Letters to His Son, 1753 to 1754

T >> The Earl of Chesterfield >> Letters to His Son, 1753 to 1754


Read with care the Code Frederick, and inform yourself of the good
effects of it in those parts of, his dominions where it has taken place,
and where it has banished the former chicanes, quirks, and quibbles of
the old law. Do not think any detail too minute or trifling for your
inquiry and observation. I wish that you could find one hour's leisure
every day, to read some good Italian author, and to converse in that
language with our worthy friend Signor Angelo Cori; it would both refresh
and improve your Italian, which, of the many languages you know, I take
to be that in which you are the least perfect; but of which, too, you
already know enough to make yourself master of, with very little trouble,
whenever you please.

Live, dwell, and grow at the several courts there; use them so much to
your face, that they may not look upon you as a stranger. Observe, and
take their 'ton', even to their affectations and follies; for such there
are, and perhaps should be, at all courts. Stay, in all events, at
Berlin, till I inform you of Sir Charles Williams's arrival at Dresden;
where I suppose you would not care to be before him, and where you may go
as soon after him as ever you please. Your time there will neither be
unprofitably nor disagreeably spent; he will introduce you into all the
best company, though he can introduce you to none so good as his own. He
has of late applied himself very seriously to foreign affairs, especially
those of Saxony and Poland; he knows them perfectly well, and will tell
you what he knows. He always expresses, and I have good reason to believe
very sincerely, great kindness and affection for you.

The works of the late Lord Bolingbroke are just published, and have
plunged me into philosophical studies; which hitherto I have not been
much used to, or delighted with; convinced of the futility of those
researches; but I have read his "Philosophical Essay" upon the extent of
human knowledge, which, by the way, makes two large quartos and a half.
He there shows very clearly, and with most splendid eloquence, what the
human mind can and cannot do; that our understandings are wisely
calculated for our place in this planet, and for the link which we form
in the universal chain of things; but that they are by no means capable
of that degree of knowledge, which our curiosity makes us search after,
and which our vanity makes us often believe we arrive at. I shall not
recommend to you the reading of that work; but, when you return hither, I
shall recommend to your frequent and diligent perusal all his tracts that
are relative to our history and constitution; upon which he throws
lights, and scatters graces, which no other writer has ever done.

Reading, which was always a pleasure to me, in the time even of my
greatest dissipation, is now become my only refuge; and, I fear, I
indulge it too much at the expense of my eyes. But what can I do? I must
do something; I cannot bear absolute idleness; my ears grow every day
more useless to me, my eyes consequently more necessary; I will not hoard
them like a miser, but will rather risk the loss, than not enjoy the use
of them.

Pray let me know all the particulars, not only of your reception at
Munich, but also at Berlin; at the latter, I believe, it will be a good
one; for his Prussian Majesty knows, that I have long been AN ADMIRER AND
RESPECTER OF HIS GREAT AND VARIOUS TALENTS. Adieu.




LETTER CXCIV

LONDON, February 1, 1754

MY DEAR FRIEND: I received, yesterday, yours of the 12th, from Munich; in
consequence of which, I direct this to you there, though I directed my
three last to Berlin, where I suppose you will find them at your arrival.
Since you are not only domesticated, but 'niche' at Munich, you are much
in the right to stay there. It is not by seeing places that one knows
them, but by familiar and daily conversations with the people of fashion.
I would not care to be in the place of that prodigy of beauty, whom you
are to drive 'dans la course de Traineaux'; and I am apt to think you are
much more likely to break her bones, than she is, though ever so cruel,
to break your heart. Nay, I am not sure but that, according to all the
rules of gallantry, you are obliged to overturn her on purpose; in the
first place, for the chance of seeing her backside; in the next, for the
sake of the contrition and concern which it would give you an opportunity
of showing; and, lastly, upon account of all the 'gentillesses et
epigrammes', which it would naturally suggest. Voiture has made several
stanzas upon an accident of that kind, which happened to a lady of his
acquaintance. There is a great deal of wit in them, rather too much; for,
according to the taste of those times, they are full of what the Italians
call 'concetti spiritosissimi'; the Spaniards 'agudeze'; and we,
affectation and quaintness. I hope you have endeavored to suit your
'Traineau' to the character of the fair-one whom it is to contain. If she
is of an irascible, impetuous disposition (as fine women can sometimes
be), you will doubtless place her in the body of a lion, a tiger, a
dragon, or some tremendous beast of prey and fury; if she is a sublime
and stately beauty, which I think more probable (for unquestionably she
is 'hogh gebohrne'), you will, I suppose, provide a magnificent swan or
proud peacock for her reception; but if she is all tenderness and
softness, you have, to be sure, taken care amorous doves and wanton
sparrows should seem to flutter round her. Proper mottos, I take it for
granted, that you have eventually prepared; but if not, you may find a
great many ready-made ones in 'Les Entretiens d'Ariste et d'Eugene, sur
les Devises', written by Pere Bouhours, and worth your reading at any
time. I will not say to you, upon this occasion, like the father in Ovid,

