ART. VI. -The Letters of Philip Dormer Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield; including numerous Letters now first published from the Original Manuscripts. Edited, with Notes, by LORD MAHON. London: Richard Bentley. 1845. 4 vols. 8vo.

A CENTURY has rolled away since Lord Chesterfield reached his highest point of worldly elevation, and now comes a republication of his letters, in a collective form, to press upon us the question, how his reputation stands the wear of time. It is not often that a nobleman born leaves much trace of his existence, out of the pages of a peerage-book. Still more rarely is it that he exerts a decided influence over the generations that come after him. Chesterfield is, then, an exception to the general rule. Although one of the genuine aristocracy, owing his title to no modern creation, he made himself a reputation which few of his countrymen equalled in his own day; and, which is perhaps more remarkable, he left his mark upon the mind and manners of the English race so deep, that it will be long before it is entirely effaced. No man ever put into more attractive shape the maxims of a worldly Epicurean philosophy. No man ever furnished, in his own person, a more dazzling specimen of the theory which he recommended. If Cicero came more nearly than any person ever did to the image of the perfect orator which he described, Chesterfield is universally considered as having equally sustained his own idea of the perfect gentleman. Notwithstanding his character has been often discussed, and not long ago in this Journal, we will not omit the present opportunity of noticing it once more. Lord Mahon has done for us what has never been done before, in placing the whole man most distinctly in our view. The applause of an admiring circle, and the censure of malignant enemies, of his own day, will now pass for exactly what they are worth. It has been the lot of few distinguished persons to be stripped so bare to the public gaze after death. And, strangely enough, this has happened to him of all others, who spent his life in labors to appear other than he was. The man who systematically wore a mask better than his natural face, whilst on earth, has been doomed, by the avarice of an ungrateful woman, to hold up a glass, magnifying every deformity of his

mind, to the observation of the most distant posterity. Such is the first moral which we draw from the history of the Earl of Chesterfield.

Let us, then, proceed to look at this figure more in detail. Here is a man who, without being ambitious in the highest sense of that term, was nevertheless an eager aspirant for distinction, in more than one field of exertion. He aimed to be a statesman, an orator, a scholar, and a gentleman, in brief, a sort of model man, yet "hackneyed in the ways of the world." And it must be conceded too, that, if his success was not entirely equal to his own expectations, it was nevertheless very far beyond the average of that of men in general. The reasons why it was not greater we intend to try to explain in the present article. If we can make it appear that they come directly from the theory of conduct which he maintained, we hope to be not without success in checking the tendency of some minds to be misled by his example. If we can show by the example of Lord Chesterfield himself, that the foundation upon which he built his own edifice, which he also earnestly recommends to be adopted by his son, is, in itself, so insecure as not to be worthy of reliance, and still more, if we can prove that it creates the difficulties which, beyond a certain point, render further progress next to impracticable, it may be that we shall turn the direction of some aspirants for distinction to other and better sources of knowledge of the paths of life.

To illustrate our idea, it will be necessary to assume that the lessons which he taught, in his letters to his son, were those upon which he practised himself. That this is not in

but still

itself an unreasonable inference can be shown by many passages in which the writer refers directly to his own case as a practical illustration of the value of his maxims. The spirit of his teaching is all conveyed in this tone: "See what I did. Go thou and do likewise; better, if possible, after my model." In this there was no undue vanity or selfconceit. Lord Chesterfield knew that he possessed qualities which entitled him to claim a good share of worldly applause, and he also knew the labor it had cost him to make all those qualities as effective as possible. He had a right, from what he found he could do, to infer that others could succeed even better than he, if they would only take the pains which he had done. No other course than his seems to have occurred to

It is, then, proper to

his mind, as likely to insure success. review his life by the light which he himself has furnished, and to trace the causes of his success or failure, so far as he may be judged to have succeeded or failed, to the rules which he lays down.

