is the great secret. Whenever you find yourself engaged insensibly in favour of anybody, of no superior merits nor distinguished talents, examine, and see what it is that has made those impressions upon you : you will find it to be that douceur^ that gentleness of manners, that air and address, which I have so often recommended to you; and from thence draw this obvious conclusion, that what pleases you in them will please others in you ; for we are all made of the same clay, though some of the lumps are a little finer, and some a little coarser ; but, in general, the surest way to judge of others is to examine and analyse one's self thoroughly. When we meet I will assist you in that analysis, in which every man wants some assistance against his own self-love. Adieu. you d to only pon but LETTER LXV. My dear Friend, Greenwich, July the iSth, O. S. 1751. As this is the last, or the last letter but one, that I think I shall write before I have the pleasure of seeing you here, it plaint. I remember a gentleman, who had read History in this thoughtless and undistinguishing manner, and who, having travelled, had gone through the Valteline. He told me tha it was a miserable, poor country, and therefore it was, surely, a great error in Cardinal Richelieu, to make such a rout, and put France to so much expense about it. Had my friend read History as he ought to have done, he would have known that the great object of that great Minister was to reduce the power of the house of Austria ; and, in order 647 ?H r*\ 226 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S to that, to cut off as much as he could the communication between the several parts of their then extensive dominions ; which reflections would have justified the Cardinal to him in the affair of the Valteline. But it was easier to him to remember facts, than to combine and reflect. One observation I hope you will make in reading History, for it is an obvious and a true one. It is, That more people havf made great figures nd -^al fortunes in Courts, by their exterior accoaiplishu -s. •^han by their interior quali- fications. Their engaging .idditi!*, the politeness of their manners, their air, their turn, hath aii.iost alway paved the way for their superior abilities, if they have such to exert themselves. They have been Favourites before they have been Ministers. In courts a universal gentleness and douceur dans les manures is most absolutely necessary : an offended fool, or a slighted valet de chambrCt may very possibly do you more hurt at Court, than ten men of merit can do you good. Fools, and low people, are always jealous of their dignity, and never forget nor forgive what they reckon a slight. On the other hand, they take civility, and a little attention, as a favour ; remeirsber, and acknow- ledge it : this, in my mind, is buying them cheap ; and, therefore, they are worth buying. The Prince himself, who is rarely the shining genius of his Court, esteems you only by hearsay, but likes you by his senses ; that is, from your air, your politeness, and your manner of addressing him ; of which alone he is a judge. There is a Court garment, as well as a wedding garment, without which you will not be received. That garment is the volto sciolto ; an imposing air, an elegant politeness, easy and engaging manners, universal attention, an insinuating gentleness, and all those je ne sa/s quoi that compose the Graces. I am thi? moment disagreeably interrupted by a letter; ■ LETTERS TO HIS SON. 227 I not from you, as I expected, but from a friend of yours at Par''^, who informs me that you have a fever, which confines you at heme. Since you have a fever, I am glad you have prudence enough with it, to stay at home, and take care of yourself; a little more prudence might probably have prevented it. Your biood is young, and consequently hot ; and you r.atuially make a great deal, by your good stomach and good digestion; you should therefore necessarily attenuate and cool it, from time to time, by gentle purges or by a very low diet, for two or three days together, if you would avoid fevers. — Lord Bacon, who was a y y "^eat physician, in both senses of the word, hath this ayhor^ \ in his Essay upon Health, Nihil magis ad sanita>'e,iv hibuit quatn crebra et domesticcR purgationes. By dome ictB, he means those simple uncompounded purgativeSj hith every- body can administer to themselves; such as senna tea, stewed prunes and senna, chewing a little rhubarb or dissolving an ounce and a half of manna in fair water, with the juice of half a lemon to make it palatable. Such gentle and unconfining evacuations would certainly prevent those feverish attacks, to which everybody at your age is subject By the way, I do desire and insist, that whenever, from any indisposition, you are not able to write to me upon the fixed days, that Christian shall ; and give me a true account how you are. I do not expect from him the Ciceronian epistolary style; but I will content myself with the Swiss simplicity and truth. I hope you extend your acquaintance at Paris, and frequent variety of companies; tb*^ only way of knowing the world : every set of company differs in some particulars from another ; and a man of business must, in the course of his life, have to do with all sorts. It is a very great advan- tage to know the languages of the several countries one rl I'M 228 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S III travels in ; and different companies may, in some degree, be considered as different countries : each hath its distinctive language, customs, and manners; know them all, and you will wonder at none. Adieu, child. Take care of your health ; there are no pleasures without it. LETTER LXVIII. My dear Friend, London, March the Sth, O. S. 1752. As I have received no letter from you by the usual post, I am uneasy upon account of your health; for, had you been well, I am sure you would have written, according to your engagement, and my requisition. You have not the least notion of any care of your health : but, though I would not have you be a valetudinarian, I must tell you, that the best and most robust health requires some degree of atten- tion to preserve. Young fel-ows, thinking they have so much health and time before them, are very apt to neglect or lavish both, and beggar themselves before they are aware : whereas a prudent economy in both, would make them rich indeed ; and so far from breaking in upon their pleasures, would improve and almost perpetuate them. Be you wiser ; and, before it is too late, manage both with care and frugality; and lay out neither, but upon good interest and security. I will now confine myself to the employment of your time, which, though I have often touched upon formerly, is a subject that, from its importance, will bear repetition. You have, it is true, a great deal of time before you ; but, \^S'l^:4 LETTERS TO HIS SON, 229 no IS in this period of your life, one hour usefully employed may be worth more than four-and-twenty hereafter ; a minute is precious to you now, whole days may possibly not be so forty years hence. Whatever time you allow or can snatch for serious reading (I say snatch, because company, and the knowledge of the world, is now your chief object), employ it in the reading of some one book, and that a good one, till you have finished it : and do not distract your mind with various matters at the same time. In this light I would recommend to you to read ioute de suite Grotius de Jure Belli et Pacis^ translated by Barbeyrac, and Puffen- dorf's Jus Gentium^ translated by the same hand. For accidental quarters of hours, read works of invention, wit, and humour, of the best, and not of trivial, authors, either ancient or modern. , Whatever business you have, do it the first moment you can ; never by halves, but finish it without interruption, if possible. Business must not be sauntered and trifled with; and you must not say to it, as Felix did to Paul, "at a more convenient season I will speak to thee." The most convenient season for business is the first ; but study and business, in some measure, point out their own times to a man of sense ; time is much oftener squandered away in the wrong choice and improper methods of amusement and pleabv^res. Many people think that they are in pleasures, provided they are neither in study nor in business. Nothing like it ; they are doing nothing, and might just as well be asleep. They contract habitudes from laziness, and they only frequent those places where they are free from all restraints and attentions. Be upon your guard against this idle profusion of time : and let every place you go to be either the scene of quick and lively pleasures, or the school of ii( 11 230 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S your improvements : let every company you go into, either gratify your senses, extend your knowledge, or refine your manners. Have some decent object of gallantry in view at some places ; frequent others, where people of wit and taste assemble ; get into others, where people of superior rank and dignity command respect and attention from the rest of the company; but pray frequent no neutral places, from mere idleness and indolence. Nothing forms a young man so much as being used to keep respectable and superior company, where a constant regard and attention is neces- sary. It is true, this is at first a disagreeable state of restraint; but it soon grows habitual, and consequently easy ; and you are amply paid for it, by the improvement you make, and the credit it gives you. What you said some time ago was very true, concerning le Palais Royal ; to one of your age the situation is disagreeable enough ; you cannot expect to be much taken notice of ; but all that time you can take notice of others ; observe their manners, decipher their characters, and insensibly you will become one of the company. All this I went through myself, when I was of your age. I have sat hours in company, without being taken the least notice of; but then I took notice of them, and learned, in their company, how to behave myself better in the next, till by degrees I became part of the best companies myself. But I took great care not to lavish away my time in those companies, where there were neither quick pleasures nor useful improvements to be expected. Sloth, indolence, and mollesse are pernicious and unbe- coming a young fellow; let them be your ressource forty years hence at soonest. Determine, at all events and however disagreeable it may be to you in some respects, and for some time, to keep the most distinguished and LETTERS TO HIS SON. 231 fashionable company of the place you are at, either for their rank, or for their learning, or U bel esprit et le ^otit. This gives you credentials to the best companies, wherever you go afterwards. Pray, therefore, no indolence, no laziness \ but employ every minute of your life in active pleasures or useful employments. Address yourself to some woman of fashion and beauty, wherever you are, and try how far that will go. If the place be not secured beforehand, and garrisoned, nine times in ten you will take it. By attentions and respect, you may always get into the highest company; and by some admiration and applause, whether merited or not, you may be sure of being welcome among les savants et ies beaux esprits. There are but these three sorts of company for a young fellow; there being neither pleasure nor profit in any other. My uneasiness with regard to your health, is this moment removed by your letter of the 8th, N. S., which, by what accident I do not know, I did not receive before. I long to read Voltaire's Rome Sauve'e^ which, by the very faults that your severe critics find with it, I am sure I shall like ; for I will, at any time, give up a good deal of regularity for a great deal of brillant ; and for the brillanty surely nobody is equal to Voltaire. Catiline's conspiracy is an unhappy subject for a tragedy; it is too single, and gives no opportunity to the poet to excite any of the tender passions ; the whole is one intended act of horror. Cr^billon was st nsible of this defect, and to create another interest, most absurdly made Catiline in love with Cicero's daughter, and her with him. I am very glad you went to Versailles, and dined vi'ith Monsieur de St. Contest. That is company to learn ies bonnes manieres in; and it seems you had ks bons morcetux into the bargain. Though you were no part of the King -ill 232 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S i. 1 ■; X ■ 1 ■ ■V 1 1 i ! 