Part 24

Six daughters, one of them, Lady Sophia, surpassingly lovely recalled the perfections of that ancestress, Arabella Fermor whose charms Pope has so exquisitely touched in the 'Rape of the Lock.' Lady Sophia became eventually the wife of Lord Carteret, the minister, whose talents and the charms of whose eloquence constituted him a sort of rival to Chesterfield. With all his abilities, Lord Chesterfield may be said to have failed both as a courtier and as a political character, as far as permanent influence in any ministry was concerned, until in 1744, when what was called the 'Broad-bottomed administration' was formed, when he was admitted into the cabinet. In the following year, however, he went, for the last time, to Holland, as ambassador, and succeeded beyond the expectations of his party in the purposes of his embassy. He took leave of the States-General just before the battle of Fontenoy, and hastened to Ireland, where he had been nominated Lord-Lieutenant previous to his journey to Holland. He remained in that country only a year; but long enough to prove how liberal were his views--how kindly the dispositions of his heart.

Only a few years before Lord Chesterfield's arrival in Dublin, the Duke of Shrewsbury had given as a reason for accepting the vice-regency of that country, (of which King James I. had said, there was 'more ado' than with any of his dominions,) 'that it was a place where a man had business enough to keep him from falling asleep, and not enough to keep him awake.'

Chesterfield, however, was not of that opinion. He did more in one year than the duke would have accomplished in five. He began by instituting a principle of impartial justice. Formerly, Protestants had alone been employed as 'managers;' the Lieutenant was to see with Protestant eyes, to hear with Protestant ears.

'I have determined to proscribe no set of persons whatever,' says Chesterfield, 'and determined to be governed by none. Had the Papists made any attempt to put themselves above the law, I should have taken good care to have quelled them again. It was said my lenity to the Papists had wrought no alteration either in their religious or their political sentiments. I did not expect that it would: but surely that was no reason for cruelty towards them.'

Often by a timely jest Chesterfield conveyed a hint, or even shrouded a reproof. One of the ultra-zealous informed him that his coachman was a Papist, and went every Sunday to mass. 'Does he indeed? I will take care he never drives me there,' was Chesterfield's cool reply.

It was at this critical period, when the Hanoverian dynasty was shaken almost to its downfall by the insurrection in Scotland of 1745, that Ireland was imperilled: 'With a weak or wavering, or a fierce and headlong Lord-Lieutenant--with a Grafton or a Strafford,' remarks Lord Mahon, 'there would soon have been a simultaneous rising in the Emerald Isle.' But Chesterfield's energy, his lenity, his wise and just administration saved the Irish from being excited into rebellion by the emissaries of Charles Edward, or slaughtered, when conquered, by the 'Butcher,' and his tiger-like dragoons. When all was over, and that sad page of history in which the deaths of so many faithful adherents of the exiled family are recorded, had been held up to the gaze of bleeding Caledonia, Chesterfield recommended mild measures, and advised the establishment of schools in the Highlands; but the age was too narrow-minded to adopt his views. In January, 1748, Chesterfield retired from public life. 'Could I do any good,' he wrote to a friend, 'I would sacrifice some more quiet to it; but convinced as I am that I can do none, I will indulge my ease, and preserve my character. I have gone through pleasures while my constitution and my spirits would allow me. Business succeeded them; and I have now gone through every part of it without liking it at all the better for being acquainted with it. Like many other things, it is most admired by those who know it least.... I have been behind the scenes both of pleasure and business; I have seen all the coarse pulleys and dirty ropes which exhibit and move all the gaudy machines; and I have seen and smelt the tallow candles which illuminate the whole decoration, to the astonishment and admiration of the ignorant multitude.... My horse, my books, and my friends will divide my time pretty equally.'

