imitated the French so exactly in his outward manners as to be often taken by themselves for one of them, we must rely upon his affirmation alone. But there is before us another indirect proof of his proficiency, which is more convincing, even, than this. We see under his own hand how he had learned to overwhelm his tutor, M. Joubeau, with professions of attachment which he did not feel, and to promise him many future letters in that which he meant to be his last.

Let us, however, be exactly just to Lord Chesterfield. He was not insensible to the merits of the English national character, however highly he might value that of the French. His favorite idea, and that which he endeavoured to embody in the person of his son, was the union of what he deemed most valuable in each nation. This was a union which he admits he never met with anywhere in life. After such an admission, the idea ought to have occurred to him, that there might be, and probably was, an incongruity at bottom, which made the process he desired to effect impracticable. That he did not succeed with his son is well known. Probably the best example ever brought forth was himself. And what was the result? certainly not such as to make it expedient to repeat the experiment. Lord Chesterfield had wit, and knowledge, and good-breeding, and tact, and eloquence, and spirit; and yet, with the possession of all these qualities, he never secured a hundredth part of the confidence of his king or country that was enjoyed by rivals who possessed few of his accomplishments and nothing of his polish. Sir Robert Walpole was proverbially_coarse. Newcastle was almost ridiculous. Pitt was cold and haughty and overbearing. Yet they successively controlled the government, whilst he wasted his time and pains in futile efforts to obtain it; and even at last, when it appeared within his reach, the event only proved to him most convincingly that it was his fate to clutch at the mere shadow of power, whilst the reality rested in other hands.

The Duke of

National character is the result of so many concurring causes, that it is difficult precisely to define how it grows up. The circumstances which immediately surround a people demand of the flexibility of the human species a certain degree of adaptation to them. To the French people, who are constitutionally ardent, impulsive, and susceptible of rapid emotions, an artificial system of manners is not without its

advantages. With them, strong habits of restraint are essential to the peace and safety, not to say the happiness, of society. If we knew that a passionate individual had forced himself to cultivate the minor graces of life because he believed that otherwise he might be liable, occasionally, to fall into extremes of treatment of those around him which would breed nothing but quarrels, and perhaps bloodshed, we should be apt to praise his resolution, even though sensible that an evil consequence might follow in his learning to be insincere. Such insincerity may be palliated so long as it is associated with the notion of regulating human passion. But when it becomes allied with coldness, when we know that the person practising it has no occasion to do so for self-control, and that he resorts to it solely for the purpose of concealing the icy condition of his own heart, making it appear warmer than it really is only to deceive us, the vice becomes in the highest degree revolting. The great body of the English race are, relatively to their continental neighbours, sluggish in their temperament, and moderate in their passions. With them, therefore, the endeavour to cultivate the graces leads to a vitiation of moral principle attended by no compensating benefit. If there be one thing for which that race is distinguished above most others, it is for its contempt of the arts of dissimulation, and its steady admiration of examples of truth and sincerity. This virtue goes a good way to compensate for the want of quick susceptibility. And so long as the experience of the world tends to show the impracticability of uniting these qualities of the respective nations, it will be better for each not to run the risk of spoiling what it has, in the vain quest of what it has not.

We have said, that, at the age of twenty, the young Lord Stanhope had already acquired the peculiar character which ever after marked him when he was known as Lord Chesterfield. His leading trait was then, as afterwards, want of a heart. From this source flowed his merits as well as his faults. Hence sprang the coolness of his judgment, and the absence of generosity. Hence arose his aversion to intemperance in drinking, - the vice of warm and convivial natures,

and his passion for gaming, the tendency of the selfish and the cold. The same cause that polished his exterior effectually completed the perversion of the springs of action that were working within. It made him brilliant, but superficial,

extravagant and yet not generous, captivating and yet treacherous. It secured him hosts of admirers, but very few supporters, crowds of flatterers, and no devoted friends.

It has not often happened to a young man to start in life under fairer auspices than his Lordship. Descended from some of the best families in the United Kingdom, heir-apparent to an earldom, he came forward at the very moment when the crown had devolved upon the Brunswick family, and George the First was manifesting his gratitude to General Stanhope, the kinsman of the young nobleman, for his eminent services in bringing about that result, by placing him at the head of the government. Before the

youth was of age, the doors of the House of Commons were opened to receive him, and a place in the household of the heir to the throne was secured for his acceptance. The road to power seemed invitingly open to him. That which others toil through long years of pain to acquire, and which they gain, if at all, at so late a period in life as to make it scarce worth the struggle it has cost, appeared almost to throw itself into his hands at once. Little remained for him to do but to confirm the favorable impressions towards himself which his first address might create, and to convince the public, through his position in parliament, of the extent of his capacity to be at the head of affairs, should the time arrive that might require his services. Surely, if the cultivation of the graces, the elegance of high breeding, the fascination of external manner, were ever likely to avail for the benefit of their possessor so much as his Lordship would have had his son believe that they do, no opportunity could be more favorable to prove their efficacy than this which had arisen in his own case.

