against
Whitehall. This, as Horace Walpole remarks, was sure of finding him
within a certain fathom.'

Lord Chesterfield was now admitted to be the very 'glass of fashion,'
though age, and, according to Lord Hervey, a hideous person, impeded his
being the 'mould of form.' 'I don't know why,' writes Horace Walpole, in
the dog-days, from Strawberry Hill, 'but people are always more anxious
about their hay than their corn, or twenty other things that cost them
more: I suppose my Lord Chesterfield, or some such dictator, made it
fashionable to care about one's hay. Nobody betrays solicitude about
getting in his rents.' 'The prince of wits,' as the same authority calls
him--'his entrance into the world was announced by his bon-mots, and his
closing lips dropped repartees that sparkled with his juvenile fire.'

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.' It was, perhaps,
because, as Dr. Johnson said, all Lord Chesterfield's witty sayings were
puns, that even his brilliant wit failed to please, although it amused,
and surprised its hearers.

Notwithstanding the contemptuous description of Lord Chesterfield's
personal appearance by Lord Hervey, his portraits represent a handsome,
though hard countenance, well-marked features, and his figure and air
appear to have been elegant. With h