He still interested himself in what was useful; and carried a Bill in the House of Lords for the Reformation of the Calendar, in 1751. It seems a small matter for so great a mind as his to accomplish, but it was an achievement of infinite difficulty. Many statesmen had shrunk from the undertaking; and even Chesterfield found it essential to prepare the public, by writing in some periodical papers on the subject. Nevertheless the vulgar outcry was vehement: 'Give us back the eleven days we have been robbed of!' cried the mob at a general election. When Bradley was dying, the common people ascribed his sufferings to a judgment for the part he had taken in that 'impious transaction,' the alteration of the calendar. But they were not less _bornés_ in their notions than the Duke of Newcastle, then prime minister. Upon Lord Chesterfield giving him notice of his Bill, that bustling premier, who had been in a hurry for forty years, who never 'walked but always ran,' greatly alarmed, begged Chesterfield not to stir matters that had been long quiet; adding, that he did not like 'new-fangled things.' He was, as we have seen, overruled, and henceforth the New Style was adopted; and no special calamity has fallen on the nation, as was expected, in consequence. Nevertheless, after Chesterfield had made his speech in the House of Lords, and when every one had complimented him on the clearness of his explanation--'God knows,' he wrote to his son, 'I had not even attempted to explain the Bill to them; I might as soon have talked Celtic or Sclavonic to them as astronomy. They would have understood it full as well.' So much for the 'Lords' in those days!

After his _furore_ for politics had subsided, Chesterfield returned to his ancient passion for play. We must linger a little over the still brilliant period of his middle life, whilst his hearing was spared; whilst his wit remained, and the charming manners on which he had formed a science, continued; and before we see him in the mournful decline of a life wholly given to the world.

He had now established himself in Chesterfield House. Hitherto his progenitors had been satisfied with Bloomsbury Square, in which the Lord Chesterfield mentioned by De Grammont resided; but the accomplished Chesterfield chose a site near Audley Street, which had been built on what was called Mr. Audley's land, lying between Great Brook Field and the 'Shoulder of Mutton Field.' And near this locality with the elegant name, Chesterfield chose his spot, for which he had to wrangle and fight with the Dean and Chapter of Westminster, who asked an exorbitant sum for the ground. Isaac Ware, the editor of 'Palladio,' was the architect to whom the erection of this handsome residence was intrusted. Happily it is still untouched by any _renovating_ hand. Chesterfield's favourite apartments, looking on the most spacious private garden in London, are just as they were in his time; one especially, which he termed the 'finest room in London,' was furnished and decorated by him. 'The walls,' says a writer in the 'Quarterly Review,' 'are covered half way up with rich and classical stores of literature; above the cases are in close series the portraits of eminent authors, French and English, with most of whom he had conversed; over these, and immediately under the massive cornice, extend all round in foot-long capitals the Horatian lines:--

'Nunc . veterum . libris . Nunc . somno . et . inertibus . Horis. Lucen . solicter . jucunda . oblivia . vitea.

'On the mantel-pieces and cabinets stand busts of old orators, interspersed with voluptuous vases and bronzes, antique or Italian, and airy statuettes in marble or alabaster of nude or semi-nude opera nymphs.'

What Chesterfield called the 'cannonical pillars' of the house were columns brought from Cannons, near Edgeware, the seat of the Duke of Chandos. The antechamber of Chesterfield House has been erroneously stated as the room in which Johnson waited the great lord's pleasure. That state of endurance was probably passed by 'Old Samuel' in Bloomsbury.

