200 Monthly Review of Literature. 



"WHO HAVE ELEGANT MANNERS, BUT VULGAR MINDS. 



" Chesterfield was the disciple, as it were, of Rochefoucault. He had ori- 

 ginally a vulgar mind. Cultivation chastised it, ambition polished it, and 

 manners disguised it ; but he died, as he had lived, cursed with the gangrene 

 of a vulgar mind, that is, a worldly mind. 



"Chesterfield had a perfect knowledge of certain individuals and those con- 

 nected with them ; but he had not sufficient mental compass to judge strictly 

 any thing complicated, much less man. He improved the manners of his age ; 

 but neither its mental capabilities nor its moral practice. Perhaps he de- 

 teriorated both ; at least this much is certain, that a youth, who takes Ches- 

 terfield for his guide, will run great danger of being little better than a smooth 

 insidious, half-repenting scoundrel. 



" He has some excellent precepts in regard to manners ; but even these were 

 given to Greece more than two thousand years ago. I do not accuse Chester- 

 field of having read one passage in Aristotle during his whole course of man- 

 hood ; but, had he done so, he would, no doubt, have been struck with amaze- 

 ment at beholding the best part of his philosophy in a passage of the Stagyrite. 



" Chesterfield was specious, plausible, and penetrating ; with conversation 

 not only brilliant, but frequently solid. His action, we are told, was dignified, 

 and his eloquence mellifluent; yet, occasionally, deficient in argument, there- 

 fore deficient in strength';* at times indicating a plausible and empty elegance, 

 like double-distilled lavender-water, but he had not that pre-eminence of art 

 that could prompt him to enlist manners and conduct on the true side of virtue. 



" Pride, rank, and circumstance, prevented Chesterfield's knowledge of any 

 other species of men than what are to be seen in courts and drawing-rooms ; 

 nor would he have had so much leisure even to know those, had not the 

 duchess of Marlborough left him a legacy of twenty thousand pounds. As 

 to the innateness of his good breeding, it may perhaps be suspected ; sinces 

 though he could treat servants with politeness, he could occasionally be in- 

 solent, when he could be so with impunity. His wit, too, was often directed 

 at good men. 



' Walpole and Johnson are very severe upon this personage. The latter 

 pronounced him a lord among wits, and insists that his letters teach the 

 morals of a strumpet and the manners of a dancing-master. The former 

 (Walpole) declares of his administration in Ireland, that it was so popular, 

 that nothing was so much cried up as his integrity. Whereas, ' he would have 

 laughed at any one/ says he, ' who really had any confidence in his morality.' 

 Thomson, however, adorns him with every virtue, and celebrates him as 

 having been < The guardian, ornament, and joy 



Of polished life/ Winter, 656. 



" And yet, what was the extent of his policy and comprehension ? To 

 guard himself, and to keep himself perpetually on the watch to profit by the 

 passions and errors of others. He courted the mistress of his master, was 

 ambitious of distinction, and yet acquired no advance in the peerage, nor any 

 great accession to his private fortune. Were we permitted to compare him to 

 a fruit, the fruit selected might be a China orange.'* 



STATISTICS, 

 Second Annual Report of the Poor Law Commissioners for England 



and Wales, 8vo. Knight. 

 THE English public are here presented, at a small expense, with an elaborate 



Johnson was one day looking at an edition of Chesterfield's works. " Here," said 

 he, laughing, " here are two speeches ascribed to him, both of which were written by 

 me ; and the best of it is, they have found out that the one is like Demosthenes and the 

 other like Cicero." 