"Parce, puer, stimulis, et fortius utere loris."

On the contrary, drive on briskly; it is not the chariot of the sun that
you drive, but you carry the sun in your chariot; consequently, the
faster it goes, the less it will be likely to scorch or consume. This is
Spanish enough, I am sure.

If this finds you still at Munich, pray make many compliments from me to
Mr. Burrish, to whom I am very much obliged for all his kindness to you;
it is true, that while I had power I endeavored to serve him; but it is
as true too, that I served many others more, who have neither returned
nor remembered those services.

I have been very ill this last fortnight, of your old Carniolian
complaint, the 'arthritis vaga'; luckily, it did not fall upon my breast,
but seized on my right arm; there it fixed its seat of empire; but, as in
all tyrannical governments, the remotest parts felt their share of its
severity. Last post I was not able to hold a pen long enough to write to
you, and therefore desired Mr. Grevenkop to do it for me; but that letter
was directed to Berlin. My pain is now much abated, though I have still
some fine remains of it in my shoulder, where I fear it will tease me a
great while. I must be careful to take Horace's advice, and consider
well, 'Quid valeant humeri, quid ferre recusent'.

Lady Chesterfield bids me make you her compliments, and assure you that
the music will be much more welcome to her with you, than without you.

In some of my last letters, which were directed to, and will, I suppose,
wait for you at Berlin, I complimented you, and with justice, upon your
great improvement of late in the epistolary way, both with regard to the
style and the turn of your letters; your four or five last to me have
been very good ones, and one that you wrote to Mr. Harte, upon the new
year, was so pretty a one, and he was so much and so justly pleased with
it, that he sent it me from Windsor the instant he had read it. This
talent (and a most necessary one it is in the course of life) is to be
acquired by resolving, and taking pains to acquire it; and, indeed, so is
every talent except poetry, which is undoubtedly a gift. Think,
therefore, night and day, of the turn, the purity, the correctness, the
perspicuity, and the elegance of whatever you speak or write; take my
word for it, your labor will not be in vain, but greatly rewarded by the
harvest of praise and success which it will bring you. Delicacy of turn,
and elegance of style, are ornaments as necessary to common sense, as
attentions, address, and fashionable manners, are to common civility;
both may subsist without them, but then, without being of the least use
to the owner. The figure of a man is exactly the same in dirty rags, or
in the finest and best chosen clothes; but in which of the two he is the
most likely to please, and to be received in good company, I leave to you
to determine.

Both my arm and my paper hint to me, to bid you good-night.




LETTER CXCV

LONDON, February 12, 1754.

MY DEAR FRIEND: I take my aim, and let off this letter at you at Berlin;
I should be sorry it missed you, because I believe you will read it with
as much pleasure as I write it. It is to inform you, that, after some
difficulties and dangers, your seat in the new parliament is at last
absolutely secured, and that without opposition, or the least necessity
of your personal trouble or appearance. This success, I must further
inform you, is in a great degree owing to Mr. Eliot's friendship to us
both; for he brings you in with himself at his surest borough. As it was
impossible to act with more zeal and friendship than Mr. Eliot has acted
in this whole affair, I desire that you will, by the very next post,
write him a letter of thanks, warm and young thanks, not old and cold
ones. You may inclose it in yours to me, and, I will send it to him, for
he is now in Cornwall.

