'
Lord Hervey gave the preference to Bolingbroke; stating as his reason,
that 'though Lord Bolingbroke had no idea of wit, his satire was keener
than any one's. Lord Chesterfield, on the other hand, would have a great
deal of wit in them; but, in every page you see he intended to be witty:
every paragraph would be an epigram. _Polish_, he declared, would be his
bane;' and Lord Hervey was perfectly right.
In 1732 Lord Chesterfield was obliged to retire from his embassy on the
plea of ill-health, but probably, from some political cause. He was in
the opposition against Sir Robert Walpole in the Excise Bill; and felt
the displeasure of that all-powerful minister by being dismissed from
his office of High Steward.
Being badly received at court he now lived in the country; sometimes at
Buxton, where his father drank the waters, where he had his recreations,
when not persecuted by two young brothers. Sir William Stanhope and John
Stanhope, one of whom performed 'tolerably ill upon a broken hautboy,
and the other something worse upon a cracked flute.' There he won three
half-crowns from the curate of the place, and a shilling from 'Gaffer
Foxeley' at a cock-match.
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