In this stately abode--one of the few, the very few, that seem to hold _noblesse_ apart in our levelling metropolis--Chesterfield held his assemblies of all that London, or indeed England, Paris, the Hague, or Vienna, could furnish of what was polite and charming. Those were days when the stream of society did not, as now, flow freely, mingling with the grace of aristocracy the acquirements of hard-working professors; there was then a strong line of demarcation; it had not been broken down in the same way as now, when people of rank and wealth live in rows, instead of inhabiting hotels set apart. Paris has sustained a similar revolution, since her gardens were built over, and their green shades, delicious, in the centre of that hot city, are seen no more. In the very Faubourg St. Germain, the grand old hotels are rapidly disappearing, and with them something of the exclusiveness of the higher orders. Lord Chesterfield, however, triumphantly pointing to the fruits of his taste and distribution of his wealth, witnessed, in his library at Chesterfield House, the events which time produced. He heard of the death of Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, and of her bequest to him of twenty thousand pounds, and her best and largest brilliant diamond ring, 'out of the great regard she had for his merit, and the infinite obligations she had received from him.' He witnessed the change of society and of politics which occurred when George II. expired, and the Earl of Bute, calling himself a descendant of the house of Stuart, 'and humble enough to be proud of it,' having quitted the isle of Bute, which Lord Chesterfield calls 'but a little south of Nova Zembla,' took possession, not only of the affections, but even of the senses of the young king, George III., who, assisted by the widowed Princess of Wales (supposed to be attached to Lord Bute), was 'lugged out of the seraglio,' and 'placed upon the throne.'

Chesterfield lived to have the honour of having the plan of 'Johnson's Dictionary' inscribed to him, and the dishonour of neglecting the great author. Johnson, indeed, denied the truth of the story which gained general belief, in which it was asserted that he had taken a disgust at being kept waiting in the earl's antechamber, the reason being assigned that his lordship 'had company with him;' when at last the door opened, and forth came Colley Cibber. Then Johnson--so report said--indignant, not only for having been kept waiting but also for _whom_, went away, it was affirmed, in disgust; but this was solemnly denied by the doctor, who assured Boswell that his wrath proceeded from continual neglect on the part of Chesterfield.

Whilst the Dictionary was in progress, Chesterfield seemed to forget the existence of him, whom, together with the other literary men, he affected to patronize.

He once sent him ten pounds, after which he forgot Johnson's address, and said 'the great author had changed his lodgings.' People who really wish to benefit others can always discover where they lodge. The days of patronage were then expiring, but they had not quite ceased, and a dedication was always to be in some way paid for.

When the publication of the Dictionary drew near, Lord Chesterfield flattered himself that, in spite of all his neglect, the great compliment of having so vast an undertaking dedicated to him would still be paid, and wrote some papers in the 'World,' recommending the work, more especially referring to the 'plan,' and terming Johnson the 'dictator,' in respect to language: 'I will not only obey him,' he said, 'as my dictator, like an old Roman, but like a modern Roman, will implicitly believe in him as my pope.'

Johnson, however, was not to be propitiated by those 'honeyed words.' He wrote a letter couched in what he called 'civil terms,' to Chesterfield, from which we extract the following passages:

'When, upon some slight encouragement, I first visited your lordship, I was overpowered, like the rest of mankind, by the enchantment of your address; and could not forbear to wish that I might boast myself _vainqueur du vainqueur de la terre_--that I might obtain that regard for which I saw the world contending; but I found my attendance so little encouraged, that neither pride nor modesty would suffer me to continue it. When I had once addressed your lordship in publick, I had exhausted all the art of pleasing which a retired and uncourtly scholar can possess. I had done all that I could; and no man is well pleased to have his all neglected, be it ever so little.

'Seven years, my lord, have now past, since I waited in your outward room, or was repulsed from your door, during which time I have been pushing on my work through difficulties, of which it is useless to complain, and have brought it, at last, to the verge of publication without one act of assistance, one word of encouragement, or one smile of favour: such treatment I did not expect, for I never had a patron before.... Is not a patron, my lord, one who looks with unconcern on a man who is struggling for life in the water, and, when he has reached ground, encumbers him with help? The notice which you have been pleased to take of my labours, had it been early, had been kind; but it has been delayed till I am indifferent and cannot enjoy it; till I am solitary and cannot impart it; till I am known and do not want it. I hope it is no very cynical asperity not to confess obligations where no benefit has been received, or to be unwilling that the publick should consider me as owing that to a patron which Providence has enabled me to do for myself.'

