LORD CHESTERFIELD’S LETTERS, SENTENCES, AND MAXIMS. (continued 4)

The Chaperone.—There is a sort of veteran women (sic) of condition, who, having lived always in the grand monde, and having possibly had some gallantries, together with the experience of five and twenty or thirty years, form a young fellow better than all the rules that can be given him. These women, being past their bloom, are extremely flattered by the least attention from a young fellow; and they will point out to him those manners and attentions that pleased and engaged them, when they were in the pride of their youth and beauty. Wherever you go, make some of those women your friends, which a very little matter will do. Ask their advice, tell them your doubts or difficulties as to your behavior; but take great care not to drop one word of their experience; for experience implies age, and the suspicion of age, no woman, let her be ever so old, ever forgives. [Same date.]

Necessary Accomplishments.—I here subjoin a list of all those necessary, ornamental accomplishments (without which no man living can either please or rise in the world), which hitherto I fear you want, and which only require your care and attention to possess.

To speak elegantly whatever language you speak in; without which nobody will hear you with pleasure, and, consequently, you will speak to very little purpose.

An agreeable and distinct elocution; without which nobody will hear you with patience; this everybody may acquire who is not born with some imperfection in the organs of speech. You are not; and therefore it is wholly in your power. You need take much less pains for it than Demosthenes did.

A distinguished politeness of manners and address; which common-sense, observation, good company, and imitation will infallibly give you, if you will accept of it.

A genteel carriage, and graceful motions, with the air of a man of fashion. A good dancing master, with some care on your part, and some imitation of those who excel, will soon bring this about.

To be extremely clean in your person, and perfectly well dressed, according to the fashion, be that what it will. Your negligence of dress, while you were a schoolboy, was pardonable, but would not be so now.

Upon the whole, take it for granted, that, without these accomplishments, all you know, and all you can do, will avail you very little. Adieu. [Jan. 18, 1750.]

Time—its Value.—Very few people are good economists of their fortune, and still fewer of their time; and yet, of the two, the latter is the most precious. I heartily wish you to be a good economist of both; and you are now of an age to begin to think seriously of these two important articles. Young people are apt to think they have so much time before them, that they may squander what they please of it, and yet have enough left; as very great fortunes have frequently seduced people to a ruinous profusion. Fatal mistakes, always repented of, but always too late! Old Mr. Lowndes, the famous Secretary of the Treasury, in the reigns of King William, Queen Anne, and King George the First, used to say, “Take care of the pence, and the pounds will take care of themselves.” To this maxim, which he not only preached, but practised, his two grandsons, at this time, owe the very considerable fortunes that he left them. [Feb. 5, 1750.]

Lazy People—Dispatch—How to Read.—Many people lose a great deal of their time by laziness; they loll and yawn in a great chair, tell themselves that they have not time to begin anything then, and that it will do as well another time. This is a most unfortunate disposition, and the greatest obstruction to both knowledge and business. At your age, you have no right nor claim to laziness; I have, if I please, being emeritus. You are but just listed in the world, and must be active, diligent, indefatigable. If ever you propose commanding with dignity, you must serve up to it with diligence. Never put off till to-morrow what you can do to-day.

Dispatch is the soul of business; and nothing contributes more to dispatch than method. Lay down a method for everything, and stick to it inviolably, as far as unexpected incidents may allow. Fix one certain hour and day in the week for your accompts, and keep them together in their proper order; by which means they will require very little time, and you can never be much cheated. Whatever letters and papers you keep, docket and tie them up in their respective classes, so that you may instantly have recourse to any one. Lay down a method also for your reading, for which you allot a certain share of your mornings; let it be in a consistent and consecutive course, and not in that desultory and immethodical manner, in which many people read scraps of different authors, upon different subjects. Keep a useful and short commonplace book of what you read, to help your memory only, and not for pedantic quotations. Never read history without having maps, and a chronological book, or tables, lying by you, and constantly recurred to; without which history is only a confused heap of facts. One method more I recommend to you, by which I have found great benefit, even in the most dissipated part of my life; that is, to rise early, and at the same hour every morning, how late soever you may have sat up the night before. This secures you an hour or two, at least, of reading and reflection, before the common interruptions of the morning begin; and it will save your constitution, by forcing you to go to bed early, at least one night in three. [Feb. 5, 1750.]

Dignity in Pleasure.—There is a certain dignity to be kept up in pleasures, as well as in business. In love, a man may lose his heart with dignity; but if he loses his nose, he loses his character into the bargain. At table, a man may with decency have a distinguishing palate; but indiscriminate voraciousness degrades him to a glutton. A man may play with decency; but if he games, he is disgraced. Vivacity and wit make a man shine in company; but trite jokes and loud laughter reduce him to a buffoon. Every virtue, they say, has its kindred vice; every pleasure, I am sure, has its neighboring disgrace. Mark carefully, therefore, the line that separates them, and carefully stop a yard short, than step an inch beyond it.

I wish to God that you had as much pleasure in following my advice, as I have in giving it you; and you may the easier have it, as I give you none that is inconsistent with your pleasure. [Same date.]

False Wit.—To do justice to the best English and French authors; they have not given in to that false taste; they allow no thoughts to be good, that are not just, and founded upon truth. The age of Louis XIV. was very like the Augustan; Boileau, Molière, La Fontaine, Racine, etc., established the true, and exposed the false taste. The reign of King Charles II. (meritorious in no other respect) banished false tastes out of England, and proscribed puns, quibbles, acrostics, etc. Since that, false wit has renewed its attacks, and endeavored to recover its lost empire, both in England and France, but without success; though, I must say, with more success in France than in England: Addison, Pope and Swift, having vigorously defended the rights of good-sense, which is more than can be said of their contemporary French authors, who have of late had a great tendency to le faux brillant, le ranfiement, et l’entortillement. And Lord Roscommon would be more in the right now, than he was then, in saying, that

[Same date.]

No Stoic.—I confess, the pleasures of high life are not always strictly philosophical; and I believe a stoic would blame my indulgence; but I am yet no stoic, though turned of five-and-fifty; and I am apt to think that you are rather less so, at eighteen. The pleasures of the table, among people of the first fashion, may, indeed, sometimes, by accident, run into excesses; but they will never sink into a continued course of gluttony and drunkenness. The gallantry of high life, though not strictly justifiable, carries, at least, no external marks of infamy about it. [March 8, 1750.]

Etiquette.—I did not think that the present Pope46 was a sort of man to build seven modern little chapels at the expense of so respectable a piece of antiquity as the Coliseum. However, let his holiness’ taste of vertu be ever so bad, pray get somebody to present you to him, before you leave Rome; and without hesitation kiss his slipper, or whatever else the etiquette of that court requires. I would have you see all those ceremonies; and I presume that you are, by this time, ready enough at Italian to understand and answer il Santo Padre in that language. [March 19, 1750.]