The first point to which we direct our attention is, to ascertain the leading motive to exertion that is held out by his Lordship. We find but one, and that is worldly success; in other words, the exaltation of the individual himself to rank, and power, and consideration among his fellow-men. This is the great end, to compass which merits that every faculty should be taxed to its utmost. In order to reach this, knowledge is to be acquired, the common every-day morality of men is to be mastered, the manners are to be moulded, and even religion is to be respected. To reach this, we are to make ourselves all things to all men, that we may gain them all, not to their good, but to ours. Yet, in this laborious process, it does not seem absolutely required, however desirable it might be, that we should really be exactly what we appear. It is sufficient, if we can succeed in making every body else believe that we are what we profess. Lord Chesterfield expressly tells his son, that his great object, when setting out in life, was "to make every man he met like him, and every woman love him.' He says, moreover, that "he often succeeded; but why? By taking great pains." he did not mean to be understood that these pains were taken in an endeavour really to merit such affection, but rather only to appear to merit it, which would answer the purpose quite as well, and be more easily compassed. To cultivate very high qualities of character must be the labor of a life, among even the best natural temperaments. To acquire the power of assuming the appearance of them for the moment may be gained in much less time, " by taking proper pains." Although Lord Chesterfield doubtless would have valued the genuine coin far the most, he was yet too "hackneyed in the ways of life" to require more than that the counterfeit should escape detection. According to his theory, considered apart from his own practice, it is not essential, provided only that a man appear learned and wise, whether he really be so or not; nor does it matter that he should be amiable, or just, or even honest, if he can succeed in concealing the evidence of his ill-temper, or his injustice, or his fraud, from the condem

Yet

nation of the public. His morality thus proves to be but skin deep, in fact, though he occasionally claims to show much more. We see it in the summary manner in which he despatches his orders about all the more serious parts of education. It always sounds as if he spoke thus: "As to religion and morals, a respect for the church catechism and the ten commandments, you, my son, must take it for granted that I advise all that, even though I never mention them, since my whole strength I reserve to enjoin upon you, over and over again, line upon line and precept upon precept, the necessity of always keeping in mind the graces.

We understand, then, by the cultivation of "the graces," the adoption of a code of morals which makes the approbation of others the standard of all merit, and the advancement of one's self the end of all exertion. A man is to learn to treat his neighbour well, not because it is due to him that he should, but rather because he may himself lose something by it if he do not. His civility is the result of a calculation of profit and loss in his own mind, by which he has arrived at the conclusion, that the balance will show a net gain to himself in not being rude. Neither is it essential that this civility to others should be carried one step farther than is needful to secure the proposed object. It has its ascending scale, which is regulated by the estimation in which persons are respectively held, and consequently by the power they can wield, either to advance or to retard him. To the pauper, for example, it may be allowed to behave as roughly as possible, provided nobody is looking on, because he cannot resent it, and even if he does, his resentment will avail nothing whilst to the prince no reasonable amount of exertion is to be spared to manifest a degree of devotion that may earn a substantial recompense from his good-will. All intermediate positions have their share of regard regulated, as the custom-house would say, by a tariff ad valorem. Neither is indulgence in all the vices forbidden by the decalogue denied by this system, provided they be not practised in a manner offensive to those who are able to compel the payment of penalty for so doing. The fault of every action will be estimated, not by the nature of the act itself, so much as by the want of skill manifested in concealing it from the public. To be maladroit, as it is fatal to one's reputation, becomes here, as it was in Sparta, the highest crime.

tues.

Now in making such an exposition of the Chesterfield code, we do not pretend to the merit of saying any thing new; much less do we mean to find fault with it at this time. From the day when it was first published, down to the preface of Lord Mahon to this edition, the objection has been perpetually repeated, that it converts hypocrisy into the first of virHow that may be is aside from the present purpose. The difficulties attending the system, as one of morals, all lie upon the surface. We propose to go a little around them, and maintain that even for the great end proposed to be gained by the adoption of it, worldly success, it is altogether unsafe, and not to be relied on. Even in the hands of a master like Chesterfield himself, the instruments it furnishes are not always sure in their operation. Sometimes they even turn injuriously upon him who uses them most skilfully; and when otherwise used, as they are more than half the time by those who undertake to practise with them, they are apt to be attended with an effect upon their own prospects of advancement as well as of happiness the very opposite of what they had so sanguinely anticipated. If we are in any way successful in showing this to be the case in the history of his Lordship himself, as it is now given us from his own lips, our main purpose will be fully answered.

Philip Dormer Stanhope does not seem ever to have been a young man. His letters written from Cambridge betray the acuteness and discretion of an old head. Those addressed to his tutor, before he was of age, show that the artificial bent of his nature was even then already fixed. He devoted himself to his studies, not because he had any passion for knowledge, or any adequate idea of its uses, but because he aspired to shine by the possession of it. The consequence was early pedantry, which he got rid of only by changing the object of his aspirations. He left off quoting the classics, which he never either loved or understood, as soon as he found himself at the shrine of fashion in its citadel of Paris. The faults of the French character then became the objects of his new admiration, and so much did they find that was akin to them in his own nature, that this attachment went with him to his grave. He studied to make himself a Frenchman with as much deliberate earnestness as he had done at college to become a pedant; and his later labors were crowned with even greater success than the former ones. For the fact, that he