"so; but my great object was to make every man I met like "me, and every woman love me. I often succeeded, but "why? By taking great pains."* But these more superficial graces and accomplishments were, it speedily appeared, supported by what alone can support them in public life; a large and solid fund of reading. "Nobody," says he to his son, "ever lent themselves more than I did, when I was "young, to the pleasures and dissipation of good company; "I even did it too much. But then I can assure you, that I "always found time for serious studies; and when I could "find it no other way, I took it out of my sleep; for I "resolved always to rise early in the morning, however late "I went to bed at night; and this resolution I have kept so "sacred that, unless when I have been confined to my bed "by illness, I have not, for more than forty years, ever "been in bed at nine o'clock in the morning, but commonly "up before eight." **— "But," he adds, "throw away none "of your time upon those trivial futile 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 your leisure แ "moments, and pursue that object invariably till you have "attained it."***-With Chesterfield that main object was oratory. "So long ago as when I was at Cambridge, when"ever I read pieces of eloquence (and, indeed, they were my "chief study), whether ancient or modern, I used to write "down the shining passages, and then translate them as well "and as elegantly as ever I could; if Latin or French, into 'English; if English, into French. This, which I practised "for some years, not only improved and formed my style, "but imprinted in my mind and memory the best thoughts "of the best authors. The trouble was little, but the "advantage I have experienced was great."+ Whether To his son, July 21. 1752. ** Letter, December 13. 1748. *** Ibid. May 31. 1752.

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Letter, February 1. 1754.

1747.

LORD CHESTERFIELD.

343

from such studies, or from natural genius, Chesterfield's speeches became more highly admired and extolled than any others of the day. Horace Walpole had heard his own father; had heard Pitt; had heard Pulteney; had heard Wyndham; had heard Carteret; yet he declares, in 1743, that the finest speech he ever listened to was one from Chesterfield.*

The outset of Chesterfield in public employments was his first embassy to Holland, in which he displayed great skill and attained universal reputation. Diplomacy was indeed peculiarly suited to his tastes and talents: he was equally remarkable for a quick insight into the temper of others, and for a constant command of his own: with foreign languages and history he had long been familiar: and public business, though at first strange and unwelcome, soon became easy, nay delightful, to him. He writes to Lady Suffolk from the Hague: "As you know, I used to be "accused in England, and I doubt pretty justly, of having "a need of such a proportion of talk in a day: that is now "changed into a need for such a proportion of writing in a day."

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Chesterfield's second embassy to Holland, in 1744, confirmed and renewed the praises he had acquired by the first. So high did his reputation stand at this period, that Sir Watkin Wynn, though neither his partisan nor personal friend, once in the House of Commons reversed in his favour Clarendon's character of Hampden; saying, that "Lord "Chesterfield had a head to contrive, a tongue to persuade, "and a hand to execute, any worthy action." *** At home his career, though never, as I think, inspired by a high and pervading patriotism, deserves the praise of humane, and liberal, and far-sighted policy. Thus after the rebellion, while all his colleagues thought only of measures of repression the dungeon or the scaffold - disarming acts and

*To Sir H. Mann, December 15. 1743.

**To Lady Suffolk, August 13. 1728. Suffolk Letters, 1824. *** See Parl. Hist. vol. xiii. p. 1054.

abolition acts

we find that Chesterfield "was for schools

"and villages to civilise the Highlands."*

But, undoubtedly, the most brilliant and useful part of Chesterfield's career was his Lord Lieutenancy of Ireland. It was he who first, since the Revolution, made that office a post of active exertion. Only a few years before, the Duke 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. Being once asked how he was able to go through so many affairs, he answered, "Because I never "put off till to-morrow what I can do to-day."*** Chesterfield was also the first to introduce at Dublin - long as it had reigned in London - the principle of impartial justice. It is no doubt much easier to rule Ireland on one exclusive principle or on another. It is very easy, as was formerly the case, to choose the great Protestant families for "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 champion of Roman Catholic agitators; but to hold the balance even between both; to protect the Establishment, yet never wound religious liberty; to repress the lawlessness, yet not chill the affections of that turbulent but warm-hearted people; to be the arbiter, not the slave of parties; this is the true object worthy that a statesman should strive for, and fit only for the ablest to attain. "I came determined," writes Chesterfield, many years afterwards, "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 religious or their political senti

* Diary of Lord Marchmont, August 31. 1747.

** Marchmont Papers, vol. i. p. 91.

*** Maty's Life, p. 255. From the Bishop of Waterford.

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“ments. I did not expect that it would: but surely that was "no reason for cruelty towards them."* Yet Chesterfield did not harshly censure, even where he strongly disapproved; but often conveyed a keen reproof beneath a goodhumoured jest. Thus, being informed by some exasperated zealots that his coachman was a Roman Catholic and went every Sunday to Mass: "Does he, indeed!" replied the Lord Lieutenant, "I will take good care that he shall never "drive me there!" When he first arrived at Dublin in the summer of 1745, a dangerous rebellion was bursting forth in the sister kingdom, and threatened to extend itself to a country where so many millions held the faith of the young Pretender. With a weak and wavering, or a fierce and headlong Lord Lieutenant, with a Grafton or a Strafford

there might soon have been another Papist army at the Boyne. But 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 expression, "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 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.

The biographer of Chesterfield, after portraying his character, in whatever points it can be praised, concludes, "These were his excellences; let those who surpass him

*Letter of Lord Chesterfield, preserved in the archives of Dublin Castle, and quoted by Lord Mulgrave in the debate in the House of Lords, November 27. 1837.

"speak of his defects." I shall not follow that example of prudent reserve. The defects of Chesterfield were neither slight nor few; and the more his contemporaries excused them, lost as they were in the lustre of his fame, the less should they be passed over by posterity. A want of generosity; dissimulation carried beyond justifiable bounds; a passion for deep play; and a contempt for abstract science, whenever of no practical or immediate use; may, I think, not unjustly be ranked amongst his errors. But, at the root of all, lay a looseness of religious principle. For without imputing to him any participation in the unbelief which his friend Bolingbroke professed, it is yet certain that points of faith had struck no deep root into his mind, and exercised no steady control upon his conduct. The maxims laid down in his familiar correspondence, even when right themselves, seldom rest on higher motives than expediency, reputation, or personal advantage. His own glory, - the false flame that flits over these low grounds, however brilliant and dazzling from afar, will be found to lack both the genuine glow of patriotism, and the kindling warmth of private friendship. The country is to be served, not because it is our country, but inasmuch as our own welfare and reputation are involved in it: our friends are to be cherished, not as our inclination prompts, or their merits deserve, but according as they appear useful and conducive to the objects we pursue. PRODESSE QUAM CONSPICI was both the motto and the maxim of Somers; the very reverse, I fear, might sometimes be applied to Chesterfield.

During the administration of the new Secretary of State, his great oratorical abilities were seldom tried. The two Houses had now dwindled, shall I say, or risen into very pacific and business-like assemblies. Even the ill success of the war could not stir the quiet temper of the people; nor did the dissolution of Parliament, in the summer of 1747, add anything to the strength of the Opposition. In most of the ensuing contests the friends of the Ministry pre* Maty's Life, p. 357.