Bibliomania.—When you return here, I am apt to think that you will find something better to do than to run to Mr. Osborne’s at Gray’s-Inn, to pick up scarce books. Buy good books, and read them; the best books are the commonest, and the last editions are always the best, if the editors are not blockheads; for they may profit of the former. But take care not to understand editions and title-pages too well. It always smells of pedantry, and not always of learning. What curious books I have, they are indeed but few, shall be at your service. I have some of the Old Collana, and the Macchiavel of 1550. Beware of the Bibliomanie. [Same date.]

Constitutional Monarchy.—England is now the only monarchy in the world that can properly be said to have a constitution; for the people’s rights and liberties are secured by laws. I cannot reckon Sweden and Poland to be monarchies. [March 29, 1750.]

Aim High.—Aim at perfection in everything, though in most things it is unattainable; however, they who aim at it, and persevere, will come much nearer it than those whose laziness and despondency, make them give it up as unattainable. Magnis tamen excidit ausis is a degree of praise which will always attend a noble and shining temerity, and a much better sign in a young fellow, than serpere humi, tutus nimium timidusque procellæ, for men, as well as women. [May 24, 1750.]

A Due Return.—I heard with great satisfaction the other day, from one who has been lately at Rome, that nobody was better received in the best companies than yourself. The same thing, I dare say, will happen to you at Paris, where they are particularly kind to all strangers who will be civil to them and show a desire of pleasing. But they must be flattered a little, not only by words, but by a seeming preference given to their country, their manners, and their customs; which is but a small price to pay for a very good reception. Were I in Africa, I would pay it to a negro for his good-will. Adieu. [June 5, 1750.]

Use of Oratory.—Your trade is to speak well, both in public and in private. The manner of your speaking is full as important as the matter, as more people have ears to be tickled than understandings to judge. Be your productions ever so good, they will be of no use if you stifle and strangle them in their birth. The best compositions of Corelli, if ill executed, and played out of tune, instead of touching, as they do when well performed, would only excite the indignation of the hearers, when murdered by an unskilful performer. But to murder your own productions, and that coram populo, is a Medean cruelty, which Horace absolutely forbids. Remember of what importance Demosthenes, and one of the Gracchi, thought enunciation; read what stress Cicero and Quintilian lay upon it; even the herb-women at Athens were correct judges of it. Oratory with all its graces, that of enunciation in particular, is full as necessary in our government, as it ever was in Greece or Rome. No man can make a fortune or a figure in this country, without speaking, and speaking well in public. [July 9, 1750.]

Speak Well.—Recite pieces of eloquence, declaim scenes of tragedies to Mr. Harte, as if he were a numerous audience. If there is any particular consonant which you have a difficulty in articulating, as I think you had with the R, utter it millions and millions of times, till you have uttered it right. Never speak quick, till you have first learned to speak well. In short, lay aside every book and every thought, that does not directly tend to this great object, absolutely decisive of your future fortune and figure. [Same date.]

A Truth.—Pleasure is necessarily reciprocal; no one feels who does not at the same time give it. To be pleased, one must please. What pleases you in others, will in general please them in you. [Same date.]

Learned Ignorance.—A man of the best parts, and the greatest learning, if he does not know the world by his own experience and observation, will be very absurd, and consequently very unwelcome in company. He may say very good things; but they will probably be so ill-timed, misplaced, or improperly addressed, that he had much better hold his tongue. Full of his own matter, and uninformed of, or inattentive to, the particular circumstances and situations of the company, he vents it indiscriminately; he puts some people out of countenance; he shocks others; and frightens all, who dread what may come out next. The most general rule that I can give you for the world, and which your experience will convince you of the truth of, is: Never to give the tone to the company, but to take it from them; and to labor more to put them in conceit with themselves, than to make them admire you. Those whom you can make like themselves better, will, I promise you, like you very well. [Aug. 6, 1750.]

A Portrait.—It is Lady Hervey,47 whom I directed you to call upon at Dijon; but who, to my great joy, because to your great advantage, passes all this winter at Paris. She has been bred all her life at courts; of which she has acquired all the easy good breeding and politeness, without the frivolousness. She has all the reading that a woman should have: and more than any woman need have; for she understands Latin perfectly well, though she wisely conceals it. As she will look upon you as her son, I desire that you will look upon her as my delegate: trust, consult, and apply to her without reserve. No woman ever had, more than she has, le ton de la parfaitement bonne compagnie, les manières engageantes et le je ne sais quoi qui plaît. Desire her to reprove and correct any, and every, the least error and inaccuracy in your manners, air, addresses, etc. No woman in Europe can do it so well; none will do it more willingly, or in a more proper and obliging manner. [Oct. 22, 1750.]

History.—While you are in France, I could wish that the hours you allot for historical amusement should be entirely devoted to the history of France. One always reads history to most advantage in that country to which it is relative, not only books but persons being ever at hand to solve the doubts and clear up difficulties. I do by no means advise you to throw away your time in ransacking, like a dull antiquarian, the minute and important parts of remote and fabulous times. Let blockheads read what blockheads wrote. A general notion of the history of France, from the conquest of that country by the Franks, to the reign of Lewis the Eleventh, is sufficient for use, consequently sufficient for you. There are, however, in those remote times, some remarkable eras, that deserve more particular attention; I mean those in which some notable alterations happened in the constitution and form of government. [Nov. 1, 1750.]

Small Talk.—I am far from meaning by this, that you should always be talking wisely, in company, of books, history, and matters of knowledge. There are many companies which you will and ought to keep, where such conversations would be misplaced and ill-timed; your own good sense must distinguish the company, and the time. You must trifle with triflers, and be serious only with the serious, but dance to those who pipe. Cur in theatrum Cato severe venisti? was justly said to an old man; how much more so would it be to one of your age? From the moment that you are dressed, and go out, pocket all your knowledge with your watch, and never pull it out in company unless desired: the producing of the one unasked implies that you are weary of the company; and the producing of the other unrequired will make the company weary of you. Company is a republic too jealous of its liberties to suffer a dictator even for a quarter of an hour; and yet in that, as in all republics, there are some who really govern, but then it is by seeming to disclaim, instead of attempting to usurp, the power; that is the occasion in which manners, dexterity, address, and the undefinable je ne sais quoi triumph; if properly exerted, their conquest is sure, and the more lasting for not being perceived. Remember, that this is not only your first and greatest, but ought to be almost your only object, while you are in France. [Same date.]

A Rake.—Having mentioned the word rake, I must say a word or two more upon that subject, because young people too frequently, and always fatally, are apt to mistake that character for that of a man of pleasure; whereas, there are not in the world two characters more different. A rake is a composition of all the lowest, most ignoble, degrading, and shameful vices; they all conspire to disgrace his character, and to ruin his fortune; while wine and disease contend which shall soonest and most effectually destroy his constitution. A dissolute, flagitious footman, or porter, makes full as good a rake as a man of the first quality. By the by, let me tell you, that in the wildest part of my youth I never was a rake, but, on the contrary, always detested and despised the character.48 [Nov. 8, 1750.]

