The Letters of Phillip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield [1]

Citation preview

i

THE LETTERS OF LORD CHESTERFIELD VOL.

i

ONE

Chesterfield

after the bust made by Wilton in 1757 and now in the British Mitsenm

i

THE LETTERS OF PHILIP DORMER STANHOPE EARL OF

CHESTERFIELD EDITED, WITH AN INTRODUCTION, BY

BONAMY DOBREE

IN SIX VOLUMES

Volume

One

INTRODUCTION, INDEX, ETC.

193 AMS PRESS • NEW YORK

i

^

S O\

\

c

S

\^3X--

Reprinted with the permission of Eyre & Spottiswoode From the edition of 1932, London & New York First AMS EDITION published 1968 Manufactured in the United States of America

Reprinted from a copy in the collections of the Harvard College Library.

Library of Congress Catalogue Card Number: 68-59007

AMS PRESS, INC. New York, N.Y. 10003

GENERAL CONTENTS Volume I is numbered i-xxx, and 1-338.

Volumes II-VI are numbered

straight through in italic numerals.

Vol, II contains pp. 1-602 ;

Ill, pp. 603-1194;

1196-1992;

2382

;

Vol. VI,

Vol. IV, pp.

Vol. V, pp.

1793-

pp. 2383-2966. Volume One

Preface

Vol.

PACE

-------

-

xi

Explanation of References to Sources -

-

-

xv

Previous important Editions

-

-

xvii

------

xix

Acknowledgments

-

Letters not printed in this Edition

_

xxi

------

xxiii

-------

xxvii

Notes on the Text The Notes

-

Personal Acknowledgments

_

_

-

_

_

_

xxix

Introduction The Life

of Philip

Dormer Stanhope,

Earl of Chesterfield

Fourth

-----

i

Genealogical Table

-----

inset

List of Authorities

-----

3

Principal Events in Lord Chesterfield’s Life

5

Chapter L Early Years § I.

-----

The Stanhopes^

_

§2. Childhood and Youth

-

_

7

-

-

ii

-

21

-

31

§ 3. Political Apprenticeship §4. Social Life -

-

7

-

vii

General Contents PAGE

Chapter II. Political Life -

-

-

-

-

50

§ I. Diplomacy -

-

-

-

50

-

66

§ 3. Second Period of Opposition -

92

Chapter III. Office ------

108

§ 2. First Period of Opposition

§ I. Embassy to the Hague -

-

108

§ 2. Ireland

-

-

-

120

§3. Secretary of State -

-

-

136

§ 4. Letters to his Son

-

-

162

-

-

173

§ I. General and Political Life

-

173

§ 2. Periodical Writings

-

-

197

§ 3. Letters to his Godson

-

-

207

§4. Last Years -

-

-

212

-------

222

Chapter IV. Retirement

Epilogue

-

-

-

-

-

Chronological Table of Letters -

-

-

-

227

Index to all Volumes

_

-

-

297

_

_

Volume Two Letters Nos. 1-15 (22nd Aug., 1712—13th Nov., 1725, O.S.)

------

j

Historical Note I for the Letters from the Hague, 1728-1732

------

Letters Nos. 16-746 (7th May, Dec., 1744, O.S.) viii

1728,

N.S.—3rd

-----

26

f

i

General Contents PAGE

Historical Note II for the period 1742-1745 -

-

542

Letters Nos. 747-818 (12th Jany,, 1745, O.S.—27th April, 1745, N.S.)

-----

Volume Three

Letters Nos. 819-948 (27th April, 1745, N.S.—Oct.,

1746)

-------

6’oj

Historical Note III for the Period Oct, 1746—

y^o

Feby, 1748 Letters Nos. 949-1579 (31st Oct., 1746—i6th Aug., 1748, O.S.)

------

yc)8

Volume Four

Letters Nos. 1580-1797 (22nd Aug., 1748—15th Nov., 1751, O.S.)