The conduct of Johnson, on this occasion, was approved by most manly minds, except that of his publisher, Mr. Robert Dodsley; Dr. Adams, a friend of Dodsley, said he was sorry that Johnson had written that celebrated letter (a very model of polite contempt). Dodsley said he was sorry too, for he had a property in the Dictionary, to which his lordship's patronage might be useful. He then said that Lord Chesterfield had shown him the letter. 'I should have thought,' said Adams, 'that Lord Chesterfield would have concealed it.' 'Pooh!' cried Dodsley, 'do you think a letter from Johnson could hurt Lord Chesterfield? not at all, sir. It lay on his table, where any one might see it. He read it to me; said, "this man has great powers," pointed out the severest passages, and said, "how well they were expressed."' The art of dissimulation, in which Chesterfield was perfect, imposed on Mr. Dodsley.

Dr. Adams expostulated with the doctor, and said Lord Chesterfield declared he would part with the best servant he had, if he had known that he had turned away a man who was '_always_ welcome.' Then Adams insisted on Lord Chesterfield's affability, and easiness of access to literary men. But the sturdy Johnson replied, 'Sir, that is not Lord Chesterfield; he is the proudest man existing.' 'I think,' Adams rejoined, 'I know one that is prouder; you, by your own account, are the prouder of the two.' 'But mine,' Johnson answered, with one of his happy turns, 'was defensive pride.' 'This man,' he afterwards said, referring to Chesterfield, 'I thought had been a lord among wits, but I find he is only a wit among lords.'

In revenge, Chesterfield in his Letters depicted Johnson, it is said, in the character of the 'respectable Hottentot.' Amongst other things, he observed of the Hottentot, 'he throws his meat anywhere but down his throat.' This being remarked to Johnson, who was by no means pleased at being immortalized as the Hottentot--'Sir,' he answered, 'Lord Chesterfield never saw me eat in his life.'

[Illustration: DR. JOHNSON AT LORD CHESTERFIELD'S.]

Such are the leading points of this famous and lasting controversy. It is amusing to know that Lord Chesterfield was not always precise as to directions to his letters. He once directed to Lord Pembroke, who was always swimming 'To the Earl of Pembroke, in the Thames, over against Whitehall. This, as Horace Walpole remarks, was sure of finding him within a certain fathom.'

Lord Chesterfield was now admitted to be the very 'glass of fashion,' though age, and, according to Lord Hervey, a hideous person, impeded his being the 'mould of form.' 'I don't know why,' writes Horace Walpole, in the dog-days, from Strawberry Hill, 'but people are always more anxious about their hay than their corn, or twenty other things that cost them more: I suppose my Lord Chesterfield, or some such dictator, made it fashionable to care about one's hay. Nobody betrays solicitude about getting in his rents.' 'The prince of wits,' as the same authority calls him--'his entrance into the world was announced by his bon-mots, and his closing lips dropped repartees that sparkled with his juvenile fire.'

No one, it was generally allowed, had such a force of table-wit as Lord Chesterfield; but while the 'Graces' were ever his theme, he indulged himself without distinction or consideration in numerous sallies. He was, therefore, at once sought and feared; liked but not loved; neither sex nor relationship, nor rank, nor friendship, nor obligation, nor profession, could shield his victim from what Lord Hervey calls, 'those pointed, glittering weapons, that seemed to shine only to a stander-by, but cut deep into those they touched.'

He cherished 'a voracious appetite for abuse;' fell upon every one that came in his way, and thus treated each one of his companions at the expense of the other. To him Hervey, who had probably often smarted, applied the lines of Boileau--

'Mais c'est un petit fou qui se croit tout permis, Et qui pour un bon mot va perdre vingt amis.'