Keep the Peace.—Keep carefully out of all scrapes and quarrels. They lower a character extremely; and are particularly dangerous in France; where a man is dishonored by not resenting an affront, and utterly ruined by resenting it. The young Frenchmen are hasty, giddy, and petulant; extremely national, and avantageux. Forbear from any national jokes or reflections, which are always improper, and commonly unjust. The colder northern nations generally look upon France as a whistling, singing, dancing, frivolous nation; this notion is very far from being a true one, though many petits maîtres by their behavior seem to justify it; but those very petits maîtres, when mellowed by age and experience, very often turn out very able men. The number of great generals and statesmen, as well as excellent authors, that France has produced, is an undeniable proof, that it is not that frivolous, unthinking, empty nation that the northern prejudices suppose it. [No date.]

A New Constitution.—This epigram in Martial:

has puzzled a great many people; who cannot conceive how it is possible not to love anybody, and yet not to know the reason why. I think I conceive Martial’s meaning very clearly, though the nature of epigram, which is to be short, would not allow him to explain it more fully; and I take it to be this: “O Sabidis, you are a very worthy, deserving man; you have a thousand good qualities, you have a great deal of learning; I esteem, I respect, but for the soul of me, I cannot love you, though I cannot particularly say why. You are not amiable; you have not those engaging manners, those pleasing attentions, those graces, and that address, which are absolutely necessary to please, though impossible to define. I cannot say it is this or that particular thing which hinders me from loving you, it is the whole together; and upon the whole you are not agreeable.” How often have I, in the course of my life, found myself in this situation, with regard to many of my acquaintance, whom I have honored and respected, without being able to love? I did not know why, because, when one is young, one does not take the trouble, nor allow one’s self the time, to analyze one’s sentiments, and to trace them up to their source. [Feb. 28, 1751.]

Carriage of the Body.—It sounds ridiculously to bid you study with your dancing master; and yet I do. The bodily carriage and graces are of infinite consequence to everybody, and more particularly to you. Adieu for this time, my dear child. Yours tenderly. [No date.]

How to Please.—An air, a tone of voice, a composure of countenance to mildness and softness, which are all easily acquired, do the business; and without further examination, and possibly with the contrary qualities, that man is reckoned the gentlest, the modestest, and the best-natured man alive. Happy the man who, with a certain fund of parts and knowledge, gets acquainted with the world early enough to make it his bubble, at an age when most people are the bubbles of the world! for that is the common case of youth. They grow wiser when it is too late; and, ashamed and vexed at having been bubbles so long, too often turn knaves at last. Do not, therefore, trust to appearances and outside yourself, but pay other people with them, because you may be sure that nine in ten of mankind do, and ever will, trust to them. This is by no means a criminal or blamable simulation, if not used with an ill intention. I am by no means blamable in desiring to have other people’s good word, good-will, and affection, if I do not mean to abuse them. Your heart, I know, is good, your sense is sound, and your knowledge extensive. [May 6, 1751.]

Pictures.—I received yesterday, at the same time, your letters of the 4th and the 11th, N. S., and being much more careful of my commissions than you are of yours, I do not delay one moment sending you my final instructions concerning the pictures. The man, you allow to be a Titian, and in good preservation; the woman is an indifferent and a damaged picture; but, as I want them for furniture for a particular room, companions are necessary; and therefore I am willing to take the woman, for better for worse, upon account of the man; and if she is not too much damaged, I can have her tolerably repaired, as many a fine woman is, by a skilful hand here; but then I expect the lady should be, in a manner, thrown into the bargain with the man; and in this state of affairs, the woman being worth little or nothing, I will not go above fourscore louis for the two together. As for the Rembrandt you mention, though it is very cheap, if good, I do not care for it. I love la belle nature; Rembrandt paints caricatures. Now for your own commissions, which you seem to have forgotten. [May 10, 1751.]

Dancing and Deportment.—Lady Hervey, who is your puff and panegyrist, writes me word, that she saw you lately dance at a ball, and that you dance very genteelly. I am extremely glad to hear it; for (by the maxim that omne majus continet in se minus) if you dance genteelly, I presume you walk, sit, and stand genteelly too; things which are much more easy, though much more necessary, than dancing well. I have known many very genteel people, who could not dance well; but I never knew anybody dance very well, who was not genteel in other things. You will probably often have occasion to stand in circles, at the levees of princes and ministers, when it is very necessary, de payer de sa personne, et d’être bien planté, with your feet not too near nor too distant from each other. More people stand and walk, than sit genteelly. Awkward, ill-bred people, being ashamed, commonly sit up bolt upright and stiff; others, too negligent and easy, se vautrent dans leur fauteuil, which is ungraceful and ill-bred, unless where the familiarity is extreme. [June 10, 1751.]

Little Nothings.—I know a man, and so do you, who, without a grain of merit, knowledge, or talents, has raised himself millions of degrees above his level, simply by a good air and engaging manners; insomuch that the very prince, who raised him so high, calls him, mon aimable vaurien50: but of this do not open your lips, pour cause. I give you this secret, as the strongest proof imaginable, of the efficacy of air, address, tournure, et tous ces petits riens. [Same date.]

Ease of Manner.—Les bienséances51 are a most necessary part of the knowledge of the world. They consist in the relations of persons, things, time, and place; good sense points them out, good company perfects them (supposing always an attention and a desire to please), and good policy recommends them.

Were you to converse with a king, you ought to be as easy and unembarrassed as with your own valet de chambre; but yet every look, word, and action should imply the utmost respect. What would be proper and well-bred with others much your superiors, would be absurd and ill-bred with one so very much so. You must wait till you are spoken to; you must receive, not give, the subject of conversation, and you must even take care that the given subject of such conversation do not lead you into any impropriety. [June 13, 1751.]

Social Respect.—In mixed companies with your equals (for in mixed companies all people are to a certain degree equal) greater ease and liberty are allowed; but they too have their bounds within bienséance. There is a social respect necessary; you may start your own subject of conversation with modesty, taking great care, however, de ne jamais parler de cordes dans la maison d’un pendu. Your words, gestures, and attitudes have a greater degree of latitude, though by no means an unbounded one. You may have your hands in your pockets, take snuff, sit, stand, or occasionally walk, as you like; but I believe you would not think it very bienséant to whistle, put on your hat, loosen your garters or your buckles, lie down upon a couch, or go to bed, and welter in an easy chair. These are negligences and freedoms which one can only take when quite alone; they are injurious to superiors, shocking and offensive to equals, brutal and insulting to inferiors. That easiness of carriage and behavior, which is exceedingly engaging, widely differs from negligence and inattention, and by no means implies that one may do whatever one pleases. [Same date.]

Respect due to Woman.—To women you should always address yourself with great outward respect and attention, whatever you feel inwardly; their sex is by long prescription entitled to it; and it is among the duties of bienséance; at the same time that respect is very properly, and very agreeably, mixed with a degree of enjouement, if you have it; but then, that badinage must either directly or indirectly tend to their praise, and even not be liable to a malicious construction to their disadvantage. But here, too, great attention must be had to the difference of age, rank, and situation. A maréchale of fifty must not be played with like a young coquette of fifteen; respect and serious enjouement, if I may couple those two words, must be used with the former, and mere badinage, zesté même d’un peu de polissonerie, is pardonable with the latter. [Same date.]

