son. The conversation turned on Garrick,
who, Johnson said, had friends, but no friend. Then Boswell asked, 'what
is a friend?' 'One who comforts and supports you, while others do not.'
'Friendship, you know, sir, is the cordial drop to make the nauseous
draught of life go down.' Then one of the company mentioned Lord
Chesterfield as one who had no friend; and Boswell said: 'Garrick was
pure gold, but beat out to thin leaf, Lord Chesterfield was tinsel.'
And, for once, Johnson did not contradict him. But not so do we judge
Lord Chesterfield. He was a man who acted on false principles through
life; and those principles gradually undermined everything that was
noble and generous in character; just as those deep under-ground
currents, noiseless in their course, work through fine-grained rock, and
produce a chasm. Everything with Chesterfield was self: for self, and
self alone, were agreeable qualities to be assumed; for self, was the
country to be served, because that country protects and serves us: for
self, were friends to be sought and cherished, as useful auxiliaries, or
pleasant accessories: in the very core of the cankered heart, that
advocated this corrupting doctrine of expediency, lay unbelief; that
worm which never died in the hearts of so many illustrious men of that
period--the refrigerator of the feelings.

One only gentle and genuine sentiment possessed Lord Chesterfield, and
that was his love for his son. Yet in this affection the worldly man
might be seen in mournful colours. He did not seek to render his son
good; his sole desire was to see him successful: every lesson that he
taught him, in those matchless Letters which have carried down
Chesterfield's fame to us when his other productions have virtually
expired, exposes a code of dissimulation which Philip Stanhope, in his
marriage, turned upon the father to whom he owed so much care and
advancement. These Letters are, in fact, a complete exposition of Lord
Chesterfield's character and views of life. No other man could have
written them; no other man have conceived the notion of existence being
one great effort to deceive, as well as to excel, and of society forming
one gigantic lie. It is true they were addressed to one who was to enter
the maze of a diplomatic career, and must be taken, on that account,
with some reservation.

They have justly been condemned on the score of immorality; but we must
remember that the age in which they were written was o