Thus, sure of being a senator, I dare say you do not propose to be one of
the 'pedarii senatores, et pedibus ire in sententiam; for, as the House
of Commons is the theatre where you must make your fortune and figure in
the world, you must resolve to be an actor, and not a 'persona muta',
which is just equivalent to a candle snuffer upon other theatres. Whoever
does not shine there, is obscure, insignificant and contemptible; and you
cannot conceive how easy it is for a man of half your sense and knowledge
to shine there if he pleases. The receipt to make a speaker, and an
applauded one too, is short and easy.--Take of common sense 'quantum
sufcit', add a little application to the rules and orders of the House,
throw obvious thoughts in a new light, and make up the whole with a large
quantity of purity, correctness, and elegance of style. Take it for
granted, that by far the greatest part of mankind do neither analyze nor
search to the bottom; they are incapable of penetrating deeper than the
surface. All have senses to be gratified, very few have reason to be
applied to. Graceful utterance and action please their eyes, elegant
diction tickles their ears; but strong reason would be thrown away upon
them. I am not only persuaded by theory, but convinced by my experience,
that (supposing a certain degree of common sense) what is called a good
speaker is as much a mechanic as a good shoemaker; and that the two
trades are equally to be learned by the same degree of application.
Therefore, for God's sake, let this trade be the principal object of your
thoughts; never lose sight of it. Attend minutely to your style, whatever
language you speak or write in; seek for the best words, and think of the
best turns. Whenever you doubt of the propriety or elegance of any word,
search the dictionary or some good author for it, or inquire of somebody,
who is master of that language; and, in a little time, propriety and
elegance of diction will become so habitual to you, that they will cost
you no more trouble. As I have laid this down to be mechanical and
attainable by whoever will take the necessary pains, there will be no
great vanity in my saying, that I saw the importance of the object so
early, and attended to it so young, that it would now cost me more
trouble to speak or write ungrammatically, vulgarly, and inelegantly,
than ever it did to avoid doing so. The late Lord Bolingbroke, without
the least trouble, talked all day long, full as elegantly as he wrote.
Why? Not by a peculiar gift from heaven; but, as he has often told me
himself, by an early and constant attention to his style. The present
Solicitor-General, Murray,--[Created Lord Mansfield in the year
1756.]--has less law than many lawyers, but has more practice than any;
merely upon account of his eloquence, of which he has a never-failing
stream. I remember so long ago as when I was at Cambridge, whenever 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 practiced
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. While you are
abroad, you can neither have time nor opportunity to read pieces of
English or parliamentary eloquence, as I hope you will carefully do when
you return; but, in the meantime, whenever pieces of French eloquence
come in your way, such as the speeches of persons received into the
Academy, 'orasions funebres', representations of the several parliaments
to the King, etc., read them in that view, in that spirit; observe the
harmony, the turn and elegance of the style; examine in what you think it
might have been better; and consider in what, had you written it
yourself; you might have done worse. Compare the different manners of
expressing the same thoughts in different authors; and observe how
differently the same things appear in different dresses. Vulgar, coarse,
and ill-chosen words, will deform and degrade the best thoughts as much
as rags and dirt will the best figure. In short, you now know your
object; pursue it steadily, and have no digressions that are not relative
to, and connected with, the main action. Your success in parliament will
effectually remove all OTHER OBJECTIONS; either a foreign or a domestic
destination will no longer be refused you, if you make your way to it
through Westminster.

I think I may now say, that I am quite recovered from my late illness,
strength and spirits excepted, which are not yet restored.
Aix-la-Chapelle and Spa will, I believe, answer all my purposes.

I long to hear an account of your reception at Berlin, which I fancy will
be a most gracious one. Adieu.