Horse-Laughter.—Loud laughter is extremely inconsistent with les bienséances, as it is only the illiberal and noisy testimony of the joy of the mob, at some very silly thing. A gentleman is often seen, but very seldom heard, to laugh. Nothing is more contrary to les bienséances than horse-play, or jeux de main of any kind whatever, and has often very serious, sometimes very fatal consequences. Romping, struggling, throwing things at one another’s head, are the becoming pleasantries of the mob, but degrade a gentleman; giuoco di mano, giuoco di villano, is a very true saying, among the few true sayings of the Italians.

There is a bienséance also with regard to people of the lowest degree; a gentleman observes it with his footman, even with the beggar in the street. He considers them as objects of compassion, not of insult; he speaks to neither d’un ton brusque, but corrects the one coolly, and refuses the other with humanity. There is no one occasion in the world in which le ton brusque is becoming a gentleman. In short, les bienséances are another word for manners. [Same date.]

The Two Ages.—Now that all tumultuous passions and quick sensations have subsided with me, and that I have no tormenting cares nor boisterous pleasures to agitate me, my greatest joy is to consider the fair prospect you have before you, and to hope and believe you will enjoy it. You are already in the world, at an age when others have hardly heard of it. Your character is hitherto not only unblemished in its moral part, but even unsullied by any low, dirty, and ungentlemanlike vice; and will, I hope, continue so. Your knowledge is sound, extensive, and avowed, especially in everything relative to your destination. With such materials to begin, what then is wanting? Not fortune, as you have found by experience. You have had, and shall have, fortune sufficient to assist your merit and your industry; and, if I can help it, you never shall have enough to make you negligent of either. You have, too, mens sana in corpore sano, the greatest blessing of all. All, therefore, that you want is as much in your power to acquire, as to eat your breakfast when set before you; it is only that knowledge of the world, that elegancy of manners, that universal politeness, and those graces, which keeping good company, and seeing variety of places and characters, must inevitably, with the least attention on your part, give you. Your foreign destination leads to the greatest things, and your parliamentary situation will facilitate your progress; consider then this pleasing prospect as attentively for yourself, as I consider it for you. Labor on your part to realize it, as I will on mine to assist and enable you to do it. Nullum numen abest, si sit prudentia. [Same date.]

A Reference at Court.—I would wish you to be able to talk upon all these things, better and with more knowledge than other people; insomuch that, upon those occasions, you should be applied to, and that people should say, I dare say Mr. Stanhope can tell us. Second-rate knowledge, and middling talents, carry a man farther at courts, and in the busy part of the world, than superior knowledge and shining parts. Tacitus very justly accounts for a man’s having always kept in favor, and enjoyed the best employments, under the tyrannical reigns of three or four of the very worst emperors, by saying that it was not propter aliquam eximiam artem, sed quia par negotiis neque supra erat. Discretion is the great article; all those things are to be learned and only learned by keeping a great deal of the best company. Frequent those good houses where you have already a footing, and wriggle yourself somehow or other into every other. Haunt the courts particularly, in order to get that routine. [June 20, 1751.]

French and English Hunting.—Our abbé writes me word that you were gone to Compiègne; I am very glad of it; other courts must form you for your own. He tells me, too, that you have left off riding at the manège; I have no objection to that, it takes up a great deal of the morning; and if you have got a genteel and firm seat on horseback, it is enough for you, now that tilts and tournaments are laid aside. I suppose you have hunted at Compiègne. The king’s hunting there, I am told, is a fine sight. The French manner of hunting is gentlemanlike; ours is only for bumpkins and boobies. The poor beasts here are pursued and run down by much greater beasts than themselves; and the true British fox-hunter is most undoubtedly a species appropriated and peculiar to this country, which no other part of the globe produces. [June 30, 1751.]

Polite Affection.—Remember to bring your mother some little presents; they need not be of value, but only marks of your affection and duty for one who has always been tenderly fond of you. You may bring Lady Chesterfield a little Martin snuff-box, of about five louis; and you need bring over no other presents; you and I not wanting les petits présens pour entretenir l’amitié. [July 8, 1751.]

Inattention.—Laziness of mind, or inattention, are as great enemies to knowledge, as incapacity; for, in truth, what difference is there between a man who will not, and a man who cannot, be informed? This difference only, that the former is justly to be blamed, and the latter to be pitied. And yet how many are there, very capable of receiving knowledge, who, from laziness, inattention, and incuriousness, will not so much as ask for it, much less take the least pains to acquire it.

Our young English travellers generally distinguish themselves by a voluntary privation of all that useful knowledge for which they are sent abroad; and yet, at that age, the most useful knowledge is the most easy to be acquired; conversation being the book, and the best book, in which it is contained. [Jan. 2, 1752.]

The Drama.—I could wish there were a treaty made between the French and the English theatres, in which both parties should make considerable concessions. The English ought to give up their notorious violations of all the unities; and all their massacres, racks, dead bodies, and mangled carcasses, which they so frequently exhibit upon their stage. The French should engage to have more action, and less declamation; and not to cram and crowd things together to almost a degree of impossibility, from a too scrupulous adherence to the unities. The English should restrain the licentiousness of their poets, and the French enlarge the liberty of theirs: their poets are the greatest slaves in their country, and that is a bold word; ours are the most tumultuous subjects in England, and that is saying a good deal. Under such regulations, one might hope to see a play, in which one should not be lulled to sleep by the length of a monotonical declamation, nor frightened and shocked by the barbarity of the action. The unity of time extended occasionally to three or four days, and the unity of place broke into, as far as the same street, or sometimes the same town; both which, I will affirm, are as probable, as four-and-twenty hours, and the same room.

More indulgence, too, in my mind, should be shown, than the French are willing to allow, to bright thoughts, and to shining images; for though I confess, it is not very natural for a hero or a princess to say fine things, in all the violence of grief, love, rage, etc., yet I can as well suppose that, as I can that they should talk to themselves for half an hour; which they must necessarily do, or no tragedy could be carried on, unless they had recourse to a much greater absurdity, the choruses of the ancients. Tragedy is of a nature, that one must see it with a degree of self-deception; we must lend ourselves, a little, to the delusion; and I am very willing to carry that complaisance a little further than the French do.

Tragedy must be something bigger than life, or it would not affect us. In nature the most violent passions are silent; in tragedy they must speak, and speak with dignity, too. Hence the necessity of their being written in verse, and, unfortunately for the French, from the weakness of their language, in rhymes. And for the same reason, Cato, the Stoic, expiring at Utica, rhymes masculine and feminine,52 at Paris; and fetches his last breath at London, in most harmonious and correct blank verse.

It is quite otherwise with comedy, which should be mere common life, and not one jot bigger. Every character should speak upon the stage, not only what it would utter in the situation there represented, but in the same manner in which it would express it. For which reason, I cannot allow rhymes in comedy, unless they were put into the mouth and came out of the mouth of a mad poet. But it is impossible to deceive one’s self enough (nor is it the least necessary in comedy) to suppose a dull rogue of a usurer cheating, or gros Jean blundering, in the finest rhymes in the world.