1 i *■ * ' y 4- '" '' ; : 1 i 1 ■*f- E 1 i 1 of France's conversation with the foreign ministers, and probably not much entertained with it ; do you think that this is not very useful to you to hear it, and to observe the turn and manners of people of that sort ? It is extremely useful to know it well. The same in the next rank of people, such as ministers of state, etc., in whose company, though you cannot yet, at your age, bear a part, and consequently be diverted, you will observe and learn, what hereafter it may be necessarv for you to act. Tell Sir John Lambert that I have this day fixed Mr. Spencer's having his credit upon him ; Mr. Hoare had also recommended him. I believe Mr. Spencer will set out next month for some place in France, but not Paris. I am sure he wants a great deal of France, for at present he is most entirely English ; and you know very well what I think of that. And so we bid you heartily good-night. LETTER LXIX. My dear Friend, London, April the 13th, O. S. 1752. I RECEIVED this moment your letter of the 19th, N. S., with the enclosed pieces relative to the present dispute between the King and the Parliament. I shall return them by Lord Huntingdon, whom you will soon see at Paris, and who will likewise carry you the piece, which I forgot in making up the packet I sent you by the Spanish Ambassador. The representation of the Parliament i very well drawn, suavitlr in modo, foriitlr in re. They tell the King very respectfully, that in a certain case, ivhich they should think it crimi?ial to suppose^ they would not obey him. <- : -J LETTERS TO HIS SOJST. ^^i 52. S, Ipute ;hem 'aris, •rgot >nish jvery the \they lim. This hath a tendency to what we call here revolution principles. I do not know what the Lord's anointed, his vicegerent upon earth, divinely appointed by him, and accountable to none but him for his actions, will either think or do, upon these symptoms of reason and good sense, which seem to be breaking out all over France ; but this I foresee, that before the end of this century, the trade of both King and Priest will not be half so good a one as it has been. Du Clos, in his reflections, hath observed, and very truly, quHl y a un germe de raison qui commence d se ckvelopper en France. A dtveloppement that must prove fatal to Regal and Papal pretensions. Prudence may, in many cases, recommend an occasional submission to either; but when that ignorance, upon which an implicit faith in both could only be founded, is once removed, God's Vicegerent, and Christ's Vicar, will only be obeyed and believed, as far as what the one orders, and the other says, is conformable to reason and to truth. I am very glad (to use a vulgar expression) that you make as if you were not well, though you really are ; I am sure it is the likehest way to keep so. Pray leave off entirely your greasy, heavy pastry, fat creams, and indigestible dumplings; and then you need not confine yourself to white meats, which I do not take to be one jot wholesomer than beef, mutton, and partridge. Voltaire sent me from Berlin his History du Sihle de Louis XIV. It came at a very proper time; Lord Bolingbroke had just taught me how History should be read; Voltaire shows me how it should be written. I am sensible that it will meet with almost as many critics as readers. Voltaire must be criticised : besides, every man's favourite is attacked; for every prejudice is exposed, and our prejudices are our mistresses : reason is at best our :l 234 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S wife, very often heard indeed, but seldom minded. It is the history of the human understanding, written by a man of parts, for the use of men of parts. Weak minds will not like it, even though they do not understand it ; which is commonly the measure of their admiration. Dull ones will want those minute and uninteresting details, with which most other histories are encumbered. He tells me all I want to know, and nothing more. His reflections are short, just, and produce others in his readers. Free from religious, philosophical, political, and national prejudices, beyond any historian I ever met with, he relates all those matters as truly and as impartially as certain regards, which must always be to some degree observed, will allow him : for one sees plainly, that he often says much less than he would say, if he might. He hath made me much better acquainted with the times of Lewis XIV. than the innumer- able volumes which I had read could do ; and hath sug- gested this reflection to me, which I had never made before — His vanity, not his knowledge, made him encourage all, and introduce many arts and sciences in his country. He opened in a manner the human understanding in France, and brought it to its utmost perfection ; his age equalled in all, and greatly exceeded in many things (pardon me, pedants !) the Augustan. This was great and rapid ; but still it might be done, by the encouragement, the applause, and the rewards of a vain, liberal, and magnificent Prince. What is much more surprising, is, that he stopped the operations of the human mind, just where he pleased ; and seemed to say, " thus far shalt thou go, and no farther." For, a bigot to his religion, and jealous of his power, free and rational thoughts upon either never entered into a French head during his reign ; and the greatest geniuses that ever any age produced never entertained a doubt of the It is I man ill not lich is ss will which all I short, from idices, those which J him : han he better lumer- th sug- before ge all, He ranee, led in In me, ; but ilause, rince. ;d the and Irther." r, free nto a miuses of the n LETTERS TO HIS SON, 235 divine right of Kings, or the infallibility of the Church. Poets, Orators, and Philosophers, ignorant of their natural rights, cherished their chains ; and blind active faith triumphed, in those great minds, over silent and passive reason. The reverse of this ^eems now to bu he case in France: reason opens itself; fancy and invention fade and decline. I will send you a copy of this history by Lord Hunting- don, as I think it very probable that it is not allowed to be published and sold at Paris. Pray read it more than once, and with attention, particularly the second volume ; which contains short but very clear accounts of many very interesting things, which are talked of by everybody, though fairly understood by very few. There are two very puerile affectations, which I wish this book had been free from; the one is, the total subversion of all the old-established French orthography; the other is, the not making use of any one capital letter throughout the whole book, except at the beginning of a paragraph. It offends my eyes to see rome, paris, france, caesar, henry the 4th, etc., begin with small letters ; and I do not conceive that there can be any reason for doing it half so strong as the reason of long usage is to the contrary. This is an affectation below Voltaire ; whom I am not ashamed to say that I admire and delight in, as an author, equally in prose and in verse. I had a letter, a few days ago, from Monsieur du Boccage; in which he says, Monsuur Stanhope s'est jette da?:.^ la politique^ ct je crois qu'il y riussira : you do very well, it is your destination ; but remember, that, to succeed in great things, one must first learn to please in little ones.' Engaging manners and address must prepare the way for superior knowledge and abilities to act with effect. The late Duke of Marlborough's manners and address prevailed > \m 236 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S ill with the first King of Prussia, to let his troops remain in the army of the allies ; when neither their representations, nor his own share in the common cause, could do it. The Duke of Marlborough had no new matter to urge to him ; but had a manner, which he could not, and did not, resist. Voltaire, among a thousand little delicate strokes of that kind, says of the Duke de la Feuillade, quHl Hoit Vhomtnt le plus brillant et le plus aimable du Royaume^ et quoique gendre du Gtnhal et Minis tre^ il avoit pour lui la faveur publiquc. Various little circumstances of that sort will often make a man of great real merit be hated, if he hath not address and manners to make him be loved. Consider all your own circumstances seriously ; and you will find that, of all arts, the art of pleasing is the most necessary for you to study and possess. A silly tyrant said, oderint modo timeant : a wise man would have said, modo ament nihil timendum est mihi. Judge, from your own daily experience, of the efficacy of that pleasing je ne sais quoi^ when you feel, as you and everybody certainly do, that in men it is more engaging than knowledge, in women than beauty. I long to see Lord and Lady (who are not yet arrived), because they have lately seen you ; and I always fancy that I can fish out something new concerning you from those who have seen you last : not that I sliall much rely upon their accounts, because I distrust the judgment of Lord and Lady ^ in those matters about which I am most inquisitive. They have ruined their own son, by what they called and thought loving him. They have made him believe that the world was made for him, not he for the world , ,(nd unless he stays abroad a great while, and falls into very g k i cc ipany, he will expect, what he will never find, the a*^tent'on? and complaisance from others, which he h,.; h i-her.o becii used to from Papa and Mamma. am in ations, The D him ; resist. 3f that mme le gendre 'iblique. make a ess and ur own ill arts, o study meant : \dum est of the feel, as s more lot yet always .ng you |1 much lent of I am ion, by |e made for the id falls II never which [amma. LETTERS TO HIS SON. 237 This, I fear, is too much the case of Mr. ; who, I doubt, will be run through the body, and be near dying, before he 1 nows how to live. However you may turn out, you can never make me any of these reproaches. I indulged no silly womanish fondness for you : instead of inflicting my tenderness upon you, I have taken all possible methods to make you deserve it ; and thank God you do ; at least, I know but one article in which you are different from what I could wish you ; and you very well know what that is. I want that I and all the world should like you, as well as I love vou. Adieu. LETTER I.XX. My dear Friend, London, April the 30th, O. S. 1752. Avoir du monde is, in my opinion, a very just and happy expression, for having address, manners, and for knowing how to behave properly in all companies ; and it implies, very truly, that a man that hath not these accom] 'ish- ments is not of the world. Without them, the best rts are inefficient, civility is absurd, and freedom offensiv A learned parson, rusting in his cell at Oxford or Cambridge, will reason admirably well upon the nature of mai will profoundly analyse the head, the heart, the ren^on, the will, the passions, the senses, the sentiments, and : those sub-divisions of we know not what j and yet, unfortunately, he knows nothing of man : for he hath not lived with him; and is ignorant of all the various modes, habits, prejudices, and tastes, that always influence, and often determine him. He views man as he does colours in I Kiii irn 11 I 1 A- f i ' 1 238 ZOI^I? CHESTERFIELD'S Sir Isaac Newton's prism, where only the capital ones are seen; but an experienced dyer knows all their various shades and gradations, together with the result of their several mixtures. Few men are of one plain, decided colour; most are mixed, shaded, and blended; and vary as much, from different situations, as changeable silks do from different lights. The man qui a du monde knows all this from his own experience and observation : the conceited, cloistered philosopher knows nothing of it from his own theory; his practice is absurd and improper; and he acts as awkwardly as a man would dance, who had never seen others dance, nor learned of a dancing- master; but who had only studied the notes by which dances are now pricked down, as well as tunes. Observe and imitate, then, the address, the arts, and the manners of those qui ont du monde; see by what methods they first make, and afterwards improve, impressions in their favour. Those impressions are much oftener owing to little causes, than to intrinsic merit ; which is less volatile, and hath not so sudden an effect. Strong minds have undoubtedly an ascendant over weak ones, as Galigai Mardchale d'Ancre very justly observed, when, to the disgrace and reproach of those times, she was executed for having governed Mary of Medicis by the arts of witch- craft and magic. But the ascendant is to be gained by degrees, and by those arts only which experience and the knowledge ot the world teaches : for few are mean enough to be bullied, though most are weak enough to be bubbled. I have often seen people of superior governed by people of much inferior parts, without knowing or even suspecting that they were so governed. This can only happen, when those people of inferior parts have more worldly dexterity and experience than those they govern. They see the les are various f their lecided id vary ilks do knows i: the it from proper ; ;e, who .ancing- ' which Observe nanners is they n their ring to volatile, have Galigai ;o the ecuted witch- led by nd the enough ibbled. people ecting , when xterity lee the Is ^0 LETTERS TO HIS SON. 239 weak and unguarded part, and apply to it : they take it, and all the rest follows. Would you gain either men or women, and every man of sense desires to gain both, il faui du monde. You have had more opportunities than ever any man had, at your age, of acquiring ce monde ; you have been in the best companies of most countries, at an age when others have hardly been in any company at all. You are master of all those languages, which John Trott seldom speaks at all, and never well ; consequently you need be a stranger nowhere. This is the way, and the only way, of having du monde ; but if you have it not, and have still any coarse rusticity about you, may one not apply to you the rusticus expectat of Horace ? This knowledge of the world teaches us more particularly two things, both which are of infinite consequence, and to neither of which nature incUnes us ; I mean, tb-: command of our temper and of our countenance. A :Tiaii who has no monde is inflamed with anger, or annihilated with shame, at every disagreeable incident : the one makes him act and talk like a madman, the other makes him look like a fool. But a man who has du monde seems not to understand what he cannot or ought not to resent. If he makes a slip himself, he recovers it by his coolness, instead of plunging deeper by his confusion, like a stumbling horse. He is firm, but gentle; and practises that most excellent maxim, suavitlrin modo^ fortit^r in re. The other is the volto sciolto e pensieri streiti. People unused to the world have babbling countenances ; and are unskilful enough to show what they have sense enough not to tell. In the course of the world, a man must very often put on an easy, frank countenance upon very disagreeable occasions ; he must seem pleased when he is very much otherwise; he must be able to accost, and receive with smiles, those 240 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S whom he would much rather meet with swords. In Courts he must not turn himself inside out. All this may, nay must, be done without falsehood and treachery : for it must go no further than politeness and manners, and must stop short of assurances and professions of simulated friendship. Good manners, to