LETTER CXCVI

LONDON, February 15, 1754

MY DEAR FRIEND: I can now with great truth apply your own motto to you,
'Nullum numen abest, si sit Prudentia'. You are sure of being, as early
as your age will permit, a member of that House; which is the only road
to figure and fortune in this country. Those, indeed, who are bred up to,
and distinguish themselves in particular professions, as the army, the
navy, and the law, may, by their own merit, raise themselves to a certain
degree; but you may observe too, that they never get to the top, without
the assistance of parliamentary talents and influence. The means of
distinguishing yourself in parliament are, as I told you in my last, much
more easily attained than I believe you imagine. Close attendance to the
business of the House will soon give you the parliamentary routine; and
strict attention to your style will soon make you, not only a speaker,
but a good one. The vulgar look upon a man, who is reckoned a fine
speaker, as a phenomenon, a supernatural being, and endowed with some
peculiar gift of heaven; they stare at him, if he walks in the Park, and
cry, THAT IS HE. You will, I am sure, view him in a juster light, and
'nulla formidine'. You will consider him only as a man of good sense, who
adorns common thoughts with the graces of elocution, and the elegance of
style. The miracle will then cease; and you will be convinced, that with
the same application, and attention to the same objects, you may most
certainly equal, and perhaps surpass, this prodigy. Sir W----Y-------,
with not a quarter of your parts, and not a thousandth part of your
knowledge, has, by a glibness of tongue simply, raised him successively
to the best employments of the kingdom; he has been Lord of the
Admiralty, Lord of the Treasury, Secretary at War, and is now
Vice-Treasurer of Ireland; and all this with a most sullied, not to say
blasted character. Represent the thing to yourself, as it really is,
easily attainable, and you will find it so. Have but ambition enough
passionately to desire the object, and spirit enough to use the means,
and I will be answerable for your success. When I was younger than you
are, I resolved within myself that I would in all events be a speaker in
parliament, and a good one too, if I could. I consequently never lost
sight of that object, and never neglected any of the means that I thought
led to it. I succeeded to a certain degree; and, I assure you, with great
ease, and without superior talents. Young people are very apt to overrate
both men and things, from not being enough acquainted with them. In
proportion as you come to know them better, you will value them less. You
will find that reason, which always ought to direct mankind, seldom does;
but that passions and weaknesses commonly usurp its seat, and rule in its
stead. You will find that the ablest have their weak sides too, and are
only comparatively able, with regard to the still weaker herd: having
fewer weaknesses themselves, they are able to avail themselves of the
innumerable ones of the generality of mankind: being more masters of
themselves, they become more easily masters of others. They address
themselves to their weaknesses, their senses, their passions; never to
their reason; and consequently seldom fail of success. But then analyze
those great, those governing, and, as the vulgar imagine, those perfect
characters, and you will find the great Brutus a thief in Macedonia, the
great Cardinal Richelieu a jealous poetaster, and the great Duke of
Marlborough a miser. Till you come to know mankind by your own
experience, I know no thing, nor no man, that can in the meantime bring
you so well acquainted with them as le Duc de la Rochefoucault: his
little book of "Maxims," which I would advise you to look into, for some
moments at least, every day of your life, is, I fear, too like, and too
exact a picture of human nature.

I own, it seems to degrade it; but yet my experience does not convince me
that it degrades it unjustly.

Now, to bring all this home to my first point. All these considerations
should not only invite you to attempt to make a figure in parliament, but
encourage you to hope that you shall succeed. To govern mankind, one must
not overrate them: and to please an audience, as a speaker, one must not
overvalue it. When I first came into the House of Commons, I respected
that assembly as a venerable one; and felt a certain awe upon me, but,
upon better acquaintance, that awe soon vanished; and I discovered, that,
of the five hundred and sixty, not above thirty could understand reason,
and that all the rest were 'peuple'; that those thirty only required
plain common sense, dressed up in good language; and that all the others
only required flowing and harmonious periods, whether they conveyed any
meaning or not; having ears to hear, but not sense enough to judge. These
considerations made me speak with little concern the first time, with
less the second, and with none at all the third. I gave myself no further
trouble about anything, except my elocution, and my style; presuming,
without much vanity, that I had common sense sufficient not to talk
nonsense. Fix these three truths strongly in your mind: First, that it is
absolutely necessary for you to speak in parliament; secondly, that it
only requires a little human attention, and no supernatural gifts; and,
thirdly, that you have all the reason in the world to think that you
shall speak well. When we meet, this shall be the principal subject of
our conversations; and, if you will follow my advice, I will answer for
your success.

Now from great things to little ones; the transition is to me easy,
because nothing seems little to me that can be of any use to you. I hope
you take great care of your mouth and teeth, and that you clean them well
every morning with a sponge and tepid water, with a few drops of
arquebusade water dropped into it; besides washing your mouth carefully
after every meal, I do insist upon your never using those sticks, or any
hard substance whatsoever, which always rub away the gums, and destroy
the varnish of the teeth. I speak this from woeful experience; for my
negligence of my teeth, when I was younger than you are, made them bad;
and afterward, my desire to have them look better, made me use sticks,
irons, etc., which totally destroyed them; so that I have not now above
six or seven left. I lost one this morning, which suggested this advice
to you.