-

-

-

-

-

iic)5

Volume Five

Letters Nos. 1798-2115 (25th Nov., 1751, O.S.— i2th Sept., 1761)

-----

ly^^

Volume Six

Letters Nos. 2116-2618 (26th Oct., 1761-— Jany., 1773)

------

Appendix 1. Supplementary Letters Appendix

11.

2383

-

-

2C)4y

Note on Mme de Monconseil -

-

2966

-

Frontispiece

The frontispiece represents a bust of Chesterfield done by Joseph Wilton from life in 1757. It is now in the British Museum and is reproduced by the courtesy of the Trustees.

ix

i

PREFACE The aim in preparing this edition has been to make as com¬

plete a record as possible of all Lord Chesterfield’s letters. Every letter already printed either in collections of Chester¬ field’s letters, or in various publications, has been included in it (to the best of the editor’s ability), and printed in full; for it was thought that a letter once considered interesting enough to the general reader to justify its publication will be found so again.^ All other available letters of general interest have been printed in full. This edition also includes, either in full or in precis^ some fourteen hundred ‘business’ letters never before printed; the great majority of them are office letters, but many of them are private letters of a political nature. Most of the office letters are treated in pricis, and printed in smaller type. It did not seem reasonable to dismiss them with the usual airy ‘of no interest to the general reader’; and it would have been possible neither to print them all, nor to find them exhil¬ arating to read were they printed. The course pursued was that of printing in full those which seemed to have an interest in themselves, either because they reveal something of Chesterfield’s character, or because they may be attractive to the reader who, like most (the editor included), is occa¬ sionally and spasmodically interested in history; or because they are necessary to carry on the story. Condensing the remainder seemed to fulfil two purposes. It would enable the reader to grasp the general colour of Chesterfield’s life when he was in office, and to obtain a glimpse of the sort of problems he had to solve; and it would also enable an his¬ torian more easily to pursue the course of any especial events in which he might be interested. It was hoped, in 1 With two or three trifling exceptions noted in the text.

1

Xi

Preface fact, that these letters would provide him with a ready reference which would direct him to any he might wish to read, and so save him the labour of ploughing through an inordinate number of records. It is, however, too much for a layman to hope that this part of his task has been carried out with conspicuous success. And, finally, by this method, the edition constitutes a fairly complete index of Chesterfield’s letters. Most of the hitherto unpublished letters are to be found either in the Manuscript Room at the British Museum, or among the State Papers in the Public Record Office. Some, however, are from private collections, by far the most important of these additions being the series in the posses¬ sion of the Earl of Sandwich, whom the editor would wish to thank especially for his great kindness and hospitality in giving him free access to the papers at Hinchingbrooke. The source of every fully printed letter is given in italics under the name of the addressee; and of the precis letters, at the foot of each letter. The object of this is not only to justify the text, but also to inform the reader where each letter may be seen in its best available form. It would be useless to do this in the case of letters in the possession of booksellers; so where the original of a letter has been found at a bookseller’s, the printed source has been given, and a note added that the letter has been corrected from the manu¬ script by courtesy of the bookseller. Only where unprinted letters have been kindly supplied by booksellers (and the editor has found nothing but the greatest willingness on their part to help) has the bookseller been referred to as the source. It follows that, because a manuscript is quoted as the source, it does not mean that the letter is now printed for the first time; and to distinguish between letters from manu¬ script sources which have already been printed, and those which have not, the following system has been employed. In the table of contents, letters which do not appear in any xii

Preface of the main collections (see ‘Previous Important Editions’), but which have been printed in various publications, are marked with one asterisk: those never before printed are marked with two asterisks. The reader already familiar with Chesterfield’s letters can thus turn immediately to those that will be new to him. The precis letters are distinguished in the table from those given in full by having the name of the addressee printed in italics. As none of these have ever been printed before, according to the principle enunciated in the first paragraph, it has not been thought necessary to dis¬ tinguish them also by asterisks. Letters now first printed entire are marked with an E. A note on other letters known to exist, but not printed, either by deliberate intent or because, from one reason or another they were not available for inclusion in this edition, will be found below. No doubt there are yet more hidden away, perhaps unknown to their owners (two or three have cropped up even in the last year), and it is to be hoped that they will in due course make their appearance. Any other omissions are inadvertent. The editor would be very grateful to any reader who would point out to him any letters he has failed to print. Some there are bound to be, even had he been able himself to check all the researches. The letters in the Appendix are such as came to the editor’s knowledge too late for inclusion in the body of the text. Bonamy Dobree.