those one does not love, **ie no more a breach of truth than "your humble servant" at the bottom of a challenge is ; they are universally agreed upon, and understood, to be things of course. They aie necessary guards of the decency and peace of society : they must only act clefcn3ively ; and then not with arms poisoned with perfidy. Truth, but not the whole truth, must be the invariable principle of every man, who hath either religion, honour, or prudence. Those who violate it may be cunning, but they are not able. Lies and perfidy are the refuge of fools and cowards. Adieu 1 P.S. — I must recommend to you again, to take your leave of all your French acquaintance, in such a manner as may make them regret your departure, and wish to see and welcome you at Paris again ; where you may possibly return before it is very long. This must not be done in a cold, civil manner, but with, at least, seeming warmth, sentiment, and concern. Acknowledge the obligations you have to them, for the kindness they have shown you during your stay at Paris ; assure them, that, wherever you are, you shall remember them with gratitude; wish for opportunities of giving them proofs of your plus tendre et respectueux souvenir ; beg of them, in case your good fortune should carry you to any part of the world where you could be of any the least use to them, that they would employ you without reserve. Say all this, and a great deal LETTERS TO HIS SON, 24i >urts U nay for it ;, and ulated : love, rvant " ersally :ourse. ace of jn not 3t the every idence. ire not awards. more, emphatically and pathetically; for you know si vis me flere. This can do you no harm, if you never return to Paris ; but if you do, as probably you may, it will be of infinite use to you. Remember, too, not to omit going to every house where you have ever been once, to take leave, and recommend yourself to their remembrance. The reputation which you leave at one place, where you have been, will circulate, and you will meet with it at twenty places, where you are to go. That is a labour never quite lost. This letter will show you, that the iccident which happened to me yesterday, and of which Dr. Grevenkop ' gives you an account, hath had no bad consequences. My escape was a great one. •■■ '1 e your LETTER LXXl. My dear Friend, London, May the nth, O. S. 1752. I BREAK my word by writing this letter ; but I break it on the allowable side, by doing more than T promised. I have pleasure in writing to you ; and you may possibly have some profit in reading what I write; either of the motives were sufficient for me, both I cannot withstand. By your last, I calculate that you will leave Paris this day se'nnight; upon that supposition, this letter may still find you there. Colonel Perry arrived here two or three days ago, and sent me a book from you, Cassandra abridged. I am sure it cannot be too much abridged. The spirit of that most voluminous work, fairly extracted, may be contained 648 I 242 LORD CHESTERFIELD' "=; in the smallest duodecimo ; and it is most astonishing that there ever could have been people idle enough to write or read such endless heaps of the same stuff. It was, however, the occupation of thousands in the last century ; and is still the private, though disavowed, amusement of young girls and sentimental ladies. A lovesick girl finds, in the Captain with whom she is in love, all the courage and all the graces of the tender and accomplished Oroon- dates ; and many a grown-up, sentimental lady, talks delicate Clelia to the hero, whom she would engage to eternal love, or laments with her that love is not eternal. ** Ah ! qu'il est doux d'aimer, si Ton aimoit toujours ! Mais, helas ! il n'est point d'6ternelles amours."* 11 It is, however, very well to have read one of those extravagant works (of all which La Calprenede's are the best) because it is well to be able to talk, with some degree of knowledge, upon all those subjects that other people talk sometimes upon ; and I would by no means have anything, that is known to others, be totally unknown to you. It is a great advantage for any man to be able to talk or to hear, neither ignorantly nor absurdly, upon any subject ; for I have known people, who have not said one word, hear ignorantly and absurdly; it has appeared in their inattentive and unmeaning faces. This, I think, is as little likely to happen to you, as to anybody of your age ; and if you will but add a versatility, and easy conformity of manners, I know no company in which you are likely to be de trop. This versatility is more particularly necessary for you * '* Ah I how sweet it were to love if one loved always ! But, alas ! there are no everlasting attachments." r you LETTERS TO HIS SON, 243 I CI II' at this time, now that you are going to so many different places ; for though the manners and customs of the several Courts of Germany are in general the same, yet every one has its particular characteristic ; some peculiarity or other which distinguishes it from the next. This you should carefully attend to, and immediately adopt. Nothing flatters people more, nor makes strangers so welcome, as such an occasional conformity. I do not mean by this, that you should mimic the air and stiffness of every awkward German Court; no, by liO means; but I mean that you should only cheerfully comply and fall in with certain local habits, such as ceremonies, diet, turn of con- versation, etc. People who are lately come from Paris, and who have been a good while there, are generally suspected, and especially in Germany, of having a degree of contempt for every other place. Take great care that nothing of this kind appear, at least outwardly, in your behaviour: but commend whatever deserves any degree of commenda- tion, without comparing it with what you may have left, much better, of the same kind at Paris. As, for instance, the German kitchen is, without doubt, execrable, and the French delicious; however, never commend the French kitchen at a German table ; but eat of what you can find tolerable there, and commend it, . ithout comparing it to anything better. I have known many British Yahoos, who, though while they were at Paris conforn^ jd to no one French custom, as soon as they got anywhere else, talked of nothing but what they did, saw, and ate at Paris. The freedom of the French uot to be used indiscrimin- ately at all the Courts in Germany, though their easiness may, and ought; but ^.hat, too, at some places more than others. The Courts of Mannheim and Bonn, I take to be a little more unbarbarised than some others; that of IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) // %// ^ A V^ ^ e^:4 1.0 I.I 1.25 ■^ Uii 122 !!f uo |2.o •UWtl IE s>^ 71 ^>. .ii:>.#/ ^.^B p /!S^ Photographic Sciences Corporation 23 WEST MAIN STREET WEBSTER, N.Y. !45S0 (716) 173-4503 4^ 244 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S Maience, an ecclesiastical one, as well as that of Treves (neither of which is much frequented by foreigners), retains, I conceive, a great deal of the Goth and Vandal still. There, more resfjrve and ceremony are necessary; and not a word of the French. At Berlin, you cannot be too French. Hanover, Brunswick, Cassel, etc., are of the mixed kind, unpen dkcrottts^ mats pas assez. Another thing, which I most earnestly recommend to you, not only in Germany, but in every part of the world, where you may ever be, is, not only real, but seeming attention, to whomever you speak to, or to whoever speaks to you. I'here is nothing so brutally shocking, nor so little forgiveij, as a seeming inattention to the person who is speaking to you; and I have known many a man knocked down, for (in my opinion) a much slighter provocation, than that shocking inattention which I mean. I have seen many people, who while you are speaking to them, instead of looking at, and attending to, you, fix their eyes upon the ceiling, or some other part of the room, look out of the window, play with a dog, twirl their snuff-box, or pick their nose. Nothing discovers a little, futile, frivolous mind more than this, and nothing is so offensively ill bred : it is an explicit declaration on your part, that every, the most trifling object, deserves your attention more than all that can be said by the person who is speaking to you. Judge of the sentiments of hatred and resentment, which such treatment must excite, in every breast where any degree of self-love dwells; and I am sure, I never yet met with that breast where there was not a great deal. I repeat it again and again (for it is highly necessary for you to remember it), that sort of vanity and self-love is inseparable from human nature, whatever may be its rank or condition ; even your footman will sooner forget and forgive a beating, that dge »uch on; ing, LETTERS TO HIS SON, 245 than any manifest mark of slight and contempt. Be therefore, I beg of you, not only really, but seemingly and manifestly, attentive to whoever speaks to you; nay more, take their tone, and tune yourself to their unison. Be serious with the serious, gay with the gay, and trifle with the triflers. In assuming these various shapes, endea- vour to make each of them seem to sit easy upon you, and even to appear to be your own natural one. This is the true and useful versatility of which a thorough know- ledge of the world at once teaches the utility, and the means of acquiring. I am very sure, at least I hope, that you will never make use of a silly expression, which is the favourite expression, and the absurd excuse of all fools and block- heads; / cannot do such a thing: a. thing by no means either morally or physically impossible. I cannot attend long together to the same thing, says one fool: that is, he is such a fool that he will not. I remember a very awkward fellow, who did not know what to do with his sword, and who always took it off before dinner, saying, that he could not possibly dine with his sword on ; upon which I could not help telling him that I really believed he could, without any probable danger either to himself or others. It is a shame and an absurdity, for any man to say, that he cannot do all those things which are commonly done by all the rest of mankind. Another thing, that I must earnestly warn you against, is laziness; by which more people have lost the fruit of their travels, than (perhaps) by any other thing. Pray be always in motion. Early in the morning go and see things; and the rest of the day go and see people. If you stay but a week at a place, and that an insignificant one, see, however, all that is to be seen there ; know as 246 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S many people, and get into as many houses, as ever you can. I recommend to you likewise, though probably you have thought of it yourself, to carry in your pocket a map of Germany, in which the post roads are marked ; and also some short book of travels through Germany. The former will help to imprint in your memory situations and dis- tances ; and the latter —'11 point out many things for you to see, that might otherwise possibly escape you; and which, though they may in themselves be of little consequence, you would regret not having seen, after having been at the places where they were. Thus warned and provided for your journey, God speed you; Felix faustumque sit ! Adieu. LETTER LXXII. My dear Friend, London, May the 31st, O. S. 1752. The world is the book, and the only one to which, at present, I would have you apply yourself; and the thorough knowledge of it will be of more use to you than all the books that ever were read. Lay aside the best book whenever you can go into the best company ; and depend upon it you change for the better. However, as the ,most tumultuous life, whether of business or pleasure, leaves some vacant moments every day, in which a book is the refuge of a rational being, I mean now to point out to you the method of employing those moments (which will and ought to be but few) in the most advantageous manner. Throw away none of your time upon those trivial futile LETTERS TO HIS SON. 247 books, published by idle or necessitous authors, for the amusement of idle and ignorant readers : such sort of books swarm and buzz about one every day ; flap them away, they have no sting. Certum pete finem^ have some one object for those leisure moments, and pursue that object invariably till you have attained it ; and then take some other. For instance ; considering your destination, I would advise you to single out the most remarkable and interesting seras of modern history, and confine all your reading to that ^ra. If you pitch upon the Treaty of Munster (and that is the proper period to begin with, in the course which I am now recommending), do not interrupt it by dipping and deviating into other books, unrelative to it : but consult only the most authentic histories, letters, memoirs, and negotiations rela- tive to that great transaction ; reading and comparing them, with all that caution and distrust which Lord Bolingbroke recommends to you, in a better manner and in better words than I can. The next period, worth your particular know- ledge, is the Treaty of the Pyrenees ; which was calculated to lay, and in effect did lay, the foundation of the succession of the House of Bourbon to the Crown of Spain. Pursue that in the same manner, singling, out of the millions of volumes written upon that occasion, the two or three most authentic ones ; and particularly letters, which are the best authorities in matters of negotiation. Next come the Treaties of Nimeguen and Ryswick, postscripts in a man- ner to those of Munster and the Pyrenees. Those two transactions have had great light thrown upon them by the publication of many authentic and original letters and pieces. The concessions made at the Treaty of Ryswick, by the then triumphant Lewis the Fourteenth, astonished all those who viewed things only superficially ; but, I should think, must have been easily accounted for by those who ill 94^ LORD CHESTERFIELD'S knew the state of the kingdom of Spain, as well as of the health of its