gation, was a
shield from those pointed, glittering weapons that seemed only to shine
to a stander-by, but cut deep in those they touched. But to say this
is not to say all, or to paint a fair picture. It is evident that he
delighted in passing himself off on serious and heavy people as a mere
trifler, paradox-maker, and cynic. He invited them not to take him
seriously, and they did take him seriously, but the wrong way. They
believed that he was serious when he professed to have no faith in
anything; when he declared that he only lived for pleasure, and did not
care by what means he got it; that politics were to him ridiculous, and
ambition was the folly of a vulgar mind. We now know that he had an
almost boundless political ambition; and we know, too, that when put
under the responsibilities that make or mar statesmen, he showed
himself equal to a great task, and proved that he knew how to govern a
nation which no English statesman before his time or since was able to
rule from Dublin Castle. If the policy of Chesterfield had been
adopted with regard to Ireland, these countries would have been saved
more than a century of trouble. We cannot believe the statesman to
have been only superficial and worthless who anticipated in his Irish
policy the convictions of Burke and the ideas of Fox.

[Sidenote: 1733--Chesterfield's governing ability]

The time, however, of Chesterfield's Irish administration is yet to
come. At present he is still only a rising man; but every one admits
his eloquence and his capacity. It was he who moved in the House of
Lords the "address of condolence, congratulation, and thanks" for the
speech from the throne on the accession of George the Second. Since
then he had served the King in diplomacy. He had been Minister to the
Hague, and the Hague then was a very different place, in the
diplomatist's sense, from what it is now or is ever likely to be again.
He had been employed on special missions and had been concerned in the
making of important treaties. He was rewarded for his services with
the Garter, and was made Lord Steward {8} of the Household. He had
distinguished himself highly as an orator in the House of Lords; had
taken a place among the very foremost parliamentary orators of the day.
But he chafed against Walpole's dictatorship, and soon began to show
that he was determined not to endure too much of it. He secretly did
all he could to mar Walpole's excise scheme; he encour