I have received the tremendous wild boar, which your still more
tremendous arm slew in the immense deserts of the Palatinate; but have
not yet tasted of it, as it is hitherto above my low regimen. The late
King of Prussia, whenever he killed any number of wild boars, used to
oblige the Jews to buy them, at a high price, though they could eat none
of them; so they defrayed the expense of his hunting. His son has juster
rules of government, as the Code Frederick plainly shows.

I hope, that, by this time, you are as well 'ancre' at Berlin as you was
at Munich; but, if not, you are sure of being so at Dresden. Adieu.




LETTER CXCVII

LONDON, February 26, 1754.

MY DEAR FRIEND: I have received your letters of the 4th, from Munich, and
of the 11th from Ratisbon; but I have not received that of the 31st
January, to which you refer in the former. It is to this negligence and
uncertainty of the post, that you owe your accidents between Munich and
Ratisbon: for, had you received my letters regularly, you would have
received one from me before you left Munich, in which I advised you to
stay, since you were so well there. But, at all events, you were in the
wrong to set out from Munich in such weather and such roads; since you
could never imagine that I had set my heart so much upon your going to
Berlin, as to venture your being buried in the snow for it. Upon the
whole, considering all you are very well off. You do very well, in my
mind, to return to Munich, or at least to keep within the circle of
Munich, Ratisbon, and Manheim, till the weather and the roads are good:
stay at each or any of those places as long as ever you please; for I am
extremely indifferent about your going to Berlin.

As to our meeting, I will tell you my plan, and you may form your own
accordingly. I propose setting out from hence the last week in April,
then drinking the Aix-la-Chapelle waters for a week, and from thence
being at Spa about the 15th of May, where I shall stay two months at
most, and then return straight to England. As I both hope and believe
that there will be no mortal at Spa during my residence there, the
fashionable season not beginning till the middle of July, I would by no
means have you come there at first, to be locked up with me and some few
Capucins, for two months, in that miserable hole; but I would advise you
to stay where you like best, till about the first week in July, and then
to come and pick me up at Spa, or meet me upon the road at Liege or
Brussels. As for the intermediate time, should you be weary of Manheim
and Munich, you may, if you please, go to Dresden, to Sir Charles
Williams, who will be there before that time; or you may come for a month
or six weeks to The Hague; or, in short, go or stay wherever you like
best. So much for your motions.

As you have sent for all the letters directed to you at Berlin, you will
receive from thence volumes of mine, among which you will easily perceive
that some were calculated for a supposed perusal previous to your opening
them. I will not repeat anything contained in them, excepting that I
desire you will send me a warm and cordial letter of thanks for Mr.
Eliot; who has, in the most friendly manner imaginable, fixed you at his
own borough of Liskeard, where you will be elected jointly with him,
without the least opposition or difficulty. I will forward that letter to
him into Cornwall, where he now is.

Now that you are to be soon a man of business, I heartily wish that you
would immediately begin to be a man of method; nothing contributing more
to facilitate and dispatch business, than method and order. Have order
and method in your accounts, in your reading, in the allotment of your
time; in short, in everything. You cannot conceive how much time you will
save by it, nor how much better everything you do will be done. The Duke
of Marlborough did by no means spend, but he slatterned himself into that
immense debt, which is not yet near paid off. The hurry and confusion of
the Duke of Newcastle do not proceed from his business, but from his want
of method in it. Sir Robert Walpole, who had ten times the business to
do, was never seen in a hurry, because he always did it with method. The
head of a man who has business, and no method nor order, is properly that
'rudis indigestaque moles quam dixere chaos'. As you must be conscious
that you are extremely negligent and slatternly, I hope you will resolve
not to be so for the future. Prevail with yourself, only to observe good
method and order for one fortnight; and I will venture to assure you that
you will never neglect them afterward, you will find such conveniency and
advantage arising from them. Method is the great advantage that lawyers
have over other people, in speaking in parliament; for, as they must
necessarily observe it in their pleadings in the courts of justice, it
becomes habitual to them everywhere else. Without making you a
compliment, I can tell you with pleasure, that order, method, and more
activity of mind, are all that you want, to make, some day or other, a
considerable figure in business. You have more useful knowledge, more
discernment of characters, and much more discretion, than is common at
your age; much more, I am sure, than I had at that age. Experience you
cannot yet have, and therefore trust in the meantime to mine. I am an old
traveler; am well acquainted with all the bye as well as the great roads;
I cannot misguide you from ignorance, and you are very sure I shall not
from design.