oint of view is that they show the extremely low
standpoint of the writer. He is honestly desirous of benefiting his son
and advancing his interest in life, and so far as morality will do this
it is earnestly inculcated. 'A real man of fashion,' he says, 'observes
decency; at least neither borrows nor affects vices; and, if he
unfortunately has any, he gratifies them with choice, delicacy and
secrecy.' He observes that an intrigue with a woman of fashion is an
amusement which a man of sense and decency may pursue with a proper
regard for his character; gallantry without debauchery being 'the
elegant pleasure of a rational being.'

Chesterfield's son, who was educated for a diplomatist, is told that the
art of pleasing is more necessary in his profession than perhaps in any
other. 'Make your court particularly, and show distinguished attentions
to such men and women as are best at Court, highest in the fashion and
in the opinion of the public; speak advantageously of them behind their
backs, in companies who you have reason to believe will tell them
again.'

The necessity for dissimulation, constantly enjoined by his father was
not forgotten by Philip Stanhope. So effectually did he conceal his
marriage that the Earl was not aware of it until after his son's death.

[Sidenote: George Lyttelton (1708-1773).]

George Lyttelton, afterwards Lord Lyttelton, has a place among the poets
in the collections of Anderson and Chalmers. Some of his best verses
were written when a school-boy at Eton, and are worthy of a clever
school-boy. The _Monody_ on his wife's death has the merit of sincere
feeling, expressed in one or two passages poetically. In 1747 he
published his _Dissertation on the Conversion of St. Paul_, 'a
treatise,' says Dr. Johnson, 'to which infidelity has never been able to
fabricate a specious answer.' He made himself conspicuous in parliament
as an opponent of Walpole, and after the fall of that minister was
appointed one of the Lords of the Treasury. In 1760 Lyttelton published
his _Dialogues of the Dead_, a volume for which he owes much to Fenelon.
This was followed a few years later by a History of Henry II. in three
volumes, upon which great labour was expended. He is said to have had
the whole history printed twice over, and many sheets four or five
times, an amusement which cost him L1,000. The work is praised by Mr. J.
R. Green as 'a full and sober account of the time.'

Lyttelton died at Hagley Park i