could not
compete.
In the earlier part of Chesterfield's career, Pope, Bolingbroke, Hervey,
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, and, in fact, all that could add to the
pleasures of the then early dinner-table, illumined Chesterfield House
by their wit and gaiety. Yet in the midst of this exciting life, Lord
Chesterfield found time to devote to the improvement of his natural son,
Philip Stanhope, a great portion of his leisure. His celebrated Letters
to that son did not, however, appear during the earl's life; nor were
they in any way the source of his popularity as a wit, which was due to
his merits in that line alone.
The youth to whom these letters, so useful and yet so objectionable,
were addressed, was intended for a diplomatist. He was the very reverse
of his father: learned, sensible, and dry; but utterly wanting in the
graces, and devoid of eloquence. As an orator, therefore, he failed; as
a man of society, he must also have failed; and his death, in 1768, some
years before that of his father, left that father desolate, and
disappointed. Philip Stanhope had attained the rank of envoy to Dresden,
where he expired.
During the five years in which Chesterfield dragged out a mournful life
after this event, he made the painful discovery that his son had married
without confiding that step to the father to whom he owed so much.
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