ne of lax notions,
especially among men of rank, who regarded all women accessible, either
from indiscretion or inferiority of rank, as fair game, and acted
accordingly. But whilst we agree with one of Johnson's bitterest
sentences as to the immorality of Chesterfield's letters, we disagree
with his styling his code of manners the manners of a dancing-master.
Chesterfield was in himself a perfect instance of what he calls _les
manieres nobles_; and this even Johnson allowed.

'Talking of Chesterfield,' Johnson said, 'his manner was exquisitely
elegant, and he had more knowledge than I expected.' Boswell: 'Did you
find, sir, his conversation to be of a superior sort?'--Johnson: 'Sir,
in the conversation which I had with him, I had the best right to
superiority, for it was upon philology and literature.'

It was well remarked how extraordinary a thing it was that a man who
loved his son so entirely should do all he could to make him a rascal.
And Foote even contemplated bringing on the stage a father who had thus
tutored his son; and intended to show the son an honest man in
everything else, but practising his father's maxims upon him, and
cheating him.

'It should be so contrived,' Johnson remarked, referring to Foote's
plan, 'that the father should be the _only_ sufferer by the son's
villany, and thus there would be poetical justice.' 'Take out the
immorality,' he added, on another occasion, 'and the book
(Chesterfield's Letters to his Son) should be put into the hands of
every young gentleman.'

We are inclined to differ, and to confess to a moral taint throughout
the whole of the Letters; and even had the immorality been expunged, the
false motives, the deep, invariable advocacy of principles of
expediency, would have poisoned what otherwise might be of effectual
benefit to the minor virtues of polite society.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 23: The Countess of Chesterfield here alluded to was the
second wife of Philip, second Earl of Chesterfield. Philip Dormer,
fourth Earl, was grandson of the second Earl by his third wife.]

[Footnote 24: In the 'Annual Register,' for 1774, p. 20, it is stated
that as George I. had left Lady Walsingham a legacy which his successor
did not think proper to deliver, the Earl of Chesterfield was determined
to recover it by a suit in Chancery, had not his Majesty, on questioning
the Lord Chancellor on the subject, and being answered that he could
give no opinion extrajudicially, thought