' 'Take out the
immorality,' he added, on another occasion, 'and the book
(Chesterfield's Letters to his Son) should be put into the hands of
every young gentleman.'
We are inclined to differ, and to confess to a moral taint throughout
the whole of the Letters; and even had the immorality been expunged, the
false motives, the deep, invariable advocacy of principles of
expediency, would have poisoned what otherwise might be of effectual
benefit to the minor virtues of polite society.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 23: The Countess of Chesterfield here alluded to was the
second wife of Philip, second Earl of Chesterfield. Philip Dormer,
fourth Earl, was grandson of the second Earl by his third wife.]
[Footnote 24: In the 'Annual Register,' for 1774, p. 20, it is stated
that as George I. had left Lady Walsingham a legacy which his successor
did not think proper to deliver, the Earl of Chesterfield was determined
to recover it by a suit in Chancery, had not his Majesty, on questioning
the Lord Chancellor on the subject, and being answered that he could
give no opinion extrajudicially, thought proper to fulfil the bequest.]
[Footnote 25: Lord Mahon, now Earl of Stanhope, if not the most
eloquent, one of the most honest historians of our time.
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