As for operas, they are essentially too absurd and extravagant to mention: I look upon them as a magic scene, contrived to please the eyes and the ears, at the expense of the understanding; and I consider singing, rhyming, and chiming heroes, and princesses, and philosophers, as I do the hills, the trees, the birds, and the beasts, who amicably joined in one common country dance, to the irresistible tune of Orpheus’s lyre. Whenever I go to an opera, I leave my sense and reason at the door with my half guinea, and deliver myself up to my eyes and my ears. [Jan. 23, 1752.]

Ridicule.—It is commonly said, and more particularly by Lord Shaftesbury, that ridicule is the best test of truth; for that it will not stick where it is not just. I deny it.53 A truth learned in a certain light, and attacked in certain words by men of wit and humor, may, and often doth, become ridiculous, at least so far, that the truth is only remembered and repeated for the sake of the ridicule. The overturn of Mary of Medicis into a river, where she was half drowned, would never have been remembered, if Madame de Vernueil, who saw it, had not said la Reine boit. Pleasure or malignity often gives ridicule a weight, which it does not deserve. [Same date.]

Comedies.—I chiefly mind dialogue and character in comedies. Let dull critics feed the carcasses of plays; give me the taste and the dressing. [Feb. 6, 1752.]

The Weight of Low People.—In courts a universal gentleness and douceur dans les manières is most absolutely necessary: an offended fool, or a slighted valet de chambre, may, very possibly, do more hurt at court, than ten men of merit can do you good. Fools, and low people, are always jealous of their dignity; and never forget nor forgive what they reckon a slight. [Same date.]

At Court.—There is a court garment, as well as a wedding garment, without which you will not be received. That garment is the volto sciolto: an imposing air, an elegant politeness, easy and engaging manners, universal attention, an insinuating gentleness, and all those je ne sais quoi that compose the grâces. [Same date.]

Perfection.—In all systems whatsoever, whether of religion, government, morals, etc., perfection is the object always proposed, though possibly unattainable; hitherto, at least, certainly unattained. However, those who aim carefully at the mark itself, will unquestionably come nearer to it than those who, from despair, negligence, or indolence, leave to chance the work of skill. This maxim holds equally true in common life; those who aim at perfection will come infinitely nearer it than those desponding or indolent spirits, who foolishly say to themselves, nobody is perfect; perfection is unattainable; to attempt it is chimerical; I shall do as well as others; why then should I give myself trouble to be what I never can, and what, according to the common course of things, I need not be, perfect? [Feb. 20, 1752.]

Omnis Homo.—I would have him have lustre as well as weight. Did you ever know anybody that reunited all these talents? Yes, I did; Lord Bolingbroke joined all the politeness, the manners, and the graces of a courtier, to the solidity of a statesman, and to the learning of a pedant. He was omnis homo; and pray what should hinder my boy of doing so too, if he hath, as I think he hath, all the other qualifications that you allow him? [Same date.]

Knowledge of Literature.—A gentleman should know those which I call classical works, in every language: such as Boileau, Corneille, Racine, Molière, etc., in French; Milton, Dryden, Pope, Swift, etc., in English; and the three authors above mentioned54 in Italian: whether you have any such in German I am not quite sure, nor, indeed, am I inquisitive. These sort of books adorn the mind, improve the fancy, are frequently alluded to by, and are often the subjects of conversations of, the best companies. As you have languages to read, and memory to retain them, the knowledge of them is very well worth the little pains it will cost you, and will enable you to shine in company. It is not pedantic to quote and allude to them, which it would be with regard to the ancients. [March 2, 1752.]

Nothing by Halves.—Whatever business you have, do it the first moment you can; never by halves, but finish it without interruption, if possible. Business must not be sauntered and trifled with; and you must not say to it, as Felix did to Paul, “at a more convenient season I will speak to thee.” The most convenient season for business is the first; but study and business, in some measure, point out their own times to a man of sense; time is much oftener squandered away in the wrong choice and improper methods of amusement and pleasures. [March 5, 1752.]

Formation of Manners.—Nothing forms a young man so much as being used to keep respectable and superior company, where a constant regard and attention is necessary. It is true, this is at first a disagreeable state of restraint; but it soon grows habitual, and consequently easy; and you are amply paid for it, by the improvement you make, and the credit it gives you. [Same date.]

The Best School.—Company, various company, is the only school for this knowledge. You ought to be, by this time, at least in the third form of that school, from whence the rise to the uppermost is easy and quick; but then you must have application and vivacity, you must not only bear with, but even seek, restraint in some companies, instead of stagnating in one or two only, where indolence and love of ease may be indulged. [March 16, 1752.]

Chesterfield’s Prophecy.—I do not know what the Lord’s anointed, His vicegerent upon earth, divinely appointed by Him, and accountable to none but Him for his actions, will either think or do, upon these symptoms of reason and good sense, which seem to be breaking out all over France; but this I foresee, that before the end of this century, the trade of both king and priest will not be half so good a one as it has been. Du Clos, in his reflections, hath observed, and very truly, qu’il y a un germe de raison qui commence à se développer en France. A développement that must prove fatal to regal and papal pretensions. Prudence may, in many cases, recommend an occasional submission to either; but when that ignorance, upon which an implicit faith in both could only be founded, is once removed, God’s vicegerent, and Christ’s vicar, will only be obeyed and believed, as far as what the one orders, and the other says, is conformable to reason and to truth. [April 13, 1752.]

Small Change.—In common life, one much oftener wants small money, and silver, than gold. Give me a man who has ready cash about him for present expenses, shillings, half-crowns, and crowns, which circulate easily; but a man who has only an ingot of gold about him is much above common purposes, and his riches are not handy nor convenient. Have as much gold as you please in one pocket, but take care always to keep change in the other; for you will much oftener have occasion for a shilling than for a guinea. [Sept, 19, 1752.]

Maxims.—My dear friend,—I never think my time so well employed, as when I think it employed to your advantage. In that view, I have thrown together, for your use, the enclosed maxims55; or, to speak more properly, observations of men and things; for I have no merit as to the invention; I am no system-monger; and, instead of giving way to my imagination, I have only consulted my memory; and my conclusions are all drawn from facts, not from fancy. Most maxim-mongers have preferred the prettiness to the justness of a thought, and the turn to the truth; but I have refused myself to everything that my own experience did not justify and confirm. [Jan. 15, 1753.]

A Wet Summer.—There never was so wet a summer as this has been, in the memory of man; we have not had one single day, since March, without some rain; but most days a great deal. I hope that does not affect your health, as great cold does; for, with all these inundations, it has not been cold. God bless you! [Aug. 1, 1766.]

The Last Greeting.—Poor Harte is in a miserable condition, is paralyzed in his left side, and can hardly speak intelligibly. I was with him yesterday. He inquired after you with great affection, and was in the utmost concern when I showed him your letter.

My own health is, as it has been ever since I was here last year. I am neither well nor ill, but unwell. I have, in a manner, lost the use of my legs; for though I can make a shift to crawl upon even ground for a quarter of an hour, I cannot go up or down stairs, unless supported by a servant.