Now let us observe what the result was. Young Lord Stanhope rushed into the House of Commons, eager to exercise his carefully trained powers in the arena of debate, and to mark his devotion to the House of Hanover by supporting the strong measures devised in order to establish it upon the throne. Here, however, he soon discovered that the graces, a finished manner of delivery, and polished diction were not all that was essential to secure the affection of a popular body. While the gladiator was studying his attitudes, a much inferior combatant was at work effectually to shake his standing before the House. There was a mem

ber of the party to which Chesterfield was opposed, who was gifted in a high degree with the dangerous power of mimicry. The oratory of his Lordship, depending in a great degree upon manner, if we may judge of it by his own estimate of its power, was exactly of that kind which lies most open to imitation and caricature. Whilst, therefore, we are nowhere informed that the faculty of the mimic had any effect whatsoever in weakening the almost despotic power of Walpole, of William Pitt, or Pulteney, we learn on the other hand that it almost sealed the lips of the courtly Stanhope. His graces only availed to expose him to the withering shaft of ridicule, whilst they furnished him no adequate shield for his defence. Had he remained for the rest of his life in the lower branch, he would in all probability have been set down among dumb legislators, the pedarii of whom he so often and so contemptuously speaks. That and every popular body requires a more nervous and masculine mode of address than he was found to possess. It is the place for earnest contention, and not for the make-believe sports of a tournament. Here, then, is the first example which his history furnishes, that mere manner is not so sure of success as he himself appears to imagine. For even when fortified, as in his case, by a greater coincidence of personal qualities than usually falls to the lot of public speakers, it did not enable him to overcome the most trivial obstacle that fortune could well throw in his path.

Neither was the success of the young lord greater from the opportunities of private access which he enjoyed to the members of the royal family, than from his exertions on a more public field. The first event that happened to mar his prospects, one indeed for which no address can be in any manner prepared, was a quarrel between the king, George the First, and the Prince of Wales, in whose immediate service Lord Stanhope had been placed. This quarrel grew out of the circumstance, that the Duke of Newcastle had been appointed to stand godfather to the prince's child, which the prince thought proper to resent. king, on his part, became violently offended. From words he proceeded to acts; he banished his son from the palace, forbade any public honors to be paid to his rank, and separated him from his children. Neither was this all. The friends of the son were compelled to make their election

The

between adherence to him and a reception at St. James's. As one of his immediate household, Lord Stanhope was thus driven to take a side. On the one hand was the power in the ascendant, to offend which would necessarily cut off all prospect of present promotion. On the other was the rising sun, to neglect which might lead in no very long time to consequences far more serious and lasting. Disagreeable as the choice might be, his Lordship decided on the right side. Whatever may have been his motives for so doing, and his own theory forbids us from believing that they were disinterested, he determined to hold to the heir-apparent, in spite of every solicitation to the contrary. It is even said, that, in order to detach him from his connection, an offer was made to create his father a duke, and that by rejecting it he not only cut himself off for the time from office, but offended his parent, who would have been gratified by the title. The merit of this self-denial must be estimated, according to Chesterfield's philosophy, by the age of the sovereign, which was then only fifty-seven. And as his constitution gave no signs of decline, it must be admitted that the sacrifice which he made was one of no ordinary character. And if done generously and without qualification, it should, upon every principle of gratitude, have secured the lasting attachment of the person in whose behalf it was made.

Such was not, however, the result. Lord Stanhope became Earl of Chesterfield not very long before the Prince of Wales succeeded to his father's throne. A new field seemed to open before him, and one in which he was much better fitted to succeed. There was no malicious mocker in the House of Lords to mar the effect of his elegant playfulness. Here was no sharp encounter of masculine minds to be apprehended. Their Lordships rather courted that state of repose which delights in gentle, as it is unfriendly to violent, emotions. Lord Chesterfield commanded their attention not merely by his positive qualifications to please, but by his relative superiority over most of them. The oratorical ability of that body has always mainly depended upon those newly created peers who have received their titles as a reward for service rendered as commoners. The very novelty of an eloquent lord whose family had been ennobled for more than two centuries was a recommendation.