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MISCELLANEOUS WRITERS.

EARL OF CHESTERFIELD.

No work was more eagerly perused or more sharply criticised than the series of 'Letters' written by PHILIP DORMER STANHOPE, Earl of Chesterfield (1694–1773), to his natural son, Philip Stanhope, sometime envoy at the court of Dresden. The letters were never designed for publication. After the death of Mr. Stanhope in 1768, it was found that he had been secretly married, and had left a widow and two children. The widow disposed of the original letters to their proper owner, Lord Chesterfield, but she preserved copies, and immediately after the death of the eminent wit and statesman, the letters were committed to the press. The copyright was sold for £1500 -a sum almost unprecedented for such a work, and five editions were called for within twelve months. The correspondence began, as was stated in the preface, with 'the dawnings of instruction adapted to the capacity of a boy, rising gradually, by precepts and monition calculated to direct and guard the age of incautious youth, to the advice and knowledge requisite to form the man ambitious to shine as an accomplished courtier, an orator in the senate, or a minister at foreign courts.' Mr. Stanhope, however, was not calculated to shine; he was deficient in those graces which the anxious and courtly father so sedulously inculcated; his manners were distant, shy, and repulsive. The letters in point of morality are indefensible. Johnson said strongly that they taught the morals of a courtezan and the manners of a dancing-master; but they are also characterised by good sense and refined taste, and are written in pure and admirable English. Chesterfield was, perhaps, the most accomplished man of his age; but it was an age in which a low standard of morality prevailed among public men. As a statesman and diplomatist, he was ingenious, witty, and eloquent, without being high-spirited or profound. As lord-lieutenant of Ireland for a short period, his administration was conciliatory and enlightened. The speeches, statepapers, literary essays, and other miscellaneous writings of this celebrated peer were published by Dr. Maty, accompanied with a memoir, in 1774, and a valuable edition of his 'Letters' edited with notes, by Lord Mahon (now Earl Stanhope), was given to the world in four volumes in 1845, and a fifth in 1853.

The importance which Chesterfield attached to 'good breeding' may be seen from this passage:

On Good-Breeding.

A friend of yours and mine has very justly defined good-breeding to be, 'the result of much good-sense, some good-nature, and a little self-denial for the sake of

When first that sun too powerful beams displays,
It draws up vapours which obscure its rays:
But even those clouds at last adorn its way,
Reflect new glories and augment the day.

Essay on Criticism.

others, and with a view to obtain the same indulgence from them.' Teking this for granted as I think it cannot be disputed-it is astonishing to me that anybody, who has good-sense and good-nature, can essentially fail in good-breeding As to the modes of it, indeed, they vary according to persons, places, and circumstances, and are only to be acquired by observation and experience; but the substance of it is everywhere and eternally the same. Good-manners are to particular societies, what good morals are to society in general--their cement and their security. And as laws are enacted to enforce good morals, or at least to prevent the ill effects of bad ones, so there are certain rules of civility, universally implied and received, to enforce good-manners and punish bad ones. And indeed there seems to me to be less difference, both between the crimes and punishments, than at first one would imagine. The immoral man, who invades another's property, is justly hanged for it; and the ill-bred man, who by his ill-manners invades and disturbs the quiet and comforts of private life, is by common consent as justly banished society. Mutual complaisances, attentious, and sacrifices of little conveniences, are as natural an implied compact between civilised people as protection and obedience are between kings and subjects; whoever, in either case, violates that compact, justly forfeits all advantages arising from it. For my own part, I really think that, next to the consciousness of doing a good action, that of doing a civil one is the most pleasing; and the epithet, which I should covet the most, next to that of Aristides, would be that of well-bred.

Detached Thoughts.

Men who converse only with women are frivolous, effeminate puppies, and those who never converse with them are bears.

The desire of being pleased is universal. The desire of pleasing should be so too. Misers are not so much blamed for being misers as envied for being rich.

Dissimulation, to a certain degree, is as necessary in business as clothes are in the common intercourse of life; and a man would be as imprudent who should exhibit his inside naked, as he would be indecent if he produced his outside so.

Hymen comes whenever he is called, but Love only when he pleases.

An abject flatterer has a worse opinion of others, and, if possible, of himself, than he ought to have.

A woman will be implicitly governed by the man whom she is in love with, but will not be directed by the man whom she esteems the most. The former is the result of passion, which is her character; the latter must be the effect of reasoning, which is by no means of the feminine gender.

The best moral virtues are those of which the vulgar are, perhaps, the best judges.