King, Charles the Second, at that time. The interval between the conclusion of the peace of Ryswick, and the breaking out of the great war in 1702, though a short, is a most interesting one. Every week of it almost produced some great event. Two Partition Treaties, the death of the King of Spain, his unexpected Will, and the acceptance of it by Lewis the Fourteenth, in violation of the second treaty of partition, just signed and ratified by him. Philip the Fifth, quietly and cheerfully received in Spain, and acknowledged as King of it, by most of those Powers, who afterwards joined in an alliance to dethrone him. I cannot help making this observation upon that occasion; That character has often more to do in great transactions, than prudence and sound policy: for Lewis the Fourteenth gratified his personal pride, by giving a Bourbon King to Spain, at the expense of the true interest of France; which would have acquired much more solid and permanent strength by the addition of Naples, Sicily, and Lorraine, upon the foot of the second Partition Treaty ; and I think it was fortunate for Europe that he preferred the Will. It is true, he might hope to influence his grand- son ; but he could never expect that his Bourbon posterity in France should influence his Bourbon posterity in Spain ; he knew too well how weak the ties of blood are among men, and how much weaker still they are among Princes. The Memoirs of Count Harrach, and of Las Torres, give a good deal of light into the transactions of the Court of Spain, previous to the death of that weak King; and the letters of the Mardchal d'Harcourt, then the French Ambassador in Spain, of which I have authentic copies in manuscript, from the year 1698 to 1701, have cleared up that whole affair to me. I keep that book for you, It appears by LETTERS TO HIS SON, 249 those letters, that the imprudent conduct of the House of Austria, with regard to the King and Queen of Spain, and Madame Berlips, her favourite, together with the knowledge of the Partition Treaty, which incensed all Spain, were the true and only reasons of the Will in favour of the Duke of Anjou. Cardinal Portocarrero, nor any of the Grandees, were bribed by France, as was generally reported and believed at that time ; which confirms Voltaire's anecdote upon that subject Then opens a new scene and a new century : Lewis the Fourteenth's good fortune forsakes him, till the Duke of Marlborough and Prince Eugene make him amends for all the mischief they had done him, by mak- ing the allies refuse the terms of peace offered by him at Gertruydenberg. How the disadvantageous peace of Utrecht was afterwards brought on, you have lately read; and you cannot inform yourself too minutely of all those circumstances, that treaty being the freshest source, from whence the late transactions of Europe have flowed. The alterations which have since happened, whether by wars or treaties, are so recent, that all the written accounts are to be helped out, proved, or contradicted, by the oral ones of almost every informed person of a certain age or rank in life. For the facts, dates, and original pieces of this century, you will find them in Lamberti, till the year 17 15, and after that time in Rousset*s Recueil. I do not mean that you should plod hours together in researches of this kind; no, you may employ your time more usefully ; but I mean that you should make the most of the moments you do employ, by method, and the pursuit of one single object at a time ; nor should I call it a digres- sion from that object, if, when you meet with clashing and jarring pretensions of different Princes to the same thing, you had immediate recourse to other books, in which those 250 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S several pretensions were clearly stated ; on the contrary, that is the only way of remembering those contested rights and claims : for, were a man to read tout de suite^ Schwederu^s Theatrum Pretensionum^ he would only be confounded by the variety, and remember none of them; whereas, by examining them occasionally, as they happen to occur, either in the course of your historical reading, or as they are agitated in your own times, you will retain them, by connecting them with those historical facts which occasioned your inquiry. For example ; had you read, in the course of two or three folios of Pretensions, those, among others, of the two Kings of England ?nd Prussia to Oost Frise, it is impossible that you should have remembered them; but now that they are become the debated object at the Diet at Ratisbon, and the topic of all political conversations, if you consult both books and persons concerning them, and inform yourself thoroughly, you will never forget them as long as you live. You will hear a great deal of them on one side, at Hanover; and as much on the other side, afterwards, at Berlin : hear both sides, and form your own opinion ; but dispute with neither. Letters from foreign Ministers to their Courts, and from their Courts to them, are, if genuine, the best and most authentic records you can read, as far as they go. Cardinal D'Ossat's, President Jeannin*s, D'Estrade's, Sir William Temple's, will not only inform your mind, but form your style ; which, in letters of business, should be very plain and simple, but, at the same time, exceedingly clear, correct, and pure. All that I have said may be reduced to these two or three plain principles : ist. That you should now read very little, but converse a great deal; 2ndly, To read no useless, unprofitable books; and 3rdly, That those which you do LETTERS TO HIS SON. 251 as read, may all tend to a certain object, and be relative to, and consequential o( each other. In this method, half-an- hour's reading, every day, will carry you a great way. People seldom know how to employ their time to the best advantage, till they have too little left to employ ; but if, at your age, in the beginning of life, people would but consider the value of it, and put every moment to interest, it is incredible what an additional fund of knowledge and pleasure such an economy would bring in. I look back with regret upon that large sum of time, which, in my youth, I lavished away idly, without either improvement or pleasure. Take warning betimes, and enjoy every moment ; pleasures do not commonly last so long as life, and therefore should not be neglected ; and the longest life is too short for knowledge, consequently every moment is precious. I am surprised at having received no letter from you since you left Paris. I still direct this to Strasburg, as I did my two last. I shall direct my next to the post-house at Maience, unless I receive, in the meantime, contrary instructions from you. Adieu I Remember les attentions: they must be your passports into good company. iree Ltle, less, do LETTER LXXIII. A Monsieur de Voltaire pour lors d Berlin, Monsieur, a Londres, 27 d'Aoftt, V. S. 1752. Je m'int^resse infiniment k tout ce qui touche Monsieur Stanhope, qui aura Thonneur de vous rendre cette lettre ; c'est pourquoi je prens la liberty de vous le presenter ; je ne peux pas lui en donner une preuve plus convainquante. II a beaucoup lu, il a beaucoup vu; s'il Pa bien dig^r^, 252 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S voil^ ce que je ne sais pas ; il n'a que vingt ans. II a d^jk i\£ k Berlin il y a quelques anndes, et c'est pourquoi il y retourne k present ; car ^ cette heure on revient au Nord par les mSmes raisons, pour lesquelles on alloit il n'y a pas long terns au Sud. Permettez, Monsieur, que je vous remercie du plaisir et de I'instruction que m*a donnd voire Histoire du Sifecle de Louis XIV. Je ne Tai lu encore que quatre fois, c'est que je voudrois Toublier un peu avant la cinquifeme, mais je vois que cela m*est impossible ; j*attendrai done I'augmen- tation que vous nous en avez promis, mais je vous supplie de ne me la pas faire attendre long tems. Je croyois savoir passablement THistoire du Sibcle de Louis XIV. moyen- nant les mil Hers d'Histoires, de M^moires, d' Anecdotes, etc., que j'en avois lu, mais vous m'avez bien montrd que je m'^tois trompd, et que je n'en avois qu'une id^e trbs-confuse k bien des ^gards, et trbs-fausse ^ bien d'autres. Que je vous sais grd sur tout. Monsieur, du jour dans lequel vous avez mis les folies et les fureurs des sectes. Vous employez centre ces fous ou ces imposteurs les armes convenables ; d'en employer d'autres ce seroit les imiter: c'est par le ridicule qu'il faut les attaquer, c'est par le mdpris qu'il faut les punir. A propos de ces fous, je vous envoie ci-jointe une pifece sur leur sujet par le feu Docteur Swift, laquelle je crois ne vous ddplaira pas. Elle n'a jamais i\A. imprimde, vous en devinerez bien la raison, mais elle est authentique. J'en ai I'original dcrit de sa propre main. Son Jupiter, au jour du jugement, les traite ^ peu prbs comme vous les trait^z, et comme ils le meritent. Au reste. Monsieur, je vous dirai franchement, que je suis embarrass^ sur votre sujet, et que je ne peux pas me decider sur ce que je souhaiterois de votre part Quand je lis votre dernifere histoire, je voudrois que vous fussiez LETTERS TO HIS SON. 253 toujours historien ; mais quand je lis votre Rome Sauvt^e (toute mal imprim^e et ddfigurde qu'elle est) je vous voudrois toujours Poete. J'avoue pourtant qu'il vous reste encore une histoire ^ ^crire digne de votre plume, et dont voire plume est seule dIgne. Vous nous avez donn^ il y a long tems I'histoire du plus grand Furieux (je vous demande pardon si je ne peus pas dire du plus grand H^ros) de TEurope. Vous nous avez donnd en dernier lieu, Thistoire du plus grand Roi ; donnez-nous, k present, I'histoire du plus grand et du plus honnete Homme de I'Europe, que je croirois d^grader en appellant Roi. Vous I'avez toujours devant vos yeux, rien ne vous seroit plus facile; sa gloire n'exigeant pas votre invention poetique, mais pouvant se reposer en toute sQret^ sur votre v^rit^ historique. II n'a rien k demander ^ son historien, que son premier devoir comme historien, qui est, Ne quid falsi dicere audeat^ ne quid veri non audeat Adieu, Monsieur, je vois bien que je dois vous admirer de plus en plus tous les jours, mais aussi je sais bien que rien ne pourra jamais ajouter \ I'estime et ^ I'attachement avec lesquels je suis actuellement, Votre trfes-humble et trfes-ob^issant serviteur, Chesterfield. s les le je s me uand ssiez LETTER LXXIV. My dear Friend, London, September the 29th, 1752. There is nothing so necessary, but at the same time there is nothing more difficult (I know it by experience), for you young fellows, than to know how to behave yourselves prudently towards those whom you do not like. Your 254 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S passions are warm, and your heads are light ; you hate all those who oppose your views, either of ambition or love ; and a rival in either is almost a synonymous term for an enemy. Whenever you meet such a man, you arc awkwardly cold to him, at best ; but often rude, and always desirous to give him some indirect slap. This is unreason- able; for one man has as good a right to pursue an employment, or a mistress, as another ; but it is, into the bargain, extremely imprudent ; because you commonly defeat your own purpose by it, and while you are con- tending with each other a third often prevails. I grant you, that the situation is irksome ; a man cannot help thinking as he thinks, nor feeling what he feels; and it is a very tender and sore point to be thwarted and counter-worked in one's pursuits at Court, or with a mistress : but prudence and abilities must check the effects, though they cannot remove the cause. Both the pretenders make themselves disagreeable to their mistress, when they spoil the company by their pouting, or their sparring ; whereas, if one of them has command enough over himself (whatever he may feel inwardly) to be cheerful, gay, and easily and unaffectedly civil to the other, as if there were no manner of com- petition between them, the Lady will certainly like him the best, and his rival will be ten times more humbled and discouraged ; for he will look upon such a behaviour as a proof of the triumph and security of his rival ; he will grow outrageous with the Lady, and the warmth of his reproaches will probably bring on a quarrel between them. It is the same in business ; where he who can command his temper and his countenance the best, will always have an infinite advantage over the other* This is what the French call an prockdk honnite et galani^ to pique yourself upon showing particular civilities to a man, to whom lesser minds would LETTERS TO HIS SON, 255 in the same case show disb'ke, or perhaps rudeness. I will give you an instance of this in my own case ; and pray remember it, whenever you come to be, as I hope you will, in a like situation. When I went to the Hague, in 1744, it was to engage the Dutch to come roundly into the war, and to stipulate their quotas of troops, etc. ; your acquaintance, the Abb^ de la Ville, was there on the part of France, to endeavour to hinder them from coming into the war at all. I was informed, and very sorry to hear it, that he had abilities, temper, and industry. We could not visit, our two masters being at war ; but the first time I met him at a third place, I got somebody to present me to him ; and I told him, that though we were to be national enemies, I flattered myself we might be, however, personal friends ; with a good deal more of the same kind ; which he returned in full as polite a manner. Two days afterwards I went, early in the morn- ing, to solicit the Deputies of Amsterdam, where I found I'Abb^ de la Ville, who had been beforehand with me; upon which I addressed myself to the Deputies, and said, smilingly, Je suis Men f&chiy Messieurs^ de trouver mon Ennemi avec vous; je le connois dkjh assez pour le craindre: la partie tCest pas kgale^ mats je me fie d vos propres inikrUs conire les talens de mon Ennemi; et au moins si je n^ai pas eu le premier mot^ j^aurai le dernier aujourd'hui. They smiled : the