Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 54.djvu/43

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Stanhope
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Stanhope

separate volume next year. 'B. W. of the Inner Temple' added a third volume to Maty's 'Miscellaneous Works' in the same year, which included his political pamphlets and poems. All the 'Miscellaneous Works' reappeared in 4 vols. in 1779.

A further collection of correspondence, 'Letters written by the Earl of Chesterfield to A. C. Stanhope, Esq., relative to the Education of his Lordship's Godson Philip, the late Earl,' appeared in London in 1817, 12mo.

Lord Mahon collected such authentic letters and other literary pieces as were accessible to him (including many previously unpublished) in 5 vols. (1845-53). Another collection of like scope was edited by John Bradshaw (3 vols.) in 1892.

Fourteen of Chesterfield's letters to his godson were surreptitiously printed in the 'Edinburgh Magazine and Review' in February, March, April, and May 1774. They were copied into the Dublin edition of the 'Letters' to the earl's natural son in 1776, and were there erroneously stated to have been addressed to the latter. They reappeared in B. W.'s third volume of Maty's 'Miscellaneous Works,' 1778 (pp. 1-32), and were printed separately, under the title of 'The Art of Pleasing,' in 1783 (4th edit, same year). The originals remained at Bretby undisturbed, with more than two hundred other letters addressed to the godson, until 1890. In that year the whole series was first edited for publication by Lord Carnarvon as 'Chesterfield's Letters to his Godson.'

There remains a further mass of unpublished correspondence, chiefly on political topics, among the Newcastle papers in the British Museum. Extracts are given in Mr. Ernst's 'Life' (1893). Others of Lord Chesterfield's letters to Edward Eliot, the friend of his natural son, are among Lord St. Germans's manuscripts at Port Eliot, Cornwall (Hist. MSS. Comm. 1st Rep. i. 41).

Extracts and abridgments of Chesterfield's works, chiefly of the 'Letters' to his son, were numerous from the first. They often bore fanciful titles, such as 'The Principles of Politeness,' 1775 (often reprinted about 1830 as 'The New Chesterfield'); 'The Fine Gentleman's Etiquette' (1776); 'Some Advices on Men and Manners' (1776); 'The Elements of a Polite Education, by George Gregory, D.D.' (1800); and 'Encyclopaedia of Manners and Etiquette' (1850). A useful selection, with an admirable critical essay by C. A. Sainte-Beuve, appeared, with the title of 'Letters and Maxims,' in the 'Bayard Series.' The latest selections in English are: 'The Wit and Wisdom of the Earl of Chesterfield: being Selections from his Miscellaneous Writings in prose and verse,' edited, with notes, by W. Ernst Browning, London, 1875, 8vo; and 'Lord Chesterfield's Worldly Wisdom: Selections from his Letters and Characters. Edited by G. Birkbeck Hill,' Oxford, 1891, 8vo. A Dutch selection appeared at Amsterdam in 1786. A German epitome was entitled 'Quintessenz der Lebensweizheit und Weltkunst,' Stuttgart, 1885, and a Spanish epitome ('cuarta edicion') was issued at Caracas, 1841, 16mo.

The 'Economy of Human Life,' by Robert Dodsley [q.v.], was attributed to Chesterfield in Italian translations by L. Guidelli (4th edit, 12mo, Naples, 1780), and by A. G. Cairoli (8vo, Milan, 1816); in a Portuguese translation (8vo, Porto, 1777); and in a Spanish translation by M. de Junco y Pimentèl (8vo, Madrid, 1755).

Chesterfield's godson and successor, Philip Stanhope, fifth Earl of Chesterfield (1755-1815), baptised on 28 Nov. 1755, was only surviving son of Arthur Charles Stanhope (d. 1770) of Mansfield, Nottinghamshire, by his second wife, Margaret, daughter and coheiress of Charles Headlam of Kirby Hall, Yorkshire (his father was son of Dr. Michael Stanhope, a great-grandson of Philip Stanhope, first earl of Chesterfield [q.v.] His godfather directed his education from the age of four, and took a promising view of his abilities. His tutors were not selected with much wisdom. When about six he went to 'Mr. Robert's boarding house in Marylebone.' At eleven he became the pupil of the adventurous Dr. William Dodd [q.v.] at Whitton, near Isleworth. Dodd attracted him, and he subsequently proved a generous patron to his tutor; but that worthless schemer forged Chesterfield's name in 1777 to a bond for 4,200l., and, on being prosecuted, was convicted and hanged. Another of Chesterfield's early tutors was a hack-writer, Cuthbert Shaw [q.v.] He came into a little property on his father's death in March 1770, and soon set off on a foreign tour. He was studying at Leipzig when his godfather died in 1773, and he inherited the earldom and the late earl's large fortune. He had then developed characteristics diametrically opposed to those which his godfather had hoped to implant in him. If he might be credited with a fair measure of shrewdness and affability, his tastes and manners were unaffectedly bucolic. 'How would that quintessence of high ton the late Lord Chesterfield,' wrote Madame d'Arblay, 'blush to behold his successor, who, with much share of humour and good humour, also has as little good breeding as any man I ever met with!' (Diary, v. 92). At court he attracted the