30th

Sept., 1931-

EXPLANATION OF REFERENCES TO SOURCES Fuller descriptions of the principal editions are given below. Stanhope. Mrs. [Eugenia] Stanhope’s edition of Chesterfield’s letters to his son. References are to the number of each letter. Maty. Dr. Maty’s edition of Chesterfield’s works. References are to the section, and to the number of the letter in the section. Letters 1817. The edition of that date of the letters to A. C. Stan¬ hope. References are to the number of each letter in that edition. Mahon. Lord Mahon’s edition of Chesterfield’s letters. Refer¬ ences are to volume and page. Bradshaw. Letters, edited by John Bradshaw. References are to volume and page: the volumes are successively paginated. Carnarvon. Letters to his godson, edited by Lord Carnarvon. References are to the number of the letter. Steuart. Letters to Lord Huntingdon, edited by A. Francis Steuart. References are to the number of the letter. XIXth Century. The letters to Baron Torek, edited by Miss Loudon, appeared in the Nineteenth Century of August and September, 1912. References are to the month of issue, and the page. Hist. MSS. Comm. Historical Manuscripts Commission. Refer¬ ences are to the number of the report, or in the case of famous reports to the sub-title, and the volume and page. Coxe's R. Walpole. Memoirs of the Life and Administration of Sir Robert Walpole, Earl of Orford, by [Archdeacon] William Coxe. 1798. References to volume and page. Coxe's Walpole. Memoirs of Horatio, Lord Walpole. References are to page.

1802.

Mahon Hist. Lord Mahon’s History of England from the Peace of Utrecht, etc. 1839. References are to volume and page. XV

Sources S.P. State Papers in the Public Record Office. References are to

the country concerned (and not to the reference number; e.g. S.P. Holland., and not S.P. 84.), the volume, and, where the volume is foliated, to the folio.

Add. MSS. Additional Manuscripts, British Museum. Refer¬

ences are to volume and folio; and where it is necessary, a title, such as Egenon.

Other sources referred to are self-explanatory, such as the names of private owners or booksellers who have been kind enough to allow me to use their letters: or the titles of books or magazines where odd letters have appeared. In the latter instance the references are to the page. Some letters will be found to have two or more sources. Where both Add. MSS. and S.P. are given, this means that office copies exist in both places, one being the letter sent, the other being the copy kept for filing. They sometimes differ slightly, especially where the letter was altogether or partly in cipher, for obvious reasons. Here and there three sources are given, which merely means that an extra copy was sent to a second person for information. Many of the letters to Dayrolles ascribed to Mahon were first printed by Maty, but in truncated versions: sometimes where important differences occur, both sources are given.

XVI

PREVIOUS IMPORTANT EDITIONS 1774. Letters Written by the Right Honourable Philip Dormer Stanhope^ Earl of Chesterfield^ to his Son, etc.: published by the son’s widow, Mrs. [Eugenia] Stanhope, and to some extent edited by the family. The first edition was not quite complete, several letters being added in later editions. The collection also contains a few letters to other persons. The edition of 1792 has been used here, the text being checked from other sources. 1774. Fourteen of Chesterfield’s letters to his godson were printed from inaccurate copies (probably taken by Dr. Dodd), in the Edinburgh Magazine and Review, February to May. They were printed from that source by Lord Mahon, and from the originals (with a few omissions which the more refined taste of the ’nineties suggested) by Lord Carnarvon. They are here reprinted from the latter, with adjustments from the former. 1777. Miscellaneous Works, edited by Dr. M. Maty, 2 vols. folio. This does not contain the letters to his son, nor the four¬ teen to his godson. The letters are grouped in sections according to the recipients. This was reprinted with some supplementary letters in 1778, and it is this edition which has been used here. The 1779 edition in 4 vols. is more easily available, but the sections and the numbering of the letters remains the same. 1817. Letters from the Earl of Chesterfield to Arthur Charles Stanhope, Esq., the father of his godson and heir. 1845.