Abbd was pleased with the compliment, and the manner of it, stayed about a quarter of an hour, and then left me to my Deputies, with whom I continued upon the same tone, though in a very serious manner, and told them that I was only come to state their own true interests to them, plainly and simply, without any of those arts which it was very necessary for my friend to make use of to deceive them. I carried my point, and continued my 256 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S prockde with the Abbd ; and by this easy and polite com- merce with him, at third places, I often found means to fish out from him whereabouts he was. Remember, there are but two proddks in the world for a gentleman and a man of parls : either extreme politeness, or knocking down. If a man notoriously and designedly insults and affronts you, knock him down ; but if he only injures you, your best revenge is to be extremely civil to him in your outward behaviour, though at the same time you counterwork him, and return him the compliment, perhaps with interest. This is not perfidy nor dissimula- tion : it would be so if you were at the same time to make professions of esteem and friendship to this man, which I by no means recommend, but, on the contrary, abhor. All acts of civility are, by common consent, understood to be no more than a conformity to custom, for the quiet and convenience of society, the agrimens of which are not to be disturbed by private dislikes and jealousies. Only women and little minds pout and spar for the entertainment of the company that always laughs at, and never pities them. For my own part, though I would by no means give up any point to a competitor, yet I would pique myself upon showing him rather more civility than to another man. In the first place, this procidi infallibly makes all les rieurs of your side, which is a considerable party ; and in the next place, it certainly pleases the object of the competition, be it either man or woman ; who never fail to say, upon such an occasion, that tfiey must own you have behaved yourself very handsomely in the whole affair. The world judges from the appearances of things, and not from the reahty, which few are able, and still fewer are inclined, to fathom ; and a man, who will take care always to be in the right in those thingSj may afford to be sometimes a little in the wrong in V-M^ LETTERS TO HIS SON, 257 any upon In urs of next )n, be such urself from i^hich and a those ng in more essential ones: there is a willingness, a desire to excuse him. With nine people in ten good breeding passes for good nature, and they take attentions for good offices. At Courts there will be always coldnesses, dislikes, jealousies, and hatred ; the harvest being but small in pro- portion to the number of labourers ; but then, as they arise often, they die soon, unless they are perpetuated by the manner in which they have been carried on more than by the matter which occasioned them. Tl^iC turns and vicis- situdes of Courts frequently make friends of enemies, and enemies of friends : you must labour, therefore, to acquire that great and uncommon talent, of haling with good breeding, and loving with prudence ; to make no quarrel irreconcilable, by silly and unnecessary indications of anger ; and no friendship dangerous, in case it breaks, by a wanton, indiscreet, and unreserved confidence. Few (especially young) people know how to love, or how to hate ; their love is an unbounded weakness, fatal to the person they love ; their hate is a hot, rash, and imprudent violence, always fatal to themselves. Nineteen fathers in twenty, and every mother, who had loved you half as well as I do, would have ruined you ; whereas I always made you feel the weight of my authority, that you might one day know the force of my love. Now, I both hope and believe my advice will have the same weight with you from choice, that my authority had from necessity. My advice is just eight-and-thirty years older than your own, and consequently, I believe you think, rather better. As for your tender and pleasurable passions, manage them yourself; but let me have the direction of all the others. Your ambition, your figure, and your fortune will, for some time at least, be rather safer in my keeping than in your own. Adieu. 649 258 LORl) CHESTERFIELD'S LETTER LXXV. Mv DEAR Friend, London, May the 27th, O. S. 1753. I HAVE this day been tired, jaded, nay, tormented, by the company of a most worthy, sensible, and learned man, a near relation of mine, who dined and passed the evening with me. This seems a paradox, but is a plain truth ; he has no knowledge of the world, no manners, no address; far from talking without book, as is commonly said of people who talk sillily, he only talks by book ; which, in general conversation, is ten times worse. He has formed in his own closet, from books, certain systems of every- thing, argues tenaciously upon those principles, and is both surprised and angry at whatever deviates from them. His theories are good, but, unfortunately, are all impracticable. Why ? Because he has only read, and not conversed. He is acquainted with books, and an absolute stranger to men. Labouring with his matter, he is delivered of it with pangs ; he hesitates, stops in his utterance, and always expresses himself inelegantly. His actions are all ungraceful; so that, with all his merit and knowledge, I would rather converse six hours with the most frivolous tittle-tattle woman, who knew something of the world, than with him. The preposterous notions of a systematical man, who does not know the world, tire the patience of a man who does. It would be endless to correct his mistakes, nor would he take it kindly; for he has considered everything deliber- ately, and is very sure that he is in the right. Impropriety is a characteristic, and a never-failing one, of these people. Regardless, because ignorant, of custom and manners, they violate them every moment. They often shock, though they never mean to offend ; never attending either to the LETTERS TO HIS SON. 259 men. * > general character, or the particular distinguishing circum- stances of the people to whom, or before whom, they talk : whereas the knowledge of the world teaches one that the very same things which are exceedingly right and proper in one company, time, and place, are exceedingly absurd in others. In short, a man who has great knowledge, from experience and observation of the characters, customs, and manners of mankind, is a being as different from, and as superior to, a man of mere book and systematical know- ledge, as a well-managed horse is to an ass. Study there- fore, cultivate, and frequent, men and women ; not only in their outward, and consequently guarded, but in their interior, domestic, and consequently less disguised, char- acters, and manners. Take your notions of things, as by observation and experience you find they really are, and not as you read that they are or should be ; for they never are quite what they should be. For this purpose do not content yourself with general and common acquaintance ; but, wherever you can, establish yourself, with a kind of domestic familiarity, in good houses. For instance; go again to Orli for two or three days, and so at two or three reprises. Go and stay two or three days at a time at Versailles, and improve and extend the acquaintance you have there. Be at home at St Cloud ; and whenever any private person of fashion invites you to pass a few days at his country-house, accept of the invitation. This will necessarily give you a versatility of mind, and a facility to adopt various manners and customs; for everybody desires to please those in whose house they are ; and people are only to be pleased in their own way. Nothing is more engaging than a cheer- ful and easy conformity to people's particular manners, habits, and even weaknesses ; nothing (to use a vulgar expression) should come amiss to a young fellow. He 260 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S should be, for gooc purposes, what Alcibiades was com- monly for bad ones, a Proteus, assuming with ease, and wearing with cheerfulness, any shape. Heat, cold, luxury, abstinence, gravity, gaiety, ceremony, easiness, learning, trifling, business, and pleasure, are modes which he should be able to take, lay aside, or change occasionally, with as much ease as he would take or lay aside his hat. All this is only to be acquired by use and knowledge of the world, by keeping a great deal of company, analysing every character, and insinuating yourself into the familiarity of various acquaintance. A right, a generous ambition to make a figure in the world, necessarily gives the desire of pleasing; the desire of pleasing points out, to a great degree, the means of doing it ; and the art of pleasing is, in truth, the art of rising, of distinguishing one's self, of making a figure and a fortune in the world. But without pleasing, without the Graces, as I have told you a thousand times, cgni fatica I vana. You are now but nineteen, an age at which most of your countrymen are illiberally getting drunk in Port, at the University. You have greatly got the start of them in learning ; and if you can equally get the start of them in the knowledge and manners of the world, you may be very sure of outrunning them in Court and Parliament, as you set out so much earlier than they. They generally begin but to see the world at one-and-twenty ; you will by that age have seen all Europe. They set out upon their travels unlicked cubs ; and in their travels they only lick one another, for they seldom go into any other company. They know nothing but the English world, and the worst part of that too, and generally very little of any but the English language ; and they come home, at three or four-and-twenty, refined and polished (as is said in one of Congreve's plays) like Dutch skippers from a whale-fishing. in LETTERS TO HIS SON, 261 ing he he rid, The care which has been taken of you, and (to do you justice) the care you have taken of yourself, has left you, at the age of nineteen only, nothing to acquire but the know- ledge of the world, manners, address, and those exterior accomplishments. But they are great and necessary acqui- sitions to those who have sense enough to know their true value ; and your getting them before you are one-and-twenty, and before you enter upon the active and shining scene of life, will give you such an advantage over all your contem- poraries, that they cannot overtake you; they must be distanced. You may probably be placed about a young Prince, who will probably be a young King. There all the various arts of pleasing, the engaging address, the versatility of manners, the brillant^ the Graces, will outweigh and yet outrun all solid knowledge and unpolished merit. Oil yourself therefore, and be both supple and shining for that race, if you would be first, or early, at the goal. Ladies will most probably, too, have something to say there ; and those who are best with them, will probably be best some- where else. Labour this great point, my dear child, inde- fatigably ; attend to the very smallest parts, the minutest graces, the most trifling circumstances, that can possibly concur in forming the shining character of a complete Gentleman, un galant homme^ un homme de Cour^ a man of business and pleasure ; estime des hommes^ recherche des femmeSf aime de tout k monde. In this view observe the shining part of every man of fashion, who is liked and esteemed ; attend to, and imitate that particular accom- plishment for which you hear him chiefly celebrated and distinguished ; then collect those various parts, and make yourself a Mosaic of the whole. No one body possesses everything, and almost everybody possesses some one thing worthy of imitation : only choose your models well ; and. 362 LORD CHESIERFIELD'S in order to do so, choose by your ear more than by your eye. The best model is always that which is most univer- sally allowed to be the best, though in strictness it may possibly not be so. We must take most things as they are, we cannot make them what we would, nor often what they should be ; and where moral duties are not concerned it is more prudent to follow, than to attempt to lead. Adieu. LETTER LXXVI. My dear Friend, London, February 26th, 1754. I HAVE received your letters of the 4th from Munich, and of the nth from Ratisbon; but I have not received that of the 31st January, to which you refer in the former. It is to this negligence and uncertainty of the post that you owe your accidents between Munich and Ratisbon ; for had you received my letters regularly, you would have received one from me before you left Munich, in which I advised you to stay, since you were so well there. But at all events, you were in the wrong to set out from Munich in such weather and such roads ; since you could never imagine that I had set my heart so much upon your going to Berlin as to venture your being buried in the snow for it. Upon the whole, considering all, you are very well off. You do very well, in my mind, to return to Munich, or at least to keep within the circle of Munich, Ratisbon, and Mannheim, till the weather and the roads are good : stay at each or any of those places as long as ever you please, for I am extremely indifferent about your going to Berlin. As to our meeting, I will tell you my plan, and you may form your own accordingly. I propose setting out from LETTERS TO HIS SON, 263 hence the last week in April, then drinking the Aix-la- Chapelle waters for a week, and from thence being at Spa about the 15 th of May, where I shall stay two months at most, and then returning straight to England. As I both hope and believe that there will be no mortal at Spa during my residence there, the fashionable season not beginning till the middle of July, I would by no means have you come there at first, to be locked up with me and some few CapucinSy for two months in that miserable hole; but I would advise you to stay where you like best, till about the first week in July, and