These were supposed to be the wills of the Duke
and Duchess of Zell and of the Electress Sophia. There was not even
common honesty in the house of Hanover at that period.
Disappointed in his wife's fortune, Lord Chesterfield seems to have
cared very little for the disappointed heiress. Their union was
childless. His opinion of marriage appears very much to have coincided
with that of the world of malcontents who rush, in the present day, to
the court of Judge Cresswell, with 'dissolving views.' On one occasion
he writes thus: 'I have at last done the best office that can be done to
most married people; that is, I have fixed the separation between my
brother and his wife, and the definitive treaty of peace will be
proclaimed in about a fortnight.'
Horace Walpole related the following anecdote of Sir William Stanhope
(Chesterfield's brother) and his lady, whom he calls 'a fond couple.'
After their return from Paris, when they arrived at Lord Chesterfield's
house at Blackheath, Sir William, who had, like his brother, a cutting,
polite wit, that was probably expressed with the 'allowed simper' of
Lord Chesterfield, got out of the chaise and said, with a low bow,
'Madame, I hope I shall never see your face again.
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