Chesterfield occasionally wrote vers-de-société, of which the following is the best specimen:

On the Picture of Richard Nash, Esq., Master of the Ceremonies of Bath, placed at full length between the Busts of Sir Isaac Newton and Mr. Pope at Bath.

The old Eyptians hid their wit
In hieroglyphic dress,

To give men pains in search of it,
And please themselves with guess.

Moderns, to hit the self-same path,
And exercise their parts,
Place figures in a room at Bath;
Forgive them, god of arts!

Newton, if I can judge aright,
All wisdom does express;

His knowledge gives mankind delight,
Adds to their happiness.

Pope is the emblem of true wit,

The sunshine of the mind;
Read o'er his works in search of it,
You'll endless pleasure find.

Nash represents men in the mass,
Made up of wrong and right;
Sometimes a knave, sometimes an ass,
Now blunt, and now polite.

The picture placed the busts between,
Adds to the thought much strength;
Wisdom and Wit are little seen,

But Folly's at full length.

SIR WILLIAM BLACKSTONE.

SIR WILLIAM BLACKSTONE'S Commentaries on the Laws of Eng land,' published in 1765, exhibit a logical and comprehensive mind, and a correct taste in composition. They formed the first attempt to popularise legal knowledge, and were eminently successful. Junius and others have attacked their author for leaning too much to the side of prerogative, and abiding rather by precedents than by sense and justice; yet in the House of Commons, when Blackstone was once advocating what was considered servile obedience, he was answered from his own book! The Commentaries' have not been supplanted by any subsequent work of the same kind, but various additions and corrections have been made by eminent lawyers in late editions. Blackstone thus sums up the relative merits of an elective and hereditary monarchy:

On Monarchy.

It must be owned, an elective monarchy seems to be the most obvious and best suited of any to the rational principles of government and the freedom of human nature; and accordingly, we find from history that, in the infancy and first rudiments of almost every state, the leader, chief-magistrate, or prince hath usually been elective. And if the individuals who compose that state could always continue true to first principles, uninfluenced by passion or prejudice, unassailed by corrup tion, and unawed by violence, elective succession were as much to be desired in a kingdom as in other inferior communities. The best, the wisest, and the bravest man would then be sure of receiving that crown which his endowments have merited; and the sense of an unbiased majority would be dutifully acquiesced in by the few who were of different opinions. But history and observation will inform us that elections of every kind, in the present state of human nature, are too frequently brought about by influence, partiality, and artifice; and even where the case is otherwise, these practices will be often suspected, and as constantly charged upon the suc cessful, by a splenetic disappointed minority. This is an evil to which all societies are liable; as well those of a private and domestic kind, as the great community of the public, which regulates and includes the rest. But in the former there is this advantage, that such suspicions if false, proceed no further than jealousies and murmurs, which time will effectually suppress; and, if true, the injustice may be reme died by legal means, by an appeal to these tribunals to which every member of society has (by becoming such) virtually engaged to submit. Whereas, in the great and independent society which every nation composes, there is no superior to resort to but the law of nature; no method to redress the infringements of that law but the actual exertion of private force. As, therefore, between two nations complaining of mutual injuries, the quarrel can only be decided by the law of arms, so in one and the same nation, when the fundamental principles of their common union are supposed to be invaded, and more especially when the appointment of their chief-magistrate is alleged to be unduly made, the only tribunal to which the complainants can appeal is that of the God of battles; the only process by which the appeal can be carried on is that of a civil and intestine war. A hereditary succession to the crown is therefore now established in this and most other countries, in order to prevent that periodical bloodshed and misery which the history of ancient imperial Rome, and the more moderu experience of Poland and Germany, may shew us are the consequences of elective kingdoms.

DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON.

At the head of the men of letters at this time-especially of professional authors, as exercising a more commanding influence than any other of his contemporaries, may be placed DR. JOHNSON, already

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noticed as a poet and essayist. In 1755 Johnson completed his Dic-, tionary,' which had occupied the greater part of his time for seven years, and for the copyright of which he received £1575. Before the publication of the Dictionary he had begun the Rambler,' which he carried on for two years. For two more years (1758-1760) he was engaged in writing the essays entitled 'The Idler,' and his novel of Rasselas,' published in 1759. The latter he wrote in the nights of one week to defray the expenses of his mother's funeral. The scene is laid in the east, but the author makes no attempt to portray eastern manners. It is, in fact, a series of essays on various subjects of morality and religion-on the efficacy of pilgrimages, the state of departed souls, the probability of the reappearance of the dead, the dangers of solitude, &c. on all which the philosopher and prince of Abyssinia talk exactly as Johnson talked for more than twenty years in his house at Bolt Court, or in the club. The habitual melancholy of Johnson is apparent in this work-as when he nobly apostrophises the river Nile: Answer, great Father of waters! thou that rollest thy floods through eighty nations, to the invocations of the daughter of thy native king. Tell me if thou waterest through all thy course, a single habitation from which thou dost not hear the murmurs of complaint.' When Johnson afterwards penned his depreciatory criticism of Gray, and upbraided him for apostrophising the Thames, adding coarsely, Father Thames has no better means of knowing than himself,' he forgot that he had written Rasselas.'