then to come and pick me up at Spa, or meet me upon the road at Liege or Brussels. As for the intermediate time, should you be weary of Mannheim and Munich, you may, if you please, go to Dresden to Sir Charles Williams, who will be there before that time; or you may come for a month or six weeks to the Hague, or, in short, go or stay wherever you like best. So much for your motions. As you have sent for all the letters directed to you at Berlin, you will receive from thence volumes of mine, among which you will easily perceive that some were calculated for a supposed perusal previous to your opening them. I will not repeat anything contained in them, excepting that I desire you will send me a warm and cordial letter of thanks for Mr. Eliot, who has in the most friendly manner imaginable fixed you at his own borough of Liskeard, where you will be elected, jointly with him, with- out the least opposition or difificulty. I will forward that letter to him into Cornwall, where he now is. Now, that you are soon to be a man of business, I heartily wish you would immediately begin to be a man of methci, nothing contributing more to facilitate and despatch business than niethod and order. Have order 264 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S A\ and method in your accounts, in your reading, in the allot- ment of your time, in short, in everything. You cannot conceive how much time you will save by it, nor how much better everything you do will be done. The Duke of Marlborough did by no means spend, but he slatterned himself into that immense debt, which is not yet near paid off. The hurry and confusion of the Duke of Newcastle do not proceed from his business, but from his want of method in it. Sir Robert Walpole, who had ten times the business to do, was never seen in a hurry, because he always did it with method. The head of a man who has business, and no method nor order, is properly that rttdis indigestaque moles quam dixere chaos. As you must be conscious that you are extremely negligent and flatternly, I hope you will resolve not to be so for the future. Prevail with yourself only to observe good method and order for one fortnight, and I wir venture to assure you that you will never neglect them afterwards, you will find such conveniency and advan- tage arising from them. Method is the great advantage that lawyers have over other people in speaking in Parliament ; for, as they must necessarily observe it in their pleadings in the Courts of Justice, it becomes habitual to them every- where else. Without making you a compliment, I can tell you with pleasure, that order, method, and more activity of mind, are all that you want, to make, some day or other, a considerable figure in business. You have more useful knowledge, more discernment of characters, and much more discretion than is common at your age ; much more, I am sure, than I had at that age. — Experience you cannot yet have, and therefore trust in the meantime to mine. I am an old traveller ; am well acquainted with all the by, as well as the great, roads; I cannot misguide you from ignorance, and you are very sure I shall not from design. LETTERS TO HIS SON. 265 am yet am irell ce. I can assure you that you will have no opportunity of subscribing yourself, my Excellency's, etc. Retirement and quiet were my choice some years ago, while I had all my senses, and health and spirits enough to carry on business ; but now I have lost my hearing, and find my constitution declining daily, they are become my necessary and only refuge. I know myself (no common piece of knowledge, let me tell you), I know what i can, what I cannot, and consequently what I ought to do. I ought not, and there- fore will not, return to business, when I am much less fit for it than I was when I quitted it. Still less will I go to Ireland, where, from my deafness and infirmities, I must necessarily make a different figure from that which I once made there. My pride would be too much mortified by that difference. The two important senses of seeing and hearing should not only be good, but quick, in business; and the business of a Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland (if he will do it himself) requires both those senses in the highest per- fection. It was the Duke of Dorset's not doing the business himself, but giving it up to favourites, that has occasioned all this confusion in Ireland; and it was my doing the whole myself, without either Favourite, Minister, or Mistress, that made my administration so smooth and quiet. I remember, when I named the late Mr. Liddel for my Secretary, everybody was much surprised at it ; and some of my friends represented to me that he was no man of business, but only a very genteel, p^-etty young fellow; I assured them, and with truth, that that was the very reason why I chose him : for that I was resolved to do all the busi- ness myself, and without even the suspicion of having a Minister ; which the Lord-Lieutenant's Secretary, if he is a man of business, is always supposed, and commonly with reason, to be. Moreover, I look upon myself now to be 266 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S emeritus in business, in which I have been near forty years together; I give it up to you: apply yourself to it, as I have done, for forty years, and then I consent to your leaving it for a philosophical retirement, among your friends and your books. Statesmen and beauties are very rarely sensible of the gradations of thei** decay ; and, too sanguinely hoping to shine on in their meridian, often set with contempt and ridicule. I retired in time, uti conviva satur; or, as Pope says, still better, " Ere tittering youth shall shove you from the stage." My only remaining ambition is to be the Counsellor and Minister of your rising ambition. Let me see my own youth revived in you ; let me be your Mentor, and, with your parts and knowledge, I promise you, you shall go far. You must bring, on your part, activity and attention, and I will point out to you the proper objects for them. I own I fear but one thing for you, and that is what one has generally the least reason to fear, from one of your age ; I mean your laziness, which, if you indulge, will make you stagnate in a contemptible obscurity all your life. It will hinder you from doing anything that will deserve to be written, or from writing anything that may deserve to be read ; and yet one or other of these two objects should be at least aimed at by every rational being. I look upon indolence as a sort of suicide ; for the Man is effectually destroyed, though the appetites of the Brute may survive. Business by no means forbids pleasures; on the contrary, they reciprocally season each other ; and I will venture to affirm, that no man enjoys either in perfection that does not join both. They whet the desire for each other. Use yourself therefore, in time, to be alert and diligent in your little concerns: never procrastinate, never put off till to- morrow what you can do to-day ; and never do two things ^t a time : pursue your object, be it what it will, steadily \ LETTERS TO HIS SON, 267 and indefatigably ; and let any difficulties (if surmountable) rather animate than slacken your endeavours. Perseverance has surprising eflFects. I wish you would use yourself to translate, every day, only three or four lines, from any book, in any language, into the correctest and most elegant English that you can think of; you cannot imagine how it will insensibly form your style, and give you an habitual elegancy : it would not take you up a quarter of an hour in a day. This letter is so long, that it will hardly leave you that quarter of an hour, the day you receive it. So good-night. LETTER LXXVII. My dear Friend, Bath, November the iSth, 1756. I RECEIVED yours yesterday morning, together with the Prussian papers, which I have read with great attention. If Courts could blush, those of Vienna and Dresden ought, to have their falsehoods so publicly and so undeniably exposed. The former will, I presume, next year employ a hundred thousand men, to answer the accusation ; and if the Empress of the Two Russias is pleased to argue in the same cogent manner, their logic will be too strong for all the King of Prussia's rhetoric. I well remember the treaty so often referred to in those pieces, between the two Empresses, in 1746. The King was strongly pressed by the Empress Queen to accede to it. Wa^^senaer communi- cated it to me for that purpose. I asked him if there were no secret articles ; suspecting that there were some, because the ostensible treaty was a mere harmless defensive one» 268 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S He assured me there were none. Upon which I told him, that as the King had already defensive alliances with those two Empresses, I did not see of what use his accession to this treaty, // merely a defensive one^ could be either to himself or the other contracting parties ; but that, however, if it was only desired as an indication of the King's good will, I would give him an act, by which his Majesty should accede to that treaty, as far, but no further, as at present he stood engaged to the respective Empresses, by the defensive alliances subsisting with each. This offer by no means satisfied him ; which was a plain proof of the secret articles now brought to light, and into which the Court of Vienna hoped to draw us. I told Wassenaer so, and after that I heard no more of his invitation. I am still bewildered in the changes at Court, of which I find that all the particulars are not yet fixed. Who would have thought, a year ago, that Mr. Fox, the Chancellor, and the Duke of Newcastle, should all three have quitted together ; nor can I yet account for it ; explain it to me if you can. I cannot see, neither, what the Duke of Devon- shire and Fox, whom I looked upon as intimately united, can have quarrelled about, with relation to the Treasury; inform me, if you know. I never doubted of the prudent versatility of your Vicar of Bray ; but I am surprised at Obrien Windham's going out of the Treasury, where I should have thought that the interest of his brother-in-law, George Grenville, would have kept him. Having found myself rather worse these two or three last days, I was obliged to take some ipecacuana last night ; and, what you will think odd, for a vomit, I brought it all up again in about an hour, to my great satisfaction and emolu- ment, which is seldom the case in restitutions. You did well to go to the Duke of Newcastle, who, LETTERS TO HIS SON. 269 1 suppose, will have no more levees ; however, go from time to time, and leave your name at his door, for you have obligations to him. Adieu. LETTER LXXVIII. My dear Friend, Blackheath, Sept. the 1st, 1763. Great news ! The King sent for Mr. Pitt last Saturday, and the conference lasted a full hour; on the Monday following another conference, which lasted much longer; and yesterday a third, longer than either. You take for granted that the treaty was concluded and ratified : no such matter, for this last conference broke it entirely off; and Mr. Pitt and Lord Temple went yesterday evening to their respective country houses. Would you know what it broke off upon, you must ask the newsmongers, and the coffee- houses, who, I dare say, know it all very minutely ; but I, who am not apt to know anything that I do not know, honestly and humbly confess that I cannot tell you; probably one party asked too much, and the other would grant too little. — However, the King's dignity was not, in my mind, much consulted, by their making him sole Plenipotentiary of a treaty, which they were not, in all events, determined to conclude. It ought surely to have been begun by some inferior agent, and his Majesty should only have appeared in rejecting or ratifying it. Louis the XlVth never sate down before a town in person, that was not sure to be taken. However, ce qui est dijferk rC est pas perdu; for this matter must be taken up again, and concluded before the meeting of the Parliament, and probably upon more disadvantageous 270 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S terms to the present Ministers, who have tacitly admitted, by this late negotiation, what their enemies have loudly proclaimed, that they are not able to carry on affairs. So much de re politica. 