a useful friend, Solomon Dayrolles--one of those
indebted hangers-on whom it was an almost invariable custom to find, at
that period, in great houses--and perhaps too frequently in our own day.

Dayrolles, who was employed in the embassy under Lord Sandwich at the
Hague, had always, to borrow Horace Walpole's ill-natured expression,
'been a led-captain to the Dukes of Richmond and Grafton, used to be
sent to auctions for them, and to walk in the parks with their
daughters, and once went dry-nurse in Holland with them. He has
belonged, too, a good deal to my Lord Chesterfield, to whom I believe he
owes this new honour, "that of being minister at the Hague," as he had
before made him black-rod in Ireland, and gave the ingenious reason that
he had a black face.' But the great 'dictator' in the empire of
politeness was now in a slow but sure decline. Not long before his
death he was visited by Monsieur Suard, a French gentleman, who was
anxious to see '_l'homme le plus aimable, le plus poli et le plus
spirituel des trois royaumes_,' but who found him fearfully altered;
morose from his deafness, yet still anxious to please. 'It is very sad,'
he said, with his usual politeness, 'to be deaf, when one would so much
enjoy listening. I am not,' he added, 'so philosophic as my friend the
President de Montesquieu, who says, "I know how to be blind, but I do
not yet know how to be deaf."' 'We shortened our visit,' says M. Suard,
'lest we should fatigue the earl.' 'I do not detain you,' said
Chesterfield, 'for I must go and rehearse my funeral.' It was thus that
he styled his daily drive through the streets of London.

Lord Chesterfield's wonderful memory continued till his latest hour. As
he lay, gasping in the last agonies of extreme debility, his friend, Mr.
Dayrolles, called in to see him half an hour before he expired. The
politeness which had become part of his very nature did not desert the
dying earl. He managed to say, in a low voice, to his valet, 'Give
Dayrolles a chair.' This little trait greatly struck the famous Dr.
Warren, who was at the bedside of this brilliant and wonderful man. He
died on the 24th of March, 1773, in the 79th year of his age.

The preamble to a codicil (Feb. 11, 1773) contains the following
striking sentences, written when the intellect was impressed with the
solemnity of that solemn change which comes alike to the unreflecting
and to the heart stricken, holy believer:--

'I most humbly rec