In 1765 appeared Johnson's edition of Shakspeare, containing little that is valuable in the way of annotation, but introduced by a powerful and masterly preface. In 1770 and 1771 he wrote two political pamphlets in support of the measures of government, The False Alarm,' and Thoughts on the Late Transactions respecting the Falkland Islands.' Though often harsh, contemptuous, and intolerant, these pamphlets are admirable pieces of composition-full of nerve and controversial zeal. In 1775 appeared his Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland;' and in 1781 his Lives of the Poets.' It was the felicity of Johnson, as of Dryden, to improve as an author as he advanced in years, and to write best after he had passed that period of life when many men are almost incapable of intellectual exertion. The Dictionary' is a valuable practical work, not remarkable for philological research, but for its happy and luminous definitions, the result of great sagacity, precision of understanding, and clearness of expression. A few of the definitions betray the personal feelings and peculiarities of the author, and have been much ridiculed. For example, Excise,' which-as a Tory hating Walpole and the Whig excise act-he defines, 'A hateful tax levied upon commodities, and adjudged, not by the common judges of property, but by wretches hired by those to whom excise is paid.'

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Pension is defined to be an allowance made to any one without an equivalent. In England, it is generally understood to mean pay

given to a state-hireling for treason to his country.' After such a definition, it is scarcely to be wondered that Johnson paused, and felt some compunctious visitings,' before he accepted a pension himself! Oats he defines, A grain which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland supports the people.' This gave mortal offence to the natives of Scotland, and is hardly yet forgiven; but the best reply was the happy observation of Lord Elibank: Yes, and where will you find such horses and such men?" The Journey to the Western Isles makes no pretensions to scientific discovery, but it is an entertaining and finely written work. In the Highlands, the poetical imagination of Johnson expanded with the new scenery and forms of life presented to his contemplation. His love of feudalism, of clanship, and of ancient Jacobite families, found full scope; and as he was always a close observer, his descriptions convey much pleasing and original information. His complaints of the want of woods in Scotland, though dwelt upon with a ludicrous perseverance and querulousness, had the effect of setting the landlords to plant their bleak moors and mountains, and improve the aspect of the country. The Lives of the Poets' have a freedom of style, a vigour of thought, and happiness of illustration, rarely attained even by their author. The plan of the work was defective, as the lives begin only with Cowley. Some feeble and worthless rhymsters also obtained niches in Johnson's gallery; but the most serious defect is the injustice done to some of our greatest masters in consequence of the political or personal prejudices of the author.-To Milton he is strikingly unjust, though his criticism on Paradise Lost' is able and profound. Gray is treated with a coarseness and insensibility derogatory only to the critic; and in general, the higher order of imaginative poetry suffers under the ponderous hand of Johnson. Its beauties were too airy and ethereal for his grasp—too subtle for his feelings or understanding.

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From the Preface to the Dictionary.

It is the fate of those who toil at the lower employments of life to be rather driven by the fear of evil than attracted by the prospect of good; to be exposed to censure without hope of praise; to be disgraced by miscarriage, or punished for neglect, where success would have been without applause, and diligence without reward.

Among these unhappy mortals is the writer of dictionaries; whom mankind have considered, not as the pupil, but the slave of science, the pioneer of literature, doomed only to remove rubbish and clear obstructions from the paths through which learning and genius press forward to conquest and glory, without bestowing a smile on the humble drudge that facilitates their progress. Every other author may aspire to praise; the lexicographer can only hope to escape reproach, and even this negative recompense has been yet granted to very few.

In hope of giving longevity to that which its own nature forbids to be immortal, I have devoted this book, the labour of years, to the honour of my country, that we may no longer yield the palm of philology, without a contest, to the nations of the continent. The chief glory of every people arises from its authors: whether I shall add anything by my own writings to the reputation of English literature, must be left to time; much of my life has been lost under the pressures of disease; much has been trifled away; and much has always been spent in provision for the day that was passing over me; but I shall not think my employment useless or ignoble, if, by my

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