taining the name of the obnoxious individual, before George the Second. The moment the offensive name met the King's eyes, he exclaimed, angrily, "I would rather have the Devil!" "Your Majesty," said Lord Chesterfield, "will make choice of which you please; but I beg to observe, that the warrant is addressed to our right trusty and right well-beloved cousin." This sally had the desired effect, and the King, with a smile, affixed his signature to the document.

The exquisite compliment which Pope paid to the wit of Lord Chesterfield is almost too well known to need repetition. They were one day amusing themselves at an inn, when the poet, borrowing a diamond-pointed pencil which Lord Chesterfield was in the habit of carrying about him, wrote extemporaneously on a window-pane in the apartment:

"Accept a miracle instead of wit,

See two dull lines with Stanhope's pencil writ."

And the great poet says of him on another occa

"How can I, Pulteney, Chesterfield forget,

While Roman spirit charms, and Attic wit?"

It may be remarked, as another singular compliment paid to Lord Chesterfield, that at the period when Cardinal de Polignac's celebrated poem of Anti-Lucretius was published, England being then at war with France, the work was transmitted by sound of trumpet from

Marshal Saxe to the English general, the Duke of Cumberland, with a request that it might be forwarded to Lord Chesterfield.

According to Lord Chesterfield's panegyrists, his wit was on all occasions tempered by good nature and high breeding. This, however, does not appear to have been invariably the case. He once exclaimed to Anstis, Garter King at Arms, "You foolish man, you do not even know your own foolish business." Again, when his acquaintance, Sir Thomas Robinson, -a man celebrated among his contemporaries for his great height and insufferable dulness,―requested Lord Chesterfield to distinguish him by some poetical notice, his wit got the better of his good-nature, and he gave birth to the following offensive couplet :

Unlike my subject, will I frame my song;

It shall be witty, and it shan't be long."

Lord Chesterfield lived on intimate terms with most of the celebrated men of letters of the period, and apparently had no objection to be regarded as the Mecænas of the lesser stars. Among his foreign correspondents were Montesquieu, Algarotti, Voltaire, and the younger Crebillon; and in England he could enumerate Swift, Pope, Gay, Addison, Thomson, Garth, Arbuthnot, and Sir John Vanbrugh as his friends. Of the latter he remarks, that he knew no man who united conversational pleasantry and perfect good humour in so eminent a degree.

VOL. II.

2 A

Of the kindness and patronage which Lord Chesterfield extended to his literary friends, considering it was an age when genius required the fostering hand of wealth and influence far more than at the present day, we have unfortunately but a slight record. We know little more than that he threw sunshine over the short life of Hammond, the author of the "Love Elegies," and that he exerted himself to procure subscribers for the charming Fables of Gay. When these celebrated men died, he edited the poems of the one, and was a pallbearer at the funeral of the other. These, indeed, are but slight tributes to departed genius, yet the merit of them should not be denied to him.

Respecting the claims of Lord Chesterfield to be considered a patron of literature, we have little more to add. His conduct to Dr. Johnson, indeed, reflects little credit on him. However, he alleviated the wants of Aaron Hill;† and, moreover,

* James Hammond, the Author of the "Love Elegies," died under melancholy circumstances, at Lord Cobham's seat at Stowe, on the 7th of June, 1742, in his thirty-third year. Lord Chesterfield, in editing his friend's poems, bestows the warmest encomiums on his judgment, his genius, and his

taste.

† Aaron Hill, an indifferent poet but amiable man, was born in 1685. He was at different times manager of Drury Lane theatre and master of the Opera house. Lady Hervey, in one of her letters, mentions her meeting him at Goodwood in 1732, and dwells on the pleasure which she derived from hearing him read aloud. He is now principally known from his misunder

when the surly and cynical Dennis was labouring in his old age under the miserable inflictions of penury and disease, he is known, at the generous instigation of Pope, to have extended relief to the snarling critic, though a man whom Lord Chesterfield had no reason to love, and Pope had every inducement to hate.

Lord Chesterfield has himself some claims to be considered a poet. Of the ephemeral poetry of the period, more than one trifle was attributed to him; but, as is usually the case with the careless scribblers of anonymous verse, it is now extremely difficult to distinguish what was really written by him, from that to which he has no claim. Of the various trifles imputed to him, the following seems to possess the most merit, and affords a favourable specimen of his poetical abilities:

"ON LORD ISLAY'S GARDEN AT WHITTON ON HOUNSLOW HEATH.

"Old Islay, to show his fine delicate taste,

In improving his garden purloined from the waste;
Bade his gardner one day lay open his views,
By cutting a couple of grand avenues.

No particular prospect his lordship intended,

But left it to chance how his walks should be ended,
With transport and joy he beheld his first view end,
In a favourite prospect-a church, that was ruin'd;

standing with Pope, who, however, appears to have sincerely regarded the man whom he ridiculed. There is an interesting account of their literary hostilities in D'Israeli's "Quarrels of Authors."

But alas! what a sight did the next cut exhibit,
At the end of the walk hung a rogue on a gibbet!
He beheld it and wept, for it caused him to muse on
Full many a Campbell, that died with his shoes on.
All amazed and aghast at the ominous scene,
He ordered it quick to be closed up again,
With a clump of Scotch firs by way of a skreen.*"

By his wife, Melesina de Schulenberg, Lord Chesterfield had no children. We have seen them occupying separate houses, and, indeed, he seems to have been a suitor for her hand rather with a view of ingratiating himself with the old Duchess of Kendal, and of becoming the inheritor of her vast wealth, than from any ardent attachment which he had conceived for the person of his intended wife. His projects, however, were destined to be signally disappointed, for, with the exception of a trifling legacy, the Duchess bequeathed her wealth to her German relations. With another hoarding dowager, Lord Chesterfield was more successful. The celebrated Duchess of Marlborough,—as a reward for the biting sarcasms which he had inflicted on Sir Robert Walpole's ministry, and for his stedfast opposition to the court, -bequeathed him "her best and largest diamond ring" and the sum of twenty thousand pounds. "The Duchess," says Horace Walpole, scarce cold, before he returned to the King's service." The Duchess of Marlborough died in

* Cole's MSS. v. 31, p. 161.

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