God bless and grant you a speedy recovery! [Oct. 17, 1768.]

Here end the letters to Mr. Stanhope, as he died the 16th of November following.

To Mrs. Stanhope, then at Paris.

Madam:—A troublesome and painful inflammation in my eyes obliges me to use another hand than my own to acknowledge the receipt of your letter from Avignon, of the 27th past.

I am extremely surprised that Mrs. du Bouchet should have any objection to the manner in which your late husband desired to be buried, and which you, very properly, complied with. All I desire for my own burial is not to be buried alive; but how or where, I think, must be entirely indifferent to every rational creature.

I have no commission to trouble you with during your stay at Paris, from whence I wish you and the boys a good journey home, where I shall be very glad to see you all, and assure you of my being, with great truth, your faithful, humble servant, Chesterfield. [March 16, 1769.]

To the same, at London.

Madam:—The last time I had the pleasure of seeing you I was so taken up in playing with the boys that I forgot their more important affairs. How soon would you have them placed at school? When I know your pleasure as to that, I will send to Monsieur Perny to prepare everything for their reception. In the meantime, I beg that you will equip them thoroughly with clothes, linen, etc., all good, but plain, and give me the account, which I will pay, for I do not intend that from this time forward, the two boys should cost you one shilling. I am, with great truth, madam, your faithful, humble servant, Chesterfield. [Wednesday.]

Stanhope’s Children.—Charles will be a scholar, if you please, but our little Philip, without being one, will be something or other as good, though I do not yet guess what. I am not of the opinion generally entertained in this country, that man lives by Greek and Latin alone; that is, by knowing a great many words of two dead languages, which nobody living knows perfectly, and which are of no use in the common intercourse of life. Useful knowledge, in my opinion, consists of modern languages, history, and geography; some Latin may be thrown into the bargain, in compliance with custom, and for closet amusement.

You are by this time certainly tired with this long letter, which I could prove to you from Horace’s own words (for I am a scholar) to be a bad one; he says that water drinkers can write nothing good, so I am, with real truth and esteem, your most faithful, humble servant, Chesterfield. [Nov. 4, 1770.]

To Charles and Philip Stanhope.

The Last Letter.—I received, a few days ago, two, the best-written letters that I ever saw in my life: the one signed Charles Stanhope, the other Philip Stanhope. As for you, Charles, I do not wonder at it; for you will take pains, and are a lover of letters: but you idle rogue, you Phil, how came you to write so well, that one can almost say of you two, et cantare pares et respondere parati? Charles will explain this Latin to you.

I am told, Phil, that you have got a nickname at school, from your intimacy with Master Strangeways; and that they call you Master Strangerways; for, to be sure, you are a strange boy. Is this true?

Tell me what you would have me bring you both from hence, and I will bring it to you when I come to town. In the meantime, God bless you both!—Chesterfield. [Bath, Oct. 27, 1771.]

MAXIMS.56

A proper secrecy is the only mystery of able men; mystery is the only secrecy of weak and cunning ones.

A man who tells nothing, or who tells all, will equally have nothing told him.

If a fool knows a secret, he tells it because he is a fool; if a knave knows one, he tells it wherever it is his interest to tell it. But women and young men are very apt to tell what secrets they know, from the vanity of having been trusted. Trust none of these, whenever you can help it.

Inattention to the present business, be it what it will; the doing one thing, and thinking at the same time of another, or the attempting to do two things at once, are the never-failing signs of a little, frivolous mind.

A man who cannot command his temper, his attention, and his countenance, should not think of being a man of business. The weakest man in the world can avail himself of the passion of the wisest. The inattentive man cannot know the business, and consequently cannot do it. And he who cannot command his countenance, may e’en as well tell his thoughts as show them.

Distrust all those who love you extremely upon a very slight acquaintance, and without any visible reason. Be upon your guard, too, against those, who confess, as their weaknesses, all the cardinal virtues.

In your friendships, and in your enmities, let your confidence and your hostilities have certain bounds: make not the former dangerous, nor the latter irreconcilable. There are strange vicissitudes in business!

Smooth your way to the head, through the heart. The way of reason is a good one; but it is commonly something longer, and perhaps not so sure.

Spirit is now a very fashionable word: to act with spirit, to speak with spirit, means only, to act rashly, and to talk indiscreetly. An able man shows his spirit by gentle words and resolute actions: he is neither hot nor timid.

When a man of sense happens to be in that disagreeable situation, in which he is obliged to ask himself more than once, What shall I do? he will answer himself, Nothing. When his reason points out to him no good way, or at least no one way less bad than another, he will stop short, and wait for light. A little busy mind runs on at all events, must be doing; and, like a blind horse, fears no dangers because he sees none. Il faut savoir s’ennuyer.

Patience is a most necessary qualification for business; many a man would rather you heard his story than granted his request. One must seem to hear the unreasonable demands of the petulant, unmoved, and the tedious details of the dull, untired. That is the least price a man must pay for a high station.

It is always right to detect a fraud, and to perceive a folly; but it is often very wrong to expose either. A man of business should always have his eyes open; but must often seem to have them shut.

In courts, nobody should be below your management and attention: the links that form the court-chain are innumerable and inconceivable. You must hear with patience the dull grievances of a gentleman usher, or a page of the back-stairs; who, very probably, lies with some near relation of the favorite maid, of the favorite mistress, of the favorite minister, or perhaps of the king himself; and who, consequently, may do you more dark or indirect good, or harm, than the first man of quality.

One good patron at court may be sufficient, provided you have no personal enemies; and, in order to have none, you must sacrifice (as the Indians do to the Devil) most of your passions, and much of your time, to the numberless evil beings that infest it; in order to prevent and avert the mischiefs they can do you.

A young man, be his merit what it will, can never raise himself; but must, like the ivy round the oak, twine himself round some man of great power and interest. You must belong to a minister some time, before anybody will belong to you. And an inviolable fidelity to that minister, even in his disgrace, will be meritorious, and recommend you to the next. Ministers love a personal, much more than a party attachment.

As kings are begotten and born like other men, it is to be presumed that they are of the human species; and perhaps, had they the same education, they might prove like other men. But, flattered from their cradles, their hearts are corrupted, and their heads are turned, so that they seem to be a species by themselves. No king ever said to himself: Homo sum, nihil humani a me alienum puto.

Flattery cannot be too strong for them; drunk with it from their infancy, like old drinkers, they require drams.

They prefer a personal attachment to a public service, and reward it better. They are vain and weak enough to look upon it as a free-will offering to their merit, and not as a burnt sacrifice to their power.

If you would be a favorite of your king, address yourself to his weaknesses. An application to his reason will seldom prove very successful.

In courts, bashfulness and timidity are as prejudicial on one hand, as impudence and rashness are on the other. A steady assurance, and a cool intrepidity, with an exterior modesty, are the true and necessary medium.

Never apply for what you see very little probability of obtaining; for you will, by asking improper and unattainable things, accustom the ministers to refuse you so often, that they will find it easy to refuse you the properest and most reasonable ones. It is a common but a most mistaken rule at court, to ask for everything, in order to get something: you do get something by it, it is true; but that something is refusals and ridicule.

