h
those who apply to the most will succeed in the best. Two old members,
very good judges, have sent me compliments upon this occasion; and have
assured me that they plainly find it will do; though they perceived, from
that natural confusion you were in, that you neither said all, nor
perhaps what you intended. Upon the whole, you have set out very well,
and have sufficient encouragement to go on. Attend; therefore,
assiduously, and observe carefully all that passes in the House; for it
is only knowledge and experience that can make a debater. But if you
still want comfort, Mrs.-------I hope, will administer it to you; for, in
my opinion she may, if she will, be very comfortable; and with women, as
with speaking in parliament, perseverance will most certainly prevail
sooner or later.

What little I have played for here, I have won; but that is very far from
the considerable sum which you heard of. I play every evening, from seven
till ten, at a crown whist party, merely to save my eyes from reading or
writing for three hours by candle-light. I propose being in town the week
after next, and hope to carry back with me much more health than I
brought down here. Good-night.

[Mr. Stanhope being returned to England, and seeing his father almost
every day, is the occasion of an interruption of two years in their
correspondence.]

LETTERS TO HIS SON
1756-58

By the EARL OF CHESTERFIELD

on the Fine Art of becoming a

MAN OF THE WORLD

and a

GENTLEMAN

LETTER CCIII

BATH, November 15, 1756

MY DEAR FRIEND: I received yours yesterday morning together with the
Prussian, papers, which I have read with great attention. If courts could
blush, those of Vienna and Dresden ought, to have their falsehoods so
publicly, and so undeniably exposed. The former will, I presume, next
year, employ an hundred thousand men, to answer the accusation; and if
the Empress of the two Russias is pleased to argue in the same cogent
manner, their logic will be too strong for all the King of Prussia's
rhetoric. I well remember the treaty so often referred to in those
pieces, between the two Empresses, in 1746. The King was strongly pressed
by the Empress Queen to accede to it. Wassenaer communicated it to me for
that purpose. I asked him if there were no secret articles; suspecting
that there were some, because the ostensible treat