The Letters ofPhilip Dormer Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield,

edited by Lord Mahon, 4 vols. This omits the earlier letters to his son. Up to and including that of 26th Feb¬ ruary, the letters to his son are printed together in 2 vols. The two last volumes contain the letters to his son placed in chronological order among those to other people. It contains all the letters printed by Maty, and many others.

1853. A supplementary volume by Lord Mahon, containing all the miscellaneous works. Some omissions in letters in the

xvii

b

i

Previous Important Editions earlier volumes are restored, the early letters to his son are included, and a few more letters are added. His edition does not include the Letters 1817, except for three letters, and it omits a few of the letters to the son. The five vol¬ umes were reprinted in 1892, with the omitted passages printed in Vol. V restored to their proper places in the text. 1890. Letters of Philip Dormer^ fourth Earl of Chesterfield, to his Godson and Successor, edited by the Earl of Carnarvon (Clarendon Press, i vol.). This includes the 14 letters which appeared in 1774. The whole is bowdlerized, but the omissions which can be replaced from the 1774 letters do not make it appear that the gaps are very serious. 1892. The Letters ofPhilip Dormer Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield, edited by John Bradshaw, M.A., LL.D. (Swan Sonnenschein & Co., 3 vols.). This edition is a bowdlerized ver¬ sion of Lord Mahon’s (‘suitable for reading aloud in the family circle’); but it omits 16 of Lord Mahon’s additional letters (1853), re-insert all the omissions noted by him. It omits the same letters to his son as Mahon’s does, and the earlier letters printed in Mahon V. It in¬ cludes five new letters. 1901. The Letters of the Earl of Chesterfield to his Son, edited by Charles Strachey (now Sir Charles Strachey, K.C.M.G.) with notes by Annette Calthrop. (Methuen, 2 vols.) This contains all the letters to his son previously printed, with no omissions. Some of the letters written in French are given in Mrs. Stanhope’s English version. 1923. Letters of Lord Chesterfield to Lord Huntingdon edited by A. Francis Steuart (Medici Press, i vol.). It contains also one letter to Lord Chesterfield’s brother. Sir William Stanhope. 1930. Private Correspondence of Chesterfield and Newcastle, 17441746, edited by Sir Richard Lodge, M.A., LL.D., Litt.D. (Royal Historical Society, i vol.). This has not been treated as one of the main editions, since it was not de¬ signed for general reading; thus the letters which appear in it are marked with one asterisk in the Table of Contents.

XVlll

i

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The editor’s best thanks are due to the following, who have been kind enough to allow him to print, to reprint, or to check certain

letters. Rather than specify each one here, the acknowledgment is tacitly repeated for each separate letter in the source quoted. The Duke of Devonshire (Devonshire MSS.); the Earl of Sandwich, as previously stated of the Earl of Sandwich); the Hon. M. C. Eliot (MSS. of the Earl of St. Germans); Miss K. M. Loudon and Baron Pallandt (letters to Baron Torek); Mrs. Reynolds-Peyton; Lady Charnwood (Charnwood Collec¬ tion); Mr. R. N. Carew-Hunt (Letters from the Collection of John Wild); the Duke of Richmond and Gordon; Mr. Lewis Bettany;

Mr. R. B. Adam, of Buffalo, N.Y., who was so good as to send me photographs of the letters in his possession; Captain F. L. Pleadwell, of New York, and Mrs. Ruck-Keene. Mr. James Tregaskis; Messrs. Maggs Bros.; Messrs. Birrell and Garnett; Messrs. Francis Edwards; Messrs. Sotheby; the Brick Row Bookshop, N.Y.; and the Rosenbach Co., N.Y. The Clarendon Press (Carnarvon); the Medici Press (Steuart); Messrs. George Allen and Unwin (Bradshaw); Messrs. Heinemann Ltd.; Messrs. Hutchinson. Thanks are also due to the Newport Public Libraries for sending copies of letters to Sir Gharles Hanbury Williams, and to the New York Public Library for photostats of the letters to Dodsley and Francis Colman.