Horace Walpole (a more lenient judge of Chesterfield's merits) observes that 'Chesterfield took no less pains to be the phoenix of fine gentlemen, than Tully did to qualify himself as an orator. Both succeeded: Tully immortalized his name; Chesterfield's reign lasted a little longer than that of a fashionable beauty.' It was, perhaps, because, as Dr. Johnson said, all Lord Chesterfield's witty sayings were puns, that even his brilliant wit failed to please, although it amused, and surprised its hearers.

Notwithstanding the contemptuous description of Lord Chesterfield's personal appearance by Lord Hervey, his portraits represent a handsome, though hard countenance, well-marked features, and his figure and air appear to have been elegant. With his commanding talents, his wonderful brilliancy and fluency of conversation, he would perhaps sometimes have been even tedious, had it not been for his invariable cheerfulness. He was always, as Lord Hervey says, 'present' in his company. Amongst the few friends who really loved this thorough man of the world, was Lord Scarborough, yet no two characters were more opposite. Lord Scarborough had judgment, without wit: Chesterfield wit, and no judgment; Lord Scarborough had honesty and principle; Lord Chesterfield had neither. Everybody liked the one, but did not care for his company. Everyone disliked the other, but wished for his company. The fact was, Scarborough was 'splendid and absent.' Chesterfield 'cheerful and present:' wit, grace, attention to what is passing, the surface, as it were, of a highly-cultured mind, produced a fascination with which all the honour and respectability in the Court of George II. could not compete.

In the earlier part of Chesterfield's career, Pope, Bolingbroke, Hervey, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, and, in fact, all that could add to the pleasures of the then early dinner-table, illumined Chesterfield House by their wit and gaiety. Yet in the midst of this exciting life, Lord Chesterfield found time to devote to the improvement of his natural son, Philip Stanhope, a great portion of his leisure. His celebrated Letters to that son did not, however, appear during the earl's life; nor were they in any way the source of his popularity as a wit, which was due to his merits in that line alone.

The youth to whom these letters, so useful and yet so objectionable, were addressed, was intended for a diplomatist. He was the very reverse of his father: learned, sensible, and dry; but utterly wanting in the graces, and devoid of eloquence. As an orator, therefore, he failed; as a man of society, he must also have failed; and his death, in 1768, some years before that of his father, left that father desolate, and disappointed. Philip Stanhope had attained the rank of envoy to Dresden, where he expired.

During the five years in which Chesterfield dragged out a mournful life after this event, he made the painful discovery that his son had married without confiding that step to the father to whom he owed so much. This must have been almost as trying as the awkward, ungraceful deportment of him whom he mourned. The world now left Chesterfield ere he had left the world. He and his contemporary Lord Tyrawley were now old and infirm. 'The fact is,' Chesterfield wittily said, 'Tyrawley and I have been dead these two years, but we don't choose to have it known.'

'The Bath,' he wrote to his friend Dayrolles, 'did me more good than I thought anything could do me; but all that good does not amount to what builders call half-repairs, and only keeps up the shattered fabric a little longer than it would have stood without them; but take my word for it, it will stand but a very little while longer. I am now in my grand climacteric, and shall not complete it. Fontenelle's last words at a hundred and three were, _Je souffre d'être._ deaf and infirm as I am, I can with truth say the same thing at sixty-three. In my mind it is only the strength of our passions, and the weakness of our reason, that makes us so fond of life; but when the former subside and give way to the latter, we grow weary of being, and willing to withdraw. I do not recommend this train of serious reflections to you, nor ought you to adopt them.... You have children to educate and provide for, you have all your senses, and can enjoy all the comforts both of domestic and social life. I am in every sense _isolé_, and have wound up all my bottoms; I may now walk off quietly, without missing nor being missed.'

The kindness of his nature, corrupted as it was by a life wholly worldly, and but little illumined in its course by religion, shone now in his care of his two grandsons, the offspring of his lost son, and of their mother, Eugenia Stanhope. To her he thus wrote:--