There is a court jargon, a chit-chat, a small talk, which turns singly upon trifles; and which, in a great many words, says little or nothing. It stands fools instead of what they cannot say, and men of sense instead of what they should not say. It is the proper language of levees, drawing-rooms, and ante-chambers; it is necessary to know it.

Whatever a man is at court, he must be genteel and well-bred; that cloak covers as many follies, as that of charity does sins. I knew a man of great quality, and in a great station at court, considered and respected, whose highest character was, that he was humbly proud, and genteelly dull.

It is hard to say which is the greatest fool; he who tells the whole truth, or he who tells no truth at all. Character is as necessary in business as in trade. No man can deceive often in either.

At court, people embrace without acquaintance, serve one another without friendship, and injure one another without hatred. Interest, not sentiment, is the growth of that soil.

A difference of opinion, though in the merest trifles, alienates little minds, especially of high rank. It is full as easy to commend as to blame a great man’s cook, or his tailor; it is shorter, too; and the objects are no more worth disputing about, than the people are worth disputing with. It is impossible to inform, but very easy to displease them.

A cheerful, easy countenance and behavior are very useful at court; they make fools think you are a good-natured man; and they make designing men think you are an undesigning one.

There are some occasions in which a man must tell half his secret, in order to conceal the rest; but there is seldom one in which a man should tell it all. Great skill is necessary to know how far to go, and where to stop.

Ceremony is necessary in courts, as the outwork and defence of manners.

Flattery, though a base coin, is the necessary pocket-money at court; where, by custom and consent, it has obtained such a currency, that it is no longer a fraudulent, but a legal payment.

If a minister refuses you a reasonable request, and either slights or injures you, if you have not the power to gratify your resentment, have the wisdom to conceal and dissemble it. Seeming good humor on your part may prevent rancor on his, and perhaps bring things aright again: but if you have the power to hurt, hint modestly that, if provoked, you may possibly have the will too. Fear, when real, and well founded, is perhaps a more prevailing motive at courts than love.

At court, many more people can hurt, than can help you; please the former, but engage the latter.

Awkwardness is a more real disadvantage than it is generally thought to be; it often occasions ridicule, it always lessens dignity.

A man’s own good breeding is his best security against other people’s ill-manners.

Good breeding carries along with it a dignity, that is respected by the most petulant. Ill breeding invites and authorizes the familiarity of the most timid. No man ever said a pert thing to the Duke of Marlborough. No man ever said a civil one (though many a flattering one) to Sir Robert Walpole.

When the old clipped money was called in for a new coinage in King William’s time, to prevent the like for the future, they stamped on the edges of the crown pieces these words, et decus et tutamen. That is exactly the case of good breeding.

Knowledge may give weight, but accomplishments only give lustre; and many more people see than weigh.

Most arts require long study and application; but the most useful art of all, that of pleasing, requires only the desire.

It is to be presumed that a man of common-sense, who does not desire to please, desires nothing at all, since he must know that he cannot obtain anything without it.

A skilful negotiator will most carefully distinguish between the little and the great objects of his business, and will be as frank and open in the former as he will be secret and pertinacious in the latter.

He will, by his manners and address, endeavor, at least, to make his public adversaries his personal friends. He will flatter and engage the man, while he counterworks the minister; and he will never alienate people’s minds from him, by wrangling for points, either absolutely unattainable, or not worth attaining. He will make even a merit of giving up what he could not or would not carry, and sell a trifle for a thousand times its value.

A foreign minister, who is concerned in great affairs, must necessarily have spies in his pay; but he must not too easily credit their informations, which are never exactly true, often very false. His best spies will always be those whom he does not pay, but whom he has engaged in his service by his dexterity and address, and who think themselves nothing less than spies.

There is a certain jargon which in French I should call un persiflage d’affaires, that a foreign minister ought to be perfectly master of, and may use very advantageously at great entertainments in mixed companies, and in all occasions where he must speak and should say nothing. Well turned and well spoken, it seems to mean something, though in truth it means nothing. It is a kind of political badinage, which prevents or removes a thousand difficulties to which a foreign minister is exposed in mixed conversations.

If ever the volto sciolto and the pensieri stretti are necessary, they are so in these affairs. A grave, dark, reserved, and mysterious air has fœnum in cornu. An even, easy, unembarrassed one invites confidence, and leaves no room for guesses and conjectures.

Both stimulation and dissimulation are absolutely necessary for a foreign minister; and yet they must stop short of falsehood and perfidy: that middle point is the difficult one: there ability consists. He must often seem pleased, when he is vexed; and grave, when he is pleased; but he must never say either: that would be falsehood—an indelible stain to character.

A foreign minister should be a most exact economist. An expense proportioned to his appointments and fortune is necessary; but, on the other hand, debt is inevitable ruin to him. It sinks him into disgrace at the court where he resides, and into the most servile and abject dependence on the court that sent him. As he cannot resent ill usage, he is sure to have enough of it.

The Duc de Sully observes very justly, in his Memoirs, that nothing contributed more to his rise, than that prudent economy which he had observed from his youth, and by which he had always a sum of money beforehand, in case of emergencies.

It is very difficult to fix the particular point of economy; the best error of the two is on the parsimonious side. That may be corrected; the other cannot.

The reputation of generosity is to be purchased pretty cheap; it does not depend so much upon a man’s general expense, as it does upon his giving handsomely where it is proper to give at all. A man, for instance, who should give a servant four shillings would pass for covetous, while he who gave him a crown would be reckoned generous; so that the difference of those two opposite characters turns upon one shilling. A man’s character, in that particular, depends a great deal upon the report of his own servants; a mere trifle above common wages makes their report favorable.

Take care always to form your establishment so much within your income as to leave a sufficient fund for unexpected contingencies and a prudent liberality. There is hardly a year, in any man’s life, in which a small sum of ready money may not be employed to great advantage.

POLITICAL MAXIMS FROM CARDINAL DE RETZ.57

It is often madness to engage in a conspiracy; but nothing is so effectual to bring people afterward to their senses, at least for a time. As in such undertakings, the danger subsists, even after the business is over; this obliges to be prudent and circumspect in the succeeding moments.

2. A middling understanding, being susceptible of unjust suspicions, is consequently, of all characters, the least fit to head a faction; as the most indispensable qualification in such a chief is to suppress, in many occasions, and to conceal in all, even the best grounded suspicions.

3. Nothing animates and gives strength to a commotion so much as the ridicule of him against whom it is raised.

4. Among people used to affairs of moment, secrecy is much less uncommon than is generally believed.

5. Descending to the little is the surest way of attaining to an equality with the great.

6. Fashion, though powerful in all things, is not more so in any, than in being well or ill at court. There are times when disgrace is a kind of fire, that purifies all bad qualities, and illuminates every good one. There are others, in which the being out of favor is unbecoming a man of character.

7. Sufferings, in people of the first rank, supply the want of virtue.

8. There is a confused kind of jumble, which practice sometimes teaches; but it is never to be understood by speculation.

