ing, Richardson, Smollett, Gray, Goldsmith, Hume, Robertson, Johnson, Gibbon, nor even Burke, elicits a remark. There is one allusion to Garrick (by Rigby); one to Reynolds (by Lord Carlisle); and one to Gainsborough (by Gilly Williams), as "the painter by whom, if you remember, we once saw the caricature of old Winchilsea."

There was no want of classical acquirement, it is true. Many wrote graceful verses; and Fox and Walpole had a taste for contemporary literature but Fox kept it to himself for lack of sympathy, and Walpole was ashamed of it. By literature, however, must be understood merely the Belles Lettres ; for Fox confessed late in life that he had never been able to get through "The Wealth of Nations."

Familiarity, again, is a great charm, but the habits which are the conditions of its existence beget monotony. In Charles the Second's reign, when it was the fashion to go to sea and fight the Dutch, instead of taking lodgings at Melton, or attending battues, Sheffield, Duke of Buckingham, tells us in his "Memoirs," that a party of gay, witty, lettered profligates were becalmed on board the Duke of York's ship, and got so tired of one another, that the first care each took on landing was to ascertain where the rest were going, in order to get away from them. We are not aware whether the habitués of White's or Brookes's, seventy or eighty years ago, were ever brought to such a pass; but we know (and there is no getting over this) that they habitually resorted to the gaming-table

"Unknown to such, when sensual pleasures cloy,
To fill the languid pause with finer joy."

With rare exceptions, the most accomplished persons, about to risk more than they can afford to lose, will be found both ill-disposed, and ill-qualified, for

208

GEORGE SELWYN: HIS LIFE AND TIMES.

the easy equable enjoyment of conversation; although (with the aid of wine) they may have their occasional bursts of sparkling pleasantry.

To sum up all-there is a halo floating over certain periods; dazzling associations may cluster round a name: "'tis distance lends enchantment to the view;" and living witnesses who have known both generations, will always, by a law of our nature, award the palm to the companions of their youth. But it will require stronger arguments than have been adduced yet, to convince us that the social powers of any class have fallen off, whilst morality, taste, knowledge, general freedom of intercourse and liberality of opinion, have been advancing; or that the mind necessarily loses any portion of its playfulness, when it quits the enervating atmosphere of idleness and dissipation for the purer air and brighter skies of Art, Literature and Philosophy.

209

LORD CHESTERFIELD.

(FROM THE EDINBURGH REVIEW, Oct. 1845.)

The Letters of Philip Dormer, Earl of Chesterfield: includnow first published from the Edited, with Notes, by LORD London: 1845.

ing numerous Letters original Manuscripts. MAHON. 4 vols. 8vo.

THE name of Chesterfield has become a synonyme for good breeding and politeness. It is associated in our minds with all that is graceful in manner and cold in heart, attractive in appearance and unamiable in reality. The image it calls up is that of a man rather below the middle height, in a court suit and blue riband, with regular features, wearing an habitual expression of gentlemanlike ease. His address is insinuating, his bow perfect, his compliments rival those of Le Grand Monarque in delicacy: laughter is too demonstrative for him, but the smile of courtesy is ever on his lip; and by the time he has gone through the circle, the avowed object of his daily ambition is accomplished all the women are already half in love with him, and every man is desirous to be his friend. But the name recalls little or nothing of the statesman, the orator, the wit. We forget that this same little man was one of the best Lords-Lieutenant Ireland ever knew, the best speaker in the House of Lords till Pitt and Murray entered it, one of our most graceful essayists, and the wittiest man of quality of his time-a time when wit meant something more than pleasantry or sparkle, and men of quality prided themselves on

having dined in company with Swift, supped at Button's with "the great Mr. Addison," or passed an evening at Pope's villa at Twickenham. Nescia mens hominum fati sortisque futuræ: what would be the feelings of the all-accomplished and eloquent earl himself, were he to wake from the dead and find his reputation resting on his confidential "Letters to his Son!" He would be little less astonished than Petrarch, were he to wake up and find his "Africa" forgotten, and his "Sonnets" the keystone of his fame.

Dr. Johnson has said, that whenever the public think long about a matter, they generally think right. Perhaps they do when they are familiar with the facts, and when no twist or warp has been given to the judgment they found upon them. But the best of Lord Chesterfield was that of which he left no lasting or no easily accessible memorials; and Dr. Johnson himself gave a warp to the judgment of the public when he said of his lordship, that he was "a lord among wits, and wits, and a wit among lords ;" and pronounced his famous diatribe against the "Letters" (that they taught the morals of a and the man

ners of a dancing-master); although we find him afterwards telling Boswell "I think it might be made a very pretty book. Take out the immorality, and it should be put into the hands of every young gentleman."

The authority of the "Letters" is certainly impaired by the popular notion entertained of his lordship as a mere courtier; and for this reason a short review of his life will form the best introduction to his writings, which are peculiarly of a class requiring to be read by the light that personal history throws upon them ;-like Rochfoucauld's " Maxims," which it is impossible to appreciate or apply without an intimate knowledge of the men and women of the Fronde. It is, moreover, good for literature to take

retrospective views occasionally of books and characters that have obtained a prescriptive reputation; and there are passages in Lord Chesterfield's career which deserve to be dwelt upon, independently of their use in illustrating his rules of conduct and speculations on society. We propose, then, with the aid of Dr. Maty and Lord Mahon, to bring this ornament of his order once more before that public for which he loved to drape himself to sift his claims, and settle definitively his place and precedence as a writer, a moralist, and a man.

The "Memoir of the Life of the Earl of Chesterfield," which occupies the whole of the first volume of the edition of his miscellaneous works published in 1777, consists of six sections. The first five were written by Dr. Maty; the sixth by Mr. Justamond, who, on Dr. Maty's death, took charge of the publication. This Memoir is a tolerably fair specimen of second-rate biography.

Lord Mahon has contented himself with prefixing to his edition of the "Letters" the sketch of Lord Chesterfield's life and character published in his (Lord Mahon's) "History of England."* It is so well written that we could wish it had been longer. Lord Mahon, himself a Stanhope, has of course enjoyed ample opportunities of making his edition complete. He says he had two objects in view- to combine the scattered correspondence in one uniform arrangement, with explanatory notes; and to publish many cha racteristic letters which had been kept back. He has succeeded in both objects; the new matter is valuable, the arrangement is judicious, and the only fault that can reasonably be found with the notes is, that they are short and far between. We will now proceed to the immediate purpose of this essay.

See vol. iii.