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 ; for the only solid and lasting peace between a man and his wife is, doubtless, a separation. God bless you ! LETTER LXXIX. I I \*- a Mv DEAR Friend, Blackheath, Sept. the 30th, 1763. You will have known, long before this, from the office, that the departments are not cast as you wished ; for Lord Halifax, as senior, had of course his choice, ai^^ chose the Southern, upon account of the colonies. The Ministry, such as it is, is now settled en attendant mieux; but, in my opinion, cannot, as they are, meet the Parliament. The only, and all the efficient people they have, are in the House of Lords ; for, since Mr. Pitt has firmly engaged Charles Townshend to him, there is not a man of the Court side, in the House of Commons, who has either abilities or words enough to call a coach. Lord B is certainly playing un dessous de cartes^ and I suspect that it is with Mr. Pitt ; but what that dessous is, I do not know, though all the coffee-houses do most exactly. The present inaction, I believe, gives you leisure enough for ennui^ but it gives you time enough, too, for better things ; I mean reading useful books ; and, what is still LETTERS TO HIS SON. 271 more useful, conversing with yourself some part of every day. Lord Shaftesbury recommends self-conversation to all authors ; and I would recommend it to all men ; they would be the better for it. Some people have not time, and fewer have inclination, to enter into that conversation ; nay, very many dread it, and fly to the most trifling dissipations, in order to avoid it; but if a man would allot half-an-hour every night for this self-conversation, and recapitulate with himself whatever he has done, right or wrong, iii the course of the day, he would be both the better and the wiser for it. My deafness gives me more than sufficient time for self- conversation ; and I have found great advantages from it. My brother, and Lady Stanhope, are at last finally parted. I was the negotiator between them, and had so much trouble in it, that I would much rather negotiate the most difficult point of the Jus publicum Sacri Romani Imperii^ with the whole Diet of Ratisbon, than negotiate any point with any woman. If my brother had had some of those self-conversations which I recommend, he would not, I believe, at past sixty, with a crazy, battered constitution, and deaf into the bargain, have married a young girl, just turned of twenty, full of health, and consequently of desires. But who takes warning by the fate of others? This, perhaps, proceeds from a negligence of self-conversation. God bless you ! ;m LETTER LXXX. My dear Friend, Bath, December the i8lh, 1763. I RECEIVED your letter this morning, in which you reproach me with not having written to you this week. The reason was that I did not know what to write. There 2'J2 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S ' is that sameness in my life here, that every day is still but as the first. I see very few people ; and, in the literal sense of the word, I hear nothing. Mr. L and Mr. C I hold to be two very ingeni- ous men ; and your image of the two men ruined, one by losing his lawsuit, and the other by carrying it, is a very just one. To be sure they felt in themselves uncommon talents for business and speaking, which were to reimburse them. Harte has a great poetical work to publish, before it be long ; he has shown me some parts of it. He had entitled it Emblems ; but I persuaded him to alter that name, for two reasons : the first was, because they were not emblems, but fables : the second was, that, if they had been emblems, Quarles had degraded and vilified that name, to such a degree, that it is impossible to make use of it after him : so they are to be called fables, though moral tales would, in my mind, be the properest name. K you ask me what I think of those I have seen, I must say that sunt plura bona^ qiiadam mediocria^ et qucedam Your report of future changes, I cannot think is wholly groundless : for it still runs strongly in my head that the mine we talked of will be sprung, at, or before, the end of the session. I have got a little more strength, but not quite the strength of Hercules; so that I will not undertake, like him, fifty deflorations in one night ; for I really believe that I could not compass them. So good-night, and God bless you 1 LETTERS TO HIS SON, 273 LETTER LXXXI. My dear Friend, London, December the 27th, 1765. I ARRIVED here from Bath last Monday, rather, but not much, better than when I went thither. My rheumatic pains, in my legs and hips, plague me still; and I must never expect to be quite free from them. You have, to be sure, had from the office an account of what the Parliament did, or rather did not do, the day of their meeting: and the same point will be the great object at their next meeting; I mean the affair of our American Colonies, relatively to the late imposed Stamp duty ; which our Colonists absolutely refuse to pay. The Administration are for some indulgence and forbearance to those froward children of their mother country : the Opposition are for taking vigorous, as they call them, but I call them violent, measures ; not less than les dragonades ; and to have the tax collected by the troops we have there. For my part, I never saw a froward child mended by whipping : and I would not have the mother country become a stepmother. Our trade to America brings in, communibus annis^ two millions a year ; and the Stamp duty is estimated at but one hundred thousand pounds a year ; which I would by no means bring in to the stock of the Exchequer, at the loss, or even the risk, of a million a year to the national stock. I do not tell you of the Garter, given away yesterday, because the newspapers will ; but I must observe, that the Prince of Brunswick's riband is a mark of great distinction to that family.; which, I believe, is the first (except our own Royal family) that has ever had two blue ribands at a time ; but it must be owned they deserved them. 650 il 274 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S One hears of nothing now, in town, but the separation of men and their wives. Will Finch the ex-vice-Chamber- lain, Lord Warwick, and your friend Lord Bolingbroke. I wonder at none of them for T^arting; but I wonder at many for still living together; for in this country it is certain that marriage is not well understood. I have this day sent Mr. Larpent two hundred pounds for your Christmas-box, which I suppose he will inform you of by this post. Make this Christmas as merry a one as you can ; for pour le peu de bon iems qui nous reste^ rien n^est si funeste qu^un noir chagrin. For the new years, God send you many, and happy ones ! Adieu. AV LETTER LXXXIL To Mrs. Stanhope^ then at Paris. Madam, London, March the i6th, 1769. A TROUBLESOME and painful inflammation in my eyes obliges me to use another hand than my own, to acknow- ledge the receipt of your letter from Avignon, of the 27th past. I am extremely surprised that Mrs. du-Bouchet should have any objection to the mannei in which your late husband desired to be buried, and which you, very properly, complied with. All I desire, for my own burial, is not to be buried alive ; but how or where, I think, must be entirely indifferent to every rational creature. I have no commission to trouble you with, during your stay at Paris ; from whence, I wish you and your boys LETTERS, 275 a good journey home ; where I shall be very glad to see you all : and assure you of my being, with great truth, Your faithful, humble servant, Chesterfield. LETTER LXXXIII. To the same, at London. Madam, ^ 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 meantime, I beg that you will equip them thoroughly with clothes, linen, etc., all good, but plain ; and give me the account, which I will pay ; for I do not intend, that, from this time forward, the two boys should cost you one shilling. I am, with great truth. Madam, Your faithful, humble servant, Wednesday. CHESTERFIELD, i 1st ur ys LETTER LXXXIV. \_^ Madam, As some day must be fixed for sending the boys to school, do you approve of the 8th of next 'month? by which time the weather will probably be warm and settled, and you will be able to equip them completely. 276 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S I will, upon that day, send my coach to you, to carry you and the boys to Loughborough House, with all their immense baggage. I must recommend to you, when you leave them there, to suppress, as well as you can, the over- flowings of maternal tenderness ; which would grieve the poor boys the more, and give them a terror of their new establishment. I am, with great truth. Madam, Your faithful, humble servant, Thursday Morning. CHESTERFIELD. LETTER LXXXV. ; -A Madam, ' ' Bath, October the nth, 1769. Nobody can be more willing or ready to obey orders than I am ; but then I must like the orders and the orderer. Your orders and yourself come under this de- scription ; and therefore I must give you an account of my arrival and existence, such as it is, here. I got hither last Sunday, the day after I left London, less fatigued than I expected to have been ; and now crawl about this place upon my three legs, but am kept in countenance by many of my fellow-crawlers : the last part of the Sphynx's riddle approaches, and I shall soon end, as I began, upon all fours. ' When you happen to see either Monsieur or Madame Perny, I beg you will give them this melancholic proof of my caducity, and tell them, that the last time I went to see the boys, I carried the Michaelmas quarteridge in my pocket, and when I wrs there I totally forgot it; but assure them that I have not the least intention to bilk LETTERS. 2)1 :his nee the I them, and will pay them faithfully, the two quarters together, at Christmas. I hope our two boys are well ; for then I am sure you are so. I am, with great truth and esteem, Your most faithful, humble servant, , Chesterfield. LETTER LXXXVI. Madam, Bath, October the 28th, 1769. Your kind anxiety for my health and life is more than, in my opinion, they are both worth : without the former, the latter is a burthen; and, indeed, I am very weary of it. I think I have got some benefit by drinking these waters, and by bathing, for my old, stiff, rheumatic limbs ; for I believe I could now outcrawl a snail, or perhaps even a tortoise. I hope the boys are well. Phil, I dare say, has been in some scrape ; but he will get triumphantly out of them, by dint of strength and resolution. I am, with great truth and esteem. Your most faithful, humble servant, Chesterfield. LETTER LXXXVII. Madam, Bath, November the Sth, 1769, I REMEMBER vcry well the paragraph which you quote from a letter of mine to Mrs. du-Bouchet, and see no 278 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S reason yet to retract that opinion, in general,^ which at least nineteen widows in twenty had authorised. I had not then the pleasure of your acquaintance ; I had seen you but twice or thrice; and I had no reason to think that you would deviate, as you have done, from other widows, so much, as to put perpetual shackles upon yourself, for the sake of your children : but (if I may use a vulgarism) one swallow makes no summer : five righteous were formerly necessary to save a city, and they could not be found ; so, till I find four more such righteous widows as yourself, I shall entertain my former notions of widow- hood in general. I can assure you that I drink here very soberly and cautiously, and at the same time keep so cool a diet, that I do not find the least symptom of heat, much less of inflam- mation. By the way, I never had that complaint, in consequence of having drunk these waters ; for I have had it but four times, and always in the middle of summer. Mr. Hawkins is timorous, even to minutieSy and my sister delights in them. Charles will be a scholar, if you please; but our little Philip, without being one, will be something or other as good, though I do not yet guess what. I am not of the opinion generally entertained in this country, that man lives by Greek and Latin alone ; that is, by knowing a great many words of two dead languages, which nobody living knows perfectly, and which are of no use in the common intercourse of life. Useful knowledge, in my opinion, consists of modern languages, history, and geo- graphy; some Latin may be thrown into the bargain, in compliance with custom, and for closet amusement You are, by this time, certainly tired with this long letter, which I could prove to you from Horace's own words (for .^ \ LETTERS, 279 I am a scholar) to be a bad one; he says, that water drinkers can write nothing good ; so I am, with real truth and esteem. Your most faithful, humble servant, Chesterfield. LETTER LXXXVIII. Madam, Bath, October the 9th, 1770. I AM extremely obliged to you for the kind pari which you take in my health and life ; as to the latter, I t?,m as indifferent myself, as any other body can be ; but as to the former, I confess care and anxiety; for, while I am to crawl upon this Planet, I would willingly enjoy the health at least of an insect. How far these waters will restore me to that moderate degree of health, which alone I aspire at, I have not yet given them a fair trial, having drunk them but one week ; the only difference I hitherto find is, that I sleep better than I did. ' -* I beg that you will neither give yourself, nor Mr. Fitzhugh, much trouble about the Pine plants; for, as it is three years before they fruit, I might as well, at my age, plant Oaks, and hope to have the advantage of their timber; however, somebody or other, God knows who, will eat them, as somebody or other will fell and sell the Oaks I planted five-and-forty years ago. I hope our boys are well ; my respects to them both. I. am, with the greatest truth. Your faithful, humble servant, Chesterfield. 28o LORD CHESTERFIELD'S LETTER LXXXIX. Madam, Bath, November the 4th, 1770. The post has been more favourable to you than I intended it should, for, upon my word, I answered your former letter the post after I had received it. However you have got a loss^ as we say, sometimes, in Ireland. My friends, from time to time, require bills of health from me, in these suspicious times, when the Plague is busy in some parts of Europe. All I can say, in answer to their kind inquiries, is, that I have not the distemper properly called the Plague ; but that I have all the plagues of old age, and of a shattered carcass. These waters have done me what little good I expected from them ; though by no means what I could have wished, for I wished them to be lef eaux de Jouvence. I had a letter, the other day, from our two boys; Charles's was very iinely written, and Philip's very prettily : they are perfectly well, and say that they want nothing. What grown-up people will or can say as much ? I am, with the truest esteem, * Madam, , Your most faithful servant, Chesterfield. LETTER XC. Madam, . Bath, October the 20th, 177 1. Upon my word, you interest yourself in the state of my existence more than I do myself; for it is worth the care of neither of us. I ordered my valet de chambre^ according to your orders, to inform you of my safe arrival here ; to LETTERS. 281 which I can add nothing, being neither better nor worse than I was then. I am very glad that our boys are well. Pray give them the enclosed. I am not at all surprised at Mr. 