xix

LETTERS NOT PRINTED IN THIS EDITION 1. Deliberate omissions. Certain documents, signed by Lord Chesterfield when Secretary of State, have not been repro¬ duced here, though a few from the sources mentioned below have been included either as examples, or because they seemed to be of some general interest. They are to be found in the Domestic Entry Books in the Public Record Office. There are 2 under Ecclesiastical, 75 under Naval, 68 are in the Secretary of State’s Admiralty Papers; 30 come under Military; 42 under Criminal Correspondence and Warrants; 7 are noted in the Printed Calendar of Treasury Books and Papers. The naval and Admiralty ones are largely orders for packet boats to be at such and such places at such and such times, etc. The military ones are mainly commissions; the criminal ones concern sentences and reprieves, and so on. They do not appear to the editor to have such general, personal, or historical interest as to warrant inclusion. 2. Letters unavailable, or not traced. Probably the most impor¬ tant letters not printed here are those written by Lord Chesterfield to the Duchess of Marlborough, recorded in the Hist. MSS. Comm. Report 8 (1881) App. I, p. 18. They are at Blenheim, but according to his custom, the Duke of Marlborough denied access to them. His Grace is the only person to whom the editor has applied, during the whole course of his work on this edition, who has refused assistance. Some letters to Walter Titley, recorded in the Hist. MSS. Comm. Report 3 App. as being among the MSS. of the Rev. Sir Henry Gunning, Bart., at Horton, are not traceable. Neither the present Baronet nor the present owner of Hor¬ ton know anything of the letters. XXI

i

Letters not printed in this Edition The Appendix to the 4th Hist. MSS. Comm. Report records an extract from a letter to Sir Thomas Robinson as being at New Hailes in the MSS. of the late Sir David Dalrymple, Bart. Although the greatest courtesy was shown the editor by those concerned, circumstances made it im¬ possible to obtain a copy of this letter. As, however, one of that date to Sir Thomas is dealt with in this edition, it is likely that the extract is merely one from this letter. The Earl of Airlie did everything in his power to enable the editor to obtain copies of the letters recorded in the Appendixes of the ist and 2nd Hist. MSS. Comm. Reports as being at Cortachy Castle. The Rev. W. Wilson, D.D., of Airlie Manse was good enough to search the Charter Room at the castle, but without result. The Hon. Mrs. Eustace Hills has been kind enough to inform the editor of the existence of five letters, two dated 1746, and three dated 1750, addressed to an unknown re¬ cipient, but of which four say ‘Pray my compliments to Mrs. Clements.’

Unfortunately they form part of a still

unsettled legacy to various charities, and are not yet avail¬ able for publication. The editor has been unable to include such portions of the letters to Baron Torek as were not printed by Miss Loudon. Note. The Chichester MSS. recorded in the Appendix to the 3rd Hist. MSS. Comm. Report, now form a part of the Newcastle Papers in the British Museum. The letters stated in the report to be from Chesterfield at Madrid, and signed P. Stanhope, are, as one would expect, from the future Earl of Harrington, and are, as a consequence, signed W. Stan¬ hope.

