JOHN OF THE HILL 



little genius. He wrote Latin verses from time to time, and 

 published a set in his old age, which he called ' Senilia,' in 

 which he shows so little learning or taste in writing as to 

 make Carteret a dactyl." There is a copy of this book in the 

 library at Belvoir, and I read a good many of the verses, since 

 several of them refer to events in the history of the family 

 and contain descriptions of Haddon and Belvoir. They 

 struck me as lacking grace and not affording much scope for 

 quotation ; but at the same time I submit that if Maittaire, 

 as a Frenchman, pronounced Carteret according to the 

 custom of his own language, there was no such great crime 

 in using that name as a dactyl. As a schoolmaster Maittaire 

 was excellent, and his private character was modest, un- 

 assuming, and of the strictest religious orthodoxy and moral 

 rectitude. Yet he was not without a touch of the courtier, 

 which did not make him less acceptable to the great persons 

 who were at once his pupils and his patrons. It is no small 

 evidence of his repute for judicious management and his 

 power of imparting sound learning that he was chosen late 

 in life by Lord Chesterfield to conduct the early education 

 of that immortal boor, Philip Stanhope. Maittaire's nice 

 courtesy would not be among the least of his recommenda- 

 tions to Lord Chesterfield, that most delightful of letter- 

 writers, whose acuteness in the training of his son was so 

 obvious to himself, and whose ignorance of human nature is 

 so naively confessed to the reader. Lord Chesterfield dealt 

 with an ordinary, but not stupid lad, on the same lines and 

 by the same method as though his son was a sensitive and 

 slightly hostile minor European Principality. 



Thus Maittaire obtained and preserved the friendship and 

 esteem of men like the Earl of Oxford, the second Viscount 

 Howe, the third Duke of Rutland, and he won the patronage 

 of Lord Chesterfield. In his elaborate and careful tuition of 

 the Duke of Rutland by correspondence, we are struck by 

 the variety of the topics he dealt with and by the judicious 

 way in which the doses of learning are proportioned to the 

 capacity of the scholar. Maittaire was evidently an expert 

 in levelling the path of knowledge, and rendering it as little 



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