quibble—are the easier mixed company with whom I sit after dinner, and I pass my evenings in the light and often frivolous chit-chat of small octavos and duodecimos.'
Patronage of literature, another of Chesterfield's diversions, involved him in greater embarrassments. The bricklayer-poet, Henry Jones (1721-1770) [q. v.], who welcomed him with a poem to Ireland in 1745, was a typical protege. In 1748 Chesterfield invited him to London; interested himself in the collection of subscriptions for a volume of his poems; induced Colley Cibber to procure the production of Jones's 'Earl of Essex' at Covent Garden Theatre; aided Cibber in a thorough revision of the play, with a view to making its success a certainty; and finally, having rendered the poor man intolerably vain and self-indulgent, cast him off on finding him borrowing money of one of his servants. But genuine kindly sentiment underlay his relations with men of letters (cf. James Hammond, Love Elegies, 1743, with Chesterfield's preface). He corresponded on equal terms with George Faulkner (1699 ?-1775) [q.v.], the Dublin bookseller; and the discredit which he incurred in the character of a patron at Dr. Johnson's vigorous hand seems ill deserved. In 1747 Johnson, at the suggestion of the publisher Dodsley, addressed to Chesterfield the prospectus of his 'Dictionary.' Apparently Chesterfield, who was secretary of state at the time, and had long been 'the butt of dedications,' made no acknowledgment beyond sending Johnson 10l. When the ' Dictionary' was on the eve of publication Chesterfield contributed anonymously to the 'World' two anticipatory eulogies (28 Nov. and 5 Dec. 1754). The story that Dr. Johnson had previously called upon Chesterfield, and had been kept waiting in the ante-chamber while Cibber was admitted without delay, was long current, but was denied by Johnson himself. Johnson had expected encouragement from Chesterfield while the heavy work was in progress, and resented conventional compliments when the labour was successfully accomplished. On 7 Feb. 1755 he addressed to the earl the famous letter in which, while expressing his resentment, he made a manly stand in behalf of literary independence. Chesterfield characteristically affected indifference to the rebuke. When Dodsley called on him soon afterwards, Johnson's epistle lay upon his table, 'where anybody might see it. He read it to me,' wrote Dodsley; 'said this man has great powers, pointed out the severest passages, and observed how well they were expressed.' Johnson, he added, would be always more than Avelcome, and had he ever been denied admission, it was solely due to the ignorance of a servant. Chesterfield bore Johnson no malice, and there is little ground for identifying Johnson with the 'respectable Hottentot' described by Chesterfield in his 'Letters' (iii. 129). Chesterfield doubtless there aimed at George, first lord Lyttelton [q. v.]
Literature never wholly absorbed Chesterfield. Throughout the concluding half of his life his most serious interest was the education and the advancement in life of his natural son Philip. When the boy was barely five (in 1737) Chesterfield opened a correspondence with him, which he continued with scrupulous regularity so long as his son lived. At first he sent him elaborate essays, often both in French and English, on classical history, mythology, and composition. He never, when in office, allowed the business of state to delay the almost daily task. When he was free from political cares, and the boy had become a youth, he forwarded to him carefully considered instruction in all branches of learning on a scheme devised to make his pupil a reputable man of the world. Chesterfield wished him, he wrote (Letters, i. 108), 'as near perfection as possible. Never were so much pains taken for anybody's education, and never had anybody so many opportunities for knowledge and improvement.' Michael Maittaire [q. v.] was young Philip's Latin tutor in his early years, and Maittaire was succeeded in 1745 by Walter Harte [q. v.], who accompanied him and another youth, Edward Eliot (afterwards Lord Eliot) [q. v.], on an extended foreign tour through Holland, Germany, and Switzerland, winding up in Paris in 1751. Although Philip developed into a good-natured and sensible man, he was by nature incapable of assimilating any graces of manner. But Chesterfield's genuine affection rendered him tolerant of all defects. From August to November 1751 the young man stayed with his father, who expressed satisfaction with the extent of his knowledge and goodness of his heart. He believed that a further sojourn in Paris was all that was needed to give his deportment the polish it lacked. Chesterfield exerted all his influence to secure for the youth a promising start in the career of diplomacy which he had designed for him. Already, in 1751, he induced Lord Albemarle to give him some employment at the embassy in Paris. In the spring of 1752, when Philip left Paris for Hanover, Chesterfield wrote (15 May) to the Duke of Newcastle, secretary of state then in attendance on the king, begging, in