's conversion ; for he was, at seventeen, the idol of old women, for his gravity, devotion, and dulness. I am, Madam, Your most faithful, humble servant, Chesterfield. LETTER XCI. To Charles and Philip Stanhope. l^ath, October the 27th, 1771. I RECEIVED, a few days ago, two of the best written letters that ever I saw in my life ; the one signed Charles Stanhope, the other Philip Stanhope. As for you, Charles, I did not wonder at it \ for you will take pains, and are a lover of letters : but you idle rogue, you Phil, how came you to write so well, that one can almost say of you two, et cantare pares et respondere parati ? Charles will explain this Latin to you. I am told, Phil, that you have got a nickname at school, from your intimacy with Master Strangeways ; and that they call you Master Strangerways ; for, to be sure, you are a strange boy. Is this true ? Tell me what you would have me bring you both from hence, and I will bring it you, when I come to town. In the meantime, God bless you both ! Chesterfield. Printed by Wai,ter Scott, Fellimj, Newcastle-on-Tyne. I Monthly Shilling Volumes, Cloth^ cut or uncut tdgts, THE CAMELOT SERIES. Edited by Ernest Rhys. VOLUMES ALREADY ISSUED— ROMANCE OP KING ARTHUR. Edited by E. Rhys. THORBAU'S WALDBN. Edited by W. H. Dircks. BNaLISH OPIUM-BATBR Edited by William Sharp. LANDOR'S CONVERSATIONS. Edited by H. Ellis. 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CHILDREN OF THE POETS Fdited by Eric S. Robertson. JONSON, Edited by J. A. Symonds. BYRON (2 Vols.) Bd.byM.BUnd. I'HE SONN£TS OF EUROPE. Edited by S. Waddington. RAMSAY. Ed. by J. L. Robertson. DOBELL. Edited by Mrs. Dobell. DAYS OF THE YEAR. With Introduction by Wm. Sharp. POPE. Edited by John Hogben. HEINE. Edited by Mrs. Kroeker. BEAUMONT dc FLETCHER. Edited by J. S. Fletcher. BOWLES, LAMB. fto. Edited by William Tirobuck. EARLY ENGLISH POETRY. Edited by H. Macaulay Fitzgibbon. SEA BIUSIC. Edited by Mrs Sharp. HERRICK. Edited by EmastRhys. BALLADES AND RONDEAUS Edited by J. Oleeson White. IRISH MINSniELSY. Edited by H. Halliday SparUng. MILTON'S PARADISE LOST. Edited by J. Bradshaw, M.A., LL.D. JACOBITE BALLADS. Edited by O. S. Macquoid. AUSTRALIAN BALLADS. Edited by D. B. W. Sladen, B.A. MOORE. Edited by John Dorrian. BORDER BALLADS. Edited by Graham R. Tomson. SONG-TIDE. By P. B. Marston. ODES OF HORACE. Translations by Sir S. de Vere, Bt. OSSIAN. Edited by G. E. Todd. ELFIN MUSIC. Ed. by A. Waite. SOUTHEY. Ed. byS. R. Thompson. CHAUCER. Edited by F. N. Paton. POEMS OF WILD LIFE. Edited by Chas. G. D. Roberts, M.A. PARADISE REGAINED. Edited by J. Bradshaw, M.A., LL.D. CRABBE. Edited by E.Lamplough. DORA GREEN WELL. Edited by William Dorh'ng. FAUST. Edited by E. Craigmyle. AMERICAN SONNETS. Edited by William Sharp. LANDOR'S POi^MS. Selected and Edited by B. Badford. Irondon : WAL'i ER SCOTT, 24 Warwick Lane, Paternoster Row. P9 Crown 8vO| about 350 pp. eacl), GlotI) Cover, 28. 6d. per Vol. Half-Polished Morocco, gilt top, 5/-. COUNT TOLSTOI'S WORKS. Arrangements have been made to publish, in Monthly Volumes, a series of translations of works by the eminent Russian Novelist, Count I^yof. N. Tolstoi. The English reading public will be introduced to an entirely new series of works by one who is probably the greatest living master of fiction in Europe. To those unfamiliar with the charm of Russian fiction, and especially with the works of Count Tolstoi, these volumes will come as a new revelation of power. T^ following Volumes are already issued — A RUSSIAN PROPRIETOR. THE COSSACKS. IVAN ILYITCH, and other Stories. THE INVADERS, and other Stories. MY RELIGION. LIFE. MY CONFESSION. CHILDHOOD, BOYHOOD, YOUTH. THE PHYSIOLOGY OF WAR. Row. Ready July 25. ANNA KARENINA. (2 vols.) OTHERS TO FOLLOW. London ! Walter Scott, 24 Warwick Lane, Paternoster Row. GREA T WRI TERS. A NEW SERIES OF CRITICAL SIOORAPHIES. Edited by Professor Eric S. Robertson, M.A. MONTHLY SHILLIISG VOLUMES. VOLUMES ALREADY ISSUED— LIFE OP LONGFELLOW. By Prof. Eric S. Robertson. "A most readable little yfork.,"— Liverpool Mercury, LIFE OF COLERIDGE. By Hall Caine. "Brief and vigorous, written throughout with spirit and great literary skill. "—SeotemaTi. LIFE OF DICKENS. By Frank T. Marzials. " Notwithstanding the mass of matter that has been printed relating to Dickens and his works ... we should, until we came across this volume, have been at a loss to recommend any popular life of England's most popular novelist as being really satisfactory. The difficulty is removed by Mr. Marzials's little hook"— Athenoemn. LIFE OF DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. By J. Knight. " Mr. Knight's picture of the great poet and painter is the fullest and best yet presented to the public."— TAe Graphic. LIFE OF SAMUEL JOHNSON. Bv Colonel F. Grant. " Colonel Grant has performed his task with diligence, sound Judgment, good taste, and accuracy."— iUiMtrated London News. LIFE OP DARWIN. By G. T. Bettany. " Mr. O. T. Bettany's L^fe of Dartoin is a sound and conscientiooB work." —Saturdny Review. LIFE OF CHARLOTTE BRONTE. By A. Birrell. " Those who know much of Charlotte Bronte will learn more, and those who know nothing about her will find all that is best worth learning in Mr. Birrell's pleasant book."— 5t. James' Gazette. LIFE OF THOMAS CARLYLB. By R. Garnett, LL.D. " Thisi is an admirable book. Nothing could be more felicitous and fairer than the w&y in which he takes us through Carlyle'a life and ^orka."—JPall MaU Gazette. LIFE OF ADAM SMITH. By R. B. Haldane, M.P. " Written with a perspicuity seldom ezemplided when dealing with economic science." — ScoUnnan. LIFE OF KEATS. By W. M. Rossetti. "Valuable for the ample information which it contains."— Cam&r&i^£ Independent. LIFE OF SHELLEY. By William Sharp. " The criticisms . . . entitle this capital monograph to be ranked with the best biographies of Shelley." — Westminster Review. LIFE OF SMOLLETT. By David Hannay. " A capable record of a vniter who still remains one of the great masters of the English noveL"— Saturday Review. LIFE OP GOLDSMITH. By Austin Dobson. " The story of his literary and social life in London, with all Its humorous and pathetic vtcissltudos, Is hero retold, as none oould tell it better."— Daily News. GREAT MVRlTB>ttS—fCon^mu£j). LIFE OP SCOTT. By Professor Yonge. " For readers and lovers of the poems and novels of Sir Walter Scott, this is a most enjoyable hook."— Aberdeen Free Press. LIFE OF BURNS. By Professor Blackie. "The editor certr'nly made a hit when he persuaded Blackie to write about Burns." — Pal' Mall Oazette. LIFE OF VICTOR HUaO. By Frank T. Marzials. "Mr. Marzials's volume presents to us, in a more handy form than any English, or even French handbook gives, the summary of what, up to tho moment in which we write, is known or conjectured about the life of the great poet." — Saturday Review. LIFE OF EMERSON. By Richard Garnett, LL.D. " As to the larger section of the public, . . . nu record of Emerson's life and work could be more desirable, both in breadth jf treatment and lucidity of style, than Dr. Qaxnett's."— Saturday Review. LIFE OF GOETHE. By James Sime. "Mr. Jamed Sime's competence as a biographer of Goethe, both in respect of knowledge of his special subject, and of German literature generally, is beyond qvLQation."— Manchester Guardian. LIFE OF CONGREVE. By Edmund Gosse. "Mr. Gosse has written an admirable and most interesting biography of a man of letters who is of particular interest to other men of letters."— The Academy. LIFE OF BUNYAN. By Canon Venables. " A most intelligent, appreciative, and valuable memoir."— Scotsman. LIFE OF ORABBE. By T, E. Kebbel. "No English poet since Shakespeare has observed certain a.spectB of nature and of human life more closely ; . . . Mr. Kebbel's monograph is worthy of the auhiect."—Athenceum. LIFE OF HEINE. By William Sharp. "This is an admirable mono^ph. , . . more fully written up to the level of recent knowledge and criticism of its theme than any other English yrork."— Scotsman. LIFE OF MILL. By W. L. Courtney. " A most sympathetic and discriminating memoir."— Clasgow HerakU LIFE OF SCHILLER. By Henry W. Nevinson. " Presents the leading facts of the poet's life in a neatly rounded picture, and gives an adequate critical estimate of each of Schiller's separate works and the effect of the whole upon literature." — Scotsman. LIFE OF CAPTAIN MARRY AT. By David Hannay. "We have nothing but praise for the manner in which Mr. Hannav has done justice to him whom he well calls ' one of the most brilliant and the least fairly recognised of English novelists.'" — Saturday Review. Complete Bibliojp:tiphy to each volume, by J. P. Anderson, British Mnseum. Volumes are in preparation by Goldwin Smith, Frederick Wedmore, Oscar Browning, Arthur Symons, W. E. Henley, Hermann Merivale, H. E. Watts, T. W. Rolleston, Cosmo Monkhouse. Dr. Garnett, Frank T. Marzials, W. H. Pollock, John Addington Symonds, Stepniak, etc., etc. LIBRARY EDITION OF " GREAT WRITERS. "-rrinted on large paper of extra quality, in handsome binding, Demy 8vo, price 2s. 6d. London : WALTER SCOTT, 24 Warwick Lane, x'aternoster Row. 3SrE}-\?7- BOOKlXiETS. Crown 8v0, in White Embossed Boards, Gilt Lettering, One Shilling each. By count LEO TOLSTOI. WHERE LOVE IS, THERE GOD IS ALSO. THE TWO PILGRIMS. WHAT MEN LIVE BY. Published originally in Russia, as tracts for the people, these little stories, which Mr. Walter Scott will issue separately early in February, in "booklet" form, possess all the grace, naivet^, and power which characterise the work of Count Tolstoi, and while inculcating in the most penetrating way the Christian ideas of love, humility, and charity, are perfect in their art form as stories pure and simple. ADAPTED FOR PRESENTATION AT EASTER, London : Walter Scott, 24 Warwick Lane. •t VOLS. T. TO XX. NOW READV. Itk-ISSUE 1(4 MONTHLY VOLUMES, PI{IGE ONE SHILLING Ei^CH, STRONGLY BOUND IN OLOTH, Uniform in size and style with the Camelot Series, WILSON'S TALES OF THE BORDERS AND OF SCOTLAND: HISTORICAL, TRADITIONARY, AND IMAQINATII/E. REVISED BY ALEXANDER LEIGHTON. No collection of tales published in a serial form ever enjoyed so great a popularity as " The Tales of the Borders ; " and the secret of their success lies in the fact that they are stories in the truest sense of the word, illustrating in a graphic and natural style the manners and customs, trials and sorrows, sins and backslidings, of the men and women of whom they treat. The heroes and heroines of these admirable stories belong to every rank of life, from the king and noble to the humble peasant. "The Tales of the Borders" have always been immensely popular with the young, and whether we view them in their moral aspect, or as vehicles for instruction and amusement, the collected series forms a repertory of healthy and interesting literature unrivalled in the language. The Scotsman says: — *' Those who have read the talcs in the unwieldy tomes in which they are to be found in the libraries will welcome the pul lication of this neat, handy, and well-printed edition." The Dundee Advertiser szy^ :— "Considering how attractive are these tales, whether regarded as illustrating Scottish life, or as entertaining items of romance, there can be no doubt of their continued popularity. We last read them in volumes the size of a family Bible, and we are glad to have an opportunity to renew our acquaintance with them in a form so much more handy and elegant." EACH VOLUME WILL BE COMPLETE IN ITSELF. London: Walter Scott, 24 Warwick Lane, Paternoster Row. THE NOVOOASTftlAN SERIES. Square Svo. Price One Shilling Each. CASHEL BYRON'S PROFESSION. By G. BBRNABD SHAW. POLICE SERGEANT C 21 : THB STOBT OF A CRIME. Br REGINALD BARNBTT. "The plot is ingenious, the interest is well sustained throughout, and the style is distinctly above that of the ordinary ' shilling shocker.' **—Oraphio. JACK DUDLEY'S WIFE. By B. M. DAVT, Author of *' A Prince of Como." &o. " The tale is written with excellent skill, and succeeds in holding the interest well up from first to laat."— Scotsman. OAK-BOUGH AND WATTLE-BLOSSOM. stories and Sketches by Australians in England. Edited by A. P. MARTIN. " A collection of interesting atoriea."— Literary World. VANE'S INVENTION : An Electrical Romance. By WALTER MILBANE. " The story is capitally told."— Scotsman. THE POLICEMAN'S LANTERN. STRANGE STORIES OF LONDON LIFE. By JAMES GREENWOOD, "The Amateur Casual." " The stories are merrily told in a light spontaneous style, which touches oil the bizarre aspects of life on the city streets."— TA0 Scots Observer. A WITNESS FROM THE DEAD. (A SPECIAL REPORTER'S STORY.) BY FLORENCE LAYARD. " Ingenious and interesting."— (Scotsman. THE UGLY STORY OF MISS WETHERBY. By RICHARD PRYCE, Author of " An EvU Sphrit," Ac. " A bright tale of clever imposture." — Pall Mall Budget. London : WAT TER SCOTT, 24 Warwick Lane, Paternoster Row. > ' I the Brest Small Crown Sva Printed on Antique Laid Paper. Cloth Elegonti Qilt Edges, Price 3/6. Summer Legends. By RUDOLPH BAUMBACH. IN. • CE. TRANSLATED BY MRS. HELEN B. DOLE. oil This is a oollection of charming fitmciful stories translated from the German. In Germany they have enjoyed remarkable popularity, a large number of editions having been sold. Rudolph Baumbach deals with a wonderland which is all his own, though he suggests Hans Andersen in his simplicity of treatment, and Heine in his delicacy, grace, and humour. These are stories which will appeal vividly to the childish imagination, while the older reader will discern the satirical or humorous application that underlies them. Xiondon : Walter Scott, 24 Warwick Lane. • > 1 " ^ SEASON 1889, Mw Heady, Price (Cloth) 3/6. THOROUGHLY REVISED, NEW ILLUSTRATIONS, STEAMER TIME TABLES, SKELETON TOURS. THE LAND OF THE VIKINGS. A POPULAR Guide TO Norway. CONTAINING Description of that Wonderful Country. Constitation and Politics of Norway. Hints to Tourists. Railway and Steamboat Arrangements- Popular Tourist Routes by Fjeld and Fjord. Tables of Exchange. Cost of Travelling in Norway. Trips to the North Cape. The Scenery of the Sogne, the Hardanger, the Hjomnd, Ncrang, and other famous Arms of the Sea. Fishing and Shooting. Modes of Travel. Rates of Charges for Horse and Carriole, etc. Tourist Tracks to all Parts. Tables of Distances from Station to Station. Maps of the Principal Routes, and every other Information useful to the traveller. London : Walter Soott, 24 Warwicfe«j!«ane, Paternoster Row.