wart zu fürchten Ursache hatten, ernannte ihn zum Gesandten bei den Generalstaaten. Er ging nach dem Haag ab (1728), resignirte aber bald, theils weil er sich durch die Fercitelung seiner Hoffnungen gekränkt fühlte, theils weil Spiel und gelehrte Beschäfftigungen sein Vermögen und seine Gesundheit geschwächt hatten. Er kehrte also 1732 nach London zurück, und trat zur Oppositionspartei, worüber er die Gunst des Königs und seine Stelle als Oberhofmeister verlor. Dafür hielt ihn indefs der vertraute Umgang mit den geistreichsten Män` nern seiner Zeit, einem Pope, Lord Bolingbroke, Arbuthnot, einem Algarotti, Voltaire, Montesquieu, und andern gelehrten Ausländern, die sich damals zu London befanden, schadlos. 1742 sah sich sein Gegner, der Premierminister Walpole, genöthigt, das Ministerium zu verlassen, worauf der König gnädiger gegen ihn gesinnt zu werden anfing. Eine Folge davon war, dass er 1745 bei den äufsørst bedenklichen Umständen, worin sich damals England befand, abermals zum Gesandten bei den Generälstaaten, und bald darauf zum Vicekönig in Irland ernannt wurde. Es glückte ihm, das auflodernde Feuer der Empörung, das auch hier der Prätendent anzufachen wusste, zu dämpfen, worauf er 1746 von den Segenswünschen der Irländer begleitet, nach London zurückkehrte, und zur Belohnung seiner Dienste die Stelle eines Staatssekretärs erhielt, die er jedoch schon 1748 wieder niederlegte, weil er seine patriotischen Absichten durch das Ministerium vereitelt sah. Er endigte hiermit seine politische Laufbahn, und lebte von nun an ganz seinen Freunden und den Musen. Vorzüglich beschäfftigte ihn die Bildung seines einzigen aufser der Ehe erzeugten Sohnes Philipp Stanhope. Eine eben so gesunde Pädagogik als zärtliche Vaterliebe flöfsten ihm eine Reihe schätzbarer, erst ein Jahr nach seinem Tode im Druck „erschienener Briefe ein, worin er seinen Liebling bis zum Eintritt in die grofse Welt begleitet. Sie enthalten neben vielen vortrefflichen und aus Erfahrung geschöpften Regeln, auch verschiedene, denen der strenge Moralist seinen Beifall nicht schenken kann. Der junge Stanhope aber wurde keinesweges der vollkommene Hof- und Staatsmann, wozu sein Vater ihn bilden wollte. Er ging mit seinem Hofmeister Walter Harte 1773 auf Reisen, kam aber verbildet heim. Nachmals wurde er einmal als aufserordentlicher Gesandter nach Dresden geschickt, zeichnete sich aber dort nicht aus. Der Englische Titel jener Briefe ist: Letters written by the late right honourable Philip 1 - Dormer Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield to his son Philip Stanhope, Esq. published by Mrs. Eugenia Stanhope, from the originals now in her possession. In four Volumes. London 1776. 8., wozu im Jahre 1787 zu London in 4. ein Supplement to the letters written by Stanhope, erschienen ist. So lebte der Graf, von allen Parteien geliebt, und seines Witzes und seiner Urbanität wegen von jedermann geschätzt und bewundert, bis zu seinem 79sten Jahre; er starb den 24sten März 1773. Aufser den Briefen, wovon hier eine Probe erfolgt, hat man von ihm eine Sammlung moralischer und literarischer Essays, die, in verschiedenen Zeitschriften, besonders the World, zerstreut, und in den miscellaneous Works of Philip Dormer Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield, London 1777, 2 Vols in gr. 4. zusammengedruckt sind. Diese Nachrichten sind theils aus dem 40sten Bande der Histoire et Mémoires de l'Académie Royale des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres, theils aus einem von Maty angefangenen, von Justamond fortgesetzten, und den angeführten miscellaneous works vorgesetzten Leben des Grafen, theils aus den curious Particulars and genuine anecdotes, respecting the late Lord Chesterfield and David Hume. London, 1788, 8. entlehnt. 1) LORD CHESTERFIELD TO HIS SON PHILIP STANHOPE Dear Boy, London, October the 16th. O, S. 1747. The art of pleasing is a very necessary one to possess; but a very difficult one to acquire. It can hardly be reduced to rules; and your own good sense and observation will teach you more of it, than I can. Do as you would be done by, is the surest method that I know of pleasing. Observe carefully what pleases you in others, and probably the same things in you will please others. If you are pleased with the complaisance and attention of others to your humours, your tastes, or your weaknesses, depend upon it, the same complaisance and attention, on your part, to theirs, will equally please them. Take the tone of the company that you are in, and do not pretend to give it: be serious, gay, or even trifling, as you find the present humour of the company: this is an attention due from every individual to the majority. Do not tell stories in company; there is nothing more tedious and disagreeable: if by chance you know a very short story, and exceedingly applicable to the present subject of conversation tell it in as few words as possible; and even then throw out, that you do not love to tell stories, but that the shortness of it tempted you. Of all things, banish the egotism out of your conversation, and never think of entertaining people with your own personal concerns, or private affairs; though they are interesting to you, they are tedious and impertinent to every body else; besides that, one cannot keep one's own private affairs too secret. Whatever you think your own excellencies may be, do not affectedly display them in company; nor labour, as many people do, to give that turn to the conversation, which may supply you with an opportunity of exhibiting them, If they are real, they will infallibly be discovered, without your pointing them out yourself, and with much more advantage. Never maintain an argument with heat and clamour, though you think or know yourself to be in the right: but give your opinion modestly and cooly, which is the only way to convince; and if that does not do, try to change the conversation, by saying with good humour: we shall hardly convince one another, ,,nor is it necessary