9. The greatest powers cannot injure a man’s character, whose reputation is unblemished among his party.

10. We are as often duped by diffidence, as by confidence.

11. The greatest evils are not arrived at their utmost period until those who are in power have lost all sense of shame. At such a time those who should obey shake off all respect and subordination. Then is lethargic indolence roused; but roused by convulsions.

12. A veil ought always to be drawn over whatever may be said or thought concerning the rights of the people, or of kings; which agree best when least mentioned.58

13. There are, at times, situations so very unfortunate, that whatever is undertaken must be wrong. Chance, alone, never throws people into such dilemmas; and they happen only to those who bring them upon themselves.

14. It is more unbecoming a minister to say, than to do, silly things.

15. The advice given to a minister, by an obnoxious person, is always thought bad.

16. It is as dangerous, and almost as criminal, with princes, to have the power of doing good, as the will of doing evil.

17. Timorous minds are much more inclined to deliberate than to resolve.

18. It appears ridiculous to assert, but it is not the less true, that at Paris, during the popular commotions, the most violent will not quit their homes past a stated hour.

19. Flexibility is the most requisite qualification for the management of great affairs.

20. It is more difficult for the member of a faction to live with those of his own party, than to act against those who oppose it.

21. The greatest dangers have their allurements, if the want of success is likely to be attended with a degree of glory. Middling dangers are horrid, when the loss of reputation is the inevitable consequence of ill success.

22. Violent measures are always dangerous, but when necessary, may then be looked upon as wise. They have, however, the advantage of never being matter of indifferency; and, when well concerted, must be decisive.

23. There may be circumstances, in which even prudence directs us to trust entirely to chance.

24. Everything in this world has its critical moment, and the height of good conduct consists in knowing and seizing it.

25. Profligacy, joined to ridicule, forms the most abominable and most dangerous of all characters.

26. Weak minds never yield when they ought.

27. Variety of sights have the greatest effect upon the mob, and also upon numerous assemblies, who, in many respects, resemble mobs.

28. Examples taken from past times have infinitely more power over the minds of men, than any of the age in which they live. Whatever we see, grows familiar; and perhaps the consulship of Caligula’s horse might not have astonished us so much as we are apt to imagine.

29. Weak minds are commonly overpowered by clamor.

30. We ought never to contend for what we are not likely to obtain.

31. The instant in which we receive the most favorable accounts, is just that wherein we ought to redouble our vigilance, even in regard to the most trifling circumstances.

32. It is dangerous to have a known influence over people; as thereby we become responsible even for what is done against our will.

33. One of the greatest difficulties in civil war is, that more art is required to know what should be concealed from our friends, than what ought to be done against our enemies.

34. Nothing lowers a great man so much, as not seizing the decisive moment of raising his reputation. This is seldom neglected, but with a view to fortune; by which mistake, it is not unusual to miss both.

35. The possibility of remedying imprudent actions is commonly an inducement to commit them.

36. Every numerous assembly is a mob; consequently everything there depends upon instantaneous turns.

37. Whatever measure seems hazardous, and is in reality not so, is generally a wise one.

38. Irresolute minds always adopt with facility whatever measure can admit of different issues, and consequently do not require an absolute decision.

39. In momentous affairs, no step is indifferent.

40. There are times in which certain people are always in the right.

41. Nothing convinces persons of a weak understanding so effectually as what they do not comprehend.

42. When factions are only upon the defensive, they ought never to do that which may be delayed. Upon such occasions, nothing is so troublesome as the restlessness of subalterns; who think a state of inaction total destruction.

43. Those who head factions have no way of maintaining their authority, but by preventing or quieting discontent.

44. A certain degree of fear produces the same effects as rashness.

45. In affairs of importance, the choice of words is of as much consequence, as it would be superfluous in those of little moment.

46. During those calms which immediately succeed violent storms, nothing is more difficult for ministers than to act properly; because, while flattery increases, suspicions are not yet subsided.

47. The faults of our friends ought never to anger us so far as to give an advantage to our enemies.

48. The talent of insinuation is more useful than that of persuasion, as everybody is open to insinuation, but scarce any to persuasion.

49. In matters of a delicate nature, all unnecessary alterations are dangerous, because odious.

50. The best way to compel weak-minded people to adopt our opinion, is to frighten them from all others, by magnifying their danger.

51. We must run all hazards, where we think ourselves in a situation to reap some advantage, even from the want of success.

52. Irresolute men are diffident in resolving upon the means, even when they are determined upon the end.

53. It is almost a sure game, with crafty men, to make them believe we intend to deceive those whom we mean to serve.

54. One of the greatest difficulties with princes is in the being often obliged, in order to serve them, to give advice, the true reasons of which we dare not mention.

55. The saying things which we foresee will not be pleasing, can only be softened by the greatest appearance of sincerity.

56. We ought never to trifle with favor. If real, we should hastily seize the advantage; if pretended, avoid the allurement.

57. It is very inconsequent to enter into engagements upon suppositions we think impossible, and yet it is very usual.

58. The generality of mankind pay less attention to arguments urged against their opinion, than to such as may engage the disputant to adopt their own.

59. In times of faction and intrigue, whatever appears inert is reckoned mysterious by those who are not accustomed to affairs of moment.

60. It is never allowable in an inferior to equal himself in words to a superior, although he may rival him in actions.

61. Every man whom chance alone has, by some accident, made a public character, hardly ever fails of becoming, in a short time, a ridiculous private one.

62. The greatest imperfection of men is the complacency with which they are willing to think others not free from faults, of which they are themselves conscious.

63. Experience only can teach men not to prefer what strikes them for the present moment, to what will have much greater weight with them hereafter.

64. In the management of important business, all turn to raillery must be more carefully avoided than in any other.

65. In momentous transactions, words cannot be sufficiently weighed.

66. The permanency of most friendships depends upon the continuity of good fortune.

67. Whoever assembles the multitude will raise commotions.

LORD CHESTERFIELD’S REMARKS UPON THE FOREGOING MAXIMS.

I have taken the trouble of extracting and collecting, for your use, the foregoing Political Maxims of the Cardinal de Retz, in his Memoirs. They are not aphorisms of his invention, but the true and just observations of his own experience, in the course of great business. My own experience attests the truth of them all. Read them over with attention as here above, and then read with the same attention, and tout de suite, the Memoirs, where you will find the facts and characters from whence those observations are drawn, or to which they are applied; and they will reciprocally help to fix each other in your mind. I hardly know any book so necessary for a young man to read and remember. You will there find how great business is really carried on; very differently from what people, who have never been concerned in it, imagine. You will there see what courts and courtiers really are, and observe that they are neither so good as they should be, nor so bad as they are thought by most people. The court poet, and the sullen, cloistered pedant, are equally mistaken in their notions, or at least in the accounts they give us of them. You will observe the coolness in general, the perfidy in some cases, and the truth in a very few, of court friendships. This will teach you the prudence of a general distrust, and the imprudence of making no exception to that rule, upon good and tried grounds. You will see the utility of good breeding toward one’s greatest enemies, and the high imprudence and folly of either insulting or injurious expressions.