XXll

NOTES ON THE TEXT The text, as already stated, has been taken from the earliest sources available. As in previous editions, the spelling has been modernised: public forpublick; civilities for civilitys; and the capital letters suppressed, where not now in use. Since few of the letters which are of general interest have been printed from the originals, it would be needlessly in¬ convenient to have some letters modernised and others in the original form, thus even those derived from the manuscript have been modernised. In his familiar letters, Chesterfield was in the habit of writing 'em for them^ and this has been preserved in one or two instances. But to retain the older forms, which at the time Chesterfield was writing differ little from ours, would only give an air of meretricious quaintness, which is the last thing the writer of the letters would have desired. On the other hand, the contemporary spelling of names has in nearly every case been preserved (uniformity in a group of letters being aimed at), as in previous editions, the modern spelling being given in the notes on the places or personages concerned. This also applies to such words as assiento for asiento. Punctuation has been revised, as in all previous editions. Chesterfield’s punctuation is to the modern eye and ear sometimes over¬ loaded with commas, which would hamper the modern reader, sometimes lacking in them, and insufficiently pro¬ vided with colons and semi-colons. Again, to have only a proportion of the letters printed with the original punctua¬ tion would be tiresome. The object has been to make the text as pleasurable as possible to the reader of to-day, while altering as little as possible. The letters written in French have been treated in the same way, as in previous editions. Chesterfield had a

xxiii

Notes on the Text curious system of accentuation, though not uncommon at the time; and he used, of course, the now obsolete forms such as seroit for serait, terns for temps. Miss Loudon, when reprinting portions of the Torek correspondence as it was written—and to this the curious may refer—remarked justly: ‘Lord Chesterfield has some peculiarities in spelling. For instance, he always puts the acute accent on the last syllable of the infinitive of verbs that end in ‘er’, as ‘parler,’ ‘admirer,’ ‘discuter’—I have been told that one meets with the same peculiarities in the unedited letters of Marie Antoinette. . . . ‘A second peculiarity in which Chesterfield indulges is his preference for ending with a ‘z’ such words as ‘qualites,’ ‘succes,’ ‘bontes,’ which we are accustomed to write with an ‘s’—thus ‘qualitez,’ ‘succez,’ ‘bontez’.. . . He never dis¬ tinguishes between ‘a’ and ‘a’; or ‘la’ and ‘la’, and rarely between ‘ou’ and ‘ou’. He seems to dislike the grave accent, though he occasionally makes use of the accent circonflex, and he has a way of dealing with past participles that is all his own.’ The French then, has been modernised, but the grammar has never been tampered with. The form plutSt for plus tot has been retained. Beyond the omission of the purely formal part of the ending of letters, the ‘humble, faithful, and obedient servant’ protestations, the text has in no way been altered, except as indicated above. Wherever possible, passages omitted by earlier editors have been restored. It was usually bowdlerization which caused the gap, but the restorations reveal nothing very dreadful; besides, to be shocked at two hun¬ dred years’ distance by words or expressions used by a very polite grandee would argue a suspect niceness in ourselves. It is interesting to note that Mr. Bradshaw, who shuddered at some of the words which Lord Mahon admitted, and thus erased or paraphrased them, was bold enough to print damn in full, where Lord Mahon resorted to a discreet d-. Maty’s omissions were on the whole those which the dis-

xxiv

Notes on the Text cretion of a contemporary would suggest; though occasion¬ ally, perhaps at Lady Chesterfield’s instigation, he tried to better, as he thought, the mind of his original. Thus, when Chesterfield wrote to General Irwine, ‘for it is possible, though not very probable, that there may be joy in marriage,’ the worthy doctor suppressed the phrase here italicised. The letters are placed in chronological order, for the first time in any complete edition, due attention being paid to the Old and New Styles. Until Chesterfield’s reform of the calendar, England, Sweden, and Russia still used the old calendar, so that eleven days have to be added to bring the dates of these countries into harmony with those of the Continent in general. In many cases it is not stated whether the Old or the New Style is being used: where this occurs (that is, before the reform of the calendar), it has been assumed that letters written in England were dated according to the Old Style, those from abroad according to the New. The note ‘Holograph’ has been added only in the series of political letters. The endorsements Private, Secret, Apart, have been preserved; the long holograph letters were always private, even though not so marked. Some of the shorter ones, which it was quicker to write than to dictate, were not: the distinction is usually self-evident. It has not been thought of any use to distinguish which letters were written wholly or partly in cipher.

XXV

/

r

i

=.