that we should, so let us talk of something else!" Remember that there is a local propriety to be observed in all companies; and that what is extremely proper in one company, may be, and often is, highly improper in another. The jokes, the bons mots, the little adventures, which may do very well in one company, will seem flat and tedious, when related in another. The particular characters, the habits, the cant of one company may give credit to a word, or a gesture, which would have none at all if divested of those accidental circumstances. Here people very commonly err; and, fond of something that has entertained them in one company, and in certain circumstances, repeat it with emphasis in another, where it is either insipid, or, it may be, offensive, by being ill-timed or misplaced. Nay, they often do it with this silly preamble:,, I will tell you an excellent thing," or: „I will tell you the best thing in the world." This raises expectations, which, when absolutely disappointed, make the relator of this excellent thing look very deservedly, like a fool. If you would particularly gain the affection and friendship of particular people, whether men or women, endeavour to find out their predominant excellency, if they have one, and their prevailing weakness, which every body has; and do justice to the one, and something more than justice to the other. Men have various objects in which they may excel, or at least would be thought to excel; and, though they love to hear justice done to them, where they know that they excel, yet they are most and best flattered upon those points where they wish to excel, and yet are doubtful whether they do or not. As for example: Cardinal Richelieu, who was undoubtedly the ablest statesman of his time, or perhaps of any other, had the idle vanity of being thought the best poet too: he envied the great Corneille his reputation, and ordered a criticism to be written upon the Cid*). Those, therefore, who flattered skillfully, said little to him of his abilities in state affairs, or at least but en passant, and as it might naturally occur. But the incense which they gave him, the smoke of which they knew would turn his head in their favour, was as a bel esprit and a poet. Why? Because he was sure of one excellency, and distrustfull as to the other. You will easily discover every man's prevailing vanity, by observing his favourite topic of conversation; for every man talks most of what he has most a mind to be thought to excel in. Touch him but there, and you touch him to the quick. The late Sir Robert Walpole**), who was certainly an able max, was little open to flattery upon that head; for he was in no doubt himself about it; but his prevailing weakness was, to be thought, to have a polite and happy turn to gallantry; of which he had undoubtedly less than any man living: it was his favourite and frequent subject of conversation; which proved to those who had any penetration, that it was his prevailing weakness. And they applied to it with success. Women have, in general, but one object, which is their beauty; upon which scarce any flattery is too gross for them to swallow. Nature has hardly formed a woman ugly enough, to be insensible to flattery upon her person; if her face is so shocking, that she must, in some degree, be conscious of *) Eins der vorzüglichsten Trauerspiele des Pierre Cor neille, S. das Handbuch der französischen Sprache, Theil II. S. 33 u. ff. **) Sir Robert Walpole, nachmaliger Earl of Oxford, gest. 1745, Premierminister unter Georg I und II. it, her figure and her air she trusts, make ample amends for it. If her figure is deformed, her face, she thinks, counterbalances it. If they are both bad, she comforts herself that she has graces; a certain manner; a je ne sais quoi, still more engaging than beauty. This truth is evident, from the studied, and elaborate dress of the ugliest women in the world. An undoubted, uncontested, conscious beauty, is, of all women, the least sensible of flattery upon that head; she knows it is her due, and is therefore obliged to nobody for giving it her. She must be flattered upon her understanding; which though she may possibly not doubt of herself, yet she suspects that men may distrust. Do no mistake me, and think that I mean to recommend to you abject and criminal flattery; no; flatter nobody's vices or crimes: on the contrary, abhor and discourage them. But there is no living in the world without a complaisant indulgence for people's weakneses, and innocent, though ridiculous vanities. If a man has a mind to be thought wiser, and a woman handsomer, than they really are, their error is a comfortable one to themselves, and an innocent one with regard to other people; and I would rather make them my friends by indulging them in it, than my enemies, by endeavouring (and that to no purpose) to undeceive them. There are little attentions, likewise, which are infinitily engaging, and which sensibly affect that degree of pride and self-love, which is inseparable from human nature, as they are unquestionable proofs of the regard and consideration which we have for the persons, to whom we pay them. As for example: to observe the little babits, the likings, the antipathies, and the tastes of those whom we would gain, and then take care to provide them with the one, and to secure them from the other, giving them, genteely, to understand, that you had observed they liked such a dish, or such a room, for which reason you had prepared it: or, on the contrary, that having observed they had an aversion to such a dish, a dislike to such a person, etc. you had taken care to avoid presenting them. Such attention to such trifles, flatters selflove much more than greater things, as it makes people think themselves almost the only objects of your thoughts and care. These are some of the arcanas necessary for your initiation in the great society of the world. I wish, I had known them better, at your age; I have paid the price of three |
