'
No one, it was generally allowed, had such a force of table-wit as Lord
Chesterfield; but while the 'Graces' were ever his theme, he indulged
himself without distinction or consideration in numerous sallies. He
was, therefore, at once sought and feared; liked but not loved; neither
sex nor relationship, nor rank, nor friendship, nor obligation, nor
profession, could shield his victim from what Lord Hervey calls, 'those
pointed, glittering weapons, that seemed to shine only to a stander-by,
but cut deep into those they touched.'
He cherished 'a voracious appetite for abuse;' fell upon every one that
came in his way, and thus treated each one of his companions at the
expense of the other. To him Hervey, who had probably often smarted,
applied the lines of Boileau--
'Mais c'est un petit fou qui se croit tout permis,
Et qui pour un bon mot va perdre vingt amis.'
Horace Walpole (a more lenient judge of Chesterfield's merits) observes
that 'Chesterfield took no less pains to be the phoenix of fine
gentlemen, than Tully did to qualify himself as an orator. Both
succeeded: Tully immortalized his name; Chesterfield's reign lasted a
little longer than that of a fashionable beauty.
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